Apple Is Said to Work on Cheaper, Smaller iPhones - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-10/apple-said-to-work-on-cheaper-more-versatile-iphone-models.html

<comment><USER2> This is one of those articles written as if Apple's entire strategy was centered on the US market - e.g. ATT exclusivity, two year contracts and carrier subsidies are used as the primary rationales for Apple's past product alignment in the smartphone segment and Verizon availability is offered as the sole reason for Android's rise.

The worldwide commodification of smartphones is never mentioned nor are the economics of distribution in the BRIC markets and the global south.

This journalism at its laziest.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think a smaller version is a good idea. Its funny how new/more advanced cellphones used to mean smaller, thinner and sleeker, but now with smart- phones they are increasing in size again. The Droid X is freakin' huge! The iphone is still a reasonable size, but some of these new phones are just too big for my liking (ended up getting the incredible). Plus cheaper never hurt...</comment>


ASCAP Wants To Be Paid When Your Phone Rings - <AUTHOR> http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/06/ascap-wants-be-paid- <comment><USER2> On one hand, this is an insult to personal liberty and an example of how deathless, uncaring corporations will consume until all is destroyed.

On the other hand, this might be only way to stop people from cycling through their ringtones at full volume on the bus.

I'm torn.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow. Despite their being devastatingly anti-consumer, I must admit that some of the ASCAP arguments, though rebutted by precedence, are very clever. They must have a seriously twisted legal counsel to make some of those allegations.

<comment><USER4> This still cheesed me off much less than companies patenting sections of MY OWN DNA. Man, that's annoying.

<comment><USER5> (Annoyance, the feeling of being annoyed and other nearby emotions are patented by Monsanto. $0.002c annoyance fee has been charged).

(More seriously, why doesn't you having your DNA count as 'prior art'?)

<comment><USER6> (It might, but a judge has not yet been given the chance to say one way or the other)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Summary: ASCAP wants "public performance royalties" for musical tones.

Anyone use a rather standard ringer, like myself?

<comment><USER8> this guy: <http://xkcd.com/479/>

<comment><USER9> I changed mine to be the sound of the communicator from Star Trek:TOS.

I expect to be sued by Paramount in a couple of days.

<comment><USER10> My text alert is Charmander's self-proclaiming blart as it appears. I expect to live to 20.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow, what a nuclear hand grenade this is. By this logic maybe I can earn money every time my likeness is displayed on CCTV in a situation were more than one security guard can see it. That would be a public performance I would think.</comment>


New Jailbreak for all iPhone OS 3.1.1, 3.1.2, 3.1.3 devices (including iPad) - <AUTHOR> http://www.spiritjb.com

<comment><USER2> This worked great on my iPad. I'm trying to find apps that work (well) on iPad. So far I've only installed the following:

\- RockApp - much faster/better package management than Cydia; works great on iPad. \- Backgrounder - works great on iPad - true multitasking. \- OpenSSH - also works. \- Vi Improved (vim) - works great.

What I really want is a terminal app that uses the iPad screen and has full bluetooth (hardware) keyboard support for Control keys. I tried MobileTerminal, but the app is formatted for iPhone (comes up in a small window) and crashes immediately on iPad so it won't even run.

Warning: I tried SBSettings and it made my iPad almost unusable; like an iPhone with no wallpaper, only 4 icons in the dock, many apps didn't work, so I had to restore. Apparently SBSettings is not iPad friendly yet.

It would be great if others who have a jailbroken iPad could post apps that they know work or are safe to use, since the jailbreak ecosystem for iPad is still in it's infancy.

<comment><USER3> These are great additions to my iPad (especially Backgrounder). To others interested, the PalmPre-esque application switcher is pretty wonky with the iPad, and causes problems with Backgrounder for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does this install junk on your iPhone? For example, I do not want or need a general SSH server running on my phone. If I did this, it would be solely for tethering, and not for running Python media servers or SFTP or scripted Ruby GUIs or tweaking out the system or whatever. So I'm leery of running something that has the power to just shove a bunch of junk onto my phone, which is what happened the last time I tried this (and consequently reduced the battery life down to about a single day or less, until I restored it to normal. I don't even know what was draining it, but I'm assuming it was some kind of server daemon.)

<comment><USER5> No, it only seems to include Cydia and patches so that you are able to run unsigned code (jailbreak apps). OpenSSH does not automatically get installed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What's the draw towards jailbreaking these days, anything interesting?

<comment><USER7> These are my reasons, in order of importance:

\- MyWi for tethering/mobile hotspot

\- BiteSMS lets you send/respond to/view SMS messages without quitting your current app (press up on the volume control and then tap the volume icon to compose).

\- Notifier, puts notification icons in the title menu and on your lock screen (notifications for email, missed call, voicemail, text messages, instant messages).

\- SBSettings gives me quick one swipe access to turn off the phone, toggle 3G and other settings.

\- Backgrounder + ProSwitcher for Palm Pre style multitasking

\- 3G Unrestrictor for using Wifi only apps over 3G

\- Netatalk/SSH access for custom theming

\- MxTube lets me download and save youtube videos.

\- Add vibrating haptic feedback to the keyboard

There are other reasons, but those are the ones off the top of my head.

<comment><USER8> Is AT&T able to detect you tethering? Or, if I tether, will I get a huge data bill even though it's "unlimited"?

<comment><USER9> I find it more and more difficult to believe that AT&T would be able to tell the difference without looking deeply at the traffic; the iPad loads full web pages and videos, so they probably couldn't tell from bandwidth alone.

<comment><USER10> Accessing YouTube, App store, maps and various apps should be pretty obvious.

<comment><USER9> Third party apps can access the network too. So they'd have to distinguish between traffic generated tethered from traffic sent in 3rd-party app store apps.

<comment><USER10> I was just thinking of plaintext traffic through port 80.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> For everyone playing along at home and who's curious like I was: seems legit, and it jailbroke my phone (via OS X) in record time. I've tried a couple jailbreaks over the last year or two, and this one was pretty quick and painless.

Now off to explore a jailbroken iPhone for the first time in three years.

</comment><comment><USER12> For anyone who wants to tether after they do this:

once you jail break - go to <http://help.benm.at/> in your iphone browser and install the at&t patch. I just did it (for 3.1.3 ) and it works great.

Cheers!

<comment><USER13> That patch allows for USB and Bluetooth tethering. This works great if you're trying to tether a laptop.

If you want to share your iPhone's connection with your iPad, you're going to have to install an app like MyWi which will turn your iPhone into a wifi hotspot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Been forced out of a jailbreak on my iPhone in the last 6 months (one hardware failure and phone replacement, one software screw-up) this is great news... Except, I just bought a Nexus One. A week ago I had to be issued a replacement iPhone 3GS from Apple- with the new bootrom and 3.1.3 things weren't looking good.

Still have both, still in the process of trying to decide which to keep- do I want semi-freedom and a less useful phone or a locked down but very functional communication appliance? Getting sick of riding the jailbreak/jailed roller- coaster!

</comment><comment><USER5> Does anyone know if there's a centralized notification system implemented that's much more forgiving of taking over the screen (much like Android?) I hate having to hit view or close while i'm in another application and I get say, a Push Update from Words With friends. I wish it was less intrusive and just hovered at the top until I wanted to take care of it.

</comment><comment><USER12> I did it. I dont see the "tethering" option re-appearing under network settings though. Something I dont know?

</comment><comment><USER15> I still have the 2G version of the iPhone but running the OS 3.0.

Would upgrading to the newest OS through iTunes (removing my current jailbreak), and then running this new jailbreak version be the way to go? Anybody try this on the 2G phone yet?

<comment><USER15> I just did this using a Mac, and it was extremely easy and worked perfectly. I hadn't updated from the first release of OS 3 until now. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Many of the Cydia apps are made for iPhone/iPod so it'll crash the iPad. Apart from downloading hacked paid apps (which I'm not fond of), what are the reasons to jailbreak an iPad?

<comment><USER7> See here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1314089>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> For those of you who jailbreak often: What do you most use the jailbreak for? Any specific apps?

I've jailbroken a few times but haven't found much to do once it's jailbroken.

<comment><USER17> My wife MUST jailbreak to have it for themes/styles. In fact, I bought her a 3GS for Valentine's day that has been sitting around collecting dust because it couldn't jailbreak (she's still using her 3G).

I also made her icons that do 1-click SMS to me for quick things like ("On my way home" or "Call me, I'm driving and can't text."). I used bash scripts and a tool in Cydia for command-line SMS'ing on the iPhone.

Also things like iLocalis are cool for tracking down your phone if lost/stolen, and purportedly for keeping a sanity check on your kid's location.

Basically, if you want to do any heavy customization to the phone, you'll need to jailbreak. Every year, Apple takes a little more away from the jailbroken app category by adding new features, but there will always be some things they aren't so keen on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Lost my jailbreak when I messed up an OS update a few weeks back and bricked the phone - I was forced to go to legit 3.1.3. Spirit worked; it's good to be back.

