House tells FCC to drop net neutrality - <AUTHOR> http://www.boston.com/news/politics/articles/2011/04/09/house_urges_blockage_of_net_neutrality_rules/ <comment><USER2> The FCC's claim of authority in this instance to impose rules from on high _is_ problematic.

Here is what EFF says:

"We're wholly in favor of net neutrality in practice, but a finding of ancillary jurisdiction here would give the FCC pretty much boundless authority to regulate the Internet for whatever it sees fit. And that kind of unrestrained authority makes us nervous about follow-on initiatives like broadcast flags and indecency campaigns. In general, we think arguments that regulating the Internet is 'ancillary' to some other regulatory authority that the FCC has been granted just don't have sufficient limitations to stop bad FCC behavior in the future and create the 'Trojan horse' risk we have long warned about." ([https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/02/part-i-fcc- ancillary-a...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/02/part-i-fcc-ancillary- authority-regulate-internet))

I have chimed in on this in a previous HN thread:

"The FCC is way out of its league on this one. Basically, it is a creature of statute. It can do whatever Congress has authorized it to and no more. Nothing in its authorizing statute expressly permits it to impose the rules now known as net neutrality. Therefore, it sought to justify its ability to do so under the doctrine of so-called 'ancillary jurisdiction,' meaning that it had an implied power to do so in aid of its expressly granted powers. Unfortunately, a definitive federal appeals court ruling held that no such ancillary jurisdiction existed, leaving the matter for Congress to decide. Rather than deferring to Congress, the FCC chose to adopt a new rationale for its assertion of this authority. Congress overwhelmingly balked at the idea of any broad assertion of such authority and, in the back and forth, the FCC came up with the toe-in-the water approach just adopted to the satisfaction of almost no one. Even this assertion of jurisdiction will certainly be challenged in the courts in cases that will take years to decide, leaving this whole issue in a pathetic state of uncertainty for all concerned. Nothing good will come of this except for lots of employment for the lawyers who will be litigating whether this or that action is 'reasonable' and whether the internet is really like a public utility or not. All in all, a royal mess." (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2033261>)

A short-hand way of summing up the issue: do you want, in the name of a short- term goal such as net neutrality, to cede to unaccountable government regulators a broad, unchecked power to control what happens on the internet? I think this should give pause to all of us, no matter what we think of the net- neutrality issue.

<comment><USER3> It certainly does give me pause, but we also know how the Republicans will come down on net neutrality regardless of whether an overreaching regulatory body is advocating (some version of) it. That, to me, is the bigger story.

As you said, the FCC can only do what Congress has authorized it to do, so we're not in any real danger of the FCC having a "broad, unchecked power to control what happens on the internet". What we are in danger of is having a Congress that kills net neutrality, period.

Edit: Not that I care about karma, but I'm curious as to why I'm being downvoted. I'm not disagreeing with grellas' point.

<comment><USER4> You probably got downvoted because you show a lack of understanding of what grellas was saying. What he was saying was that if the FCC had been allowed by the courts to use 'ancillary jurisdiction' to impose new rules, the FCC would indeed be in the very situation which you say is impossible, a situation of broad, unchecked power.

<comment><USER3> You're mistaken on this point. The courts already rejected the ancillary jurisdiction rationale, and rather than wait for Congress to make a decision on net neutrality, the FCC adopted a new rationale (which, as I recall, hinged upon reclassifying broadband traffic) to justify imposing their net neutrality rules. All of this is in grellas' post. The issue grellas is raising is whether it's acceptable to let a regulatory body like the FCC make such broad assertions of authority at all. The matter of ancillary jurisdiction is already done and settled.

When I said we're not in any real danger of the FCC having a "broad, unchecked power to control what happens on the internet," my point was that irrespective of whether Congress denies the FCC this authority _right now_ , it always has the power to do so. And though it's irrelevant to my point, if the courts _had_ upheld the ancillary jurisdiction rationale, Congress could always strike that down, too. This situation isn't like the executive branch jockeying with the legislative branch for power: the FCC is not a peer of Congress.

<comment><USER5> In the next few years, it's looking like the vast majority of telecommunications will move over to the Internet. If the FCC doesn't have the authority to regulate the Internet, they will have no regulatory authority whatsoever over land-based telecom. I don't see how that is reasonable, and I don't see how the initial decision to classify Internet as something other than a wire communications service was justifiable.

It's disingenuous to say the FCC is claiming any authority they don't have under the law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Australia, where metered access (XX GBs per month) rules, may provide some insight into how net non-neutrality plays out on practise. Here, it's not about speed limiting to "non-favoured" sites, but about whether consumption from those sites consume your allocated bandwidth allowance. It is routine for companies to do deals with ISPs to provide "unmetered" access to their services for customers. For example, with my ISP, anything I buy from Apple is unmetered. Other ISPs might, for example, offer free Steam traffic. This is most noticeable, I think, on mobile data plans, which often feature "unlimited Facebook" or "all you can Tweet" or similar.

I can see how this has the potential to entrench existing players but subjectively the effect seems weak at best and does not figure too much in people's purchasing decisions. Personally, I would prefer more general solutions to the problem of "corporate cliques" gaining oligopoly powers. Restrictions on cross-media ownership would seem to be the weapon of choice.

</comment><comment><USER7> What about the "what is in a name" path?

What if, instead of regulating what ISPs can do with their network, there were a movement (read, "lawsuits") (using some new or perhaps just existing law) to stop anything past some previously normal level of traffic management from being called "internet service". So a teleco could give preference to their own, or affiliate, traffic, but that could not be referred to by them, or sold to customers, as "the internet". The position here is this: the term "the internet" has come to mean, through intent and common use, something that does not include, by definition, those kind of practices. Thus, selling a package with those practices and calling it internet service is deceit.

If I sold a "car" to someone and, when they went to pick up their new car, they found what anyone besides my team of salesmen would call a golf cart, that wouldn't be legal. Same idea.

I'm sure I'm being naïve, how?

<comment><USER8> This is a good path to consider. It's not "food" if it doesn't contain the right amount of edible/digestible ingredients. It's not "octane X" if it hasn't been refined in the right method. That car isn't "safe" unless it adheres to regulatory guidelines.

It's not "Internet access" if it doesn't allow me to access resources on the Internet at my leisure and at the "broadband" speed advertised. (OK, I know that my 6Mbps connection doesn't get me 6Mbps all the way from Netflix, but you can see my point.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Getting the FCC to make carriers play fair is a slow road to improvement and it's filled with potholes. I'd be more inclined to support regulation changes intended to make starting a new carrier easier.

Mark my words: Any net neutrality bill will benefit the existing carriers, and stifle telecom startups.

<comment><USER10> If I am not mistaken, setting up a working telecom startup is quite capital intensive, and has high running costs on top of it, just in terms of handling Marketing and competitive pressures.

How would a new startup survive and scale by any change in rules? The market would still serve the incumbents more than the startups - since their scale would make them stronger bets.

I'm curious to know what type of regulation would help circumvent the high startup cost and create genuine competition.

Edit: I am genuinely interested to know what regulation the original poster had in mind, or any other regulation that would help achieve his stated goal.

<comment><USER11> So is starting an airline, but deregulation still got us Southwest and Jetblue.

<comment><USER10> So you are saying LESS regulation is the change in regulation you would like to see?

So what regulations would you remove?

<comment><USER11> I'm saying that despite the fact that airlines are a textbook example of an industry with high capital requirements for entry, deregulation did not hand the industry over to a cartel of incumbents. In fact, air carriage is regularly shaken up by new entrants and new market forces.

<comment><USER12> Deregulation is such a blanket term encompassing so many things (especially the things regulated right now) that it by itself can't be judged a cure-all. Imagine deregulating the food industry by disbanding the FDA.

Loss of net neutrality will hurt small players in the web space(imagine a startup competitor to Netflix which can't afford deals with so many ISPs).

<comment><USER11> I'm not in favor of blanket deregulation. Quite the contrary: I'm a Democrat! Message boards tend to take everyone to extremes. I simply want to make the point that deregulation in and of itself doesn't inevitably lead to megacorporate cartels.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _"But critics of net neutrality rules argue that free-market competition would prevent such abuses"_

Is consumer internet really a free market? To my knowledge, most of the Bay Area only has a choice between Comcast and AT&T. If you only have 2 or 3 companies competing, it's relatively easy for them all to decide independently that traffic shaping is in their own best interest, which leaves the consumer with no real choice.

<comment><USER4> Free market does not necessarily mean perfect competition, or 10+ competitors to choose from. I don't know where you got that idea.

<comment><USER14> While this is true, it was essentially mandated that there be two competitors. The choice was to have many resellers of DSL competing against cable, or an entrenched duopoly. Chairman Michael Powell chose the duopoly, even using that word to describe it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> From the outside it looks like the US political scene is a complete and ridiculous mess right now, led by the Republican Congress.

<comment><USER11> I'm a liberal Democrat and I'm queasy about enforced net neutrality; these are rules that govern what companies can do with their own infrastructure, and rules that could unintentionally retard progress instead of protecting it.

Further, Congress has a legitimate gripe here. We don't elect FCC commissioners. They're appointed. We should be particularly concerned about them overstepping their bounds. Which a reasonable case can be made for here.

I'm not sure I see what your comment adds to the discussion, other than "the duly elected Republican congress is doing something I disagree with!".

<comment><USER8> I think we're at a point where Internet access needs to be classified as a utility, like electricity and water.

