No call for simulators in new Boeing 737 Max training proposals - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ethiopia-airplane-boeing-analysis/no-call-for-simulators-in-new-boeing-737-max-training-proposals-idUSKCN1RA006 <comment><USER2> I'd highly recommend anyone who wants to see what an MCAS runaway looks like and the steps needed to correct it watch the following video by Mentour Pilot.[1] He's a 737 pilot for a European budget carrier, and I believe he is qualified to certify other pilots.

In the video he goes over what an MCAS failure/runaway stabilizer would feel like to the pilots, the troubleshooting steps, and at the end of the video he shows a simulated runaway MCAS failure in a sim.

He also has a few other videos on the MCAS accidents. I'd highly recommend watching all of them; he does a very good job at putting everything into perspective in a way that the news does not.

[1] [https://youtu.be/xixM_cwSLcQ](https://youtu.be/xixM_cwSLcQ)

<comment><USER3> Great video, thanks for sharing. That simulator work at the end was a fantastic demonstration of team work. Crew Resource Management.[1] I still remember DAM CLAS from the Navy.[2] Numerous examples in the video. Sad and terrifying thinking about what it must have been like for the pilots and passengers of the crashed airlines. If the issue was MCAS, the slowly worsening situation, never disabling the trim, just one step to remedy the situation that's never taken, and the intuitive solution of pulling back hard on the yoke not working, because Boeing removed it in the latest version--a sad example of awful decision making on the ground.[3]

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_resource_management](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_resource_management)

2\. [https://quizlet.com/45297265/crew-resource-management-crm- th...](https://quizlet.com/45297265/crew-resource-management-crm- th-57-contact-fti-flash-cards/)

3\. [https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing- aerospace/u-s-p...](https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing- aerospace/u-s-pilots-flying-737-max-werent-told-about-new-automatic-systems- change-linked-to-lion-air-crash/)

<comment><USER4> I'll need to check for relevant sources, but I'm fairly sure that the idea that boeing removed the "trim brake" is wrong. It's simply that the MCAS doesn't respect it. I think this is consistent with the Speed trim system which may be trimming opposite the pilot in normal operations.

<comment><USER5> And the reason MCAS doesn't respect it is because MCAS is designed to activate in high AoA situations. You get into a high AoA situation because you're already pulling back hard on the yoke, likely in an attempt to avoid something bad happening such as avoiding a collision. If MCAS did cutout when the yoke was pulled back hard, it would disable itself at precisely the time it is actually needed. This design decision does make sense. The real problem is not telling the pilots about it.

<comment><USER6> And the obvious solution is "tell pilots about it" which is going to piss off the public because a procedural change (training), a new UI to make it more obvious (like IIRC Southwest implemented) and a minor code fix (comparing the AOA sensors) will not satisfy everyone who's out for blood.

<comment><USER7> >will not satisfy everyone who's out for blood.

People are right to be out for blood. This mistake cost _hundreds_ of lives, and was clearly a case of _criminally negligent_ behavior.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Boeing's actions are absolutely mind boggling. All consumers want is _some_, _any_ evidence that they take passenger safety seriously.

Pilots have to take less training to operate a proven deadly aircraft, with software patch on top, than I have to take to work in an office job... that's fucking insane.

How can we make Boeing feel some pain for this? You know, actually enough for them to start taking this seriously.

<comment><USER9> Nothing mind boggling. Boeing are trying desperately to avoid new type rating. That would leave them in the same business position where they were before developing MAX and with a bad image to boot.

Not saying they are right, but they just don't have many good moves.

Doing the Right thing leaves them years behind. It will also limit airline expansion. Airbus cannot pick up slack and there are no other players in the market.

It is a clusterfuck but like it or not 737 MAX is too big to fall(pun intended) .

<comment><USER10> Doing the Right Thing would put them _on schedule_.

This isn't some stupid race. This is making a machine that can safely be flown.

The market doesn't need a risk profile that drops plane loads out of the bloody sky Because a company pushed their people into hiding things from their customers.

I'm normally all for free market optimization when it makes sense, and all actors act in reasonably good faith concomitant with the magnitude of lives they are endangering. That didn't happen here, and the regulatory agency responsible for making it happen was powerless to do it's job to stop or raise a red flag on it either.

By no definition of sound risk assessment should this plane have flown without training. Period. Boeing failed its job at being a trustworthy corporate citizen in a high-impact infrastructural industrial vertical.

Honestly, I'm not sure how to get over this one. I don't believe some sort of fine and move on is really sufficient in terms of contrition. It won't bring those people back, and it seems a bit too "cost of doing business"-like to successfully act as a deterrent to future malfeasance.

Breaking up maybe? Clearly competition in the sector seems to have devolved into a duopoly to some degree.

<comment><USER9> Once again - is the strategy boeing doing rational for them? Yes. So it's not mind boggling. We can call it dishonest, showing disregard, careless, whatever... but the fact that boeing are trying desperately to save the type certifications is not somehow beyond grasp of the human mind.

<comment><USER10> Rationality, and specifically the exercise of it, rationalization, is a double edged sword. Smart people can rationalize their way into horrible things. An act being rational alone does not magically elevate it to the status of being correct, or as an . Like an argument, you can have valid reasoning, but if that reasoning is from a flawed premise, the course of action cannot be deemed to be _sound_.

The type certification _could_ have been a non-issue with proper communication. That didn't happen because someone at Boeing made a terrible call, and persists in asserting they've done nothing wrong, when the fact of the matter is that the error is so obvious in it's nature, that the rest of the world is capable of piecing the failure together even without having seen the actual data, which as it comes out, proves to only be reinforcing the case against Boeing.

Maybe it isn't enough to stand up in a court of law...yet. Everything that _has_ been publicized thus far, however, paints a picture where criminal negligence is looking more and more like a foregone conclusion.

In short, rationality be damned. Someone made the _irrational_ decision that the upside of getting to market sooner by cutting corners was worth risking 300+ innocent lives. People who put their faith in Boeing that they did their due diligence as required by law of executive and PE alike.

I agree with you ReptileMan. It isn't somehow beyond the human mind. Only a human being would put a financial windfall ahead of ensuring the safety of eventual passengers, have the decision blow up in their faces, then dig in and insist they did nothing wrong despite evidence to the contrary.

The corporation will be fine if they can manage to maintain goodwill. I don't envy those involved with approving the MAX however.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "It was the safest way to get around the regulations."

Manifestly not.

(And why are you trying to "get around the regulations" anyway? Shouldn't you be _complying_ with the regulations, not getting around them?)

<comment><USER12> Considering Boeing already participates or works in tandem with the FAA to write the rules, it is pretty sick they are trying to work around the rules. This is all about profit and they are doubling down, likely due to contract obligations with Southwest and others that this plane will not require a new type rating or any sim. time. Lets hope EASA actually reviews this rather than the FAA letting boeing self audit ...

<comment><USER13> My hopes for the EASA are low. They will fear retaliation on Airbus. I am afraid we will have to hope for the big Asian players.

<comment><USER7> I'd like to see the EASA ban 737max flights over Europe permanently, by requiring them to have a new type rating for the aircraft, which Boeing won't do. They should also criminally prosecute Boeing executives, in absentia if necessary, and seize Boeing assets in Europe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The more I read about Boeing's malfeasance here, the more certain I am that I will refuse to fly in the 737 MAX if and when it's ever recertified, unless the airframe is substantially redesigned and substantial retraining of pilots occurs. A software patch is not going to cut it for me to trust the aircraft going forward.

</comment><comment><USER15> Licensed nuclear plant control room operators go through 40 hours of training every 6 week. Generally 5 weeks of operations rotation then 1 week of training, all year, every year. Twenty hours of classroom and 20 hours of simulator training, the week includs a written and simulator exam. Failing either and the operator is taken off shift until his remediation training is complete and exams passed.

If pilots rotated into training time these changes could be addressed in simulators on a scheduled basis the airline could plan for.

<comment><USER16> A nuclear power plant failure, in the worst case, is much worse than the worst case pilot error.

<comment><USER17> Not if the plane lands on a nuclear power plant

<comment><USER18> Actually all western nuclear power plants are designed to withstand a 737 strike, as that was the largest plane flying when the regulations were written.

<comment><USER19> > Actually all western nuclear power plants are designed to withstand a 737 > strike, as that was the largest plane flying when the regulations were > written.

The 737 was a smaller complement for the 707 and 727 when introduced, it was never the largest plane flying.

<comment><USER18> Thank you, I believe that you are correct.

