Show HN: Shortlink – Local, easy to remember URL aliases - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/shortlink/apgeooocopnncglmnlngfpgggkmlcldf <comment><USER2> Reminds me of the bookmark keyword feature from Firefox. It's possible to hack into Chrome by setting sites as search providers.

[http://lifehacker.com/5476033/how-to-set-keyword- bookmarks-i...](http://lifehacker.com/5476033/how-to-set-keyword-bookmarks-in- google-chrome)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup! I've tried this solution myself but just found it incredibly hacky and un-intuitive. I hope the nicer UX (hotkeys!) allows for a better experience. In the future I hope to plan to have better syncing (cloud, sync into a traditional bookmark for mobile use), x-platform, share w/ others, tighter omnibar integration, etc. But you're right that there are reasonable solutions out there currently, but I hope Shortlink provides a lower barrier to entry and less configurations to fuss over.

As for Firefox, I'm not really a user myself, I've just tried it real quick and it seems like you have to type quite a bit to get the omnibar(?) to prioritize the bookmark result over the other autocompletes, as for shortlink you can type m/[shortlink] and be guaranteed to hop over to the site you saved. Good food for thought though!

<comment><USER2> > it seems like you have to type quite a bit to get the omnibar(?) to > prioritize the bookmark result over the other autocompletes

Not exactly. Once you set the keyword, you can type the keyword and press enter. Here I use hn to reach Hacker News and sd to reach Slashdot: [http://imgur.com/a/EaRCo](http://imgur.com/a/EaRCo)

<comment><AUTHOR> Got it! Didn't realize you set them in properties. I guess to differentiate, I could work on shortlink-only search queries in the omnibar as well (and more powerful organization). Thanks for the demo!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> "Currently has a 16 link limit, want more? Premium will be coming soon!"

Mmmh - but why? Surely make the limit appear when you actually have PREMIUM not before?

<comment><AUTHOR> To be honest, I was having serious trouble parsing through Chrome's absolutely terrible docs relating to paywalling features. I just gave up and decided I should validate a market for something like this exists before I invest into bothering to slog through the entire monetization process.

If you hit the limit, let me know, I'd love it if you love it that much, and would love your feedback! I think I'll be looking for other venues of monetization, or bumping up the limit a bit. That being said, I use the Chrome store version of my extension too and I haven't hit the limit myself (yet!).

tl;dr I'm still figuring out a lot of the aspects of this, but wanted some validation before moving forward with more iterations.

<comment><USER3> if you're thinking about monetizing something with 9 installs you're definitely a hustler ! good luck to you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys! I just wrapped up the initial build of Shortlink. The idea is based off of I hate touching the mouse and my workflow can become Cmd+T, Cmd+L, m/[shortlink], Enter. No mouse needed for bookmarks, no overflow bookmarks bar! :D

You can also use it as a link organization/searching utility, m/[invalid- shortlink] will automatically pull up relevant shortlinks related to your query, and you can always see all shortlinks by going to `m/` in your URL bar.

A couple ways I have it set up is for reference pages or dashboards (ex. m/proj-ga => analytics.goog../#realtime/rt-overview/../) or things like gdrive folders (m/projects => drive.google..), and of course memes (m/thisisfine => .../thisisfine.jpg).

tl;dr: A gif is worth a thousand thousand words [https://gifyu.com/images/548oQzWj7s1.gif](https://gifyu.com/images/548oQzWj7s1.gif)

Hope everyone finds this useful! :D

<comment><USER4> > You can also use it as a link organization/searching utility.

You aren't selling this feature hard enough -- definitely mention it in the extension description. If I were on Chrome (I'm on Firefox), that feature would make me install it and use it instead of bookmarks.

Except... a 16-link limit? Seriously? That's not even enough to get a sense of whether it's something I'd enjoy using. Most people have more than 16 tabs open at any given time, not to mention bookmarks. If you're shipping this as a fremium thing, give users enough to get hooked.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! I've found out that a lot of people use this differently and I'm definitely still pivoting into the use case of organization and search and out of "oh this will get to your URLs faster". Thank you though, I'll be editing my description in a bit :P

As for 16, I hover under the limit myself, but I understand if that might seem a bit low and that's fair. I was just experimenting with the idea of freemium and didn't want to have a higher limit and lower it later and have more people upset. I'll be looking to bump up the limit in the future (or possibly remove it, since it might not even be a feature people care about.) In your opinion, what do you think is a reasonable limit to set? (Or is it just unreasonable to limit it at all?)

<comment><USER5> In my honest opinion, this kind of tools should not be monetized through its core functionality. My opinion as a user/developer, this is awesome, but 16? I would build one myself. Try to search another way to monetize, some ads on your landing page or additional features, but would not go to limit the core functionality. Good luck!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm all for keyboard-centric navigation, but what makes this better than Holmes? It does the same thing, but lets you search all of your already existing bookmarks, and there's no premium version/limitations.

Holmes: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/holmes/gokficnebmo...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/holmes/gokficnebmomagijbakglkcmhdbchbhn)

<comment><AUTHOR> Just had a chance to check out Holmes, you're right in that right now the offerings are almost the same. I hope as I iterate a couple of times I'll have more features that would differentiate further. I would argue that my search is more complete than their 10 bookmark limit and shortlinks isn't based off of fuzzy finding (which is I guess a negative for some people).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Just use dmenu [1] and surfraw [2] bookmarks.

[1] [http://tools.suckless.org/dmenu/](http://tools.suckless.org/dmenu/)

[2] [https://surfraw.alioth.debian.org/](https://surfraw.alioth.debian.org/)

</comment><comment><USER8> Is it similar to archive.is

<comment><AUTHOR> Not really, unless I've misunderstood what archive.is does. Shortlink allows you to create an "alias" for a URL you visit often. Say you have a GA dashboard that you go back to very often (something that you would usually bookmark). You can create a shortlink that will point to that (ex. "m/ga"). Using this shortlink, you can type it in the URL bar in your browser and it'll redirect you to the GA dashboard page.</comment></comment>


UsingMiles Founder Arrested - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailycamera.com/boulder-county-news/ci_18203847 <comment><USER2> Unfortunately, our company is one of many victims that have been identified through an investigation into money raising activities made on behalf of Mr. Austin Veith. Victims include a few investors in UsedTunes (also known as uMedia), Jon Nordmark who is UsingMiles CEO, Wambo Commerce, and a number of other individuals who have invested in Austin or his companies in the last 5 years. Mr. Veith has no current association with TravelFli / UsingMiles.com, not as an employee nor a shareholder.

The situation has no effect on UsingMiles.com day-to-day operations, and our passionate founder and employees are 100% focused on building a wonderful new world-class travel service! In fact, UsingMiles.com is the ONLY frequent flyer travel tool that was just named one of Entrepreneur Magazine's "100 Brilliant Companies." We are honored to accept this accolade.

<http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/219660>

Moving forward, we intend to fully cooperate with the law enforcement and hope that the innocent people involved in this situation can find justice. We thank you for supporting us through this process.

<comment><USER3> Wow. This reads like a press release. At the very least it was copy-pasted either here or at [1].

[1] [http://milepoint.com/forums/threads/usingmiles-travelfli- fou...](http://milepoint.com/forums/threads/usingmiles-travelfli-founder- charged-with-scamming-investors-out-of-450k.12209/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've had the misfortune of working for someone in New York City who was running a similar operation. But I think he stays just inside the law. He announces that he has a seed fund for startups. He spends all of his days pitching investors. He then pitches his ideas, usually working in concert with one or more partners. He then hires 2 or 3 programmers to work on the idea. He pays himself very generously for his leadership skills. For one of his projects, he might raise $100,000 in 3 months and then pocket $20,000 as his fee for providing leadership. The rest goes to the programmers. And he might have 3 or 4 such projects going at the same time.

Technically, this is not a scam. He raises money and spends most of it trying to build startups. But I did have the sense that his focus was very different than what I expect of most of the Hacker News crowd. I had the sense that he didn't really give a damn whether any of his projects succeeded. He was making a very good living just raking in dollars from investors. And of course, if the investors are dumb enough to give money to him, then in some sense they deserve what they get.

I recall that for all of the many meetings we had, he never mentioned customers a single time. He only talked about investors. He talked a lot about "the deck" (the PowerPoint presentation he would use to dazzle potential investors), which he constantly tweaked and polished. His only interest in the programming was to show some progress so that he could ask for more money. And then after a few months he would claim that the idea had failed to show traction, and he would move on to the next idea.

