Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.) - <AUTHOR>

Hello HN!
Every once in a while, I like to offer my time to help other passionate people be a little more successful with their goals. If there's anything I can help you with, just ask here. No strings whatsoever. I've done this before a few times now, and it's worked out well for everyone. Check out some of the previous "No strings" sessions I've done to get an idea of how I can help. (http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=mikegreenberg)
A few requests: Be specific about what you're trying to fix/solve/accomplish. The more details you provide, the better I can help you out. I will try to help all requests made before the end of today and will attempt to complete by the end of Sunday. Be patient and check back. Please keep requests to tasks I can do in ~15 minutes. I'll spend more time willingly, but smaller requests lets me help more people! Thanks. :)
An idea of some of the things I've helped others with recently:
- Led an interview for a non-technical entrepreneur looking for a tech co-founder
- Advising two startups-to-be who currently have no technical lead (pro bono)
- Helping my dad how to use the internet to teach his skills to others
- Regular feedback on projects that people are working on in my local community
I feel like I should do something a little special for this one since its the holidays. So the person (other than me) who helps "most generously" in this thread will get a copy of Eric Ries "The Lean Startup" shipped to them from Amazon. (If you already own the book, I'm happy to substitute it.) This will be subjectively chosen by me, but I think you all know how to be generous. I'll use any information in your profile I can find to contact you for delivery info. If I can't contact you, I'll broadcast on Twitter (@mikegreenberg) to try to reach you there. If you're not listening and I can't reach you, I pick someone else.
Cheers!! (And happy holidays!)
PS: If you'd rather give than receive: Go find someone else to do something nice for...like give them a back rub. Or leave your $0.02 for someone in this thread.
PPS: If this sounds too good to be true, here are some of my thoughts on why I do this: http://nobulb.com/2011/10/on-manufacturing-your-own-serendipity/ <comment><USER2> Well, since you helped me to find an awesome webhost last time, I figure I'll bite on some more generosity. :)

I have a product that will be completed soon. I do not plan on selling this product through my site, but I do want to drive traffic there before and after release. I have kept myself socially detached on the Internet in the past and I do not have a Facebook and only recently embraced Twitter and G+. I am slowly trying to build a brand around my name so that I might have traffic for future products.

Since launching my site, I have been working on learning HTML/CSS and it has slowly come together between work, school and children. Now I am venturing into the world of PHP. I built a little script that I use for people to register for my newsletter. It is driven by a form with one text box and a submit button. It takes whatever is in that box, throws it in a flat file, then redirects to a thanks page.

I like working with flat files, I always have, but I am currently up against a wall where I either need to dive deeper into PHP or look into a service like MailChimp. What I need to know:

I'd like for there to be more feedback to both the user and myself that their submission was okay. I'd like to generate a subscription email that is sent after the completion of the form which would also CC me. I am really not interested in a service that convolutes this process if it is something I can manage myself. What do you recommend? If you say PHP is the answer, are there any resources out there that you suggest that would put me on the right path?

<comment><AUTHOR> Really happy that they are working out for you!

PHP has been my world for many years and recently I've begun branching out. After playing around with the likes of Python, Ruby, and NodeJS; they are all just tools that you can use to get the job done.

That said, there are much better tools than others for specific tasks. And I were to suggest a language that you should start learning in regards to web development, I would probably not recommend PHP. The language has hit a bit of a slow trough as they (the PHP gods) decide on an appropriate roadmap going forward. PHP will be around for a long, long time so there's not much worry of it becoming legacy too quickly.

But other languages are much better maintained and have more activity in the community. (My current favorite being Python.)

Regarding your problem at hand, PHP can do this quite simply and the only resource you'll need would be <http://php.net/mail/>. That said, I wouldn't use this for high volume traffic as the mail implementation in PHP is not efficient. (Read the notes on that link.)

Email on the internet is a bit tricky, especially when ensuring your message is delivered appropriately, well-formatted, readable in both text and HTML, etc. And as soon as you start hitting these problem, it's a much more efficient use of your time to go with these services over rolling your own.

This is just one person's opinion who ended up using a perl script to handle mailing functionality instead of PHP's native function in a PHP app he wrote. _blush_

<comment><USER2> Excellent reply sir, might I ask another?

The reason I used PHP for my little script was because I discovered that you just ship the output of the form button to whatever.php and it essentially took whatever values as arguments, then quickly spit me back to the site when it was done. I am familiar with Python, and have written some utilities I use daily, but is just as easy to implement Python server side or do I need to install some extensions that handle this sort of stuff?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think your solution is perfect for problem. The biggest gripe I have with PHP is the mail interface. When you outgrow your currently solution, the next step I'd take is use your PHP solution to pass the mail request to a mail service provider. That will give you the most bang for your buck without added complexity.

If you're feeling really brave and really want to roll your own solution, try to find a way to cheaply create a HTTP POST interface that you could point your form at to process your request. A python/django instance could do this but might be a lot of overhead for just a mail processor, for example.

Just don't try to over engineer it. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I need some help and advice with my product. My company (www.pyronyx.com) has recently launched our iPhone app, iQila (www.iqila.com). We envision this app to help people find and share interior design tips and ideas and post questions or get advice from professional interior designers. The app in the current version allows you to take images and post them along with your question. Other users can then comment on your post or share it on Facebook. We have another version coming up with more sharing options and better camera/image UI and layout.

There are a few problems I know are there and I don't have concrete ways to solve: 1\. Getting the message across. I find it difficult to explain the idea to people. It's not complicated at all but I think my choice of words is not correct and people don't understand the idea of the app if I email it to them, or through the app store. We've got about 300 downloads in the past week but only a handful of people have used the app. What do you think after reading the website and app store descriptions? How can I improve it? How can I convert those downloads to users?

2\. How do I get professionals to use the app? We plan on having professional profiles where people can search for designers in their areas. That is for a future release, and for that to work, I need to introduce the app to professionals in the field who would want to use the app in the first place to market themselves, answer questions, post ideas etc.. I look up professional interior designers online and personally them on twitter and through email but I'm not seeing ANY feedback. I think I'm lost and need help in targeting and finding the correct users, partners.

3\. Any general advice on the product. We've built the app and the web backend such that we can change it for other domains and add and remove features. Initially, we thought of a framework we can provide other companies so that they can have their own similar apps. Although we aren't going that route yet, we ourselves can change directions easily, if need be.

About the company: We are just 2 developers with full time jobs and a shoestring budget.

</comment><comment><USER4> Hey, Mike -

Do you know anyone who needs a software developer? I was just laid off out of the blue from my latest gig, and I'm looking for something else. I live in Denver right now, and have had a couple of interviews in the past few days, but I'm looking to spread as wide of a net as possible. They say it's easiest to find a job when you have a job, and while the subject of my current employment hasn't come up yet, it's bound to eventually. I'd just as soon have many eggs in many baskets in the event that this reflects poorly on me.

My wife has been asking me if we can move to Florida, where I believe you're from, so I'd be open to relocation as well. My e-mail address is located in my profile.

Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> I know of a few opportunities here. I'll shoot you a quick email.

<comment><USER4> Gracias. Happy holidays!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I commented before but guess it hasn't showed up, so I'll comment again lol.

I need an idea for an Individual Project Proposal.

Details: Studying Business Information Systems -- this is Database oriented at the moment but also includes Decision Support Systems and Artificial Intelligence next year. I'm also becoming interested in programming and web scripting although the idea of a web site was not approved by my tutor. I want to do something with gaming or an app; something that I can easily learn. The project should be original or an improvement of a system/ combines existing technology to create something useful.

Thanks a lot!!

<comment><USER6> Why don't you start with a problem you or someone you know faces and then work backwards to an idea to solve that problem.

I find people often build things because they are possible and interesting but unless you solve a problem they don't add a lot of value and therefore don't get used.

<comment><USER7> I think thats really simple and excellent piece of advice. I think we as human are very good at ignoring simple things.

<comment><USER5> Thanks a lot for the advice guys!!

Yh I've been keeping an eye out for problems to solve and I keep telling myself to buy a notepad to jot down any ideas I come up with or a problem I discover. There are problems although big that's why I was ignoring them as they are way put of my league lol but I will listen to your advice and look into it, Thanks again! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm trying to find a mentor. I need help finding potential candidates.

I'm 19 and I'm really interested in doing systems-level work in either C or, more recently, I've been looking at Erlang. I'm just picking stuff up on my own.

The thing is, I don't know any professional programmers. I don't really have any idea how one finds a mentor. I don't know who I should contact. If anyone knows someone who might be interested in this kind of relationship, my contact info is in my profile.

<comment><AUTHOR> You need to surround yourself with the sort of people whom you want to emulate. And no matter where you are, there's sure to be a community of programmers who are interested in getting together and talking about their trade.

Colleges are obvious hotspots for this sort of activity, but also consider approaching some local tech companies for possible internships (even if they aren't looking for any). Seek out people online and get in touch with them. Most of them are quite friendly and will usually be happy to help any way they can.

Lastly, get involved in some open source projects. Sometimes, finding a smaller project with fewer contributors will give you the opportunity to build a relationship with them. Generally, contributing to open source projects will give you easy, real-world experience without any of the overhead/commitment of having a job or internship.

If you're interested in moving to South Florida, I know a few internship opportunities that I could point you toward as well that would be right up your alley!