</comment><comment><USER5> Just a tip for jailbreakers. Quit the program with Cmd+Q and not hit the Quit button on the utility. It seems to start jailbreaking again.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Also 3.2. Should have added that...

<comment><USER19> "Including iPad" could mean 3.2, since 3.2 isn't available for the iPhone or iPod touch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It worked! What interesting apps and games can I install on my iPod Touch?

</comment><comment><USER21> Still no tethering =(. Anyone knows otherwise?

<comment><USER22> PDANet does tethering on jailbroken phones: <http://www.junefabrics.com/iphone/index.php></comment></comment>


JavaScript: the High Road and the Low Road - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/BrendanEich/fluent14

<comment><USER2> Now all they need to do is standardize on utf8 for strings.</comment>


Internet Explorer is the last browser standing - <AUTHOR> http://betanews.com/2013/02/13/internet-explorer-is-the-last-browser-standing/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed+-+bn+-+Betanews+Full+Content+Feed+-+BN <comment><USER2> "Opera's decision to change rendering engines means three of the top five browsers will use Webkit. Internet Explorer stands alone, and that is the wrong place to be."

I've been subtracting three from five over and over, and I keep getting two instead of one. What am I doing wrong?

<comment><USER3> your tech journolism and opinions are what's wrong. In those trades, it is 5 - 3 = 1, when 1 = other browser is the one you do not like or is an easy pick. you are green, grasshopper</comment></comment>


Big O for Beginners - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/big-o-for-beginners-622a64760e2 <comment><AUTHOR> As a self-taught software engineer, I'm trying to improve my CS knowledge and wrote this article as a way for me to improve. Any feedback would be really helpful.</comment>


British Facebook URL redirects to Google 404? - <AUTHOR> http://facebook.co.uk

<comment><USER2> It's not the "British Facebook", it's someone who bought the domain and pointed it towards Google Sites. See <http://www.facebook.co.uk/> .

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course, I was not able to see the Google sites connection, but it makes sense a squatter would snatch the url and direct it to their own site for affiliate monies or something along those lines

<comment><USER2> Open the www. URL and open the "sign in" link in the site footer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> whois(1) is your friend:

        Domain name:
            facebook.co.uk

        Registrant:
            Technomicom Inc.

        Registrant type:
            Non-UK Corporation

        Registrant's address:
            2 Greenwich Office Park 3rd Floor
            Greenwich
            CT
            06831
            United States

        Registrar:
            Register.com Inc [Tag = REGISTER-DOT-COM]
            URL: http://www.register.com

        Relevant dates:
            Registered on: 30-Dec-2004
            Renewal date:  30-Dec-2012
            Last updated:  08-Feb-2011

        Registration status:
            Registered until renewal date.

        Name servers:
            dns091.b.register.com
            dns209.c.register.com
            dns225.a.register.com
            dns249.d.register.com

        WHOIS lookup made at 23:53:03 12-Feb-2012

</comment><comment><USER4> [http://gawker.com/5071172/facebookcouk-offline--but-check- ou...](http://gawker.com/5071172/facebookcouk-offline--but-check-out-who-owns- it) <http://whois.domaintools.com/facebook.co.uk>

<comment><USER5> At least it's not a 503 Bad Gateway...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> SCANDAL</comment>


Battle Of The Commodity Web Applications: It's All About People - <AUTHOR> http://publishing2.com/2008/04/15/battle-of-the-commodity-web-applications-its-all-about-people/

<comment><USER2> I disagree with the thesis of this article. "Commodity Web Applications" underestimates the importance of getting details right. I voted it up, though, because I expect it to generate interesting discussion.

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought the last statement summed up the thesis of the article quite well:

"It's less about competing technology, and much more about competing user bases."

I happen to agree with this argument. It is PRECISELY the core reason why I always laugh when I read about the next "Digg killer".

If this thesis is correct, then the only way to create a "Digg killer" would be to build a community around a celebrity instead of around a technology. The technology is only an enabling factor, NOT the primary factor for social applications to become popular.

The focus on technology is misplaced when it comes to the viability of social applications.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I don't agree with the supermarket analogy. I think the "popular bar" analogy is more appropriate. People go where everyone else goes.

There's a bar down the street that was packed every Friday night this time last year. Now it's dead. Everyone is at another bar 3 blocks away. Why? Because everyone else is there. How did this happen? I don't know. But if I was a bar or a social network, I'd try to figure it out so I could stay "hot". Otherwise, I'd die and never quite know why.

<comment><USER4> It also depends on what type of bar/website you want to build. Is it just a "cool" place, or is it a place for regulars to hang out at? I love going to the local dive bar to see familiar faces and share drinks with the neighbors. HN is similar to that. Sometimes, usually not by my personal choice, I have to go to those "cool" joints for events and such. That's fine too, but they obviously cater to their niches.

I used to live in Vegas for a while and most of the clubs on "the strip" were definitely catering to the cool crowd. How did they keep up with one another? Constant re-branding, marketing, positioning, theme parties, etc. It's incredibly tough competition but the financial rewards were also big. As a local, I only went when I had guests in town who insisted on the Vegas experience. Contrast that to the clubs for "locals", where they gave you rewards points for coming, cheap drink specials only if you knew, and a very friendly atmosphere.</comment></comment>


15 Things Every Web Developer Should Be Thankful For - <AUTHOR> http://webjackalope.com/15-things-every-web-developers-should-be-thankful-for/

<comment><USER2> 16\. WebKit</comment>


How we handle our remote teams - <AUTHOR> http://lesseverything.com/blog/archives/2013/03/27/how-we-handle-our-remote-teams

<comment><AUTHOR> Not entirely sure about the annual Google Hangout party. A load of people getting drunk in front of their computer sounds like a fairly crappy way of having fun. Surely getting on a plane isn't out of the question is it?

</comment><comment><USER2> I work at Sococo,we eat our own dog food - Teamspace. It does all he mentions and more. It removes the friction from getting together, adds immensely more presence info, and is fun.</comment>


Show HN:  My minimum viable side project - <AUTHOR> http://babynamegraphs.com

<comment><USER2> What exactly does "viable" mean in this context? Because the husband and wife team behind NameVoyager have had the baby name trend visualization market cornered for years now.

<http://www.babynamewizard.com/voyager#>

They aren't just using it to drive ad traffic and promote the book, but are now (since I last looked) actually charging for the visualizations themselves. And presumably people are paying, but who knows...

On the plus side, this means there's a market, but you've got a long way to go to catch them, both in regards to the visualizations and the breadth of the name database. It's a good start, though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, viable in this context means that you can graph names and there are ads on the page. All the times we've tried to look at names for popularity when naming our kids we haven't had just simple visualization tools like this, so I thought I'd build one.

Then after I started I saw those guys but saw that you have to pay to visualize it, so I thought "hey, I'll disrupt them " :)

<comment><USER3> Of course there's always Wolfram|Alpha.

<http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=David%2C+John>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sorry to be a downer, but Wolfram Alpha has beaten you to the punch:

<http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Andrew>

<comment><USER5> @phuff this is cool because it has a specific purpose and it's simple. Frankly, if you let the fact that something already exists on the Internet stop you from starting a projet, you'd never start anything.

There will always be room to iterate on good ideas. There were MP3 players on the market before the iPod, right? And focusing on design or simplicity, or both, can play into what your MVP is. Minimum viable is relative to your product principles.

The one thing i would suggest is that ads are not minimally viable for your users. It may be necessary for you to keep your project up and running, but not MVP unless they provide some benefit to your users in line with your product principles.

Nice work!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I can't remember the name of the book, but I remember reading that people name babies both after celebrities and after names of the higher class people around them (with the goal of their children appearing higher class than they actually are). The latter case is interesting, because it goes in a cycle - the higher class folks pick unique names for their children, the lower class folks copy them in the next generation so those names become common, and the higher class folks pick new names in the next cycle.

So if the data was there, it'd be interesting to show these graphs both alongside celebrity popularity over time and also to divide the graphs based on socio-economic lines, to see if that is still happening.

<comment><USER7> I think the book is Freakonomics (don't have it here to check).

<comment><USER8> Pretty sure that's it. The first one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Fix the XSS: [http://babynamegraphs.com/male/multipleNamesGraph?names%5B%5...](http://babynamegraphs.com/male/multipleNamesGraph?names%5B%5D=%3Cmarquee%3Exss)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Try this:

[http://babynamegraphs.com/female/multipleNamesGraph?names%5B...](http://babynamegraphs.com/female/multipleNamesGraph?names%5B%5D=mark)

and double click to show the "all time" graph.

Note this shows _females_.

And, of course, you have to see what this returns:

[http://babynamegraphs.com/male/multipleNamesGraph?names%5B%5...](http://babynamegraphs.com/male/multipleNamesGraph?names%5B%5D=sue)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I actually have them separated this way because I couldn't think of a great way to label/display male + female names for the same graph at the same time. I've thought of only showing the predominant gender for each name, but then doozies like the female John [http://babynamegraphs.com/female/multipleNamesGraph?names[]=...](http://babynamegraphs.com/female/multipleNamesGraph?names\[\]=John) would be unavailable :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> My name (Tikhon) didn't even get a graph :( Probably because it's an exceptionally uncommon name (but not uncommon enough for me to get it as a username).