We are indeed in a situation where many companies have invested in their own infrastructure and maybe that requires consideration. I'm absolutely certain that jimktrains2 has a point: the U.S. taxpayers coughed up tremendous amounts of money to invest in infrastructure which makes those lines ours. (Sure, 'legally' AT&T et al own title and deed, but you and I still provided the money.)

Ultimately the point is that it's time to classify access to the Internet as a utility and regulate it as such: separating ownership from operation, mandatory line sharing, various and sundry other mechanisms to make sure the consumer has choice amongst competitors. _Then_ we can say net neutrality is not needed.

<comment><USER11> There is no company I have to deal with on a regular basis that is worse than the electrical company.

This Internet stuff is not really a voting issue for me (health care and education are the big things that make me a Dem and not a Lib), but the candidate that tells me he wants to turn AT&T into Commonwealth Edison has secured a donation from me to his opponent.

Be careful what you wish for.

<comment><USER16> If they would've built the entire infrastructure without public money sure, but that's not the case. Also, when dealing with limited resources, like spectrum, regulation is necessary. We put in money to build the infrastructure, we should have a saying in how it's utilized. And, by the way, I wish dealing with most companies would be as smooth as the power company -- ymmv.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> "Today, Republicans first want to shut down the Internet, then they want to shut down the government,'' said US Representative Edward J. Markey, a Malden Democrat...

"We look forward to forever prohibiting the overreach of the Federal Communications Commission,'' Blackburn said.

</comment><comment><USER18> Funny how politicians hotly debate the FCCs authority, but when it comes to DHS seizing domain names nobody says shit.

<comment><USER11> Funny? No, just boring. "DHS" siezes domain names because DHS was hurriedly created, as a reaction to 9/11, by jamming agencies together like so many insects in the transporter from The Fly. One of those agencies happened to be Immigration and Customs, which has always had IPR enforcement in its portfolio.

Every time people make these conspiracy-theoretic comments about how "Homeland Security" is doing antipiracy raids, they betray either a lack of understanding of how their government is actually structured, or an easygoing willingness to buy into Internet drama, or both. At least, that's what it looks like to me.

<comment><USER19> It does have an interesting psychological effect, though, possibly on both the recipients of orders, and on the general public. Reminds me a bit of the similar accident of jurisdiction that led to 1980s teenage hax0rz being raided by the Secret Service, rather than by more normal-sounding police.

<comment><USER11> Is there some controversy about the Secret Service involvement during Sun Devil? Those were interstate crimes, not to mention the fact that no local police force was in any way equipped to deal with the problem.

<comment><USER19> Not political controversy, just the psychological aspect that it was The Secret Service, the dramatic earpiece-wearing folks in movies who keep the president from being shot, not to mention a police agency with the conspiracy- driving word "secret" in their name. If we instead had the U.S. Government Computer Crime Agency, it'd be a lot more pedestrian.

<comment><USER11> It probably has more to do with how few people understood that the Secret Service is was really more like the Treasury Police, and protecting the President was only a small part of what they did. The protective details are the only thing interesting enough to make movies about, hence the mystique.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> i'm not familiar with the rules proposed in december, was this in reference to the proposal that google and verizon drew up?

<comment><USER19> I believe it was this: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2028807>

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Another freedom lost in the land of the free.

<comment><USER11> Recorded for posterity that somebody voted this non-sequitor comment up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Do you have the internet? How would you like it if the FCC required you to pay an extra $20 a month to get movie downloads, whether you want them not, or to allow your kids to access violent video games or adult content, whether you want them to or not, just so everyone would get what the government considers to be "the full Internet experience?" What if you're low income, and you'd rather spend that $20 on books? Or warm clothes? Or food?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like advocates of net neutrality want low income people to have that choice.

(note words above are not mine)

</comment><comment><USER22> Republicans Mess!!

</comment><comment><USER23> I know on HN this is the part we focus on (the net) but based on the republican plans for the future of the federal government (which do have a real chance of happening) this would be the least you have to worry about. It's pretty much going to be every person for themselves because government is going to be a fraction of what it was and states, therefore residents will receive a fraction of the funding you are used to.

Not just the net, everything from roads, education, healthcare, prisons is going to become radically privatized.

<comment><USER11> Is there any possible response to this comment that will produce a thread we'd be happy to have on HN?

<comment><USER23> Net neutrality is politics. I'm just saying this is the least of our political worries right now. When the president and half the democrats are also anti-net neutrality, basically it's gone.

<comment><USER24> I thought I read that if the current bill passes the president would veto it. Is it because he's pro-net-neutrality or anti-anything-republican? The last question isn't partisan, it's a perfectly valid reason for a democrat president to veto a republican-led bill. Happens the other way, too.

<comment><USER23> He may not want _this_ bill but he will certainly give into anti-neutrality measures in another format. Remember he listens directly to the riaa and mpaa and other such industry groups.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: ChargeBack.cc - Get your money back - <AUTHOR> https://www.chargeback.cc/ <comment><USER3> That seems a bit sketchy to me - black-mailing merchants into signing up for your "service" of not sending them chargebacks?! Maybe you should explain why it's not.

<comment><USER4> Merchants don't need to sign up to resolve chargebacks. If we receive one, we'll send them links to resolve it before it gets sent to the banks. They can choose not too respond and it becomes a normal chargeback. Even if they do respond - all they have to do is acknowledge they're making a refund or change the customer's mind.

The basic resolution service is free for merchants. They only have to pay or even sign up if they want to use any of the premium features to help them reduce future chargebacks. Hopefully this isn't too dodgy :)

I definitely think we need to be more upfront about what we get out of it. A lot of people seem skeptical when they first see the site.

<comment><USER5> The existing chargeback process is already enourmously skewed against a merchant from an online transaction perspective.

 _all they have to do is acknowledge they're making a refund or change the customer's mind_

Well, that means the merchant continues to be at a significant disadvantage during an even more complex chargeback process.

<comment><USER4> Absolutely. We've found that under the existing chargeback system only 21% of claims are decided in the merchant's favour.

We started ChargeBack.cc with the aim to level the playing field a little more. Under the existing chargeback system in most cases the merchant receives very little information about what has gone wrong and who the customer is. Our aim is to use data to help merchants resolve chargebacks with less cost to themselves. By keeping the chargeback outside of the banking system we take away a lot of risk and cost from fee, fines etc... so that's one step. The next step is to give merchants the tools to provide the best response to the customer. Yes, it's still not going to be equal, but hopefully it'll help merchants spend less time, less money and generally get a better result than they used to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It is better if charge backs are seen as somewhat of an inconvenience to do, so customers will think more about if they really want to chargeback. Lots of things can and do go wrong in ecommerce, if anyone slightly annoyed reached for a chargeback rather than trying to resolve an issue with the merchant it would be a big hit for merchants.

<comment><USER5> it is actually worse than that. There is certain type of online customer that will literally click through "Interested->Purchase->Yes->Confirm>Pay>Done" without every really looking at what they purchased or why they did so in the first place.

After they realize what they actually purchased which is a legitimate product but not appropriate for the customer, they just uses the chargeback process to get their money back.

<comment><USER7> it is actually worse than that. There is a certain type of customer that will click through the whole process like you describe, and be perfectly satisfied with their purchase but not remember the name of the merchant. Then when it comes time to pay the credit card bill, it's an 'unrecognized charge' and they do a chargeback. They don't look through their email receipts and try to figure out what they've bought, they just initiate a chargeback blindly. fortunately it's fairly easy to fight these as a merchant, but it still takes valuable time.

<comment><USER8> Slightly _less_ worse than that (sorry to break pattern), but another irritating example: it wasn't them that made the purchase, it was their son, husband, niece, whatever; I often get people sending me threatening e-mails about how I stole money from them, when in fact they share their credit card, PayPal account, etc. with other people and didn't have the courtesy to ask "anyone else know what this is?" before going all ballistic and demanding their money back.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> chargeback only works because most users don't know it exists. If you start telling people all they have to do to get their money back from a merchant is to click a button, it won't be long before credit card companies are forced to get rid of it. please don't abuse this.

<comment><AUTHOR> The goal with ChargeBack.cc is to divert unhappy customers away from the traditional chargeback system and into direct contact with their merchant. It is backed by sending unresolved disputes through the banks, but if we get to that stage I consider the chargeback failed on our behalf.

<comment><USER7> The banks will put you in direct contact with the merchant. From a merchant's perspective, your service is just another unnecessary middleman to deal with. The damage you're doing is advertising the chargeback feature. You are encouraging users to initiate chargebacks (whether through your service or not), which is not a good thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Feedback / thoughts about potential pitfalls:

You're probably going to get a cease and desist letter at some point if you haven't already talked with the various financial institutions and have contacts there... you're almost certainly violating their terms of service (and maybe people filing through you are too).

You might want to be proactive about reaching out and making some contacts with the financial institutions.

Or maybe not, maybe it's OK. Just uninformed intuition there.

Also, you probably want to add some pretty serious language in bold saying "You must be telling the truth, not telling the truth here can cause serious harm, etc."

You probably also want to do some basic confirmation of a person's identity so you don't get whacky results. Ask for a phone number maybe, and occasionally spot check calls? I could see this being used for pranking, harassment, or inappropriate use (disgruntled employee, uninformed spouse/boyfriend/girlfriend, etc).

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the feedback.

