Programming Your Own Language in C++ - <AUTHOR> https://accu.org/index.php/journals/2252 <comment><USER2> This article shows a lot of the silliness in both a) writing compilers in C++ and b) re-creating well-worn compilers tools like parsers from scratch.

1\. Their definition of values in the language (unfortunately called "Variables") is a product (class) over all possible types:

      class Variable {
        ...
        double numValue;
        string strValue;
        vector<Variable> tuple;
        string action;
        string varname;
        Constants::Type type;
      };

This means each value at runtime has a large memory footprint, as each instance of a value contains slots for all possible types even though only one will ever be filled. Sum types solve this problem.

2\. The author intermixes parsing and code generation. This makes it difficult to implement any kind of optimizations, even for an interpreter. For example, in order to do function inlining in the author's language, you would have to manually inline calls in every single part of the code generator instead of having IR transformations as separate modules (see: LLVM). It also tightly couples the two pieces of the compiler, making it difficult to change parsing strategies without rewriting the code generator for instance.

3\. It took the author nearly 5000 lines of C++ to write an interpreter for a simple Javascript-like scripting language. Some of this is due to the verbosity of C++, and some is due to the needless effort of reimplementing parsing from scratch. I implemented a similar language in <1k lines of Rust [1], and I'm sure that others could do even better in Haskell or OCaml. On top of that, the author's claimed benefit of extensibility requires writing large amounts of boilerplate.

[1] [https://github.com/willcrichton/lia](https://github.com/willcrichton/lia)

<comment><USER3> At the risk of stating the obvious -- in C and C++, unions solve that problem.

<comment><USER2> They solve the memory issue, although they are inconvenient to use vs. pattern matching and aren't type safe. Additionally, I've had no luck using classes (e.g. string) inside of unions because the compiler reasonably complains about initializers. I believe this is somewhat solved with boost::variant (and that's also getting put into C++17, iirc), but ideally it would be a part of the type system.

<comment><USER4> Replace the type (e.g. std::string) by the pointer type (e.g. std::string*) in the union.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Cached version, since we appear to have hugged their database to death.

[http://web.archive.org/web/20160616053900/http://accu.org/in...](http://web.archive.org/web/20160616053900/http://accu.org/index.php/journals/2252)

<comment><USER6> I just love how sites get unavailable after getting to the top of the HN. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you are serious about making your own programming language, I would strongly suggest to target the LLVM.

<comment><USER8> > If you are serious about making your own programming language, I would > strongly suggest to target the LLVM.

Strange advice given the state of LLVM on platforms such as windows. Both Swift and Crystal, LLVM based don't run on windows for instance. LLVM gives you more quickly but at the cost of portability.

<comment> Ono-Sendai LLVM works fine on Windows.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> How does this contrast with recursive descent parser?

<comment><USER10> ANTLR generates a recursive descent parser. The value is, it's easier to compare (hopefully) your EBNF to the antlr spec than it is to compare your EBNF to lower level code.

<comment><USER11> Doesn't ANTLR usually generate a bottom-up parser? I've never used ANTLR but it would be very odd to generate a recursive descent parser; LR grammars are parsed bottom-up (presumably the 'LR' in 'ANTLR').

Bottom-up parsers are nigh unreadable by mortals.

<comment><USER3> ANTLR generates top down parsers which use a few different algorithms, including Parr's LL(star) algorithm and the new ALL(star) algorithm for antlr 4:

[https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=11340764028758422...](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=11340764028758422091&hl=en&as_sdt=2005&sciodt=0,5)

[https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=70305927860962254...](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=7030592786096225431&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&sciodt=0,5)

The ANTLR acronym is explained here and doesn't have anything to do with LR grammars: [http://www.antlr.org/](http://www.antlr.org/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> antlr's c++ backend is pretty good for complex projects</comment>


The 'Complete' Cancer Cure Story Is Both Bogus and Tragic - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/the-complete-cancer-cure-story-is-both-bogus-and-tragic/ <comment><USER2> I have to wonder if by now people are numb to the articles that claim x,y,z has been cured. Has it become a meme yet?</comment>


Ask HN: Please review our Startup - ThreeFeeds - <AUTHOR>

This came out of StartupCamp sydney II on the weekend of 17th Jan.  We are obviously looking to take it a lot further and would really appreciate feedback on what we could do and what we should cut out of it.
www.threefeeds.com
What is it? Its a topic aggregator.  Lets you keep track of items on Twitter, Blogs and other sources as you add them in an easy way.
You can contact us either from my HN profile, or send email to firstname.lastname@example.com
Cant wait to hear all the good, bad and ugly from y'all..
thanks again. <comment><USER2> Too late for deep thoughts, but two small annoyances:

\- <enter> doesn't trigger the Add button in the search field

\- when I hit refresh, everything I just added is gone. It would be nice if it were remembered (in a cookie?)

Oh, and tell me what I get for registering.

<comment><AUTHOR> actually the idea was that refresh was a way of starting over... it was by design, so that any thing you add becomes part of the current topic you were watching...

granted a clearer way to clear it would have been a "Start over" button...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You haven't clearly described what the service is and what problem I'm having that it fixes. (And why my present tools aren't good enough.)

<comment><USER4> The service is Search & RSS aggregation across multiple platforms (i.e. google, blogsearch & twitter). Once these are aggregated the tool also allows you to share a link, subscribe via RSS or email and embed a widget on your website.

The problem that it solves is "searching a term or topic across multiple sites is difficult and time consuming, and there's no easy way for me to aggregate and share this"

Your present tools aren't good enough because they don't aggregate search (e.g. google shows 1 list of search results across all sites) and this makes it time consuming to do the kind of web, blog and social search needed today. They also don't allow you to easily subscribe, share and widgetize up-to-date search results.

We're working on the homepage copy to make this clearer to new users, and this might include a demo video.

Any more feedback on this is much appreciated :-)

<comment><USER3> 'The problem that it solves is "searching a term or topic across multiple sites is difficult and time consuming, and there's no easy way for me to aggregate and share this"'

I use Google to search for topics across sites. I'm not trying to be difficult, but I'd continue to refine your pitch until it makes crystal-clear sense in one sentence.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the valuable feedback :-) Google search is that google creates only 1 list, and you can only search 1 topic per browser window.

As well as this it doesn't allow the user to easily subscribe to an aggregated RSS, share a link or widgetise the results.

ThreeFeeds let's you aggregate seperate search 'lists' and add more than 1 topic, and then easily feed, share and widgetise the results.

So an example use case could be tracking an election campaign, whereby you can track several candidates (as well as additional terms or topics) across web, blog and social sites and then feed this into your reader, add a widget to your website or share the page with friends

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was thinking of doing something similar.

I think it will be more popular if you don't make people login. For example, threefeeds.com/erlang takes you to the erlang feeds page and then just have a normal rss link at the bottom.

<comment><AUTHOR> also the other thing i forgot mention was that, the real value comes in when you can customise the feeds (eg remove twitter but leave google and my own particular blogs in)... this is why we have put a login constraint..

but that is a good idea for unmodified topic watches... so that a search for "android" without any changes will be at the one location...

thanks for that one

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> nice idea and very clean. I have a site that gives out an RSS feed. how do I get three feeds to see it?

<comment><AUTHOR> you can add blogs to the search bar and its added to your list of topics you want to watch :D

sorry that should have been "clear" on the page...</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What does 'efficiency' of ads mean? Why does it lower ad value? - <AUTHOR>

At the heart of the Internet business is one of the great business fallacies of our time: that the Web, with all its targeting abilities, can be a more efficient, and hence more profitable, advertising medium than traditional media...
The daily and stubborn reality for everybody building businesses on the strength of Web advertising is that the value of digital ads decreases every quarter, a consequence of their simultaneous ineffectiveness and efficiency. The nature of people's behavior on the Web and of how they interact with advertising, as well as the character of those ads themselves and their inability to command attention, has meant a marked decline in advertising's impact.
original article: http://www.technologyreview.com/news/427972/the-facebook-fallacy/
I'm having trouble understanding what is meant by "efficiency of ads" and how that lowers ad value. I understand effectiveness, I think: users are habituated to ads and click/notice them less and less over time. Thus ads lose value. (Site operators can't charge advertisers as much)
But efficiency seems to be about targeting users more efficiently. How does efficiency lower ad value? It seems advertisers should be willing to pay more for more efficient ads? <comment><USER2> I didn't write the article, but taking a stab in the dark as to what the author could be thinking: Efficiency relates to waste - not showing ads to people who don't care about the product/service being sold in them. I believe the argument being made here is as people get more used to ads, they become less likely to click them - therefore the ads stop showing themselves to the users (as they are not being clicked), thereby resulting in less overall performance as you are potentially not showing ads to people who could be on target.</comment>


Ask HN: Finding cofounder: did you just end up going solo? - <AUTHOR>

I'm wondering for those really into starting a company, but lacking a complementary cofounder - did you end up just starting out yourself? How did it turn out?<p>Thanks. <comment><USER2> Been down this route with my current company. Sorry if this answer is long winded, but I want to give a full description of why being a single co-founder worked for me personally. I am currently finishing up my first year in business and am only now in the process of bringing on a co-founder. There were some benefits and pitfalls to this approach, but looking back I would not have done it any differently and I couldn't be happier about the decision to proceed alone. I should note that a lot of this had to do with complete luck as I will explain below.

First, I am building a niche, taboo startup (helping ex-offenders through re- entry). When I first started many of my friends, and people I considered potential co-founders, found the idea a little too risky or crazy for their liking. Many didn't understand the market and were skeptical that a market even existed. I was not going to give up though and was bound and determined to get a business model built and launched, so I pressed forward. Bringing on a co-founder just to say you have a co-founder is a the perfect recipe for disaster in my opinion.