Any boom will attract a certain number of parasites. I had the impression that he was manipulating the rhetoric about a tech boom in New York City to sell the idea that investors needed to get in on the action, via him.

It was intriguing to realize that this was even a possibility. For me, when I'm part of a startup, I'm generally willing to sacrifice some of my current income for the sake of seeing the startup maybe succeed. But this guy was playing the opposite game.

He was very smart. And he invested enough of the money raised that no one could accuse him of running a scam. And yet, I had the impression he was just barely legal -- just barely doing the minimum so that no one could accuse him of running a scam.

He did have one success in his past, which I think made his whole operation possible. He was sort of like the aging actor who had a popular show 20 years ago and nowadays does infomercials. That one hit gave him the credibility to run his almost-scam.

Anyone involved in the startup world should be aware of operators like this.

<comment><USER5> If he was staying under $200K per investment/company, it might be for legal reasons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> So in comparison, if law enforcement has an "economic crimes unit" and can "follow the money" and get to the bottom of this, why hasn't anyone in the financial industry/wallstreet been arrested/prosecuted for the financial collapse?

<comment><USER7> Because Wall Street runs the government. Haven't you been paying attention?

<comment><USER8> Exactly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I submitted this with a "TechStars Boulder 2008" part added to the title, why was it removed? I see "YC" references to companies in titles all the time so isn't that relevant info?

<comment><USER9> The reason companies funded by YC are often called out as such is that this site is run by YC. But almost all startups have multiple investors, so it would get pretty unwieldy if they were all named every time a startup was mentioned. There's no reason to do it unless the story involves the investor, which is not the case here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I hate to see investors' money wasted on "hookers and blow", when there are so many startups out there which could really use the money to grow their legitimate operations.

<comment><USER11> "It's like facebook... but with hookers and blow! You know.. Social."

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Sad story. Bad apples are everywhere, and when you work with a hundred entrepreneurs, 99% are genuine, and then you get the con artist. It's so hard to spot at first.

</comment><comment><USER13> Will this effect usingmiles.com recent $2.7 million round of funding? [http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/06/usingmiles- raises-2-7-milli...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/06/usingmiles- raises-2-7-million-for-rewards-management-platform/)

<comment><USER14> I'd guess that Nordmark taking over the CEO role from Veith was (1) prob a condition or recommendation of the newest round of investors (because Nordmark is more experienced and has the success of eBags under his belt), and (2) the event that enabled Nordmark to gain much more power and transparency over the books, which in turn was the final straw leading to the charges against Veith. This is just speculation based on the publically reported info we've seen, however, and I obviously could be wrong. Since Nordmark is clean and has succesful track record and UM got all the extra cash in April, that all seems to be a net positive for the company. I think the fundamental service delivered by UM is a good one, and unlocking the value in otherwise unused frequent flyer miles is especially helpful to travellers in a recession. Veith is also innocent until and unless courts find otherwise. And I think the TechStars folks are good at picking talent combined with promising venture ideas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Considering he has somewhat of a history, is this a lesson in vetting for angel investors and accelerator programs?

</comment><comment><USER16> what do you need a $10K apartment in NYC for? That's pretty much penthouse territory.

I mean I can see if you are already making millions...but if you are just a startup that should be a big red flag to investors.

</comment><comment><USER17> Legitimacy and a smile (or lack thereof) are all that matter.

</comment><comment><USER18> Bummer.

Someone -- I think a startup founder I know and that people have heard of, but I could be wrong -- related to me that when he got a series A or B, the background check was so thorough that the investors noticed he'd accidentally let his drivers license lapse and had an unpaid parking ticket.

</comment><comment><USER19> I love this part of the article: "In 2010, Nordmark paid $25,000 for a patent on a new online digital used music and book website that Veith was pitching, dubbed UsedTunes.com. The site exists but isn't operational."

</comment><comment><USER20> This is further proof that raising money does not make one inherently more trustworthy. Unfortunately, on July 1, California law will reflect that very notion.

[http://www.quora.com/Aaron-Greenspan/In-Thirty-Days- Payments...](http://www.quora.com/Aaron-Greenspan/In-Thirty-Days-Payments- Innovation-Will-Stop-In-Silicon-Valley)</comment>


The Collison brothers and $1.75B online payments startup Stripe - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/9c8d9f7c-c000-11e3-9513-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2zLRSJUsg <comment><USER2> "We were the first people to work on Stripe, and chronologically that's interesting but so much of the great work that we do now, we're a piece of it but we're not the most important piece of it,"

This is amazing. A huge part of my job right now is too find people who make me feel this way - but it's remarkably impressive to find it put so perfectly by the founders of a company like Stripe.

<comment><USER3> That simple sentiment might be why working for them was so cool and why, as just one proof point, PC is now a part-time partner at YC.

<comment><USER4> For company culture at that. I can see why.

"... he thinks about hiring and company culture better than anyone else I know." Via [http://blog.ycombinator.com/welcome-kat-yuri-patrick-and- eli...](http://blog.ycombinator.com/welcome-kat-yuri-patrick-and-elizabeth)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I find it funny that the Stripe founders have inspired and influenced people by retracting from the cult-of-the-founder image that causes people to be inspired and influenced by you. It's true that these guys aren't the most important piece of the Stripe puzzle, but there's a reason FT chose to interview the founders and no one else. The first guys _are_ the most inspiring. And these guys tastefully make sure they don't get too self- indulgent with that fact, making them pretty awesome people. Really a great article, and these guys seem like humble, awesome people that can do successful work on a billion dollar problem without tooting any horns about it.

If you're looking for more inspirational founder articles, FT ran one on on Sean Parker a while back shortly after the Social Network came out -- [http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/8383ab06-45e3-11e0-acd8-00144...](http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/8383ab06-45e3-11e0-acd8-00144feab49a.html#axzz2zMSvxfgU). Sean's a bit more indulgent than these two. Then again he co-founded Napster and was a major influence in Facebook, and it's bit hard to be humble when you stuntin' on a Jumbotron (which is why the Stripe founders are so awesome for being able to do that). In the end, he's still a massive problem-solver and an entrepreneurial inspiration. I'd recommend it.

<comment><USER6> +1 for the 'Ye reference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting to read that they used Smalltalk for Auctomatic, their first company.

<comment><USER8> Yeah. Wasnt DabbleDB smalltalk too? Picked up steam there for a little while.

<comment><USER9> Nearly every week I lament the disappearance of dabbledb from the internet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Does everyone else have an FT subscription? I'm hitting a paywall...

<comment><USER11> No paywall for me, but does this link work maybe? This has gotten me around paywalls before.

[https://www.google.nl/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd...](https://www.google.nl/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCwQqQIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F2%2F9c8d9f7c-c000-11e3-9513-00144feabdc0.html&ei=HopTU-6mIcneOY37gPgK&usg=AFQjCNFGkxisCUnzEuNEal1HIcQ8jFWN9Q&bvm=bv.65058239,d.ZWU)

<comment><USER10> Thanks for the link! Unfortunately, it doesn't work for me.

Maybe the paywall is because I'm not in the US (Australia).

<comment><USER11> Odd, none for me from the Netherlands. Sorry I can't help.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> >In another corner, white mattresses are propped up against the wall ready for use by employees who need a place to stay when they are visiting San Francisco<

Mostly this happens in early stage startups but continuing it at a level when your company is $1.75B is absolutely phenomenal. The effect of this type of culture is what attracts talented people and makes sticking around worth it.

I would personally kill to be part of an organization which brews a culture like this.

</comment><comment><USER13> Just read this after reading a short essay on the damage a narcissistic person can have on the culture of a small company.

These fellas are a breath of fresh air. Here's to hoping these nice guys do not finish last.

</comment><comment><USER14> An article touting that these two young guys are worth $1.75B and then shows pictures of their home address, WTF journalist? Seems way unnecessarily inviting.

<comment><USER15> They're trying to take some of the heat off of Dorian Nakamoto, maybe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I love everything about this company... These guys are huge influences of mine on both how humble they are, and where they came from to be where they are now.

</comment><comment><USER17> pc's hair is fierce fluffy these days</comment>


Ask HN: What will be the strategy of CAs after Let's Encrypt - <AUTHOR> Now when SSL certificates could be free for everyone, I am thinking about, "What will the current Comercial SSL/CAs like Synamtec, GeoTrust, Thawte, Comodo...". What you think will be the strategy to sell SSL for money. I think I would still consider some  other CA that Let's Encrypt for example to serve HTTPS for mobile applicaion API. But what do You think about the next steps of Synamtec, GeoTrust, Thawte, Comodo...  ??? <comment><USER2> Aside from EV, they might also continue to sell DV certs if the price is low enough (sub-$10). Let's Encrypt is cheap, but it is massively inconvenient, and a lot of people would prefer to "waste" a few dollars on a streamlined process than spend hours trying to get Let's Encrypt working with their platform/infrastructure/etc.