I've spoken to a few financial instituions. The general consensus seems to be that we're not doing anything they didn't wish customers did already - <USER2> is contact the merchant for a refund before creating a chargeback. We've been told that in only around 18% of chargebacks have the customers even told the merchant they have a problem before filing the chargeback.

I do expect someone along the line will have a problem with it, in which case we don't offer services for customers with that institution (after attempting to change their mind!).

We do have a layer of manual checks on each chargeback before they are processed. I like the idea of spot phone calls though - might add that in!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Ugh...charge backs. I work in an industry that has high charge back rates and amounts, most of the time because people are disgruntled.

Most people don't realize how easy a charge back is.

<comment><USER11> I do too, and I wish people would realize that we practically trip over ourselves to issue refunds whenever they are requested, because we want to avoid chargebacks at all costs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This business will fail even though the idea to improve the chargeback process is a good one (for both merchants and customers).

Most customers don't know what a chargeback is. Those who do will never find your site. Only if you sell your service to the credit card companies will this work.

<comment><USER8> That seems to be how BillGuard (a site that seems to have a similar purpose) is attempting to play this: to provide a service to users, but really attempt to get the ear of banks as a value-add to their online offerings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've never had trouble with chargebacks, personally. I try the merchant, and if they don't play ball, I contact my card issuer. It's been pretty painless, so I don't see the point of this service. Is my experience just abnormal?

<comment><USER14> I think it depends on your credit card company. American Express is well-known for very good customer service and easy no hassle chargebacks. My Bank of America card was a bit more of a hassle though trying to find the correct form to fill out online then they had to mail me papers and I had to sign them and send them back and talk to 3 different people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> So, who are your customers? Businesses with chargeback problems or customers filing chargebacks?

The followup is how are you intending to step between customers filing chargebacks and their banks which are a phone call away?

</comment><comment><USER8> How is this different from BillGuard.com? (edit:) Well, I mean, for the features this site offers; BillGuard also seems to scan your bills proactively trying to help you deal with charges, but at the end of the process seems to be fairly similar: I (the merchant) receive an e-mail from them rather than a chargeback, combined with information that might be useful to look into the matter and fix the problem. (I only started dealing with BillGuard yesterday, so I don't know much about them yet, and certainly not much about this new site.)

<comment><USER4> The concepts are similar, but the implementations are quite different. In order to use BillGuard you must sign up for constant monitoring of your credit card. ChargeBack.cc is more of an a la carte service - you only use it when you want to perform or resolve a chargeback.

<comment><USER16> "In order to use BillGuard you must sign up for constant monitoring of your credit card" - simply not true. Anyone can file a dispute, without signing up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> How would consumers find out about you? If I buy something online, I would call merchant first, then bank. How would I find out to use you first vs. going to merchant and/or bank? Thanks!

<comment><USER18> Advertising like this thread.

<comment><USER17> Would be hard though... PR/blog hits only lasts so long.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> In my experience as a merchant, disputes can be very time sensitive (i.e. travel cancellations). On one hand, finding out about a misunderstanding from you (rather than a chargeback fax two months later) may allow a much easier dispute resolution and be so be valuable to a merchant. But on the other hand, customers who cancel/complain by charging back instead of calling the merchant may therefore lose a chargeback because they miss an agreed deadline. Adding your service as a middleman could lead to further missed deadlines.

This is especially true since any good merchant privacy policy/PCI DSS would of course prevent them from discussing anything with you without direct approval from the customer first - and if they did that, they may as well discuss the issue direct anyway.

Lastly, the toughest chargebacks can take months to resolve. Help with that (as a merchant) would be very useful(and so I can imagine you providing a compelling service), but are you really committing to take on a potentially complex issue for the customer? And wouldn't it be a conflict to represent both parties? Still, a tool that eases the admin of chargebacks could be great for both sides...

</comment><comment><USER20> Your terms and conditions at the end of lodging says <http://james/something>

I like the service (just used mailinator to test it) but in the end I'm left with the feeling there is some hidden cost to me. I'd like if it was clear that it was a free service for me.

I notice you are Australian? Or have you localised your site really well?

>You must not modify, adapt or hack the Service or modify another website so as to falsely imply that it is associated with the Service, ChargeBack.cc, or any other ChargeBack.cc service.

You must not do illegal stuff?

>ChargeBack.cc reserves the right to update and change the Terms of Service from time to time without notice

Please change your policy on this, tos-dr.info will likely rate that section badly.

Have yet to get a notice as a "merchant" but I love the experience as a consumer.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah thanks for that TOS fix.

The feedback about the "hidden cost" is great. I've heard that a lot. I definitely need to communicate somehow that we attempt to up-sell merchants with premium services and use the chargeback essentially as a lead to talk to them.

Yup, Australian :) Although the site does localise to the US and UK as well.

There will be a short delay before the merchant notification emails come out. We put them through a degree of manual approval and due to load from HN traffic it may take some time for them to be fully processed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think a page called "Who we are" [1] should answer that question, and not describe "what we do" (again). Especially with something involving such sensitive information.

[1] <https://www.chargeback.cc/who-we-are>

</comment><comment><USER22> I'd rather just file a chargeback with my credit card company. It is just as easy imo.

</comment><comment><USER23> I think there is a big need for this type of service. The majority of my transactions are fine, but there are times when I have a problem and getting it resolved is a huge hassle. Like last month when the NYTimes charged me $15 but a bug in their database prevented me from actually using my account. Took 2 painful hours to get a refund.

In those cases I assume the merchant has better things to do as well, and it seems like a service like this could offload some work from their support staff and, by adding things like exit surveys, turn those small number of bad experiences into positive, constructive experiences for all parties.

</comment><comment><USER24> Well I had a disputed charge I was planning on seeking to have overturned, so I've just tested the chargeback.cc system with this dispute as a trial

<comment><AUTHOR> Please do. If you have any feedback, please post it here or email it to email@example.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> [http://www.sedo.com/search/details.php4?language=us&doma...](http://www.sedo.com/search/details.php4?language=us&domain=chargeback.cc) <\-- might want to fix that

</comment><comment><USER25> One thing that popped right out to me was how similar the top banner looks to the Paypal top banner.

</comment><comment><USER26> free services.. hmm.. whats in it for you?

<comment><USER4> Premium services for merchants.

Essentially the basic chargeback resolution is free, but we charge merchants to access additional tools like exit surveys, the ability to configure questions on chargebacks for their business. Also we're working on a set of tools to help merchants reduce chargebacks in general - like domains to put on credit card receipts, that type of thing.

The value is that each chargeback is a lead to a business with a chargeback problem :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is the online equivalent of "protection" money the mafia asks for when they say they're going to burn down your store if you don't pay them.

I applaud making it easier for people to file chargebacks but shame on your business model.

Edit: after reading the explanation given below perhaps the business model is not as bad as it first seems - if that's the case, you need to make it more clear! It looks like you are encouraging people to file chargebacks and then shaking down the merchants for money with the threat of the chargeback getting filed if they don't pay you.

<comment><USER4> Maybe using the word "protection" on the business page was a bad idea. Merchants don't need to pay us to resolve chargebacks. We just try to make their services better in the future through premium data services. Please see this comment <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4799225>

<comment><USER27> you're also not being honest with your users. you're not actually filing chargebacks on their behalf, at least not at first. you're asking for their permission to harass/spam/threaten the merchants they have a problem with - then filing a chargeback if you don't get what you want.</comment></comment></comment>


Autonomous Aerial Robot Maneuvers Like a Bird - <AUTHOR> http://www.voanews.com/content/robot_smart_bird/1538352.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I wonder if this can be used in delivery of goods inside a city.

</comment><comment><USER2> Nice :) Where can we buy it?

<comment><AUTHOR> I also would like to buy it, but I think this is research technology.</comment></comment>


The Craigwatch story - <AUTHOR> http://craigwatch.com/story.html <comment><AUTHOR> OP here -- I posted this because I wanted to see some discussion on what HNers thought about this.

On one hand, it seems ridiculous for a company to try and limit the freedom of every single user of the application to use possibly inefficient methods only to interact with their site. On the other hand, I understand that a contract is a contract (of course there are issues with enforcability, and "by using this site you agree to these terms" is probably a bit legally shaky), they do have a EULA that prohibits it.

That said, something about this just leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

Does anyone know any relevant precedent for this kind of thing?

To be clear, I have just about 0 ill-will towards craiglist, they offer a fantastic free service, and I use it often.</comment>


Switch macOS Dark Mode in One Click - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ariestiyansyah/dark-switch <comment><USER2> If you want to do the same from the command line, AppleScript makes it straightforward to do from your shell in a single line:

      osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to tell appearance preferences to get dark mode' # Get current mode
      osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to tell appearance preferences to set dark mode to true' # Set dark mode
      osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to tell appearance preferences to set dark mode to false' # Set light mode</comment>


Missouri Gov. declares state of emergency ahead of Ferguson announcements - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/11/17/missouri-gov-jay-nixon-declares-state-of-emergency-ahead-of-ferguson-announcements/ <comment><USER2> I hope the cops stay non-violent this time.

Good to know that people are prepared for violent, over-reacting police this time around. Bunch of thugs.</comment>


Show HN: EasyFridge – Subscription Grocery Delivery. No Thinking Required. - <AUTHOR> http://myeasyfridge.com/?utm_campaign=showhn

<comment><AUTHOR> If you have questions, you can talk to us directly in live chat: [https://www.hipchat.com/gUlKxkAKq](https://www.hipchat.com/gUlKxkAKq)

</comment><comment><USER2> As a blind person this looks like a good service. Unfortunately since I am single I only need to shop about once every two weeks. I don't want to have to think about what needs to be ordered every week and add something to a list even if I don't need it immediately. I'd be better off finding someone on Craigslist to do my shopping for me twice a month and save some money over the $120 this service would cost me.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the feedback jareds, we've heard from a few folks that weekly is too much for them and will definitely consider changing it in the future, for now we've optimized the service for simplicity rather than trying to address every possible use case.