Out of luck I got accepted into an accelerator program for social impact startups. The overall value of the program is a blog post in itself, but the one enormous benefit that came from it was the connections within city government and other startups. It is through this that I ended up meeting my co-founder. We are still hashing out the exact details of our agreement, but our skill sets compliment each other and we get along good. He also understands the market, has experience in it, and knows the business side of building this type of business. I could not be happier for the way it worked out. The whole process has allowed me to essentially do a "co-founder dating" period without giving up equity or IP secrets, and it allowed each of us to work together and see how we got along before getting into a relationship.

Now to give you the flip side and why I believe this approach worked for me personally. I had a previous startup where I partnered with individuals I considered friends. We ended up having an ugly falling out over money and development of the product. The fallout was devastating personally and financially for me, and while I take a considerable amount of the blame for the initial fallout, their actions after the fallout are what made the situation even worse (they divulged company data, were highly vocal to potential customers and investors, etc..). They essentially made it impossible for me to succeed even if I wanted to. While I probably could have sued, I ultimately felt it was easier to lick my wounds and walk away. I also felt that suing would just take me down to their level, and wasn't worth the battle (no matter what side you are on, lawsuits are not pretty or fun).

Long story short, the experience made me extremely skeptical going into my new venture of who I would bring on as a co-founder. When you hear the horror stories of co-founder breakups or that they are one of the leading causes of potentially good ideas failing as a business, I can attest to the outcomes. Ironically, the only reason I had taken on co-founders in the first place was because of outside pressure from potential investors that I needed to have at least one other person. Investments we didn't even end up getting.

Having a co-founder has its benefits and pitfalls in my opinion. Nobody can deny that the right co-founder is the ultimate blessing. They are someone who is right there in the battle with you through the good and the bad. They are someone you can call at 4am with a whimsical idea and know they completely understand why you called and get equally excited. They are someone that is in the ring fighting with you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The problem arises though when one of you can no longer afford to stay in the ring and continue to fight. Whether that is due to financial or personal reasons is irrelevant. When the frustration from one side grows so much that communication between the parties diminishes or does not occur at all, the fallout will begin. Each party will begin to blame the other, regardless of who is at fault. When this starts to happen, how it is ultimately handled by both sides together will determine whether the business comes out intact or fails. Best advice I can say here is to have a neutral third-party that can mediate the fallout. This is probably why you see funded companies navigate co-founder breakups easier than un-funded companies. Good investors know breakups happen and are ready to step in and help you navigate that breakup. Without that third-party though it is difficult and the chances of making through successfully are not in your favor.

While the building of my current startup has taken a little longer without a co-founder, it gave me some advantages. First, I had no one to blame but myself if the business fails. This gave me great incentive to succeed. Second it allowed me to be in the fight without having to be in the ring. Meaning that I while I was determined to build a business, if at anytime I wanted to quit the decision was fully mine and I could walk away without losing friendships or future business partners. Finally, it is giving me an enormous advantage as I prepare to finally enter the ring with my new co-founder. I have a product developed, it works, and I have people using the service daily. I don't have to sell anyone on the idea or business. Is the business 100% or completely finished, absolutely not. But one of the biggest hurdles has been jumped and by bringing on the co-founder now, it is more like tag-team wrestling where I can hand off the product and let him go sell. This doesn't mean I don't have to do anything from here on, it just pulls an enormous amount of pressure off me. It gives me time now to focus on fixing bugs, adding new features, cleaning up rushed portions of code (don't deny it we all do it), etc...

I should note that there were a few key items that I think made a big difference for me along the way. First, while I lean towards being an introvert, I consider myself fairly good at networking and making connections. As I was flushing out my business model, I reached out to a lot of people in the industry and made some great connections along the way. I also applied to several accelerator programs. Two of the programs that I applied to, while I was not accepted, have gone above and beyond in helping me. From introductions to answering emails at 3am providing design input/advice for my website/product. Neither of these teams had to do this for me, yet they believed in me and my idea enough that they go out of their way to answer my emails directly and provide feedback. I also have a good core group of friends that I can ping ideas off of and support me, and while they may think I am crazy at times they are there for me if I need them. I don't think without these pieces that I would have (a) survived the first year by myself, (b) made it to where I am today with the product.

So to answer your original question, by all means go for it! The right person will come along, and when they do, you will know it immediately.</comment>


Etsy accused me of not assembling my synths by hand and shut down my shop - <AUTHOR> http://wtfbyrne.tumblr.com/post/50437742387/etsy-accused-me-of-not-assembling-my-synths-by-hand <comment><USER3> While reading about this story and looking at the Etsy website my wife made me divert to this page: [http://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/108070806/felicity- leather-we...](http://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/108070806/felicity-leather- wedges-leather-shoes?ref=shop_home_active)

The seller BaliELF has a large range of shoes available in different colours and sizes and is based in Indonesia. They has a lot of feedback from the last 12 months suggesting that they have shipped a fair number of shoes. I don't know much about shoe making but I'm jumping to the conclusion that they are a small factory 'hand making' lovely shoes.

And yet the email to the OP states, 'Items Handmade by You' and wants him to document his workflow. The emails from Etsy seem quite buttheaded. I wouldn't think that a company with just 300 staff has to be so unwilling to engage with their partners.

<comment><USER4> They've sold 1022 items at about 100GBP a pop over the last two years. That's less than $80k USD per year. I'm not sure how much of a factory you can afford with that in Bali, or how much profit would be left over. (They claim to be 3 people, so _before_ any overhead, that's less than $26k per person per year.)

I would suggest they are resellers but the amount of customization makes that seem very unlikely.

<comment><USER5> > That's less than $80k USD per year. I'm not sure how much of a factory you > can afford with that in Bali

You could also sell through multiple channels (Alibaba, Amazon, eBay, Etsy, etc.) concurrently. Etsy would make up a small fraction compared to, for example, Alibaba.

<comment><USER4> The majority of Etsy sellers I see sell primarily through Etsy; those who sell elsewhere generally only do so through their own personal sites. Etsy (or at least the mainstream corners of it) is much more "boutique" than Alibaba et al, and sellers can demand much higher prices for the same goods. That's one reason there's such a big problem with resellers: people can simply buy things off Alibaba/Amazon/eBay at regular prices, pretend they are handmade, and sell them on Etsy at a much higher markup. So that's possible, but it doesn't really jibe with my experience as an Etsy user.

<comment><USER5> See wahsd's reply just next to your's :)

<comment><USER4> Looks like they sell through Etsy, their own site, and a third boutique site that only carries their product. None of the other mass marketplaces.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Part 2 of this story: [http://wtfbyrne.tumblr.com/post/50437619970/etsy- accused-me-...](http://wtfbyrne.tumblr.com/post/50437619970/etsy-accused-me- of-not-assembling-my-synths-by-hand)

Submitted at <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5708307>

<comment><USER7> I'm kind of siding with Etsy here, despite thinking he is being honest. The information provided is not enough to tell if he isn't just buying ready-made products and etching his logo on the back. It's a tough judgment, really, at what threshold does something qualify as hand-made?

<comment><USER8> I agree there's not enough information to determine how much he is contributing. I see some wood and a soldering iron, but I don't see evidence he is populating the boards himself, or his jig for making the finger joints. He might be but he doesn't show a set up sufficient to determine. I'm also skeptical of the claims that there are trade secrets involved in assembling known designs and boards made by others and putting together a rectangular case. The Bob Moog factory in Asheville has glass windows around their factory floor and customers are invited to watch their entire assembly process. Does Moog have more protection worthy trade secrets in their assembly methods than these designs? Probably.

If he is putting fully assembled boards into a premade box, is it hand made? In his post it sounds like he is saying he designs the front panel layout and has it cut and stenciled at a facility somewhere, and no doubt he screws in the potentiometers, attaches the knobs, and solders the leads. He says the boards come from China and are designed by someone else. He doesn't say if he populates the boards or if they come finished, ready for lead attachment. If lead attachment and the panel layout this is the extent of his work, perhaps etsy might not consider that truly handmade. Or perhaps they want more disclosure about how much is done. Maybe some consider that handmade, others not. It's kind of hard to say. Let's say I am a customer and someone is selling original "handmade" instrument designs in a wooden case. I very well may assume from this claim that it was their own design and they made the box. I probably would not be shocked if the board etching was done elsewhere. But then what if I find out that all the electronics were designed by another person and the boards are not just etched but populated in a large Chinese factory and arrive at the seller's house assembled. Was I ripped off by the claim it was handmade? Maybe.

<comment><USER9> To argue by analogy, are the (no doubt hundreds) of "clocks" listed on etsy that are no more than a cheap prebought movement mounted through a hole in a piece of wood in violation of the same policy? What about the driftwood lamps and such which are just prebought components fished through holes someone drilled?

<comment><USER10> To play devils advocate, the driftwood lamps are all unique pieces made with lighting parts that probably couldn't be made by an individual. A clockwork is outside the scope of individual construction as well.

<comment><USER11> The driftwood wasn't made by the person, but by nature. You saying the clockwork is outside the scope of individual construction, but this guy is getting hammered for using a circuit board? Because yeah, those are so much easier to knock up compared to a clock mechanism... Any Tom, Dick or Harry, can drill a whole for a light fitting in some driftwood.

<comment><USER10> I said I was playing devils advocate but I guess I will continue that role.