In any case, the 1960's foreign body impact regulation has not been updated so far as I know, and at the time it was designed for the largest civilian passenger aircraft then flying. The 737 fits in, the 747 (introduced only two years later if I'm not mistaken) does not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Even if this is right from technical point of view (which I am not qualified to comment on), Boeing being perceived as dragging their feet on safety and training is very bad for the image of the airplane.

I think that they are still trying to save the type rating, but I feel this ship has sailed.

</comment><comment><USER20> Is there anyone who would willingly get on one of these planes, regardless of software patches and extra training, when we know they have a compromised airframe, whose design prioritized cost over safety?

<comment><USER21> I would get on and/or put my family on a -MAX flown by a US or major European carrier, where the crew training and experience requirements match my sensibilities of what should be required for airline transport operations.

That trip would no doubt be statistically safer than the flying we _already_ do in single engine piston aircraft (itself an operation that prioritizes cost over the safety of flying a twin turboprop or twin jet that we can't afford to own and feed).

<comment><USER7> >That trip would no doubt be statistically safer than the flying we already do in single engine piston aircraft

Maybe, but it'd be statistically less safe than flying on a different model of aircraft, such as one from Airbus.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Do the non-American regulatory bodies have the power to effectively override anything the FAA decides is okay by simply saying, "these X remedies are also mandatory or the 737 MAX is banned from Canadian/EU/Chinese/etc. Airspace"?

I imagine that effectively cripples the value of using the plane without those remedies.

<comment><USER23> Each country sets its own rules for their airspace, so they can do whatever they want. But most have historically deferred to the FAA, but then also Boeing and airlines, and all the regulatory bodies work with ICAO to try and be on the same page as much as possible.

There may in fact be some obscure treaties and trade deals, among ICAO complexities, that complicate sovereignty on this issue.

<comment><USER24> I think one of the long term implications of this message is that the European aviation authorities will defer less to the FAA and another bit of US 'soft' power is eroded.

Seems to be a trend these days.

<comment><USER7> The US has really been shooting itself in the foot for a couple years now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> mark-r How is it that Boeing doesn't realize how f'ed up they are at this point? They need to bend over backwards to restore trust in this plane or they'll be bending over for a different reason.

<comment><USER7> They don't _believe_ they're f'ed up because they have effective control of the American government and FAA in regards to this issue. The only way this is really going to hurt them is if foreign air regulators don't go along with the FAA in rubber-stamping whatever lame fix Boeing comes up with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> What they should do, is give some pilots their training course they propose, then simulate the issue on a simulator. Prove they response appropriately with the training proposed.

</comment><comment><USER26> > _Boeing was able to gain FAA approval for the MCAS system with one angle of > attack sensor and pilots as backup._

Over the years I've designed/ implemented small scale industrial systems and whenever there was an _important_ set of data to be read in via sensors, there'd always be a backup, or ideally triple redundancy. Sensors are cheap & using multiple can simplify a whole lot of issues.

Even once, I made an uber simple 'level' sensor on a front end loader (using two slightly rotated Mercury switches). It's only time I didn't consider redundancy, because it was not important _at all_ if it failed.

What I don't get is how the engineers at Boeing didn't use redundant sensors. Have I misunderstood something? I just assumed that working on aircraft means that something like sensor failure should be baked into all decisions and implementations because of the -ve ramifications of things going wrong: like 2 planes dropping out of the sky!

</comment><comment><USER27> They really should limit the amount of special circumstances a pilot needs to train for. Each new one adds to a risk esp one like this

<comment><USER28> Isn't that what they were trying to do? Reasoning that the MCAS failure mode was runaway trim and the fact that pilots are trained for runaway trim? (Obviously in reality this reasoning is flawed)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> you won't be seeing me on one of them until it gets a new type rating

<comment><USER29> I imagine it would still be more dangerous to drive to the airport than it would be to fly on a 737 Max.

<comment><USER30> Note sure about that. Only around 350 737 Max 8's had been delivered by the time of the second crash.

How many models of car have a 1 in 175 total loss rate?

<comment><USER31> Why muddy the waters by comparing apples (airplanes) to oranges (cars)? The loss rate of other aircraft models is what's relevant.

<comment><USER29> I don't think it's the loss rate of 737 Max vs other models that is what's relevant either. I said safety of driving to an airport vs flying in a 737 Max. We have to get total number of passenger hours/miles for both methods of transportation and compare those with deaths. I'm not sure if those numbers specifically for the 737 Max are available.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to never be surprised by your AWS bill again - <AUTHOR> https://blog.zenmetrics.io/never-worry-aws-cost <comment><USER2> This is an ad for ZenMetrics, which isn't available yet, so I'll throw my company's hat in the ring as well. Amongst other things, Cloudability [1] does cost monitoring and reporting, proactive budget alerting, advanced rightsizing and reserved instance recommendation, and anomaly detection and alerting. It works across AWS, Azure and GCP, and it's available right now from the AWS marketplace.

There are also other tools that do this sort of thing. Stax.io has their Spotlight tool, Cloud Conformity does some as well, and Microsoft still maintains Cloudyn as Azure Cost Management.

[1] [https://www.cloudability.com](https://www.cloudability.com)

<comment><USER3> I wouldn't use your startup or any others in the space. I have a problem with AWS spend, but there is no transparent pricing on your website. Also I have to speak to a sales person, these two things are an instant no for any sass product

<comment><USER2> Cloudability's pricing is publicly available on the AWS Marketplace [1]. In general, we encourage people to work with our sales teams so we can work to fit our commercials to your requirements, but if you're happy to go with the standard terms and pricing, we're happy to supply product without talking you through it. [2]

Often though, teams will want help evaluating us against our competition, or will want us to help them convince their management that our tool is needed. Most frequently, your lawyer is going to want to work with our lawyer, and the sales team has to make that happen. The _last_ thing we want to happen is for you to not buy our product because someone on the business side said no, or for a reason that could have been negotiated. That's not good for anyone.

[1] [https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/B075PYPH14](https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/B075PYPH14)

[2] Disclaimer: I'm on the sales team. I _love_ when this happens.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Try "cost explorer". This is AWS's official interface/api for navigating your spend. It lets you view the amortized cost of reserved instances over their term. The best part is that the numbers always add up. We used to use a third party service to analyze our AWS usage but we could never match up their numbers to anything - completely finger in the wind. Cost Explorer also gives recommendations for instance usage but we mostly ignore it because the stuff it suggests, while completely accurate, doesn't match business need to be able to absorb spikes in usage.

<comment><USER5> I've used coat explorer but the fundamental problem here is they it's a conflict of interest. Who in their right mind would trust Amazon to tell you how to save money on your AWS bill?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Just choose a provider with hard capping capability (if you really have to use variable billing as it's the case with many - but not all - "cloud" providers).

</comment><comment><USER7> I once made a shim that would revoke a core permission of our system and halt some 80% of AWS usage if the spend went above a threshold.

</comment><comment><USER8> Simple : leave AWS</comment>


Deconstructing ~K&R C~ - <AUTHOR> http://c.learncodethehardway.org/book/learn-c-the-hard-waych55.html#x61-25200055

<comment><USER2> I didn't grow up with K&R, so I'd be very interested to hear reactions from the crowd here who did.

<comment><USER3> Just wait for 55.2.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So... K&R is wrong because if people misuse its fragments copy-and-paste style they could be dangerous.

OK. Fair enough. But tell me... why are such people coding in C now?

<comment><USER5> >why are such people coding in C now?

Everyone who learns C starts somewhere, and its not like people don't have to learn C anymore.

<comment><USER4> My point is that mindless copy-and-paste should be limited to when you're learning your first language. C is not a very good first language and at this point I doubt it's a very common one.

<comment><USER5> _C is not a very good first language and at this point I doubt it's a very common one._

There are many people for whom C is a first language, especially those in electrical or mechanical disciplines whose introduction to programming involves microcontrollers. The number of people learning C not as a first language but still early on in their education is non-trivial too. Even people who have been programming a while will have some trouble with the concepts of pointers and null terminated strings which they likely haven't encountered before C and they do resort back to grabbing code.

Even when someone is past the point of copy and paste, they expect learning materials to be examples of the 'right' way to do something in an environment that is new to them. I've been programming for ages and am learning erlang right now, to a large extent I rely on the learning materiel I'm using to show me the time-tested solution to problems that have been solved over and over again for that language. Not because I couldn't do it my way, but because I'm building in a new environment where I don't know all the ropes and expect learning material to guide me. After all, thats what its for.

