Web Activity Used in Court to Portray State of Mind - <AUTHOR> https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/07/web_activity_us.html <comment><USER2> In this case, everything revolves around a fact that cannot be directly measured: the father's state of mind when he left his child in the hot car. Depending on that fact, the exact same physical acts could be anything from premeditated murder to negligent homicide to no crime at all.

State of mind has always been proven through this sort of circumstantial evidence. In the pre-internet days, the sort of evidence the police would've used would be his comments to neighbors and others prior to the incident. If he had asked a veterinarian about how long it would take to kill an animal in a hot car, that sort of evidence would be admitted as evidence of his state of mind. A WebMD search should be treated no differently. It's ridiculous to say that web searches aren't highly relevant to a person's state of mind. Heck, that's the foundation of Google's whole business model!

> This case aside, is there anyone reading this whose e-mails, text messages, > and web searches couldn't be cherry-picked to portray any state of mind a > prosecutor might want to portray?

Schneier ignores the temporal dimension. The prosecutors can't just cherry- pick some text messages and web searches to portray a particular state of mind. They have to pick records that can be strung together into a coherent narrative that is consistent with the timing of the internet activity and the timing of the crime.

<comment><USER3> _They have to pick records that can be strung together into a coherent narrative that is consistent with the timing of the internet activity and the timing of the crime._

This idea is so bad that it has a specific term: confirmation bias.

If you have enough facts, you can cherry-pick them to suit almost any coherent, consistent narrative. Web browsing especially delivers enormous amounts of content from which to cherry-pick to suit a narrative.

IMO storytelling, and wholesale embracement of confirmation bias, is probably the biggest weakness of adversarial justice. I think it turns justice into a game of who's the better storyteller.

<comment><USER2> Confirmation bias is defined as (OED): "The tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one's existing beliefs or theories."

The adversarial justice system is expressly designed to avoid confirmation bias. That's the whole point of the "adversarial" part. While the prosecution might be prone to selectively interpreting the facts to confirm its own beliefs, the defense counsel is tasked with poking holes in that interpretation. That's why defense counsel has the independent opportunity to present evidence, and to cross-examine the prosecution's witnesses to poke holes in their story.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm not seeing the problem here. If police instead found a stack of books inside covering the same material, would anyone object? What about a series of entries in a journal?

Now, if this was something much more abstract such as three of the past unknown books they have read in the past unknown years involved accidents of this type, that would be one thing. But this? Doesn't seem that far fetched.

Edit: to clarify further. They had probable cause already. The suspect was acting ridiculously suspicious. The web browser behavior is just additional data, not the sole data.

<comment><USER5> My friends and I have always joked that if I'm ever on trial, my book collection will make me automatically guilty of whatever it is. Pretty sure you could make a convincing argument I'm behind Enron, Clinton's impeachment, and the fall of Iraq based on my book collection. Watergate and JFK's assassination too, despite my age.

A friend was writing a technothriller screenplay and I did extensive research on nuclear weapons manufacture for him. I told him I hoped he appreciated how much I was adding to my file for his sake. I was half-kidding.

I dunno. I get that this sort of thing is useful in court, but people are naturally curious about a lot of things. It doesn't always mean they're actually planning to do it all...

<comment><USER4> There is a vast difference between using someone's curiosities to believe they are guilty of a crime, and investigating the individuals involved with a potential crime to see if one existed.

That is, if they had just picked up the joining of everyone that had searched for the details of child death in a car with those that had had a child death, that would be different. In this case, they had suspicions already, and are stitching together details from computer history as well as cell records and such.

This is all to say, when potential crimes happen, I personally think investigating them is not a terrible thing. Instant vilification is, but that is a different topic all together. Same for basically fishing for reasons of suspicion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What relevance does the sexting have to the trial?

<comment><USER7> I assume they plan to use it to argue that he wasn't very remorseful. When people are really depressed or sad, they often avoid anything pleasurable.

<comment><USER8> That reminds me of Rule 4 in the "Homicide Lexicon", in David Simon's fantastic non-fiction book, "Homicide", of the Baltimore homicide squad:

"An innocent man left alone in an interrogation room will remain fully awake, rubbing his eyes, staring at the cubicle walls and scratching himself in dark, forbidden places. A guilty man left alone in an interrogation room goes to sleep."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homicide:_A_Year_on_the_Killing...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homicide:_A_Year_on_the_Killing_Streets)</comment></comment></comment>


Carlsen wins game 9, only needs 1 draw in 3 remaining games - <AUTHOR> http://chennai2013.fide.com/carlsen-extends-the-lead-as-anand-risked-it-all-in-game-9-of-fide-world-championship-match/ <comment><USER2> What's really scary about Carlsen is I don't think he's close to reaching his full potential yet. He's rapidly approaching the level of dominance in elite chess not seen since Fischer or Kasparov, and he's only 22. I can't think of anyone in the next Candidate's Tournament that would be a serious threat to take Carlsen's title, aside from maybe Kramnik.

I'm also really interested to see the impact Carlsen winning the World Championship has on the game's popularity worldwide. He's a very marketable champion, young with good looks and modelling contracts. Both of the former champions, Kramnik and Anand, are obviously very popular in chess circles (and Anand is immensely popular in India), but maintained generally lower profiles in the media.

The next couple of years should be really interesting for chess. My hope as an American is that Nakamura can eventually qualify for the Candidate's Tournament and set up a dream title match down the road.

<comment><USER3> Allegedly Carlsen has said that he "didn't know anything about chess when I became world #1", reflecting over the amount he had learned since then. I don't understand what that can be, but I'm no chess player..

<comment><USER4> it may mean he went from being a more calculating type of player(tactical), which you can win many games with, to being a more positional type of player (strategical) which takes a much greater understanding of the game.

<comment><USER5> Would you mind to elaborate on what you mean by playing tactical vs. strategical? (part of my yearly "now I'll get started with Chess again")

<comment><USER2> Tactics are often associated with winning material through a combination or attack, so you could think of concepts such as trapping an opponents queen or blundering a knight are more tactical in nature. Other ideas, like discovered check, pins, decoys, etc are primarily tactical as well. Many lower level games are decided by tactics simply because players are more apt to fall into traps, not calculate properly, etc.

Strategic play is much more subtle, but becomes more important as you get stronger. Strategic play generally involves more long term planning with the goal of creating a lasting advantage for yourself. Some examples of strategic concepts are creating more space for yourself (and at the same time constricting your opponent), having a better pawn structure (e.g your opponents pawns are isolated and vulnerable to attack), having your minor pieces better positioned(e.g your bishops rake open diagonals while your opponent's are trapped behind pawns)

<comment><USER6> Not particularly good at chess, but could the difference be likened to the following:

      Tactics - winning pieces or losing fewer than your opponent
      Strategy - putting yourself in a position where the above is more likely to happen or be possible

    ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> By the way, there is a very interesting tournament going on currently -- TCEC, unofficial computer chess championship [1]. The main intrigue of the tournament is the fight between Stockfish and Komodo. Houdini, dominating engine in the last few years, already lost any chances to go into the superfinal -- two very strong challengers, Komodo and Stockfish, in the last few months were able to eat huge advantage of Houdini. The author of Komodo, Don Dailey, is terminally ill, according to his wife he has just a few days to live, so it's possible that he will not know if his engine will win or not. It's really heartbreaking, he was very active in the chat of TCEC just a few days ago, commenting games, discussing computer chess and so on. Stockfish is an open-source engine that uses distributed testing framework, so anybody can participate in its development donating CPU time [2]. Both engines are very strong and have relatively equal strength.

[1] [http://tcec.chessdom.com/](http://tcec.chessdom.com/) [2] [http://tests.stockfishchess.org/](http://tests.stockfishchess.org/)

<comment><USER8> Wouldn't a match with an open-source engine be unfair? The competing close- source engine could embed the opponents source inside it to predict the exact moves that the opponent would make, thus gaining a speed advantage.

Even more interestingly, what would a match between two open-source engines look like, if they both embedded each other?

<comment><USER9> Eliezer Yudkowsky gave a talk at MIT recently that touched on this very subject:

[http://lesswrong.com/lw/itp/meetup_talk_by_eliezer_yudkowsky...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/itp/meetup_talk_by_eliezer_yudkowsky_recursion_in/)

Some commentary by Scott Aaronson:

[http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1558#comment-89317](http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1558#comment-89317)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Skip to 13:47:30 when the commentators realise Anand made a huge blunder (and resigns on the next move).