Slightly different question, was the website accessible to you as a blind person?

<comment><USER2> I could read the information on the site and find out that I'm not in the delivery area. If it is possible to sign up and use most of the site without actually getting a delivery I will gift it a try in the next couple days. If that isn't possible but you have a test version I could look at I'd be willing to do that. Feel free to email me at joesmth766 at gmail period com.</comment></comment></comment>


Smart Email Marketing - How to Design and Send Emails - <AUTHOR> http://www.shayhowe.com/resource/smart-email-marketing/ Email marketing is one of the most effective methods of advertising online yet the majority of companies are missing out. I have put together an outline on how to design and send emails, along with a few examples. <comment><USER2> For the technical side of HTML email, it's important to realize that you need to do the _opposite_ of all the prevailing trends in web design over the past decade.

Tables should be used for layout, font tags for different typefaces (and sizes, if possible). If you must use CSS, put it inline. No form elements or javascript. And you need to make darn sure that everything looks good without images, because that's how the vast majority of recipients will first see it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Any feedback on 'delete inactive subscribers' when you consider 'disable images [is] default' for many readers?

My understanding is that most email marketing systems track activity - including open rates - through systems built in to either viewing the image or clicking through the links. I might have many people reading my email without images, and therefore appearing inactive - removing them my improve my stats, but not my marketing outcomes!

<comment><USER4> You make a good point, but it really depends on the content of the email. For stuff that's mostly text, without much in the way of interesting links, "open" rates can be deceptively low and you could potentially be losing active readers if you remove them.

On the other hand, your email could be being spamboxed (or worse, blackholed) because half of your list has marked you as spam, and you're continuing to send to them once a week.

There isn't really an easy one-size-fits-all solution to that. Using a decent email service provider is a good idea, if you have the budget for it. They'll be able to give you a lot more information about your email's performance, likely have better delivery rates than your current mailserver (assuming you pick a provider that doesn't suck) and, importantly, will be able to identify and remove recipients who have marked your email as spam.

Edit: Deleting bounces, on the other hand, is _extremely_ important, particularly if you have lots of webmail addresses. Possibly _the_ most important thing you can do to maintain or improve delivery rates. That really should have been higher up on the list!

<comment><USER3> Currently using a provider, and you're right - a lot more information and better deliverability.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a really good set of guidelines. Here are the three most effective things you need to do (in my experience) to get and maintain decent delivery rates:

Remove your bounces. I cannot stress this enough. If you're sending using a homebrew system or a script on a webserver or what have you, make sure it can process bounces. Excessive attempts to deliver to dead addresses is the number one metric used by large email receivers to assess your mailserver IP's reputation.

Keep your list clean. Don't be tempted to add those 150 random names and addresses you found from last year's marketing push. It's not worth it. One or two bad records on your list is enough to completely decimate your delivery rates. Stick to double opt-in and don't be tempted.

Make your unsubscribe link obvious. Really obvious. Like, at the top of your email, or in big black text. Too many people feel the need to hide their unsubscribe link away in tiny text at the very bottom. If someone doesn't want your email, they have two choices - spambox it, or unsubscribe. If many people spambox your email - your delivery rates _will_ suffer. Make unsubscribing easy and obvious.

<comment><USER5> I would have thought sticking unsubscribe links at the bottom was standard practise by now and people would have caught on to it (i.e. look straight at the footer if they're looking for it).

<comment><USER4> That's not unreasonable. My point was, make them dead easy to find for those that want them. But yes, there's probably something in having one at the bottom.

Not an easy one to test, though ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Helpful post but doesn't recommend specific software. What's a good off-the- shelf product/service for managing double opt-in, email timing, bounces, etc.?

<comment><USER2> I would strongly recommend outsourcing that unless you know what you're doing. Dealing with spam block lists can easily turn into a full time job.

<comment><USER6> if i outsource, who should i use?

<comment><USER6> please disregard. my question was addressed in a previous thread: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=197455></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ex-Tinder employees launch professional networking app Ripple - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2018/01/08/ripple-networking-app/ <comment><USER2> They probably have already received the cease and desist letter from the 'other Ripple' ([https://ripple.com/](https://ripple.com/))

....seriously what were they thinking?

</comment><comment><USER3> Seems like a dangerous time to launch an app named Ripple.

I think LinkedIn is probably prime for being disrupted by something, but I feel like the "swipe right or left" interface has been monopolized by low effort activities (shopping, tinder, etc) and it doesn't feel very professional. I wonder if the app will be able to succeed despite this.

</comment><comment><USER4> Almost exactly like the defunct Weave: [https://weave.in/](https://weave.in/)

</comment><comment><USER5> Definitely agree that there is an unmet need and huge market here. Best of luck to them.</comment>


Show HN: Algojammer – an experimental Python code editor inspired by Bret Victor - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ChrisKnott/Algojammer <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN,

I have had this project on the go for a while and have decided to put it out as-is because I can't forsee being able to complete it any time soon. For people who go straight to the comments, here's a video - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XPE4uT0AdE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XPE4uT0AdE) \- I have a very mumbly British accent but you should be able to get the gist of it...

The one line summary is - it's a "real" implementation of some of the demo GIFs in Bret Victor's "Learnable Programming" [0]

The original project goal was to create a "bicycle for the mind" that actually has a provably positive effect on people's performance in algorithm competitions like Google Code Jam/Facebook Hacker Cup. I don't think I got there, but I think there's enough stuff here to interest people on a Sunday afternoon...

Constructive criticism greatly appreciated, here or on Github issues page. If you are experienced with CPython (as in, experienced in contributing to the actual interpreter), then I would appreciate input on how to deliver the "recording" aspect of the project properly. The current implementation is very hacky.

[0] [http://worrydream.com/LearnableProgramming/](http://worrydream.com/LearnableProgramming/)

<comment><USER2> Really nice, I'll be dropping this around a few people I know getting into python, any good way of passing on feedback? Github issue?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah probably GitHub is best. As I've said elsewhere, little bit burnt out atm but will be looking to start afresh at some point probably next year incorporating as many suggestions as possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hi Chris, great project! If you're generally interested in all sorts of ideas on how to make programming better, I can recommend to check out [https://futureofcoding.org/](https://futureofcoding.org/) and the slack group that's linked on the website. There are a lot of people thinking about, sharing and discussing great ideas in the slack, and your project perfectly fits into the "future of programming" category.

<comment><USER4> If you can checkout this book "Interactive Programming Environments" do so

[https://books.google.com/books/about/Interactive_Programming...](https://books.google.com/books/about/Interactive_Programming_Environments.html?id=YcgmAAAAMAAJ&source=kp_book_description)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think the idea of showing runtime data in various forms to help programmers understand what their programs do is a great idea with a lot of promise — it's my main research area. And this demo shows a plausible way to get some of that in Python, which is great.

But I still wonder if anyone writing actual algorithms would find this useful, and if so what exactly they'd find useful. I'd really like to see the field of UIs for programming get clearer on what data is useful to show to which programmers in what form and when.

<comment><AUTHOR> You are totally right. My #1 annoyance is research and demos in this space, that don't consider your question. That is why I think it is important that this project aims to tackle problems outside my control, that are genuinely hard to understand (Google Code Jam problems).

My plan was basically to work my way through past problems, for each one thinking specifically about that problem - ok, what's hard here, what would help me solve this, where did I go wrong with this, then adding those features to Algojammer.

Then when Code Jam comes around again, I can really test it in a very falsifiable way.

I need a break and more time so I'm not going to be working on this for a while but I'm 100% on your side. Do you have any links to your research?

<comment><USER5> Your plan to work through past Google Code Jam problems sounds great. I'm sure that process would help build your intuition for what tools are actually helpful when working on this specific type of problem, which would probably have implications for lots of programs. Personally, I think this type of first-person empiricism is a highly undervalued resource.

Also, I wish there were more research labs that could support folks in UIs for programming like this. Right now there are only a couple and a lot of independent people dabbling.

As for my work, you can see it at [http://glench.com](http://glench.com)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nice work! I like this bicycle analogy and believe we have a ways to go for improving programming environments. In a far less ambitious vane, I've been trying to integrate the pytest-watch plugin to get a tighter feedback loop about regressions when making code changes.

</comment><comment> d--b Nice. The best thing about this project is that it is clearly dedicated to algorithm design and it does not try to cover every programming problem.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is brilliant, I'd love to add this as a VSCode extension

</comment><comment><USER8> Omniscient debuggers like this are a godsend, and too few and far between. Thank you.

When I was designing a complex, topology-transforming graph / search algorithm in C#, I had to cobble together my own "Algorithm Debugger" to fix some particularly tricky defects. My algorithm emitted a series of messages as it ran, which triggered viewport updates in different tabs, showing coroutine state, intermediate graphs, searches, etc.

It took me a month to write, and it was mired with bugs. Starting with Algojammer I probably could have knocked it out in a couple days.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is amazing. I've been brushing up on algorithms for some upcoming interviews and could imagine this being super helpful to visualize/understand. Don't give up on the project! It's great!