Lets look at this from the other side. Lets say someone has been programming C for decades, but has never used a SQL RDBMS. Now he's learning PHP to make himself a website. Is it fine for php guides to rely on his experience as a programmer and just use some shitty hacked together SQL escaper, or should the guides use the baked-in sanitation utility is?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Music is my inspiration while working. Where do you discover yours? - <AUTHOR>

What sites/methods you use to discover new music?<p>Strangely enough, I find the bestseller list on Amazon quite useful for myself. :) <comment><USER2> I'm generally a big fan of film scores so whenever Hans Zimmer does something new I'm always excited to hear it. Otherwise new and relatively unknown artists are normally featured in TV shows which is another good way to find decent music. In the extremely early days of Pandora when it was available outside the US, I found that to be a fantastic way to discover new stuff.

</comment><comment><USER3> Spotify radio generally gives me sufficient variety - however I must admit I don't tend to find that much "new music", but I'm ok with that.</comment>


Show HN: My weekend project, conversation starters via SMS - <AUTHOR> http://breaktheicefor.me/

<comment><AUTHOR> I wrote a post about building the app: [http://www.aaronlerch.com/blog/2012/08/09/building- breakthei...](http://www.aaronlerch.com/blog/2012/08/09/building- breaktheicefor-me/)

</comment><comment><USER2> would be great to see some sample icebreakers

<comment><AUTHOR> You mean on the site? I do need to update the homepage a bit more. You can send in as many texts as you want to see random responses. :)</comment></comment>


Show HN: BackendLab – Code-free web app builder - <AUTHOR> Hi all,
I'm currently validating an idea for a new BaaS solution which will allow you to build and host a web app backend without writing a single line of code.
The app is called BackendLab and the landing page is here: https://www.backendlab.app/
The idea is that it allows you to define your database models by specifying what fields to include and BackendLab automatically creates a CRUD API which you can start using straight away.
We've just launched the public beta and are looking for early adopters (free of charge, just looking for some feedback on the tool)
Looking forward to hearing your feedback!
Thanks,
Chris <comment><USER2> Why only backend? You are competing with other solutions out there that have a frontend available directly from db schema. Some examples: [https://www.salesforce.com/products/platform/overview/](https://www.salesforce.com/products/platform/overview/) [https://github.com/sferik/rails_admin](https://github.com/sferik/rails_admin)

I am not totally clear who your target customers are. I think backend alone will be a barrier for a non-technical person. For a developer, as said by others, CRUD/authentication usually isn't the most time consuming part.

With that said, congrats on shipping! I know this is a work in progress. I think your landing page needs more work/content too. Good luck!

<comment><USER3> There is a patent troll who owns creating a frontend from a database. He's successfully sued Microsoft and Oracle and put a code generation product out if business. So I'd tread carefully there.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting, thanks for the heads up. But is this likely to be an issue for a UK-based startup? I understand its a bigger problem in the US

<comment><USER3> Probably not if you're UK based.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hay Chris,

Looking like a great project, simple and fun.

Keep in mind that other similar projects tried the same approach before, namely firebase and parse.com. both for only so much traction because at the end, real world applications need more features - business logic, backend that uses other APIs, etc.

Still, looks like a fun project

<comment><USER5> I tend to agree - great prototype, but most coders whip out basic CRUD code quickly, and their time is really spent on all the additional features of an app. Often, changing the basic CRUD code in the process.

This could work fine as a rapid prototyping tool, but from a feature parity perspective, it looks like you end up with something equivalent to a Salesforce app or Sharepoint list (also non-code CRUD solutions), without the stigma and cost of enterprise platforms, but also without the integration with everything else you may do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hi Chris,

I think a product like this deserves to have a great design. I worked on the color scheme, copy, and spacing for you and came up with this: [https://imgur.com/a/UUoEij5](https://imgur.com/a/UUoEij5)

The I replaced the hero image with is: [https://unsplash.com/photos/trYl7JYATH0](https://unsplash.com/photos/trYl7JYATH0)

Good luck with your project! I'm not in the market for your product right now, but if I am some day, I'll definitely test this out!

Cheers, David

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks David, this is interesting. I like that hero image, but not sure if the overall design might be a bit too dark.

Kind of interested to hear how anybody else in this thread rates David's version over mine?

<comment><USER7> For me, parent's design definitely feels more premium than the original, which to me seems a bit amateurish.

Here are my observations:

* Layout is too wide. Parent has made it more narrow which feels more natural to me.

* Form inputs are too wide. Same thing as above.

* Weird color palette. I like parent's color simplicity. Notice how he has used different shades of the same color.

* Too random images. IMO the images used for the hero and pricing sections don't make any connection with the product. Parent has left out these images and it is much nicer.

Takeaway, prefer simplicity if you're not good at design.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> >The idea is that it allows you to define your database models by specifying what fields to include and BackendLab automatically creates a CRUD API

I don't see the advantage over Firebase FireRules , AWS AppSync , Azure Cosmos or MongoDB Stich all of which have advanced querying options with great SDK and integrations support.

This idea is not bad , it's just it doesn't seem to bring much compared to others on the market already offering BaaS...

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, thanks for the feedback. I think the main difference between the products you mention and BackendLab is that BackendLab will soon offer the ability to export your code (this isnt yet mentioned on the landing page). So you can build your prototype, export it then build it out. The export would initially be done as a Django project, as that's how the BackendLab api is built

<comment><USER9> This sounds great. I decided to try it out after reading about this export feature.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Im considering signing up and trying out your service. What is holding me back are all questions I was hoping to have answered on your website. The main questions I have are important implementation details that I think customers a going to care about. What language, framework, dependencies, are handling requests? What is the performance like? How do I scale?

<comment><USER10> Also, slow down if youre shipping typos on your landing page: revolutonizes

<comment><USER11> On the other hand, as the saying goes, if you are not embarrassed by your first version, you waited too long to ship. ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly :) I'm aware that there's a long way to go yet, but ultimately its still just a beta

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> We have a similar concept but with frontend and permission as well. The backend is automatically created based on what is defined in the frontend. Makes it more of a business tool than a developer tool. For developers, we have CRUD APIs. APIs make it useful to collect data from different hardware devices.

Here is the link if you want to explore: [https://www.clappia.com](https://www.clappia.com)

</comment><comment><USER13> Some examples on the website would be helpful to understand the experience. How do I interact with the tool, what does the output look like, how do I use the back end?

</comment><comment><USER14> On a similar note, what would be a good option for building front-ends without much coding? Maybe something that could export a React project, for quick prototyping.

<comment><USER15> What would this look like? I understand that there is a specific pattern repeated over and over again with models authentication users and CRUD for a simple backend but even a simple front end seems much harder to implement in a generic way. Maybe some form of templating?

<comment><USER16> I would think something like Rails scaffolds, only it generates React code. Heck, you could probably extend Rails scaffolds (or other frameworks that provide similar utility) to accomplish this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I like the look of this. A couple of questions I can't see answers to on the landing page... \- Is it possible to change the schema after creation? Or is this a "get it right first time" deal? \- Is validation strictly not- null/range-check? Or can you add more complex validation rules?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, thanks for looking. You can edit your data models at any time - fields can be added/removed/renamed as necessary. There is some validation already - string stra fields must be strings, number fields must be numbers, etc and you can make fields as required (meaning that it a value must be supplied), unique (meaning that two instances can't have the same value for a particular field) and also set default values. Additionally, foreign key and many to many fields are validated to ensure the related objects actually exist.

I'll also be adding additional validation (e.g. regex, max/min numbers) in the very near future

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Small note:

[http://www.backendlab.app](http://www.backendlab.app) fails to load. [https://backendlab.app](https://backendlab.app) gives a security error

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, but I'm not seeing the first issue - it automatically redirects me to https. What browser are you using?

<comment><USER18> Saw it on Firefox on Fedora. Today at work it works with Chrome on MacOS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Looks like a very interesting alternative to Knack ([https://knack.com](https://knack.com)), but without the frontend building aspect.

</comment><comment><USER18> One question I have with a project like this is: suppose I used it, and got traction. What is the story if I then realize that I need to migrate to a more traditional architecture?

<comment><USER15> Take the code they give you and change it?

<comment><USER18> I think that's the ideal story: the system generates an intermediate representation that can be interpreted or compiled to a programming language. There are bindings to common languages/runtimes, and you can take your system and leave at any point.

In practice, lock-in seems like a real issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> If maybe you could allow few lines of code execution that can work for many devs, then they could recommend it to beginners after community emerges :/

<comment><AUTHOR> Eventually I'll be adding the ability to add your own endpoints to the auto generate ones, which would initially give you the ability to implement various additional functions, e.g. sending emails, integrations with other services, etc. This could very easily be expanded to allow users to call functions they have written themselves. However, I've been holding off on this one as BackendLab is primarily a no-code solution. If enough people are keen, I will implement it

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> this is awesome. looking forward to a couple years a of fun and easy prototyping before this inevitably gets bought and shut down by some giant

</comment><comment><USER22> I reviewed the site. Really nice work. You can sell additional features like the live monitoring tool. Heroku add-ons style. Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER23> This is a pretty great idea! I've always wondered where "MS Access for the web" is, ie RAD DB development.