<comment><USER8> Thanks, I might be interested in moving to South Florida. I'd love to hear about those opportunities.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sent you an email. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hi

I have 2 questions:

1) If you are being overwhelmed by the amount of books you are being suggested by mentors, entrepreneurs and others, how do you tackle this information overload so that you only read and implement the ones which would have the most impact in your life ?

2) What would you do if you had recent failure and now you don't have enough clarity about goals, life direction and the skills you wanna learn to succeed ? I'm 22/non-technical and got little bit of savings from sales commission I earned through online stuff after dropping out from my undergrad program. The money that I made from online sales was higher than the money I could had made from the job in next 10-12 yrs after getting my undergrad degree. So that sales thing is now busted and I was naive enough to believe that the sales gig would last long but it lasted only 1.5 yrs. I had no team at the time, didn't knew much about marketing, startups etc. It was just self employed thing. I'm living in asia. Although I could still start that sales thing again cuz now I know alot more, but it would be just like a commission you get. Should I work on some other idea/startup or get some skills before I do something. Right now I know little bit of sales/marketing. What do you suggest ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Apologies for the slow reply. I had an unexpectedly busy weekend.

Much as has been said, information overload is a real problem we subject ourselves to. The way I help cull this wicked overflow is by using "systems"... or any method or tool which helps regulate flow. It's important to realize the fixed set of resources we each have available to us. The king of these is time. Managing it is topic I'll leave to experts. But we consciously decide to use a portion of our available time to improve ourselves in various capacities. And the trick is to use systems to maximize the efficiency of our learning during the time we dedicate.

Some examples: We browse an ungodly amount on the web. Usually without purpose. I use an RSS reader to improve my efficiency. Not only does it let me control the inputs by subscribing only to the content I'm interested in, but it lets me eliminate most of the distractions that being on their website would introduce (ads, links to other parts of their site, comments, etc). And as a bonus, my RSS reader tracks my usage...so now I know which sites I really read so I can regularly trim the fat and optimize my reading schedule around the parts of the week when the interesting content gets published.

Another example: Email is burden for everyone. Having a good email client that you know REALLY well and fits into your routine will help tremendously. My email client provides me an incredible backlog of my activity on the internet which I keep for reference. I use filters to automatically sort this information for me. Important contacts, social activity, purchases, subscriptions, marketing, spam...all divided up automatically with the relevant portions being pushed to my phone as needed. (Yep, my phone doesn't notify me of just any email...just ones on my "VIP" list. Now I can help emergencies as needed and deal with my regular email zeroing once or twice a day.)

Books are something I don't particularly deal with because of the long commitment required to get through them. I'll try to find an abridged version of an audiobook if it's HIGHLY recommended. I can't think of any particularly good suggestions on how to get through them quickly aside from scanning them in the bookstore and deciding if you want to invest a week of your time getting through one or not.

Regarding your "clarity about goals", I don't think anyone is ever 100% certain about the direction they should be going in until they have enough experience to know that's the right way to go. You're young and being worried about the "right way" is pretty natural. And I've found that the time you spend "idling" and figuring out the best possible route could cause you to miss some interesting opportunities. Don't spend too much time on the decision.

You're looking at the problem from the perspective of "these are my skills, how can I use them?" Instead, you should be asking "Of the opportunities I have in front of me, which would I most regret not doing?" It's how I try to frame my decision making and sometimes it helps make a difficult decision an easier one to live with in the long run. Worst case scenario, most of the time you'll be able to double-back and find a way to go down the "other path" if you're disappointed with results.

Hope this helps. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I recently had my first interview for a programming internship that I was applying to. It was over the phone, and I more or less "froze up."

I haven't had a lot of formal CS education - most of what I know has been self-taught. However, I'm looking for a way to prepare for interviews in the future. I have tried coding on the whiteboard, reviewing sorting algorithms, reading interview blogs, going over data structures, etc.

However, the interview was nothing like I had expected. It was not about prior knowledge (which was lucky for me) - and rather about thinking on the spot. What stopped me from doing my best during the interview was a combination of the anxiety and time pressure that I felt looming over me.

It would be great to get some advice on these types of phone interviews and how to stay calm during them. Knowing ways to reason through or tackle programming problems that are new to you (and can seem intimidating) would also be helpful.

If anyone's feeling especially helpful, it would even help to have some practice coding sessions over the web.

Thanks!

<comment><USER11> You can work on your problem solving/programming skills online on a number of sites: * <http://projecteuler.net/> * <http://www.topcoder.com/> * <http://www.spoj.pl/> * <http://online-judge.uva.es/problemset/>

As for keeping calm during the interviews, it would help to try to keep the frame of mind that you are just having a normal conversation with another person. Take a breath before giving an answer. This should also give you a few moments to compose an answer in your head. If you feel you need more time to think you can use a phrase that will buy you a few seconds like "That's an interesting question..." or "Let me think about this a bit", etc.

Finally, get some practice. Have conversations with people as frequently as possible. These don't have to be technical conversations, any situation where you get to practice framing your thoughts into clear, concise sentences will help. If possible also go on more interviews. Practice makes perfect. Don't get down on yourself if you do not get the job(s). It is usually not due to a deficiency on your part. Maybe the interviewer had a bad day. Maybe you sound/look like a person that the interviewer hates....

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I love these things and have wanted to participate for a while, so I'll ask you (Mike) something and offer other HNers my services.

Mike, what do you think about the technology scene in south Florida? I'd like to move back home at some point, and I fear returning to a tech-barren wasteland. It's clear that SFla isn't some tech desert, since you're in SFla and I hear about a lot of events from you. Still, my friends and I generally agree that we'll have to _build_ the culture (via starting up or meetups) if we want it to exist. What's your take? What do you see in the coming years?

And now, my offer: I'm a stats/machine learning student, and I'd like to answer any questions you guys might have--whether you're studying for finals (like me), or you're wondering how ML can improve your work. Just reply to me here or email me (in my profile; don't forget the +hn).

Happy Friday to all!

<comment><AUTHOR> There are a few people who have already commented about what is happening in South Florida. (And there is a lot of activity...) Here is a good thread to follow as it stood earlier this year: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2545955>

Separately, Brian Breslin (who's been involved here for quite a few years now) has recently written a blog post about it that is another perspective on it: <http://brianbreslin.com/on-building-a-community/>

I've also been talking about writing this post for some time now and have never found the time to dig in and do it, but I'll mention some of the highlights that I'd discuss:

\- There is an overwhelming interest from many different parts of the community (even those outside of tech) to grow the entrepreneurial and technical skill here in South Florida. City development, local business, chamber of commerce, non-profits, universities, and individual leaders are all quite active in putting on events and getting really great people involved here. (Case-in-point: Rasmus Lerdorf just gave two talks about PHP this week. Zed Shaw was in town back in March for Miami Tech Week. Dave McClure was here some weeks ago at a Biz Dev/VC conference.)

\- There are people looking for talent and qualified talent is still difficult to find. I'm personally looking for CTO/entrepreneurs for the two groups I'm advising. Both have some capital and have a strong likelihood of success, IMHO. Companies are hiring here as well! Well established companies doing interesting work! (Senzari, for example, is based in Miami.) It wouldn't be hard to find work, if you aren't picky. And if you have time, you can find a really interesting job within months.

\- The community wants to be stronger; to be on par with the likes of NY, Boston, Seattle, SV; but they don't always get involved. Turn-out at events is really hit and miss depending on location, timing and topic matter. I attribute this to a few things: poor city layout making it difficult to get people outside of a 10-15 mile radius to your event, good intentions and no follow-up...

\- The tech leadership doesn't support each other as much as I think they should. If you're well-connected and know the right people, there's sure to be resources shared; but otherwise, there's a lot of work that community organizers needs to make to coordinate events and pool efforts across the community.

\- Despite these things, the leadership here puts together really great events on a consistent basis: TEDxMIA (<http://tedxmia.com>) , SuperConf (<http://superconf.net>), Refresh Miami (<http://refreshsofla.org>), South Florida Hack and Tell (my own meetup) (<http://hackandtell.org>), a whole slew of events on <http://miamitechevents.com/> and they keep coming!

Overall, I think South Florida could be a really successful area to live in professionally. The momentum as been positive and people definitely care. If I had an extra 5-10 hours a week, I would dedicate that to helping the community become more cohesive and better connected. There's no reason why events couldn't be cross-promoted and sponsorship within the community be more prevalent than it is today.

<comment><AUTHOR> Another perspective from @alexdc (another long-time South Florida leader) circa 2009: [http://alexdc.org/2009/07/retrospective-of-south-floridas- st...](http://alexdc.org/2009/07/retrospective-of-south-floridas-startup- community.html)

Here's more communities which I failed to mention originally:

\- Mobile Miami Monday (<http://momomiami.com/>)

\- Barcamp Miami (<http://barcampmiami.org/>)

\- Social Media Club (<http://smcsf.org/>)

\- The LaunchPad (<http://thelaunchpad.org>)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Hi,

Some time back I started working on a DIY learning solution for Computer Science. It is based on the concept of peer based social learning.

The website has courses which are a collection of material, forums, and activities. Participants consume the information, ask/answer questions, submit responses to activities, and even review other participant's responses.

There are no certificates, but whatever a participant does is made available in their profile and is their credentials.