He's not getting hammered for using a circuit board, I highly doubt Etsy is concerned about that. What they are concerned about is whether or not the guy is doing the work on these. He hasn't shown enough for me to be able to say that he is putting them together. He has pictures of a workbench, some soldering equipment, some wood and other parts, and the finished product.

How does this differ from a driftwood lamp or a clock with a ready-built clockwork? It's not just semantics. Obviously there are things that Etsy allows and things they don't but it's also the craftiness (is that a word?) of the project. I'll be honest that this guy's project doesn't seem very crafty, whether or not he's putting everything together there's nothing really crafty or unique about it. This doesn't take anything away from what it is or the demand for it, it just might not fit in as an Etsy business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Huh. I don't remember seeing any other blog posts from _anyone_ dissatisfied with Etsy previously — is this their first negative publicity?

It'll be interesting to see how they respond. I am reminded of the smashed antique Paypal violin story ( <http://www.regretsy.com/2012/01/03/from-the- mailbag-27> ), where PayPal adopted the standard PR strategy of "saying nothing at all so that the story will go away."

<comment><USER13> _> Huh. I don't remember seeing any other blog posts from anyone dissatisfied with Etsy previously — is this their first negative publicity?_

Not exactly [0].

I had no idea "handmade" was such a big deal at Etsy.

Regardless, the way they've handled this case seems pretty terrible, right down to the aggravatingly detached language used to correspond with him. Something really irks me about humans seemingly trying to be robotic, particularly in the process of performing a subjective review.

0: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/27/etsy-handmade- facto...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/27/etsy-handmade-factory- made_n_1455462.html)

<comment><USER14> "I had no idea "handmade" was such a big deal at Etsy."

Hell, all I've heard about is griping from other sellers how "handmade" ISN'T a big deal from overseas sellers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Etsy's a pretty great company, and you happen to be quite nearby in Brooklyn. How about visiting with some of your work to meet them in person? Etsy has a monthly open house too, so perhaps that's a good time.

I've met quite a few Etsy employees and they're all quite nice, smart, and want to do right by people. Good luck!

<comment><USER16> I don't doubt that they're smart and nice. I'd be shocked if they didn't want to do right by their customers. It seems like they have a pretty good track record of being good to their sellers and buyers. My friends who sell on Etsy have nothing but good things to say about them, and the few times I've bought from them the experience was surprisingly smooth for a user-run marketplace.

But Etsy's at a point where they're driving people's income that they depend on. The process for remediation and reconciliation shouldn't be unclear until they shut down your site.

I'd also like to see Etsy take on less of a shoot first and ask questions later approach. Especially when something is as grey-area as this. If he's using a factory, he clearly isn't pushing enough product to justify having a factory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm always hazardous when building something on someone else's infrastructure. If they can shut down your entire income stream "just because", that probably isn't a good situation to be in.

<comment><USER18> Everyone's in that situation. If you're selling online, your host can shut you down. Your payment processor can shut you down. Your supplier can shut you down. If you sell offline, your landlord can shut you down. Your bank can shut you down. You can set up a table in front of your house and try to sell from there with cash only, and your city/township can come shut you down.

Until some of that happens, it probably makes sense to avail yourself of the most profitable venue and marketing channels available to you; if Etsy brings you exposure you wouldn't have operating elsewhere, use it _until_ you have a problem. Most people probably aren't capable of replicating the entire commercial ecosystem just to avoid being reliant on any of it, and even when they are, focusing on that instead of getting their product/service in front of customers probably isn't the most profitable path. It's better to have contingency plans for unlikely events than to act like they've already happened.

<comment><USER19> The key is to be able to swap out as much as your set up as possible with something roughly interchangeable. You have to ask yourself, every time you rely on somebody else, "If these people drop the hammer on me, what will I do?"

For example, if you develop an iOS app and Apple decides (for whatever reason) not to accept it, you will have a bunch of useless Objective-C code, which can basically be ported to another language and platform, or thrown in the trash.

Conversely, if you develop a web app on a cloud PaaS, and the provider treats you wrong or isn't reliable, you can swap out with another service, or host it yourself. You may have to do some work to get everything situated in the new environment (how much work that is depends on the service, from what I understand), but you do have a backup plan in case things go south.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It doesn't do the site any good if it gets this sort of publicity, and clearly its doesn't do the user much good.

Not a day goes past with out some poor user being booted from a website for reasons which are either misunderstood, unknown or unreasonable. So many sites mean a lot to many many people, and to be arbitrarily booted is quite an awful experience, especially if it seems unreasonable or plain wrong. It seems unjust that the issues are decided at the whim of the site, and are often not reversed. Too often the people working for these sites wont back down for silly ego reasons, they make a simple mistake and don't want to admit it, and it is very hard to break past that. There is too often no way back either.

I would like to see some sort of independent arbitration process for this sort of thing. Quite how that would work, I dont know, but there has to be some fair and consistent way to resolve these issues. Right now, it seems the only way a user can solve a problem is to make as much noise as possible to almost bully the website in to taking them back. But in the end, that isn't a "happy" resolution.

<comment><USER21> This is why I will always make sure that I know (as others have suggested) what I'd do if I got booted off of a platform. This happened to me with Amazon: I was selling a few used books a month, when one day my email got hijacked. That meant I wasn't receiving the sales emails from them, and, because I obviously wasn't shipping them out, got banned from selling by robots with no process at all for being reviewed by a real human (let alone by one who could understand what happened and provide a satisfactory resolution). What am I going to do, sue them? Even arbitration would've been a waste of money, since I wasn't selling the books as a living (I was selling like one a month). Ever since then I've always made sure I have an alternative (Half.com now gets their cut of all my book sales).

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I think there is probably a bias against electronics as being handmade, and I appreciate your frustration. I think this is just a misunderstanding, but this:

 _Disregarding the fact that having my shop up gains me at least one follower a day, it just so happens I don't want Etsy to know exactly how I go about constructing my electronics and especially the enclosures. I realized this was an intellectual property issue and that Etsy was making an unfair and undocumented demand of me._

seems like taking a principled stand where a pragmatic one would serve you better. There have to be parts of the process you can document without giving away secrets. Secrets that very very very very few people would even know how to take advantage of anyway.

<comment><USER23> "Secrets that very very very very few people would even know how to take advantage of anyway."

You have to put effort into telling artists to shut up about their latest newly mastered technique, whereas industrial designers / factory owners / mass producers / operations analysts usually consider the smallest details of the production floor to be their sole secret sauce and source of profit. From the outside "we" may not realize that response is like waving a red flag in front of a bull, from Etsy's point of view. Its not helping his case that he's an artist selling on an artist site.

Its a wood box. If you think you can school Roy Underhill about handmade traditional wood jointery, you might theoretically be right, but you're almost certain to be wrong. AND you think you can also school the recently deceased Mr Bob Pease on analog electronics? Again, yeah in theory maybe, but not very likely. The relevance of those two guys is they are/were both incredibly skilled and also good teachers who I've learned from, and I'm a relative peon in both fields. Something identified as a secret is probably not a secret, but being mis-categorized.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The real question seems to be "who solders the components to the PCB?" The OP says "The knobs, potentiometers, and jacks were all secured by me. I did all of the wiring as well. Ordered the parts and soldered them all to the board too." The problem is that he makes it sound like an afterthought and does not provide photographic proof of this step (soldering what looks like about 60-80 components to the board in the one picture).

But given that the finished board could be outsourced just as easily as the PCB, the Etsy emails seem to be inquiring about that--without really asking outright, which just adds to the confusion. OP's admission that he is preparing a lot more products without being able to provide photo proof further adds doubt to his case.

I don't know Etsy, their rules, their policies, or what they allow in their store, but they seem to want OP to prove he soldered his boards himself, and he hasn't. I don't know if that's fair or not, but it does seem evasive on OP's part. Also, going nukular and posting the whole thing online (thus knowingly reducing the chance of being reinstated to near-zero) strikes me as something that a dishonest person does when they get caught/called out.

<comment><USER25> I don't know about you, but I don't usually record myself while working just so I can prove it to my employer[1]. He's not being evasive, Etsy is asking for _too much_ (it's not even in their ToS).

[1] [http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/110487/my- cus...](http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/110487/my-customer- wants-me-to-record-a-video-of-how-i-develop-his-software-product)

<comment><USER24> To expand on your analogy, if a programmer advertized his services on uml- coders.com, he would be expected to show an example of his UML diagrams.

I don't know if Etsy has fair policies or enforces those policies fairly. But the OP has a hole in his own story, right around a very significant detail. That raises a red flag in my book.

<comment><USER26> No, it's more like he offered to sell a UML diagram, and then after he had created it, the site came back and demanded a video of him having created it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't know how the fees compare (5% plus CC fees), but Tindie[1] is a marketplace specifically built for this kind of product.

[1] <http://tindie.com/>

</comment><comment><USER27> I don't know how long it takes for you to create a synth, but it may be worth making a time lapsed video of your process for two reasons:

1\. It should satisfy etsy's requirements of displaying how it is handmade

2\. You and your customers may appreciate the video (a little advertising)

I understand that etsy's request is unreasonable and the conversation with them, unpleasant, but I think this would be a solution. If the video is done well, you hopefully won't be giving away any secret sauce to your manufacturing process.

If all else fails, I suppose it would be time to find another community of craftsmen.

<comment><USER28> Depends. These took me about 8 hours a piece. Not including the design process which was a bit more. Needless to say I'm not the faster solder or wire guy on the planet.

Appropriately and by sheer coincidence, I just got into time lapse photography. Here's my first vid. It's terrible!