</comment><comment><USER24> add roles in addition to groups.

these are different logical segmentations that are nearly always conflated together in most "quick crud" systems, and never map to reality on things much more complex than "todo list" API stuff. Or, perhaps more specifically, in anything that might end up being considered a 'line of business' app.

</comment><comment><USER25> There's no email verification, I have been able to register using firstname.lastname@example.com. Feel free to delete this account.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah i know, its on my to do list...

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Hi Chris,

Great Idea I guess some work needs to be done regarding building a frontend for your idea

Best, Victor

</comment><comment><USER27> > Stop writing code. Start deploying apps

I find this is close to sarcasm.

<comment><USER28> Trying to remove code from creating apps seems like an oxymoron to me too. Eventually you need constructs which code can efficiently provide.

        if, for, while...

<comment><USER12> Sir, please try our product Clappia (www.clappia.com). You are right that you need IF, ELSE etc. You can use the formula syntax of Excel sheet and you can still manage without learning any new coding script. That's what we do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Hey Chris,

Congratulation for launching your beta!

This seems quite similar to what we do here: [https://cloudbackend.appdrag.com/](https://cloudbackend.appdrag.com/)

But it's look like your auto generated API support only CRUD operations, this can be very limited even for common use cases like: "Create a new order" make some business validations, store in the db, generate a pdf, send an email ...

Disclaimer: I'm the CTO of AppDrag</comment>


Making $0 in Sales in 31 Days - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@florianlaurent/making-0-in-sales-in-31-days-433b1622d0d1 <comment><AUTHOR> I am working on a long-term project (an app for collaborative voice translation). Since I will be running out of funding for this project by the end of the month I tried spinning up an "easier" side business: selling websites to veterinary clinics.

The idea is that I know well about webdev, and my gf is a vet, so together we could provide a good quality service to vets.

Turned out, there was nothing "easy" about that!

We discovered about the danger of trying to sell what you are able to build instead of what people wants. We discovered the pains of cold calling.

It was a quite formative experience so I did a quick write up yesterday.

Feedback is very welcome since we still intend to keep pushing a bit in that direction before we give up!

<comment><USER2> You need to sell the sizzle not the steak. Nobody needs a website. some business need new business. some need ways for existing customers to more easily schedule appointments, etc...

Also, the more risk you can absorb the better. don't sell websites sell appointments. or take a commission.

<comment><USER3> > don't sell websites sell appointments. or take a commission.

But like the article says, they are often already overbooked.

I think you can make a case if your software can replace the assistant who picks up the phone. But that's probably going to be extremely difficult.

<comment><USER4> Once you get down to one assistant (or a handful), it is not about replacing employees. It is about helping them help customers by reducing paperwork/overheads.

For example: Maybe the vet is 100% booked, but cancellations mean they are idle 10% of the time, or maybe waiting room wait times are above average / bursty due to poor predictions of how long each appointment will take.

<comment><USER3> But cancellations can be handled by the assistant by a single penstroke in the appointment book.

<comment><USER5> Replacing that appointment on extremely short notice could be assisted by software.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _We have to use pen and paper for everything._

The doctor probably is saving himself a lot of headaches. I work with programming for many years, but computers are not made for regular people. This is a myth. Many times I have to save my wife about something strange happening in her computer, a WiFi printer not connecting, some virus suck in and showing popups, screen freezing, internet is not connecting, and this goes on and on, almost every day. Man I hate Windows. At least when I solve the problem I can come back to my solid Ubuntu. Wait, one update arrived. Oh god now my keyboard is not working anymore. I hate computing.

<comment><USER7> [https://www.stilldrinking.org/programming- sucks](https://www.stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks)

 _The only reason coders ' computers work better than non-coders' computers is coders know computers are schizophrenic little children with auto-immune diseases and we don't beat them when they're bad._

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Yeah but there's lots of cat owners who want to read about cats and (speculating) cat health diet and behavior and maybe show cat photos and talk cat.

Build a website for them and do the cold calls to cat food suppliers to sell ads.

Or sell websites to cat owners for their cat - every cat needs a website.

Or make "hot or not" for cats.

Or combine all these into one site.

The internet was mostly made for porn and cats so you should be able to get the cat thing to work.

<comment><USER6> Come on, internet is not made for cats.

<comment><USER9> True! The internet is made of cats[0].

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi8VTeDHjcM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi8VTeDHjcM)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> j-c-hewitt There are a good number of specialized SEO and marketing firms that just focus on vets, dentists, or other broad medical specialties like dermatologists.

One thing you may not realize is that many small businesses -- vets included -- get spam (charitably called 'outreach') emails from agencies from all over the world on a nearly daily basis. Because of this, most cold calls and cold emails will be met with an even colder reception.

100 people is also a tiny list to cold call. I am not really sure that this was the right strategy for you to get clients. Selling marketing services to medical professionals is also harder than it is for many other kinds of businesses because getting more customers is not their biggest problem: it's often something else that a digital marketing company cannot fix for them as you noted in your article.

For a portfolio, you should just have a mockup website that you can use to swap out their information quickly to show them what you can do. It's also not clear to me that most vets really need a custom website. They would probably be better served by a Wix/Wordpress/Squarespace setup that has cheap customer service and would just need help for content, design, and some customization.

To sum up, you will get more projects much faster if:

* You respond to RFPs or job postings instead of cold calling * You build a portfolio or mock portfolio that you can show to vets * You focus your sales pitch on the anticipated results that the vets are going to have rather than just giving them a new website which they might not need all that much * You look at cheaper off the shelf solutions to provide to buyers who aren't ready to get into custom web development project

Finally, it's much easier to sell to people who already want what you are selling.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for all these good ideas.

> One thing you may not realize is that many small businesses -- vets included > -- get spam (charitably called 'outreach') emails from agencies from all > over the world on a nearly daily basis. Because of this, most cold calls and > cold emails will be met with an even colder reception.

Indeed, multiple clinics told me they are getting up to 3 calls per week regarding such offers.

> 100 people is also a tiny list to cold call. I am not really sure that this > was the right strategy for you to get clients.

Do you mean there would be a better strategy to approach clients when they are so few? Should we try approaching them in person (ie just show up at the clinic)?

> They would probably be better served by a Wix/Wordpress/Squarespace setup > that has cheap customer service and would just need help for content, > design, and some customization.

The big plus we can provide is that by having a vet onboard (my gf) we can write out the content for them. So they can tell us "we have a behaviorist and we provide this and that service" and from that we can explain and illustrate what this means, with no additional work on their side.

I fully agree about the mock portfolio and focusing on results, we'll definitely do that.

<comment> j-c-hewitt For people who rely on cold outreach, you'd expect something like maybe a 1% response rate, and only a portion of those would close. So if you want to stick with cold outreach, you should be contacting lists of 1,000 or more people.

If you can offer to show up in person, it can improve your close rate, but I would not go door to door for the initial contact.

FWIW I don't think 100% cold outreach is going to be an efficient use of your time at this point. Responding to job ads or going on Upwork to send in proposals will be more efficient if you just want projects or things to put in your portfolio.

>The big plus we can provide is that by having a vet onboard (my gf) we can write out the content for them. So they can tell us "we have a behaviorist and we provide this and that service" and from that we can explain and illustrate what this means, with no additional work on their side.

The other thing to think about might be how you can provide value to their existing patients and get them to come in more often for appointments and to get highly profitable treatments like flea/tick stuff, fungus creams, and regular shots. It's not just new customers but getting more from their existing customers with less administrative overhead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think you should have driven out to them, rather than trying todo everything "efficiently": waiting for emails, calling on the phone. If there were 100 veterinarians in a 200km radius, you could have visited them all.

Yes, it would have been hard work. But that's kind of the reason why nobody else has done it. Easy money is a lottery game. You want success on your schedule you have to pound pavement and do the hard work that other people are too lazy to do.

The value of talking to people in person is that you learn significantly more about their problems and what they want. You can see whether or not they are lying about their interest in the product. You can see their environment and infer new information. It's also a lot harder for people to say no to your face, or to stop a conversation in person. So you're likely to just plain have a longer conversation, which _usually_ means you're getting more information.