I will really appreciate if you can take a look at the website and offer me suggestions on how I can offer the participant's a better learning experience.

<http://diycomputerscience.com/>

Thank you very much for volunteering your time.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a great idea in a really crowded market. I browsed through the site and tested some functionality. Thoughts:

\- The site is quite text heavy. This is probably not a big issue for those highly-motivated to use the site, you're going to discourage use from the casual crowd...which seems to be a big attribute that your site promotes. Casual, self-paced learning. Right?

\- The various functions don't seem to be tied together in a very meaningful way. They are all partitioned and activity in one part doesn't seem to surface anywhere else. If you're looking for engagement, this is important. Take a look at Stackoverflow. Practically ANYWHERE you touch on that site will surface additional value to others on the site. Votes will bump old questions. Comments alert the OP that you had something to say. Adding tags expands the reach of specific questions.

\- I think you want other people to add content to the site as well, but it's not immediately clear on the best way to do that.

\- Everyone on your site is a Twitter account...and that's probably not the perspective you want your users to have on each other. Looking at SO again, their profile tags are quite expressive about the value they add to the community at a glance. This is the target you want to shoot for.

\- Making DIYComputerScience an auxiliary tool for your resume is a good idea, but as it stands right now this is not something I would want to use to represent me professionally. I know this is probably still young, but if this is going to be one of your value propositions you're going to have to shine. Again, SO has careers.stackoverflow.com and those layouts are VERY nice and does a great job of pulling in experience/value that you've added from their StackExchange sites. (I use them almost exclusively for my online resume.)

I'm going to give advice that I give to any startup who is entering a crowded market. Your PRIMARY differentiation will be your user's experience. It's good that you realize this and am making it your goal. Here's a great answer on Quora which touches on this exactly: [http://www.quora.com/Internet- Startups/Should-I-focus-on-a-g...](http://www.quora.com/Internet- Startups/Should-I-focus-on-a-good-user-experience-or-push-something-out- quick/answer/Jared-Spool)

<comment><USER13> Hi Mike,

Thank you very much for your excellent feedback and for giving your time and effort. You have made very important observations. I will address all these concerns as I move ahead with the development.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Hey Mike

Could you (or anyone) take a quick read of this intro post? It's simply designed to collect some emails so when I launch, there's people to email etc. I'm wondering, well, if it sounds weird, or if it is convincing enough to get people to sign up. First "sales" letter I've really written.

Password is "a"

[http://blog.minecraftsaver.com/2011/11/introducing- minecraft...](http://blog.minecraftsaver.com/2011/11/introducing-minecraft- saver/)

Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> I think this is good from a marketing perspective. You've hit the important points:

\- State the problem \- Show the solution \- Indicate the value-add \- Prompt for the desired action

Is this convincing enough? I'm not a good person to ask. I don't play minecraft. Though you juxtapose your solution against Dropbox and that only benefit I see you offering above Dropbox is a way for users to "display" their minecraft world on the web. The real question is if people want this. I'm not sure. But other than that, I think you hit the nail on the head pretty well.

I'd probably test variations of this where you indicate the hassle of the existing solutions. The goal being to further separate your solution from theirs as being the "obviously" superior answer.

Hope this helps.

<comment><USER14> Thank you very much, this helped a lot. I'm at least glad that it sounds "normal" enough, and I do believe that what I've presented is compelling to Minecraft players.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I run <http://www.feedsapi.com> and I loose too many customers on my funnel for the trial premium between the subscription step and the paypal payment step,( which is free to start: Users enter their datas and click on the submission button, but don't proceed to paypal, which is the next step). How can I fix this? I'm already runnning a multivariant test on my form to tweak the call to action text. Any advice? Thanks for the action.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, here are my thoughts:

\- First thing I can tell you is that when you redirect to Paypal, you don't redirect to a localized version of Paypal. I was sent to the German version, for example. Probably going to turn off many of your visitors who aren't German-speaking.

\- Second, WHY are you asking for Paypal credentials if you're not asking for money. To most people, the perception is Paypal == monetary_transaction. Even if they COULD read what the paypal page was saying, they'll see the Paypal domain and instantly click away. And let's assume that they even see that you're not charging anything, this is still a huge obstacle (30-seconds of diversion is HUGE!) in the way of letting potential customer actually understand what your product does. I say, let your users kick the tires without any barriers. If you're really solving a need, people will give you their money.

\- Which brings me to my next point... what does your product do? I can't tell? Do you take short-linked RSS feeds and make full-text RSS feeds out of them? Do you take full-text feeds and perform extraction on them? All of that text to the right of your signup form should say simply:

"We make RSS feeds easily readable."

I'm instantly turned off when you say anything like "...tool that tries, and usually succeeds in, separating actual content from other web page elements such as...blahblahblah". There's no confidence in your product and you take too long to get the meat of it.

\- Your text is not given any room to breathe. With your text living on top of each other, it makes it difficult for your readers to scan your page for content important to them. (And believe me, they aren't reading it...they're scanning it.) Consider using a CSS framework that will add rhythm and spacing to your text. <http://blueprintcss.org> or <http://960.gs> are both decent at what they do and will give you a great foundation to start (even if you have no design skills).

Please take my criticism with a grain of salt. Hope it helps. :)

<comment><USER15> Thanks for the help Mike, I will try to update the paypal landing page, wasn't aware of that. We indeed "turn short rss feed into full text rss feed" , that's the main title (yellow)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Hi Mike,

Although I'm nervous about asking, I'm going to bravely step out on the line and ask your thoughts about the design of our startup <http://www.uencounter.me>. From the look of your own artwork - you obviously have a good eye and while our site is more colorful and different in aesthetic, its clear your opinion and experience is valued. Constructive comments are always welcome.

<comment><USER7> I think a really great idea !

About design * Give feedback button is really hidden, I think in general call for action button should be clearly visible, they very mixed with other buttons in your design. Give to some stranger and see how he sees your site, the first thing he will try to find something to do and if he doesn't find the right place to click the only person at loss is you.

* The light color over white is really bad combination until you want to hide that thing.The text "Map your life experiences and rediscover your past!" is invisible. Can you good contrast ratio over here.

* Can you put a register button at top also, will be good boost not to find the register everywhere else in page, or simply make it first thing visible on page.

* The color pattern ( the transistion from blue to white where you have orange slowly fading ) doesn't look good. ( Personal Opinion )

<comment><USER16> Thanks on all accounts! Willing to take comments from anyone else since I stepped out and asked!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Hi,

I love these helpful offers. :)

I'd like to add to the generosity and offer a few things.

\- Detailed user feedback on your site/startup/app \- A resume re-write (I used to be a technical resume writer) \- Discuss your ideas/startup options on Skype, brainstorm some possibilities.

I'm happy to help in anyway I can! I'm my user name on gmail.com

Thanks all - Happy Holidays!

<comment><USER16> Helen, would love your feedback on <http://www.uencounter.me> \- thanks.

<comment><USER16> Helen, thanks so much for the time and comments! They all 'feel' right. Your generosity is greatly appreciated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I am looking for more creative no/low cost marketing ideas to promote my gift inspiration site (giftlizard.com) before christmas rolls around.

I'd love to hear ideas/suggestions you ma have (or anyone else reading this may have).

<comment><USER7> The best marketing is from word of mouth, do your friends want to use it, would they recommend to there friends.

Would a stranger using it will recommend it for gift giving to their friends.

On holiday season, people are looking for great gifting ideas, can you provide them with good ideas by providing a simple choice form ( no more than 3-4 objective questions).

Can you advertise in local bill board and ask your friends in other cities to get the print out and stick on bill board they can?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'd appreciate feedback on the copy on the current <http://moustach.io> landing page.</comment>


How pure is the beer in Germany? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20161027-how-pure-is-the-beer-in-germany <comment><USER2> I vaguely remember on a beer tour of Sam Adams that its lager is one of the few beers in America that is compliant (I guess allowed to be sold in Germany? Not sure).

I really don't mind all the experimenting with American craft beers with the one exception... please stop making ultra IPAs. Ever bar I go to in the Boston area has like four times the number of IPA to other styles (I'm a stout, porter, and sour lover).

It's like a competition between the micros of who can shove the most hops in a beer.

<comment><USER3> i agree, but you have to understand that people really, really, really like IPA's. they taste good and are generally brewed with high ABV meaning less money spent and less calories for a buzz. this is especially true when eating with your beer.

<comment><USER4> High IBU IPA's are in fashion. For a few years, it was dark beers - the Darker the Better™. Stouts were king[0]. Then the american pale ale, then the IPA, then double IPA, now triple/quadruple IPAs and bourbon barrel aged everything. Fatigue is setting in - I'm predicting that sours will enjoy a short stint (there's only so far you can push a sour), and then porters will be the next big thing, followed by pilseners and then the cycle starts anew.

[0] For the record, Rogue's (not Stone's) Shakespeare Stout is still the kinglord of all beers.

<comment><USER5> Shakespeare Stout is brewed by Rogue, not Stone.

<comment><USER4> Gah! You are correct. Posting comments in a post-lunch stupor leads to _grave mistakes_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This article from Ron Pattinson - [http://www.europeanbeerguide.net/reinheit.htm](http://www.europeanbeerguide.net/reinheit.htm) provides a number of interesting opinions on the Reinheitsgebot

</comment><comment><USER7> The purity law from Bavaria is not the first one. They found another one, dated 82 years earlier, from a very different Region of Germany. Bavarians were reportedly not amused ...