In the list of names on the graph, could you make the "X" look a little bit more like a UI element? The first time I saw it, I thought it was just a letter. I think even just aligning the X's along the right side of the rectangles would help.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good idea. Thanks! Also, I have only crawled the SSA site for the names, so if it's not in the top 1000 for some year in the USA since 1880 it won't be in there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Small hack: Instead of using "X" for the delete icon, use "×". It looks more like a delete/close button and still avoid the trouble to create an image.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, thanks for the tip! I'll check it out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Out of interest, what's the data source? US only?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I scraped it from the social security website, so US only for right now.

<comment><USER8> Would be good to have that clear on the website, that was my first Q. Cos I suspect from knowledge of my name and the lookup I just did on your site, the UK data looks very different :-) If you could compare countries that would be cool.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> A lot of interesting data. Apparently the name Hillary massively plummeted in popularity during the Clinton administration, but then spiked during the 2008 elections!

There was also a brief Geraldine fad in 1988, coinciding with Geraldine Ferraro's candidacy for Vice President.

</comment><comment><USER15> It reminded me of the assignment from Google's Python Class [http://code.google.com/edu/languages/google-python- class/exe...](http://code.google.com/edu/languages/google-python- class/exercises/baby-names.html) :)

<comment><USER16> Exactly why I looked this name up [http://babynamegraphs.com/female/multipleNamesGraph?names%5B...](http://babynamegraphs.com/female/multipleNamesGraph?names%5B%5D=Trinity&gender=female)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'd suggest putting focus in the 'Add another name' text box after every reload. If I want to add multiple names, it's irritating to have to reach for the mouse to put the focus back in the textbox for each one.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good call, I'll add that in. Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> You could mash this with a name visualization hack I did in the spring: <http://namestofaces.com/>

</comment><comment><USER19> Styling is messed up on an iPad

<comment><USER20> Styling ok for me but the drag and double click actions dont work...

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Well the design is good, simple to use, and most important: effective. Unfortunately, unless you and I have a different definition of viable, this idea isn't very lucrative. I've seen a lot of different websites with this same idea, how is yours different?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a good question. Right now I'm not sure. I hadn't seen the babynameclusters guy down below :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> this is dope, nice work :)

</comment><comment><USER23> Neat. My name (Tristan) went from #451 in 1994 to #121 in 1995. Maybe because Brad Pitt played a character named Tristan in Legends of the Fall in 1994?

<comment><USER24> Here's a website I made a few years ago: <http://www.babynameclusters.com/name/Tristan/Male>

That's a good guess regarding the Brad Pitt character. I should add movie character names - those might be more influential than famous people in wikipedia.

<comment><USER25> What's the data source on that one? Is it a wiki scrape?</comment></comment></comment>


Traces of Errors: Getting Better JavaScript Stacktraces [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Tys-VuBPgo

<comment><USER2> The code used in the talk is here:

[https://github.com/toddhgardner/jserror](https://github.com/toddhgardner/jserror)

Although I'm not sure how much I'll use this once chrome dev tools lands it's async-call-stack improvements: [http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/developertools/async-...](http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/developertools/async- call-stack/)</comment>


Show HN : reSRC.io - curated lists of learning resources - <AUTHOR> http://resrc.io

<comment><AUTHOR> First time I ship a week-end project !

I would be pleased to get any feedback.</comment>


Groupon has no viable business model - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/08/groupon_doomed_by_too_much_of.html#.TktWMsm2TwY.facebook <comment><USER3> It's almost as if people derive personal satisfaction from poking holes in Groupon's success (or any startup, for that matter). Groupon has no viable business model, people will get tired of Zynga's games, Twitter can't monetize, Facebook will be killed by Google+/is useless/the ads on it aren't worth anything, etc. Every time one of these things gets pointed out, people show up and start high-fiving each other, say they've been saying this all along, etc.

I really don't understand this part of human psychology. We cheer entrepreneurs on, until they see a massive success, at which point we feel compelled to point out that their achievement is meaningless and we knew it all along. Are people really _that_ jealous?

<comment><USER4> I'm pleased for success which is built on providing real value to real people.

I'm not pleased at, say, Bernie Madoff's success. (Over 15 highly successful years in business, and only one unsuccessful one!) IMHO, he wasn't providing real value to people and his apparent success was only due to fraudulent accounting. According to Wikipedia, Madoff's brother invested $32,000 and received profits of $16 million - an impressive rate of return. Am I a nattering nabob of negativity for poo-pooing this "success"?

I believe Groupon is in the Madoff category, or close to it...

<comment><USER5> Comparing Groupon to Madoff is a bit of a stretch.

<comment><USER5> Why the down vote?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The long-term problem is simply this: Groupon isn't adding value to anyone.

For customers, Groupon adds almost no value. A great marketing deal will get publicized anyway - there are hundreds of websites devoted to coupon/code sharing. So if a business wants to offer 50% off, they could spend five minutes mailing a couple of these sites, and there would be plenty of publicity for their deal.

For almost all businesses, Groupon adds negative value. It costs money to fulfill these deals. "Losing money on every sale" is not a way to build a real business. The customers are the worst possible: solely money motivated, never going to do repeat business, and all coming in a giant surge which your business is not likely prepared to cope with... that's absolutely the opposite of the kind of customers you want.

Groupon has been able to paper over these problems with creative accounting and venture capital. This will not last forever.

<comment><USER6> It is simply not true that a "great deal" will get publicized by itself, or that any pre-2009 channel for publicizing great deals was effective for most businesses. I find this comment facile. Small businesses die all the time because nobody discovers them.

I don't know about Groupon, but it's flat out wrong to say that small businesses don't have the problem Groupon _claims_ be addressing. They clearly do have the problem.

<comment><USER4> > It is simply not true that a "great deal" will get publicized by itself

I said spend five minutes emailing. If I'm selling widgets for $25 when the usual, accepted price in commerce is $100 (which is the standard Groupon deal, right?) and I spend five minutes emailing the widget fanatics mailing list, I guarantee that a LOT of people will discover my offer to sell widgets for $25. The deal will spread all by itself given a very minimal amount of priming by the business owner.

It won't spread if I'm offering to sell widgets for $99 instead of $100. But $25? Yes.

> I don't know about Groupon, but it's flat out wrong to say that small > businesses don't have the problem Groupon claims be addressing. They clearly > do have the problem.

No, no businesses have a problem of not being able to find customers to buy things _at prices well below the store's cost_. If I buy wine at $10 per bottle and instead of selling it at $20/bottle, I decide to sell it at $5/bottle, I assure you I will find plenty of customers. And that's what Groupon is offering - the "opportunity" to find customers who are willing to buy your products for below what it cost you to put them on your store shelves.

A useful service would be to find customers who are willing to pay full retail price for your products. That's a service that retailers would and should pay money for. That isn't what Groupon is offering.

<comment><USER6> Repeating the same wrong statement doesn't make it more true. You can make the absolute best cupcake in Chicago, but if you don't promote your business, it won't matter how far you discount them. Nobody's going to know you exist.

People persist in these weird economic analyses of "daily deals" sites as if they have anything to do with the economics of breakage or marginal cost. That's not the point of daily deals. The point of daily deals sites is that they're promotional channels, and that they're more effective than local advertising, which is a notorious black hole.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The viable business model for Groupon is to shed 90% of it's 7500 employees, improve business satisfaction and let the businesses come to them. This may be hard now that Groupon has such a bad reputation amongst businesses.

Groupon was too enthusiastic to become big rather than good. I understand why they thought it was necessary and to some degree I agree that it was the correct game to play but I think they have destroyed their chance of retaining the customers (businesses) they acquired during their growth.

Seriously they need to downsize quickly and fix their customer satisfaction (taking a smaller cut would be a start). It would be rough but at least they might turn a business loosing a $100 or so million every quater into a profitable business.

I have a feeling though what's in the hearts of Groupon's leadership is not the desire for a profitable business but a pump and dump.

<comment><USER8> _let the businesses come to them_

That will never happen. That's the fundamental problem with "local". Small businesses and mom-and-pop shops need to be called and convinced. They need their hand held. They aren't studying lean marketing practices or split testing their offers.

Look at the head counts for ad sales vs editorial for any local publication (newspaper, magazine, newsletter). If you want to sell to local businesses, you have to call them.

<comment><USER9> this is dead-on... local = massive sales expense.

elon musk tried to create one such company, Zip2, back in the late 90's. cost of sales ate it alive.

reachlocal, profitfuel, etc has been successful by making their companies into freakish sales-driven machines. the core competence of any "local" is maximaizing sales effectiveness.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm not terribly impressed with this article. It rehashes the thinking of HN and other bloggers without adding anything new - other than the HBR logo at the top. I guess that's important for people who let HBR tell them what to believe. And the following point just seems completely wrong to me:

>> And unlike the very few successful companies that scaled before they were profitable (think Facebook or Amazon), Groupon's business model does not benefit from significant network effects.