</comment><comment><USER10> This is great work and a lovely implementation of a lot of Bret Victor's (and others') ideas. If you're really interested in constructive feedback, I'd love to see the Sheets output directly on the timeline as I step through it but this is probably a very subjective thing.

There are so many ways this could be developed further, I love it!

<comment><AUTHOR> The one thing I really wanted to do was add a kind of stacking visualisation to the timeline to show depth of callstack. At the moment it is not clear at all how deep you are in recursion. I was thinking thin drop shadows that make it look like the timeline is a stack of paper.

I did half implement "Markers" which are coloured lines on the timeline similar to breakpoints.

I decided to shelve it until I had rewritten the whole thing to be more stable, which I think will require doing it as a fork of CPython.

<comment><USER10> Recursion visualization would be fantastic, especially in languages like Python where the max depth is quite shallow. You could also develop modules for language-specific visualizations; it would be incredible to see memory management visualized (maybe as an addressed stack?) when writing in C, or how data ownership is being passed around a program in Rust. These would be great for lowering the cognitive load for developers writing more complex programs.

What I really like about your implementation is that it's scratching the itch of abstraction code (i.e. the inherently non-visual), as opposed to something like Light Table's WebGL example (which is very impressive, but not applicable to most developers' day jobs).

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, you've hit the nail on the head. The same is true of some of Bret's demos like the Braid one. I was trying to bring some of that tangibility to difficult abstract problems like from code jam.

I think one of the reasons games developers are so ahead of the field in making the abstract visible is they have a "canvas" right there that they are outputting to. It's very common to see really clever and intuitive visualisations covering the screen in game development, not because those guys are visionaries but because they are just trying to understand the code and that's how they naturally express themselves.

Basically what I wanted to do was come up with a solution "one step up the ladder of abstraction" (is my BV fanboy showing?) that let's users define their own, problem specific visualisations. This is where the concept of metacode came from. If you give people access to the data (omniscience), a blank canvas (sheet), and a way to express themselves (metacode) then natural curiosity should take over.

I'm not saying I achieved all that, but that was the idea. I think there's more work to be done on the language of describing the code, the current vocabulary is based around line numbers and execution steps which are brittle when the code is changed. What you want is visualisations that persist and change as you edit the code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Really cool, I just tried live-py the other day (on emacs, but I think it works in other editors) and I loved how it printed the values of variables at every stage of a loop. This looks like that but more general and much, much prettier.

</comment><comment><USER12> Hi Bred, This is really nice work. Will play with it for sure.

Is this heavily coupled with python? Or can it be extended to any other language like C++ or Java easily?

<comment><USER13> Looks like it is. It hooks into some CPython interpreter stuff.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, it's very much Python only at the moment, although the concept can be applied to other languages

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Excellent work @ChrisKnott, respect for one who ships stuff!

Either Chris or any of the Lispers hanging around here, can they throw deeper insight at the following question/assertion: Isn't what Brett Victor proposing 'visual programming' on top of a live REPL?

<comment><USER5> Absolutely not. He states his vision very clearly in Learnable Programming, especially near the end: [http://worrydream.com/LearnableProgramming/](http://worrydream.com/LearnableProgramming/)

> Programming has to work like this. Programmers must be able to read the > vocabulary, follow the flow, and see the state. Programmers have to create > by reacting and create by abstracting. Assume that these are requirements. > Given these requirements, how do we redesign programming?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Thanks, this is awesome!

</comment><comment><USER16> This is beautiful, what inspired you to build this? I starred the repo, will have a look into it and work on some algos once I find free time.

</comment><comment><USER17> This looks great! That's how I (and I assume many others) actually visualize arrays for certain algorithms.

</comment><comment><USER18> I love this! I was very inspired by the code execution timeline and will see if I can make something similar.</comment>


Hackers Who Shut Down PSN and Xbox Live Now Attacking Tor - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/hackers-who-shut-down-psn-and-xbox-live-now-attacking-t-1675331908 <comment><USER2> Tor Devs haven't made any announcement yet, there is, however, a discussion about it on the mailing list:

[https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor- talk/2014-Decembe...](https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor- talk/2014-December/036165.html)

If you use Tor, I would follow the suggestion by another member of the mailing list [1], simply add to your torrc file:

      ExcludeNodes US
      StrictNodes 1

That will disallow using any US nodes, which works since all of LizardNSA's nodes are currently in the US.

[1] [https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor- talk/2014-Decembe...](https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor- talk/2014-December/036192.html)

<comment><USER3> Supposed response from "firstname.lastname@example.com":

> Why? I assure you, our exits are just fine. What's with people responding so > negatively to us donating 360Gbit/s of exit BW?

EDIT: From @lizardmafia:

> To clarify, we are no longer attacking PSN or Xbox. We are testing our new > Tor 0day.

> Only hackers, miscreants and pedophiles use Tor.

<comment><USER4> "Only hackers, miscreants and pedophiles use Tor."

Oh please. They're trying to take the moral high ground to justify their behaviour.

<comment><USER5> What is trolling?

<comment><USER6> An excuse for being an asshole.... but real trolling is done with finesse, intelligence, humour and a pinch of salted evil.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm always a little bit fascinated by these sorts of attacks.

On one hand, I guess I understand (yet don't condone) the motivation for the 'vigilante' justice they're trying to do. On the other, I really don't understand what benefit you can get from attacking Xbox, then Sony, and finally Tor.

When I think of the people doing this, I tend to think of them as understanding the importance of Tor and the benefit of anonymity it brings. However, here are people doing a DDOS attack (obviously illegal) trying to bring down the biggest illegal goods marketplace on the internet.

Maybe I'm alone in this, but outside of attention, I really don't understand any logical reason for this happening, and that really makes me dismiss any message they may have. I can comprehend being motivated by anger or some event, or just being a douchey company, but I just really don't understand what anyone besides the US Government would gain by attacking Tor.

<comment><USER8> I personally think they're trying to get attention for themselves to build reputation and perhaps land some sort of job / payout.

<comment><USER9> Well based on what they did, they obviously can't advertise their work. They also won't have any interest in working for SV companies. The only kind of job they are after is in the black market (organized crime and intelligence).

<comment><USER10> You can't even get into intelligence anymore after doing this, lol. They'd never pass the background checks.

<comment><USER9> They hire contractors. Most intelligence works are "outsourced." [http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/nsa-leaks-put- focus-o...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/nsa-leaks-put-focus-on- intelligence-apparatuss-reliance-on-outside- contractors/2013/06/10/e940c4ba-d20e-11e2-9f1a-1a7cdee20287_story.html)

A plausible example is hiring a team to DDoS another State-sponsored infrastructure from outside of U.S. soil. Or hire some elite crackers to write custom software for them.

<comment><USER10> You still get investigated even if you are a contractor. I know many of them firsthand, and they tell me that contractors are put under additional scrutiny, actually. You need a high-level clearance for this sort of work done on behalf of the government, regardless of your employer.

<comment><USER9> Glad to know, but I still feel some of contract works require high-level clearance or background check.

If they just need a crack tool, they just need an agent to pay someone to write the tool and that doesn't give away information. Maybe I am spoiled by TV shows how they contact elite hackers in the black market.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, there's a lot more bureaucracy involved. I know people who used to work at these sorts of places. It's a wonder that anything gets accomplished, at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> For Tor network status and node list: [https://torstatus.blutmagie.de/](https://torstatus.blutmagie.de/)

All names appear to begin with LizardNSA.

It must be said, however, that all exit and non-exit nodes go through acceptance process over 88 days

[https://blog.torproject.org/blog/lifecycle-of-a-new- relay](https://blog.torproject.org/blog/lifecycle-of-a-new-relay)

<comment><USER12> They claim a "0day", which may just be them coopting the term from real hackers, but may also be a legitimate attack that gets around the approval period.

But it appears this is all running from Google's Compute Engine. They can easily shut it down, although they're probably using stolen credit cards, so there's no real traceability there.

<comment><USER13> So the question is, why is Google not shutting them down now.

<comment><USER14> Have they taken any action that would be cause for a shutdown? Does Google not allow you to run Tor relays on their service? Genuine questions, I'm not familiar enough with the service.

<comment><USER15> Stolen credit cards is probably high on the list.

You'd think Google wouldn't want to give away free computer resources to these 'hackers' since the banks will almost assuredly take back any mis-gotten money from stolen credit cards.

<comment><USER16> does it really work like that? i thought the banks had to cop the losses due to fraud.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I don't get it.

They attack the PSN and XBox networks. Kim Schmitz gives them 3000 vouchers for Mega to save christmas (what?) and/or the world. Then they claim, he's the reason they stopped the attacks.

And then they target their next victim. My point is: one might not like Kim but he is way too smart to expect such a barter to be successful.

So, given his own background, what makes him this? A stupid hero? Or is there a much smarter option?

<comment><USER18> It was a chance to inject Mega's name into a big story. Before, the story was "Hackers steal Christmas." Now, the story is "Mega saves Christmas."

Also, he probably wanted to play some video games and it's not like Mega vouchers cost him all that much, particularly considering this is basically an advertising expense.

<comment><USER19> New headline: _Mega Helps Destroy Tor Network_

Seriously, he just ended up passing the hot potato to someone else. That someone else is now Tor. I think I would've preferred to let Microsoft deal with the DDoS (they have the means).

Giving in to criminals's demands really ends up making things _worse_ in the long term, whether it's bank robbers, CryptoLocker creators or the owners of botnets that can DDOS sites.

