Jack Dorsey addresses Twitter's character limit - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/jack/status/684496529621557248 <comment><USER2> If you need a thousand words to say something, put it on Medium or Tumblr or any of the hundreds of other blogging and social media platforms. I dont mind a minor tweak of the char. limit, but the rumored 1000 word limit is way too much.

The beauty of Twitter is its brevity. It forces people to cut out the flab and be concise. This in turn makes the entire steam easily glanceable. Huge walls of text will take away much of what makes Twitter special.

<comment><USER3> That makes sense to you (a web user who wants to use multiple platforms, and likely already does) but not to Twitter (a business whose financial interests are best realized the longer you stay within the walled garden of their product.) Twitter doesn't want you to leave their ecosystem, so they're considering changing the boundaries of the ecosystem.

<comment><USER4> Which is all well and good, but when you take away too many of the features which make that ecosystem unique, there's less incentive to use it over anything else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Twitter is chasing growth. They are not adding this feature because the current user base demands it, they're adding it because they think they can use it to bring more people in.

<comment><USER6> exactly :/ and its the kind of move you dont come back onto, argue upon for the next 5 to 10 years which either result in:

\- twitter becomes another FB/tumblr/medium/whatever. shareholders happy, money flows better, old twitter users gone.

\- twitter slowly dies while arguing it was a good choice and writing 10k letters of excuses

Neither result interests me.

<comment><USER7> "\- twitter becomes another FB/tumblr/medium/whatever."

It's it that already? How is it different/special? Seriously most of my friends on twitter just reblog the same exact stuff they post on instagram and facebook. They all seem analogous to me at this point.

<comment><USER8> Twitter seems angrier and more prone to witchhunts than the others. Gamergate/Justine Sacco/whatever seem like they're more likely to happen when the boundary between chatting with friends and public statements is blurry.

I feel like Twitter is not going to make it because it feels very hostile to _any_ beliefs. I'd bet that it will be seen as leading to Instagram/Medium/Weibo/whatever, much the same way that the BBSs led us to HN.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "What if text was actually text?"

Imagine if you traveled back in time to the 90s and showed this to someone and said this was coming from the CEO of two multi-billion dollar 21st century companies.

<comment><USER4> I'm actually in the process of updating my quote template for my content marketing services at the moment, and looking over it again it's basically a bunch of gibberish and nonsense that wouldn't have made sense when I was growing up. Weird.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Twitter wants to be Tumblr; They want to be an amalgamation of people's content, including photos, surveys, tweets, posts, and anything else people can come up with.

I would definitely use the service more if longer text posts were allowed, but make sure you set them up as separate "entry" types. Tweets should be in large font, while text should be smaller, and maybe a different background color (and possibly filterable).

</comment><comment><USER11> Its interesting to see both responses to his tweet and the responses here. Pretty much everyone seems dead set against the idea. Personally i'm cautious about the implementation but im not against the idea. I post on FB far more than any other platform. It's not because I have more friends there. In fact I have more followers on twitter. Its simply because FB doesnt limit what I want to say. I completely get that brevity is a huge advantage. Honestly I do, but no matter how lean one is with one's words, there's only so much one can cram in. It's the only reason I dont post more to twitter. Heck i broadcast more out on Telegram than I do on twitter and i dont even have a large broadcast list. Yes, these problems _can_ be solved with a blog but that introduces a new problem of distribution. Its far easier to get a large number of people to read your text on twitter than it is on a blog, even when you have a slick platform such as Medium. There's just too much thinking involved in something like that. A blog isn't something you write while you're jumping on the bus, but an extended tweet is something you might. I know for a fact I'd tweet more even if i had just a couple hundred more characters to play with. It doesnt need to be a huge change. As i said. It all comes down to how they choose to execute. This could potentially make or break twitter.

Edit: sp/grammar

</comment><comment><USER12> Photographs of text are not searchable. Twitter needs your tweets in text so that they can target ads at you and make money. If you want twitter to succeed as a business, you'll support the increase in text length.

</comment><comment><USER13> They should auto-create a blog for you, when you create a long message (twitter.com/user/blog/), and only include the link to the blogpost in your twitter stream.

</comment><comment><USER12> Dear Twitter,

People hate change. They really do. So if you're going to make a change, do it swiftly. Just yank that bandaid off. They'll get over it when the stinging stops.

Yours,

Everyone not whining about this.

</comment><comment><USER14> What are the business advantages? It has to make business sense, right?

Bigger ads? Trap people more in the ecosystem, less outbound links, maybe?

<comment><USER4> All of the above, plus attracting new users.

Comparatively, Twitter doesn't have the same user base as Instagram, Facebook, or WhatsApp, and I think that extending the character limit is a way of making Twitter more accessible for first-time users.

It's also designed to bring more brands to Twitter. Right now it's extremely difficult to promote your brand/business, include a photo, @ mention someone, and include a hashtag. An extended character limit solves all of these problems, making it a more attractive platform for advertising than ever before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Seems like a pretty strong suggestion that they will be increasing the character limit (if only through a "show more" button).

Very telling that he used "if we decide to ship what we explore, WE'RE [emphasis added] telling developers well in advance" instead of "we would tell developers"

</comment><comment><USER16> This should have been a blog post.

<comment> steve-howard I think it's more of a tongue-in-cheek self reference. "We've spent a lot of time observing what people are doing on Twitter, and we see them taking screenshots of text and tweeting it." The spellcheck underline at the end was probably not just carelessness, though I don't follow the whims of tech royalty very carefully.

The fact that I had to tab back and forth to type up the quote drives his point home for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Most photos of text on Twitter are not original content. They're either a photo with no textual content (e.g., selfie), a photo of a twitter conversation (used as a form of archiving in case of deletion), or a photo of a physical text (used to quote a non-digital medium).

If tweet-storms are aesthetically compatible with Jack Dorsey's denim collection, and a character limit isn't meant to replace them, then I don't see how the expanded character limit is addressing an existing problem for users. It's certainly not gonna replace textual photos.

<comment><USER18> What definition of "original content" do selfies fail to meet?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Uh, what? Why would you address this almost a decade after launching? Why would you call out people who post images to get around the limitation? Seems like grasping for straws to me...

<comment><USER20> The reason to mention image posting is specifically to say that they want the UX to be like a text _attachment_ rather than just a wall of text on someone's feed. Which is a much smaller disruption to existing experience.

On that note, the fact that images are being used to show text content on Twitter right now is laughingly unfair to folks who use a screen reader, given how much we value HTML for its presentation flexibility.

<comment><USER19> Re: screen readers, this obsession with image and video on the web is infuriating. All I want to do is consume text, especially for news. Why is this so much to ask for?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> They should tier it. 140 characters for a free account. 280 characters for a cheap but paid ($) account. 1000 chars for a premium ($$$) account.

</comment><comment><USER22> Basically he is saying "we allowed pictures, but now people are taking pictures of long texts, therefore we should lift the limit." The photos were a mistake in the first place! The path for Twitter is now to become a Facebook clone, without much differentiation (and with a smaller user base).

</comment><comment><USER23> This is almost definitely _not_ going to actually allow tweets to be any longer.

My bet is that it manifests as some kind of text attachment. Just as you're currently able to attach images, video, and all sorts of random junk via 'cards', you'll now be able to attach a text post.

</comment><comment><USER24> Most of the time when I see a tweet, it's when somebody takes a screenshot and posts it in a news article. It's been years since I've logged into twitter.com to sift through garbage looking for anything useful.

</comment><comment><USER6> truth is, except for this single tweet, i just skip images-as-text. they're the minority. with the new twitter, making this a real thing, i suspect the amount of large messages will be enough that...i will skip twitter?

</comment><comment><USER25> I don't undestand since you can insert pictures people use them to post long posts so what's the point of having limited number of characters? EDIT: or you can post a link to somewhere

<comment><USER26> Did you even cared to visit the story link?

<comment><USER25> yes, saying pretty much the same I'm saying

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> It's kind of ironic Jack Dorsey used an image of text (containing several paragraphs) to explain why the 140 character limit is a "good" thing for Twitter.

<comment><USER28> It's not ironic, it's his point. The same people complaining about having more characters have been using images of text to get around the 140 character limit. Their complaining doesn't make sense.

<comment><USER29> >The same people complaining about having more characters have been using images of text to get around the 140 character limit.

Are they? This claim seems highly unlikely. Do you know of any specific critics of this new policy who have posted such images?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I guess Dorsey will finally get his revenge on Evan Williams.

<comment><USER7> I'm out of the loop, can you fill me in? Did they have a falling out?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is there room for a constrained text-only Twitter clone?</comment>


IRS believes Russians are behind tax return data breach - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/27/politics/irs-cyber-breach-russia/index.html <comment><USER2> What's behind the data breach is:

1\. A culture of woefully inadequate security over personal data.

2\. An infrastructure in which a laughably low standard of identity proof is sufficient.

3\. A lack of liability for those who either facilitate or approve fraud.

4\. A mis-labeling of impersonation fraud. It's not "identity theft". It's impersonation fraud. And those who accept transactions with insufficient proof of identity are to blame.

I'm increasingly questioning the merits of utilizing the Internet for personal transactions at all. Richard M. Stallman has had some good things to say on this, recently posted to HN.