[http://chennai2013.fide.com/anand-carlsen-video-with- comment...](http://chennai2013.fide.com/anand-carlsen-video-with-commentary/)

<comment><USER10> The official commentary and analysis, imo, was not very good though.

I was watching this feed live to see the players, but for audio I was over at [http://www.twitch.tv/chessnetwork](http://www.twitch.tv/chessnetwork) . Jerry from chessnetwork did a wonderful job of breaking it all down as it was happening. In general, his Chess YouTube channel over here [http://www.youtube.com/chessnetwork](http://www.youtube.com/chessnetwork) is awesome.

<comment><USER11> Yeah second this, Jerry is pretty amazing and makes the game pretty accessible for those like me with only a passing interest in chess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you're interested in the match go watch Jerry on his channel on Youtube [0]. He's uploaded some great videos so far. He also livestreams the games on Twitch btw.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/user/ChessNetwork/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/ChessNetwork/videos)

<comment><USER13> Second, was about to post this. This guy is amazing. Entertaining and easy to follow, even for beginning players.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> During the press questioning the computer they were using froze up a bit and Anand became frustrated and rattled through his thinking out loud instead.

The commentator then asks Anand something along the lines of "did you think through all of these complications?" and his response was a curt "no, I was thinking of what to eat tonight."

"Yeah… so, do we have questions to the players?"

oof... such high stakes and he just missed the move. Really gotta feel for him.

<comment><USER15> _his response was a curt "no, I was thinking of what to eat tonight."_

I was up at 5am to watch that. Embarrassing. Other great players (e.g. Kramnik) have lost tough matches with a lot more class.

<comment><USER16> Wait, so he wasn't being sarcastic? I wouldn't think someone at that level would be so insecure.

<comment><USER17> Look into any history of Bobby Fischer. He was batshit crazy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Anand's last move was a _huge_ mistake. I am pretty sure it's because of the tension, because even I (fide rating 1900+) wouldn't have made it.

<comment><USER19> Yes, it was. But anyway, even after the correct Bf1, there isn't a mating attack, and the game would probably lead to draw, which isn't good enough for Anand. So he spent almost all his time to find some decisive attack, but there probably just wasn't one to be found.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Carlsen is the best/only hope for chess to clean up its act (reinventing FIDE and the Candidates process), and market itself to the broader Western public, much as poker has been marketed. Keeping my fingers crossed.

<comment><USER20> As a chess player and fan, this will never happen. Poker can be very fun to watch, even for people who don't know how it's played. Chess is often boring to watch, even for people who do know how it's played. Can it's profile be increased? Absolutely. Will it ever compare to the television success of poker? I doubt it, but that's OK.

<comment><USER21> I feel the other way: Poker is boring to watch, too much luck/randomness when watching. Fun to play, though.

I'm not really a chess player, but I've watched all the matches this Championship, and all my friends (not chessplayers as well) are watching. It helps that we are Norwegian, though. And that may be the point: A western player will bring back the popularity in the west.

<comment><USER22> If you're thinking of tournament poker, than I can see what you're saying. Try watching some deep-stacked cash games sometime though; this is the most high- level and interesting poker to watch (and also the most instructive).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Reminds me a bit of this guy's dominance:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Richards_(Scrabble)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Richards_\(Scrabble\))

Winning 4 national championships in a row is one of the most amazingly dominant feats in anything, especially given a game that has a significant luck factor.

A top tournament player in a Scrabble Facebook group just said this about him:

"I'm pretty sure what he's doing is not capable by most human brains tbh, he plays better than any computer with seemingly a very small amount of tilt. You will never be as good as him, no matter how hard you try. Makes the game pointless (said this a million times b4). As a sidenote, his existence in scrabble is terrible for the game"

<comment><USER24> it's a shame ganesh asirvatham dropped out of the scrabble scene; he was a very impressive player, and the popular pick at the time for most likely to challenge nigel's dominance.

he was also the highest-rated player in the world for a while, even though he never actually won a world championship. check out his tournament record: [[http://www.cross- tables.com/results.php?p=6670][http://www.w...](http://www.cross- tables.com/results.php?p=6670\]\[http://www.wespa.org/aardvark/cgi- bin/most.cgi?name1=Ganesh%20Asirvatham\]).

note in particular that he had a 24-12 record against nigel across 13 tournaments: [http://www.wespa.org/aardvark/cgi- bin/headmini.cgi?name1=Gan...](http://www.wespa.org/aardvark/cgi- bin/headmini.cgi?name1=Ganesh%20Asirvatham&name2=Nigel%20Richards)

(anecdotally, as a 1700-rated player there are lots of people who can beat me handily, but nigel and ganesh are the only two i've ever felt actually intimidated by)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I sometimes feel like I'm really missing out by not getting chess. It's such a rich source of metaphor.

</comment><comment><USER26> The worst part about that match is, Anand spent 50+ minute on one move, to loose all the time advantage he had pushed carlsen into.

First I thought, it was to make Carlsen loose his nerve, but he lost his own nerve, by moving Qe4, instead of slow push hh4. That was the turning point :( He went from winning position to a clear loss.

Also, I don't get the point of resigning, on this level, it should be a fight till the end, no matter how shameful.

<comment><USER27> I don't see anything wrong with resigning. First off, it acknowledges your weak position, which saves you some face for at least knowing. Second, it is a strong compliment on your opponent's skill, because only poor play from your opponent would put you into a draw/win situation. This in turn is classy, because it's saying "I want to win on my own merits, not on a mistake of my opponent."

So honestly I think it makes everyone look good.

<comment><USER28> Fuck looks/face/perception. I don't care what you think about me. I just want to win (within the rules, of course).

<comment><USER15> Once you get a reputation for playing out positions more than a rook down, you may have a harder time getting tournament invitations, sponsors, collaborators, etc. If you're an amateur, soon even your friends won't want to play you.

<comment><USER4> If Carlsen started playing out all his games do you think he wouldn't be invited into tournaments?

He'd be in the tournaments, it would just be a waste of time for him to play out all the games, when he is certain to lose. instead, he resigns and relaxes his mind and winds down before the next game.

<comment><USER15> _If Carlsen started playing out all his games do you think he wouldn 't be invited into tournaments?_

I think that if Carlsen had started out in life being a brat, he wouldn't have got much support to get to where he is today. Besides, other players are not Carlsen. E.g. Topalov seems to receive fewer invites than other comparable players. Could it be because of his (and his manager's) abominable behavior during two WC matches?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> My stupid marketing brain couldn't help but notice there is no mention of the word "chess". Must stop keyword optimizing as I read...

</comment><comment><USER30> I'm an experienced poker player however I'm an absolute chess novice. Aside from the obvious "just practice" advice, what are the best resources to fall back on in terms of books, videos etc if I wanted to learn the game in significant depth?

<comment><USER31> I'd highly recommend "My System" by Aron Nimzowitsch. A deep dive into positional play instead of specific tactics

[http://www.amazon.com/My-System-21st-Century- Edition/dp/1880...](http://www.amazon.com/My-System-21st-Century- Edition/dp/1880673851)

<comment><USER32> My System was my second chess book. I bought it in an underground book market in a forest for 10 roubles when I was a 9 year old.

It is a great book and without it I would have struggled to reach FM, but it is a little bit too advanced for a first book. I'd say it is a good 4th or 5th book.

I'd say something like Lasker's manual of chess would be better suited as a first book. Perhaps one of the other starter's volumes from Seirawan, et al would fit the bill.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Clearly shows a paradigm shift with the new generation taking over. Anand is around 44 years now and it's quite obvious that his mental reflexes would have slowed down while Carlsen is just half his age.

Welcome Magnus, you are a prodigy. A real one.

<comment><USER34> Do you think age has a lot to do in chess?

<comment><USER35> Well I don't know much about chess, but I've read some chess history off late. I think age should not be an issue.

But sometimes people go through rough times. It happens, people don't stay in form and the added pressure of the event makes people more desperate and to act in urgency. Big blunders happen in such situations. This isn't just restricted to chess. In nearly walk of life this happens.

I know some very brilliant people who make silly mistakes during urgent production issues.

We are humans after all. And we make mistakes.