Can someone explain how Amazon's consumers benefit from network effects? Amazon is a great business, but it's not more valuable to me because other HNers shop there. And then there's Google. Another company that experienced tremendous growth and unprofitability before finally turning on a fountain of cash. They would also seem to be a case where there's no obvious network effect fueling their growth.

There's good reason to be dubious about Groupon, but I'm pretty disappointed by the quality of the debate in many cases. Groupon's business model is really simple. They'll be OK if the life-time value of their subscriber base exceeds the money spent on customer acquisition (ok, and some operating costs). There are plenty of useful metrics we can use to forecast their likelihood of success. Data like offer quality, merchant churn, subscriber acquisition costs, revenue per customer, unsubscribe rates will determine their fate. Everything else is just a sideshow.

<comment><USER11> > Can someone explain how Amazon's consumers benefit from network effects?

Volume. Marginal cost of fulfilling 100,000 orders/day <<< Marginal cost of fulfilling 1,000 orders/day.

GroupOn's claim to scale is that you need eyeballs to convince businesses to put on good deals, and you need good deals to attract eyeballs. Also, there's a land grab going on. If they allow a competitor to become entrenched, taking him on later is going to be difficult, as I'd guess breaking someone else's eyeballs/deals loop is even harder than creating it in the first place.

<comment><USER12> These are economies of scale. I object to relating them to network effects. Network effect, if the term is to have any meaning at all distinct from economy of scale, should relate specifically to value added by edges joining nodes, where those nodes are customers, suppliers or partners etc., and the edges are something the company enables.

<comment><USER13> Amazon benefits from network effects by hosting reviews. When I am thinking about buying something I often go to Amazon first because of the reviews.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is the business model really so nonviable? Companies are coming to Groupon willing to give them exclusive coupons for their businesses, and Groupon gets to take 50% of the money from every Groupon bought.

I thought the only reason they were unprofitable was the issue of scale -- they were blowing large amounts of money trying to become as big as possible, as fast as possible. Once they are the 500 pound gorilla on the market and the majority of businesses go through them, I can't see them being as bad as they are now.

<comment><USER15> Disclaimer: I work for a sustainable deal site for local businesses.

One factor that hbr is not mentioning is business owners (national and local) that participate on Groupon, for the most part, are having bad experiences. Obviously this depends on the industry (sky dive plus all around, coffee shops down all around) but not all industries can live off of 25% of their goods sold. I know many local business owners who ran a Groupon and promised themselves that they will never Groupon again because of the poor customer experience, and the large financial loss per Groupon.

The scale part is what worries me. I don't think Amazon needed as much money as Groupon needed to scale which is the biggest worry. At some point, the financial well will dry up on Groupon.

When that happens, I don't know what will become of Groupon. Maybe they should have taken the purported Google deal of a buyout for $6 billion :).

<comment><USER5> > _business owners (national and local) that participate on Groupon, for the > most part, are having bad experiences_

My understanding is that Groupon's satisfaction rate is well above 50%. It seems that everyone forgets that, at worst, this is an advertising expense that guarantees revenue and foot traffic.

<comment><USER15> It is 100% dependant on industry. Ask any retailer if a Groupon makes sense when they depend on the margins their products produce.

The only way it makes sense is if they are able to get large volume discounts on whatever they are trying to sell.

Just running some #s here. Local clothing ship buys jewelry for $5/piece and marks it up to $15. Groupon takes 75% of the $15. Groupon takes $11.25 out of the $15 and you just lost $.25 on the entire deal (not including expenses to find that piece).

Sure that same retailer could mark the piece up to $20 but groupon takes $15 of that and you break even. A $5 piece probably couldnt be sold for anything higher than $20...

I will agree that it generates foot traffic but most smaller businesses I have talked to who have done a Groupon or thought about it have had negative experiences or choose not to do it because of a scenario similar to the one above I portrayed.

Just my .02

<comment><USER5> 25 cents to get someone through the door is the best deal on the planet.

<comment><USER16> It _really_ depends on who that 'someone' is.

A tire-kicker who has no intention of ever becoming a customer in the future, and just wants their 'deal' - no one wants those customers. Groupon doesn't seem to offer any way to segment or market your message/deal to subsets of people differentiated on any other signal besides those customers that "want a deal".

<comment><USER5> At $0.25 per, it really does not matter. Even at higher costs, the customer mix would need to be pretty horrible to compete unfavorably with traditional advertising where you very well might get zero custo,ers for your outlay.

<comment><USER16> In the example given, it's really $1.25, but even at $0.25, I'd still disagree. That's just the cost of getting someone in the door. If your sales process is just people browsing in a physical location, possibly that's OK. If it requires a lot of interaction with staff, that's cost that needs to be factored in.

Should that be factored in to the groupon price? Absolutely. Will most people know to do that (and goes groupon counsel people on how to do that)? Based on most groupon horror stories, absolutely not.

<comment><USER15> Those horror stories are actually somewhat scary for a business owner. Not being able to dictate what time your discount starts?

If people have a bad experience with the Groupon at your store, the store gets inflicted with tons of bad reviews due to long lines, long checkout times, etc etc etc. While in theory this sounds like a good problem to have, its not and won't provide a sustainable stream of customers (i.e. majority of these customers come once, have an awful experience because of the aforementioned problems and never come back).

While my sample size is small (~15 biz owners) I saw it first hand at a restaurant in Somerville. My buddies and I stayed for 3 table turns around us. I overheard everyone that was there because of Groupon and every single table had no intention of coming back. They didn't mention the cause, but I am assuming it was slow service because the place had a 1.5 hr wait (normally 15mins).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Two numbers. In my mind that is all what is needed to determine if Groupon is the next Amazon, or if their business model is sustainable; and they are far more telling than the silly financial metrics they were throwing around:

1 - % repeat customers.

2 - % merchants who would like to repeat.

I have seen people try to guesstimate them from the financials, or throw around wild guesses based on a sample of anecdotal evidence. Nothing convincing so far.

Also Groupon and other daily deal did publish some of these in the heydays of daily deals, but no continuous updates (I think the most recent claim by Groupon was early this year)

I am sure Groupon keeps a close watch on these metrics, why aren't they releasing it? That in itself is very telling...

Edit: formatting.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is a good example of why MBAs frequently make lousy entrepreneurs. So much in this article is wrong. First, Groupon actually does have more network effects than a simple retailer like Amazon (save reviews). Shoppers go where the deals are, merchants go where the shoppers are. Bigger lists mean better targeting. Etc. That's why Groupon has continued to dominate despite the plethora of clones.

But the bigger problem is the implication that Groupon will not adjust its economics in the future. Groupon could slash SG&A, sales and marketing to become wildly profitable and still grow quickly. It's actually quite amazing how long Groupon has managed to take a whopping 25% cut. This is likely to diminish as discounts become smaller and merchants negotiate better terms. But still healthy enough to support a very large business.

> _businesses should become profitable before they become big_

The opposite is true of most or all of the big internet businesses.

> _Groupon's fundamental problem is that it has not yet discovered a viable > business model_

Taking a 25% cut of sales is a fantastically viable business model.

> _I have no problem letting investors finance my cheap consumption. But as > far as an investment goes, Groupon is looking about as profitable as giving > away your merchandise for 90% off._

These statements are just wrong. Merchants are financing your cheap consumption. Who is giving merchandise away for 90% off? Where does that come from?

I am far from a Groupon apologist but so much of the "analysis" on the company is so bad. Comparisons to Pointcast, Pets.com or Webvan are totally unfounded. This company is generating massive cash flows.

</comment><comment><USER18> _But as far as an investment goes, Groupon is looking about as profitable as giving away your merchandise for 90% off_

</comment><comment><USER19> It's interesting that a smart company like Google almost paid $6B for them.

Did they not understand the business model well enough or did they just want it to bolster other services (like payments) despite it not being profitable?

How Google Offers goes should tell us. Maybe they've found a way to make the model work.

<comment><USER20> Or maybe Groupon declined the offer because they knew they couldn't scam Google once they started their due diligence.

<comment><USER21> [http://li82-18.members.linode.com/google-deal-said- have-25-b...](http://li82-18.members.linode.com/google-deal-said- have-25-billion-reverse-breakup-fee)

That breakup fee would have been paid right after due diligence.

<comment><USER22> I'm guessing there was some pretty big performance (possibly profit) incentives for the founders and they knew they had no chance of hitting them. So their next option to cash everyone out and make a ton of $ was IPO.

<comment><USER21> From what I heard they were bucking for a breakup payment of 5 billion - <USER2> would have been within an order of magnitude of what the Groupon investors would have liked to have.

<comment><USER22> Scared of due diligence ya think?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Their business model is profitable, but is it sustainable? How many merchants, after they have tried Groupon, will be likely to use Groupon again for advertising? Not bloodly likely.