</comment><comment><USER3> Like the North Koreans were behind the Sony hack, right? This smacks of convenient scare mongering ahead of the Patriot Act renewal.</comment>


Visualizing SSH Attacks in Video (Python and Matplotlib) - <AUTHOR> http://www.wallix.org/2012/02/29/pylogsparser-visualizing-ssh-attacks-in-video/

<comment><USER2> heh.. I was wondering towards the end, are there no hackers/script kiddies/bots from Canada? But the last couple of seconds flared up from there, cool hack.</comment>


What Makes a Story Go Viral - or how to manipulate the media - <AUTHOR> http://youtu.be/TJyma6cng1U

<comment><AUTHOR> Here's the fake video produced by Greenpeace: <http://youtu.be/NMUFci_V4mU></comment>


The ultimate guide to intermittent fasting - <AUTHOR> https://nutrita.app/the-ultimate-guide-to-intermittent-fasting/ <comment><USER2> Such an in depth guide thank you for sharing this!</comment>


You've Got Mailto: A Smarter Way to Connect with Users - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@nicklum/youve-got-mailto-a-smarter-way-to-connect-with-your-users-38d179c9355b <comment><AUTHOR> One downside of mailto links, which my dev impresses upon me because he is in this situation, is that not everyone has a designated email client on their computer, and mailto links only work in this context.

However, given how much mobile-based traffic we get, this hasn't been much of an issue for us. Mobile devices always have a designated email client, so this pretty much never comes up.</comment>


Show HN: HowDoYouPronounce.org – Made with AWS Polly - <AUTHOR> http://howdoyoupronounce.org/hacker-news <comment><USER2> My name has an ï in it - this does not seem to recognise it.

But it does seem to pronounce Aneurin Bevan (a Welshman who founded the NHS) correctly so pretty good!

There are many videoclips on Youtube but some of the pronunciations are totally inaccurate.

Very nice and clean.

</comment><comment><USER3> Well done! It's not limited to pronounce a word. You can add some words or event a sentence.

My feedback: I think you need a box for inputting words that will be pronounced. It feels not easy that adding words after the URL every time to pronounce it (do I miss something?).

I usually use website like TheFreeDictionary by Farlex [1] to listen how a word is pronounced in both American-English and British-English.

[1]: [http://www.thefreedictionary.com](http://www.thefreedictionary.com)

</comment><comment><USER4> Can't seem to pronounce 'rural'</comment>


Show HN: Semile – simpler profile and diagnose (C++) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/r-kan/semile <comment><AUTHOR> This is my REPO which created 4 months ago. Just by this weekend, I've enhanced it to be much more convenient to profile and diagnose. I hope it will be helpful to you and I am willing to hear all your comments. :)</comment>


React Native v0.4 - <AUTHOR> http://facebook.github.io/react/blog/2015/04/17/react-native-v0.4.html

<comment><USER2> For anyone who's interested, I gave a talk called "Let's build a React Native app in 20 minutes" [1] at the React Berlin meetup a couple weeks ago, where I took a little example React web app and "ported" it to React Native. It was my first time giving a talk at something like this, so it's a bit rough around the edges (and the audio quality isn't great because the primary mic's batteries went out a couple minutes in), but it might still be helpful if you're looking to jump in.

Don't forget to check out the companion Gist [2].

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ArhJiMGVDc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ArhJiMGVDc)

[2] [https://gist.github.com/peterjmag/2ef39ba5d25f3f1e0008](https://gist.github.com/peterjmag/2ef39ba5d25f3f1e0008)

<comment><USER3> Nice! added you here: [https://github.com/jondot/awesome-react- native](https://github.com/jondot/awesome-react-native) Under "Videos".

:)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> One thing that I think the HN crowd will appreciate:

* Patent Grant: Many of you had concerns and questions around the PATENTS file. We pushed a new version of the grant[1].

The updated PATENTS file is [https://github.com/facebook/osquery/blob/master/PATENTS](https://github.com/facebook/osquery/blob/master/PATENTS).

I still think it's ridiculous that people thought the previous PATENTS file was a Trojan horse with nefarious intent, but it's nice to see them making their intention unambiguous.

[1] [https://code.facebook.com/posts/1639473982937255/updating- ou...](https://code.facebook.com/posts/1639473982937255/updating-our-open- source-patent-grant/)

<comment><USER5> It doesn't matter what people thought. The complaints were coming from people at big companies with legal departments. The lawyers' job is to make sure there are no legal vulnerabilities, the same way it's your job to make sure your code doesn't contain any vulnerabilities. Intent is irrelevant.

<comment><USER2> Exactly. Looks like Google was among the companies with legal complaints: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9271331](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9271331). I wonder if the new version of the grant was enough to get them to reconsider? It'd be really interesting to see more of Google in the React community.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Join us if you are in SF, [http://www.meetup.com/SF-React-Native- Meetup/](http://www.meetup.com/SF-React-Native-Meetup/)

We just had our first meetup last night and it was awesome!!!

<comment><USER7> Thanks for posting. I just joined!

Oddly, I was searching for React Meetup groups just a couple weeks ago and the group didn't show up. (From San Francisco, search for "React"). I see that you were Founded Mar 15, 2015. I wonder if I just missed it or Meetup takes a while to index new groups.

Anyways, looking forward to the Meetups!

<comment><USER6> Thanks for joining... :)

I think it might be the latter case.

Anyway, we will probably have our next meetup coming up soon enough :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Looking forward to see how it performs on Android. Even WebViews in Cordova runs smooth on iOS.

<comment><USER9> What webviews are you talking about? Unless you instantiate one yourself[0] there's no webview in a reactnative application.

[0] [https://facebook.github.io/react- native/docs/webview.html#co...](https://facebook.github.io/react- native/docs/webview.html#content)

<comment><USER10> I think he is just saying that iOS is not proof of the native performance of react native as also cordova on iOS is smooth

<comment><USER8> Exactly, Cordova/PhoneGap works quite smooth on iOS too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm super excited about integration within existing apps.

[https://facebook.github.io/react-native/docs/embedded- app.ht...](https://facebook.github.io/react-native/docs/embedded- app.html#content)

Anyone have thoughts/comments/experience with this before I jump in and give it a whirl?

</comment><comment><USER12> I have built some basic apps like the to-do list using Swift and Objective-C but haven't built anything significant yet. I have an idea for an app I want to build in the coming weeks, but I'm unsure if I should use this as an opportunity to learn React Native or just go the Swift route and really cement my knowledge there. Can anyone who's tried both weigh in?

<comment><USER13> I'm the opposite. I've done about 2.5 months of React Native now. I'm pretty certain React Native is what you want to roll with. Anything you can do in Objective-C can be done in React Native (since you can create Native modules anywhere RN falls short). You could see MAJOR improvement in development time. I'm not a mobile developer and I tried writing a mobile app a while back - I'm completely useless. With React Native, I've made huge strides in developing a fairly complex app with a completely custom look and feel. I'm sure if I had stuck to native coding I'd either never finish, or this app would take me an order of magnitude more time to complete.

If you want an example of how awesome React Native is, go check out Apple's example app "AVCam" then take a look at the example code for my react-native- camera module on GitHub.

<comment><USER14> How do you handle the storage tier (e.g. Core Data) of your react-native apps? Do you just write native Obj-C that handles interacting with core data and integrate it w/ your react code?

<comment><USER13> Yeah that would be how you'd do it. Writing modules is dead simple too. Doing something like that would just require you making an async interface to your Obj-C Core Data manager.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I started working on a book on mobile app development with React Native, see [http://beginning-react-native.com/](http://beginning-react-native.com/) if you are interested.

</comment><comment><USER16> I am yet to start on mobile development. There is a concern in the industry about writing same app 2,3 or more times - ios, android, windows etc.

React native seems to be a step in the right direction. There are lot of options for this track besides react like ionic, phoneGap, appcelerator, telerik, meteor and there are few more.

What you recommend out of these platforms for someone who is just getting started with mobile development? Thx

<comment><USER17> react native is better compared to appcelerator titanium - their thesis is that due to the dom's limitations, hybrid apps currently can't compete with native (compare scrolling quickly in a web vs native app), so compiling to native components is the way to go

phonegap, ionic, meteor etc are in the hybrid app camp, and their take is that if your app doesn't need to have native like performance, then just write one app and deploy on multiple platform

I personally think react native is an intermediate step to the eventual goal. I'm a supporter of the open web, hopefully we'll figure out a way around dom's limitations, and hybrid apps will be able to match performance of their native counterparts.

<comment><USER18> React is pretty good, the most promising in a while, but Appcelerator still has far more API coverage on both major platforms than React, Telerik, or anyone else. Pay special attention to what kind of native integrations the app will require before choosing a framework.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I wonder what the prospects for RN for Android are looking like.

</comment><comment><USER20> Anyone working on a ReactNative cloud-based building service for linux/windows users? (ala build.phonegap.com?)

I totally want to use this, but I haven't enjoyed my previous encounters with Macs.

<comment><USER21> If you write most of your code in JS, you technically don't even need to build this on a Mac. For development, you could get away with just updating the bundle and re-signing the app locally.</comment></comment>


Belt.io - <AUTHOR> https://belt.io

<comment><USER2> Would be nice to see an about page to begin with, rather than just a login screen. I shouldn't have to then search for the about link and squint at the about text. Could do better.

</comment><comment><USER3> From the pitch it sounds like a Droplr or CloudApp competitor

</comment><comment><USER4> Interesting.</comment>


Lessons Learned Scaling Airbnb - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@jgolden/lessons-learned-scaling-airbnb-100x-b862364fb3a7 <comment><USER2> I'm feeling #4 especially, working at a larger tech company

> 4\. When it comes to edge cases, understand your tipping point (because > they'll bury you at scale!).