[https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Fspiegel%2Fprint%2Fd-12771335.html&edit- text=)

</comment><comment><USER8> A very misleading and poorly researched article. There are dozens of additives and agents allowed in brewing in Germany, but merely because they don't have to be listed on the label, breweries can uphold the illusion of purity.

<comment><USER9> If the label says it is bier, it has no additives as far as I know. We should separate the concept of ingredients and additives, which in most cases, are found accidentally and only in traces.

Can you enumerate additives allowed in german bier?

<comment><USER10> There are many chemicals used for cleaning / filtering in bier which technically don't/shouldn't end up in the beer and as such do not have to be listed; also the main ingredients are plants and as such they are fed and sprayed with things that are not ingredients. Pesticides and micro plastics are found in most (all?) German beer but are not direct ingredients so they are not listed.

<comment><USER11> That is true, but not the same as an additive put in on purpose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I can't imagine that much will change even if they stopped enforcing the Reinheitsgebot all together. Most breweries will probably just continue the way they always did and try out some new products in addition to that. If there is one constant in Germany, it's beer.

<comment><USER11> I agree that the Reinheitsgebot would most likely be followed for most beers even after its potential annulment, just because there is too much cultural stigma against "unpure" beer. But still, there is more change in German beers than most Germans like to realize. Kölsch for instance, the beverage that defines much of the culture of major parts of the Rhineland region, has only really become popular in the middle of the twentieth century -- despite all the alleged traditions ascribed to it.

<comment><USER12> Wow I never would have guessed. Der Schein trügt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'll have my impure Belgians any day over a pure German beer. Can't wait to go back to Belgium again :)

I've tried some trappist style beers from microbreweries but so far they've missed the mark. Even a La Trappe already has a wine like complexity in it's flavours.

</comment><comment><USER14> I have to admit, I like these laws. You can still brew mostly what you want, it is just that you are not allowed to call it beer. So essentially it is a clear definition what beer is.

There are similar rules, which define exactly what confitures, marmalades, cremes, jellies and fruit spreads are and how they differ. Same for drinks.

This is awesome for consumers: When you buy "fruit juice" it is actually 100% made out of fruit, not a sugary lemonade. When you buy "Wiener Schnitzel" it will actually be a Wiener Schnitzel (veal not pork). You do not have to look up the ingredients or ask the waiter.

</comment><comment><USER15> google cache for those of you that can't view it: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:tDlbieC...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:tDlbieCZ72UJ:www.bbc.com/travel/story/20161027-how- pure-is-the-beer-in-germany+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca)

</comment><comment><USER11> Very interesting, as a German beer drinker I always wondered how Bavarian wheat beer could comply with the Reinheitsgebot.

</comment><comment><USER16> Not so pure, see [1] and [2] about glyphosate contamination of some brands.

Not really a well researched article, the research linked below is well known in Europe and was discussed in every major news outlet six months ago.

Edit: If you disagree, reply, don't just downvote.

[1] [http://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-beer- idUSKCN0VY222](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-beer-idUSKCN0VY222)

[2] [http://sustainablepulse.com/2016/02/25/german-beer- industry-...](http://sustainablepulse.com/2016/02/25/german-beer-industry-in- shock-over-probable-carcinogen-glyphosate-contamination/)

</comment><comment><USER17> > BBC Worldwide (International Site)

> We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our > international service and is not funded by the licence fee. It is run > commercially by BBC Worldwide, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BBC, the > profits made from it go back to BBC programme-makers to help fund great new > BBC programmes. You can find out more about BBC Worldwide and its digital > activities at www.bbcworldwide.com.

<comment><USER15> Here: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:tDlbieC...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:tDlbieCZ72UJ:www.bbc.com/travel/story/20161027-how- pure-is-the-beer-in-germany+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The Reinheitsgebot is more of a myth though: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th-f1ztar_U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th-f1ztar_U)

</comment><comment><USER19> Wow, I can't believe this website is actually blocked to residents in the UK.

"BBC Worldwide (International Site) We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our international service and is not funded by the licence fee. It is run commercially by BBC Worldwide, a wholly- owned subsidiary of the BBC, the profits made from it go back to BBC programme-makers to help fund great new BBC programmes. You can find out more about BBC Worldwide and its digital activities at www.bbcworldwide.com."

<comment><USER20> Do people in other countries have to pay to visit the page?

<comment><USER21> No, but it includes advertising.

<comment><USER22> Which is why it is blocked to people in the UK as they already pay the licence fee and therefore aren't allowed to be shown ads by the BBC. It's a bit of a weird situation.

<comment><USER23> So they instead.. block the page? Couldn't they just hide the ads?

<comment><USER24> They already selectively show/hide ads - for example, I'm in the Republic of Ireland, and see ads on the BBC News site.

It's a bit more complicated than that. BBC in the UK aren't allowed to operate outside their charter - they're severely restricted in how much they can compete with private commerce.

BBC Worldwide is the beeb's commercial arm, who do exactly this - outside the UK, where they're competing fairly as any other commercial venture.

So Worldwide aren't allowed to operate within the UK precisely because of the licence fee - it'd be unfair competition. It's not just because they're shown ads - it's simply because the content is produced by their commercial arm, so finds itself on the wrong side of the home/worldwide silo.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


"Buying this elsewhere" gone from Amazon Wish Lists - <AUTHOR> ... you can't even mark an item as purchased if it was added from a different website. It sounds like this happened around Feb. Having worked in big companies before, this reeks of "let's see how many people complain if we try this", so please contact them and complain: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/contact-us/ <comment><AUTHOR> Awkwardly, it's still noted as a feature on [https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=aw?...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=aw?ie=UTF8&nodeId=3058771)</comment>


Idealized Commit Logs: Code Simplification via Program Slicing – Alan Shreve - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSqLt8BgbRQ <comment><AUTHOR> A talk exploring the idea of how we developers can understand software faster? It mainly explores the idea of "software slicing".

Imagine having a large piece of hard to understand code, `complexFunction()`. Write a test case for the function, `complexFunction("hello")`, figure out what lines run, show only those lines. Now your 100-line function becomes a 10 line function, it actually makes sense!

Another incredibly compelling idea proposed here is the idea of an "idealized commit log". Again, we have a complex function, this function has 5 test cases covering it. When it was first written, only 2 test cases were written. The other three test cases were added in later commits, after a bug was encountered in production.

So now I join your firm, I need to understand this 250-line monster. By using program slicing, it becomes to possible to identify what parts of the code correspond to a test case. You can _immediately group parts of the function up_ to see what part is responsible for what.

This gives us another really powerful tool, we can construct a git-log that is ideal. By constructing your codebase from test-cases and program slices, it becomes possible to construct a git-log that without any of your initial mistakes. Every commit contains functions without mistakes.

I think there are some really interesting ideas discussed in this talk. I hope others agree, and do some exploration. :)</comment>


No one asks to be buried with his ipad - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/no-one-asks-to-be-buried-with-his-ipad

<comment><AUTHOR> Should we stop interacting with computer and go build a motorcycle instead?

<comment><USER2> Probably more fulfilling...depending on on your computer interactions, of course. I'm assuming content consumption.</comment></comment>


When you learn your customers aren't just API calls - <AUTHOR> http://blog.filepicker.io/post/34366580993/when-you-learn-your-customers-arent-just-api-calls

<comment><USER2> Anand, You should take more care with your redaction; I was able to figure out one of the twitter users (and hence the rest) just by looking at the blurred image, i.e. less than 15 seconds work.

<comment><AUTHOR> There are limited options given that the information is on the public timeline. Next time, perhaps redact everything except the url. Maybe that would make it harder to find.

<comment><USER3> Not sure a redaction is even necessary ... Twitter is public and all parties posted that information in a public manner. Your resharing it doesn't make it any more public, although it may make it more popular.</comment></comment></comment>


Firebug website just got a super gorgeous facelift - <AUTHOR> http://getfirebug.com/

<comment><USER3> >The most popular web development tool for Firefox

They could probably call it "The most popular web development tool period." and it wouldn't be a lie.

There are plenty of designers\developers who keep firefox around only for firebug.

<comment><USER4> Started a new contract the other day, and one of the folks I'm working with asked me what the deal is with my browser (I use Chrome to hold documentation / collab tools) - everybody else simply uses Firefox for everything. I can't stand how slow FF is for general browsing, but I cannot give up Firebug for the work I do.

Best part? Not the CSS editing, and not the JavaScript debugger (although that's really handy too) - truly the most useful features are the DOM inspector (easier to do that than look up some rarely-used property in the ref specs) combined with the console (test out a one-off bit of idea before fleshing it out and integrating it into the actual codebase).

<comment><USER5> I have recently been using the latest webkit nightly for all of my debugging. It's developer inspector is getting fairly close to firebug in terms of useful-ness. There are a few instances where it can't quite jump into the code as well as firebug but its getting there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have to disagree about it being 'gorgeous'. I think it could use more layers. It feels very flat to me, and it doesn't direct my eye to any one thing in particular

<comment><USER7> Plus they just sourced their icons from somewhere, hit CTRL+SHIFT+U (Desaturate) and left them as is. I either expected them to change colour when I moused over them, or if they are meant to remain static they should have been contrasted or leveled properly. They look blurry and amateur.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I knew as soon as I saw the post title, that every comment in this thread would be ripping how it looked. If you're ever thinking of commenting on the attractive appearance of a site, just don't bother. There's nothing hypercritical people hate worse than that.