I just spend $9 renewing with Comodo's "PositiveSSL" because Let's Encrypt was too much hassle.

<comment><AUTHOR> But with the right implemenation and audomation as we did in in my webhosting company, it is evem more convenient for user. (unless LetsEncrypt is working). Certificates are reneved automaticaly without any user action. So I think EV is the key point here for other CAs. Also I think that in the next 2 years, every webhosting account will be created with HTTPS:// as default, without even asking the client as HTTPS with LE becomes a standard service out-of-the- box.

<comment><USER3> > LE becomes a standard service out-of-the-box.

This _could_ happen, but I would think some of the cram-all-you-can hosting providers would not want to "waste" CPU power like that. SSL takes slightly more CPU to serve. My guess is the better half will probably do it, at least until browsers start complaining when a site fails to use SSL.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Pushing EV certs, offering services around it (monitoring, issuance controls, deployment, APIs).

</comment><comment><USER5> Extended validation, and the other products they already offer.</comment>


Dear Palm: It's time for an intervention - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/21/dear-palm-its-time-for-an-intervention/ <comment><USER2> The interesting thing with Palm, as a technology innovator, is that their main principle is the principle that's killing them. They went with a simplistic, anti-"feature creep" approach with the Palm Pilot. It's characterized by their simplistic operating system, and they never tried to innovate that personal appliance, such as an iPhone, etc. They released the Treo, and it only had minimal success. Also, remember Handspring released the Treo, and then merged to form PalmOne.

If hindsight is 20/20, then they could have made some riskier moves, and these ideas coincide with the article in some respects.

\- Open up the OS. They should have made it a geek toy. Let the Linux master in all of us come out.

\- Supported 3rd party software with moral support. They should have had a "killer app".

\- Made it into a gaming device. I don't know if the processing power and battery-life were there, but it could have been another direction.

\- Better marketing. In line with all these points above, they should made it "cooler". It should have been the province of business people to own a Palm. Everyone should own one, because you'll be cool.

Take these together and you have the iPhone. Congratulations Apple! RIP Palm.</comment>


Linux-on-the-desktop pioneer Munich now considering a switch back to Windows - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/08/linux-on-the-desktop-pioneer-munich-now-considering-a-switch-back-to-windows/

<comment><AUTHOR> The most interesting is the end:

> Microsoft announced last year that it was moving its German headquarters to > Munich. This move is planned to take place in 2016. While Reiter (the city > mayor) was involved in the deal that precipitated the move and describes > himself as a "Microsoft fan," he says the criticism of LiMux is unrelated.

<comment><USER2> I thought so too ... can anyone reading this news not consider this is likely "a payment"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This article is from August _2014_. May want to note that in the title.

</comment><comment><USER4> The lack of an open-source Outlook / Lotus Notes alternative IS a fact, though.

Sure, you can piece it together by using a boatload of programs, but it ain't as nice-looking and integrated like Outlook or Notes.

<comment><USER5> Notes is horrendous, though.

Couldn't you replace all of these with, say, the business version of Google Docs? Admittedly it's just transferring your allegiance to another corporate and using the browser as a thin client, but for a lot of office work it should be feasible.

<comment><USER4> I love the Notes Web Client, but the desktop versions are just... outdated.

Google Docs, Mail, Calendar etc. has the problem that the data is wandering off to a datacenter under someone else's control which makes it a no-go for anyone handling sensitive data...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> At least it will make surveillance easier.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is an old article from _last year_ , about an offhand comment the mayor of Munich made _last year_.

They are not considering a switch. at all. Flagged accordingly.</comment>


Hyphenated Names and Job Security - <AUTHOR> http://www.codercowboy.com/2012/10/29/hyphenated-names-and-job-security/

<comment><USER2> Laugh at this guy all you want - the late medieval heralds had much the same problem. See Wikipedia on "Quartering": <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartering_%28heraldry%29> specifically the arms for the Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville family.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's awesome, I quoted your comment in the post, hope you won't mind.</comment></comment>


Give Away Ethereum Token: The World's First Honest Donating Ethereum ICO - <AUTHOR> http://gatoken.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> If you want to give ETH away and do something good, you can now donate. At the end of the ICO I will declare the list of donees.

</comment><comment><USER2> something new, interesting. I like the idea :)</comment>


Should cyclists be required to get licences? - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbc.ca/radio/the180/western-alienation-war-on-climate-change-and-bike-licensing-1.3284956/should-cyclists-be-required-to-get-licences-1.3284982 <comment><USER2> TL;DR: usual scenario of "person did something … on a bike, therefore punish all bike users in ways we would never punish pedestrians."

It's like "I am doing X … on the Internet/a computer, give me money!" except with less expected return on investment.

</comment><comment><USER3> no</comment>


My Startup Gps Excursion. Any Thoughts? - <AUTHOR> Hi All! First of all , thanks for everybody who will at least read this post to the end , ) I'm working on my final project that already became a kind of start up , and I'll appreciate your feedback to do it better. So how you can help me ?
Navigate to the links , and provide your feedback , recommendations in comment to via the direct. 1) Go to the web site http://gpsexcursion.com
2) Check the application for android - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gps.gpsexcursionapp A bit history , I started this project 1 year back , at the very beginning it was just me ,but now a little team of 4 peoples working on it with me : ) P.S. I'll not describe the goal and type of the project , because for me is important that the content build on such way that you can understand it very easy.
But if something , just ask in comments I'll reply. <comment><USER2> Normally, this statement: "I'll not describe the goal and type of the project" indicates to me that I should just "flag" this post and move on. Why "just flag"? Because that statement is disrespectful of us here who would look at your comment here. If you can't offer an explanation _here_ as to what your "thing" is, then you are just trying to use HN as free advertising.

Ok, so, while I should have "just flagged" I did not, and gave you some benefit of the doubt and went to your link. I was greeted by a blank loader page and nothing more. Why was this? Because your site, while having every bit of content available and downloaded to my browser, has been designed to hide the content using CSS until after some javascript runs to make the content visible. So, second black-mark, you don't care about your visitors enough to create a "content" site that works by simply displaying the "content" at the outset. Note, by disabling CSS, all of the content appears. Which means it is all there, but deliberately hidden by you.

After the two black-marks above, I didn't look much farther.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for response. Main idea is - I want to check if people understand project when they open site or app from first glance.</comment></comment>


17 Tips For Getting Bloggers To Write About You  - <AUTHOR> http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=206903066&cid=nl_IWK_daily

<comment><USER2> Looks like a good post but somewhat spoiled by the site's advertisements and surveys blocking progress through it's multiple pages.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I came into this page to complain about this very thing. Maybe he should write a post on "How to write blog posts readers will read", one of them being, put the article on one page, and not on a site that keeps interrupting with ads.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Suitable company structure for single founder looking for angels, non-US - <AUTHOR>

My country, Indonesia, was colonized by the Dutch. We inherit their legal structures including how companies are formed. As such, we don't have structures like C/S-Corp or LLC. AFAIK, we only have:
- Naamloze vennootschap (NV) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naamloze_vennootschap - Commanditaire vennootschap (CV, limited partnership) - And some others which are not contextual with my question (such as Sole Proprietorship).
Now, many people in Indonesia think NV is similar with Corporation, in the sense that it's a legal entity, has the concept of shares and limited liability. BUT... it has to be formed "at least two shareholders are willing to invest capital" (http://business.belgium.be/en/managing_your_business/setting_up_your_business/company_types/public_limited_company/, from Google). CV allows one man show, but it's not limited liability, and converting it to NV later on can be tedious.
The problem is, I'm a single founder and currently approaching an angel investor to invest in my idea using convertible debt. Ideally, like in US(?), I can just setup a company, get the money, and life goes on. But since we don't have such Corp/LLC thing, I could:
- Start a CV, and be prepared to lose my house if I can't pay back the investor. - Start a NV, by asking my mom to be my partner with minimum share allowed. - Or, how?
And, have I told you that the investor is a foreigner (non-Indonesian)?
Note: I know it's a bit silly to ask this in US-centric community, but I'm pretty sure there are lots of non-US citizen here who might have the same dilemma with me. <comment><USER2> Hi wiradikusuma,

In Indonesia, the only legal entity for a single founder is sole propriatorship. Even a CV would require a partner.