Definitely for smaller startups, edge cases can be a distraction, but at scale, edge cases can blow up in your face. I remember going through product reviews and being frustrated by folks hammering me on edge cases. I realized though, that these experienced folks knew what it meant to get burned by the 1% case at scale. Great that Jonathan Golden caveated this with the scale point.</comment>


Black Ink beta, we need your feedback - <AUTHOR>

Hi, I'm Géraldine, co-founder of Bleank, an independent development studio. For the past two years we've been working on a generative art oriented painting program, Black Ink. The development is self-funded and we really need feedback, ideas and support from the community.
We're still in beta but we already have a lot of very innovative features you won't find in other digital painting solutions. And just last week, we released a very exciting new feature that allows you to customize your brushes in any way you like.
We need as much feedback as possible so if you'd like to give Black Ink a try, there is a free demo version waiting for you on our website: http://www.bleank.com/BlackInk-a115.html
For more details about the new version I'm also posting our latest press release: http://forum.bleank.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=43
Thank you. Géraldine. <comment><USER2> Looks great but Windows only is pretty short sighted when the generative artwork community is mostly mac orientated, just check out <http://www.creativeapplications.net>

<comment><AUTHOR> I know but we are a really small team with our own code for UI behavior & rendering. A Mac port will come but we have to finish the windows version first. ‒ᴥ‒</comment></comment>


Wetware computer - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wetware_computer <comment><USER2> Does this actually exist somewhere, or is just someone's crazy idea that they've never proven?

<comment><USER3> There have been some rudimentary prototypes built, but that's about it. Some are capable of very simple tasks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> When I heard them talk about "wetware" on west world i thought they were just making it up.

</comment><comment><USER5> I feel like there has to be a better link for this. A paper somewhere?

<comment><USER6> A bit of googling can get you a publication history of the researcher mentioned as pioneering the field: [https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=q0n-slAAAAAJ...](https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=q0n-slAAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate) . From a glance, there aren't any actual biological engineering papers here. And he's a physicist, not a biologist.

So, I suspect that there aren't papers on it because no one is actually doing it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> What is this a new hybrid hype based on Frankenstein and NN?</comment>


Ask HN: Save Facebook discussions board - <AUTHOR>

As you may know Facebook will close its discussion boards on the 31st of October ( https://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=254646391237470 ).
We wrote a simple tool to save content from your discussion board. At the output you get structured xml file. Then you can programmatically integrate it into your website, forum, facebook wall(manually) or anywhere you want.
Our application home page: http://apps.facebook.com/discussions_parser/
What will be your thoughts on this? Could it be really helpful? What will you suggest to change in the service? <comment><AUTHOR> any thoughts/reviews? Thanks.</comment>


Paul Davies: "The Demon in the Machine" – Talks at Google - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=favrMbfi1Pw <comment><USER2> The book:

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07YRL1GK6/](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07YRL1GK6/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Absolutely amazing perspective. A fun dive into the fundamentals of life (DNA, Epigenetics), computing (Turing, Von Neumann), and quantum biology.

Couldn't help but think of SICP's eval/apply and the dual nature of code and data.</comment>


Microsoft creates 5000-person AI division - <AUTHOR> http://news.microsoft.com/2016/09/29/microsoft-expands-artificial-intelligence-ai-efforts-with-creation-of-new-microsoft-ai-and-research-group/#sm.00000dc4b2waghefhrxcgap7egc9c <comment><USER2> The link title is misleading. MS will not have 5k people working on AI. They merged their MS Research and their AI engineering team. It's not like they are going to drop all the other research they are doing to focus solely on AI. The new org is called the AI and Research Group. This is just a reorganization to democratize some of the resources available within MS.

<comment><USER3> I don't understand how that's not the same. Ok, they are not hiring 5000 new people, but the end result is the same.

<comment><USER4> there are people who research things besides AI

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This seems good strategy. I am no expert, but AFAIK Microsoft research division is maybe (the) most advanced and most achieved research division in whole industry. Just look at people with H-Index more than 30 who works in Microsoft research.

<comment><USER6> I wouldn't be surprised, they are very happy to pay smart people to work part time on their favorite problems (Simon Peyton Jones for example)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Remember when we missed 'The Internet' ... let's not miss 'AI'

</comment><comment><USER8> Microsoft is going in right direction. New CEO seems to know what he is doing.

</comment><comment><USER9> That's scary. The world is rushing full speed towards AGI. Yet few are working on or care about the hard problem of actually controlling AGI.

</comment><comment><USER10> So Microsoft finally will be able to implement Clippy properly :-)

<comment><USER11> Clippy is pretty interesting because they had a good product, and then removed a bunch of features which turned it into a sucky awful product.

[http://robotzeitgeist.com/tag/bayesian-inference- engine](http://robotzeitgeist.com/tag/bayesian-inference-engine)

<comment><USER10> Sure, that was the intention of the pun ;-)</comment></comment></comment>


Is your old computer costing you more than you think? - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/computing/97763-is-your-old-computer-costing-you-more-than-you-think

<comment><USER2> I have not yet found a circumstance when its more economical to re-purpose an old desktop rather than buy a $200 netbook at walmart. Electricity is cheap here, but it still works out to more than a buck a watt-year.

I'm even to the point where I cast a suspicious eye on 20 watt IDE drives vs just buying a new 3 watt laptop drive and an adapter and tossing the old drive.

A netbook with a pair of 1TB shirt-pocket USB drives that acts as my server here uses just 18 watts when the drives are spinning, 11 when they spin down.

Even if the old dell desktop is free, buying the netbook is cheaper for a single year of use. Sometimes, you can't afford stuff thats free.</comment>


Clambook - <AUTHOR> http://clamcase.com/clambook-android-and-iphone-laptop-dock.html

<comment><USER2> They announced this back in June 2012. Still no word on when it'll actually ship.

[http://www.gizmag.com/clamcase-clambook-android-iphone- lapto...](http://www.gizmag.com/clamcase-clambook-android-iphone-laptop- dock/22889/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I had a Clamcase Pro for about a year. Its the only keyboard case that isn't terrible.

When mine broke it was because of my own negligence, but if anyone buys one of these, keep in mind that the company only offers a 90 day warranty, which is very short for a $150 keyboard. This new product is probably going to cost at least $100 more.

Clamcase has a reputation online for refusing to support their products outside of this window, even though some of their products are known to fail all of a sudden for no reason.

<comment><USER4> If they sell to Australians, they're going to have to support it for longer than that, at least for australian customers. Our consumer protection laws include an implied warranty with every product sold, and it covers a 'reasonable' period after the product is bought (for example, Apple's 1 year standard warranty is really at least two years in australia, because being a premium product means users expect it to work for at least that long)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I was doing some research on the various accessories available to utilize an Android as a single device. During this, I was highly intrigued by the Samsung Smartdock, but suddenly, came across this device. It seems it was announced last year, but my hopes is that it is still going to be released.

</comment><comment><USER5> These things have been extremely unsuccessful in the past. . . I remember when they were liquidating these guys for ~$50:

[http://www.motorola.com/us/Lapdock%E2%84%A2-for--MOTOROLA- AT...](http://www.motorola.com/us/Lapdock%E2%84%A2-for--MOTOROLA- ATRIX%E2%84%A2-4G---EOL/72180.html)

All I can say about them is they make good raspberry pi docks.

</comment><comment><USER6> I find it curious that the "laptop" rendered is basically a macbook air of sorts. Is there no originality these days?

<comment><USER7> Excusing the originality inherent in the idea of a laptop form factor "phone extension" device that plugs into your phone via MHL, of course.

What would you have it look like? Thinner? Thicker? Less metal? More metal? Disband the thought that somebody make a small metallic clamshell with a screen and a keyboard - they're ripping off Apple!

<comment><USER8> Are you seriously claiming that you are not seeing the 'inspiration' with Apple's products?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> How does this interact with iOS? I feel like that sort of thing is off-limits.

</comment><comment><USER10> This might actually make me want to run a full-blown linux distro rather than android on my phone!

<comment><USER11> You can run linux distros in a chroot on your android device today [http://linuxonandroid.org/](http://linuxonandroid.org/)

The work on porting Docker to the ARM based Raspberry Pi might enable an even better Android linux experience in the future [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6724222](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6724222)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This looks lovely.

Are they aware of the number of people who'd want one of these for RPi?

<comment><USER13> I would just love a 3"-4" touchscreen for my RPi, but that seems impossible to find.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Hope they release this but seems to be an old announcement. I don't really need a faster cpu/gpu than my phone has for almost everything I do. But without a keyboard I'm lost for productivity.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree. Especially, with devices like the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, there is little reason not to carry one single device.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> So this is supposed to be a laptop accessory for your smartphone?

</comment><comment><USER16> How is this different from the Atrix or the Transformer?

<comment><USER17> This is supposed to be compatible with all Ice Cream Sandwich phones and iPhones, rather than only one model.

This looks great, I can't wait to see some real footage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I thought this was some sort of parody.

A fake ad that pretends a laptop is just an external screen and keyboard accessory for your smartphone.

</comment><comment><USER19> Their wording on that third slide threw me off. I thought that the actual data connection between the Clambook and the phone was done over 4G.

</comment><comment><USER20> Is it just me or does the logo use the same font face that Facebook does?

<comment><USER21> Well, they sure want Facebook likes, they are offering $20 off if I "LIKE" them.

Personally though, I'm not really interested in any company that is going to charge me a $20 penalty for not joining Facebook and "like"-ing them.

<comment><USER22> They _aren 't_ penalizing you, think of it as a very generous referral bonus where if you can prove you shared it they offer you a discount even if none of your friends click through.

Nobody is _forcing_ them to give anybody a discount, it's seriously just a nice gesture, nothing to be cynical about.</comment></comment></comment>


Why Millennials Aren't Buying Homes - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/utopiapress/why-millennials-arent-buying-homes-10696a264f15 <comment><USER2> Because they can't get from under student debt. Also property values in the bigger cities have skyrocketed. Rents have also skyrocketed. Really hard to get ahead when things like this are a factor.