Case in point: my wife writes sci-fi novels. We sell them on Amazon, and they do okay there. But we do significantly better at book fairs. At a book fair, if you see a nerdy girl wearing a Dr. Who t-shirt carrying a tote bag that is already half-full of books, you've got a pretty good idea that she'd probably be interested in your time-travel book about a strong female character _and_ you can be pretty sure she's willing to buy. All without any tracking cookies. All without any alignment analysis algorithms. No freely handing over monetizable data to Facebook, et al.

Being in the Amazon bookstore, you have to compete against literally millions of books. At the book fair, it's probably less than 100. You can't catch people's attention as they go by online, but you can call out to people at the fair. And you can't be sure the people you're contacting online are even in the market--they likely are not. But people go to book fairs because they specifically want to browse and buy something new and unique.

Physically put yourself in the places where people are willing to take chances on new products.

</comment><comment><USER11> A bog-standard strategy for bootstrapping a new business is to take on your FIRST client for FREE (or nearly so). Pick a business nearby that you like - perhaps your OWN local vet? - and talk to them _in person_ to see if they'd be willing to allow you to make them a website. Make it clear that you're doing this for two reasons:

(1) to better learn the business - you expect the experience of building _their_ site will help you learn how to meet market needs.

(2) To build a portfolio - you want to have some real sites done and in-use to help sell to other customers later.

Do both of those things. Focus on making ONE key customer happy, learn whatever you can about their needs, and only THEN do you try to sell the same service to other customers.

</comment><comment><USER12> Consider a simple online booking system, backed with google calendar or speaks ical. Importantly, something that lets their customers pick a time slot, send reminders, etc.

A number of healthcare providers locally do something similar; benefit to the vet is lower admin costs (answering phone etc), potential of online payment to secure the consult, and easy ways to reach their customers for follow up (vaccination reminders for example could be triggered by adding people into a mailing list package, email details gained at time of original booking).

Those are harder to build, but offer clear value and ongoing revenue ($1/booking fee x 5 vets x a year starts to make it look attractive!)

<comment><AUTHOR> But then there are two options:

\- We have to integrate with the system they are currently using. This is a lot of work that may not be reusable for other vets, if they don't use the same system.

\- OR We have to change the system they are using day to day, which I expect means fighting some strong inertia

Both are doable but will require a _lot_ of mental bandwidth, which makes me uncomfortable for a side project.

<comment><USER12> Thus the 'spits out ical' \- if you can offer them calendars on phones, outlook, etc that's a compelling use case; and the is a chance the existing system can consume it

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Classic example of starting with a solution and looking for a problem.

Consider going to another set of potential customers with no product at all and just interview them. It's much easier to get their time if you're not selling them something.

Ask what their business problems are. These could range from annoyances to serious revenue issues. Ask them how much it would be worth to make the problem go away.

Once you've gathered this information from several potential customers, find commonality and figure out a solution.

Then, without building the solution, pitch it back to them and ask for them to sign up. If enough say yes, then you have something worth building.

Consider getting the book Four Steps to the Epiphany.

</comment><comment><USER14> Interesting article. I have a similar business (websites for physicians). I was very lucky to get some introductions and leads through my personal network (being a med student myself, my parents having a lot of physician friends).

A thing a was quite successful with, was redesigning existing old websites. More building a new website than just redesigning. But most of the clients I worked with had already a website that was just ugly or outdated or both. That made sure that they at least see some value in being found on google

<comment><AUTHOR> > A thing a was quite successful with, was redesigning existing old websites

Ah, that's an interesting idea. For each vet in the area we checked if they had a website or not, so you can imagine we saw a _lot_ of such website. And indeed a lot of them are terrible. Reaching out to them could work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> > They want to see a portfolio. It's tough to get off the ground because of > the chicken and egg problem. Vets who were showing some interest always > wanted us to "provide some references": the problem is that no one wants to > be your first client.

So why not give one away for free ? In exchange for a good reference (if they are happy).

</comment><comment><USER16> Okay it is quite unlucky that you chose that particular segment. Becoming a vet is very expensive, the setups are very, very expensive and the margins are very tight. Most vets accumulate into vet practices and would be better off financially stacking shelves at Walmart so if I were looking for rich clients these aren't the clients you were looking for - you may well have lots of pictures of cats but maybe some other segment might be more open to you. Even a charity for cats might pay better than a vets. How about pivoting into pet boarding? Plenty of scope for fun there and quite lucrative?

</comment><comment><USER17> It's good to see that he analyzed the problems to see why his client base wasn't interested. The reasons had nothing to do with him, which is good data to have.

The veterinarians I've seen are booked from dawn to dusk, so "too many clients" is their issue. Why advertise when you are already booked solid.

Those retiring and those who want no tech are also valid complaints and little can be done about either.

He focuses on the fourth reason he can do something about, they want to see a portfolio of their sites done for other vets. That is a reasonable move.

<comment><USER11> > The veterinarians I've seen are booked from dawn to dusk, so "too many > clients" is their issue. Why advertise when you are already booked solid.

Websites aren't just advertising, though. They can also _reduce_ support costs by providing info effectively. If people can reliably get lots of relevant info from your website (hours, directions, prices, policies) that should reduce the workload on the secretary/admin. People who can't easily find what they need online have to call and talk to someone about it, which means your phones are busy, which makes it harder to deal effectively with incoming customers.

(that said, I suppose it's conceivable yelp/google maps/whatever is already adequately providing the low-hanging fruit)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I am in a weird situation with a few friends that we made an appointment scheduling application for a client who tried several others and found nothing they liked and kept reverting to using google calendar. Now we built them this perfect app that they love, but we can't seem to sell it to anyone else. It's looking more and more like we spent six months developing an app for essentially one client (technically we have three, one client has two shops, and one employee that left started his own and uses it).

<comment><USER19> I've had the same issue. I built a web based cash register / stock tracking app for a customer a few years ago with the belief that there were hundreds of business operating in her niche in a small, easily accessible area.

She loves it - but nobody else has the time of day for it. Learned a hard lesson about market validation there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The problem here is that you're trying to sell a website that vet clients will generally only look up when their pets are sick, and probably not in the right frame of mind to appreciate your web design skills. The idea has inherently unpleasant connotations right from the start.

You'd get a lot farther if you found a novel set of pet toys, or premium food, or something that the average pet owner would enjoy spending money on. Vets stock those things, people buy them, I'm sure you get the gist of the idea.

</comment><comment><USER21> You picked the wrong niche. Accept it and move on to something else.

</comment><comment><USER22> The key to success is to follow-up on cold calls. The first call is to establish the relationship and let them know who you are as well as you learning more about them. Figure out how you can help them (potentially for free) to build that trust. It's our human nature to be skeptical about being approached and we immediately go into self-defense mode.

</comment><comment><USER23> One option instead of making them a website (which they probably don't care about) is selling them leads (which they probably do).

Instead of them saying they don't like technology, you just say that you'll send them leads for $x per go.

You then build the sites and bill them for each contact that goes through (or phone call - bit more work).

<comment><USER24> This is a very smart way to do things in certain industries. This scales fairly well with local businesses because what you did for one homebuilder in Topeka, you can do for another homebuilder in Billings and not run into too many conflicts of interest.

The vet space is a bit different though. Vets are often times well-booked but would like to see more revenue per booking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Cold calling might not work for the first few customers. Instead, you should find friends or friends of friends to sell to at first, because even if you have the best pitch, and they would use the product, it might be that they're very overworked and they don't have time to speak to you.

</comment><comment><USER26> hello Master,

one issue with pitch is that, for doctors who are not versed with web technology, your offer is more of a paid liability, than a solution.

who would maintain the website, when you have sold them?

the vets, probably neither have the time nor the inclination to maintain it, and so far they have been doing without it.

Why dont you offer them, website and with just a marginal yearly cost, free maintenance also, with which they can always keep their website updated, by just sending you text and photographs by email?

this is like a complete peace of mind offer.

in fact, you can make it one offer, website with free maintenance (hosting, domain, updating content etc) at a flat yearly free.

You have a SAAS product in offering now...

</comment><comment><USER27> If you're making vet appointment software, please considering pivoting to the petcare appointment business. Our dog walking company uses an absolutely craptacular app called Leashtime, and any replacement would be welcomed.

</comment><comment><USER28> I agree with TFA on the "making yourself sound bigger than life" thing. I always think I sound ridiculous when I do that so I prefer to focus on what I know.

Not that I've had much succeed either, though.

</comment><comment><USER29> Vets are like doctors that don't make any money. Most vets in the US just don't have the marketing budget for this kind of thing. There are better niches out there.</comment>


PyFilesystem 0.3 released - <AUTHOR> http://www.willmcgugan.com/blog/tech/2010/6/20/pyfilesystem-03-released/ <comment><USER2> If this works on Windows, I'm hooked.