Anyway, if you are approaching for an investment (not a loan) the only possible legal structure in Indonesia is an LLC/PT. A sensible investor would never invest in a CV since then they can not sell their stake without consent from all other stakeholders. Also, I believe there is a market cap of 1B rupiah which does not apply to PT.

Your best bet would be to start a PT with a "borrowed" name i.e. your mom or even better, find a real partner to be a co-founder. Starting a business is hard, if you can get someone to share the burden from you, that would be REALLY helpful.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer so do not assume everything I write is 100% correct. Do your job and consult an expert.

</comment><comment><USER3> You guys have the same business entities... did not know that! Here in The Netherlands we also have the BV (bijzondere vennootschap). It's a seperate legal entity, with limited liability.

</comment><comment><USER4> As said by dirkdeman, there are other possible structures (also "vereniging onder firma", etc.)

In any case, investment are investments, not debt; while a proprietor in NL may (depending on the structure) be personally on the hook for any unpaid bills (to e.g. suppliers), you have to get _really_ sleazy before the investors can demand their money back.

Talk with someone who knows Indonesian law, though. IANAL, and the Dutch and Indonesian laws are probably not exactly the same anyway.

</comment><comment><USER5> ^Start a CV, and be prepared to lose my house if I can't pay back the investor.

This makes it sound like a loan not an investment. If you have to pay him back, why not just go get a loan?

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok, I'm a bit exaggerating, but such thing _might_ happen here. Anyway, here's one article I found explaining the differences between NV ("PT" or Perseroan Terbatas) and CV. It's written in Indonesian thus Google Translate is used:

[http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=id&tl=en&js...](http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=id&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fipan.web.id%2Fkonsultasi- bisnis-menentukan-antara-pt-atau-cv-untuk-bisnis%2F)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Apparently CV also cannot be one man show. I'm so clueless, I'm sorry. I really don't know how to map my country's company structures with the ones in US _sigh_.</comment>


Show HN: Kli – An unofficial kaggle cli with a config file - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/tranquilo12/kli/ <comment><AUTHOR> Recommended install via pip -- 'pip install kli' as kli's dependencies are installed along with it as well.

I've been using it for the past few weeks now without any issues, so please let me know if you do find any.

There are no tests as the project is quite small.

Why I made it:

Whilst completing the tasks in the fast.ai course & found the 'kg' cli quite cumbersome to use, and I didn't want everyone to see my password.

It also became possible for me to migrate my user settings ('.ini' file) to another system if I wanted to.</comment>


Welcome Dominika, John, Domonique, Ben and Harj - <AUTHOR> https://blog.ycombinator.com/welcome-dominika-john-domonique-ben-and-harj <comment><USER2> Dominika and Domonique are both fairly uncommon names, and both also derive from the same latin roots meaning "of the Lord".

What are the odds that in a group of 5 people, 2 would have different uncommon names that both have the same meaning and origin?

I'd guess the odds are very low, which would make this a quite interesting coincidence.

On the other hand, there are many possible pairs of uncommon names derived from a common root, so maybe something like the Birthday Paradox applies and so it is not all that interesting to have two uncommon names from the same root in a group of 5.

<comment><USER3> Also, how many times in your life have you heard a short list of people that didn't have two unusual names in common? Tens of thousands, at least.</comment></comment>


"NBA Syndrome" Helps Fuel Spiralling Inequality - <AUTHOR> http://www.alternet.org/workplace/62118/

<comment><USER2> Wow, that was a really weird experience. I kept thinking "Well, people often have unexpected views on political controversies, but it's so unlike PB to use these bullshit rhetorical arguments." Only at the very end did I realize it was another PB.

<comment><USER3> Different Paul Buchheit, but I hate those rich people too. :)

<comment><USER4> A twist ending in a comment thread. Nice work, Paul.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The author kinda threw me for a bit. I don't think it's our Paul Buchheit (you didn't just become a professor, did you?), but it's an odd coincidence. Plus, it's on topic for startup news...

<comment><USER5> _it's on topic for startup news_

It's a bad analogy, though.

While basketball skills won't help you if you don't make the NBA (especially if you've sacrificed your education in the process), skills you learn as a tech entrepreneur _are_ transferable/useful if you fail and have to do something more "practical".

<comment><USER6> Actually collegiate athletes earn on average more money than their non-athlete counterparts.[1] It's possible that this is not because of any learned skills, which would technically make you correct. However, although collegiate athletes often have lower GPAs than non-athletes, they have been shown to be equally proficient using more robust measures of cognitive development.[2]

I think Julian Robertson (famous for hiring only athletes) said it best shortly after he made his first billion shorting the copper market:

"I once said, 'Let's hire one complete nerd and see how he operates,'" Robertson recalls. "We never did. It would have been fascinating."

1\. C.f. [http://www.row2k.com/features/print_feature.cfm?id=82&ty...](http://www.row2k.com/features/print_feature.cfm?id=82&type=Story)

2\. Searching JSTOR for "cognitive development" + "athlete" should turn up the relevant studies.

/Good thing this isn't Slashdot or I'd be modded into oblivion

<comment><USER5> Yes, and some i-banks are well-known for hiring former fighter pilots.

Still, we've drifted off topic: the original article was intended as a warning to kids who risk everything to make the NBA.

My point is that same analogy does _not_ apply to tech startups.

<comment><USER7> Yep, it's bad economics. NBA == tournament theory, which I think _is_ a zero sum game, whereas startups are not. And while if you compare people on a "Nth percentile" basis, sure, there are bound to be "winners and losers", but that doesn't take into effect that everyone may be better off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Are we attacking the rich? or the military? or the education system?

<comment><USER9> Probably best to avoid attacking the military, all told.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Those same people were the ones who made me miserable for sucking ass at basketball, kickball, and all the other games I played in school, so I feel conflicted about this.</comment>


Please insert disc: Microsoft Flight Simulator will spread across ten DVDs - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/07/microsoft-flight-simulators-physical-release-spans-a-whopping-ten-dvds/ <comment><USER2> Well thank heavens for the DVD or else this would need to come on 58,254,223 floppy discs.</comment>


Ask HN: Which websites do you visit at least once a day? - <AUTHOR>

<comment> X-combinator Hacker News, [http://Digitaltrends.com](http://Digitaltrends.com), [http://theverge.com](http://theverge.com), Reddit, Twitter(Tweetdeck),

[http://producthunt.com](http://producthunt.com), Wired.com, [http://www.businessinsider.com](http://www.businessinsider.com),

lifehacker.com, and of course YouTube. Oh I forgot [http://Uncrate.com](http://Uncrate.com) and Myspace (Yeah that's Right good old Myspace.)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> [https://news.ycombinator.com](https://news.ycombinator.com)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/programming](https://www.reddit.com/r/programming)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin)

... other sub- and multireddits

[https://news.google.de](https://news.google.de)

</comment><comment><USER2> [https://duckduckgo.com](https://duckduckgo.com) [https://news.ycombinator.com](https://news.ycombinator.com) [https://mail.google.com](https://mail.google.com) *.stackexchange.com [http://en.wikipedia.org](http://en.wikipedia.org)

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://news.ycombinator.com](https://news.ycombinator.com)

[https://www.syndk8.com/forum/](https://www.syndk8.com/forum/)

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/](http://www.theregister.co.uk/)

</comment><comment><USER4> [https://news.ycombinator.com](https://news.ycombinator.com)

[http://www.producthunt.com/](http://www.producthunt.com/)

[https://reddit.com/r/gifs](https://reddit.com/r/gifs)

</comment><comment><USER5> [http://goo.gl/dGC9JL](http://goo.gl/dGC9JL) [http://google.com/](http://google.com/) [http://www.reddit.com/](http://www.reddit.com/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Slashdot

Hacker News

T-nation

elitefts (workout/diet Q&A)

gmail

youtube

facebook

my own blog where I record my workout training (bodybuilding split if anyone is interested in that) -- jimfitness.wordpress.com

</comment><comment><USER7> HackerNews

Reddit: Programming Multireddit, bitcoin, hiphopheads. I try to stay away from regular news and joke subreddits.