<comment><USER20> You say that as if these guys wouldn't have touched Tor if Kim Dotcom didn't intervene. This is just what they do, whether or not they were given the vouchers. If not today, eventually they would probably have set their sights on Tor anyhow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The thing I fear the most is cyber retaliation. So many of us have accounts on the Internet that matter to us day to day. If they are reading this (I am damn sure they are), and if they don't like you, they will try to take over your accounts and make fun of you. Fear is the most destructive and most effective weapon and such weapon is most terrible when targeting at individuals.

But I still have to drop a line: please arrest these "hackers" / "crackers" / cyber criminals.

<comment><USER21> Luckily, you're not important enough for people to target.

Luckily, neither am I.

<comment><USER9> Well, you never know. They certainly can target you because you are working for X company and X company sounds awesome enough to exploit and place on the front page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> So from what I've read so far they are trying to deanonymize TOR users by having a large number of relays in the network. This isn't an unknown attack vector. But surely the NSA could easily do the same. What's to say that half the relays aren't already NSA owned?

<comment><USER23> Does this mean that if agencies from different countries get into an arms-race trying to take control of the network in such a way, it would actually make tor stronger?

<comment><USER24> But remember that the us, UK, canada, and australia and some other are major cooperators and likely won't compete.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Kim Dotcom gave them 3000 Mega accounts yesterday, and now they seem to have created 3000 relays. Is the number just a coincidence, or are they doing it through those accounts somehow?

[http://torrentfreak.com/kim-dotcom-stops-xbox-and- playstatio...](http://torrentfreak.com/kim-dotcom-stops-xbox-and-playstation- attacks-141226/)

<comment><USER12> Those are simply file hosting accounts, so there's ability to run something like a Tor node from them.

More likely is they're using the same botnet that was attacking PSN/XBL to run Tor relays.

<comment><USER25> No, they're all on Google Compute Engine. (Which means one person could very easily stop this cold…)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> It's unfortunate that they're attacking Tor, but at least this type of attacks is being demonstrated now by someone presumably only out for lulz, rather than potentially by more malicious entities in the future.

<comment><USER27> How do you honestly know that? Everything can be pseudonymous or anonymous and behind several layers of indirections. Real names could be used so dox-ing can reveal "something" but in effect could simply be a steganographic ruse.

Given the resources of large intelligence operations funded worldwide, would can you be sure one or more aren't really behind Lizard (or LulzSec or Anonymous even)?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> UDPATE: Lizard Squad is currently being interviewed on BBC Live 5 right now: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/bbc_radio_five_live](http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/bbc_radio_five_live)

<comment><USER22> I didn't catch the interview, did they mask the voices? Presumably the filter they would use could be undone fairly easily, in the same way that the "swirl" filter paedophiles were using got them caught [1].

The way in which these people are acting right now is just asking for a mistake. I would guess they have made some huge opsec mistakes already. There's a supposed dox on them already (find it yourself on Twitter).

[1] [http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/08/interpol- untwirl...](http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/08/interpol-untwirls-a- suspected-pedophile/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> first off, quit calling them hackers. they aren't hackers. they are script kiddies.

<comment><USER30> What makes you say this? Do we know exactly what they've done?

<comment><USER31> Lizard Squad has access to a large botnet which they used to DDoS Sony and Microsoft and now to create a large number of TOR relays. It's not hacking. It's not even being a script kiddie.

<comment><USER32> It's organized crime.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> They appear to be using Google Compute instances (based upon the IP addresses) to create TOR relays but since they are not exit nodes I'm not really sure what they are hoping to achieve.

<comment><USER34> They're set up to be exit nodes, they just don't have the exit flag yet.

<comment><USER35> Quite a few seem to have the exit flag now. Only glanced through the first 500 or so, but it looked to be about 50 which had the exit flag

<comment><USER28> How is that possible? I was under the impression that it took a long time to be a real exit node.

<comment><USER25> No _stable_ flags. No guard flags, either.

Google will probably shut them down quicker than the consensus gives them those. They are _tiny_ ; it's an attempted Sybil, but it's worse than GCHQ's one that used Amazon nodes.

Edit: Down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I'd be curious if this would be considered against the google compute engine ToS.

If so, it'd be simple for Google to wipe them. Otherwise, I have no doubt the tor directory authorities will be keeping an eye on these for malicious activity and will mark them as Bad Relays if any is detected.

</comment><comment><USER37> Seems like it's coming to an end? [https://twitter.com/CthulhuSec/status/548612570102640640](https://twitter.com/CthulhuSec/status/548612570102640640)

<comment><USER37> Their exits seem to be gone, too: [https://globe.torproject.org/#/search/query=LizardNSA&filter...](https://globe.torproject.org/#/search/query=LizardNSA&filters%5Bflag%5D=Exit)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> This group has been DDOSing game networks for quite awhile now, a year at least? Are they just super skilled at covering their tracks, are they not being investigated, is federal law enforcement not good at tracking this down yet, or what? I don't understand how a major crime spree is being conducted in public and gleefully boasted about for this long.

<comment><USER25> Would it be unreasonable to draw parallels to Lulzsec?

<comment><USER38> I forgot who these guys were, but yeah I reckon.

IIRC LizardSquad did allegedly "disband" awhile back, I think when some heat got applied to them, but I don't know. They were repeatedly DDOSing the servers of a game I play so I started following their exploits. I do hope law enforcement catches up with these guys sooner rather than later.

<comment><USER39> > I do hope law enforcement catches up with these guys sooner rather than > later.

Me not. Sony and MS need to be taught that online DRM is a massive customer experience clusterfuck, and they will only listen and learn one way: hit 'em in their pockets. Only when enough customers are angry and demand refunds that it hurts their bottom lines, then maybe online DRM measures will be finally allowed to rot in hell.

<comment><USER40> Maybe I missed it - where do they say they're DDOSing because of online DRM?

And if they are, how does online DRM justify illegal activity? I'm not going to flood someone's shop so they can't open for business because I don't like their product.

If you don't like it, don't buy it, and educate consumers on why they shouldn't buy it either. Boycotts are the most direct way to harm a company's bottom line.

<comment><USER39> If boycotting and consumer education worked, we would not have this discussion. Console and title sales are through the roof, despite tech-savvy people and press all over the world calling bullshit on DRM.

It's time for more drastic measures.

<comment><USER40> [http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/boycotts/successfulboycotts.a...](http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/boycotts/successfulboycotts.aspx)

There's some successful boycotts, when there's a hell of a lot more on the line than just the inability to play COD. They're not doing anything illegal, and they don't need to.

> Console and title sales are through the roof, despite tech-savvy people and > press all over the world calling bullshit on DRM. It's time for more drastic > measures.

It's never time for more drastic (illegal) measures if someone provides a product you don't like. They're providing a shitty "feature" that frustrates you when your shitty internet connection is down. If it frustrates you so much, don't use it, get your friends not to use it, blog about it, post about it, spread the word. Look what happened to Sim City last year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> PLEASE stop calling them hackers. They're DDoS kiddies who have now switched to spinning up TOR on their botnet. THESE ARE NOT HACKERS.

<comment><USER42> At this point Hack is just a marketing/media term and Lisp nerds from MIT no longer have any say in the matter. Let it go.

<comment><USER41> That kind of attitude is why we have people denying global warming. Terms have meaning, allowing idiots to try to muddy the waters hurts all of mankind. It has nothing to do with "Lisp nerds from MIT".

<comment><USER43> The whole argument of what "hacker" means in tech circles versus what it means to the mainstream is beyond a dead horse. That's like trying to make the word "gay" mean "happy" again.

<comment><USER44> It still does mean happy!

Nothing has changed there. We've just added homosexual to the list of things associated with the word "gay."

When "gay" is used in the "happy" sense, context is what differentiates it from the more recent homosexual sense.

"hacker" is no different.

Really then, it's about more effective writing, insuring the context of "hacker" is clear from the surrounding context.

What we lost in both instances was easy, utilitarian use of the word as more words are now required to convey information accurately.

<comment><USER45> To be honest, I never knew that "gay" meant "happy" until I watched The Three Caballeros in English

<comment><USER44> You and a whole lot of other people, until they see something presenting it.

I had to explain the shift to my kids once. It was sort of interesting after that time. We notice it, and they will often comment on something picking up a new meaning now.

That suggests to me a lot of people remain unaware of "overloading" words in that way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> They're trying a correlation attack on the network. Create enough entries and exits, then matching traffic by time, size, and shape.

<comment><USER47> Do you know this? It seems obvious to me, but calling it a "0day" suggests that maybe the attack is (at least marginally) more sophisticated than the obvious correlation attack. Not to mention, as far as I can see, we have no idea.

<comment><USER46> To date, no one to date has presented a reliable, scalable, consistent passive correlation algorithm.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> What a great bunch of guys! And, oh by the by, PSN is still down and Xbox Live is still having trouble.

</comment><comment><USER49> Yeah I'm sure some rando bitch named Kate from gizmodo knows about DDoS. Any fucking moron can read twitter, thanks for "writing" an article about __nothing__. Seriously this site has zero standards compared to how it used to be.

</comment><comment><USER50> I like lizards in general, but I am not too pleased about lizards that are hacking. It is, quite frankly, a disgrace.

Please be aware that the lizard community as a whole is appalled by these circumstances.

I hope that this whole bag of shenanigans does not prejudice your fine selves against lizards - whether they be lizards of the past, present, or future.