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMPEb1GEva8>

Did I make this video to satisy Etsy's ridiculous expectations (that aren't documented anywhere)? NO! Did I make it because it's fun? YES!

The problem here is that Etsy isn't my boss or my manager. That's the whole reason I sell through them. I want to avoid someone looking over my shoulder to make sure I'm working all the time or working within their absurd guidelines.

This is the question I really want to discuss about Etsy. Obviously, I'm against the radical approach to just closing stores based solely on suspicion!

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> This situation seems entirely unfair to me and I am surprised that a lot of people here are siding with Etsy. If they had such clauses and information in their Terms and Conditions, then fair enough, comply or leave. But the worrying situation we have here is that Etsy appear to be making up non- publicly stated terms, targeting a guy who obviously hand assembles his own equipment. Sure, the guy didn't provide every bit of info they were requesting, but why should he? He complied with every Etsy request until they started asking for photo's documenting every step of the process which is just ridiculous.

99% of the supposed hand made goods on Etsy are not hand made, they're outsourced products and drop-shipped goods. Maybe they're trying to crack-down on that, and maybe they should publicly state that and update their terms. Try searching, "laptop bag", "iphone cover" and I can almost say with certainty that most of what you see is not hand made, but rather slave labour or outsourced.

Etsy have bigger problems to worry about than whether or not a guy is actually making his own electronic devices when there are substantially larger stores moving larger volumes of product (like some of the clothing and shoe stores you see on Etsy) who should be questioned first. And if this is indeed the process, maybe letting your sellers know IN ADVANCE before they've already made the product to sell might result in easier compliance.

Just because he is hand assembling a product using already constructed components like a pre-fabricated PCB and perhaps even pre-soldered components, does that make it any less hand made? Do people seriously think every component in the new car they're buying was made by the car manufacturer? No. Do you think Apple hand make every component in their iPhone or Macbook computers? Do you think the artist who painted that portrait made his own canvas and made his own paints? Fair enough that Apple or car manufacturers aren't fobbing their goods off as hand made, but it gives you an idea how reliant we've become on component assembly opposed to the non-scalable DIY approach.

\----

And the final nail in Etsy's argument is this blog post they wrote in 2012: [http://www.etsy.com/blog/news/2012/defining-handmade-on- etsy...](http://www.etsy.com/blog/news/2012/defining-handmade-on-etsy/)

The relevant part of this post is this defining paragraph:

To be clear, when we talk about "hand-assembled" on Etsy, we don't mean simply putting together a kit where all the pieces are already chosen and provided together. For example, if someone bought a flat-packed bookcase from IKEA that came with all the pieces pre-cut and all the necessary hardware included, and then put it together as directed by the enclosed instructions, that assembled bookcase would not qualify to be sold on Etsy as a handmade item. "Hand- assembled" on Etsy also does not include gathering commercially-produced items and repackaging them in a gift basket.

Which links to this DO's & DON'TS link: <http://www.etsy.com/help/article/483> which features these key lines:

On Etsy, the term "handmade" can additionally be interpreted as "hand- assembled" or "hand-altered."

To be considered handmade, the seller must substantially alter the design of an item produced from a "ready to assemble" kit.

\----

Nowhere did I find anything that stated pictures or any documentation whatsoever is required to account for the construction process. The fact the guy is making his own enclosures by Etsy's own definitions of hand made is deemed to be hand made and not merely commercially assembled. If he was buying every component and merely assembling it, then that is definitely not hand made at all.

I've emailed Brendan directly with a link to this comment, which hopefully helps him out. Maybe those above aforementioned links can help the author get this store restored.

<comment><USER30> This Brendan guy just needs to switch to selling "handmade" monogrammed island clutches:

[http://www.etsy.com/search?q=monogram%20island%20clutch%20bl...](http://www.etsy.com/search?q=monogram%20island%20clutch%20black&view_type=gallery&ship_to=US)

(EDIT: Project idea for someone who's bored: Scrape images off Etsy, group items based on image similarity, and find obvious mass-produced items. Actually, nevermind, Etsy should be paying someone to do that for them if they actually care about the "handmade" line they're spouting.)

<comment><USER31> _Project idea for someone who's bored: Scrape images off Etsy, group items based on image similarity, and find obvious mass-produced items._

Actually because an item looks alike does not mean they are not handmade. Many people on Etsy follow instructions. Etsy's 'handmade' actually means more 'self-made'. A lot of mass produced item are made by hand in Asia. Opposite of our home in Thailand there is a small shoe factory in some families home. They make shoes up to spec for some big companies. So, Etsy requires that all items are made by the person that lists the item for sell. However, it does not require an original idea.

<comment><USER30> I'm having a hard time believing these sellers ever even touch these items.

Given the cost of an embroidery machine that can actually embroider these items, and the fact that nobody seems to have non-stock photographs of any the items, and the fact that ~90% of the images showing available fonts are completely identical, I'm guessing they're having a third party do the work and either drop-ship the item directly to customers or ship it to the Etsy seller, who then re-ships it to the customer.

See also:

[http://www.etsy.com/search/handmade?q=tutti+frutti+cosmetic&...](http://www.etsy.com/search/handmade?q=tutti+frutti+cosmetic&order=most_relevant&view_type=gallery&ship_to=US) vs. [http://www.wholesaleboutique.com/wholesale/monogrammed- items...](http://www.wholesaleboutique.com/wholesale/monogrammed-items/tutti- frutti-large-cosmetic-bag.html)

[http://www.etsy.com/search/handmade?q=tutti+frutti+beach&...](http://www.etsy.com/search/handmade?q=tutti+frutti+beach&view_type=gallery&ship_to=US) vs. [http://www.wholesaleboutique.com/wholesale/monogrammed- items...](http://www.wholesaleboutique.com/wholesale/monogrammed-items/beach- bag.html)

[http://www.etsy.com/search/handmade?q=black+toiletry+bag&...](http://www.etsy.com/search/handmade?q=black+toiletry+bag&view_type=gallery&ship_to=US) vs. [http://www.wholesaleboutique.com/wholesale/monogrammed- items...](http://www.wholesaleboutique.com/wholesale/monogrammed-items/black- toiletry-bag.html)

<comment><USER32> When I browse the first Etsy link, I see four "sponsored" items above the selected store, with four identical images that coming from four different Etsy shops. My guess is that Etsy probably won't crack down on shops paying for sponsored listings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Try sending Etsy a link to your YouTube channel. I don't know if any of those videos feature the device in the dispute, but they demonstrate you're capable of making some pretty cool digital audio equipment.

<comment><USER28> I sent Etsy a link to another device I'd built and it's build process thinking this would serve as a demonstration of my ability and position of assembler.

[http://www.flickr.com/photos/52082118@N05/sets/7215763303855...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/52082118@N05/sets/72157633038558161/)

They weren't satisfied.

</comment></comment><comment> Aco- I know some one who works at Etsy, so I forwarded this along to him, he has since passed it along to their support team in hopes of finding a better resolution; it's been reported that a lot of other engineers at Etsy have escalated this post throughout the day.

</comment><comment><USER34> This is pretty ridiculous. Best of luck to you and I hope you get your store back after the publicity of this post!

</comment><comment><USER35> If you live nearby is it possible for an Etsy representative to come and watch you manufacture a single item?

This way IP is kept relatively confidential, unless the viewer can remember every single detail and I doubt this unless they are very skilled with building electrical components. You could also get them to sign a non- disclosure agreement if you are concerned.

I also agree this seems unfair, many of the products on etsy don't seem to pass this same test.

<comment> jack-r-abbit One of the emails stated "Unfortunately, we're not equipped to offer phone support at this time." If they don't even have the resources to have a phone call with the guy, it is highly unlikely they have resources to send a person to his house.

<comment><USER36> They likely have no idea where he lives. If he were to say, "Look, I live ___ blocks away from you. I'd love to buy you and a coworker lunch and you can watch me build one -- I'd like to avoid having documentation of my process, as that's a competitive advantage for me", he might get some traction.

Probably not, though, if the emails are that much like form letters.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I don't get why it would be so horrible for someone to not hand-assemble something they sell on Etsy, can someone please explain? (Yes, I know it's against the point of the site, but is it really worth terminating a product? Why not just post a notice?)

<comment><USER38> The products sold on etsy are valuable _because_ they are hand crafted. That is their value-add, if any mass-production products make it in, their brand is diluted.

That is - they are really selling the hand-craftedness of the items, rather than the items themselves.

<comment><USER21> Etsy should open up a new site that handles businesses that outgrow Etsy. Seems silly to try and squeeze everyone into the same mold and then not have an option to make money on those who are "too" successful to hand make everything.

<comment><USER14> It's not about "outgrowing" Etsy. Their entire model is based around avoiding commodity items and towards "boutique", handcrafted, or vintage. In theory, at least. In reality they're selective about the non-handcrafted stuff they tolerate (bought in scale from AliBaba) and what they don't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I suppose Etsy had to do something for bad PR eventually.

<comment><USER4> This is actually probably a result of Etsy's last round of bad PR, where one of the sellers they were promoting (Ecologica Malibu) was actually a reseller. Etsy has rampant problems with resellers.

<comment><USER40> I don't see how they would not, or how they'd adequately deal with resellers. It'd be like github trying to ensure all people pushing code up to github have the proper rights to that code.

<comment><USER4> Nevertheless, they have to try to deal with it. Their brand is homemade and vintage. That's why people come to Etsy instead of eBay or Amazon. If their users feel like they have to slog through mass-produced stuff to get to what they want, or worse, if they feel like they are being scammed into buying fake homemade items, they will stop using Etsy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Hi,

I'm Brendan! No doubt this thread has lost some steam, but I'll do what I can to answer some of the questions posted here.