Github

stackoverflow

youtube

pandora

spotify

</comment><comment><USER8> wordpress.com reddit.com/r/darkenlightenment news.ycombinator.com

</comment><comment><USER9> twitter, HN and goal.com

</comment><comment><USER10> gmail twitter github HackerNews GoogleGroups elpais.es

</comment><comment><USER11> news.ycombinator.com dribbble.com

</comment><comment><USER12> news.ycombinator.com

inbound.com

reddit.com

sidebar.io

usepanda.com

</comment><comment><USER13> gmail.com

facebook.com

reddit.com

news.ycombinator.com

popurls.com

</comment><comment><USER14> slashdot.com

lemonde.fr

faz.de

spiegel.de

nyt.com

reddit.com

guardian.co.uk

aljazeera.com

bbc.co.uk

<comment><USER15> I am legitimately interested in how many people still visit Slashdot. I cannot say I've been there in almost a year.

<comment><USER14> I stopped visiting for a while after they changed the the design. I think a lot of people left after that. But then I just like going to see the insightful comments.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> news.ycombinator.com stackoverflow.com google.com

</comment><comment> Dirty-flow google.com :)

stackoverflow.com

facebook.com</comment>


The Prison Guard With a Gift for Cracking Gang Codes - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/blog/the-prison-guard-with-a-gift-for-cracking-gang-codes <comment><USER3> "The messages will disparage other gangs in a backhanded way. In a Blood letter, you'll see that the letter C is usually crossed out or has a slash through it out of disrespect for the Crips. And to praise themselves, they'll write a B with an up arrow."

It's so strange that there's these very serious gangs responsible for traumatising large areas in US cities, yet they do massively petty things like writing a "WE R KOOL" up-arrow beside a 'B' in their correspondence, and crossing out a 'C' (if they're a Blood that is). I can't connect that juvenile elementary school behaviour with gang violence and shootings, it seems so contradictory.

<comment><USER4> Gang violence is the default state; it is the behavior that children will naturally develop without being socialized (and return to, whether child or adult, in the absence of authority).

You're observing that these gang members haven't been socialized out of instinctive self-congratulation in their writing, or out of instinctive pack behavior. I don't see the disconnect.

<comment><USER5> > (and return to, whether child or adult, in the absence of authority)

[citation needed]

<comment><USER6> Enough with the "citation needed". This isn't Wikipedia. People have the right to express an opinion or don't have reference for everything they say.

How would you react if someone told you "citation needed" every time you make a claim?

<comment><USER7> I would learn to write "I think that" in front of things that are my opinions.

<comment><USER8> That sounds repetitive and kind of annoying to read. It's usually obvious from context what's opinion and what's not, and you can always ask for clarification in those rarer instances. For example, it's pretty obvious the OP is stating opinion.

You don't need to couch your opinions with "I think" or "It's my opinion that". Have some conviction.

<comment><USER9> _> Obvious to you. And me for that matter._

Obvious to you, and me for that matter, but obviously not obvious to everyone or this sub-thread would not exist. Every one in this threat seems to be well enough versed on English that a specific language barrier isn't an issue, but there are probably people for whom English is a third or forth language: the chance of them seeing as obvious everything that we pick out as obvious is going to be lower than for those with more practise at the language.

 _> Have some conviction._

It is not about conviction, it is about accurately displaying the source and potential veracity of the information being presented. I couch my opinions so it doesn't look like I'm stating a commonly known fact instead of something I've supposed. Of course where I'm pretty damn sure what I'm stating is verifiable fact I'll not bother adding the extra words, but if you always assume you are correct and write in a style that suggests such, then you may be one of _those_ people!

Adding a few extra words to tell the reader this extra information about the (potential) quality of the information you are about to impart is useful IMO. Be as fine grained as you like too: somewhere between "I think that" and "I know" is "It is my understanding that..." and so on.

<comment><USER8> > Obvious to you, and me for that matter, but obviously not obvious to > everyone or this sub-thread would not exist.

Why sacrifice conciseness to try and alleviate every misunderstanding? Language is not a perfect communication tool - you'll talk yourself dizzy trying to catch every edge case and possible interpretation.

> Every one in this threat seems to be well enough versed on English that a > specific language barrier isn't an issue, but there are probably people for > whom English is a third or forth language: the chance of them seeing as > obvious everything that we pick out as obvious is going to be lower than for > those with more practise at the language.

Great! So we're doing them a great service by giving them practice in reading context.

> It is not about conviction, it is about accurately displaying the source and > potential veracity of the information being presented.

Why? This isn't an academic discussion. If it looks like you're presenting something as a fact and I think you're full of shit, I'll ask for a clarification. Much like the poster did with the "[citation needed]". The OP's message remains easy to read, and the sub-poster got the clarification they were looking for.

> I couch my opinions so it doesn't look like I'm stating a commonly known > fact instead of something I've supposed. Of course where I'm pretty damn > sure what I'm stating is verifiable fact I'll not bother adding the extra > words, but if you always assume you are correct and write in a style that > suggests such, then you may be one of those people! Adding a few extra words > to tell the reader this extra information about the (potential) quality of > the information you are about to impart is useful IMO. Be as fine grained as > you like too: somewhere between "I think that" and "I know" is "It is my > understanding that..." and so on.

You're sacrificing conciseness for a very weak attempt at clarity. It's incredibly tedious to read someone's opinion piece that says "It's my opinion that vaccines are dangerous. I think that X. I believe that Y. I am of the opinion that Z." It makes your message incredibly boring and unpersuasive.

Further, trying to turn this into an academic discussion brings into question all the issues academic discussions engender. How reliable is your source? Have you done the appropriate background reading? If you link a study that says "vaccines are bad" but there are 300 other studies that say "vaccines are good", are you really being objective?

And then of course we can get into some really stupid semantic debates, since we're arguing about semantics anyway - what's the cutoff? If I say "the barn is red", do you want spectroscopy results?

<comment><USER9> _> Why sacrifice conciseness to try and alleviate every misunderstanding?_

Because this isn't twitter, there is no character/word limit so I consider taking a little extra room to help the reader understand where I'm coming from to be a good use of available comms bandwidth.

 _> > It is not about conviction, it is about accurately displaying the source and potential veracity of the information being presented. > Why? This isn't an academic discussion._

Because I prefer to be accurately understood in non-academic contexts too.

 _> If it looks like you're presenting something as a fact and I think you're full of shit..._

My point is that if it looks like I'm presenting something as fact when that was not my intention then I have failed to communicate properly, and you unnecessarily think I'm full of shit.

 _> It's incredibly tedious to read_

Here you make the case for me. This could just be your opinion/feeling which is fine, or it could be you stating that your opinion is the only correct one and _everyone_ finds it tedious (or should). In the same way a little extra wordage can avoid me looking to be full of shit, a little extra in the sentence fragment would reduce the chance of you coming off as someone who is overly self-important and assumes his thoughts are universal facts. Maybe worrying about how I sound in this way is a neurotic issue...

 _> How reliable is your source?_

So to avoid problems with the reliability of my source, I should just not let anyone know what the source is? Basically "trust me, I'm from the Internet, we know these things"?

 _> If you link a study that says "vaccines are bad" but there are 300 other studies that say "vaccines are good", are you really being objective?_

EXACTLY. I don;t see how pointing the that one study is _worse_ than just stating the fact/opinion. With the link the reader can nip off and see if it looks like what they would consider an acceptable source. With just that one link and no others a semi-educated reader can make a judgement as to whether my opinion is well enough informed to be trusted in any way. Heck, on a good forum if you were to post a fact/opinion based on a single source (and state the source) helpful people might suggest other sources you'd like to review, and this extra information could be useful to other readers too. Of course such discussions can get a bit flamey, but that is a human failing for another discussion!

 _> If I say "the barn is red", do you want spectroscopy results?_

Not quite. You also need to provide the results of a scan of the back of your eye, we need to know what signals your brain gets from the eye in response to the wavelengths we consider to represent red - your optical nerve might be wired up wrong. Of course these things can be taken too far, but I don't consider making it clear that something is opinion (or believed to be a fact but one based on limited research) rather than something I consider an absolute incontrovertible truth not to be too far.

Yes, the reader needs to take some responsibility for not jumping to conclusions based on the exact words we write, but the writer either needs to make a little effort to not be misunderstood or accept that some will completely misjudge where they are coming from (and of those two options I generally choose the first, you presumably prefer the latter approach).

<comment><USER8> >Because this isn't twitter, there is no character/word limit so I consider taking a little extra room to help the reader understand where I'm coming from to be a good use of available comms bandwidth.

Similarly stereotypical old people consider it to be a good use of time to tell extremely rambling stories that explain the context of everything. Taking the time to couch everything in "I think" or making dead sure everyone knows it's "just your opinion" reminds me of Grandpa Simpson explaining that onions were the style at the time - totally inconsequential information.