Thank you for your time.

<comment><USER51> Do they run SUSE? This is important.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> how many bottles of mountain dew?

</comment><comment><USER53> Wold at arms

</comment><comment><USER54> This is fun to watch, even funnier when you realize that any talk around this is just that - talk. But, I'm intrigued for the future, this type of hacking is starting to make its comeback, and that's a _cute_ thing.

</comment><comment><USER55> This isn't Fox News, can we call the things correctly, thus "crackers" in this case, pls?

<comment><USER56> The crackers instead of hackers war was lost 15 years ago.

<comment><USER57> Yeah, like how 'gay' can mean 'stupid' in some contexts and moaning about it is pointless.

<comment><USER56> Yeah, like how 'gay' can mean 'homosexual' in some contexts instead of 'happy'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> a-ghost-fart A bunch of children who don't know how to use Tor (take a look at the dox from TheFinest) decide to try and compromise Tor.

Colour me surprised.

Given that a bunch affiliated with the group's names, addresses, numbers and the like have been compromised, this doesn't seem like a very smart plan.

<comment><USER28> Link to dox: [http://thefinest.com/](http://thefinest.com/)

Is it just me, or are there huge parallels between gang culture and hacker culture?

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Sony - had this coming - fake security experts said the NK could do nothing - Now look - Ha! they stole the Admin password Ha! it was "lena" but we will kill their "NK" internet and stop them cold from further take-downs. Ha Ha he he ho ho ho..</comment>


Show HN: Interactive Tutorials to Get People Excited About Investing in Stocks - <AUTHOR> https://www.elkinvest.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> We would love you to check out one of our short tutorials and are interested to hear feedback on our interactive approach to learning about investing and whether you found Elk Invest's framework to be a less overwhelming and relatable way to learn about Personal Finance (particularly, if like many engineers, you have never had the chance to study finance. Cheers

<comment><USER2> I like the concept but hate the desktop UI... why is there a fixed subscription box always on the right? Seems like a waste of real estate

<comment><USER3> Hi, I'm co-founder of Elk Invest. Thanks for the comment. As we tried to make the same content (interactive tutorial) for both mobile and desktop we had to compromise on the size of slide box and therefore half of page on desktop is used for subscription. We plan to use the subscription area on desktop for tracking progress through the tutorials and other helpful links so the subscription box will be temporary.</comment></comment></comment>


Female dialogue in 2016's biggest movies, visualized - <AUTHOR> https://proquestionasker.github.io/projects/MovieDialogueInteractive/ <comment><USER2> Whats I find really surprising is how far down on the top-grossing movies it goes before reaching a romantic drama or comedy. The top 20 is exclusively animated and action movies (sometimes both). The first romantic drama was listed at rank 52, selling around 1/10 of tickets of that of #1.

Would be interesting to see the same data visualized for each genre, and maybe number how many movies of each type was produced in 2016.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Methodology here: [https://medium.freecodecamp.com/women-only-said-27-of-the- wo...](https://medium.freecodecamp.com/women-only-said-27-of-the-words- in-2016s-biggest-movies-955cb480c3c4#.gre6yijk7)

</comment><comment><USER3> Very much looking forward to heated arguments about reproductive strategies of various species of character in Rogue One and if Male/Female applies</comment>


Music industry betting on 'ringle' format - <AUTHOR> http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyid=2007-09-10T030707Z_01_N09216730_RTRUKOC_0_US-RINGLES.xml <comment><USER2> Ahh, neologisms. This one sounds dumb, though. Hopefully people will realize that you shouldn't have to pay for ringtones, people will continue not to buy singles when they could buy the real single for $1 from Apple, and the music industry can find a real business model.</comment>


Help Pay My Bills: A HN Experiment - <AUTHOR> http://bendauphinee.com/paythebills <comment><USER2> Have you tried odesk.com, elance.com, rent-a-coder.com?

You might find some good competition from East European, Russian and Asian Coders on these sites- some of them are terrific coders/developers, but you also have some inherent advantages.

From experience of working with contractors/programmers on odesk.com, in my opinion these would be your inherent advantages that you can use to market yourself:

1) working and being avalable to work with, during sane hours (for North Am.) - working with somebody from half way across the world, even if they are very good, can be tiring in the long run

2) Cultural acquaintance - Many programmers from the developing world have not been exposed to the day to day life here in the more developed western world. when websites are dealing with making the day to day life easier, dealing with those whose awareness of it is next to nothing could be a big challenge sometimes. (There are some who really good at understanding, though)

Other problem here is, from experience, even if they could speak english, not eveybody can catch the nuances and subtleties of langauge which does have a bearing in good comprehension/communication. (to be honest, even my english is not upto the mark of an equally educated American, though I have lived in the US for almost 1/3rd of my life)

3) The understanding of confidentiality is next to nothing in many countries. Even if the understanding is there, the enforceability of related laws is very poor or next to nothing. So, thats a big biz risk you can market yourself on to North American customers on these sites, especially when dealing with unique ideas.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestions. I've been through both rent-a-coder and odesk, and the big problem I found with bidding on projects is that most of them are scut work, and I can't compete with twenty other people from East Europe, Russia and Asia.

<comment><USER3> _The big problem I found with bidding on projects is that most of them are scut work, and I can't compete with twenty other people from East Europe, Russia and Asia._

I used to think this when I first started using RentACoder. Then I thought sod this, and started giving quotes at my full-whack rate, and you know what? It worked, and it's continuing to work :)

One bit of advice I'd like to add: don't be put off if the price listed for a project is a bit below (or even _way_ ) below what you'd like to charge; I find a simple email with questions, a rough timeline and then basic explanation of why your quote costs so much (you need to work for a while at a good rate) works well. Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> I will have to start trying this approach. Thanks for the tip. That was one of the problems I had, was that it was so cheap.

<comment><USER3> You're welcome :)

There is one downside with RentACoder though, and that's that you won't win _any_ jobs without having first complete a couple successfully. It's not the end of the world - find quick and easy tasks, explain that you're looking to build up your rating, and offer to do them for $3. It does mean that you'll lose a day or two of income though. Once you have a couple of ratings though, the only way is up! :)

<comment><USER2> I agree with both the excellent points made by motothemax:

Don't back off from bidding higher than the disered "quotes" mentioned by customers. Once I went for a designer who was quoting more than twice my initial upper limit for that job. when I looked at his profile, he had a very, very long portfolio of his freelanching designs as well as designs he worked on for customers. He had a lot of very high ratings from his past customers and he justified/explained in a similar way that motothemax mentioned about why his rates were higher. Another thing was, he was very professional and upbeat throughout his communications.

So if you did be interested in some feedback on deciding priorites of a customer:

1) Portfolio 2) ratings from past customers (here the readiness to work initially for lower rates, may be usable sometimes) 3) scores on Odesk tests and the distribution of those scores across different tests - its not perfect system, but its better than no scores

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Maybe you need a more structural employment to balance the need to pay your bills?

After all you can't post this sort of thing every day, and if the first day is successful you will still have the same problem on the next.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is true. I was considering that might be an issue, to get recurring traffic. I have hope though that enough people bookmark the page to come back to that I can continue selling my time. Even a few hours a day is better than nothing.

I have actually started applying for jobs again, which stinks because I love the freedom that freelance affords. Unfortunately for me, freedom does not pay the bills :)

<comment><USER5> I need a copywriter to fluff up some text for SEO on a website.. but it's not in the list of things on offer, and I'd happily $12 an hour for that kind of work.

<comment><USER6> Wondering if $12 for copywriting work is expensive. An article with relevant content & tuned for SEO within an hour is fairly demanding. A good 500 word article will cost $15 in the market.

I run SEO services & have been using this new startup mediapiston.com as the content provider. I have had good experience so far. They have excellent review process where each article goes through 3 reviewers before it is submitted back to the requester. You can possibly try such a service.

As far as the author, programming & design work would get best rewards and in single chunk.

<comment><USER7> I don't think his intention is to find and match perfect market prices, he's just throwing this out there to see what happens. Note also that given his skill set, if one was marketing to a technical audience, $12/hour might be cheap...

<comment><AUTHOR> This is correct. I'm seeing what happens, and if I can get my bills off my back. My standard rate for work is $25/hr so I'm currently quite discounted, just to get some work quickly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Have you tried selling stock photography on iStockPhoto? Collis from Envato said he made something like $6k a year without even touching it. Why not upload all your photos there?

He also has a site called CodeDen or something, where you can sell PHP scripts. Why not do some work and upload your stuff there?

There are lots of large communities specialising in the stuff you list there!

<comment><USER9> I had to look that up because I thought $6k/year was laughably low and you must have forgotten a zero. Turns out he made $6k in THREE years:

[http://freelanceswitch.com/money/how-i-make-2000-every- year-...](http://freelanceswitch.com/money/how-i-make-2000-every-year-without- doing-very-much/)

With the AdSense non-sense, pennies from the appstore and what have you, I am starting to wonder: are people really that averse to going outside and getting a non-laptop job? I used to make $500/day washing windows, man. It was me, a bucket of sprays and a bunch of rags. Should I have blogged about it and tweeted around?

<comment><USER2> Where was that $500/day washing windows job? If i don't get funding, I might need something like that when I would quit my job and start working on my start up full time

Would hate to drain up my resources by not having any cash flow.

<comment><USER10> How on earth is washing windows worth $500 / day ?! Or am I misunderstanding and does it involve rope work?