How come I didn't read anything about PyFilesystem earlier? It is perfect for both quick and dirty tools and complex applications.

EDIT: Ok, I just reached the part of the video where you mount a directory, a virtual folder and the contents of a zip file under the same "mount_fs" object as if it was a folder. This is officially awesome.

<comment><USER3> Works on Windows. :-)

<comment><USER4> I am assuming that exposing a filesystem to the native filesystem via fs.expose.fuse is not going to work in Windows, though?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This makes it super easy to mock filesystem access when testing your code. It's worth using it for that reason alone.

</comment><comment><USER2> I have some questions, but I thought it would be better suited to a new post:

\- how does this library handles accents and other strange characters?

\- how much of it is multiplatform?

\- can it handle files in the internet (aside from the S3 that I've seen it does)?

\- hows the exception handling/reliability?

<comment><USER3> \- how does this library handles accents and other strange characters?

Should be unicode throughout.

\- how much of it is multiplatform?

All of it, with the exception perhaps of the fuse support, which requires support on the platform.

\- can it handle files in the internet (aside from the S3 that I've seen it does)?

There's an ftp filesystem, and a XMLRPC server/client filesystem

\- hows the exception handling/reliability?

Care is taken so that the filesystem implementations only throw exceptions derived from FSError. Generally you can also retrieve the original exception from the FSError instance...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> For those using jvm languages (Jython anyone?), Apache commons VFS provides similar capabilities.

<http://commons.apache.org/vfs/></comment>


Show HN: Tightrope, a color-based news stream - <AUTHOR> http://tightro.pe/

<comment> k-mcgrady I think this would organise different topics into categories and make those categories obvious through the use of colour. Nope. It just takes the image associated with the story and sets the background of the table row to an appropriate colour (the same way the new iTunes works in Album view). It's good that you've built this and are trying new things but the title makes it sounds much different to what is actually is.

<comment><USER2> This is what I expected, to be able to determine what type of news I would be reading based on the highlighting color. I was a bit disappointed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Cool idea, and I think it has potential. I like the minimalism, but the colors (it's picking via algorithm, right?) are a little too much. Personally, I would use it if the colors had organization: Politics is this shade of blue, Sports is this beautiful red, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback!

We're actually using the colors from each individual image:

\- The most dominant color is the background

\- The color that contrasts most with the background is the text color

\- The second most contrasting color is the title color

We really like the way it pops!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Cool and useless. BTW it is not 'color-based', you're not basing anything on colors.

Pretty sad that you didn't create an algorithm for the images and simply using Embedly data, which I have to say it's a smart move anyway ;)

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm sorry to say that, but a bunch of potentially clashing large color blocks on a page does not give you an "aesthetic edge".

</comment><comment><USER6> Just want to point out that the back button doesn't work on your site. This is intensely annoying :).

Edit: By which I mean: clicking your link, then clicking the back button just takes me back to your page again.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not by design, what browser are you in? thx for checking it out.

<comment><USER6> Firefox on Ubuntu.

<comment><AUTHOR> we're fixing this now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So is using the iTunes coloring algorithm enough to entice me away from Google News or Yahoo News or cnn.com or bbc.co.uk or whatever else I might use to get my generic current events updates?

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right, a coloring algorithm certainly wouldn't be enough. Tightrope has a method to score and select media for 'Yesterday' and 'Trending'. 'Yesterday' gives a summary of the past day of media, while 'Trending' gives the bursts of media. You can read more on it here: [http://blog.tightro.pe/post/40632430244/introducing-the- simp...](http://blog.tightro.pe/post/40632430244/introducing-the-simplest-and- most-relevant-daily-news)

<comment><USER7> OK but Google and Yahoo's news sites do something similar, at least as far as I can tell (and I'm a pretty technical dude - most users won't even understand that much). Again, what's going to entice me _away_ from them?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So, I was about Tito question your news sources when I saw "chip Kelly to the eagles" on the front page. Then I checked and... it's true. Well done.

</comment><comment><USER9> If there is a ' in the headline you are showing it escaped:

\' should be '

</comment><comment><USER10> I couldn't even use it on my phone, I think the viewport meta set to device- width makes it load zoomed in and the interaction with the content makes it impossible to zoom out.

</comment><comment><USER11> The page loads blank right now in Chromium under Meego linux on a 11" screen

</comment><comment><USER12> Love love love it. I'm addicted.

However the colors are distracting. The layout, in-page loading, big thumbnails, infinite scroll, is 100% wonderful. But by making the heading titles all different colors and background of the blocks all different colors it makes it harder to skim through article headlines.

If ALL of the headlines were black colored, and all the backgrounds very light soft subtle pastel colors, I think you'd have that problem solved.

<comment> __--__ I like the differently colored blocks. It makes it easier to distinguish one article from the other, something I have a problem with on most sites (including this one). I would prefer a more coherent color scheme with some meaning behind the color (different shades of red for different shades of tech news, for example).

<comment><USER13> Maybe this one <http://toolong-didntread.com/> ? I think it is pretty easy to distinguish between different articles here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Your introduction message disappears immediately when you click on it.

For people who habitually select text they're reading (like me) that was quite annoying ... I still don't know what it said.

<comment><AUTHOR> it said:

 _Relax. You don't have to sift through your social feed. You don't have to worry about reading the same stuff over and over. Tightrope balances out your daily media, providing value over a breadth of topics.

For a summary from the day before, go to 'Yesterday'. We ourselves check this on a daily basis. 'Trending' gives you media bursts within the last half hour. Careful - this can get addictive.

To give it an aesthetic edge, article colors are based on the dominant colors in the images. Images are selected and resized to fit smoothly into the app._

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> How do you pick the trend news at the backend?

</comment><comment><USER16> I really like how you blend the photos into the text by color and focus.</comment>


The Surprising Importance of 'Wolfenstein: The New Order' - <AUTHOR> http://warisboring.com/the-surprising-importance-of-wolfenstein-the-new-order/ <comment><USER2> This thread is all over the place. Did I read a different article, or misread this one?

Here's what I read:

Pop culture has a possibly unfortunate habit of co-opting Nazism as an all- purpose source of villains. Because it assumes everyone understands why Nazism is evil, our culture rarely provides any historical context for its Nazi villains. Worse, to heighten drama, our all-purpose villains must be made continuously more intimidating and powerful.

The problem is that you're now left with a small army of generic bad-ass villains. Without the context of what it truly meant for a world power to be actively genocidal, those bad-ass Nazi villains can end up as figures for emulation or admiration or respect, for the same reason we put bad-ass villains on heavy metal album covers or use them as team mascots.

So the value of a title like Wolfenstein: The New Order is that it actually takes the time to try to break the cycle of "Nazi As Bad-Ass Signifier".

I don't know how important this point is, but it seems valid and worth thinking about; or, at least, I'd never thought about it before.

<comment><USER3> I think the author fails to make his own point distinct enough:

> Right from the start, Wolfenstein's enemies are the brutal instruments of an > ideology that liquidates the weakest among us.

There were ideologies promoting "Liquidation of the weakest" that FAR predated the Nazism. And those are still considered "cool" today.

All Spartan infants were brought before a council of inspectors and examined for physical defects, and those who weren't up to standards were left to die.

Yet the Spartans are positive cultural memes, glorified for their masculine badassery, honor and valor, see the "300" for example.

My point is: If you want to talk about how bad Nazism is then you'd better approach it seriously and in my opinion this article failed to deliver that, it was superfluous.

I've played this very game for many hours, I've completed every achievement just as I did in Wolfenstein: The Old Blood. And I'm also Russian to boot. Yet I did not consider to make a mountain out of a molehill like the author did in this article.

So the nazis are the ultimate bad guys with no redeeming qualities, well who would have thought? This game has cool villains in it but it also has very satirical moments that the author failed to mention.

In the final fight the antagonist goes on a wild rant painting YOU as the actual villain for resisting the admittedly very fast progress that the world has achieved under Nazi rule and then you have to take out Zeppelins powering the antagonist's machine and when you do that the villain berates you for killing people on those zeppelins, saying that he had "put good men there. Men who had families." I honestly don't know how you can take that seriously and not laugh.

<comment><USER4> I agree with you, partly. I would also mention the Mongols, Alexander the great, the Roman empire and the British empire as similar examples. Only difference between these and the Nazis are the Nazis are the latest in a long line of historical villains, so their atrocities still linger in our memory while the actions of the others are forgotten, by the general population at least.

Perhaps the Nazis just embody a basic human nature, and there is nothing much unique about them. Go far back in history and you are certain to find various groups engaging in similar levels of atrocities.