> Because I prefer to be accurately understood in non-academic contexts too.

Do you really worry that most people misunderstand you without those qualifiers? Are you worried about every possible misinterpretation of your sentences?

> My point is that if it looks like I'm presenting something as fact when that > was not my intention then I have failed to communicate properly, and you > unnecessarily think I'm full of shit.

Solved by a three word clarification on the off-chance someone misunderstands you. Doesn't happen nearly as often as you think (please don't black swan me).

Opinions can be "full of shit" too. For example, I think people opposed to same-sex marriage are full of shit. You're not really dodging that bullet just by saying "Hey that's just my opinion!!!!"

> Here you make the case for me... Maybe worrying about how I sound in this > way is a neurotic issue...

It sounds a little neurotic. It's pretty clear it's just my opinion - <USER2> vary in their definition of "tedious". Some people enjoy knitting, I find it tedious. If I say "knitting is tedious", one can assume that should not be translated as "it is an objective fact that knitting is tedious."

> So to avoid problems with the reliability of my source, I should just not > let anyone know what the source is? Basically "trust me, I'm from the > Internet, we know these things"?

Depends on the situation. If you're saying the median income in Greece is $32k/yr, then yeah, I want your source. If you're telling me, "Vaccines are bad", it really doesn't matter what your source is.

Honestly ask yourself (this is rhetorical, by the way, because there's naturally going to be a disconnect between typed and real answers): if a study came out tomorrow saying "solid proof that children raised by same-sex couples are substantially worse off", would it change your opinion? Would you read it and think "Well, alright, I guess maybe same-sex couples shouldn't get married"?

> EXACTLY. I don;t see how pointing the that one study is worse than just > stating the fact/opinion...

Because you're selectively using sources to deceive people, if it's intentional. It's a really powerful lie of omission.

> incontrovertible truth

What's an incontrovertible truth? Careful we don't side track into an argument about incompleteness.

> the writer either needs to make a little effort to not be misunderstood or > accept that some will completely misjudge where they are coming from (and of > those two options I generally choose the first, you presumably prefer the > latter approach).

My point being that people can always misjudge where you're coming from, no matter what you say. In academic discussions and in didactic discourse, it's important to make sure your audience understands you. HN posts are overwhelmingly persuasive arguments (we're having one now, btw), and you're diluting your message by sounding unsure of yourself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> See also: "Is there a secure cryptosystem that can be performed mentally?" [http://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/844/is-there-a- sec...](http://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/844/is-there-a-secure- cryptosystem-that-can-be-performed-mentally)

<comment><USER11> That makes me wonder if any gangs have used Solitaire. Weaknesses aside, it seems extremely plausible that you could actually share the keys in prison and execute it. And a 225 bit key is nothing to sneeze at.

<comment><USER12> On the other hand a substitution cipher is more resistant to user error when encrypting or decrypting since such an error only affects a single character. In secret prison communication you might not have the time to double-check your encryption.

I wonder if imprisoned gang members have access to cell phones, though. They probably do. You could run actual strong crypto even on a J2ME device (or a gaming console, or a programmable calculator, or an MP3 player etc.) and I'm sure there's plenty of people you could hire to write a custom-designed, one- of-a-kind bespoke cryptographic app for a gang.

<comment><USER11> I was under the impression that in prison, time is the one thing you have plenty of.

<comment><USER12> Time when you can fiddle with cards and write down cryptic series of numbers without attracting undue attention is probably scarce.

<comment><USER11> The cards just look like you're playing some form of single player game (hence the name). If you had a journal to write in, then with some practice, you could pass it off as idly playing the game while thinking of what to write.

<comment><USER13> > write.

How many prisoners have free access to pens or pencils?

(Not snarky, I really don't know)

<comment><USER14> In a recent thread on reddit, a former inmate listed what was issued in county/state/federal, and paper with a pencil or a pen with a rubber body was in all of them.

<comment><USER12> Can you give us a link?

<comment><USER14> I wish I could, but I can't remember what the thread was about originally. I tried searching, but I can't find it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _One of the codes I worked with had multiple symbols for each letter. We have 26 letters in the English alphabet. But this code system had 40 symbols. The letter "E" had three different ones. The letter T had two and so on. That's a very complex code._

Interesting; they're trying to flatten out the code distribution…

</comment><comment><USER15> Reminds me of The Wire episode "The Pager" (Season 1, Episode 5) where the dealers were using a code to send numbers to pagers. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQBlq45c1T4](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQBlq45c1T4) (clip shows the reveal of how the code works)

<comment><USER16> Had the same thought reading the article. Thanks!

<comment><USER16> In particular, the part about older members training the newer members on how to use it. Oral history.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This seems like "cryptanalysis, circa 1600".

<comment><USER18> Indeed. Caesar Ciphers seem to be the hardest it gets. Did you notice that this gang cryptanalyst actually described the famed "ROT-13" as a method the gang members used?

<comment><USER19> Triple rot13 (like Triple DES) is government approved.

        echo -n word | \
        > wm --rot13 --words stdin | \
        > wm --rot13 --words stdin | \
        > wm --rot13 --words stdin

        result: jbeq

However, the result is the same as a single round.

        echo -n word | wm --rot13 --words stdin

        result: jbeq

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> So, a simple substitution cipher? Should be trivial to crack.

<comment><USER3> For this guy yes, but for not necessarily everyone. The messages don't seem to be particularly long so it's unlikely a frequency based attack could work. Also if it is then these guys will not exactly be using the Queen's English so they'll likely have a different letter frequencies for their dialect.

This lad in the article has a real knack for it though, I guess he knows the subject matter pretty well (i.e. knowing the kind of things people will be saying in certain scenarios, the word choice, how they address each other, how the gang hierarchies work etc) and has a good mind for the kind of on-the-fly ciphers that these gangs employ.

<comment><USER21> Frequency analysis works against a few dozen characters.

<comment><USER22> yeah. gp (and I recommend everybody :) ) should probably try cracking a few substitution ciphers by hand just to see incredibly well frequency analysis really works.

like you say, a few dozen characters of ciphertext. and you don't even need the full frequency chart, either. just the top few is sufficient (there's a lot of noise as you go down anyway because of Zipf's law). add knowledge of the top-3 bigrams and trigrams, and you're all set.

it's all due to the fact that Shannon discovered, that there's only roughly 1.5 bit of entropy per character in English text. and English is in fact one of the more efficient languages when it comes to this, Dutch or German have even less entropy per character :) I don't know how it compares to Spanish, however. gendered words are basically a type of redundancy checks, so they waste bits in that sense.

<comment><USER3> I have, but I fail to see how frequency analysis can work on "Everything is fine. Everything is cool here, uh, 15 22 27 31"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why do they have a human doing this? We have computers now, and solving this kind of cipher is a Solved Problem. What this guy spends days on, a computer could do in milliseconds.

<comment><USER23> I guess the problem is domain specific knowledge, user smcl did write something about that below.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Reminds me of [http://math.uchicago.edu/~shmuel/Network-course- readings/MCM...](http://math.uchicago.edu/~shmuel/Network-course- readings/MCMCRev.pdf) using MCMC to break a prisoner substitution cipher.

</comment><comment><USER25> Interesting</comment>


CA DMV autonomous vehicle disengagement reports for 2018 - <AUTHOR> https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/disengagement_report_2018 <comment><AUTHOR> Those are the official reports to the CA DMV.

Press report: [1]

General results:

Waymo: 1 disengagement per 11,000 miles, with 1.2 million miles driven. Almost always initiated by the safety driver. (It was one disengagement per 5,600 miles in 2017, so Waymo is continuing their record of roughly doubling that number each year.)

Cruise: 1 disengagement per 5,000 miles, with 450,000 miles driven. (Not too bad; a year behind Waymo.)

Uber: 1 disengagement per 0.4 miles, with 27,000 miles driven. (That's pathetic. They shouldn't be on public roads with a number like that. Back to the test track, Uber, or give it up. They spent how much on this?)

Apple: 1 disengagement per 1.1 miles, with 70,000 miles driven. (Almost as bad as Uber.)

Tesla: 0 miles driven autonomously in California. (Not even trying any more.)

There are about 9 other players; see the references. They're all doing badly.

There are also crash reports. Waymo had 24 crashes (usually being rear-ended by a human driver at slow speed) for 1.2 million miles driven, So they're at about 50,000 miles between crashes. For comparison, human drivers run about 100,000 miles between crashes.