About the Synth: The PCB came from Music from Outer Space (MFOS) which is probably the best website on the internet for Synth DIY enthusiasts. I encourage anyone who even knows how to pronounce "solder" correctly to spend a few minutes there.

Ray Wilson, owner of MFOS, has a specific policy that allows for the resale of his designs in the form of completed synths. He only sells the PCBs and makes all the information public. However, It's not an open-source of GNU license. You CAN'T use his schematics to print your own PCBs. I honor this, by purchasing his boards even though there are obviously other ways to bring them into existence. I've emailed him about this whole situation and received his blessing!

What Went Wrong: My guess is that Etsy was trying to prevent resale items. They probably have staff who use their search engine to find duplicates of unique terms. No doubt "MFOS" and "Noise Toaster" popped up a bunch of times and they rightfully became suspicious of me reselling completed synthesizers. However, if the staff member had taken ONE SECOND to read my description it would've become obvious that MFOS is simply a hobby shop that I purchased the board from.

Looking over the emails now, it's so glaring that even the slightest change in word choice could've prevented this situation escalating to the level that it did. If the rep had at any point known a ANYTHING about electronics, it would've been obvious that I had made it.

The one thing that still drives me mad and even now I can't find an explanation for was why Etsy decided to pick on a twerp like me. I had probably 6 items in my shop and hadn't grossed more than $1000 in 5 months. Like many have pointed out, they've got bigger fish to fry.

This thinking lead me to believe that this was an all out assault against electronic artists on Etsy. Perhaps, even part of a larger campaign to remove them entirely from their site now that alternatives like Tindie exists. I reacted with emotion and wanted to defend the community of other electronics designers on Etsy. I thought of them FIRST when I posted this email conversation.

Hand Assembled Haters: Half of synth DIY is designing your own interface. That's what modular means to some extent. This is the exact reason why many designers put their schematics out for free. THEY WANT TO SEE WHAT PEOPLE DREAM UP. And dreaming takes a lot of energy and time. You can bet your ass I sanded this thing to holy hell and watched over it liked a baby when I was assembling it. I love that someone pointed out the issue of wiring in the comments.

Look guys, if there's that much wiring, it's put together by hand. No one in their right mind would outsource that much wiring if they were trying to turn a profit. Printing your own boards with mounted potentiometers would save at the very least HUNDREDS of dollars.

Inexcusable Closure: The knee-jerk reaction Etsy has to possible non-handmade items is atrocious. Close my shop without warning? That is not cool at all, especially when I'm willing to work with you! How about 5 days? And how about removing that specific item and not my whole bleeping store!

Etsy's documentation on "Dos and Don'ts" is lacking for sure. And accusing legitimate artists of being LIARS can only lead to outrageous responses like this from the artists themselves and the broader internet community who support them.

End: I've reached out to Etsy and told them I'm willing to work with them to point out the spots where I think this all went wrong and how they can change their policies to grant sellers the respect they deserve. If things go well, I will stress to no end, the importance of creating a specialized team to work with electronic artists as their discipline requires the special attention that if present would never had lead to this.

Thanks: The support has been incredible and I can only say, I'm completely undeserving of it. I'm truly an enthusiasts who makes synths, because I love them and want the whole world to experience the beauty of weird sounds!

The real designers and electrical engineers out there deserve a billion high fives.

(hope i didn't forget anything)

<comment><USER28> If anyone is super interested in this hit me up at byrnework @ gmail (dot) com and I'll do my best to answer your questions specifically.

Hit up a few points on this thread as well.

<comment><USER41> Is there currently a site that talks about the synth's features, pricing, etc?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Wow. Contrast this with the front-page HN post about kickstarter not doing anything about a project that over funded 20x and went silent for a year and a half <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5707827>

The individual instances where policies fall down can be pretty nutty, but I honestly don't envy companies that have to solve this problem and figure out where to walk the line (at scale, no less).

</comment><comment><USER43> Just looking at all the wires inside the box in one photo, how could they ever think that was mass-manufactured?

<comment><USER44> I don't think the issue is they believe it's mass-manufactured or something. The issue is whether it falls into the niche of what etsy wants to sell.

He's admitted that he doesn't actually design the circuits, and there's still some question about how much of the actual assembling he does.

It seems he's certainly doing some amount of work with his hands, the issue whether it's enough to count as "handmade" in the sense that etsy's customers expect.

I know as a musician if I purchased a "handmade" synth and later found out that it was basically just a kit that had been assembled for me, I'd be a little irked. Though if the store was up front about it, I would consider purchasing it to save myself the trouble of assembling it.

Personally I think it should be allowed as long as the seller is honest about it, though I could see why etsy might find it a bit dubious.

<comment><USER43> >>>I know as a musician if I purchased a "handmade" synth and later found out that it was basically just a kit that had been assembled for me, I'd be a little irked.

Ah. That makes it clearer for me. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> This is crazy. You've got some cool lookin synths. We'd be happy to offer you a home over at reverb.com

</comment><comment><USER46> This is really sad and unfortunate, considering how many items on etsy are just reseller nonsense, or unaltered items that someone just found. - <USER2> these [http://www.etsy.com/listing/127063284/super-clear-quartz- cry...](http://www.etsy.com/listing/127063284/super-clear-quartz-crystal-for- making?ref=cat2_gallery_6)

Or just ridiculous stuff that.. I don't even know, like this: [http://www.etsy.com/listing/112833746/increase-breast- size-s...](http://www.etsy.com/listing/112833746/increase-breast-size-spell- cast-on-your?ref=cat2_gallery_22)

Either way, Etsy is notoriously rife with resellers, so to see them going after someone that actually makes things is frustrating but unsurprising, given their track record.

</comment><comment><USER47> Would suggest checking out Tindie. It's a marketplace for hardware makers.

<comment><USER48> Tindie is awesome, but most of what it sells are parts or subassemblies, not finished products which appears to be what this dispute is over.

<comment><USER49> I think there is a growing numbers if finished products on Tindie

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Sharecroppers have no rights. They didn't 200 years ago. They don't today. Doesn't make this suck any less, but it's something that needs to be discussed more.

<comment><USER51> I appreciate the attempt at an analogy but it fails here because of the agreement to the TOS. Both parties agreed to the etsy TOS which spells out, quite clearly, what each's responsibilities are. So yes, Brendan has rights afforded/accorded by the TOS - and those are enforceable rights were he to choose to go that route.

<comment><USER50> Sharecroppers had rights, too. But when one party can cut off the other party's livelihood, it essentially suppresses the technical "rights" of the second party. Every American has a "right" to a fair trial. But it is well- documented that if you can't afford a decent lawyer, "fair" becomes an unfortunately flexible concept.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> 1- you're not the boss of etsy, it's etsy who's your boss: you're working to provide something etsi can sell to THEIR customers.

2- so the real question is why do you and all the other people who go thru the centralized and censoring etsy entity did so to communicate with other people, your potential customers on the Internet?

The Internet is designed to be a meshed network, with N-N communications, not to be a star network with N-1 communications.

The problem is with you people who sumbit to Etsy, ebay, youtube, facebook, skype, etc.

Set up your own servers in your garage! Set up your own connections with your neightbor and the neighboring towns.

Do not pay with your money or your time for those centralizing and controling entities to develop centralized and controling server software. Instead, pay developers to write freedom software (GPL) that works in a distributed way, on your own servers, and which YOU control yourself.

</comment><comment><USER53> This is why you can't depend on such a middleman to run your business. You need to set up your own shop and focus all your efforts there. I understand etsy was probably generating a lot of sales for you, but this is the reality of depending on a middleman.

</comment><comment><USER54> This is shitty by Etsy. However, AFAIK it is well within their rights.

When you use a service like this, you are essentially paying someone else to manage parts of your business - the convenience/risk trade-off here happened to come out against this particular person.

</comment><comment><USER55> That sux! I hope you get your store back. You do really beautiful work -- makes me pretty jealous, actually. (My synth DIY is kinda 50s-lab-equipment- esque.) -- Doc Sketchy

</comment><comment><USER56> So you also need to create your wool and are not allowed to source ready-made wool? Or leather? There is a very thin arbitrary line in there somewhere.

</comment><comment><USER57> If you're looking to sell easily online, check out BOX'NGO (<http://theboxngo.com>).

Full disclaimer, I run it. We make online selling easy by taking a flat 10% fee on all sales. No adding up small costs here and there, figuring out listing fees, or subtracting Paypal charges, simply list and receive 90% of the profit via Paypal or check minus 46 cents.

<comment><USER7> You might want to rephrase that :) "No adding up small costs/fees/charges [...] minus 46 cents"

</comment></comment><comment> sean-duffy This sounds very unreasonable of them, hopefully if as some others have said they are a decent and considerate company they will resolve this issue as soon as they realise they have made a mistake, and I wish you the best of luck in this.

</comment><comment><USER58> I I read this correctly and it takes a day to assemble a synth, instead of arguing the process, why can he not build one that day and document the process?

That would prove Etsy has no leg to stand on and increase his inventory from 0 to 1.

Why is that not possible?

<comment><USER51> Brendan replied earlier to someone else:

"The problem here is that Etsy isn't my boss or my manager. That's the whole reason I sell through them. I want to avoid someone looking over my shoulder to make sure I'm working all the time or working within their absurd guidelines."

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5709457>

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Give Shopify a try instead of Esty. You'll never get this nonsense.