Given this, then the Nazis are not uniquely evil and everyone is vulnerable to become the perpetrators of such under the right conditions and leadership. So it is worth it, to remind people of how ugly and damaging such a thing is. So in conclusion, to point this out, is not making a mountain of a molehill.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you think "nazi ideology" or their actions are uniquely horrible, you are either historically illiterate, or so parochial that only their particular victims are of concern to you. History, especially twentieth century history, is a charnel house.

<comment><USER6> Nazi ideology is not uniquely horrible, as other eliminationist rhetorics have existed and led to genocides of their own. Nor are their actions unique in numerical terms, as other authoritarian regimes have engaged in systematic genocides through famine etc. with similarly large loss of life.

But Nazism is unique in its combination of rhetoric and scale, and also in its instantiation within a highly developed society - politically, intellectually, culturally, and economically. Authoritarian horrors in less developed countries are still horrific, but it's not really surprising that an authoritarian can take over in a country where low standards of education are the norm and/or the mass of the population exists in grinding poverty and/or where long-standing tribal affiliations are suddenly exposed to drastic technological asymmetries.

Germany was a highly developed society at the leading edge of intellectual and industrial development. Numerous peer societies have also engaged in imperialism, and often in utterly reprehensible ways , but none of them industrialized genocide in quite the same manner that the Nazis did.

<comment><USER7> I think that is what scares the author the most- that all this education, all the remembering and memoria- just evaporates- a thin layer of paint on a savage creature.

And one must admit, that at the moment it does not look very good for freedom, democracy and civilsation as a whole.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I find the constant comparison of present-day US to Nazi Germany a bit disrespectful. Not disrespectful of people in the present day (necessarily), but to those who actually survived Nazi Germany.

What would you think, if you were a someone who survived a concentration camp, to have people consistently claim that the modern-day US is anywhere near as bad? I understand that the US is far from perfect, but we are also not engaging in genocide against our own citizens, and I do not think that there is anything that realistically signals that we ever will.

Really, I guess it boils down to nitpicking over how watered-down the term Nazi has become. Lets not forget what the Nazis actually did.

<comment><USER9> Let's not forget that the Nazi's took power during a time of democracy, with full support of a plurality of the vote. Between that and Trump's overt authoritarianism, it's fair that people will draw analogies between the situations.

<comment><USER8> Yes, also important not to confuse correlation and causation IMHO. Even if we fully mirrored the rise of the Nazi party (in the political sense), it would not necessarily imply that we would mirror their actions (genocide, etc).

In situations like this, its important to step back and ask - under what circumstances would the US actually cross the same line that the Nazis did? (And I do not mean anecdotal instances - I mean the US performing outright genocide on a large subset of its own citizens). The odds of this are so low, in my opinion, that I would place a monetary bet it will not happen within the next four or eight years.

I am personally not a big fan of Trump, but I also do not think he is anywhere near Hitler-status.

<comment><USER6> You're only willing to bet 4 or 8 years out, which is itself worrying.

There are certainly people who actively espouse genocidal intentions openly in our body politic, and the connections between them and powerful figures in the administration are not very distant.

 _In situations like this, its important to step back and ask - under what circumstances would the US actually cross the same line that the Nazis did?_

Have you heard about this plan to build a wall and forcibly move millions of people to the other side of it?Somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of the population seem heartily in favor of this idea.

<comment><USER8> Betting any further out would make me presumptuous. :) I really cannot be so bold as to say I know what the far future holds, and I can only make educated guesses about the near future. As far as domestic policy, deporting illegal immigrants is a far cry from genocide (FWIW I am pro-immigration anyhow).

At least 50 percent of our country is to the left, and probably less than 10 percent of the country is on the extreme right. There is enough healthy disagreement that I do not see one side assuming authoritarian-level power any time soon IMHO.

<comment><USER6> Of course there's a big difference, but the Nazis didn't start gassing people the day after they took power; as late as 1940 they were considering just resettling Jewish populations in Madagascar. The chilling fact about the Holocaust was not that it was directly ordered from the very height of the Nazi government as that lower-level officials decided it was the most practical solution to an operational problem that seemed compatible with Hitler's fanatical loathing of the Jews.

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

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

My anxiety about this stems not from any belief that this or a future administration has a detailed plan to murder large numbers of people, as from a coincidence of political momentum and the existence of a decent number of people who would be just fine with or outright enthusiastic about that outcome, as well as a much larger number of people who'd rather just look the other way any time unpleasant topics appear on their radar.

I have much less confidence that you do about demographics and the health of the body politic. Just to add some context I'm not basing my opinions on blogs but on lengthy analysis from military intelligence professionals, counterterrorist analysts, and other high-quality primary sources, as well as extended personal study of the far right. I hope I'm wrong about this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's pretty scary how the article goes from killing Nazis is fantastic, to anybody at my right is a Nazi and it's morally ok to punch them.

>Too often, when we engage in arguments with extremists who talk of racial purity, we falter to explain our side. Instead, we punch them and tell them "because."

>Nationalism leads to war

So if you see somebody waving a flag, you punch them?

I don't like the "punch them" rhetoric. It's not compatible with free speech. It's way better to combat "racial purity" ideologies (or any other speech) with more speech, with reason and truth than with violence. The second option makes you look like the Gestapo or the NKVD

<comment><USER11> > It's way better to combat "racial purity" ideologies (or any other speech) > with more speech, with reason and truth than with violence

Do you have any evidence to support this claim?

<comment><USER12> Are you advocating violent suppression of views you dislike? Do you not see an irony there?

<comment><USER13> It's grossly dishonest to reduce white supremacy to "views one dislikes". Yes, if you remove all of the content of views and just focus on the act of liking or disliking them, you can make any disagreement look unreasonable.

<comment><USER14> The problem with that is that, especially when emotions run high, it becomes very difficult to tell where the line is for sufficiently "dangerous" views that deserve punching.

If you look around today's blogosphere and social media, for example, you'll see a significant variance in what gets labeled "racist" or "white supremacy" (to use the most germane example).

If someone is declared a white supremacist for touching a black person's hair and the standard is "it's ok to punch white supremacists because they are violent and dangerous"... it will become a mess fast.

Which is one reason why it's generally a good decision-rule to not employ violence (as a citizen) unless violence is imminently being used against you.

<comment><USER15> Neo-nazis and their ideology directly threatens the very lives of a lot of people, and it's basically impossible to argue against them because they already understand these ir position and just don't care about any of the myriad reasons why they're wrong.

This is where the "punch a nazi" thing comes from. They're a very real personal threat to people, and they can't be convinced to change their mind, so all you can really do is get them to shut up and go away, and the way you do that is by punching them. If you can make them afraid to express their neo- nazi ideas, then that's a win.

<comment><USER2> This logic ends nowhere good for anyone. If you can punch away evil, so can the people who believe abortion clinics are murder factories --- in fact, their arguments are even better than ours.

<comment><USER15> I don't see the relation.

Neo-nazis and white supremacists are espousing a viewpoint that takes away rights from other people, and in many cases threatens their very lives.

That's what anti-abortionist people do too, in fact. They're trying to take rights away from women (specifically, the right to control their own body), and in many cases threatens their very lives (abortion can be used as a medical intervention to save the life of the mother).

The only real difference I can see is that anti-abortionists are more likely to be able to be reasoned with.

<comment><USER2> All you're saying is that you disagree with anti-abortionists. Because if the anti-abortionists are right (spoiler: they aren't), then it's nowhere nearly as simple as "they're trying to take other people's rights away from them".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Well, this sort of depiction is always a many-edged sword. After seeing a media argument that amounts to "Nazis are these grotesquely inhumane monsters, and therefore it's okay to punch them", you'll have some people taking away that they should punch Nazis (their own, possibly much more general definition), some people actively trying to expand the "Nazi" label to their political opposition (so they are flagged for punching), and some people becoming more easily persuaded by actual Nazis because they aren't dangling any babies by their legs like garbage bags and therefore don't pattern-match against the Nazis they have been taught to punch.

<comment><USER17> I am more concerned with the fact that, when you keep depicting the baddies as grotesquely inhumane monsters, people will soon start believing that recognizing them and choosing the right side is an easy task. In reality, baddies are often not that grotesque, they might actually have a point on a few things, and their arguments might be quite spread in the culture of the time, making them sound more reasonable than they are.

And once people are trained to recognize evil in grotesque caricatures of human beings, then it becomes easy to provide them with such caricatures and send them to war, when the necessity arises. Quietly confident that the baddies are in front of them and not _behind_ them.