Notice I didn't even mention wages for non-stem workers.</comment>


An unexpected benefit of HN's noprocrast option - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jgc.org/2010/08/unexpected-benefit-of-hns-noprocrast.html

<comment><AUTHOR> BTW I'm unlikely to be able to take part in any conversation stemming from this post as noprocrast is going to kick in shortly :-)</comment>


Building a walkie-talkie for remote work - <AUTHOR> https://pragli.com/blog/building-a-walkie-talkie-for-remote-work/ <comment><USER3> > quick, synchronous audio/video communication between teammates

..."kill it with fire" or other equivalent meme is the proper response to this, no matter how wonderfully it is executed.

Really, what everyone needs is more _asynchronous communication_ and _less attention draining_ and _less interruptions!_ This can only help _very small_ teams of extroverts with very-very-similar personalities work, it brings HELL for everyone else! And creates a homogenous bubble by locking people with different personalities out of the loop because they can't stand being in it.

 _We should put more time into bringing to the future ASYNCHRONOUS communication tools that WORK FINE, like email, comments in project- management-systems (eg. in Trello, Asana etc.)... we need more and better of these! (And without compromising them by adding push-notification and crap that makes them synchronous and attention grabbing.)_

<comment><USER4> I'm not an extrovert and I'd like this for people asking me questions.

Want to disturb me for 2 minutes and ruin my concentration losing me half an hour? If it's going to save you your afternoon - just do it. If you're probably going to send me a message on slack or call me there anyway I'd find this a lot less annoying. My goal should never be to get through the most work _myself_ it's to move the company forwards. Having someone wait until tomorrow to get their job done because I haven't _manually gone and checked my emails_ is a waste of company time.

Each to their own, and I don't think everyone would want to use something like this, but don't assume that it's only small teams and very similar extroverts that could benefit.

<comment><USER5> > If it's going to save you your afternoon - just do it.

That's the thing, will it actually be used like that? This feel so casual that it doesn't feel like it has to be used in urgent matter only.

I guess the important thing isn't about the tools but mostly about the training the user got around the tools. It's important to show what each one is used for and in which context. It's so easy to just believe something is more urgent than it is.

<comment><USER4> I think the key thing is that tools won't _make_ people good at communicating. That needs to happen as either a life lessons or job training.

Something tooling can do though is help give cues. If I'm wearing headphones in an office frowning at the screen that's likely to change how people come up to me compared to if I'm clearly having a break. When remote those aren't around so you can't tell if I'm knee deep in diagrams and code or (say) hitting unsubscribe from as many emails as I can. Making those things clear to others is something tooling can improve on - but there's not much that can stop people contacting you if they're determined.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have worked remotely for 10 years and raised VC funding for an idea very similar to this in the past – we failed to build a sustainable business, although the product did have a couple of hundred teams that swore by the product.

In hindsight I believe it's because we were following the startup mythology of "building a solution for the problem that you have" a little too closely. We failed to realize that this is really a problem that only small startup teams (usually a group of founders) have, as they need to keep in constant sync. It doesn't really scale past that. As soon as you have any sort of mixture of roles, personalities, or start to grow the team this is a communication method that just inherently doesn't scale well.

I do believe there is something here for small groups of founders/friends though, good luck!

<comment><USER7> Oh, you built Sqwiggle! A couple of friends and I used to work together remotely and we used it every day. It was awesome -- just the right balance between being unobtrusive yet easy to have a quick discussion when needed. We loved it so much, we even made a (much less-polished) clone after you shut down so we could continue with the same workflow.

<comment><USER8> I think many to one eventually becomes the real challenge. IOW how to get the message to the lowest ranking person able to deal with the issue depending on its content.

<comment><USER9> I think it's still fine. My experience with many-to-many conversation is that there is always someone whose computer is configured in such a way that it causes everyone's speech to echo and makes it difficult to understand. With a walkie-talkie approach, you bypass this problem entirely.

I think probably the commenter's startup failed because of competition from big hyped, well funded players like Slack. Maybe when the hype settles, they would have a chance. Timing is everything.

Only a handful of lucky few who are well connected don't have to worry about competitors, everyone else needs to assume a competitive landscape full of noise and misinformation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> My business partner and I have been working remotely with each other for the last 5 years, after a previous 7 years in a shared office.

To make it work, we bought dedicated iPads and put them on stands next to our computer monitors on our desks. We start a FaceTime call at the beginning of each day and literally leave it running all day. We mute when not actively talking, so we can listen to music (and not listen to the other's keyboard noises).

It is amazing. We always can see if the other one is present and/or busy on a phone call. If I want to talk, I just unmute myself and start talking. It is surprisingly similar to being in the same room as someone, without having to agree on the playlist.

Obviously, this particular setup doesn't scale to larger teams, and it does rely heavily on the very high quality and reliability of the audio and video of FaceTime. But I'd recommend it highly for those in the same situation. Made the cross-country move possible without destroying the business.

The dedicated device is key, so that it is always visible and doesn't take CPU or screen real estate on your actual computer. And I can't emphasize enough the importance of the high quality audio in FaceTime. We tried Squiggle back in the day and the audio/video were just not good enough (and the freeze frames were unflattering and distracting in a way that silent video is not, strangely). It would be nice to unmute both sides at once, but FaceTime is obviously not going to add that feature.

We thought about trying to make a product out of our insights/experiences but concluded that it would be a bit like re-implementing MS Word to fix the find dialog (if anyone remembers that issue back in the day).

<comment><USER11> That would require a very special, intimate relationship with someone to work. There is no way I could have a random coworker/boss' mug staring at me all day to my left. I wouldn't even want that with my wife/girlfriend.

<comment><USER10> Do you have a private office at work? It is like sitting in the same pod as a teammate.

But I agree you wouldn't want it with a wife and girlfriend. Could get awkward with them both there.

<comment><USER12> >Do you have a private office at work? It is like sitting in the same pod as a teammate.

And therein lies the problem: we should all have a private office wherever we work, preferably without crappy lighting and with suitable heat / cold temps and a comfortable chair and so forth. Instead we get open offices with the guy three feet away feasting away on his boogers all day and the guy next to us whose headphones leak noise everywhere.

This is such an issue for me that it is one of the top five reasons why I went freelance - so that I can work in enjoyable professional settings with good hardware.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As a remote worker (and as someone who prefers remote work) I feel like this is attempting to recreate the feeling of stopping by someone's desk in an office. If that's what you want to recreate, I think this is an interesting approach, but I've always felt that remote workers do so specifically because they prefer not having in-office distractions. (Assuming those working remotely prefer to do so of course. I realize that's not always the case.)

<comment><USER14> > I've always felt that remote workers do so specifically because they prefer > not having in-office distractions

Some, probably, but I miss that specific aspect about being in an office. I like that I can temperature and sound control my office, and be somewhere super sunny and cheap when the office is gloomy and expensive. I quite like this idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've worked remote with a small team by having image of me on a monitor. I heard what was talked around the monitor and could push-to-talk comment back.

It didn't feel distracting the way receiving a phone call while being remote felt. It's clunky enough that people didn't come up unless they had to and I still could keep up with the verbal information that was passed along with the office gossip.

Some people get really bothered about this idea and probably if you are working on independent tasks you don't need to be so connected. For tight teamwork I found it to be the least bad option.

<comment><USER16> This is very common in some industries to have always-on two-way screens connected to workers in another office. A company called Tandberg was the main maker of them. It's owned by Cisco now but everyone still calls them Tandbergs.

Typically you would have one at the end of a row of desks to "extend" that row to another row physically located in another office and vice versa

<comment> jon-wood I love Atlassian's implementation of this[1] where they installed "portals" around their offices, connected to a counterpart in another office - if you want to chat to someone you can walk over to the relevant portal and do so, but because they're always on and in public places they also facilitate the sort of spontaneous conversations you get when you bump into someone in the kitchen while making a cup of coffee.

[1] [https://www.atlassian.com/blog/archives/developer-lives- save...](https://www.atlassian.com/blog/archives/developer-lives-saved-with- portal-device)

<comment><AUTHOR> Genuinely curious: do people actually use these at Atlassian? In college we had a portal to another college that looked very similar, and it was never used.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> So it removes one of the biggest benefits of remote work, ability to concentrate?

<comment><USER18> We use Pragli, and I feel like it's the opposite. Rather than a Slack back and forth to see if someone is available, setting up a video conference, connecting, etc, you can pop in and say "hey, you have a minute?". They can say "no" or "can you come back in 10?". It's like stopping by someone's desk. If they really wanted to be heads down they can be in do not disturb mode. They can still show as online (so their presence can be "felt"), but have a status that says "Focusing" and block "calls". I think it's great.

<comment><USER19> >They can say "no" or "can you come back in 10?"

By then, the damage to concentration has already been made. Yes, you can set your status to "do not disturb". But you have to remember to do that.

<comment><USER18> Sure, it's still an interruption, but I don't think it's completely derailing. That's why I compared it to stopping by someone's desk. It still requires both parties to be responsible and aware.

<comment><USER20> Stopping by someone's desk is derailing, FWIW. I frequently find myself losing 30+ minutes before getting flow back from a 2 minute interruption.

<comment><USER17> One interruption an hour is enough to result in me not being able to get anything done for the whole day...

Actually, I'm starting to think I lost ability to concentrate because of that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I have a friend who uses an always on audio for his entirely remote team and swears by it. I think it might depend on personality types. I'm willing to admit it does work for some teams even if my own initial reaction is "no way!"

<comment><USER22> I LOVE having always on push to talk audio like mumble or discord. If you want to focus just log off. If you want to chat with the group jump in. Want to have a side convo without screen share? Pop to another channel.

Mumble (speex codec) is great quality and low latency. Just has a poor UI / UX.

<comment><USER23> I'm trying to convince my team to adopt a opt-in, voice only watercooler like that for some time, without success so far.

I makes a lot of sense to me, who have been doing this for over a decade with my friends.

Are you busy, don't join / mute yourself / go to the afk channel.