So Waymo is getting close, Cruise/GM is not too far behind, and everybody else is nowhere.

[1] [http://www.automotiveit.com/news/waymo-leads-the- autonomous-...](http://www.automotiveit.com/news/waymo-leads-the-autonomous- pack-in-california/)</comment>


Stockholm Syndrome and Emotional Abuse – Part II - <AUTHOR> http://www.erynnbrook.com/stockholm-syndrome-emotional-abuse-part-ii/ <comment><USER2> I have a brother who is in this situation. While I did my best to be there, eventually he completely shut himself off from the entire family, and refuses all forms of contact. At this point, I don't know that there is anything I can do.

<comment><AUTHOR> The reality is that you aren't likely to find a solution in a single article.

I think the piece has some good bits, but there are also things I don't necessarily agree with. The main thing I don't agree with is the idea that you can give someone a comprehensive solution in a short article.

It's written like a how-to guide, like if you just follow this bullet point list, it will work out. And that's not likely to be true in most cases.

The piece makes me feel like I ought to write something on the topic, but I don't know that it will happen. I'm currently hip deep in dealing with other stuff. Perhaps the thing to do is start a stub and hope that I revisit it at some point.

My point being: I actually have quite a lot of experience dealing effectively with difficult personal problems and I don't think some bullet list of To Do items is a slam dunk solution to any thorny problem.

I posted it hoping it would generate meaty discussion, absolutely not intending to provide a guide book for people dealing with this.

<comment><USER2> I wasn't viewing this as a following this guide solve all the problems. The article did provide some perspective, and offer some suggestions. I think when it comes to complicated social problems, finding a way to deal with it successfully is highly personalized to the people involved. Hopefully, the more you learn about these things, the better you can get at dealing with situatins, and people. I would be interested in anything you have to say on the topic, if you can find some time. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> For your situation with your brother, I have two suggestions that may or may not be useful:

1\. "Forgiveness is a gift. Trust is earned." If he no longer speaks to you, he likely doesn't trust you. Establishing trust is very hard work and often a very jagged little pill to swallow.

2\. If you want to reach him, you need to try to understand his life from his perspective as sympathetically as possible. You probably also need to dig down into the family dynamic and try to figure out where things went wrong.

This is likely to not be comfortable. Maybe you adore mom, but mom was never good to him and made him out to be The Bad Child. He has every reason to not adore mom and this will be a serious bone of contention.

It's also fine if you don't reach out to him. It's fine if you try to sort this out in your mind for purposes of getting on with your own life.

I have a genetic disorder that wasn't diagnosed until I was nearly 36. I was a frustrating child to raise. I got called lazy and treated like I was a neurotic, whiny hypochondriac.

I'm sympathetic to why people saw it that way, but it was a terrible experience for me and it was a source of injustice in my life. But I am disinclined to try to harangue people into understanding me, doing right by me, etc.

Sometimes, life is just hard and we don't have all the answers. I think this is part of why religion was so popular for so much of human history: It's a way to make peace with such things. You shrug and admit you don't have all the answers.

In the modern world, we often want to believe we can have all the answers. And sometimes we can't.

I'm probably not going to write anything on my blog that would be of interest to you. But I thought I would take a few minutes to try to express myself in a way that hopefully will be a useful crumb for you.

And if that doesn't resonate for you, it's okay to ignore the opinions of this internet stranger who has never met you or your brother and doesn't actually know squat about the specifics of your situation.

Peace be with you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Thank you for this! I know someone going through this right now and it's been driving me crazy trying to figure out what to do.

This is very helpful advice.</comment>


How would you motivate people to learn on their own as an alternative to going to university? - <AUTHOR>

Assignments and exams in university do provide great incentives to force people to learn things.<p>But can you provide incentives like that without a university where people do the learning on their own? <comment><USER2> Self-learning has its own problems, some that have caught me out on more occasions than I care to admit.

I graduated with an EE degree six years ago, but over the years found myself more and more interested in economics. I read textbooks, papers and articles, and over time I thought I knew something about it. It was only when I went back to uni this year to formally study for an economics degree that I realised I knew jack. All the fundamentals and boring little details that I used to gloss over had more signficance than I'd ever thought. I also had access to the university resources, good instruction and a fairly rigorous course structure. Granted I was motivated and keen to learn (sadly unlike the bulk of the 19 year old kids there), but I gained a much more solid basis for understanding econs than I would have had I not gone back to uni.

I'm certainly no apologist for universities and schools, but wanted to point out that there are some issues with self-learning, namely 1) focussing only on the interesting topics and neglecting the fundamentals, 2) unstructured learning can be ill-directed and 3) good instruction is more efficient than finding your own way.

<comment><USER3> True, but one needs to be very self-critical when self-learning and interact with others (not necessarily in the formal situation).

To me, formal education is to provide the tools and knowledge necessary to learn on one's own, outside of a formal setting. Think about it. In elementary school, 90% of learning occurs inside the classroom. In high school, maybe 60-70%. In college, maybe 20-40%. Grad school 10-20%.

Ironically, what increases during this development is the need to interact with others: colleagues, mentors and acting as a mentor to others.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Call me a cynic, but I think people just don't care enough to do it. I think a lot of people go to college because they're supposed to, or to get a good job, etc. That's not wrong or bad, but it's just not going to be conducive to self- study.

Once/if you do care, you can set goals and keep working on it until you figure out what works for you.

<comment><USER5> This is rather unfortunate. A lot of the folks that simply attend college is because they believe they NEED it in order to get a job, be successful, etc. While they're right to some extent (you're going to have a hard time being lawyer with no formal education), people generally miss the point that there are ways to make a living outside of working a boring job.

Some people are simply not meant for college and instead of being forced through by parents, etc, they would be much better off simply dedicating four years of their life to practicing something they enjoy.

I've met several people with no formal education background that now own a couple of small business (nothing fancy, cellphone stores, gas stations, etc) and make more money (and have more fun) than most folks with a college degree at their age. It doesn't take much college to do something entrepreneurial just the motivation to learn and the willingness to fail.

The problem is a lot of folks don't realize that is a feasible option. For the most part everyone is force fed the same routine: "get good grades in high- school to go to a good college and then get good grades in college to get a good job otherwise you're screwed".

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Overly simple answer money. Though even if you pay them how do you know how much they have learned? Certifications such as MCSE, CCNP, RHCE or any other of the acronym certifications. Or in the case of the Finance industry the CAIA, CFA, FRM, PRM, what the hell ever tests. Work well for industry specific general information.

Another way I have found useful is give people a project a real market driven(IE come up with such and such of a product) or some safe lab project. Give basic guide lines and an incentive to finish and let them go at it. You will be amazed people come up with and what they learned to finish the project. Also always be there to help if the get stuck to give new ideas, but never do it for them.

Yet another way keep track of what above average knowledge of a topic each member of the organization, I assume we are talking about a company, has. Make the list relevant to work so people do not think you are invading their privacy and set each person up with another person who wants to learn such and such skill or knowledge base.

</comment><comment><USER7> The bottom line is you can't force somebody to learn something. Assignments and exams compel people to temporarily memorize a list of facts or a pattern of calculation, but they have no impact on whether someone understands the underlying principles behind it. Without that kind of understanding they often can't apply what they've learned in unfamiliar or superficially irrelevant situations, or extend the knowledge on that topic when it falls short. For example, lots of electrical engineers learn about signal processing, but only the ones who really understood it would be able to see how it can be a useful metaphor computer programming (as in SICP.)

In my life, I have found the things I've remembered most are the topics that I've used to accomplish some task I wanted to accomplish. I remember how to program because there are programs that I want to write and knowing things like algorithms and data structures helps me do that. I hardly remember a thing from chemistry or biology because there's nothing I want to accomplish with that knowledge.

In the future, the greater availability of information is going to make a traditional "well rounded education" less and less useful. Every year or so, another newspaper article comes out decrying our education system because students can't find (obscure country) on a map. Yes, it's great to know things, but when was the last time you were trying to do something and you ran into a roadblock because you didn't know which continent Mt. Everest was on or what the longest river in the world was? What's the point of memorizing things like that when you can look them up in 30 seconds?

The model for education should be: 1\. Find something you want to do 2\. Learn what you need to know to do it 3\. Do it, maybe learning additional techniques or facts along the way. Add them to the body of knowledge on the topic. 4\. Repeat.

I guess my answer to your question is: no, you can't provide incentives like exams and assignments without a university. The real world provides far more effective incentives already.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> How about paying people sort of like TopCoder with its prizes? Unlike TopCoder, you could reward most competitors.