<comment><USER9> The culprit is found easily: The headline of the submission. It is just not good to post something like that. Reverse flamebait or however you might call it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Re: the top bar. People shouldn't feel like they need to have an explanatory note on each menu item or option. Which is easier to grok?

* What is Firebug? / Introduction and Features

* Resources / Documentation wiki, FAQ, and other Firebug lore

* Community / Discussion forums and lists

* Get Involved / Hack the code, create plugins

or

* About

* Documentation

* Community

* Get Involved

(And maybe "Get Involved" should be "Contribute")

<comment><USER11> I like those listings tbh. They save me some thinking - "Community" and "Get involved" ideas have some overlap and many projects divide the contents differently (for example, where does the source control go? - <USER2> oriented projects often put it in community). While "About" and "Documentation" don't overlap that much, there should be some links from the first to the second for detailed information - which makes you wonder where is the "Getting started" section - it could be in either of them. I think describing sections like that serves a purpose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I dunno. It's pretty busy and confusing. I like the bug, but not the design.

<comment><USER13> I don't even like the bug. I feel like the bug should be a stinging bug.

My bugs aren't friendly lady bugs with fire shells. They are savage robotic hornets sent from the past to destroy my future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I like this: <div id="boasting">

</comment><comment><USER15> They're using some neat HTML5 tech on the page. Ogg video, embedded fonts. The header background image, though, seems to be a ".pmg", which I'm not familiar with, and doesn't show up for me on chrome. Maybe a typo for png, but that image gives a 404 page.

<comment><USER14> nope, the .png doesn't exist either, but the 404 page it hits is kind of fun: <http://getfirebug.com/img/bg-header.pmg>

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Far from gorgeous in FF 3.6 Win. A few quick ones:

1\. Use (or make better use of) a grid layout.

2\. Vary the type less. I count 3 fonts (excluding Firebug logo type) in too many sizes.

3\. The 6 feature/functions (inspect, log, etc.) aren't doing much for me, and the bullets could be condensed. Firebug is awesome -- no need for fluff like _Get the information you need to get it done with Firebug._

</comment><comment><USER17> Ugh, the lines are off between the "Recent News" and "Links and Elsewhere" columns. web typography: care about it!

</comment><comment><USER18> It's pretty, and it gets you to the content fast. I have no complaints. And the bugs are rad.

</comment><comment><USER19> The best website is no website. "apt-get install xul-ext-firebug"++.

<comment><USER20> A thousand times no! I barely trust the distro people to not screw up the browser itself. The only reason to use a distro-packaged extension would be that it's more likely to be fucked in lockstep with the browser.

I'm sure you use CPAN, gems, hackage, etc. instead of the broken crap in nearly every distro's repositories -- why not use <http://addons.mozilla.org> while you're at it?

<comment><USER19> I use OS packages for everything. Fixing the occasional breakage there is much easier than the constant manual updating and tweaking required to maintain your own installation of everything.

I have a few local Emacs Lisp extensions, and I maintain my own ~/perl5 and ~/.cabal... but I bootstrap them with the OS packages; various emacs extensions, the OS perl and liblocal-lib-perl, and haskell-platform. Modules my own software needs goes into ~; modules that OS-managed software needs I leave untouched.

Basically, if your distribution breaks your packages regularly, you should get a new distribution.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Would the Internet pass the Turing test? - <AUTHOR>

Just wondering a) if this question makes sense and b) would it pass? <comment><USER2> The Turing Test is to to be indistinguishable from a human via a text interface.

The only thing I can think of that even comes close on the Internet is a search engine that attempts to answer questions according to the way you asked them (for instance, Wolfram Alpha). But even then, anyone can tell the difference between search results and a human. The Internet itself can't pass the test because the Internet is infrastructure, it's not a single entity.

</comment><comment><USER3> no

and

it doesn't matter since it isn't a valid question.

The internet is a collection of computers connected through various links that transfer data between themselves and the end users of those computers.

If you would rephrase your question a bit it might start to make sense:

Would it be possible for a computer connected to the internet to run an application that could pass a turing test ?

The answer to that is 'yes', it is possible but that misses the spirit of the Turing Test, which was to mimic intelligence, and so far we've only been able to 'fool' a panel of judges but without any actual intelligence present in the device doing the fooling, merely clever programming.</comment>


Boost your sales with peer-to-peer representation : the sleeper agent program - <AUTHOR> http://nukomeet.com/2012/11/sleeper_agent/

<comment><USER2> I did know a company that placed someone in a large business primarily to sell their product a few years down the line. It did work too.

<comment><AUTHOR> The difference being that we do it in a more transparent way

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Great idea, sleeper agents are ready to promote nukomeet even if they have their own projects.

</comment><comment><USER4> FYI: You business card link links using the title attribute and not the href attribute.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for notifying, it's fixed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The idea sounds cool but I would double check the legal aspect of it...

<comment><AUTHOR> More details on the legal aspect <http://www.acojur.com/cvia/apporteur- affaire.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> btw, is a sleeper agent allowed to be a sleeper agent for your competitors, like a double sleeper agent? ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha! Good question...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm curious about the results.

</comment><comment><USER7> if I contract you do I have a 10% discount (I've put you in touch with myself) ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes! We'll do that for you, as we won't have "sales expenses" ;)</comment></comment>


Saudi Arabia's Arab Spring, at Last - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/23/opinion/saudi-prince-mbs-arab-spring.html <comment><USER2> I highly doubt that the king massacring half of the current power structure for his own ends, and castrating the other half is an arab spring, and will not bring increased freedom.

We all know what's coming next: a few incidents where the old power structure takes some small measure of revenge, followed by mistrust, fear and repression. The king, and all of the new government, does not trust it's hold on power and will have to cut benefits across the population. These things don't mix well.

Half the western press is implying that the current king, who was not even the successor to the throne as little as 5 years ago is really an attempt to modernize and westernize saudi arabia. This is exactly the line the saudi government is putting out (while keeping significant parts of the old power structure hostage at gunpoint one might add [1], maybe worse than just keeping them hostage [2]). Currently the king is taking a populist viewpoint, but that's out of desperation and fear.

The economic reality means he's going to have to cut financial benefits to the population by a lot. And if there's one thing for absolute certain in this world, it's that that has never brought social progress. Conservatives will increase in power as a result of this for obvious reasons. What will happen ?

It's embarassing, one might even suspect a lot of money is involved in that western press attitude.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/06/how-saudi- elit...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/06/how-saudi-elite-became- five-star-prisoners-at-the-riyadh-ritz-carlton)

[2] [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5108651/American- mer...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5108651/American-mercenaries- torturing-Saudi-princes.html)

<comment><USER3> One 'anonymous' source cited by the Daily mail; Really? That too claiming that billionaire prince Alaweed no less is being dangled by his feet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Just came to say that Tom Friedman is a hack and this op-ed reads like a paid commercial. To call a top-down authoritarian power grab "Arab Spring" is mind boggling.

</comment><comment><USER5> The Saudis rulers are trying to sell a small chunck (5%) of Aramco, for about a hundred billion bucks. If they fail to attract capital, it's back to camels after oil.

</comment><comment><USER6> >>it will not only change the character of Saudi Arabia but the tone and tenor of Islam across the globe. Only a fool would predict its success — but only a fool would not root for it.

That's for sure. Murdering millions of their fellow muslims in Yemen. What's not to root for?

</comment><comment><USER7> A collection of like stories in the Times over the last 70 years:

[https://twitter.com/anhistorian/status/934080718816399361](https://twitter.com/anhistorian/status/934080718816399361)

</comment><comment><USER8> > So when his father, who has never been tainted by corruption charges during > his nearly five decades as governor of Riyadh, ascended to the throne in > 2015

Is it just me or that sounds sarcastic?

</comment><comment><USER9> No revolution, written by a man, talking about another man before he even really started his reforms, a good chance that most of the "reforms" the Prince is planning are more on the marketing side than on the implementation side.

<comment><USER3> Some of the reforms have already happened. Prominent examples include the reforms to the guardian system and woman's driving issue. Also there is the planned and widely announced IPO of Saudi Aramco. If the IPO announcement is a marketing stunt, then it is a pretty lame one as it is easily verifiable/disprovable. I have trouble figuring out what the short term gains could possibly be from announcing a fake IPO.</comment></comment>


Two Executives to Leave Uber, Adding to Departures - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/19/business/jeff-jones-leaves-uber-ride-sharing-president.html <comment><USER2> All the speculation around the turmoil over seems to be missing one key component. I think a bigger driving force then this sexual harassment and CEO antics is the waymo lawsuit. Uber itself has acknowledged that without self- driving capabilities the company will most likely not find profitability. From reporting I've read, it appears the waymo lawsuit has a high probability of success.

If the waymo lawsuit essentially forces Uber to start its self driving program back from scratch then the path to self-driving viability has essentially been scrapped. To me, this is a better explanation of the recent spat of high-level exits from the company.