<comment><USER3> Anand seems to have some frustrations. In an interview he lamented that he reached GM at the age of 18, while the youngest have been able to do that at 12 or 13 (Magnus at 13). He's not content with being the world champion, he wants to be the youngest, most talented, etc too. Can't have everything.

Since internet commentary is always interpreted with a negative tone, I'll edit to add: Anand is a fascinating personality and very sympathetic. I hoped he'd score 1 point today :-)

<comment><USER35> >>he wants to be the youngest, most talented, etc too. Can't have everything.

As an Indian, and someone who practically looks at Anand as a role mode. I would be disappointed if Anand really had that attitude.

Frankly speaking, I don't like the 'naturally talented' or 'natural genius' or this whole belief that people are born with some skills that can't be matched by other people. This isn't just about chess. This sort of thing manifests in every other walk of life.

Most kids just resign to be incapable at math due to constant comparison with other kids. Though I they would do far better if only they were motivated enough to put more effort.

<comment><USER15> _Frankly speaking, I don 't like the 'naturally talented' or 'natural genius' or ..._

I think you will enjoy reading the book _Mindset_. It's for parents, and it explores and expands on the very idea you have described ... which is the opposite of how every Indian parent thinks, so the total addressable market for the book is a big one!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Pity. 27. Ne2 looked really fun. If 27...Bf5, 28. Nf4! b1=Q? 29. Rxb1 Bxb1 30.Nd5 +-. If 27...Qa5, 28. Nf4 also. Strangely, the move didn't get mentioned in the Chessbase analysis, or the official commentary.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is a video recording of the match with live commentary and analysis.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu_NGSn1MoI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu_NGSn1MoI)

</comment><comment><USER37> Haven't paid attention for a while, but the reduction of games from the classical best of 24 series, seems far too short. Anand had to take this risk because there were only 4 games left and he needed to win 2 which is super tough. Another 12 games would have been interesting. So if the next game is a draw, which is highly likely, would the championship only have 10 games? Classical championship should allow for more battles; there are other tournaments where speed can be the focus.

</comment><comment><USER38> Hopefully Carlsen's becoming the FIDE World Champion will be loud in the media and will bring back the popularity of chess into our times.

<comment><USER39> Not very likely now that most of us have a computer in our pockets that can beat each of these guys.

Chess will never be the same again.

<comment><USER40> I don't buy that at all, no more so than the existence of motor vehicles have made track and field events irrelevant. If anything, wide accessibility of very strong computer engines only boosts the high-level game, as it enables very deep analysis - opening theory has moved quite a bit in the last 20-30 years.

<comment><USER4> track and field is largely irrelevant. Chess is pretty irrelevant, no matter how much i love it. avant-garde Novels are also irrelevant.

What i mean is that a huge majority of gifted athletes will not be going into track and field. The best athletes aren't pro runners. I'm not saying that there aren't great runners who are athletes, just that soccer, and basketball will be taking a lot of the talent away from track.

Same is true of chess. Best gameplayers are not deciding to go into chess. It is a very minor game, like rugby. I would even think that Poker has more strategic talent than Chess does.

<comment><USER41> I am curious to see what you base this on. Sounds like a lot of hand-wavy speculation to me. If you would have talked about Americans going for American Football in college rather than say, Olympic Weightlifting, that would be a different thing.

When exactly does someone like a Carlsen (Norway) or Anand (India), as "gameplayers", choose to go into a different game than chess?

As an example, I used to play chess when I was younger. Plenty of people later took up things like poker and starcraft, and a few became quite successful at it. These people were generally not the best chess players, instead they were more likely to be average / slightly above average (for being serious club players) in chess.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> This headline sorely needs a qualifier to explain what it's about -- even something simple like "[chess]" would be sufficient.

</comment><comment><USER43> Magnus Carlsen plays like he invented the game.

</comment><comment><USER44> If you haven't already seen it, I highly recommend the 60 minutes segment on it. Just Google it.</comment>


Samsung: Whether or not we ripped off Apple's tech, Apple stole it to begin with - <AUTHOR> http://www.bgr.com/2012/08/14/apple-samsung-patent-trial-rebuttal-diamond-touch/ <comment><USER2> "You and I are both like guys who've got this rich neighbor... XEROX!..." -- Bill Gates' Character to Steve Jobs' Character, Pirates of Silicon Valley

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBri-xgYvHQ></comment>


Fears of 'Wild West' as Covid-19 blood tests hit the market - <AUTHOR> https://www.sltrib.com/news/2020/04/12/fears-wild-west-covid/ <comment><AUTHOR> Summary:

\- > 70 companies have signed up with FDA to sell COVID-19 antibody tests, and are listed on the FDA's website[1]

\- FDA decided to waive initial review of the "simple" tests under COVID-19 emergency situation

\- companies are supposed to state that their tests have not been FDA-approved and cannot rule out whether someone is currently infected

\- some (unnamed) hospitals are incorrectly assuming the tests have been vetted

\- public health officials warn that the unregulated tests are creating confusion

[1] Article doesn't provide a link, but I think this is the list. [https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/emergency-situations- med...](https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/emergency-situations-medical- devices/emergency-use-authorizations)</comment>


Fred Wilson's vision of a family CRM service - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/08/the-family-crm-service.html <comment><USER2> The most important problem to solve is that when you do a search, or browse by a tag, that no one slips through the cracks. With a friend organizer, the worst possible thing it can do is become central to organizing your social life, but then silently "forget" about certain friends of yours.

I've thought about this very application (I call it "CRM for hypersocial people") and the most important component is the natural language processing. In particular, you want good autotagging and query expansion, with an emphasis on recall.

More specifically, if one of your ballet dancer friends is manually tagged "ballet" but not "dance", and you search for "dance", you want this friend to appear in the results.

Additionally, if you are looking for "hackers", it should know that it should include people who are "hardcore programmers" or maybe those that program "ruby".

<comment><USER3> Why did this get downvoted twice? It's completely reasonable, and I happen to agree that it would be useful (and not just for 'hypersocial crm')

<comment><USER2> I originally offered to share the technology, either free for open source apps or as a business deal if you're using it to make money. I imagine people found that offer distasteful, so I removed that last part from my comment.

I personally included it because I think more widespread dissemination of NLP could improve a lot of technology. But I can understand why people would think that I made my comment merely to scurry up deals, and not to inform them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Drill down in the comments to find this pic that Fred posted of himself ROFL'ing in response to one of his commentors... very entertaining: <http://www.flickr.com/photos/fredwilson/4887958978/>

<comment><USER5> you liked that andrew?

<comment><USER4> Likely the best comment you've ever posted... Did you take it or someone else?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have actually been looking for something similar and have considered building it in the past. My biggest concern was how to monetize it. Not sure I would pay a monthly fee for it.

My biggest need was for it to sync names + phone numbers to my phone so I don't run the risk of loosing them when something inevitably happened to my phone.

<comment><USER5> i would pay as much as our firm pays for mailchimp, $10/month

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Much as I hate to say it, seems like this ought to be a facebook app. One of the problems with our family address book is keeping the addresses up to date, and moving that responsibility out to the people in the book would be a win. Of course you app would still let you enter in people who aren't on facebook or aren't in the app, and there is still the private aspect. Tags shouldn't be public unless you want them to be.

Biggest problem there is that if you're successful, Facebook will probably preempt you.

<comment><USER5> the reason i don't think that works for me is that my family doesn't have a facebook account. we all have our own with our own contacts. this is about our family contacts

<comment><USER8> could be as simple as a group then. maybe a fan page/community

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The Github founders were working on something like this (famspam) before they founded github.

</comment><comment><USER10> So, what exactly are the features that a "family CRM" would need that normal CRMs don't have (other than integration with Red Stamp and Pingg)? Is it just the ability to mass email certain filters in your CRM?

Anyway, it's not expressly meant to be a "family CRM", but its simplicity and design seem perfect to me for this sort of thing. My buddy is building <http://www.karmacrm.com> which is still in beta.

<comment><USER11> it's more to do with the features a normal CRM would have that a "family CRM" wouldn't - you wouldn't be interested in tracking "leads", putting a value against "proposals" or managing "pipelines" but you would want open ended relationship groupings

<comment><USER5> exactly. less features more elegant

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Anyone up for building this?

<comment><USER12> Sure. What is your background?