Advertisers/merchants keep going back to Google AdWords because they're getting ROI. There's not much ROI from Groupon.

<comment><USER22> _"Their business model is profitable"_

Dwight Schrute: False, they are losing $ [unless you don't count marketing ;-)].

<comment><USER24> I don't get the Office reference. Do enlighten me please ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Here's where I struggle...

Everything you say about Groupon today applied to Amazon in the late 90s. They were accused of being a pyramid scheme. They were accused of bad accounting because they counted free shipping as a one time expense. They were never going to succeed. Fast forward 15 years and Borders is going out of business, Barnes and Noble is in retreat and Amazon moved beyond books to retailing everything - including the cloud.

My nature is to be a cynic, and I roll my eyes when people make up new metrics. I look for cash rather than an opinion on earnings. Even Generally Accepted Accounting Principles can be gamed, let alone non-GAAP metrics. But maybe this time they're right.

This isn't to say Groupon will succeed, but there is some precedent. Maybe they are more Amazon than eToys.

<comment><USER26> Agreed to a certain extent. The real question you have to ask is "If they hit their scaling targets, would it be successful", for Amazon, the answer was yes (thought there were significant doubts whether or not they could hit their targets). For Groupon, people question if they could be successful even if they hit their scaling targets.

BTW, people also questioned AOL for shipping all those CD's and counting it as an investment instead of a marketing expense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Despite the fact the author is probably right, his lack of discussing a little company called Amazon makes it hard to take him too seriously.

</comment><comment><USER28> Those who are saying that this article parrots what HN has been saying must not be reading very carefully.

The author states that entrepreneurs should be patient for growth and impatient for profits. This flies exactly in the face of much of the teachings of PG and other lean start-up advocates. Instead, they advocate that start-ups should grow like hell to gain market share and mindshare, and focus on creating value ("something people want"), not profits. Profits, according to the lean start-up playbook, will come later, when the founders decide on the best way to monetize the value they've created.

The HBS piece aligns with PG's statements in one way -- the focus on keeping overhead low. I'd argue that Groupon is actually doing this -- their investments are going into buying deals, not paying for corporate jets.

</comment><comment><USER29> He forgot to mention Groupon brought in $878 million in the second quarter of 2011, 10x more than they did a year ago at $87.3 million. And $334M of the $1 billion of venture capital money went to buying stock from early investors, not pouring into the company.

<comment><USER30> > And $334M of the $1 billion of venture capital money went to buying stock > from early investors

Isn't that a different way of saying that the early investors are cashing out(to the company too, not even other outside investors) at the current valuation? That raises more questions, why would they cash out if they think the valuation is going to go up?

<comment><USER5> It was in return for turning down the $6b Google offer.

<comment><USER30> I still don't get it. If the offer was turned down, it would be because they think that either the offered price was too low, or because they think they can do better on their own(thus make even more money later). Why would any of those scenarios need a 'gift' from the company like this?

<comment><USER5> Well, yes, Groupon thought the offer was low and that it could do better on its own. And so cashed out some investors and employees in return for delaying a complete exit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I think such finance practices are deceitful and shouldn't be allowed.

But re: biz model viability, remember it did take Amazon seven years to turn in a profit. Everyone was nervous, but Bezos was determined to build brand reputation before making money.

Maybe that's what Groupon is doing too.

<comment><USER32> I think a key difference between Groupon and Amazon is the opportunity cost. Amazon spent tremendous amounts on warehouses and inventory, among other hard costs. Groupon has mostly burned through their money on customer acquisition.

Amazon spent a lot of money on developing an online shopping system that has a high degree of reliability, ease of use, and functionality. Groupon's web functionality appears to be something that cloners can copy pretty easily.

This past week, I saw that my local "alt-weekly" newspaper was launching their own Groupon clone. If they can do it, it obviously doesn't cost millions; thus, the barrier to entry is low.

Even worse for Groupon, potential competitors, such as the alt-weekly, already have sales staffs; their salespeople can sell the "daily deal" proposition as an add-on to their advertising offerings. They already know the local market, which is another advantage in competing with the out-of-town giant that has to learn it.

<comment><USER33> One need not really go too far to justify Amazon vs. Groupon, because Amazon is an _outlier_. If you're trying to convince that I should invest in your business, and your _best argument_ is that you might be able to be as good as Amazon if I just give you a chance, my wallet will be closing tighter, not opening. You're throwing the Hail Mary. Good luck to you, but you'll be doing it not with my money. Hail Mary is an exciting play on the football field when it works, precisely because it usually doesn't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I don't want to comment on Groupon's business model per se, nor whether the concerns expressed are truly valid.

However, there appears to be a meta-concern brewing, which I summarize as "... people suspect there's a high tech bubble that is going to crack at some point. If/when this happens we'll all need a poster child to point to that helps explain and summarise the why/how/who/when of the bursting of the bubble." Perhaps Groupon is the leading contender to fill this role.

</comment><comment><USER35> I can't understand why this isn't making tons of money: connect two parties and charge something for this, and keep your costs very low. I wonder if the Brazilians clones are doing ok, they seem to be.

Also, in the beginning everyone thought "Oh boy, I wish I had had that idea!"...

<comment><USER36> The trick is the sales process: finding companies who are willing to give what amounts to a 75% discount. This is the part that's so expensive in Groupon, and what's eating into their profitability the most.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> must be slow week when people 'write' these articles. this is such a flame bait.

I wish my small biz doesn't have success like groupon. there are issues with how they do business etc, but they are both greatest and biggest deal makers for small biz.

</comment><comment><USER38> I think Steven Blank was right about Customer Development methodology.

</comment><comment><USER39> Neither does the yellowpages and they make a small fortune still.</comment>


Ask HN: Where do you host your personal blog these days? - <AUTHOR> I've been using Medium for almost 2-3 years now to host my personal site and blog (https://tigran.nyc). I've started to feel I want something more customizable. Any suggestions will be appreciated. <comment><USER2> Look at static blog generators (hugo, jekyll) + s3 + cloudfront. You don't pay unless you have traffic.

<comment><USER3> Along these lines, I'm trying Github pages with Jekyll; works for me.

<comment><USER4> I'm going to second this, especially for a tech blog.

I sent one up in January. Despite not spending much time on it so far, there were a couple things I've already gathered from it.

First, is basic Git functionality. Without having much experience with remote repos, it provided me a good opportunity to try things out without being able to break too much. I essentially write up posts locally, then push them to a GitHub repo. Super simple.

Second is Linux and SSH. I have local repos on a Linux machine at home. I can SSH into the machine, write up a post, then push it out. I had very little knowledge of Linux and SSH prior. It's been pretty helpful.

The biggest thing I think it offers is convenience. I have a very simple way of writing posts, no matter where I am. It's pushed me to learn new systems (ones that a lot of people are already familiar with) and it allows for a simple means of fixing things (through GitHub's interface) in case I do break anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hugo + Github is killer. So is Jekyll on Github, I just prefer Hugo because it's easier to setup locally and also allows greater theme control.

my site: [https://cmp.is](https://cmp.is) repo: [https://github.com/0xcmp/cmpis.github.io- hugo](https://github.com/0xcmp/cmpis.github.io-hugo)

<comment><USER6> It's my understanding you can't deploy HTTPS on a github hosted Jeckyll site that's using - has that changed?

(To clarify: https:github.com/shitpostingblog, but [https://shitbpostingblog.xyz](https://shitbpostingblog.xyz) is not)

<comment><USER7> You can use the cloudflare free plan. The user will see https. Traffic will be encrypted between the user and cloudflare, but not between cloudflare and github. For a personal site that's not transmitting PII over the wire, I don't see a problem with that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Neocities. Static files, I rarely post. I pay the $5 to have a custom domain and support the site.

Mostly because I support what Neocities wants to be and I loved the old Geocities community. I'm not active in the Neocities community due to time but I do my best to encourage others to join. :)

I could find alternative hosting for $2/mo that would suit my needs but don't.

The main purpose of my site is for easier sharing of things: programs I use, anime recommendations, music recommendations, and how to contact me.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm using Jekyll + Firebase Hosting on my blog[0]. Currently looking into switching to Hugo[1] as it doesn't require Ruby and claims to generate pages much faster.

[0]: [https://citrusui.me/blog](https://citrusui.me/blog)

[1]: [https://gohugo.io](https://gohugo.io)

<comment><USER10> I can attest, Hugo is very fast. You might want to look into [https://www.netlifycms.org/](https://www.netlifycms.org/) (works with Hugo among others), and [https://github.com/netlify/victor- hugo](https://github.com/netlify/victor-hugo) if you want to use Gulp/Webpack in your workflow.

<comment><USER9> Thanks. Netlify's dashboard has improved a lot since I last used it (which was a month or two ago.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is a solved problem. Use WordPress. It's insanely customizable, has a huge ecosystem and now runs 27% of the sites on the web.

<comment><USER12> > How do people implement live dashboards on the web these days?