</comment><comment><USER60> You should sell on ribbon (www.ribbon.co). List your product for free and directly from your tumblr blog, facebook page or twitter.

(Shamless plug, I work for Ribbon)....

</comment><comment><USER61> You may want to try selling through NoiseFX.com, they specialize in custom pedals, synths, etc. When I think etsy, I think fashion.

</comment><comment><USER62> I think it's unfair. It's not possible to hand-make everything and the definition of 'hand made' can vary.As a graphic designer, the client cannot ask me to give him the copyrights of the version of Adobe Illustrator I used simply because I used the software's installed features and didn't code them.

</comment><comment><USER63> Backlash in 3... 2... 1...

</comment><comment><USER64> Have you paid your "Fascist Party" dues lately? /sarcasm

This is simply disgusting. Is a hand craftsman actually a threat to the MegaCorp?

I just don't see why this would happen.

[edit: I just read part 2] Were I you, I'd start making another one and have a friend photograph the process. Hurry. Time is of the essence!

<comment><USER64> Apparently some take issue with my terminology, even though to classify the USA as a fascist nation is accurate.

Perhaps such language has no place here, but I'll not sit by and call a cow a chicken just to please a few geese.

Or, perhaps it is the fact that I actually gave some good advice to Mr Byrne when I said to quickly make a new one & get pictures this time?

<comment><USER65> For one, Etsy is neither an arm of the US government nor a mega-corporation. It's got a few hundred employees.

Secondly, the issue is that they think he _isn't_ making his stuff by hand. They're not somehow persecuting him because he's a handcraftsman. Selling stuff you make by hand is the entire point of Etsy, and they've built a successful business around it.

Politics is beside the point. You're just not making any sense.

<comment><USER64> Why does quickly assembling another unit while getting good photos not make sense?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Is it time to shift to Python 3? - <AUTHOR> Heroku has made Python 3.6.2 default in their applications https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/python-runtimes Is it time to shift to Python 3? <comment> Ansoni-San If by time you mean 5 years ago.

</comment><comment><USER2> Yes. [https://pythonclock.org/](https://pythonclock.org/)</comment>


Idiot Test #5: You don't have what it takes - <AUTHOR> http://rafer.net/post/129525320776/idiot-test-5-you-dont-have-what-it-takes-this <comment><USER2> Dang, this hits home.

About seven years ago, I was fired from a help desk tech job at a local bank for 'bad performance'. In the exit interview he told me, "I don't think you're ready for this sort of job yet. You should try to do this sort of job again five years from now when you're ready." To this day I insist that it was his piss poor management skills that led to it (it was my first IT job and his first management job.)

These days, I'm a senior Linux engineer at a respectable company making a killer salary as the youngest on the team, without a degree. If I took his advice, I would have lost all confidence and drive. Sometimes I wish I was a bit more vindictive just so I could give that guy a strong piece of my mind :).

Never let these sorts of people influence your life negatively!

<comment><USER3> > Never let these sorts of people influence your life negatively!

It sounds as if you have.

<comment><USER2> It definitely influenced me, but I wouldn't call it a negative influence by any means.</comment></comment></comment>


Is the following a valid application of Gödel's incompleteness theorem? - <AUTHOR> In 1931, Kurt Gödel published his incompleteness theorems. His version is a bit complicated. I will use a much simpler analogy here.
Imagine that you create a table in which you store all theorems along with their proof. This is possible, because, since Richard's paradox, we know that the set of all proofs is countable. If someone asks you "Is this theorem provable?", you look it up in the table. If you can find it, you return the proof stored along with it. If not, you just say that it is unprovable. We can now take a look at Gödel's example theorem "This statement is unprovable". Is this statement provable? No. We cannot store it in the table, along with a proof. Hence, since you cannot return the proof, you must say that it is unprovable. Then, is this statement true? Yes. Since you can indeed not return its proof by looking it up in the table, it is true.
Consequently, we have discovered an entire class of statements that are true but not provable.
In that sense, the question "Where can we find proof that God exists?", just ignores Gödel incompleteness theorems. The person insisting that there should be a proof for every true statement, is wrong.
Therefore, it would be absolutely no surprise that God truly exists but that there is simply no proof for that. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that position. Hence, the God of gaps theory is ignorant. It fails to acknowledge the existence of true but not provable statements. <comment><USER2> A key thing that's missing here: the incompleteness theorem is a statement about provability within a specified system of axioms that apply to statements about natural numbers.

It's totally possible to prove a Gödel sentence for one model of arithmetic in another that's "more powerful"; at a minimum, one can construct an expanded system that explicitly includes the sentence as an axiom. That system, however, has its _own_ Gödel sentence.

The natural numbers part is equally important - the statement "the set of all proofs is countable" is trivially false for a system based on the reals, for instance. (Construct all statements of the form "exists x such that x > y" for y in R, a one-to-one correspondence between true statements and an uncountable set)

Applying results like the incompleteness theorem to statements that are entirely outside of its intended domain of discourse isn't doing mathematics, it's just bullshitting.</comment>


Can you hack charisma? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/matter/6d0f450c09e8

<comment><USER2> Read "How To Win Friends And Influence People". It's by far the best book I've ever read on the subject, and its suggestions are both powerful and very easy to implement in common interactions (people respond well when you use their names so use their names often, courtesy is cheap so be courteous, etc).</comment>


Video conference hand signs to improve team communication - <AUTHOR> We use ground rules to improve team communications. Video conferencing is becoming much more important this week for many workers, so we're sharing our list of helpful hand signs for video conferencing.
https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/ground_rules
Hand signs can be helpful for video conferencing, for large meetings, for loud environments, and for people who are hard of hearing.
Vote yes: thumb up.
Vote no: thumb down.
Vote maybe: thumb sideways.
I understand: make the "OK" sign.
I don't understand: raise your open hand to your chest, palm facing front, and move it side to side.
Clarification ASAP: make the letter "C" sign. This means everyone pause as soon as possible, so the facilitator can do clarification.
Ask to speak in turn: raise your open hand. This means everyone will let the person speak when it's their turn.
Please be louder: raise your open hand to your ear, palm facing front, so the moderator and/or speaker notices. This can indicate "please turn on your microphone".
Please be quieter: make the "shhh" sign with your pointer finger at your lips. This can indicate "please turn off your microphone".
Please stop/freeze/wait: hold up your closed fist, fingers facing front.
Time check: point at your wrist. This means please be aware that there's a time limit coming up.
Time out: make the time out sign. This means conversation stops, and the facilitator takes over.
... These ground rules and hand signs work well for us in practice, and may be helpful to you. Your mileage may vary. Constructive feedback welcome. PMs are welcome - my contact info is in my HN link. <comment> T3OU-736 It is sadly amazing that a huge number of people do not have a habit of joining muted as the default state.

What is worse, too many video conferencing setups do not have the setting to help with that - mute-on-join.

<comment><USER2> That and, well, video that's on by default. I know this somewhat paradoxical because we're talking about _video_ conferencing tools but in many cases seeing the other participants isn't as important as hearing them clearly or viewing a shared screen.

A video stream can take a lot of the available bandwidth, at the expense of those other channels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> [http://jamm.app](http://jamm.app)</comment>


New Startup? Think Twice About Mobile First - <AUTHOR> http://jamiequint.com/why-i-believe-in-mobile-second <comment><USER2> Actually, I believe the term "Mobile First" was coined by Luke Wroblewski, and Luke's post below pre-dates Fred's by nearly a year:

<http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?933>

One of Luke's key tenets on Mobile First is about how smaller screen sizes force you to focus your messages -- and lack of focus is a huge issue for most Web sites.

Fred seems to be coming at it from a slightly different angle, but I think it's important to include Luke's ideas here in the discussion... it's how designers and UI experts think about the term "Mobile First".

<comment><USER3> Yes, and the OP is also using the term "Mobile First" differently than my own sense of it.

To me, Mobile First means developing websites targeted at smartphone screens first, that scale gracefully upward to desktop size. The 320andup boilerplate is a good example [1].

I see it also means a more general business strategy of focusing on your mobile app first, be it native or HTML5, and then your website. But could be some mixed messaging due to the multiple meanings of that term.

1\. <http://stuffandnonsense.co.uk/projects/320andup/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> From a UX perspective I think you're at an innovation disadvantage if you launch today without a touch-focused UI. Its a somewhat trivial leap to go from mobile UX to desktop, but much harder the other way around.

Desktop focused products have been making slow and really clumsy forays into mobile but I've yet to see a mobile product translate poorly onto desktop...

<comment><USER5> The ideal solution is a site or app that works well on both, like how Apple's site works no matter what type of screen you use.

<comment><USER6> This is how we view the "mobile first" movement - not in terms of first developing a mobile version and then working out later how to turn it into a desktop site, but instead using the laser-like focus that "mobile" requires to properly identify and prioritize your goals.

It's much more about getting your design requirements listed in order of importance - if you spend the time thinking about questions like "if I have to fit this product/site/app onto a 4inch diagonal screen, what are the absolutely most important bits to show first?", you'll have a much easier time designing upwards to the tablet/netbook/laptop/desktop sized versions. Shrinking down to a 4" screen from the 1600pixel wide monstrosity that every single stakeholder has insisted has _their_ "critical" piece included is _way_ more work.