<comment><USER3> Maybe I'm being naive but how can a company that replaces a whole layer of management and overhead of traditional Taxi companies by an App _not_ reach profitability? Is maintaining an app that expensive? I can't imagine.

<comment><USER4> The overhead is not as large as you're imagining. [http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/11/can-uber-ever- deliver...](http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/11/can-uber-ever-deliver-part- one-understanding-ubers-bleak-operating-economics.html)

> By contrast, in the hundred years since the first motorized taxi, there has > been no evidence of significant scale economies in the urban car service > industry. That explains why successful operators never expanded to other > cities and why there was no natural tendency towards concentration in > individual markets. Drivers, vehicles and fuel account for 85% of urban car > service costs. None of these costs decline significantly as companies grow. > As the P&L data above demonstrates, Uber has not discovered a magical new > way to drive down unit costs.

<comment><USER5> _That explains why successful operators never expanded to other cities_

Sweden's largest taxi company currently operates in 50+ cities in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. So "never" is probably the wrong word.

<comment><USER6> Sweden famously deregulated their taxi industry. American taxi regulations are awful--I can't compare them to other countries, but they're terrible in an absolute sense, and they vary widely by city. In New York, they even change depending on where you are and what color the taxi is (yellow ones and green ones have different rules). So all these city-by-city variations become a big diseconomy of scale.

<comment><USER7> The reason for the US' horrible state of affairs: corruption. Ever since regulation of the taxi industry started, the 'players' in each city decided to use this artificial constraint to enrich themselves. Medallions (the right to drive a cab in a city) were doled out to the politically connected, who, in turn, rented them out to the actual workers (drivers) for a tidy sum. It was a great scam.

If there's one positive thing about Uber, it's that they brought an end to this medallion monopoly.

<comment><USER4> Come on; that's too simple. Unregulated gypsy cabs present a real risk to people.

<comment><USER5> The medallion system helps create gypsy cabs. If starting a legal and licensed taxi service just required filing the same type of paperwork as any other similar company, and becoming a regulated taxi driver was more like becoming a truck driver you'd probably see a lot less gypsy cabs.

<comment><USER4> I'd argue there's also an interest in not filling the streets with excess cab capacity.

<comment><USER8> Absolutely agree. Since Uber and friends, congestion has become worse in NYC.

However, a simple toll would be fairer, as it would treat all cars equally, regardless of whether they are or are not taxis

<comment><USER4> I don't think it's "fairer" to treat personal and commercial traffic the same.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> On the story about Jeff Jones, someone commented that Kalanick has a stock arrangement that gives him control of the board. Does anyone know if this is true? I can't see how they can let this hemorrhaging continue when the problem is obviously Kalanick's leadership. But it shows no signs of stopping.

The only other thing I could think of is that the board is complicit in something worse than what's been exposed, and is afraid Kalanick will blow things up if they move on him.

EDIT: BBC is now reporting that two separate internal sources at Uber say Kalanick will step down when a new COO is in place.

[http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39323828](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39323828)

<comment><USER10> Blind says Kalanick is stepping down.

<comment><USER11> Who is Blind?

<comment><USER12> @kelukelugames may be referring to the "anonymous work talk" app: [https://us.teamblind.com](https://us.teamblind.com)

Which, it's been reported, is widely used among Uber employees: [https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/25/ubersecret/](https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/25/ubersecret/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Now every departure is viewed with suspicion. With a 10,000 person company there is going to be exec departures, but even normal departures will have rumors attached to them (why did they really leave? Isn't the timing odd? Was something about to come out?)

Every senior person leaving Uber now has to manage their image as they leave. And every journalist is digging to see if there is any dirt.

<comment><USER14> I'm surprised this comment is so low. In a 10,000 person company with 100 "senior executives", you'll naturally see 20 execs leave every year even if the company has a healthy 5-year retention.

Sure, you'd expect to see this churn ramp and plateau over time, but something like 10 "senior execs" leaving every year doesn't strike me as out of the ordinary.

I think it's important to note that stories like this will be reported whether or not it's based in truth because it's what certain people want to believe.

<comment><USER15> where do you get your numbers from? saying 20% of senior executives leaving a company in a year seems to be a high figure.

let's set that aside for a moment, because you're saying this is completely normal for a large company. but to me this seems like a pretty abnormal event worth reporting. we're talking about a pretty large number of senior executives leaving within a very small timeframe. this seems to be why it's making the tech news sites, since it's not just the normal churn of employees leaving.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> In case the name doesn't ring a bell, Brian was one of the creators of what became Google Earth and spent over 10 years at Google before jumping ship to Uber in 2015.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_McClendon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_McClendon)

</comment><comment><USER11> Doesn't seem like much of a real story:

> Mr. McClendon is departing amicably from Uber and will be an adviser to the > company. ... His exit has been in the works for some time

<comment><USER17> Mm, perhaps. Brian Mc only joined Uber in June 2015 as part of their massive push into maps. Another senior maps exec, Marc Prioleau, joined in December 2015 and last month left for Mapbox. Two departures after a short time suggests something not right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> "In a statement, he said he was moving back to Kansas, where he is from, to explore politics. His exit has been in the works for some time, and his last day at Uber is March 28."

<comment><USER19> Mmm great just who we need to revitalize the Democratic party, former Uber execs /s.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> If you're getting the paywall, as I did, another story on the same topic: [http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-vp-of-maps-brian- mcclend...](http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-vp-of-maps-brian-mcclendon-is- leaving-2017-3)

Includes a list of other recent Uber departures.

</comment><comment><USER21> Feels like Uber's next fundraising event may be a down round...

<comment><USER22> A down round with Uber's losses means that the company will probably not survive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Travis is destroying Uber and his ego is so big, he won't step down which would save the image of Uber somewhat. What a trainwreck, I deleted the app and quite a few of my friends did as well. What a disgusting company and the way it's being run is just gross negligence.

<comment><USER24> Apparently my phone summoned an uber while it was in my pocket for a straight hour while I was at lunch the other day, and I was charged 6 dollars and refused a refund.

Permanently deleted, without regret.

<comment><USER25> Which is indistinguishable from a "crank call" Uber request (from Uber's point of view)

Not saying it is the case, but owing up to one's mistakes is the least one can do

<comment><USER26> If I hail a taxi cab, by butt-dialing their line, they are extremely unlikely to interpret it as a crank call.

At least, the kind of crank call where they'd need to send a cab.

Either way, please lock your devices.

<comment><USER25> If you dial a taxi you need to provide your pickup place and name usually, accidentally dialing it won't make a car get to you. Not sure that's what you mean.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> there should be a ride sharing app that gets it's money from the city's congestion budget and reward those that pick each other up.

</comment><comment><USER28> It's because they switched to MySQL isn't it?

</comment><comment><USER29> Unter

<comment><USER30> Unter is the German word for under while Über can mean above

<comment><USER31> That's the joke.

<comment><USER32> Über is the joke?

<comment><USER33> Uber is going Under</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apply HN: Radcam - MSQRD for Cartoon Animations - <AUTHOR> IDEA:
Radcam is a camera app that will detect as many details about your appearance along with the scene around you and instantly turns them into an exhilarating cartoon animation that you can share as a looping gif. Radcam is inspired by this video on Youtube [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrPgHJ-LAsU]. I am not affiliated with the author of that video, yet ;). The cartoon animations will be hand-crafted and pre-loaded by creative artists. The choice of animation will be triggered by your facial expression.
TECH:
* iOS, computer vision, OpenGL
* Realtime mobile facial feature detection
* On-Device Image Classifier for contextual object detection
* Image filters (custom cartoon effect)
* Image Morphing
* Video Encoding
I will share videos of progress in this thread. Currently i just completed realtime facial features on iOS so i will make it presentable and post a link to a video/demo of that as a first step.
Challenges:
Memory Footprint: The most challenging part will be keeping the app's memory footprint reasonable with all the object files in there for detection.
Abstracting the scene: There is also the challenge of mapping scenes to pre-designed animations. I'll start by keeping it simple (perhaps by just using the colors in the scene) but eventually will have to implement some sort of abstraction. i think i'll figure it out along the way.
Morhping into character: What i'm most interested in is morphing; it has to be specific implementation for the app since i want to keep as much detail from the original face after morphing into the cartoon caharacter. The cartoon filter should simplify things.
My goal will be to ship an MVP and make sure this doesn't turn into a research/scientific-breakthrough kind of project. It is very easy to go that way with computer vision. <comment><AUTHOR> UPDATE:

As promised here is a video of the status update. I was waiting for a good hair day :) [https://goo.gl/s5I8Cx](https://goo.gl/s5I8Cx)

This is running at 30 FPS with the highest iSight resolution on a 6s. HN orange for the tracked features ofcourse.

I think i'm shifting towards a MSQRD clone. The app is in no way affiliated with MSQRD i used the name just for motivational purposes.

The next step would be to align a 3D object using Metal.

</comment><comment><USER2> This looks like a serious technical challenge for a not-very-useful result. How do you know people want this? Can you use this technology for something with a higher value than cartoon scenes?

<comment><AUTHOR> Technically it's not as serious as it sounds thanks to the wealth of open- source computer vision libraries and their liberal licenses. For the MVP at least.

It is a challenge nevertheless, which is why i'm doing it for fun. it's unique, has a wow factor, and would personally use it for expressing myself. I have no clue if people will want it so i'll try my best to make using the app fun for them as well.