<comment><USER13> Seems like a good side-project and I want in. I mostly do whatever visitors see: HTML, CSS, JS, some 'good' UI/design skills (+ hacking python/django most recently).

<comment><USER2> Count me in, if you are interested in the MVP I propose above (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1601840>).

I can contribute leet NLP + ML skillz.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Wow!

I started building this about a week and a half ago after watching my wife and my mother-in-law tediously exchanging contacts across the country. And then spending hours filling out thank you cards for gifts on the recent birth of our daughter.

I'm still in development of it, but should be in beta in a week or two.

I'd love if all the interested people would sign up to get early access: <http://kindrd.com/?hn=1>

If you leave the hn=1 in the query string, I will be able to discern the HN'ers.

</comment><comment><USER15> I've been pondering how to solve this too. Bought a domain for it recently but haven't decided what form it should take.

The CRM angle is one I hadn't thought of, though it's kind of an obvious leap (in hindsight of course). I've been thinking more of a CMS plus address book.

</comment><comment><USER16> Oh boy! Serendipity.

I just wrote about that exact same thing yesterday.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1599944>

</comment><comment><USER17> I've been thinking the exact same thing for my family and am busy building <https://szpil.com>.

</comment><comment><USER18> ok just want to throw this out there that i bet Fred's family is unlike most families. most people don't excel their friends and relationships. I think something like this needs a larger sample size to validate its audience.

</comment><comment><USER19> Wouldn't Highrise be ideal for this? (sans pretty invite integration, of course)

</comment><comment><USER20> I use a wiki for my family.

</comment><comment><USER21> Tonido workspace (<http://www.tonido.com/app_workspace_home.html>) fits Fred's requirements exactly.</comment>


The CIA's Venture-Capital Firm, Like Its Sponsor, Operates in the Shadows - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-cias-venture-capital-firm-like-its-sponsor-operates-in-the-shadows-1472587352 <comment><USER2> The author seems to want to unearth some scandal about conflicts of interest, but there's not much here. The final quote of the article pretty much nails it.

"On the one hand, if you wanted really pristine independence, it means you are going to need people who don't have commercial ties to the industry," Mr. Gilson said. "On the other hand, if you have people without any commercial ties to the industry, they are not much use."

If there were no conflicts of interest at all, then we'd be discussing an article about how horribly In-Q-Tel's investments performed, because they were made by bureaucrats in D.C. who had no idea how startups worked.

<comment><USER3> In John Doerr's words, "no conflict, no interest."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In-Q-Tel is pretty explicit about their mission: to support the development of private sector technologies that are of immediate use (within 36 months) to their IC customers. Their investments are sometimes public and they invest in pretty much what you'd expect: D-Wave, Facebook, Keyhole. Even their name is taken straight out of the James Bond tech supplier branch/agent Q.

Nor do they have even particularly critical national security technology. In- Q-Tel probably has less dark tech knowledge than your average building at NBP.

One of my startups was contacted by one of their employees (it's almost always an employee, not the org directly), and they really just facilitated our data analysis processes, and made some connections. It never got to the stage where we accepted any money, and it was a lot less creepy than some of the government contractors _cough_ Mitre _cough_.

Disclaimer: I have not, do not, and will not work on mass surveillance technology.

<comment><USER5>
      ...than your average building at NBP.

      ...building at NBP.

      ...NBP.

Name Binding Protocol

National Biosolids Partnership

National Braille Press

National Broadband Plan

Neighborhood Broadcast Problem

Neutral Body Posture

NetBIOS Protocol

Network Binding Protocol

Network Bootstrap Program

Network Bridge Processor

New Black Panthers

Non-invasive Blood Pressure

Normal Blood Pressure

Normal Boiling Point

Northern Business Products

Namco Bandai Partners

Hmmm...

<comment><USER6> And I guess IC stands for Intelligence Community?

<comment><USER4> Yes, the Federal government loves acronyms, and sometimes I forget these are not commonly known in most of the nation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This article makes it sound secretive and corrupt, but really this is a surprising amount of transparency compared to other drug cartels.

</comment><comment><USER8> Whether I like CIA or not, In-Q-Tel is one of their best achievements. The VC model in private sector had long been making better tech more cheaply and with faster improvements. There was also lots of overlap between enterprise and CIA needs. Funding dual-use tech through private sector is already win/win at this point. That revenue from sales to private sector could reduce taxpayer burden on any given tech is another win. Even if there was corruption, it's still better than most US Govt actions because they produced useful stuff that actually benefited Americans in some way.

</comment><comment><USER9> Search for " we are all intelligence officers now" transcript by Dan Geer, CISO of the company, who refuses to get a clearance.

Fascinating insights.

<comment><USER10> It only takes a moment to link to them...

Video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxLJExWk9GE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxLJExWk9GE)

Text: [https://www.theinternetpatrol.com/security-expert-dan- geer-w...](https://www.theinternetpatrol.com/security-expert-dan-geer-we-are- all-intelligence-officers-now-full-text-here/)

<comment><USER11> He unironically asks people to spy less, while working for the most famous spy org in the world? Wow

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Most VCs put their own people on the boards of companies they invest in, and then continue to invest in those companies. Doesn't this imply that the "shares a board member" conflict of interest described is either rampant in the industry or not actually a conflict of interest?

<comment><USER13> Of course they are rampant, and of course they are conflicts of interest.

Industry and government standards state they simply have to be disclosed. You disclose it and either all the investors moan, sigh and walk away or they don't, if you have obtained a certain place in society, the investors don't walk away and you still get the lucrative outcome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Databricks is one the companies that raised money from In-Q-Tel. Given that there are likely to be multiple Turing award winners from that company, I'd say its money well spent.

</comment><comment><USER15> Some on this thread are saying it's very common for VC trustees to be closely involved in the businesses they fund. But normal VCs must sink or swim as private businesses. In-Q-Tel is a non-profit, kept afloat by the taxpayers.

This setup can easly be a nice channel for powerful people to funnel public money their own way. For one thing, if In-Q-Tel has close links with the CIA, they can steer contracts towards favoured companies.

Even without that, trustees can funnel VC money into businesses and then funnel it out to their own selves. When the business fails, they shrug. Failures happen.

That couldh appen in the private sector too. But even if In-Q-Tel keeps losing money in total, the trustees (who just made nice personal profits) can also shrug and say "this was never a for-profit thing anyway".

</comment><comment><USER16> MongoDB and Apigee are on their list of investments that are known.

<comment><USER8> Oracle's first customer was CIA. In-Q-Tel also has MemSQL, Tenable Network Security, Cloudera, VeraCode, and BBN before acquisition. Also, they give HN readers continued entertainment in form of Palantir and D-Wave.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm quite surprised the article went into that much detail without mentioning Palantir.

</comment><comment><USER18> I suppose it would be a scandal if they tried to hide who they were.

</comment><comment><USER19> It's In-Q-Tel, not Q-Tel. I actually interviewed there a few years back. Very cool company.

<comment><USER20> Agree. Very smart guys. Passion for open source. Contribute to a ton of projects.

<comment><USER8> I didn't know that about them. Is there a list of what they contribute to anywhere?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> We're missing the "In" on "In" Q Tel in the title.

And I have to add, IQT serves a ton of govt agencies, not just the CIA.

</comment><comment><USER22> The title is misspelled; it's In-Q-Tel, not Q-Tel.

</comment><comment><USER23> I hope someone knowledgable will help me here.

Do I get this right: US taxpayers are giving their hard earned dollars so that a government agency CIA can take it and, throu their venture capital firm (!), invest it into something that might, but also might not, work?

Is this actually fiscally responsible? Is it in the job description of an intelligence agency to be a VC fund, not with private money, but with the money of the shrinking US middle class?