> This is a solved problem. Use Flash. It's insanely customizable, has a huge > ecosystem and now runs x% of the sites on the web.

This is argumentum ad populum. Lots of people used Java applets or Flash just a few short years ago, and I think we can all agree that the current HTML5/CSS3/JS ecosystem is much better.

<comment><USER11> When the goal is marketing or communication it's _rational_ to use the more popular ecosystem. The huge ecosystem gives you a huge advantage in getting things done and there are no bonus points for being right in advance. This is as true with blogs today as it was for flash a few years ago. Over the past five years many companies have essentially set fire to their money making HTML5 versions of their flash games, reinventing the wheel for multiple tools in their setup and extend development time only to find their HTML5 versions got worse reviews and were still buggy on some browsers.

And unlike flash vs HTML5, your choice of blogging back-end does nothing to extend your reach. Flash sites weren't usable for iPhone users but WP absolutely is. Not only that, but there are thousands of free themes and plugins to optimize the experience.

The rational way to pick a platform is to evaluate them based on the advantages they offer you now. For most sites now that's not going to be flash. For most blogs it's going to be WP with the occasional feeder post to Medium/LinkedIn/Facebook.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I used to run wordpress on a digitalocean FreeBSD VPS (and before that I was using some janky Ruby-on-Rails based blog engine), but I eventually grew tired of administering my own server just for a blog.

Now, I pay $2.95/month to have wordpress.com host it. I know it's not a very l33t solution, but the migration was easy and it works well enough. I get ~10 visitors a day, so it really doesn't matter, I suppose. It's mostly just a dumping ground for whatever nonsense pops into my head from time to time: ([https://jamesadam.me/](https://jamesadam.me/)).

</comment><comment><USER14> I recently switched my old VPS-hosted Wordpress blog to a static site generated by Middleman[1] hosted on Github pages[2]. It's been a really nice way to maintain flexibility of design with a huge boost to performance and improved development/writing workflow. I use markdown so I can even write my articles in a markdown editor if I want to.

[1] [https://middlemanapp.com/](https://middlemanapp.com/) [2] [http://paulzaich.com/](http://paulzaich.com/)

</comment><comment><USER15> I use a workflow that goes Hugo <==> GitHug <==> Netlify

Completely automated, blazing fast, and all 3 are FREE. Netlify even includes basic SSL for free (!!!), and that what I've implemented on all my Netlify hosted sites.

Here's 1 of my blogs that I maintain using this setup. [https://www.pawpurrazi.com/](https://www.pawpurrazi.com/)

I've also made a youtube video tutorial showing you step by step how to do this. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSwoCvd4QIc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSwoCvd4QIc)

I came to this setup from previously using WordPress to host all my blogs and then getting tired of dealing with all the security holes, performance bottlenecks and "pharma hacks" that come with it. I did evaluate Jekyll as the blog engine, but the lack of incremental builds was a dealbreaker for me. Hugo has incremental builds from v 0.16 onwards, and it is also super fast, I tested with 5000 posts, builds in a few seconds.

DISCLAIMER: I don't work for Netlify nor am affiliated with them. I find their service to be blazing fast and their support is excellent (even for free tiers), so I made the video a while back for everyone else to use. The co- founders Matt Biilmann and Chris Bach are both super smart and answer questions promptly, Matt also appears to have deep technical knowledge when it comes to caching, security, performance etc.

</comment><comment><USER16> Wrote my own thing on top of Go's http package. It handles subdomains to a limited extent and will also serve Markdown-formatted blog entries. I run it on a RAM Host KVM-based VPS, which I also use as a shell box and a traffic- forwarding endpoint when I'm on untrusted networks. The RAM Host VPS is a little expensive but after some incredibly frustrating experiences with the idiots at ChicagoVPS, the lack of drama has been well worth it.

</comment><comment><USER17> I host Ghost on a digital ocean VM. $5 a month isn't too bad hosting anything.

</comment><comment><USER18> Hugo + Digital Ocean [0]. I find it a powerful low cost combination with a lot of flexibility.

\- [0] [https://www.robinwieruch.de/own-website-in-five- days/](https://www.robinwieruch.de/own-website-in-five-days/)

</comment><comment><USER19> GitHub pages, and I use nginx to add SSL and proxy to it through one of my servers.

<comment><USER12> This is a nice solution but if you have any readers that don't live near you, you may want to think about using Cloudflare for SSL termination. SSL can add unacceptably high latency to connection costs for people who are not in close proximity to your host. A typical HTTPS handshake using TLS requires 4 round trips assuming no packet loss. The Cloudflare CDN does a great job of making sure this penalty is reduced as much as possible by having edge nodes as close to as many users as possible. Just something to think about.

edit: You may even want to think about using something like netlify. The free tier is easily generous for all but the most popular personal blogs and if you outgrow it you probably will be able to make enough revenue to pay for better hosting anyways.

<comment><USER19> Absolutely not. CloudFlare is a cancer on the net. I won't trade security for centralization and marginal speed improvements, my blog is pretty slim anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Jekyll + S3 bucket's static website + Cloudfront

S3 bucket static website is great. I have also hosted React apps with full routing by setting 'error' page to 'index.html' on the S3 bucket properties.

</comment><comment><USER21> Right now, I'm using WordPress.com since it's pretty simple to use and the editor works really well.

I'm looking into a better way to host a blog, but it will be a while until I do.

</comment><comment><USER22> I use Octopress and host content on NearlyFreeSpeech.net. I like it over gh- pages because I can run TLS on the root domain and can tweak server headers via .htaccess. On top of that, static hosting at NFS is extremely cheap. 2016 cost me 82 cents. I get maybe 5k visitors/month and use 300mb/month. I cheat on bandwidth by caching at Cloudflare heavily. Without CF my bandwidth would be double (but still pretty cheap!).

</comment><comment><USER23> Nothing special, just a wordpress self-install hosted on linode. I don't blog much, and haven't had a need to use anything more modern.

</comment><comment><USER24> My site is written in React + Next.js ([https://github.com/zeit/next.js/](https://github.com/zeit/next.js/)) and hosted on now ([https://zeit.co/now](https://zeit.co/now)).

</comment><comment><USER25> On a Hetzner box I have a bunch of other sites on. The code is about 30 lines of Ruby using an existing Postgres/Datamapper-based framework. No need for indexing or search (Google does that), comments (no thanks), just the trivialest of CRUD.

</comment><comment><USER12> Netlify with a GitHub post-update hook to automatically build and deploy when I push. No muss no fuss with free SSL termination provided by letsencrypt and low latency handshakes across the globe. Now if only I had something to write...

</comment><comment><USER26> Jekyll and Gitlab Pages: [https://about.gitlab.com/2016/04/07/gitlab-pages- setup/](https://about.gitlab.com/2016/04/07/gitlab-pages-setup/)

</comment><comment><USER27> OpenShift + Spress [https://www.openshift.com/](https://www.openshift.com/) It uses Github workflow

</comment><comment><USER28> I use Pelican (static generator) and host on Digital Ocean (calebmadrigal.com).

<comment><USER29> Pelican is great. I have it installed on a local vm which I use for composing then I push the static files to the webserver (ramnode). (www.adammelton.com)

<comment><USER30> I'm also a big ran of ramnode and pelican. I've had a host there for the past 4 years

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I mostly write the technical blogs on my website[1] with jekyll and my medium account for just random thoughts.

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

</comment><comment><USER32> I have recently enjoyed using the Standard App Engine to host my personal site. I have wercker run the middleman build and then the gcloud app deploy. Works well for me.

</comment><comment><USER33> Hostgator, I starting using it a bazillion years ago and it hasn't broken yet. I'm almost certainly hackable, but it works.

</comment><comment> transistor-man I've been using budgetvm's openvz VPS's for 2 yrs. Fairly happy, plenty of options for space if you need it.

</comment><comment><USER34> Ghost(Pro). Support has been fantastic with responses to emails measured in hours, not days (even on weekends!).

</comment><comment><USER35> I've use Ghost on Digital Ocean for a few years now. $5/month is pretty cheap. No issues so far.

</comment><comment><USER36> Linkedin because most of my postings are aimed at increasing my professional development/reputation

</comment><comment><USER37> Blogger. I am planning to migrate it to Pelican (getpelican.com) on DigitalOcean soon.

</comment><comment><USER38> python based Static site generator Nikola hosted on digitalocean along with a few other sites.

The advantage over pelican:

1\. python notebook (Jupyter) is a first class citizen

2\. I can set custom urls for each post. same as the previous blog system from which I am migrating

</comment><comment><USER39> On Wordpress but am slowly in the process of moving to a hugo/s3 pipeline

</comment><comment><USER40> Jekyll --> Ubuntu + nginx on OVH (Canada) VPS.

</comment><comment><USER41> Svbtle. Ghost is nice. GitHub Pages is fine.

</comment><comment><USER42> AWS RI t1.small $15/mo/year.

</comment><comment><USER43> GitHub and CloudFlare for the padlock.