Hopefully you'll see how fascinating it is when i post a video of the real time facial feature detection i have already completed.</comment></comment>


Judge Sides with Police in Parkland Slaying: LEO Has No Duty to Protect Students - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/us/parkland-shooting-lawsuit-ruling-police.html <comment><USER2> Headline obscures that there were two decisions.

A federal judge said the "school district and sheriff's office...had no constitutional duty to protect the students there during the deadly February massacre" [1]. A county judge, meanwhile, found "Scot Peterson, the armed sheriff's deputy who heard the gunfire but did not run in and try to stop the attack, _did_ have an obligation to confront [the shooter]."

The _New York Times_ speculates the county judge found Scot Peterson had a "special relationship" with the students, like a crossing guard. That goes above a normal citizen-police relationship to one approaching custodianship. Both decisions are likely to be appealed.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/us/parkland-shooting- laws...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/us/parkland-shooting-lawsuit- ruling-police.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> It should be incredibly obvious that America desperately needs to completely tear down and rebuild the entire police institution. They don't exist to protect and serve outside of themselves. They exist to harass minorities, get away with murder by pretending they were scared for their lives and then have the complete gall to act like they're the real heroes in this mess.

There are some individuals I'm sure that try to do their best and actually help people. But the institution as a whole is corrupt and a sham.

<comment><USER4> The problems you point out support the rationale for the decentralized nature of US police authority. In the US, federal, state, and local police authorities are for the most part independent from each other. I believe this is quite unusual if you were to survey the structure of police authority in other countries. This is one way to mitigate the "blast radius" of corrupt officials.

While I agree that there are some structural problems with policing (militarization, over-reliance on guns, prioritizing officer safety over citizen safety), I don't think "completely tear[ing]" it down is a wise course.

<comment><AUTHOR> Democratization and decentralization go hand in hand. I dont know how people forget that.

If you read about Hitler's rise, at the time one of his problems was the democratization in Germany of policing. They were basically independent throughout the country, and many signalled independence, and even disobedience. He needed control of them through an authoritarian hierarchy so that's what he did, he centralized policing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Jesus Christ, what the fuck is the point of having a security guard at a school if they aren't obligated to protect those inside? They say exceptions to the "in custody" rule exist, such as a crosswalk guard being responsible for kids in the crosswalk. How is a security guard for a school substantially different from that? I just don't get it.

Guess it's just another reason why having guards or arming teachers is not the solution to school shootings...

<comment><USER6> This is nothing new. It has already been ruled on that the police have no obligation to protect you. They can simply say "no" if you ask them to protect you. It certainly means that they can de-prioritize your call and only show up after getting lunch.

Which makes it all the more awful when someone says "If you feel unsafe just call the police! It's what I would do." That's great. I'm glad you live in a place with a good police force. But it is frankly evil to disarm people who have no other means to protect themselves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> While disappointing, it's not out of line with other court decisions. At this point, I believe the only function of the police is to execute state violence.

<comment><USER8> >At this point, I believe the only function of the police is to execute state violence.

It would be best to form your opinion based on overall statistics rather than the most sensational news articles that have the most virility.

<comment><USER9> Given non-compliance violence is the step taken. Most people comply.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> LE, as far as the oficial legal standpoint, are nothing more than goverment thugs and enforcers. The notion that their basic duty is to protect the public is absurd but at the same time it is widley belived to be true, including by some naive LE agents themselves. And I'm not talking about the US, this is true virtually anywhere.

<comment><USER11> As far as I know, this is US-specific. For example in Germany, it is very specifically duty of the police to protect the rights of citizens, which includes their right to not be harmed (which also comes from the duty to uphold the law, which is typically being broken when people are harmed).

<comment><USER12> Not just US-specific, but anywhere where the police force believes themselves to be separate from the folks they are policing. The police force in the US arose from "slave patrols."

So in Germany, you might have "Germans policing Germans", but in the US it's basically "Whites policing Blacks".

<comment><USER11> > "Germans policing Germans" vs. "Whites policing Blacks".

The German constitution is also very clear on this:

"Die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar. 2Sie zu achten und zu schützen ist Verpflichtung aller staatlichen Gewalt."

[https://dejure.org/gesetze/GG/1.html](https://dejure.org/gesetze/GG/1.html)

"Human dignity shall be inviolable. To respect and protect it shall be the duty of all state authority."

[https://www.gesetze-im- internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.h...](https://www.gesetze-im- internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.html#p0022)

So _human_ dignity is inviolable. Not "citizens", not "Germans", but "humans".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If the police have no duty to protect you, they also have no right to prevent you from carrying to protect yourself.

<comment><USER14> Not sure why this is controversial. If a state lets thugs get away with anything, and then is ruthless with vigilantes, they are taking the side of the criminals. They are enablers of rape and murder.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> FWIW: This is not new law, this decision is in line with most other courts to examine the issue, including the supreme court[1].

See Castle Rock v. Gonzales and DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services.

The federal court would definitely be bound by Castle Rock.

<comment><USER16> That's an important point. I'd caution people getting upset about this (especially getting upset with the judge) to recognize that judges are bound to consider higher court decisions.

There is arguably good reasons why police (and fire fighters, and social workers, and meterologists) and the governments they work for can't be sued for not protecting people from the bad actions of others, or disasters. It's not their fault that bad stuff happens (and when it is, that's a different legal situation).

That said, state constitutions can be more restrictive, and it would be interesting to consider the effect of creating such a duty would have.

Perhaps it could be created as a duty to the state government rather then individually harmed people, such that the state attorney general would be the one who sued (or more likely settled with a consent decree that created policy changes).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Then what are we paying them so much money for? People often fail to realize what a huge proportion of their local budget is eaten by policing.

</comment><comment><USER18> You have to be able to protect yourself.

<comment><USER19> In general the police show up long after the fact and are there to write reports for insurance. We are safe by the peace of those around us, and not by whether the cops can show up on time.

<comment><USER6> This is correct. In many places, the police actively avoid "hot calls", where if there is shooting, they will hang back until it is over before moving in.

<comment><USER20> I'd rather this then police come in hot, shooting first and asking questions later. Mass violence is the exception, not the rule, and police should be deescalating situations, not causing trouble.

<comment><USER6> So, if you are being robbed, you would rather that the police wait a few blocks away?

<comment><USER20> I'd rather nothing bad happen to anyone ever, given the option.

<comment><USER6> Sure, we'd all like nothing bad to ever happen. But, if you were being attacked by someone, would you prefer that the police "de-escalate" things by not engaging your attackers, or would you want them to come in "guns blazing"? You have to pick one or the other. Life doesn't give you a convenient third option.

<comment><USER20> If they can walk over and deescalate, then of course I want them to deescalate. This isn't an action movie. Once bullets start flying, my odds of survival are likely going down, not up.

Do you think a policeman's job is to be a hero, or a public servant? Because I think they should be public servants. If one shows heroism while in the line of duty, it's because he is a hero and a good person. Not because of a paycheck and a badge.

<comment><USER6> These are just platitudes about "heroes" and "public servants". I want police that are effective.

If someone is threatening you with a weapon, you had better hope that there is at least one other weapon in this situation.

Well trained police that frequently go to the shooting range and are highly trained and experienced can be highly effective at minimizing harm in areas where criminals are well armed. There is ample data from real life. It is sad that we have to apply policing methodologies that are effective in places like South Africa or Brazil, but this is the country we live in now.

<comment><USER20> Not sure what country you live in, but fortunately I can afford to live in a part of the US where that is not characteristic. And I'd much rather my local police not come in firing like the A Team, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is disappointing, but not as much as Warren vs. District of Columbia.

</comment><comment><USER22> I guess cops at schools are just armed in case students mouth off to them.

<comment><AUTHOR> This reads like a joke, but it is more literally true than most would think: [https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/internet-speech/new- ha...](https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/internet-speech/new-hampshire- police-arrested-man-being-mean-them-internet)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Was the rumor of "we cant enter unless we have bodycams" ever proven true or false?

</comment><comment> xkcd-sucks Looks like teachers really do need guns

<comment><USER19> IMO, teachers who have guns and are interested in keeping the peace should go through a state licensing program, and have special badges (maybe brass) so we can identify them. They could be called peacekeepers.

<comment><USER24> This already exists. It's called a concealed carry permit. Giving somebody who has no law enforcement powers a badge is a bad idea.

<comment><USER25> No, concealed carry has no place in a school.

<comment><USER24> What's the alternative? Arming the kids?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This sounds worse than it is. You could have phrased it as "police not obligated to go on suicide missions." Or "police lives not automatically expendable."</comment>


Has Contact Been Lost with Vikram Lander on Moon? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Guy just said nominal performance up until 2.5 km altitude then signal was lost.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes, It was lost. News updated now.</comment>


Argentina says abnormal noise heard after submarine's last contact as hopes fade - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/23/argentina-says-abnormal-noise-heard-subs-last-contact-hopes/ <comment><USER2> Let me express deep solidary and hope for the crew and families.

On technical note, I keep wondering with all the technology available (satelites, sonars, airplans, thermo, etc.), how is it possible that they are not able to find / detect it ? Understand weather conditions are rough.

And this is the case of multi nations collaboration (best of the best ?).