<comment><USER24> The fact that it may or may not work is hardly a reason to not spend tax dollars on it... the government sends lots of money towards academic research and other scientific projects that individually have a low chance of amounting to much.</comment></comment>


Rusty Radio Episode 1 - <AUTHOR> http://rustyrad.io/podcast/1/

<comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9779676](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9779676)

</comment><comment><USER2> I'm one of the creators of this of pc</comment>


Ask HN: Review my startup, TeamDoList.com - <AUTHOR> I created TeamDoList.com to scratch my own itch. I was working on a project with 3 other people and we started managing our tasks through email! This got tedious and the thread quickly grew to 78 emails. So, I set out to create TeamDoList.com to solve that need. TeamDoList.com allows you to create ad-hoc to-do lists and share them with anyone through a URL.
http://TeamDoList.com
Now, I need to evaluate my value hypothesis, namely, whether this is useful for teams to manage tasks.
So, would you use this personally? How about for your team? That's the main question I have. What additional features would you need to make this useful to you? Do you see a use I haven't thought of (e.g. shopping list management)?
Also, any suggestions of how I might be able to monetize this?
Thank you very much for your feedback.
Also, I'm kind of new to HN, so I hope I'm not doing anything wrong on here. <comment><USER2> Really nice execution. I think that the core feature that is apparent when using the app (simplicity) is going to be one of the downsides of using it in a team based environment:

1)How do I know if someone on my team has completed a task, if you send out email notifications,I might as well use email.

2)How do I make the lists private to just my team?

3)How do I assign a todo or know who ticked that a todo has been done?

Its these sort of things i'd be looking for, but then you're left with another generic (if nice looking) team based todo list.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, you raise some really good points. I left out the features like assigning tasks, making list private for sake of keeping it simple with the intention of seeing which way people want this to go. I guess I never thought that adding even just those things would make it just another team based todo list app.

In terms of updates, if or when I create a mobile app, you'd get those updates on the mobile. For now, I could add a notification system so if you leave a tap open, or go back to your list, you'd get all the updates.

Any other ideas to possibly make this viable?

Once again, I really appreciate the thoughtful feedback.

<comment><USER3> The features that would make it just another team based todo app might be a good idea to keep out of the app. Its really nice as-is. Sometimes features like assigning tasks and notifications are more distracting than helpful. You'll have to decide on your definition of a group. Is it a medium-largish company? In that case they'll probably want a lot of structure and those features. But if your idea of a group or team is five friends working together or just any tight group then leaving it without notifications and assignment would be a good thing. Personally, if I assign someone a task I don't want a notification of when its done. If its that important the person knows to call me. And I don't need another text field to assign someone a task. Everyone in my group knows what we have to do and we do it. If not, I'll just append a "Feed the dog (Johnny)". Simple is better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Probably the worst thing you could do to this app is collect a bunch of features from us and start implementing them -- if you do that you'll probably add priority, user assignment, better authentication, sub-tasks and eventually be like the 1000 other shared to-do lists. If this is the direction you think is best -- probably it would be better to abandon this idea.

A different way is to keep doubling down on what you have --find a use-case where your perspective is required and all of those other things are not -- move very quickly along that vector until you have something that might not even be described as a shared to-do list.

Here's an idea of what I mean. This site seems well suited to ad-hoc teams, probably distributed (not sharing an intranet for example), informal, low- security conscious -- meaning their data is either public or they don't care if it becomes public. Perhaps short-lived -- definitely unregulated.

For this -- I'd consider to-do lists to be done -- what else does this team need? Apply your template (easy sharing, minimal, etc) to those: wiki, document store, schedule. But, always, always do it in the style you have here or even a more radical version of it (if possible). If no one wants that, then consider that there's no market for this.

But before doing any of this, I'd start measuring engagement and then getting yourself in front of the highly engaged and figuring out what they are doing -- you learn a lot more talking to consumers (those that are consuming the product) than people like us.

As for monetization -- ad-hoc teams will be hard to get money from, but a SaaS style subscription for repeat users would be the standard way, I think. To-do list is free, but other tools are an additional cost.

</comment><comment><USER5> Clickable link – <http://TeamDoList.com>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm sorry, but I'm really not interested in yet ANOTHER todo app/website/whatever. Please come up with something innovating. Creating the millionth TODO app and calling it a 'startup' is just not going to work. We have enough of these things. There's no need for it, and it certainly shouldn't be called a business, because it simply isn't.

(the same goes for the thousands of project management apps, hour tracker apps, wannabe social networks, twitter sentiment tools, accounting apps, photo filter apps, a/b testing websites, etc.).

<comment><USER7> unnecessarily negative, belittling, and mean-spirited. has putting this person down made you feel better about yourself?

<comment><USER6> I really don't think it's "unnecessarily negative". I see so many people wasting their time by working on 'ideas' that aren't even real ideas. He could have used his time better doing something actually useful. A lot of programmers have a big tunnel vision. They want to create a 'startup' no matter what, and then they come up with a 'TODO list' and waste many months of their valuable time working on it, just to be disappointed when they realize there is no need for it.

You can be very kind and tell him that the idea is awesome and that he will become a millionaire, but please be a bit more realistic and just tell him the truth.

<comment><USER7> the guy asked for feedback on his product, not his life decisions. to make the leap is presumptuous, pompous, and, yes, unnecessarily negative. there are polite ways of giving negative feedback, for instance you might have said: "hey thanks for posting. looks like you've done a good job putting it together. i worry that there isn't a market for it, though, given all the competition that currently exists and people's general inability to monetize these sorts of products. maybe use this as a jumping off point for something else?" instead, your original comment is full of vitriol and, in one fell swoop, you've managed to put down the creators of "thousands of project management apps, hour tracker apps, wannabe social networks, twitter sentiment tools, accounting apps, photo filter apps, a/b testing websites, etc." you, sir, must surely be without flaw to make such broad and sweeping generalizations about your fellow community members.

it continues to amaze how certain members of this community cannot recognize the vast chasm of constructive criticism that lies between the extremes of '[telling] him that the idea is awesome and that he will become a millionaire' and telling him he has wasted his time working on an idea that "isn't even a real idea" (and we won't even address the absurdity of that last sentence...).

<comment><USER8> To be fair, the title of the post does say "startup" which implies the goal is to make money, and the poster asks for advice on revenue streams. If he had said, "Check out my weekend project, enjoy!" that's one thing, but calling the eleventy-billionth todo list app a startup is going to get replies like the OP.

Personally I agree in sentiment, if not in tone, with the OP; there's a trillion todo list apps, finding one the poster could have worked with would have freed valuable time for developing something else. Unless of course this was an app done for learning purposes, but the poster doesn't say that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So, I run a startup where we've previously faced a similar problem w/ workflow management. To combat this, we use Google Docs and collaborate on a Goals Doc. It allows us to write notes next to various tasks. And, we'll also write the results of a given activity, as well, on the doc. Lastly, I like how Google Docs is invite-only, since I only want my team to view/edit the goals.

To answer your qs, given the above, Docs works out better for my team. As for my personal to-do list, I just keep one within the tasks list on Gmail.

<comment><AUTHOR> So adding notes to tasks and some privacy would make this more valuable for you?

If I did that would you start using it? What else would you need to use it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I don't want to make you feel bad or rain on your parade but you must know there are hundreds of competing apps just like this. That's not to say yours can't be successful but if you'd like it to stand out you need to differentiate yourself somehow. Right now you've basically got a todo list app that lets you share lists via a public URL. It's very simple (that's neither good or bad, it just is).

So considering how simple the concept is, I think there are a few things to think about that would make this valuable and stand out from the crowd.

First, focus on convenience. There are a billion todo lists all approaching different aspects of the task management problem and approaching it in different ways. Your approach is my favorite of all - just a list that you can check stuff off of. Its perfect. But I won't use it unless its easier and more convenient to use than any other option. So I need an app (a mobile web site will suffice which I see you already have but can use improvement). I need a way to come back in case I forget the URL of my list. I just need to be able to whip out my phone/tablet/laptop/browser and be able to get creating/checking off/reading my todos in no more than 2 or 3 steps.

Once you get convenience down, then work on design. You're off to a great start. There no frills, its super simple and minimal and its really great but it doesn't have that intangible thing that makes it memorable. You're definitely on the right track and I wouldn't tell you to add anything but just to refine what you have. Focus on typography and UI interaction.

And if this is meant for teams then I think you'll need to create a login system and some more privacy. I don't always feel comfortable putting all my todos in public even if they're only available via a special URL. A lot of things can happen to a URL. I think its great that you have a lazy login system but to me the fact that I can't save my own account and come back to it later to see all my lists and all my tasks, and see who on my team is currently sharing tasks wit me makes this feel like a one-off app. Like something you use for a day then forget about. But if I could use the app, decide I like it, then create a permanent account I'd be much more likely to return in the future and be invested in the product.

I don't care how many trillion todo apps we have out there, there are never enough. I like what you're doing and I'd say focus on convenience and design and if you're serious about making this for teams then give people the option to create permanent accounts. I probably won't use this today or tomorrow or next week but I did sign up for mailing list and I'm definitely excited to see what you come up with in the future.