Are you waiting for a long build, just reading HN, between tasks? Join the channel and people can bond and talk about work/life.

<comment><USER24> So essentially a conference call that lasts all day, every day? I can see why your team did not approve.

<comment><USER22> I think that's a gross oversimplification.

If you happen to check your replies I'm genuinely interested:

\- do you work remote?

\- if so, do you choose remote for solitude?

\- if not- do you consider face to face interactions with your colleagues not as good a use of your time?

Again, genuinely interested because the full remote teams I've worked with that have voice comms at the ready have a lot less misunderstandings and the barrier to conversation is much lower than having to make a zoom / slack call.

<comment><USER24> I don't work remotely anymore. It's not that I think it's a bad idea. I think if a team isn't used to that level of communication, it makes for there to be some pushback.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm pretty sure we don't actually need any remote specific tools. The last thing I want is random coworkers suddenly speaking in my headphones.

<comment><USER18> You can opt-out of the click to connect type of calls by setting the option in your status.

<comment><USER26> Opting out isn't free, though.

It's a social signal and one that, potentially, brings with it additional stress as you're actively opting out of something your colleagues/superiors believe is good enough an idea that they've implemented it.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a good point. If the manager is going to implement Pragli, they need to make it very clear that opting out is very OK and even encouraged... we need to do a better job of making this feel socially OK in the app.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Maybe it's just me, but I prefer to not have voice conversations unless absolutely necessary. A service like this would be stressful, because I'd probably be the only one to stick to his guns and keep do not disturb mode on at all times.

</comment><comment><USER28> I love the idea of taking well understood analog concepts and applying them to the digital remote workplace, but man, forced sync calls coming in on a whim without my control to ignore them sounds like my absolute worst nightmare.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you haven't already, take a look at the section "Solving Distraction: Presence + Statuses + Calendar" in the article - I dive into our attempt to solve this problem.

Do you think our solution is insufficient? If so, any ideas on how we could further solve it?

<comment><USER29> I think having to clutter my work calendar with "I'm working" entries is a pretty clumsy way of signaling that I don't want people to randomly speak over Beethoven in my headphones. I my company introduced this, I would invariably "forget" to start the software at all, or would leave it on DND status permanently.

Personally I just don't see the benefit over a chat message saying "time for a quick call about <topic>? <zoom link>".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Its good until it becomes aware that you can use it to silently judge how productive you think other people are being, which then changes the way you work totally. Major benefiet of remote work is that you can work at a reasonable pace without being monitored constantly, and end up producing more because you are working at a pace thats more natural for creative work.

<comment><USER18> I think this is a cultural issue. You could say the same about JIRA. I've been on teams that have used it to closely track developer productivity and micromanage. In contrast, I've been on healthier teams that just use it how it works best for them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> It would be easy to describe pragli as a conference call that never ends, but I'm not sure thats fair. Its one of various forms of telepresence, like a video wall or telepresence robot. If text messaging has taught us anything is that a chatroom is the right amount of distraction most of the time - <USER2> the VR workplace apps come (soon).

</comment><comment><USER32> This seems like something I'd hate. I can at this point triage slack messages without interrupting my flow. Notifications can be trivially ignored or put on hold for 30 seconds or a minute. That's enough time for me to "save" my current mental context and text requires little brain power to triage so I don't lose my saved state for a non-urgent message. Voice is different, suddenly going from quiet to someone talking in my ear will grab my attention. I have to instantly drop my mental context and understand what they're saying. And it involves all the social parts of my brain which again kills my analytical context.

</comment><comment><USER33> This is an even more egregious violation of someone's attention than IM.

We tried to use mumble on one team with push-to-talk and it only lasted a few hours.

<comment><USER34> I grew up with IM and distributed teams online, and am very comfortable with it. It's my platonic ideal for remote/distributed communication... _until_ expectations around response times are put into place.

If I can receive a message, respond to it four hours or a day later, and receive a phone call for anything more urgent than that, I'm happy to use IM platforms for collaboration.

<comment><USER35> You just described email.

<comment><USER34> No, because I can _also_ communicate in real time over IM.

Additionally the social protocols are different. An email requires (some level of) planning and completeness. An IM can include just one question without reams of context, or it can involve a long detailed back-and-forth.

Questions over IM can be resolved in minutes or hours. Questions over email somehow morph into hideous monstrosities that waste days without anyone being satisfied with the answers.

And of course your mileage may vary, different organizations are different, etc...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Meh... synchronous communication is almost always worse than async communication in terms of efficiency, for example as the burden of thinking time of both sides has to get carried by both sides of the communication.

</comment><comment><USER36> Seems like a Mumble server accomplishes the same thing. You can get general channels with an open mic or push-to-talk, and you can also do open mic or push-to-talk with individuals. Mumble is free and open source and runs on a toaster-quality cloud instance with CD quality audio and no latency.

Kudos for someone doing the IRC->Slack but for voice chat/Mumble.

</comment><comment><USER8> Gave me a funny idea (its terrible I know) point a web cam at each remote worker (you) then give the boss a traditional remote control with all 20 "TV" channels. If the boss is looking an indicator light goes on and you get to have a one way conversation with the boss in listen only mode. (extra points for steampunk design TV/RC)

</comment><comment><USER37> Never in my life have I wanted to use a walkie talkie in an office.

I've used walkie talkies a fair bit on construction sites and industrial plants, and there the value is obvious. Walkie talkies are a broadcast mechanism - everyone stays on the public channel, and you don't squelch unless you have something urgent to say.

</comment><comment><USER38> On the face of it, it looks like Voice IM, with that I'm trying to figure out who needs this product or why its better than other options?

I don't understand where this fits in the hierarchy of human bandwidth (From Lowest to Highest):

Text Message

IRC/IM/Teams/et al

E-Mail

Phone Call/Conference Call

Video Conference

Face to Face meetings

<comment><USER39> From experience it's between irc and having an office mate. I've only done it with an always on videolink which is different from this.

The problem I see is that this seems to mean you need to learn radio dicipline which is hard, compared to having a video link constantly broadcasting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Back in the 90s I once worked at an office that had a phone system with no ringer. You'd dial the extension and just start talking. Or you could "ring" them by saying something like "hey Jeff!"

As a new guy in that office, never having met "Jeff" before, this was really difficult for my introverted self to get used to. I was glad when I finished the trip and flew back to the home office where phones worked like phones.

This seems a bit like that, but with at least the ability to set some boundaries around who could start talking to you. If my current team adopted this I bet I'd spend my whole day in "focusing, don't interrupt me" mode.

</comment><comment><USER41> This sounds horrifying. Why make it even easier for people to disrupt you?

</comment><comment><USER42> Oh... I was a little disappointed that this wasn't literally about walkie- talkies or a comparable technology, but rather some centralized internet- dependent computer software :(

</comment><comment><USER43> Eh. Slack and other chat programs are just as fine, and would enable less distractions.

Don't get me wrong, this is still a good idea. As a remote worker, I would not go for this solution. I already use slack, and google calendars.

IMO I don't need more than that. And I think your solution is convenience oriented. Nothing wrong with that of course, people pay for convenience.

This seems more suitable for companies / employees that are semi-remote. I don't think people who are fully remote would be for this.

</comment><comment><USER44> We've been using Pragli for a few weeks. The team loves it! We used Sococo and Tandem in the past and this is the first presence app that is really being used.

Great job guys!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Both AT&T and Sprint (which acquired Nextel) still offer push to talk services. But they're not big sellers any more. What happened with that?

</comment><comment><USER46> It's not the same, but I'm using Zello (IP walkie-talkie basically) with my wife and it is very convenient. For example when we are in a shop or have to quickly sync on something, especially if you have children. I imagine it could be quite helpful for remote work, but it depends on many factors, work time is one of them.

</comment><comment><USER47> Synchronous communication is killing productivity for remote users.

Another completely different model is async communication using videos. [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/devtendo/id1488872267?ls=1&mt=...](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/devtendo/id1488872267?ls=1&mt=12)

</comment><comment><USER48> Not new. This existed a long time ago. It was called Nextel. Was hugely popular with contractors and in construction trades.

</comment><comment><USER49> I really like the calendar feature, I feel like (if it's used appropriately) it might encourage legitimate conversation.

</comment><comment><USER50> While I don't think Walkie-Talkie metaphor works for remote teams in general due to becoming an open invite to interruption, it may work for teams that need to work in _tight collaboration_ , like in rapid emergency response and battle management even when everyone is in the same building.

<comment><USER19> Why not just set up a conf bridge for something like that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> It would be interesting to have an independent study of the system, perhaps qualitative. Reading the other comments, not everyone is convinced by the idea and having scientific data may help. If the data hurts, that's life.

</comment><comment><USER52> Surprised no one's mentioned Relay PTT devices. [https://relaypro.com](https://relaypro.com) Looks like a lot of businesses are using them to replace radios now.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Quick note from the author: Pragli has a feature that is inspired by a walkie- talkie. Pragli itself is not just an online walkie-talkie. Check out our homepage if you want to learn more about Pragli (pragli.com)

<comment> _-___________-_ May I suggest that "Building a walkie-talkie for remote work" might not be a good way to market it then?

As a remote worker for more than 10 years, the horror of the idea almost stopped me even clicking the link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Is it just me or is the pragli.com website doing some heavy computations to everyone ?

I connected via Firefox on Linux and my CPU temperature skyrocketed to 81C almost immediately.

Note: Not this blog page, the main landing page itself.

<comment><USER54> Can confirm, eats up all 8 cores. Seems to be a script from firebasestorage.googleapis.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Related (2 days ago) about pragli.com QA:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22111178](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22111178)

</comment><comment><USER56> We actually built a "walkie-talkie mode" in Cyph (cyph.com) for a lot of the same reasons. Interesting to know that other people are thinking about this!