</comment><comment><USER44> Hugo + GitHub pages + AWS Route 53

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks so much everyone!

</comment><comment><USER45> Jekyll on Github.

</comment><comment><USER46> pastebin as before.

</comment><comment><USER47> webfaction is great

</comment><comment><USER48> jekyll on surge.sh

</comment><comment><USER49> Chances are, nobody cares and nobody finds your site in the first place. Just keep a desktop zimwiki or a diary. I recommend using fountain pens, they are lovely tools to write with.

People read successful people's blogs, not yours nor mine (had one 15 years ago, no one read that either). So stop wasting time on tweaking the front porch and work on the piping instead.

<comment><USER50> Why so pessimistic? Maybe when writing a blog you won't get more than a handful regular readers, but keeping it public stimulates you to talk about you, your job, and the solutions you got when encountered a problem (sure, you won't talk about how much you love your dog, I hope).

I'd also say that a well kept blog may be more important than a CV since you can actually tell how good you are in your job.

To answer the question: I used to blog with pelican, and now hugo.

<comment><USER49> I guess it came through like that unintentionally. I had a bad time dealing with procrastination back then, where I was writing up snippets and thoughts on a blog instead of working on projects that really pushed me forward in life. Tweaking html and whatnot.

I feel that most people crave attention more than they crave growing in whatever they are writing about. Maybe it all boils down to how I felt back then. These days, I read much more and write very little. It fits me at the moment, and I am better for not craving others attention and approval.

Oh well, I'll stick to fountain pens for now. :)</comment></comment></comment>


Apple Special Event October 2013 Live Stream - <AUTHOR> http://www.apple.com/apple-events/october-2013/

<comment><USER2> Hands down there is nothing more exciting about this OS X update than being able to use multiple monitors again. They can keep their fancy power management and their new apps, because nothing will compare to that feeling when I boot into my shiny new surf-speckled desktop, fullscreen a video on my second monitor, and my main screen isn't covered in useless grey cloth. For the first time in I don't know how many years, I won't have to repress the urge to knock my monitor off my desk and install Ubuntu. I will just gaze at the waves off Half Moon Bay, a satisfied smile on my lips, and feel nothing but pure calm.

<comment><USER3> ...Pardon my ignorance, I've never owned an Apple product, but you can't use multiple monitors effectively on OS X? You're kidding right?

<comment><USER4> Short explanation: You can use multiple monitors just fine in extended Desktop mode.

However, there are two issues that drive people crazy:

1) When you go enable full screen mode for an app, the app fills one display and all other displays are blanked with a gray linnen texture. That's may be useful if you are watching a movie and don't want other displays to annoy you, but it's really annoying if you just want eg. Mail full screen on a secondary monitor.

2) Mac OS Lion also added a feature named "Spaces" (I think this is called virtual desktops or so on other platforms). The problem is that when you switch between spaces, both screens switch simultaneously. Now let's assume you use your secondary monitor to show an IM client, or to show some live error log, or similar, it's really annoying if that disappears when you switch between spaces on your main display.

So OS X 10.9 finally makes two features introduced in 10.7 (Full screen mode, spaces) usable for people with multiple monitors.

<comment><USER5> > 2) Mac OS Lion also added a feature named "Spaces" (I think this is called > virtual desktops or so on other platforms). The problem is that when you > switch between spaces, both screens switch simultaneously. Now let's assume > you use your secondary monitor to show an IM client, or to show some live > error log, or similar, it's really annoying if that disappears when you > switch between spaces on your main display.

Can you explain how is this fixed? Are the spaces on each monitor independent or is there a method to "always show" certain windows? Because I really hate the former method.

<comment><USER6> You can either have independent spaces (switch screen 1 to a different space while screen 2 remains unchanged) or you can have them linked (when switching screen 1, screen 2 also changes).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Start time:

      07:00 — Honolulu, Hawaii
      10:00 — San Francisco, California
      13:00 — New York, New York
      14:00 — São Paulo, Brazil
      18:00 — London, England
      19:00 — Rome, Italy
      20:00 — Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
      21:00 — Moscow, Russia
      22:30 — New Delhi, India
      01:00 — Shanghai, China (October 23)
      02:00 — Tokyo, Japan (October 23)
      03:00 — Sydney, Australia (October 23)

<comment><USER8> 15:00 São Paulo (Summer Time). Here's an updated TZ list [http://everytimezone.com/#2013-10-22,300,6bj](http://everytimezone.com/#2013-10-22,300,6bj)

<comment><USER9> Today is the first time in months that I've searched for an international timetracker. Was really impressed with this:

[http://www.worldtimebuddy.com/est-to-cet- converter](http://www.worldtimebuddy.com/est-to-cet-converter)

Finally, a website with a very clear visualization of various timezones.

Then you post evertimezone.com, which does a very similar thing, but with battery-friendly css :)

<comment><USER10> I'm a big fan of [http://time.is](http://time.is). You can go to [http://time.is/compare](http://time.is/compare) to generate a similar comparison, or just add the times you want to know to the front page.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Ok so it's that time of the year again. I am on windows and have chrome, firefox, ie 11, VLC, flash. Is there any way for me to watch this stream? Heck will this work even if I get quicktime?

Edit:

* So they updated the page to say it will work for quicktime if you are on windows.

* But I am on win 8 and they use js to hide that part. So for now I am assuming it's because quicktime on it's download page only says it is supported upto win 7. So they must be hiding it for people with windows 8.

* I am downloading quicktime anyways and if regular install doesn't work then compatibility mode will almost certainly work for people with windows 8.

* Apart from that you might also need to spoof your UA to safari's. They only allow safari to load the stream. And safari is officially discontinued for windows. WTF apple.

And even then it's not guaranteed to work.

Edit 2: They seem to be showing a html5 video element for a spoofed chrome on windows with quicktime disabled. So maybe they decided to give up after all.

<comment><USER12> Apple uses HTTP Live Streaming protocol. VLC should be able to play it just fine. You will probably need a custom URL to feed VLC though. I'll paste the URL here once it's available.

EDIT: Quick bash script for extracting VLC-playable URLs (when they're available):

        curl `curl http://www.apple.com/apple-events/september-2013/ | grep "p.events-delivery.apple.com" | sed 's/\<script.*src="\(.*\)".*/\1/' | sed 's/".*//g'` | sed -e 's/[ \t]//'

UPDATE: Here are the links:

/ _snowLeopardurl_ / = [http://p.events- delivery.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1309ouhbqdv...](http://p.events- delivery.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1309ouhbqdvaeodhbqedvojhbadsfv/refs/13ohbdvohbqsdvojhbdfv09_sl_vod_ref.mov)

/ _non-snowLeopard url_ / = [http://p.events- delivery.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1309ouhbqdv...](http://p.events- delivery.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1309ouhbqdvaeodhbqedvojhbadsfv/refs/13ohbdvohbqsdvojhbdfv09_hd_vod_ref.mov)

/ _Windowsurl_ / = [http://p.events- delivery.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1309ouhbqdv...](http://p.events- delivery.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1309ouhbqdvaeodhbqedvojhbadsfv/refs/13ohbdvohbqsdvojhbdfv09_hd_vod_ref.mov)

/ _iphoneurl_ / = [http://p.events- delivery.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1309ouhbqdv...](http://p.events- delivery.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1309ouhbqdvaeodhbqedvojhbadsfv/refs/13ohbdvohbqsdvojhbdfv09_iphone_vod_ref.mov)

/ _ipadurl_ / = [http://p.events- delivery.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1309ouhbqdv...](http://p.events- delivery.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1309ouhbqdvaeodhbqedvojhbadsfv/refs/13ohbdvohbqsdvojhbdfv09_ipad_vod_ref.mov)

/ _voip_ / = [http://p.events- delivery.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1309ouhbqdv...](http://p.events- delivery.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1309ouhbqdvaeodhbqedvojhbadsfv/refs/13ohbdvohbqsdvojhbdfv09_audio_vod_ref.mov)

<comment><USER13> Last time VLC on WinXP would crash after a few seconds trying to play the official apple stream. Check reddit.com/r/apple and someone will post up a list of "pirate streams". One of them worked great for me in Firefox on XP last time.

EDIT: As of T-45 minutes, someone said they're going to use [http://www.onemorething.nl/live](http://www.onemorething.nl/live) which will hopefully not have commentary when it starts. Also they're saying the URL for VLC is [http://live.wowza.kpnstreaming.nl/onemorethinglive/OMTLIVE/p...](http://live.wowza.kpnstreaming.nl/onemorethinglive/OMTLIVE/playlist.m3u8)

EDIT: For me, on Win XP, latest VLC is playing [http://live.wowza.kpnstreaming.nl/onemorethinglive/OMTLIVE/p...](http://live.wowza.kpnstreaming.nl/onemorethinglive/OMTLIVE/playlist.m3u8) perfectly. It's the stream, no commentary, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> That's why Apple is succeeding. People are moaning about how they cannot view the live stream of an Apple event on their Windows/Linux platform, like we're landing on the moon or something. Amazing.