This could turn this into something like a part-time job for high school students.

One can imagine that computer companies would be happy to donate money for these prizes to increase interest in CS.

Unlike TopCoder, you would have many targeted competitions (e.g., compiler design, AI, graphics, etc.).

So unlike university where you pay to learn, here you get paid to learn.

<comment><USER8> It's funny, on TopCoder, prizes count for close to nothing to most of the top competitors. More than anything, respect is what people strive for -- from others and from themselves. People are extraordinarily excited about the prospect of being 'red' or getting a rating above 2200, and seems to motivate people far more than prizes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think there is a good question at the root of this. Universities were once the best source of information, but now they're not. However, they provide many things that make it easier to learn (expert evaluators, like-minded peers, social expectations) that aren't easy to find elsewhere. How can you duplicate those benefits?

"Money" sounds like a horrible answer. "Forced learning" discussions are missing the point (or at least discussing a different question than I am). The answer I would expect to hear here, "join a startup", is not very user- friendly.

</comment><comment><USER10> Assignments and exams are much less important than being around your intellectual peers every day. If instead of going to a university, you moved into a big house with 50 other smart, ambitious guys and a big room full of textbooks on every topic, after 4 years you'd know at least as much as if you had gone to a university, and probably more. You might be a little sexually frustrated, though (edit: and socially retarded, as well).

</comment><comment><USER11> Just keep raising tuition and cutting financial aid.

</comment><comment><USER12> People that need to learn to be motivated won't be motivated enough to learn on their own. Low standards in school and a lack of clear guidance as to the point of it all makes people uninterested in learning. So start young, before they've become disinterested. Focus on the ability of learning/creating to make people truly happy and on the propensity to make people rich.

</comment><comment><USER13> Find out what kinds of things they'd like to do but feel they aren't capable of doing. Then, demonstrate which things they can learn now which will get them closer to doing the very things they can't do.

If you can convey that each thing they learn can be used as a building block to learning things that are currently way out of their league you might have some success.

</comment><comment><USER14> Very low cost exams or other verifications that results in a certificate with publicly known high standards.

Any high schooler should be able to afford the test, but people should be immensely impressed if they pass it.

Once they are known and respected, they become resume fodder and that leads to money.

</comment><comment><USER15> I left for Italy after enough university level Italian to learn more on my own, and fended for myself for a year. That was probably the biggest single "learning experience" of my life, and a lot of fun to boot.

</comment><comment><USER16> Provide role models and mentors. Let them find a subject on their own that they can love and be the best at amongst their social circle.

</comment><comment><USER17> Ask little kids. They do it naturally.

</comment><comment><USER18> People are motivated by one of two things: pleasure or fear.

I enjoy learning random stuff, but I plow through difficult computer-related stuff for one reason: it's a fast-paced, cutthroat competitive world out there. I need every little bit of advantage I can scrape up. I like it like that, but I imagine most folks would find that belief to be very uncomfortable.

So I guess the enemy of self-directed learning is contentment?

</comment><comment><USER19> Forced learning is unreasonable. If you can't demonstrate the merits of something, so that a student judges it would be a good idea to learn it (now), then in what position are you to say it really should be learned?

If motivation to learn something requires external incentives, then why bother learning it? We should learn things that are intrinsically worthwhile.

<comment><USER20> I disagree.

"Education and religion are two things not regulated by supply and demand. The less of either the people have, the less they want." -- Charlotte Observer, 1897

There is very much a reason that it is the law that children must go to school until 16: we want to enforce a certain amount of education on them, otherwise they'll think they never need it.

The difference between me and my sister is a nice anecdote. I love to learn; I read books out the wazoo, etc. My sister, on the other hand, hates it. For the longest time, my parents had to watch her do her homework, or she wouldn't do it.

The thing that eventually got my sister to do her homework by herself? Getting it through her teenage head that if she reliably does her homework, my parents won't be on her case every 5 seconds. She's now learning, not because of intrinsic love of it, but because of extrinsic reward: independence from my parents.

<comment><USER19> School is unpleasant. This turns people off learning. Then schools say: see? kids don't like learning. we have to force them.

That isn't a valid argument. If pleasant, voluntary, interest-based learning was offered, you don't know how children would react.

The same thing with your sister. the offer usually made is something like: obey me, and do your schoolwork. it won't be fun, but when you grow up you'll thank me later. if you don't obey, i'll hurt you.

That provides no information about how your sister, or any other child, would have behaved if offered some better options.

<comment><USER20> What I would like to see is more of the Socrates style teaching. I think that's a lot like the kind of pleasant, interesting learning that you're talking about.

I guess my question is this: if you say you're only going to teach voluntary, interest-based things, how do you make things interesting? How do you make math interesting to a kid who doesn't care if he knows how to add? How do you make history interesting to a kid who thinks it's awful?

There's a lot of value to a well-rounded education. If you don't "force" kids to explore a variety of areas, they'll have a tendency to become focused and centered on the one thing that really gets them off. That's great, unless they start blowing off other subjects and whatnot. It's the reason most universities require a variety of general education classes for all freshman.

So I think we have to "force" everyone to study different topics, not just the ones that intrinsically interest them. The key here is "forcing" the kids to like the material. How do we do this?

Well, I don't have a great answer to that. The only thing I can point to is that one great teacher we've all had (or I hope you've had). That one teacher who was able to just turn you on completely. But it was the teacher that was special, not the material, not the procedure, not the tests, not the class.

My favorite example is Mrs. Sams, my calculus teacher. When we got to the fundamental theorem of integral calculus, we held a mock wedding between the derivative and the integral.

<comment><USER21> "It's the reason most universities require a variety of general education classes for all freshman."

It's a bad thing universities do for a bad reason. They waste people's time.

An individual knows best how to find their own talents. When a person knows exactly what they want to do, as long as it's moral, that's what they should be helped to do.

You get a well rounded education by googling when you decide you need a question answered.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How Colleges Can Better Nurture Startups - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/2010/02/how-colleges-can-better-nurtur.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+readwriteweb+%28ReadWriteWeb%29&utm_content=Google+Reader <comment><USER2> While I was in undergrad for my CS degree at NC State University, I took an "Innovating in Technology" course. We were split into groups and tasked with coming up with a startup idea/concept, and then spent the remainder of the course working on it. Throughout the semester, our professor provided thought experiments, examples, and principles we should keep in mind.

In the middle and near the end of the semester, an angel investor came in to hear our ideas, and provided helpful feedback for our ideas and presentations.

While this course wasn't as extensive as the programs the article discusses, I think it was a great intro to entrepreneurship, and I found it to be the most helpful and influential course I took in undergrad. Personally, I would like to see the CS degree at NCSU have some more classes on the subject.

</comment><comment><USER3> I generally advise founders of web startups simply to ignore universities' supposed IP claims. If you're really worried, rewrite all the code; it will probably turn out better. But it's about 1000x more likely that founders will hose themselves by not delivering something users love than that they will and their university will then crush them with a lawsuit, so if you're going to worry about something, worry about the former.

Previous employers are another matter. They can be adversarial, so you want to be more careful about IP with them. But universities are not going to sue you about software IP. I can't think of a single case of that happening.

</comment><comment><USER4> I went to cal and work in silicon valley filled with students from stanford. It hurts me. Especially because I am constantly impressed with the quality of the students that come out of stanford. The students I've interviewed coming out from Cal are intelligent and have learned CS but the Stanford students have so much real world experience. Because of their internships they learn about relevant technologies. Because they understand relevant technologies, they can build fun little web apps in their spare time. Fun little apps like "Zombies". Also, the grading system is significantly more lenient. As such, a student can afford to spend a little time learning javascript instead of determining if a problem reduces to a k-SAT problem. So that's my magic formula for encouraging startups (and the startup mentality). Bright Kids + Technology + free time to fool around. I don't think you need a class in that.

</comment><comment><USER5> one of the best things colleges (and entrepreneurs) need to do is realize when a startup idea is beyond the realm of a classroom. it can cause severe conflict of interest and be inhibitive at best.

we're currently having trouble with our entrepreneurial senior design because a) they don't understand a software startup and b) they are first and foremost concerned with the pedagogical value of being an entrepreneurship advisor/instructor.

examples: we're forced to have 8 underling employees in our already 5 person group (13 person startup) and forced to do a startup pitch to Plexus engineers (they give the program money) as the final task of the year.

our fault not reading between the lines, make sure the mystique of the program doesn't shadow the fact that you have misaligned interests</comment>