</comment><comment><USER57> Culture is the biggest impediment to progress. Radio predates IRC by a 100 years. It's like most people DID NOT LEARN TO READ.

</comment><comment><USER58> what's the benefit of this compared to a chat/slack request for a phone/videoconference call?

<comment><USER13> Not trying to be snarky, but did you read the article or did you skim it? The author explains the reasoning behind the walkie-talkie approach versus a phone call.

<comment><USER59> he does but I am not sold on the benefits. A slack message "can we talk, call me" would be async and non-distracting (just turn off slack alerts when you want to focus). Using an online call rather than on/off (like a walkie talkie) then seems much of a muchness.

<comment><USER60> Yes, and setting your status to "in a meeting", "away", "code sprint", etc. is helpful. These are things that could be automated, I'd consider that a better approach to the problem.

Let people know subtly you don't want to be disturbed unless it's important, otherwise you will be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> "Marco Polo" is a pretty bad ass app for this...

</comment><comment><USER62> Reminds me of the book The Joy of UX

</comment><comment><USER63> Congratulations, you just invented Skype for Business ;)

</comment><comment><USER64> We have a lot of fun with this walkie-talkie

[https://cb.virtualairwaves.com/channel/1](https://cb.virtualairwaves.com/channel/1)

WebRTC Push to talk. It "just works" in most desktop browsers. No login, no registration. You can make private channels and there's several public ones. There's an iOS and Android client, too.

We really like the "push to talk" model. You can leave the client up and quickly say something to everyone else in your group. Especially good for non- critial, time sensitive things (i.e., "Y'all want to get lunch?") that are still important for a sense of "team"

<comment><USER65> Agreed. I like Walkie Talkies -- both real ones, and virtual ones. Push-To- Talk is a great way to communicate, and deserves to come back! It was very popular in the 70s, and remains useful among "hams" and people who work on movie sets, construction sites, etc.</comment></comment>


The End Is Near for 3.2 Beer - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/2019/04/05/709515770/the-end-is-near-for-3-2-beer <comment><USER2> Bye bye and good riddance to "near beer." Celebrate with cold bubbly IPA, or perhaps a stout.

<comment><AUTHOR> 6% is still pretty limiting for beer enthusiasts. Shortly after I moved to NC the state lifted its 6% cap to 15% and the explosion of breweries and beer available since then has been insane.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Mute.vc – Mute Investors on Twitter - <AUTHOR> https://mute.vc/ <comment><USER2> To be honest, I don't really understand this meme of investors on twitter being universally bad or something one would want to mute out.

A well known investor on twitter actually did the 'follow, wait for follow back, then after some time unfollow' thing on me recently. When people do this, as a rule I unfollow them again when I notice, but for this person I actually didn't because they genuinely tweet interesting and useful things that I appreciate having in my feed!

<comment><USER3> They're not all bad, far from it. But sometimes a few actors poisons the well of a whole label (ehm, shark tank), causing some people to have an allergic reaction to the whole class (even if it isn't true that all of them are bad).

<comment><USER4> I don't understand the allergy mechanism, though. Can't you just... mute the bad actors? I can't grasp the frame of mind where I'd need to preemptively mute people who are (believed by some guy known only as "Tom" to be) shallow VCs.

<comment><USER3> I mean the boring answer is that people have patience and energy constraints. They arbitrarily ignore the whole group because VC isn't adjacent enough to their life goals, or something, to warrant the energy necessary to pick out the patience-stealers from the insight-givers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Showing some example of particularly egregious thought leadership and maybe an animation of it being silenced would go a long way towards helping. I blocked twitter.com in a hosts file, so I can't see if it embeds any tweets.

<comment><USER6> I'm curious how you managed to block twitter? Somehow when I add twitter.com to my /etc/hosts it doesn't seem to have any effect.

<comment><USER5> I used [https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/a...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/alternates/fakenews- gambling-social/hosts).

Check the bottom of the list for the social ones.

Edit: [https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts](https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts) repo link.

<comment><USER7> Any community-driven blocklist is bound to be infiltrated by bigots, no thanks. I _just_ watched a Project Veritas (which is in this blocklist)exposé of a Bernie staffer saying "Gulags were a lot better than the CIA has told us".

<comment><USER8> It probably is, unlike nazi death camps, gulag prisoner behave more like city dwellers in the middle of Siberia. There were no fences because of you leave the camp/city there's almost 0 chance to survive. Condition were brutal during Stalin years, primarily due to lack of food. A number of cities started as gulags/incorporated gulags still exist in Siberia/Arctic.

If you picture a camp with fences and prison guards, yeah that's wrong.

If you think I'm defending gulags, note that all of what I've said are objective and can be factually proven/disproved. If you feel that way, you probably should investigate your own bias (i.e does my feeling preclude me from believing in facts?)

<comment><USER7> It is not hard to be better than a concentration camp, there is a huge range of bad above the nazi camp level. I read Gulag Archipelago, so yes I might have a bias.

> gulag prisoner behave more like city dwellers

I don't even know what to make of this

> A number of cities started as gulags/incorporated gulags still exist in > Siberia/Arctic

The ones exploring natural resources would be my guess, first with forced labor, then as a normal economy after this.

> If you think I'm defending gulags

It does sound like it, you even put a disclaimer

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It would be nice if it mentioned how it works as well as who it will be affecting.

Is it unfollowing these people, is it muting them, etc?

Clicking "continue with twitter" asks for a lot of stuff including "Mute, block, and report accounts for you.", "Follow and unfollow accounts for you.", and "Post and delete Tweets for you".

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. Show, not tell.

Once you log in, you can see a bunch of accounts and either mute/unmute one- by-one or in bulk.

Twitter doesn't give very many options for developers (read, read/write, read/write/dms). So unfortunately in order to POST to /mutes, the app gets access to more than it needs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Needs a bunch of high-profile logos (of people you're muting) after the three- horizontal-blurbs part.

</comment><comment><USER11> Feature request: Mute.politics please.

<comment><USER3> Isn't everything politics in some form or another?

<comment><USER12> Only if you have a terrible worldview.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Looks like the list of investors is here: [https://www.twitter.com/tomfme/lists/investors](https://www.twitter.com/tomfme/lists/investors).

The Twitter list you use is configurable.

My one thought is you could probably move the usernames over to a file you could version control with the idea of accepting PRs.

<comment><AUTHOR> Someone found the list!

Great idea - thought about doing it, but was out of scope for a holiday hack because of Twitter's rate limiting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Great idea. Would love to see some examples of the muted content.

</comment><comment><USER15> Is there something this does that I can't do with Twitter OOTB? Seems like an odd problem to resolve. Maybe I don't use Twitter enough.

<comment><AUTHOR> not really other than bulk mute/unmute.

was a gimmicky hack i threw together over the holiday so i could turn on/off vc twitter easily.

<comment><USER15> What tech stack are you using for this?

Edit nvm found it at the footer:

[https://github.com/tmm/mute.vc](https://github.com/tmm/mute.vc)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Why not just use a block list[0]?

[0] [https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/a/2015/sharing-block-lists- to...](https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/a/2015/sharing-block-lists-to-help-make- twitter-safer.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> if you mute someone, you can still go to their profile and see their tweets.

blocking is more extreme - neither user can view each other's content (says you are blocked by @username).

<comment><USER17> I block a ton and you can still see their profile. It just says they're blocked though with a button to view.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Seems odd to include Ryan Hoover and Niv Dror.

Ryan Hoover is generally pretty innocuous and is also the founder of ProductHunt, something builders might want to hear about. And ShrugCap pretty much just makes fun of SV VC.

</comment><comment><USER19> What we need is something to eliminate "Recommended For You" mentions.

After that, a Promoted Tweet muter would find wide appreciation (using uBO for that now).

</comment><comment><USER20> I suppose I'm a combination of relieved, offended and proud to not be on the list.

</comment><comment><USER21> Does twitter force you to follow people you don't want to hear from?

If I didn't want to hear from someone, wouldn't I not follow them in the first place?

What is the use case here?

<comment><USER22> Maybe it has something to do with how Twitter will suggest tweets to you that meet their algorithms' threshold for popularity when the account that tweeted them is simply one that the people you follow also happened to follow.

Plus I think there are socially left-leaning people in tech who want nothing to do with anything distinctly related to capitalism, and so ousting investors from their circles is seen as "good praxis" or whatever they call it.

<comment><USER7> Seeing how widespread the use of blocklists is in lefty circles, nothing to do with anything challenging of their dogma.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> will this mute filtering the twitter connector for feedly?

</comment><comment><USER24> I hope this ushers in a new cultural moment!

</comment><comment> DC-3 > Blazing fast mute and unmute

It's a javascript program. It's not going to be blazing fast by any reasonable definition. Ironic that a program designed to filter out Silicon Valley bullshit has succumbed to Silicon Valley bullshit.

<comment><USER25> Writing software in JavaScript has long been in the realm of practical, productive activities.

I think bashing on software built with JavaScript is far more "Silicon Valley bullshit" than the act of writing it :)</comment></comment>


Kyoto Tycoon for modern systems - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/sapo/kyoto <comment><USER2> I noticed a while ago that the front page of the Kyoto/Tokyo database author's webpage bears only the message "We are rearing children."

[http://fallabs.com/](http://fallabs.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Has the fork author discussed with Mikio the implications of forking and the need for a commercial license for proprietary applications? It's a shame that development stopped on Kyoto Cabinet and Tycoon. I personally learned a lot about efficiently using on disk storage from the source code.

<comment><USER4> I've tried to reach him a few months ago, mainly to know if he was intending to publish a new release with (at the very least) the fix for the missing "unistd.h" include breaking compilation (which is a one-liner), but got no answers back.