<comment><USER15> Yea it's a great idea to exclude most of the world from your marketing.

<comment><USER16> I think your sarcasm just fell into a chasm. It may not be by design, but the effect is the same...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Sorry if this is always brought up (i haven't seen an Apple stream since the iPhone 4 event), but we /still/ need Quicktime to stream this? What the hell?

<comment><USER18> Google wants their own protocol to succeed, Mozilla wants a different video codec to succeed[1], Microsoft probably wants to own both. It's very easy to cache HLS, which makes distributing high definition to a large number of people much cheaper. Is Apple supposed to spend more money on lower quality steaming just because their competitors don't want to play nicely?

VLC is capable of playing HLS if you can get it the correct URL. Some other browsers can play it, but the web has an unfortunately long history of browser detection.

[1 [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=577084](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=577084)]

<comment><USER19> I don't think this is about wanting protocols to succeed, or at least not primarily. Every iOS or OS X device Apple sells (so pretty much any of their products) can play this. No need to install anything. Why should Apple do any special extra work to make it work elsewhere without a bit of hassle?

Also, it's just a fucking PR event. Why _do_ people want to watch it? That's just weird.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Federighi just announced Mavericks is free

<comment><USER21> Windows 8.1 is also free, so no real surprise here. Anyway, good work Apple!

<comment><USER22> (honest question) - Is windows 8.1 free if I have a (full, standalone) copy of XP or Vista, or only if I own Windows 8?

Mavericks appears to be free for people with Snow Leopard (at least, that's what I read).

<comment><USER23> Windows 8.1 is free if you bought Windows 8 or if Windows 8 or RT shipped on your computer/tablet.

Mavericks, on the other hand, is free if you have a Mac that supports it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Excited for the new mini. Also over or under $5000 for mac pro?

<comment><USER4> $2999

<comment><USER25> Congratulations! You are the winner.

<comment><USER4> Yay!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Apple keynotes, like Apple itself, get more insufferable over time.

The only thing more tiring than hearing Steve Jobs describe every single thing they release as "magical" or "revolutionary" is hearing Phil Schiller blather on about hardware specs. Isn't Apple supposed to be the company that abstracts away hardware features to instead describe their products in terms of real- life benefits?

I remember a time when I truly looked forward to watching these keynotes and being inspired about the future. Now, though, every one feels like incremental changes wrapped in hyperbole. Instead of thinking "hey, that's actually pretty cool," I come away thinking "STOP SAYING EVERY DAMN THING YOU TOUCH IS 'MAGICAL' \- GET OVER YOURSELVES AND LET ME DECIDE IF I'M AMAZED!"

</comment><comment><USER27> Although its not everyone's cup of tea, you can watch the event with TWiT commentary: [http://live.twit.tv/](http://live.twit.tv/)

</comment><comment><USER28> Anyone have a link to the stream itself?

As a linux user, I get an empty div and told that Quicktime comes with OSX.

</comment><comment><USER29> Works only on Safari. Hello we are apple, welcome to 1998.

</comment><comment><USER30> Has the event started yet? The live stream doesn't seem to be working on the Apple device that I'm using.

<comment><USER31> 10 AM Pacific, 12 PM Central

<comment><USER32> 13 hours, Eastern.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> leak retina macbook 15 configuration: ME293:CPU2.0/8G/256G SSD/Iris Pro Graphics ──replace mbp none retina

ME294:CPU2.3/16G/512G SSD/750M 2G

ME8*4 2.6/16G/1TB SSD/ 750M 2G

I guess :-)

</comment><comment><USER34> Tim's voice shakes a lot. I wonder what makes him so nervous.

<comment><USER35> Yeah, what could possibly be nerve-wracking about public speaking to hundreds of thousands of people, where a single mis-step can be remembered and mocked until the end of his days?

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> So... is the stream live yet? Can we get an URL?

</comment><comment><USER37> Is this working for anyone? Can't watch it in Chrome, and on Safari I'm prompted to install Quicktime. I'm on a Mac. On the Quicktime download page it just warns that I already have QT installed. Very confusing.</comment>


Programming language personality theory - <AUTHOR> http://www.sicpers.info/2015/08/pl-personality-theory/

<comment> vezzy-fnord _Lisp_ Mostly calm with sudden outbursts of zen.

 _Scheme_ Pretentious. Probably has a blog named for a pun on a classic computing textbook.

\</comment><comment>

We can certainly infer plenty about the author's personality, I suppose.</comment>


Principles of Sharding for Relational Databases - <AUTHOR> https://www.citusdata.com/blog/2017/08/09/principles-of-sharding-for-relational-databases/ <comment><USER2> I find the "you don't want to shard" camp quite annoying. Of course, I don't want to shard! Who does?! It adds complexity, both implementation-wise and operational.

But if you got 5 TB of data, that needs to be in a SSD drive, then please tell me how I can get that into 1 single physical database.

<comment><USER3> There is a new generation of relational databases that are native to multi- node operation, and don't require sharding. I'm speaking of tech like Google Spanner and my employer, FaunaDB.

Now you don't have to shard. More info on how we accomplish distributed transactions. [https://fauna.com/blog/distributed-consistency-at-scale- span...](https://fauna.com/blog/distributed-consistency-at-scale-spanner-vs- calvin)

<comment><USER4> P.S. Google Spanner and FaunaDB both shard. They can call it something else. But unless every node has all data on it, it is sharded.

<comment><USER5> It is true that Spanner and FaunaDB partition a cluster's dataset across multiple nodes but it's handled transparently by the database. Whenever I've heard the term "sharding" it's usually in reference to the application-level sharding described in the article.

Partitioning the dataset isn't really novel these days (Cassandra, Riak, Mongo et al do the same of course), but what is a significant difference is that both Spanner and FaunaDB implement ACID transactions distributed across partitions. It no longer matters for application correctness what partition key you choose if you can involve any arbitrary set of records in an single transaction.

<comment><USER6> (Ozgun from Citus Data)

> Whenever I've heard the term "sharding" it's usually in reference to the > application-level sharding described in the article.

I wanted to drop a quick clarification note here. In the article, I used the term "sharding" to refer to both application and database level sharding.

For anyone that's looking at sharding as an option for scaling, we're always happy to chat and help point you in the right direction. My email's ozgun @ citusdata.com

If you're looking databases that come with built-in sharding, I'd definitely check out Citus (then again, I'm biased): [https://www.citusdata.com/](https://www.citusdata.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hey everyone, it's Ozgun. When I first wrote this blog post, it was much longer. Based on initial feedback, I edited out parts of it to keep the post focused.

If you have any questions that aren't covered in the post, happy to answer them here!

<comment><USER7> Thats funny, because I was dying for it to be longer. I felt like the post was just an introduction. I'd love to see a part 2 with a more detailed description that touches more of the implementation of a sharding plan.

For me a major question I have as I consider sharding is what my application code will look like. Let's say I have a query like:

'select products.name from vendor inner join products on vendor.id = products.vendor where vendor.location = "USA"'

If I shard such that there are many products table (1 per vendor), what would my query look like?

<comment><USER8> Your application code shouldn't have sharding concerns in its logic. To achieve this, you should introduce an abstraction layer. One such example is vitess[0], which is used at YouTube.

If that's too much work, then an easy preliminary step is to add the abstraction layer in your application code. That gets you most of the benefits of a proxy for the purpose of having clean application logic, and makes it easy to switch over later, but is less powerful and feature complete.

[0]: [http://vitess.io/overview/#features](http://vitess.io/overview/#features)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interesting that sharding by customer for a sass business is the example of the best use of sharding. That can also go very wrong - what if you get a huge customer that's as big as everyone else combined? You're effectively maxed out at 2 shards.

Definitely depends on the workload, but often the "micro service" approach (whether or not it's a true micro service in its own runtime) of sharding just one type of data/small set of related tables that you can shard by a primary key or user id or something seems like the only reasonable option for sharding. If your data is becoming unwieldy there's often a bottleneck data set that's bigger than everything else so you don't necessarily have to share everything all at once.

</comment><comment><USER10> I laugh every time I read that word.

<comment><USER11> Pottery, right?

<comment><USER12> The term comes from Ultima Online, one of the first graphical MMORPGs that gained mass-market acceptance. The rationale behind the architecture that Origin used for geographical load balancing was that the independent copy of the game world that resided on each server represented a "shard" of the shattered gem of Mondain the Wizard.

[http://www.uoguide.com/Mondain](http://www.uoguide.com/Mondain)

<comment><USER11> Well yes I knew that. But the point is that people had been distributing their load over a set of identical resources for decades before that, usually calling it "Partitioning" or some other word that wasn't "Shard". This is an often repeated patter in the field unfortunately : new people invent something that they don't realize already existed and make up a new name.

<comment><USER12> Sure, but they weren't trying to invent a technical term -- it just caught on for some reason.

It turns out that if your game backstory reads too much like an MCSE study guide, your game won't sell very well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> She shard on a turtle!</comment>