I've often used the "mobile first" approach to gently encourage clients to prioritize goals properly "I know we're not considering a mobile version of this site at this stage, but there's a _lot_ of conflicting requirements for your homepage here. If we were in the future to develop a mobile version, which of these things would we cut and which would we keep if we only had a phone screen to display everything on?" is an approach thats worked well for me…

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I agree with the author, but not for the same reason they mentioned. Currently, the biggest problem in mobile is discovery. If you're not in the top 25 for your category, its difficult to gain enough organic traffic to build a sustainable business on. Companies much larger than you are buying out all the paid inventory. As a startup, you'll be doubly hurt because no one will know who you are. So you have all the problems of sustaining as a brand on the web plus the added disadvantage of surviving on a platform where discovery is inherently broken.

So unless you think long and hard about how to solve distribution and come up with some interesting hacks, you're at a large disadvantage from day 0.

<comment><USER8> how do people discover a new website then?

<comment><USER7> Many different ways. For organic traffic theres links, search results, facebook posts and other social media. For the app store theres added friction bc users have to install the app on their phone and there will be a dropoff between viewing a listing and downloading (and also from downloading to launching). For paid traffic, its much easier to build a sustainable business on the web because the costs are, for the most part, cheaper.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _internet usage is moving rapidly off the desktop and onto mobile devices_

I don't think the current usage stats support this claim at all:

[http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_vs_desktop-ww- monthly-2011...](http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_vs_desktop-ww- monthly-201105-201205)

Mobile is definitely important but the truth is nobody knows if the equilibrium point is 20% of the market or 90%.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think a key indicator of the equilibrium point is the market share of mobile to desktop in emerging markets. I think we're going to see usage patterns in the US trend to those over time. For example, check out this graph from the KPCB 2012 internet trends report on internet usage in India: [https://dl.dropbox.com/u/120/Screenshots/emerging_market_int...](https://dl.dropbox.com/u/120/Screenshots/emerging_market_internet_usage.png)

<comment><USER9> The evidence in the US and UK seems to suggest that people that can afford desktops or laptops aren't so eager to abandon them. It seems just as likely to me that people in developing economies will upgrade to real machines given the chance.

<comment><USER10> It is actually different for economies like India. Majority of the population never had computers or internet. But everyone is starting to have a mobile phone.

They are doing an Ice -> Vapour thing skipping a step.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Jamie, what experience or research backs your claim that mobile development is an order of magnitude slower than web development?

I've been coding iOS apps for the past 6 months now (after coding web apps for years before that). If anything, I think iOS development is easier and faster than web development.

<comment><USER12> In every company I know where there is a capable web programmer and a capable iOS programmer adding the same features to their apps (supported by a shared backend), the web programmer is an order of magnitude faster. There's no peer reviewed studies on this subject but my anecdotal evidence (from advising dozens of startups through YC) is all on one side.

<comment><USER11> An order of magnitude? Do you really mean that you've seen iOS programmers spend 10x as long on something (e.g. 10 months vs. 1 month)?

Let's imagine a simple, specific example: you want to add a button that sends a message to the shared backend and displays an alert upon success. Let's walk through the code.

In your web app, you could add an HTML button, style it with CSS, and then use jQuery to send a request and define your success handler. Probably not more than 10 lines and a few minutes (depending on much time you spend with the CSS).

In your iOS app, you could add a button with Interface Builder, link it to a method on the relevant view controller that sends an NSUrlRequest, then add a delegate method that displays a UIAlertView when the response returns successfully. Again, not more than 10 lines. And no CSS, thank god. :-)

Where is the extra overhead that you're talking about coming from?

<comment><USER12> Perhaps a binary or ternary order of magnitude, rather than a decimal one. 10x is probably an exaggeration I would say typically it's more like 2-4x.

As I'm not an expert iOS programmer, I'm not exactly sure where the overhead comes from. Given the bugs that are usually present in iOS apps, the tricky bits appear to be:

\- Handling screen reorientation

\- Making scrolling smooth (it's easy to load either to lazily or too greedily)

\- Making it feel "snappy"

\- Not segfaulting when you have an error

The web executes on hardware far faster than mobile does so you have a lot more leeway to be sloppy. Ditto for the fact that web apps can't segfault, and it's hard to actually crash a browser.

Another really important point: Doing things on mobile is easy, almost as easy as the web. Doing things WELL on mobile is much harder comparatively because the platform is lower level and less powerful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think this skews the definition of mobile first a bit (I'm working from the Luke Wroblewski definition). I've been designing/building a couple of web apps that are "mobile first" and being built responsively. The result is fantastic and makes for a much cleaner, more streamlined interface. Not to mention code complexity is cut down, too. Mobile is imperative. If you're building an app for the web, it should be mobile first.

</comment><comment><USER14> I would say that mobile browsing is supplementing desktop usage (not replacing it). I just don't see how you could replace the experience of a large 21" monitor, multi-core high powered processor, and a large quantity of ram on a form factor several orders of magnitude smaller.

</comment><comment><USER15> Emerging markets are directly transitioning to mobile instead of web. Developed markets will take little more time to shake off legacy. But if you are starting today, you are ignoring mobile at your peril.

</comment><comment><USER16> Last weekend some friends and I participated in a hackathon. Our app was primarily mobile, with some web. The web guys had a great looking product done, along with our backend, in about 10 hours. The android guys had an okay looking app that barely worked, plagued with memory issues, in about 23 hours, 1 hour before we had to submit. We ended up doing well, but the android dev just took much longer to hack out than the web part.

<comment><USER17> Eh, people's skill in stuff is all over the place. I think android, especially UI based android, IS slower currently than iOS to make, however I am guessing your iOS app was done by people who were better at their type of apps in general

<comment><USER18> Eh? The guy you responded to was talking about a web app and an Android app, iOS didn't factor into it at all.

<comment><USER17> >Our app was primarily mobile, with some web. The web guys had a great looking product done, along with our backend, in about 10 hours.

Really? "Primarily Mobile, with some web" doesn't sound like a web app to me. Sounds like a app that runs on a mobile phone, that's not android.

Perhaps he meant what you think he meant? It's unclear.

<comment><USER16> Clarification: It was an app based around picture taking, and you could view those pictures online. The viewing online looked great, but the taking pictures, and view pictures on the android app was slow and running out of memory all the time. We could barely get it to run on Android 4.0 which has a larger heap size for apps than our target 2.3.3.

Sorry if that was unclear!

<comment><USER19> Unfortunately once you get into heavy picture viewing, you need to go to OpenGL. In fact, almost all of the top selling custom launchers and live wallpapers are OpenGL.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> "Mobile First" shouldn't necessarily mean you should build a native mobile app. You can put your efforts to build a responsive web app, that would scale from mobile to web.

It's better if your MVP is ubiquitous, without being tied to either desktop or mobile. This allows users of both demographics to explore and engage with your app.

</comment><comment><USER21> This is a great post and I couldn't agree more. On top of the development cycle something else comes into play.

There are so many dynamics around mobile, especially on Android you need to understand. With Android, you really stand no chance to build a slick app, unless you have 600+ devices at hand where you can test the app.

With iPhone, it is very hard to track where your signups come from and content marketing on the web becomes a lot more difficult if you start with a mobile version. Directing traffic to a mobile only solution is never a very streamlined process for the user we found.

</comment><comment><USER22> I think the author is coming to the wrong conclusion for the wrong reasons. You can iterate VERY fast with mobile and dev doesn't have to be slow at all. You can use HTML5 with PhoneGap or whatever and get to 80%-90% of the quality of a native app, especially an informational/shopping app.

The key is that you probably will end up rewriting your app to be proprerly native once you fight the right "product market fit" if you don't have good enough performance. That being said, you don't have to be the worlds fastest or best app to prove out a business model.

<comment><USER23> This is a common mistake made these days: use webviews to jump start development and then go native later. Many of the supposed benefits of webviews simply don't exist, from increased reliability through fast iteration to faster development. They are also hell on earth to work with because they are far more fickle than a normal web browser. The reason mobile development is slow right now is that the languages and frameworks are not optimized for moving quickly and you need to do a more traditional software release cycle if you plan on having an even remotely bug free app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> "we believe that the future of shopping is primarily mobile (particularly tablets), but we've consciously chosen a "web first" strategy. The reasoning behind this is simple, mobile development is still slower than web development by nearly an order of magnitude"

This makes absolutely no sense. Are you saying that though your customers are approachable via mobile, you are choosing web because it is easier? This reminds me of the guy looking for a lost ring under a streetlamp though he had lost it elsewhere because it is easier to see under the streetlamp

</comment><comment><USER25> It may be a little misguided to say that companies like Parse are speeding up the iteration cycle for mobile apps. Every business is going to need a backend to store all its data, so the time spent architecting and building the backend layer should be equal regardless of whether your frontend is browser-based or native mobile.

Parse only helps if you don't have anyone on your team who is fluent in building backends. That being said, Parse is an excellent choice when you're in that situation.

</comment><comment><USER8> I disagree with the author. I think writing an app is easier than making a website.

HTML was invented as a format for document. it's essentially a document format like Microsoft word file. Now, with the idea of web app, people try to make a document look like an app or even a desktop application. And this is difficult.

will you use Microsoft word to develop an app?

I feel that writing an ios prototype is much easier than working with javascript.

</comment><comment><USER26> A solid hypermedia API first.

<comment><USER27> A what? I have never heard the words "hypermedia" and "API" juxtaposed as such. Is this something different to a REST API, which the results returned by Google seem to suggest without clearly articulating the difference.

<comment><USER28> A Hypermedia API is essentially what a by-the-book REST API is. Most "REST" APIs don't meet the hypermedia requirement outlined in the original dissertation. But because the term REST has been generalized beyond what it actually was defined as, some purists have taken to calling truly RESTful APIs "Hypermedia APIs"

<comment><USER27> That seems to happen a lot, kinda like how the Rails framework misapplies the MVC pattern and is really a MVA framework. I just assumed it was some new fad around APIs; I found a conference talk I'll watch later.