The original code is licensed under the GPLv3 and (of course) this fork doesn't change that in any way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> In my experience Mikio is very hard to reach. This fork does not surprise me. We saw the same type of abandon-ware with the Tokyo suite prior to Kyoto. It wouldn't surprise me if he isn't working on something new.

<comment><USER3> I believe he went to Google.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> what does this provide in comparison to say, Redis?

<comment><USER4> Larger-than-RAM data and on-disk databases, mostly.</comment></comment>


Introducing: blurl.me - A stripped back Twitter client - <AUTHOR> http://blurl.me/

<comment><USER2> It sounds like an onomatopoeia for vomiting.

<comment><USER3> i always thought that's what "blog" was.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting. Shall see what use I can make of it.</comment>


The 12 best designs from the past 100 years - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/28/tech/best-design-100-years-zaccai/index.html

<comment><USER2> The A380, what? No, 747 obviously far superior, please, Oh I see, it is CNN, that explains it.</comment>


Say Hello to Simple, Secure Login on iOS with the YubiKey 5Ci - <AUTHOR> https://www.yubico.com/2019/08/yubico-launches-yubikey-5ci/ <comment><USER2> $75 + another $70 for express shipping. Ooft. Wonder if they disclosed how much the lightning licensing costed</comment>


ISPs Now Monitoring for Copyright Infringement - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/02/copyright-scofflaws-beware/ <comment><USER2> This is not even remotely a compromise:

"The plan does not prevent content owners from suing internet subscribers"

In other words, in addition to facing the risk of ludicrous damages, you can have your Internet access disabled, hampering your ability to find and communicate with a lawyer. Naturally, the Obama administration backs such a plan -- the thought of people actually defending themselves in court never occurred to them anyway.

"On the third and fourth infractions, the subscriber will likely receive a pop-up notice "asking the subscriber to acknowledge receipt of the alert.""

Hm, if I did this to communicate with my neighbors, I might go to prison. Nice to know that ISPs are not expected to follow the same laws I am.

<comment><USER3> I'm curious what "pop-up notice" means. I expect they simply mean a DNS redirect; anything more adds a whole new level of creepy (as if this plan needed more).

On the plus side, it's a good time to be in the VPN business. :P

<comment><USER2> I suspect that number of people using Tor to download their entertainment is going to skyrocket. Good news for cover traffic, of course, but without more exit nodes the network is going to be in trouble.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The headline is a flat-out lie. The monitoring is being done by content owners, using publicly-available information from torrent trackers and other peer-to-peer networks.

<comment><USER5> [Citation Needed]

Everything I've heard about this is that the monitoring is being done by the ISPs themselves, __not __the content owners.

<comment><USER4> Sure, straight from their FAQ[1]:

"Can this system see what sites I visit online?

No. There is no monitoring of any Internet traffic by ISPs. The identification of alleged infringement is done by Content Owners on peer-to-peer networks only. The Copyright Alert System applies only to peer-to-peer networks and not to general Internet use."

There's a lot of misinformation going around, spread by people who probably have good intentions but don't understand that by arguing against a straw man, they're actually making it easier for their opponents to discredit them. There are plenty of valid reasons to dislike this plan, we don't need to be making up fake ones.

[1]: [http://www.copyrightinformation.org/resources- faq/copyright-...](http://www.copyrightinformation.org/resources- faq/copyright-alert-system-faqs/)

Edit: Fixed quoting.

<comment><USER6> _people who probably have good intentions but don't understand that by arguing against a straw man, they're actually making it easier for their opponents to discredit them_

That's what I think whenever an Internet lynch mob forms (TCPA, SOPA, etc.) but somehow it never matters. There's hardly any backlash against the hyperbolic scaremongering.

<comment><USER7> sometimes i feel like thats the beauty and fatal flaw of our system. people are gonna basically do what they're gonna do. if it benefits enough of us (with relative/proportional amount of power) it'll happen but if it pisses enough of that demographic off it will get stopped eventually.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Here's an idea/concern -- for those of us NOT using our ISP's recursive DNS what will this notification plan look like? My ISPs notifications (as in an interstitial page) won't show if I'm not using their DNS.

Presumably if I'm using OpenDNS or Google DNS for my recursive DNS it's going to be impossible to browse my interwebs if this ever happens. I'd need to assume this might be the case, and then switch back to the ISP's recursive DNS just to proceed through their acknowledgement page. Derp.

<comment><USER9> Well, it is possible to capture and redirect DNS requests such that they can send you to their "captive-portal" page even if you've changed your DNS settings. On linux for example, something like:

iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i eth0 -p udp --dport 53 -j DNAT --to 10.2.2.1

will send all your DNS requests to 10.2.2.1 no matter what your actual destination IP was. If Comcast did something like this at their level, it wouldn't matter what your router/modem DNS setting was. This is assuming you're destination port is still 53.

<comment><USER10> Does DNSSEC interfere with this? Comcast claims to have deployed DNSSEC on their DNS servers. Can they deliver their redirect even if your resolver is configured to validate DNSSEC records?

<comment><USER11> Sure. They can't serve you wrong DNS results, but they can just redirect your IP packets directed at some server to theirs.

Or to paraphrase the Matrix, what good is knowing the right IP of a server, if you're unable to reach it?

<comment><USER12> DNSSEC doesn't prevent them from serving you false DNS results. DNSSEC doesn't protect the communication between your resolver and the DNS server. DNSSEC allows for signing DNS entries with keys.

Since a large portion of DNS isn't signed in order to function on the Internet most resolvers with DNSSEC enabled will still allow results from domains which aren't signed for instance google.com. The easiest thing for Comcast to do is to return their false result indicating that the domain is not signed.

Since they can intercept all DNS traffic you send they could actually emulate all the way up to the root servers and sign with keys they generated themselves. This is probably overly complex but is possible and would allow a false dns entry to be accepted even by resolvers configured to only accept responses for domains which are signed.

<comment><USER13> >Since they can intercept all DNS traffic you send they could actually emulate all the way up to the root servers and sign with keys they generated themselves. This is probably overly complex but is possible and would allow a false dns entry to be accepted even by resolvers configured to only accept responses for domains which are signed.

this is not how DNSSEC works, if it did work this way it would be trivial for anyone to mitm it, thus render its entire purpose null and void.

Resolvers are preloaded with the dns root public key, that key signs the tld root keys, which sign your registrars key, which sign your domain. There is no effective way for comcast to spoof replies in this setup, as they have no access to any of these private keys.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> _On the third and fourth infractions, the subscriber will likely receive a pop-up notice "asking the subscriber to acknowledge receipt of the alert"_

I'm more curious about how this is supposed to work. Is my ISP going to dynamically insert javascript into random webpages? I don't use any of the infrastructure of my ISP, relying on my own email and DNS, so how exactly is this supposed to work?

Maybe altering your IP address to a private block that routes everything to a splash page (a la public wifi where you have to accept the ToS)?

</comment><comment><USER15> It will be great when all the problems of this start popping. I'm really don't think the ISP's are going to invest very much in enforcement. It's going to take a lot of time and resources that I just can't see companies like Comcast investing much into it, they are way too bottom line driven.

On top of this you are going to have so many cases of people using open networks to download torrents. They may claim that they will still shut these connections down, but I really don't think they want to go through that PR nightmare of every coffee shop getting rid of wifi because of stupid policy.

This is going to be loosely enforced at best, and most likely a complete failure.

<comment><USER16> hence what I was saying - how effective is the war on drugs?

Epic failure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is about as effective as the "war on drugs"

</comment><comment><USER17> We have open source software. Why not open source content? I do not have the chops to do it, but I would like to see software/start-ups that helps me, you and everyone else create content - muzak, movies, games, etc - free for anyone to download, sample, modify, sell, give away, with open source styled licenses - just like open source software. Like the linux ecosystem. Surely this is possible? We the consumers of content, should create the content. I am tired of being treated like a thief, although I have never stolen anything.

<comment><USER18> But we do.

Any type of editing software (open source or not) has some kind of "project file." Trent Reznor was called the first open source musician because he shared his .band files from Garageband.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> How do I get my copyrighted material filtered? Can every reader of HN just produce a random 1GB string of characters, and get it filtered on the Net? [It is copyrighted just by authorship]

<comment><USER6> You have to pay DtecNet to track your content (if they are willing to deal with you at all). But when you say "filtered" I have a feeling you may not be clear on how the system works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> >>On a scofflaw's first offense.

If it's a first "offense", how can s/he be a scofflaw? And, shouldn't it be allegation instead of offense? What the hell is wrong with this guy?

<comment><USER21> From the New Oxford American Dictionary:

       scofflaw |ˈskôfˌlô, ˈskäf-|
       noun informal
       a person who flouts the law, esp. by failing to
       comply with a law that is difficult to enforce
       effectively.

I don't see anything there that precludes a first offender from being a scofflaw.

<comment><USER20> I think the word scofflaw implies repeatedly or habitually breaking the law. Perhaps breaking the law in a mocking way. I guess it just depends upon which dictionary you want to believe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> On a related note, who do you guys recommend for VPN? I've been looking at PPTP tunneling with <https://www.tunnelr.com/>

<comment><USER23> [http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-providers-really-take- anon...](http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-providers-really-take-anonymity- seriously-111007/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> And thus, the Government became a listening party to every data transmission that will ever exist for the next thousand years. Voice, video, conversation. The talk with your kids. Everything. We need to do something about this. The internet is the future data transfer medium. It's the substrate we will be using to think among ourselves. Our government is trying to get inside our MINDS. By becoming our mind before the neurons have a chance to join up.

I'm just doing a little startup with me and my friends, I'd like to have a website, or broadcast to everyone around the world, but I can't afford to broadcast information to all the people like the big fat-cats who have paid off the government can.