<comment><USER5> Not difficult at all - I remember paying £25 for someone to clean the 4 windows of a flat I was living in, which was on the 1st floor of a house.

How long do you think it takes to do 4 windows, exterior only, with a mop on an extended handle? (the answer is: not very long at all)

He was cleaning next door's windows, so I spoke to him as I walked past, and he dropped an invoice through the letterbox. And then 4 weeks later, he cleaned the windows again, as if I'd signed up to a subscription... So I paid £25 again, for not much.

If you can schedule a route of cleaning, you can do 12 houses in just a couple of hours.

12 x £25 = £300 (which isn't far off $500; $475 at today's exchange rate).

You'd need to deduct your van costs and cleaning equipment out of that though.

<comment><USER11> We pay £3 a fortnight to have about 6m^2 of window (ground floor) cleaned to retail spec including wiping down the paintwork afterwards and a free internal clean every 6 months or so.

It takes probably as long for them to take the money as it does to actually clean (about 5mins I reckon).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Here is what I think you should do:

1) Do some research online about legitimate ways to make money. Make a very long list with no fewer than 100 entries. These don't need to be things that you're interested in, but each one needs to result in some form of income. None of these things should cost any money to make money _or_ require you to pimp out your friends and family for referrals. Don't limit yourself online either, remember that people earn money in easy ways offline as well and that something as easy as personal shopping for an elderly person in your neighborhood can bring in $50 a week for something you're doing anyway. Be creative and constantly add to this list.

2) Create profiles, sign up or apply to each one of these money making methods. In some cases, you'll need to create basic websites (storefronts), etc to facilitate income. Do not spend any more than 4 hours of a single day stetting up any single method.

3) Start thinking about a portfolio. It doesn't matter what life goals you have, you need a portfolio - especially if you're going to be earning money this way. Think about what your "perfect" job / gig / startup looks like and carefully collect items for your portfolio that support your expertise in your target area. Opportunistic portfolio work is the only type of work you should ever do cheap or free.

4) I bet you have already started to do these things. You've identified 4 very general things on your website that you can do. However, you've put out a general call for work in common areas. Think about your skills (starting with the 4 you've listed) and look at the looong list of money making opportunities.

5) Once you get a couple of bucks in your pocket and you get the bill collectors (if any) off of your back, a really fun experiment is to have your bills paid by passive income. One-by-one, if you can slowly discard one bill at a time using things like affiliate programs, ad income from your blog, whatever... you'll really start to have fun. The only rule in this "game" is to define a small number of maintenance hours per week to maintain your passive income. The natural progression of passive income using this strategy is to take an item from your looong list of income sources and modularize / mechanize it to reduce the amount of labor it takes to complete the task to the absolute minimum. Sometimes, leveraging the low cost labor of others to preform tasks that are easy to repeat is a great way to move a task completely passive.

6) Above all else, keep your chin up. Remember the setbacks and failures but don't let them put you in a bad mood. Staying upbeat and creative is the key.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have been working towards creating passive income. One of the projects I am working on is a v1 of my own freelance business management tool, but that is still a few weeks from completion.

And of course, I am keeping my chin up. As disturbing as it is to get calls about overdue bills, I am not letting that paralyze me (as shown by this experiment).

<comment><USER13> Don't fall into the passive income trap. How many hours have you spent creating this tool that could have been spent freelancing or at a PT job. Or talking to prospective clients BEFORE creating the tool? There are a ton of products already out there.

<comment><AUTHOR> While this is true, I am building for myself anyway. I'm using this project to test several pieces of new code I have constructed, and I have been using it to manage my own freelance work anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Sorry, but if that site is anything to go by I don't think I would be asking you to help design a web site.

<comment><AUTHOR> I like my own design for my sites. But here are some other samples of client sites.

<http://youthrunningseries.ca> <http://ginettejewellerydesign.com> <http://duncanhadleytriathlon.ca>

<comment><USER12> There are two broad strokes of web designers. Those who are best suited for true frontend projects and those who are best suited for application design.

Frontend projects require artistic skill and a deep understanding of user interface design.

I bet that you're an application designer. This is an excellent thing to be good at - 99.9% of all medium and large design projects require application development and planning.

If I'm right, you should monopolize on this niche. There are a good number of artistic designers who don't know very much about code. If you develop some examples (aka a portfolio) you could be the "go to guy" whenever any number of large artistic shops needs to integrate or develop an app into their frontend design.

If there are a lot of small businesses in your geographic area who require web design (it doesn't sound like there are), I think that you should either rely on web site templates or subcontracting template design from artsy frontend folks. What you're doing now is a disservice to your own body of work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. I am more of an application designer than an artsy one for sure. I guess I will have to start pursuing that angle a bit more in depth.

<comment><USER14> Find a good designer to work with. A developer with a good designer makes a good combo since they can produce stuff that looks good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> If you want customers, give them some value. I didn't read your link because paying your bills is nit in my interests. Perhaps you do something else that is, and would make a better headline?

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you have a suggestion?

<comment><USER16> How to Win Friends and Influence People. This book. It should be required reading in school.

<comment><USER17> No, it shouldn't be. I never read any of the books that were required in school.

<comment><USER16> How accurate you are. =) I should say that everyone _should_ read it while they are still in school.

<comment><USER17> Though I do have to admit that you can't avoid learning at least some things about the books you are supposed to have read in order to fake.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "not have to move back into my parents place while I job hunt"

In your position, I would strongly consider moving back into my parents' place. I got married right out of college and my wife worked in resident life while she was a grad student so we could live on campus for free. But if I had been single and struggling to make a freelance career work (instead of married and...), I probably would have moved right back home. Saves a bunch of money (don't forget food savings), which gives you time to build the life you want.

FWIW, I did end up 'giving up my freedom' and took a full-time job in retail so we could get decent health insurance and have a baby. I did that for a year and a half, then split work and childcare with my wife for a couple years, and for the last 2.5 years I've been supporting my wife and three kids solely with my freelance work. So even if you have to give up freedom for a while, you can bank the experience and work your way back.

</comment><comment><USER19> I can relate to this post. I live in the Philippines have a good steady job but still not enough money to live comfortably and save at the same time.

I sell my extra time at night to do websites and design as well. I have been doing it for a few years now (>4years). I sometimes take breaks from it though.

I never tried odesk or similar sites. I tried to look for a small job there but there are too many uncertainties. Over the years I have about 1 or 2 clients that come back regularly so I just stuck with them. Although more would be better because I still have more time left. lol

</comment><comment><USER20> I don't get it. Your website looks like crap, your writing is poor, and the color scheme you chose looks like it came out of the 90's. This is pretty pathetic. What makes you think that anybody would hire you over someone else with better, more impressive, credentials?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your valuable feedback. I believe that there is a market for my skills, and that has been proven repeatedly. I have gotten work, based on my current website and projects I have done, and I'm sure I will continue to be able to find work in the future as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Sure, I'll throw in.

I need a nice, clean PDF report done up with good typography that will be offered as a free report on the main MakeLeaps site.

I was planning on hiring a freelance designer for this, but if you're able to do this, please contact me and lets talk.

<comment><AUTHOR> Emailed you. Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> > Rebel XSi, so quality is not a problem

Because the camera is all that matters, right?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well of course not. Before I got that last year, I was shooting with a Canon PowerShot A640 for over two years. Just the XSi produces cleaner shots, because of the larger sensor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Seems a bit lackadaisical.

<comment><USER4> Is that another way of saying 'creative'?

<comment><USER23> No, another way of saying 'lacking gusto or spirit'.

This guy might be the bee's knees, but his marketing sucks. The title of the page is "Pay the Bills" FFS! I'm not interested in paying his bills or his fancy pricing scheme. I'm not interested in finding out his talents, if explains he "lives near some parks and trees" before listing any real accomplishments. It practically comes over as arrogant, and I'm amazed he's got any work through this at all.

<comment><AUTHOR> I seem to have caught your attention though. For someone who is not interested in buying my services, you seem rather worked up about my lack of marketing skills.

<comment><USER23> No I'm not worked up at all. Most things on the front page of HN catch my attention. Good luck, btw.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> You can give TaskRabbit.com a try.

<comment><AUTHOR> I had never heard of them. Thanks for the tip. Unfortunately, I do not live in any of the listed cities.

<comment><USER25> Try to list your services on <http://TaskArmy.com> (my startup).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> send me an email, i will have php work for you

<comment><AUTHOR> Sent an email. Thanks</comment></comment>


Gary Larson's the Far Side Cartoon Coming Back - <AUTHOR> https://nerdist.com/article/gary-larsons-the-far-side-cartoon-coming-back/ <comment><USER2> My prediction, preserved for the moment once it's known more:

Larson is not going to draw new comics, it's just that the publishing company made an agreement (if they didn't already have) to be able to use the old comics on their website in the ways they couldn't before.

So it's an "unfreezing" of the web site, and not the change in Larson's decision to stop regularly drawing new comics.

<comment><USER3> I agree with your prediction; for context, Larson has objected to his cartoons being posted online for decades, so this would be significant even if we're not getting new material: [https://www.comicmix.com/2008/03/07/gary-larson- and-our-far-...](https://www.comicmix.com/2008/03/07/gary-larson-and-our-far- side-cease-and-desist/) [https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101230/02545312468/dear-...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101230/02545312468/dear- gary-larson-your-kids-go-out-night-let-them-be.shtml)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "What's that mountain goat doing up here in this cloud bank?" :D</comment>