One day I'm going to release the OMFGBBQ pattern. I don't know what it does yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Sounds like you are mobile first (because you're targeting tablets). Which makes this discussion about native (obj-c, java) vs web for prototyping consumer tech services.

Most consumer tech services are seeing usage move to native apps which emphasis great experience - surely working on that counts towards reaching product-market fit.

</comment><comment><USER30> The revenue stream is also more mature for web than it is for mobile. So you have a better chance of reaching profitability faster, giving you more time/money to invest in the mobile platform in the future.

</comment><comment><USER31> Cool site that he links to. It was fun to play around and only require an email address to get in with no validation. My only gripe is that the pants only goes up to 36 waist while weight options are upwards of 300lbs.</comment>


Robert W. Floyd - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_W._Floyd

<comment><AUTHOR> More information from his obituary:

[http://news.stanford.edu/news/2001/november7/floydobit-117.h...](http://news.stanford.edu/news/2001/november7/floydobit-117.html)

I posted this because I ran into the name Floyd in two different contexts in less than a day and decided to read up on this interesting person.

The one route that led to Floyd was dithering in the context of computer graphics, the other the origins of the Maestro system (the grandfather of all IDE's).

That they both should have the same parent and that this parent was also responsible for such niceties as assertions and a whole pile of other goodies prompted me to post the wikipedia article here. Mr. Floyd deserves some more recognition from lowly programmers like me for all the work he did that influences my day-to-day life.

<comment><USER2> Here is a link to Donald Knuth's eulogy for Bob Floyd:

[http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/papers/floyd.ps.gz](http://www-cs- faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/papers/floyd.ps.gz)</comment></comment>


Linus On Specifications (2005) - <AUTHOR> http://kerneltrap.org/node/5725

<comment><USER2> Linus didn't exactly shine in this discussion :/ Especially the part where he says: _A scientific theory is an approximation of observed behaviour WITH NO KNOWN HOLES.

Once there are known holes in the theory, it's not a scientific theory. At best it's an approximation, but quite possibly it's just plain wrong._

<comment><USER3> Indeed. Newton's mechanics are considered still a scientific theory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> this is more or less re-highlighting linus' reliance and his own talent and abilities, and his derision for others' reliance on planning

<comment><USER5> Not really. The problems with specs is that you get no feedback when writing them, and as a result, it's easy to completely forget about very important parts.

When you are writing code, you can't forget about important parts. Because if you do, your code won't work at all.

<comment><USER6> I agree. Mostly. I think we need to remember he's talking about kernel specs. For those of us writing end-user applications, you _can_ (and should!) get feedback during the spec writing process. You write a draft of the spec (which should capture requirements, not include implementation details), put this in front of your users, get feedback, then lather, rinse, repeat. This process won't be perfect, but it gets you closer to reality.

Of course, even that doesn't work for all situations. Some shops can be "agile" enough to quickly get new iterations out there based on feedback. And that can be nice. There are other industries that are very much requirements/documentation driven (see medial software and devices) and the spec _does_ matter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What kind of specification though? In most cases, a requirements specification can be pretty useful although I'm not such a fan of up front technical design specifications, in fact I tend towards the "code is the design" viewpoint:

[http://www.developerdotstar.com/mag/articles/reeves_design_m...](http://www.developerdotstar.com/mag/articles/reeves_design_main.html)

I do agree with the sentiment that processes that focus too much on design artifacts and less on practical issues of how to make working systems often lead to truly awful designs.

</comment><comment><USER8> I agree when he says that trying to model your problem in a specification then write the software is doomed for failure.

I disagree when he seems to imply that you don't need to document what you're building.

Being iterative with software and specifications/documentations can lead to both good software and specifications.

Write a small amount of software, formalize, write some more, etc.

<comment><USER9> _"I agree when he says that trying to model your problem in a specification then write the software is doomed for failure."_

Is that a reasonable generalization?

Here is a case where divergence between the model and "reality" would be catastrophic: <http://www.fastcompany.com/node/28121/print>

I'm also interested in exactly how one would apply an iterative cycle of _implement- >test->formalize_ to this category of software? (Ooops. There goes the rocket! Back to the keyboard!)</comment></comment>


Tech- the ultimate ACCELERATOR.  3 minute read - <AUTHOR>

You don't have to be a member of facebook to view my link so view it there for easy access to the most inspirational video I've seen in a while.  I don't watch long videos.  I don't watch short videos.  That's why I use Vine and Insta... but this is 20 minutes long and will make you feel very good and inspired... again, I hope.

 https://www.facebook.com/robwmatthews/posts/10101175648986878     #hackIhope <comment><AUTHOR> ___hack being the URL and blurb all in one_ __not a weird link</comment>


Deauthentication attack and other 'wifi hacks' using an ESP8266 module - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@tomac/deauthentication-attack-and-other-wifi-hacks-using-an-esp8266-module-14f9142b063d <comment><USER2> I did a quick search of the forums but didn't find anything related to this. I came across this page on the FCC's site that states deauth attacks and jamming of WiFi are illegal in the US as of January, 2015. They also state the following:

In addition, we reiterate that Federal law prohibits the operation, marketing, or sale of any type of jamming equipment, including devices that interfere with Wi-Fi, cellular, or public safety communications. Detailed information about the prohibition against jamming is available on the Commission's website at [http://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/jammer- enforcement](http://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/jammer-enforcement).

If you read the example they gave about a Marriott hotel deauthenticating users it appears the FCC doesn't know the different between that and jamming a signal. Of course they added that catch-all statement that any device that interferes with WiFi communications is illegal. Page 2 of that document states that no commercial establishment is allowed to block WiFi communication but the next paragraph down has the quote I posted above. It would appear that using the deauth feature of the Pineapple is now illegal, unless if I'm misinterpreting this.

<comment><USER3> From the FCC's point of view, performing any denial of service attack on a radio channel using either old fashioned jamming or other technological means is illegal. It doesn't have to distinguish between the two because the intent and end result are the same.

<comment><USER4> What about using bandwidth to the extent that it degrades performance for other users? Is using 80Mhz for my wifi for my legitimate use-cases in my apartment while copying lots of photos to my NAS and thus using up most of that an attack? It would measurably degrade the performance of nearby wifi, and given a location in an apartment and my naive default power levels of "everything to max" (as most wifi routers operate by default)...

Why is everyone in an apartment who isn't a radio engineer guilty of interference given the broad definition? I know that it's only who they choose to prosecute, but that seems to be the problem with laws like this.

<comment><USER3> They aren't guilty of interference. Interference has a strict definition. A device operating in the ISM band by defition can't be interfering with other devices in the ISM band if that bandwidth is being used for communication.

ISM (Industry, Science, and Medical) is a free for all band. It is like a public good. Anyone can make a device that uses those frequencies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just a friendly reminder that there's also mdk3[1], which i think is not under active development now but it works.

Also, i'm the maintainer of mdk3 on Debian and if any mdk3's dev is reading this, please have a look at the patches i applied upon it[2] and consider merging upstream, or putting the code on github.

There's also a manpage[3].

[1][https://packages.debian.org/sid/net/mdk3](https://packages.debian.org/sid/net/mdk3) [2][https://anonscm.debian.org/git/pkg- security/mdk3.git/tree/de...](https://anonscm.debian.org/git/pkg- security/mdk3.git/tree/debian/patches) [3][https://anonscm.debian.org/git/pkg- security/mdk3.git/tree/de...](https://anonscm.debian.org/git/pkg- security/mdk3.git/tree/debian/mdk3.1)

</comment><comment><USER6> A while back I remember seeing a less-nuanced ESP8266 wifi jammer, it announces a huge number of APs with random names, making it hard for devices to connect to real networks:

[http://ruralhacker.blogspot.pt/2016/01/esp8266-jamming.html](http://ruralhacker.blogspot.pt/2016/01/esp8266-jamming.html)

<comment><USER7> >it announces a huge number of APs with random names, making it hard for devices to connect to real networks

How does that even work? I get it will prevent someone from choosing the right network to join, but I can't imagine how it prevents connection if the network is already remembered (ie. autoconnect)

<comment><USER8> It jams the announcement channels, and lots of devices only show the X strongest networks so the autoconnecters which get their listing after said filter don't see the real network at all as a candidate when the jammer is sending strong enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm in the market for a cheap device that will detect this and a variety of other such attacks.

Bonus points and bonus money if it can somehow reveal the physical location of the attacking device. Perhaps in the manner of a Geiger counter (some sound or light changes as you approach the attacker).

</comment><comment><USER10> Honest question here. Can somebody explain why a device is needed for this? How does this differ from this project? [https://github.com/k4m4/kickthemout](https://github.com/k4m4/kickthemout)

</comment><comment><USER11> Again, already known project appearing in front page again

<comment><USER12> Not known to me, I'm glad it was posted!</comment></comment>


A Comparison of Software and Hardware Techniques for x86 Virtualization - <AUTHOR> http://www.vmware.com/pdf/asplos235_adams.pdf

<comment><USER2> Not sure why this suddenly hit the front page of HackerNews, but, uhh. I wrote this. AMA.

<comment><AUTHOR> I enjoyed it when I first read it a couple of years ago and the recent blog post from tsuna on context switching reminded me of it ([http://blog.tsunanet.net/2010/11/how-long-does-it-take-to- ma...](http://blog.tsunanet.net/2010/11/how-long-does-it-take-to-make- context.html)). Glad to see some other folks like it, as well.</comment></comment>