<comment><AUTHOR> You've raised some really great points. And no, this is not raining on my parade, I think this feedback is more like fertilizer :). So, thanks.

I guess since I use it and know the URL quite well, I didn't prioritize creating an account too high, but you're absolutely right.

Thanks so much for your thoughts.

P.S.: Any thoughts on how I can monetize this? Would you pay for a monthly subscription if there was a mobile app and all the convenience factors you've mentioned?

<comment><USER10> A few thoughts on making $$$.

1\. SAAS - Set the bar low and features high -> $2/month gets you private lists, dedicated subdomain, etc. Make it so cheap that people just buy it/signup. Might want to focus on "prepay 6 months for $12" - so users don't feel locked in. etc. Have more features with the premium model like email notifications/alerts/bigger teams

2\. Affiliate Ads - Focus on future partners/affiliates - think of your product as a gateway drug to a bigger platform for doing/development. Push affiliate products that are targeted towards developers as well as bigger products like asana or basecamp. Try other products that every person needs (dollarshaveclub/birchbox.com)

3\. Kinda crazy but wonder if you could do something like <http://www.launchbit.com> \- if users signup with email and leverage <http://www.fullcontact.com/developer/> or <https://www.rapleaf.com/> you could break out users and serve up newsletters around productivity and do joint ventures with other companies to test drive their products. Since most likely your audiance will be startup/dev community.

Anyway - just some thoughts

<comment><USER10> I gotta throw out these 2 other ideas as they relate as I have some working code on a similar problem but focused around small groups and daily tasks.

1\. Take a look at <http://15five.com/> \- Just 4 to 5 questions, 15mins - extremely valuable. The problem is status updates. A todo list can fit into this space nicely when you have many teams (e.g. enterprise) and all need a update/email for each weekly sprint.

2\. Todo Tonight - Many developers/hackers/etc have day time jobs, but then spend another 3 to 5 hours each night hacking on something. To better focus on their time - rather than send crap to an email each day - why not have a task/todo that is nighly. Speeds up the process - focuses on a simpler achievable tasks (did you complete last night, add notes, urls,etc.) The idea is it's a holding place for "STUFF" it relates to what you are working on.

Hit me up @johnmurch if you want to chat more

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Since you're calling it a startup as opposed to just a project, I have to ask about business model. How will you make money off this?

I think you'll have a very, very difficult time monetizing this, as there are already dozens and dozens of free TODO apps. Unless you can carve out a die- hard niche that is 100% against signup and login forms, it will be difficult to compete with the others that are both free and easy to use.

<comment><AUTHOR> _Sigh_ You're absolutely right. I guess, if there is such a niche, which remains to be seen, I maybe could limit the number of lists they can have before upgrading to premium?!

If anyone has ideas, I'm more than willing to listen.

<comment><USER3> Just build a cool app, make it the best you can, but don't quit your day job yet. As you go along and learn more about your users and the app starts to get a life or personality of its own then you'll probably be able to see a clear business model. I'm going to guess you haven't been working on this for more than a month or two so its very early to make any kind of judgement yet.

Just enjoy the ride and you'd be surprised what people will pay for. I don't care how many free todo apps are out there people will still pay for them. For examples, Things for Mac. Incredibly simple concept but its valuable enough that even I bought it a while back.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I like:

* that you built something. In a world full of talkers you're a doer! Kudos!

* I like the execution. I like the fact that you don't have to log in and can start creating a list right away.

I use emacs for pretty much everything (including todo lists) and I don't use any todo app (because I don't like switching out of emacs) so I'm not your target market. I wouldn't use this.

But please don't be discouraged, because not everyone is the same and there are people that would use this.

A couple of feature issues/feedback:

1\. When I create a list and then come back to the page but forgot to save the link, I can't get back to my todo list. Maybe a way to know and save which lists I created would be great

2\. If I create a list and go back and then try to create another one it doesn't add items. Maybe a bug?

Lastly keep plugging away. Even if you don't monetize this particular thing you're going to come across other problems that people will pay for. Ex: A todo list that allows you to add tasks and people that should do them and then tracks/nags that person to do it.

Good work. Keep going and thanks for sharing.

</comment><comment><USER13> I really like this idea, to be honest. I think that ianpri makes some solid points but then again, it seems like this project isn't supposed to have those features.

I like that it does not require a login but a suggestion: have the user create a username for themselves that could tie them to the list. This would still make it so that nobody has to login, but yet you would be able to see who completed a certain task. Just an idea.

All in all I think it looks really nice, and I enjoyed the functionality and ease of making a list and letting others contribute to it. It literally takes a few seconds from landing on the site to have a functional list I can then send off to teammates.

Good stuff.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks so much!

The idea for creating a username is definitely spot on. I just have to find a very non-intrusive way on the UI to _suggest_ that people create a username or enter an email address.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The ad-hoc thing is really nice for teams that seem to form spontanteously : Read as StartupWeekend, Hackathon, etc. But probably not for firmly established teams that have protocols and ways of working that are already formalized in project documentation and tools they've been using.

A todo list should definitely get out of your way (for the MOST part), but be intrusive enough that it helps you get the work done to be meaningfully differentiated. (just a personal opinion).

Keep trucking, I think this is a good tool for ad-hoc team task lists, and I'm sure you'll come up with some good use cases for that specific function.

And most importantly, don't let the nay-sayers get you down :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much, @yakshaving!

I hadn't thought about StartupWeekend, and Hackathon, actually. Any ideas on how I might reach them to see if they could somehow encourage teams to use this?!

Does TeamDoList.com do a good job at getting out of your way? Any suggestions for improvement that would make it useful for you?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is just a random thought, but I think you could avoid using some of the features mentioned by other users (e.g. deadlines, priorities) by limiting the scope of the list to weekly tasks.

Presumably this would limit the length of the lists, which in turn would eliminate the need for fancy features that might bloat the app.

If people want those other features (i.e. they are using the lists for serious planning and project management) you could then charge.

Just my 2 cents.

</comment><comment><USER16> So the design is nice and I get that it's minimal. However, my impression is that teams want something a bit more full-featured. Have you looked at the competition much?

I've been using Asana. I also liked Wunderlist for this kind of more minimal todo-list.

How do you want to differentiate yourself? Right now the difference I see is that your lists are public and linkable, but I'm not sure that's something teams want (I don't).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your feedback. I guess I see the key being ad-hoc tasks with someone you're loosely in a team with. Maybe a school project where the team is only very temporary. Or a shopping list, etc.

I initially created this to replace email task management which we ended up using for a project at work. What's what started this.

Do you think it's worth going the route of making myself more like Asana by adding features, etc?

Would you value being able to make a list on TeamDoList.com private?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I really like your project--very simple, and I believe this is something I see myself using. I think that the one major feature you may add is "private lists", it won't require that much work for you to implement, but you'll hit wider range of audience. Good Luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> So, you're going to use it but adding a private list feature would make it even more useful to you?!

Nice, thanks so much!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's a great concept, especially the no login part.

A few things I'd like to see:

1) private lists 2) assign to-dos to certain team members 3) set up priorities 4) set up deadlines

Cheers, Aanarav

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you feel that adding those features makes it too similar to the competition? Asana? Basecamp?

I've had those features in my todo list for a while but just refrained to make this as simple as possible and let people take it where they need it :)

Thanks so much for your feedback and support.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Why do you have the same design as: <http://twitcherhq.com>

</comment><comment><USER20> This is just what I need! -another- web based to do list.

</comment><comment><USER21> What problem does it solve? That's what you should ask yourself.

It just looks like another to-do app to me, which I might even have developed myself in about fifteen minutes. Also as others have mentioned, this is more of a project than some startup.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, the idea came up when I was working on a project and we started using emails to manage our tasks. This became tedious and I thought about using Basecamp but was afraid that management would make a big deal out of it and not approve it. So, in a nutshell it's allows you to manage lists ad-hoc and then share them. That's it.

Thanks for the comment, though.

<comment><USER21> Try Asana, also a collaborative to-do list but with many features. Not overly many features, just exactly the ones you need (or that was my experience anyway). Free also for business use up to 30 people, which is very reasonable I think.</comment></comment></comment>


Seattle officials repeal tax on large companies - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/12/technology/seattle-tax-amazon.html <comment><USER2> The messaging on the part of the folks in favor of the Employee Hours Tax (EHT) was somewhere between terrible and nonexistent. The messaging of the anti-EHT folks was simple and persuasive.