This is step 1 of 10 in turning the Global internet in a controlled apendage of the american government, to be metered, spliced, diced, fast-laned, slow- laned and policed. There will be "pay me money to use this part of the internet" signs everywhere. And the taxes will be reasonable, at first.

The government will own the internet, and you will have to pay them dearly to use it. Even when the internet is simply a data transfer between two consenting adults that stand next to eachother.

The government then took a large step to becoming a God, omnipresent. Privacy? Out the fucking window. Kthx

<comment><USER25> Unless I've missed something important, please help me out in making the connection between the strategy of monitoring torrents to "Government became a listening party to every data transmission."

I've been doing what I can, but so far I've discovered no significantly new monitoring techniques that are being introduced.

<comment><USER26> I can't remember where I read it (There were links I remember from 2 different places, one post was on HN about this but it was all hear say and rumors to grain of salt) that they want or are building a system like Watson to monitor internet traffic because currently they have so much information that its impossible to sift though it all.

Couldn't find it with a google, can't really remember any good key words, so the site may have been a bad source (probably) I don't remember. What I do remember about the article is how it was mentioned that it was a revival of a plan they tried to implement back after September 11, but the plan was leaked and there was enough public out rage the US congress squashed the plan. THAT I remember had reputable sources, I remember checking that out on google. Unfortunately I can't remember the name of the project to get you an article.

Maybe someone who knows what I'm talking about (mainly the later) could link it?

Anyway we won't know what if anything extra they're doing until someone leaves and blabs about it in 20-30 years time.

While I wasn't sure how true that was, I did throw it in the realm of possibility because it sounded feasible.

But I wouldn't blame anyone for considering this more hear say and rumors. :)</comment></comment></comment>


Canonical Will Ship Mir By Default In Ubuntu 13.10 - <AUTHOR> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTM5NzM

<comment><USER2> Does this mean that the next LTS will not support proprietary nvidia drivers, OR that such drivers will be available for Mir from nvidia?</comment>


Great Emacs Features - <AUTHOR> https://c2.com/cgi/wiki?GreatEmacsFeatures

<comment><USER2> >"....These days I use keyboard macros in Emacs, but the problem there is that you have to know before you do something the first time that you will want to do it again, and tell Emacs to start recording. In vi you don't need to know that in advance.

You have just realized, "Hey, that would make a pretty cool keyboard macro". Hit Control-X Control-K, and Emacs will prompt you for a "Keyboard macro to edit". Hit Control-H L. Emacs will present you with a macro editing window filled with your last 100 input keystrokes (the "lossage"). Edit to your heart's content, and hit Control-C Control-C to save."

C-h L ...is new to me, humbling for the nos of daily hours over decades I've been emacsing.</comment>


Ask HN: What is the best way to find Contract work or Remote Part-time work? - <AUTHOR> I recently quit my job and I'm trying to find some contract work to keep things moving while I can continue working on my own idea. I've already tried looking for work on major freelancing sites, too many people bidding too low, hence difficult to get projects from there.
What are the best places to find such work? I'm a full stack developer and I've worked extensively on PHP (Laravel mostly) on backend and HTML, CSS, Jquery, AnuglarJS and VueJS on the frontend side. Any other tips from people who do contract jobs?
Edit: Is $25 an hour too low for someone who 11 years of experience writing code. Since I'm just looking to make at least $2000 working part-time, $25x80hours a month works out for me initially. <comment><USER2> I would avoid platforms specialized in contract work or freelancing. Like you pointed out, too much competition for too cheap.

There are websites that specialize in WFH work such as weworkremotely.com or wfh.io. Not sure they advertise a lot of contracting position, but it doesn't hurt to apply and specify that you are interested in being a contractor.

Another approach: all this spam you get on linkedin from recruiters/hiring managers. Just start reading them and reply with "I'll do it. Remotely and as a contractor". Most won't be interested, but a few may go for it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your reply. Applied to a couple of jobs on WWR and WFH.io

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> As dudul has already pointed out, freelancing websites are a completely different game, people bid at way too cheaper rates.

I did some competitions (Design and Development) on TopCoder during undergrad days and was lucky enough to secure a place in top 3 couple of times. Key there is to choose a contest with less number of participations and patience.

Other than that, weworkremotely.com helps, browse some recent whoishiring threads. Might want to have a look at jobcombinator.io as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I'm waiting for tomorrow's whoishiring threads. I applied to a couple of jobs on Weworkremotely.com and wfh.io asking whether they are okay with a part-timer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Try user groups for your languages / technologies of choice. I subscribe to a couple of Ruby user groups in the UK where jobs and contracts are routinely posted - in fact, it's how I found my current contract.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, it is a good way to find a job but I live in India and part-time local work doesn't pay well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I really like Upwork. I've been getting surprisingly high paying long-term projects on there (anywhere from $50 to $100 per hour).

</comment><comment><USER6> There's a set of monthly hiring threads right here on HN. In fact, the next one should be today. Look out for it later today.

Also, you can still reach out to people hiring in past threads:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=whoishiring](https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=whoishiring)

</comment><comment><USER7> Check out Gigster. Generally get around $100/hr, more for rush jobs/etc.</comment>


Ask HN: Do you think it's worth to have a resume website? - <AUTHOR> I am thinking of having a resume website. But, I am not sure is it worth it to do that? These 2 things are bothering me particulary.
1)I am extremely concerned about my private data Like phone no, email id been public
2)The recurring cost of yearly maintenance, will that be a good Investment to do? <comment><USER2> If you are just hosting your resume on the site then you probably won't get much benefit from the site. Instead you should use the site to showcase some of the work you have done in the past like projects, design portfolios (if you are in that side of work), code etc. You can also post articles / posts etc to showcase your expertise & knowledge.

I do that on my site along with a blog and I have had great feedback about it from employers in the past.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes, because when recruiters ask for your resume, just give them the link. They can view it immediately, print to PDF if they want a copy (warning: cross browser "Print to PDF" functionality can be flaky), or print a hard copy. I don't have to perform a file upload.

Most people will read your resume anyways, even if you have a LinkedIn. My LinkedIn lists all of my positions; my resume is a smaller subset of skills & experience I market myself as.

</comment><comment><USER4> What do you want to do that you cannot do with Linkedin?

<comment><AUTHOR> Get attention of the recruiter and Stand-out from Rest of the crowd

<comment><USER5> unless it had a portfolio of some kind(code or design, etc) I would think it's marginal. You could have a contact form for privacy concerns.

<comment><AUTHOR> Precisely, I could showcase many things with a better UX. However, I am assuming recruiter either will feel lazy or just not care to fill-out a form to get my contact info.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Developers with small AWS clusters, what are your monthly costs? - <AUTHOR> Aws costs are hard to understand for the non experienced. Perhaps a few real life examples could help. <comment><USER2> AWS Cost Calculator has been pretty accurate for me:

[https://calculator.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html](https://calculator.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Not sure if it's possible to edit this, but a better title might be "Ask HN: Developers with small AWS clusters, what are your monthly costs?"

I read the title and thought it might be a proposal for some sort of scheme to partition individual EC2 instances between multiple projects by different people.

<comment><AUTHOR> Done :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> We switched several projects to Lightsail and saved a ton of money immediately, so i don't have old figures, but it's roughly around $600/mo today. A couple of other projects we have on hosted services could be moved to AWS that would probably add about $400 on to our bill. Lightsail has saved us a ridiculous amount of money, honestly, at the cost of having to do slightly more complex sysops.

The biggest thing that would eat up cost if we put it on AWS would be our ELK stack. We have on-metal infrastructure with tons of spare capacity that would probably run us about $2.5k/mo on AWS and just under double that on Elastic (but then we'd get X-Pack for free).

Yeah. Logging and monitoring are totally the most expensive part of our infrastructure.

<comment><AUTHOR> > but it's roughly around $600/mo today

Do you have an estimate of how many Lightsail servers and other components are running ?

<comment><USER4> We keep upping our cap with AMZN and then hitting it. I think right now we're pushing 40? We're doing some things with autoscaling w/ Terraform and it changes.

EBS, EC2 and CloudSearch are the biggest part of our AMZN bill. I can't estimate components there atm.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm running [https://ctadvisor.lolware.net](https://ctadvisor.lolware.net) for about $22 per month.

It's one EC2 instance, an S3 bucket, EC2 snapshots and cold archives in Glacier.

</comment><comment><USER6> At my last company, about $30k per month when I took over as director of engineering in 2014, but I was able to reduce it to about $20k while increasing the number of instances using no upfront cost reserved instances. We ran a crawling infrastructure of about 150 instances and we increased to 200 while reducing the cost. We also had 3 of the largest instance types they had for our database, and 8 large instances serving the app, reporting, api, and alert services.

</comment><comment><USER7> At [https://emailoctopus.com](https://emailoctopus.com) we're running around the $2.5k/month mark. Previously $3.5k, but we saved a bunch of money with reserved instances: [https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/reserved- instances/](https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/reserved-instances/)

</comment><comment><USER8> For a client of mine: couple of large DB instances + some smaller, several EC2, several TB in S3, Elasticsearch and elasticache + some misc bits. Was coming in around $2000/mo before we snagged some free credits. A good 50%+ was RDS costs though.

</comment><comment><USER9> We run a collaboration service [1] on AWS, nothing fancy in terms of infrastructure needs (DB, some EC2 instances and S3). We spend around 500 USD per month, but our largest customers run run our service on prem on their own servers.

[1] www.qlutter.io

</comment><comment><USER10> I run a private git repo and anywhere between 0-6 additional instances and lambdas for development and testing. I haven't gone over $50 in a month.

<comment><AUTHOR> Would you share more details about it ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> How small is small?

<comment><AUTHOR> Any information would be appreciated</comment></comment>