Looks like submarine is very very powerfull attack vector. (?)

EDIT: Update from Guardian

"Justifying the delay, navy chiefs said that military protocol advises a 48-hour waiting period before beginning search efforts for submarines lost at sea."

[0][https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/22/search-for- mis...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/22/search-for-missing- argentinian-submarine-enters-critical-phase)

<comment><USER3> > how is it possible that they are not able to find / detect it ?

The ocean is a very large thing, especially when it needs to be searched in three dimensions.

<comment><USER4> >>three dimensions

This is definitely the big snag people lose themselves on. They are thinking about the search being in two dimensions, like a map. They aren't thinking about lost ships or planes in three dimensions; a formula squared vs. a formula cubed and how much faster the latter gets out of hand.

<comment><USER5> But we know it's either on the bottom or the surface right? It needs to use power to balance in the middle somewhere.

<comment><USER6> It doesn't need to use power. Ballast tanks are a thing.

But irrelevant to the point. Submarines are designed to be hard to find in an environment which very nature already makes things hard to find due to there being so much "stuff" in the way

<comment><USER7> But realistically it's not going to be neutrally bouyant while submerged. Nonetheless, a much harder task than 2-D x2...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As someone who knows nothing about submariners, I wonder if they could have "reprogrammed" a torpedo to explode at a safe distance shortly after launch, that is without a target, in order to produce enough noise and attract attention in their area. Could seismograph networks or satellites pinpoint such an event?

<comment><USER7> The biggest issue I see with this: they presumably suffered a loss of all electric, and in that case they're going to have limited pressure in their hydraulic systems. Hydraulics are probably responsible for both steering and torpedo launches, and you're going to give priority to maneuvering in this situation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This reminds me of Kursk, the Russian sub.

Specifically the third-world government fumbling the response to the missing submarine.

Considering the USN had two deadly above-surface collisions recently it is either a miracle or speaks to the professionalism of the submariners in avoiding these deadly accidents. (Unfortunately not in this case)

<comment><USER10> During the Cold War there were multiple underwater collisions with Soviet submarines.

[https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/25/nuclear- subm...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/25/nuclear-submarine- collision-cold-war-cia-scotland)

[http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/1992-russian- nucle...](http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/1992-russian-nuclear- attack-submarine-slammed-american-sub-18735)

<comment><USER11> Usually because the Western submarine was tailing them at the time, a fundamentally risky business.

There was a collision between UK and French SSBNs on patrol a few years back, and indication as to how quiet they can be - and SSBNs warrant the absolutely best ASW technology and techniques. An SSK, like the one missing, that has lost power isn't going to be making any sound at all unless the crew are doing it. If it is on the bottom you're essentially going to have to do a sea bed survey. The UK's Holland 1 submarine was lost under tow in 1913 only 1.5 miles outside Plymouth breakwater and remained undetected until 1981.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> My total knowledge regarding submarines is practically 0. I have a (somewhat) technical question that I hope my better qualified fellow readers can answer.

Are there any "distress call devices" which are/could be used in such situations? If not, what would the technical difficulties be, for creating and vertically launching a torpedo equipped with a beacon? If the sub is unable to move and/or broadcast, the beacon would begin transmitting when reaching the surface. I would imagine that launching such a beacon (visual & GPS & ...) would reduce the search area.

<comment><USER13> There is a device called an EPIRB that is often carried on sailboats. It is a floating radio transmitter that contacts a global satellite network in case of emergencies. It transmits a distress signal as well as its location.

It can be manually activated. It also activates automatically on contact with water.

I would imagine it would be possible to create an EPIRB-like device for submarines.

<comment><USER6> Submarines do have the EPIRB. This submarine was also confirmed to be equipped with one. One of the reasons that this disappearance was weird was that there wasn't even a trace of the EPIRB activating on this sub so we're not even sure if it "sank"

[https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/11/us- na...](https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/11/us-navy-sends- underwater-robots-to-assist-in-search-for-argentine-sub/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Whatever happened I hope for the submariners' sake it was quick.

</comment><comment><USER5> For those of you who feel sad for strangers that you never knew existed until now, why not direct your feelings to something productive like looking through local obituaries and contacting their survivors to show some support and kindness? There are real human beings dying all around us but they don't have dramatic movie-style deaths so we don't care. Even better, don't wait till they're dead. Go and seek out old, sick, and lonely people and make them feel better.

I think news-cycle internet sadness drains our capacity to care about others while also doing nothing for those who died or who're genuinely sad about it. The sinking submarine is interesting, the people on it aren't.

<comment><USER15> That sounds like a false dilemma.

<comment><USER5> Not false - we have limited capacity to care about people so we have to make tradeoffs. If anything, just because of the time it takes up. More people die each day than we could even name if that was our full time job. That's not even counting the possible emotional limits on people.

So why not spend your limited caring on someone who's ignored by the world and didn't even put themselves in danger, even better if it's someone who's not a professional killer like these victims were.</comment></comment></comment>


Bootstrap from Twitter - <AUTHOR> https://dev.twitter.com/blog/bootstrap-twitter

<comment><USER2> I support any developer that releases toolkits on Github, but Twitter would be the last place where I'd be looking for any type of front end guidance, let alone conventions. In other words, find and employ the tools you feel more comfortable with working across a variety of projects, not just one with a front end designed by the engineering team.</comment>


Demo Open Source Products with a Live Code Editor - <AUTHOR> http://engineering.dollarshaveclub.com/demo-in-live-code-editor/ <comment><USER2> Codepen !== live code editor

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome- instant&ion=1&e...](https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome- instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=live%20code%20editing)

Perhaps we should reconsider the term. I feel that giving plugin collaborators the opportunity to edit the plugin with an online code editor tool is live code editor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> <3 javascript</comment>


What are the best books on communication for developers? - <AUTHOR>

I'm an introvert and find it hard to communicate well with the team. I feel disappointed / dominated easily and can't convince others to use some technology or can't prove my point. I want to keep my team mates happy as well as convince them without acting like a jerk. <comment><USER2> Some resources in this thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8045805](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8045805)

</comment><comment><USER3> Go see a counsellor.

<comment><AUTHOR> May God Bless you.</comment></comment>


Name your price for an Elevation Dock, help our startup - <AUTHOR> http://blog.davejafari.com/name-your-price

<comment><USER2> If I had an iPhone, this would be right up my alley, but I don't. Anyways, when I went to the product site, something didn't seem consistant. (<https://elevationdocks.herokuapp.com/>)

If you scroll down the page a little, you say something along the lines of "help us fund our next product" vs "pre-order"(in the headline). If your real goal is to muster up some money for new product dev, say that in your headline! I would be more apt to give you extra money in your name your price offer if it was more clear that this was explicitly going toward future product development vs just a pre-order. I know the money ends up in the same place either way, but I hope you get my drift.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Mason. I was really torn on which point to emphasize.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Love the name your price part, but even more than that I love the 'what we make' part. Puts fair burden on me.

</comment><comment><USER4> FYI.. Posterous is blocked by my corporate internet. Thus, all the images on your site are blocked except your face at the bottom.

Based on your corporate access policies, access to this web site ( <http://posterous.com/> ) has been blocked because the web category "Social Networking" is not allowed.

Notification codes: (1, WEBCAT, BLOCK-WEBCAT...

<comment><USER5> Ouch. Bummer. Were you still able to read the article though?

<comment><USER4> Yes, text is all there. Some sites like this use posterous as a CDN for their images, but all i get is broken images.

<comment><USER5> Yeah in this case we didn't do that. I'll talk with Dave and see about looking out for this in the future. Thanks for the heads up!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> bulte-rs Just put in an order for one; looks awesome. Also thanks to Dave for the willingness/flexibility to ship a unit to the EU.

</comment><comment><USER6> I know this guy and he's awesome. The world's better off if you help his startup out :) I have no iphone though...

</comment><comment><USER7> I just tried to order one and got an error on the order page ("Invalid token"?!?). I tried again, and now I'm worried I've ordered 2.

Great idea, and it's nice to see you experimenting with different models for gauging interest & setting pricing.

<comment><USER5> There are no duplicate charges. The invalid token is an error produced on the processing side. You are all good. Let us know if there are any other concerns.

<comment><USER7> Thanks very much!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is definitely a creative way to resell products but are you taking the profits that should goto the person that is actually trying to create the product?

<comment><AUTHOR> We'd like to think that by funding the original Kickstarter campaign at such a high level, we helped make it possible for the product to be made in the first place. I'm certain that the project's owner is still going to make money on our units too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Estimated Shipment May, 2011" - I see what you mean by remarkable services and exceptional products...

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the heads up. We fixed the typo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Check it out, great guy..

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Bummer, looks like the post got killed. Why?</comment>


How to promote your wordpress plugin. Links&ideas from our fresh experience - <AUTHOR> http://blog.insite.io/the-loneliness-of-the-marketer-or-how-to-promote-a-baby-wordpress-plugin/

<comment><USER2> I have a few lists like this bookmarked. I've done it manually a few times. I've outsourced it to a VA. And recently I was solicited by [http://promotehour.com](http://promotehour.com) which is submission-as-a- service. I feel like it's a necessary evil when you launch a new product, but only a few sites/listings that offer actual value. I'd love to see a follow up about which sites actually lead to conversions!</comment>