I had fully expected that the EHT would be repealed by ballot initiative come November, but didn't expect that the city council would just sort of roll over and repeal it.

Erica Barnett, a local journalist, has a far more insightful look at what actually happened here than the somewhat superficial look the NYT provides: [https://thecisforcrank.com/2018/06/12/todays-head-tax- defeat...](https://thecisforcrank.com/2018/06/12/todays-head-tax-defeat-has- lessons-for-both-sides/)

<comment><USER3> Great article. Much better than the New York Times article.

From TFA

"Is this really all about Amazon?

No, but you'd be forgiven for thinking it was. Council member Kshama Sawant, who exhorted her supporters to "Pack City Hall!" in a mass email yesterday, has consistently characterized the head tax as a "tax on Amazon" and Jeff Bezos, whom she described earlier today as "the enemy."

Demonizing individual corporations is rarely a path to building broad community coalitions, and that's especially true when that corporation is Amazon, whose name many Seattleites (rightly or wrongly) consider synonymous with "jobs." This is one reason head tax opponents were able to so easily spin the head tax as a "tax on jobs," and to get ordinary citizens to gather signatures against a tax that would really only impact the city's largest corporations."

That seems like bad politics. Isn't it politics 101 to anticipate that the affected parties (here Amazon and Starbucks) would push back? And if enough political support to overcome this hasn't been built up in the first place, why would someone try passing the head tax at all? This is like playing chess looking only one move ahead.

I don't get it.

Help me understand?

(Due Disclosure: Not a US citizen, nor a Seattle resident, I don't have a position, pro or anti, on the tax measure itself)

<comment><USER4> > This is one reason head tax opponents were able to so easily spin the head > tax as a "tax on jobs,"

Also, the fact that it was a tax for every employee. If you want to encourage companies/people to do something (like hire people), you normally start by not adding extra taxes to that.

Not that adding tax is always a bad thing, but the mechanism of this one was pretty poorly thought out.

<comment><USER5> Payroll taxes are quite a normal thing, and it makes sense, since employees do add some non-zero amount to the amount of services that need to be provided by a given government even if they don't reside there.

The stupidity was that it was a flat, $500 tax, which is not a big deal if you're paying your tech bros six figures, but becomes quite a big deal if you have a lot of minimum-wage earning grocery baggers (who were among the professions and corporations that would've been most impacted)

<comment><USER6> It raises the cost (excluding everything but salary, which is unrealistic) of a full time minimum wage worker by 0.9% per year. Add in the additional costs of an employee and that percentage drops even further.

It was also targeted at the top 3% of companies or something.

This was a paltry tax. If you want to convince me otherwise I want hard numbers, not "oh but the low profit minimum wage employers".

<comment><USER5> At the 2021 $15 min wage, it would've hiked the cost of a part time worker working 29 hours a work by 2.2%. (29 hours is the limit before one qualifies for employer health insurance under federal law, and IIRC neither Seattle nor Washington have any stricter laws.) So you'd be severely dis-incentivizing part time hiring.

.9% is not a trivial tax increase. If sales taxes went up by .9%, that would be an undue burden on the poor. And a flat $500 head tax is more regressive than even a flat percentage tax on sales; making it only apply to the top X companies doesn't stop it from being regressive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why is there no discussion on rezoning single home areas to allow multistorey buildings? Can someone explain how the influx of tech workers has forced out existing Seattle citizens onto the roads? Are we sure that they are not out of towners? Why don't those who can't afford the high rents move to nearby cities and counties instead of living on the streets? Would any parent want this for their child? Would they not seek to rebuild somewhere else, especially if they actually had some employable skills that allowed them to rent a 2 bed flat in the first place? Cause and effect don't make sense here

<comment><USER8> > _Why is there no discussion on rezoning single home areas to allow > multistorey buildings?_

Homeowners are a reliable voting bloc. Rezoning single homes would make housing more affordable while adding to the city's vibrancy. It would also reduce existing home values.

<comment><USER9> > It would also reduce existing home values

I'm not an american so I probably don't get the real estate market in the US. But wouldn't rezoning actually increase the value ? Not of the home itself but of the land on which it is built.

If your $1M home can be turned into a 10-flat building at $300K each, wouldn't real-estate developers buy your home (even at a premium) to destroy it and rebuild on it ?

<comment><USER8> > _If your $1M home can be turned into a 10-flat building at $300K each, > wouldn 't real-estate developers buy your home (even at a premium) to > destroy it and rebuild on it ?_

Let this happen ten times and you have 100 new units on the market. Since nobody moves to a city to live in a particular building ( _i.e._ housing demand, locally, is relatively independent of housing supply, at least in the short run) this will drive the apartments' prices down. That, in turn, will exert downward pressure on the price of the single-family homes.

<comment><USER10> Or the neighborhood gets more dense, economic activity increases, and your home value goes up. Greenwich Village ain't cheap.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In the past 24 hours, Jeff Bezos added $405 million to his net worth. In the past year, Jeff Bezos added $41 billion to his net worth. And yet somehow, Amazon can't throw a $50 million peanut at the epidemic of homelessness ravaging their hometown.

<comment><USER8> > _Amazon can 't throw a $50 million peanut at the epidemic of homelessness > ravaging their hometown_

This is an unfair framing. The tax did far more damage than impair Amazon's bottom line. Your complaint, moreover, could be leveled against every public service in the city. There are simply better ways to solve this problem. Seattle's government chose pot shots over progress.

<comment><USER11> Sure there are simply better ways, there are always better ways, and those better ways will be likewise crushed by the muscle at Amazon who make sure the company can extract as much value out of Seattle without having to pay its fair share in taxes.

<comment><USER8> > _those better ways will be likewise crushed by the muscle at Amazon_

This tax was predominantly opposed by small business owners. (I think it was $25,000 donated by Amazon and close to $300,000 by small businesses.)

The proposed tax was a flat payroll tax. That burdens lower-wage employees and employers much more than tech companies. There is perfect being the enemy of good, and then there is cutting off the nose to spite the face. This was the latter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It upset most folks.

> Teresa Mosqueda, one of the two council members opposing the repeal, said > there was no backup plan for dealing with the homeless situation.

There was no plan, period. The plan consisted of 1. Tax Amazon, 2. ..., 3. Get re-elected. When they realized 3 didn't follow from 1, they started grasping at straws.

<comment><USER12> 1\. Tax Amazon, great in its own right regardless of the reason. 2\. How do you provide for people without money? 3\. Deserve your re-election by serving the poor and vulnerable at the expense of mind-blowing historically unprecedented wealth.

Great example here of managed democracy. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guided_democracy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guided_democracy)

<comment><USER13> More accurately, tax Amazon and over half a thousand other employers in the city. And spend money on social services that don't have a particularly good track record of eliminating the social ills they are intended to solve. Politicians made their own judgement as to whether or not this would be beneficial to their chances of reelection.

Immediately concluding that because a government didn't pass a new tax, the government is a de-facto autocracy is extremely reductive.

<comment><USER6> They did pass it, after months of review.

They repealed it a day after the announcement that they were doing so.

Seattle is a company town now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The real issue is how effective the anti-tax campaign was. Based on the NY Times and other article posted here[0], they used the same mix of populism, anti-government rhetoric, outrage, and propaganda that has become widely used by the GOP. But how did they sell it in a liberal city like Seattle? What makes it so powerful? I don't think it's the content; it's the technique.

I tend to assume it includes an effective social media campaign (complete with targeting), and maybe that's the core of it, but does anyone know?

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17300444](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17300444)

<comment><USER15> I agree, it's freaky how quickly the opposition organized, and with the similar overtones you noted. Another user linked a better source that mentions the opposition paying a group called "Morning in America" (that's a Reagan catchphrase, for the kids here): [https://thecisforcrank.com/2018/06/12/todays-head-tax- defeat...](https://thecisforcrank.com/2018/06/12/todays-head-tax-defeat-has- lessons-for-both-sides/)

Like in SF, there's a lot of lukewarm liberalism in Seattle, and when the rubber meets the road you can see the conservatism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The discrimination between taxing corporations vs "people" is often a dumb one to make. Assuming low corporate profits (e.g. hardy competition), corporate taxes just get passed directly onto employees and consumers.

For Amazon, it may be a "corporate" tax. But for other low margin companies its just a tax on everyday people.

</comment><comment><USER17> This is a great example of the extreme left-wing destroying itself. Seattle City Council passed an income tax (that was unconstitutional, oops). This new attempt was probably legal (or could be patched).

This head tax failed because the campaign _in favor_ was driven by insane anti-capitalist ranting by Councilwoman Sawant and friends, who made it a "war on Amazon" instead of a traditional, civilized, "share some of the wealth" campaign.

</comment><comment><USER18> I didn't expect Internet based companies, like Amazon, to fix homelessness.

That said, I'm saddened that the town council caved in so quick.

Our biggest problem is homlessness.

All I know, is it's basically illegial to live without a perment shelter in this once great country. Yes--once great. I'm not sure what's great about it anymore. If I had a do over, I would have hightailed it to France, or Canada in my twenties.

Can't sleep anywhere, including your car, without breaking some law.

There's know-where to go to the bathroom once they know you are homeless.

The industrious will find food. That's about all they might find. That food will eventually need to leave the body though? I just don't understand not providing bathrooms. I'm not homeless, and I have a hard time finding a restroom in San Francisco.

This country was founded by in debt homeless individuals? All the settlers were basically camping out?

Homelessness is our biggest problem.

It's beyond debating.

We need to open up available federal, state, and county land to camping.

We need to repeal all laws that have essentially criminalized being without a perment shelter.

I don't want to debate.

I've had too many friends die on the streets. Their last days were filled with overly aggressive cops ticketing them. That whole "fix the broken window theory" is policy for most counties now.

Even to those that have a home, and a good job; do you like living in a country with so many laws? Laws that are designed to trip you up if you are poor, or even middle class.

I'm sick of it.</comment>


Rebecca Murphey from Yayquery teaching jQuery class at CodeLesson - <AUTHOR> http://codelesson.com/courses/view/web-development-with-jquery

<comment><USER2> Super excited to have Rebecca on board.

One thing we're doing with this course (as we're doing with Zed Shaw's Python course) is using the free online text. Rebecca's "jQuery Fundamentals" is a terrific primer on JavaScript as well as jQuery.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> No affiliation, just a fan of Yayquery, CodeLesson, etc, etc...</comment>


Hacker Typer - <AUTHOR> http://hackertyper.com/ <comment><USER2> This is a wonderful website. Worth mentioning pressing Option (on Mac, alt on Windows) gives you an awesome "Access Denied/Granted" display.

THIS JUST REVOLUTIONIZED FAKE HACKING AS WE KNOW IT.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is totally my new go-to place when I want to try to sound like I know what my programmer friends are talking about.

Now we just need a similar tool that turns everything I type into something Stephen Hawking would write/think/say, and I'll finally make friends at parties.</comment>


Ask HN: Pic of a European roundabout - <AUTHOR> I distinctly remember having seen a picture of a roundabout in western Europe with signboards/roads leading to several different countries long ago. I think I had probably seen it in an issue of the National Geographic magazine.<p>I need this for some research but can't find it after lots of searching. Anyone care to post a link please? <comment><USER2> Are you referring to the 'Sandweiler' roundabout [1], also known as the 'Iergäertchen', the Maze, and various translations thereof, and officially named after Robert Schaffner?

[1] [http://www.wort.lu/en/luxembourg/irrgarten-roundabout- bypass...](http://www.wort.lu/en/luxembourg/irrgarten-roundabout-bypass- considered-to-end-roundabout-misery-54a036f70c88b46a8ce4d11f)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks but I'm afraid this is not the one I'm after. That one shows a sort-of bird's eye view of the entire roundabout, with several roads leading out, with individual signboards (white on green) for each road, showing the country name.</comment></comment>


Hyperbrain Owner's Manual - 1. the big picture - <AUTHOR> http://inter-sections.net/2008/08/28/hyperbrain-owners-manual-1-the-big-picture

<comment><USER2> While reading it, I was just waiting for the "buy my book for 3 easy installments of $19.95" pitch.

Hmm, there's a startup idea: Ego-stroking self-help books for geeks..."Chicken Soup for the I Know I'm a Genius Why Doesn't Everyone Else Recognize It Soul"

<comment><USER3> The first post on the topic was mostly negative-- with good reason.

If us slacker/failure/mad-genius types want to hold on to the fiction that there's a place for us somewhere, then please back off and let us fool ourselves about it for a while. Hey... it may inspire us to a turn over a new leaf and adapt to other people's needs a little more. (Until we get distracted by something else and then start blowing everybody off again....)

<comment><USER4> _The first post on the topic was mostly negative-- with good reason._

You consider that post negative? That might be another strange trait worth thinking about...

(Like many at HN, I'm afflicted with nearly all of the traits under discussion. But I'm not of the opinion that it is due to a new magical type of brain.)

<comment><USER3> Trying to assimilate all of the data... trying not to jump to premature conclusions.... Trying to be clear without being overly romantic or pessimistic....

I want a Jean Piaget to work out the experiments and pin down this further....

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I know confirmation bias can be a bitch, but this is just ridiculous. Its like a frenzy of "Me to!!11" in here every time a list of traits is published and then sure enough someone vomits all over a blog and produces a self-help guide with feel good "you art special" theme. </cynical rant>

<comment><USER3> This is a very specific personality type that's just rare enough that all of them think they're the only ones. But given the number of "my god, you must be stalking me" responses... there may be enough of these guys out there that this merits investigation. Many of their problems are misdiagnosed as being due to something else. All of them are headed to a mental downswing or an epic failure of some sort and its critical that they understand themselves well enough that they can aid other people in directing/collaborating/steering them effectively.

<comment><USER6> ADD is not particularly rare in my experience--certainly among hackers and entrepreneurs--and people that feel that they are special need to get out more. It's not a personality type as much as a processing mode(s). There are a number of good books full of practical advice on how to manage ADD. Three I have found particularly useful are

ADD Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life by Judith Kohlberg [http://www.amazon.com/ADD-Friendly-Ways-Organize-Your- Life/d...](http://www.amazon.com/ADD-Friendly-Ways-Organize-Your- Life/dp/1583913580/)

Driven To Distraction by Edward M. Hallowell [http://www.amazon.com/Driven- Distraction-Recognizing-Attenti...](http://www.amazon.com/Driven-Distraction- Recognizing-Attention-Childhood/dp/0684801280)

Healing ADD by Dr. Daniel Amen [http://www.amazon.com/Healing-ADD- Breakthrough-Program-Allow...](http://www.amazon.com/Healing-ADD-Breakthrough- Program-Allows/dp/0425183270/)

<comment><USER3> Another one for the "you are sick" perspective?

Looks like two types of stereotypical psych people: the "just be yourself"/"embrace your inner dolphin" crowd and the "wanna prosac?" types.

I'm suspicious of all of you-- especially given the testimonies from guys like me that took your advice and are now numb non-creating slobs.

<comment><USER6> I did not mean to offer a "you are sick" perspective at all. I think some people can sing, some people are extroverted, some people have athletic grace and ability, some people can draw or have other artistic ability. Many people don't like to speak in front of a crowd, in the same way that I would view what would be involved in becoming a cost accountant or stock control clerk. My use of the term ADD was not meant to imply illness, just a convenient shorthand for the way that many folks are.

The books I suggested offer a variety of suggestions for how to manage the downsides to ADD. I suggested them because I have read many and found these useful. I don't view myself as sick or having an inner dolphin (or at least being any more "special" than anyone else that I know).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't really care about which set of characteristics you think make you 'special'. The only things that really matter are results. Tell us about what you've built or what you've started instead. Then I might actually be interested in learning more about what makes you tick.

The rest is just self-indulgence.

<comment><USER3> Later. I'm working on a set of strategies that will allow me to be clear about my needs and limitations with people so I can be more productive to the people that matter to me and/or pay me money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "On the other hand, it is also capable of superhuman focus on the right task"

No, it's not. It's a human brain. It's not capable of anything superhuman.

<comment><AUTHOR> True.

I am guilty of hyperbole.

 _replaces "superhuman" with "extraordinary"_

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Well, I subscribed to the blog so he must have done something right. Ooh, hold on, I gotta go get coffee.</comment>