<comment><USER18> Excellent point!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Another salient point that must be made: if we always depict the Nazis as inhuman monsters, as most videogames do, then people learn that true Nazism is perpetrated by those and only those. So when you hear an actual seemingly intelligent human being explaining how racism is totally cool, you automatically don't see that person as a Nazi, because _he is a person and not a monster_. People may not be able to understand Prolog programs, but everyone has the instinct that "A=>B <=> !B=>!A". Nazi => monster, that person is an ordinary person, so he isn't advocating for Nazism. Of course, we want then to think "that is Nazism, so the person advocating for it is a monster", but many people don't think that way. In a way it parallels the failure of the War on Drugs and the Scare Them Straight campaigns.

I wish more media would humanise the Nazis, show that those are completely ordinary people, some up for the doctrine, some against it, all caught in one completely ordinary, if slightly mentally off person's plan to make his country the greatest place on Earth for his own people. They did horrible things. They did beautiful things. They were no different than you or me.

<comment><USER20> _People may not be able to understand Prolog programs, but everyone has the instinct that "A=>B <=> !B=>!A"._

People do not have an instinct against denying the antecedent. It's a common fallacy. And even when people know about the logical error and can recognize it represented with "P"s and "Q"s, it is also well known that people don't always have the pattern matching skills to notice a similarity in _shape_ of argument when the _topic_ of argument is different.

Edit: I accidentally called denying the antecedent by the name affirming the consequent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's okay to speak ideas whatever it is. It's also okay to dislike other ideas.

I do the same.

What is not okay is to promote violence against anybody you think their ideas are harmful. Who decides if an idea is harmful? I think liberalism is harmful. Through abortions, millions are dying every year.

No one should have the authority to say these motherf-kers are free to live, lets celebrate their defects and these other motherf-kers should be punched on the face.

This liberalism-atheism is a religion. They do witch hunting, they purge their heretics, they don't allow opposition.

However, Wolfeinstein 3D helped me to become who I am, even though it's purpose was the opposite :) Even a 8 years old feels if a game was designed to deform his thinking.

</comment><comment><USER22> For anyone abroad who lacks the perspective of the resurgence of neo- or cryptofascism in the United States, this is interesting material: [https://youtu.be/1o6-bi3jlxk](https://youtu.be/1o6-bi3jlxk)

The event and Mr. Spencer were panned, to be sure, but not as unambiguously as one might have expected.

Hate and supremacists — of all stripes — are alive and well in the U.S.: [https://www.splcenter.org/hate-map](https://www.splcenter.org/hate-map)

</comment><comment><USER23> War is Boring is the worst military/defense affairs blog I've ever read.

<comment><USER24> It's born out of the ashes of an old Wired blog, that was popular ten years ago.

[https://wired.com/category/security/dangerroom/](https://wired.com/category/security/dangerroom/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> The bar is very low, it seems.

<comment><USER26> The video game industry is… very bad at writing.

</comment></comment><comment> aaron-lebo Having played the game, it's just a shoot em up with a goofy story to justify shooting things. Nobody is going to care about it in 10 years. The only reason anyone cares about it now is cause everything is a culture war and complaining on the Internet about games you aren't gonna buy is a great way of fighting it, apparently.

I ran into some Holocaust deniers on Reddit a couple of weeks ago. Those people are so far gone that BBC video of bodies in concentration camps is seen as propaganda. If people don't understand the evils of the Nazis within the context of history, the videogame equivalent of Transformers isn't going to change minds.

<comment><USER27> I heard someone on a podcast make a VERY passionate defense of the game. Not only was it well made and presented a good story (for a shooter) but a main character (THE main character?) was Jewish and as a Jew that was a huge thing for him. There was a Jewish character who wasn't tokenized or just a stereotype but a well written and critical to the plot. Helpful and not inept but strong and self directed.

Representation like that can be a very powerful thing.

<comment><USER2> Similar to the bit in "Knocked Up" about how "Munich" is a great movie because the Jewish characters are all bad-asses, not victims.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Weekend project, fun spin on dating. Only friends edit your profile - <AUTHOR> http://www.cupidwithfriends.com

<comment><USER2> Honestly, I think this is a brilliant idea for a few reasons, but the most significant can probably be explained by this real-life comparison:

Consider two scenarios. a) You go out to a party, by yourself, with the sole intention of meeting someone you can take home, or ask on a date. or b) your friends think you need a girlfriend or boyfriend, and drag you out to a party and try to get you to meet people and facilitate it that.

Scenario (a) is a relatively uncommon occurrence with, what I assume to be, a lower success rate than (b). Unfortunately, all successful dating sites thus far are almost perfectly analogous to (a).

The differences between the two situations are pretty big because of the countless nuances that make people just generally seem more sociable when they're _being social_ compared to when they're sort of _trying_ to be social.

In a sense, this introduces the concept of a good wingman into the online dating scene.

Beyond that, I think by having other people manage your profile, you're taking away some of the stigma associated with dating profiles. Among them that they can become very self-important, uncomfortably personal, and come with a certain level of expectation of being honest. By making everything second- hand, you have to be more realistic in your evaluations of people's profiles.

Moreover, I think it dampens the 'desperation' factor. I think this is also a lesson we can gain from the analogy in my second paragraph.

<comment><USER3> I didn't try the app, but I would say its not because its a lot of work to be asking of people. Filling out a profile is incredibly tedious. On top of that, if a person's friend were to write something unflattering or something that wasn't agreeable, I imagine the person would ask their friend to change. So basically you would get the same response as if the person had to the time to fill out the profile themselves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There's been a UK version of this around for a while now: <http://www.mysinglefriend.com>.

I know this because it has been advertised quite a lot in the popbitch newsletter but today is the only time I have visited the site (via a google, before posting this comment, to check I didn't imagine the whole thing). I find this process interesting. I might have thought the adverts were useless on me, as I never clicked them, but lo and behold the company stuck in my brain somewhere and here I am sharing the information on an internet forum (to appear knowledgable? for karma? why?). Takeaway: advertising is more powerful than I thought.

<comment><USER5> David Ogilvy calls this "The Moving Train of Interest."

<comment><USER6> Source? Google yields nothing for that phrase.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like the quotes on the left :)

Favorite: "I got my friend laid with this web site." - Nobody, ever

</comment><comment><USER8> This is funny, I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this yet: <http://i.imgur.com/f3m2F3d.png>

<comment><USER9> If the situation were reversed, the dialogue would be mainly about the injustice of an established company ripping off the design.

It probably doesn't matter much for a weekend project though.

<comment><USER10> Surely this would be acceptable as satire on his part?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This idea is great in concept, but has been tried before in several versions and has yet to gain traction. I believe in the social arena, no one has found a viable solution yet.

The real crux of this (at least one crux, if you see this more as a gimic dating then you may view it another way) is creating a verified online image / reputation. This site simply applies that to dating, with the idea here being you are not creating the profile so it is by definition verified by other people who created it.

I had friends who attempted a social network startup based on this idea. The obvious problem you run into is the temptation by friends to write jokes / things that are untrue, which I think actually increases with a site like this. I absolutely want to see who starts reaching out to my friends after I write describe them as "Avid Harry Potter fan, captain of the local quiditch team" and add a status updates like "He's in a bad mood today, very upset he scratched his wand yesterday". Our friends attempted to put some legitimacy behind their site by requiring you to accept statements before they were publicly viewed, but then you lose a lot of the legitimacy / verified nature of the profile.

Eventually they pivoted to the professional arena, with recommendations by professionals, professors, etc. People who by the nature of your relationship are more likely to respond accurately. There are issues with this model as well, such as co-workers who you pissed off writing bad things, selection bias if you get to pick who reviews you (anonymous helps that) etc, but I think there are significantly inherent advantages in the professional arena. But even in that area, I don't think the main "issue" has been resolved.

This is definitely a concept with real business potential should it be mastered; it solves a "real-problem" which many startups do not (with the specific application here being online dating, but there are 20 other great applications which could become viable businesses). I certainly do not mean to discourage the work done (I think the site actually looks good in form and function), but it is my opinion a tweaks on this current model will not emerge as solutions to the broader reputational verification issue online. I believe an outside the box and completely different solution will emerge in this area.

What do people think? Is anyone familiar with a version of this model that really does work? Or has anyone seen another model which solves this issue and works?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's interesting, would you mind posting the link to the site or name of the company that was doing this before? Would love to check them out.

I think it's something we're opinionated on: dating doesn't need to be a serious business. It's okay to be humorous, and that's also being honest. If your friends joke around and are sarcastic, you like their sense of humor, and it communicates implicitly "these are the kind of friends I have, if you don't like them, we might not get along."

There's a difference between nasty comments/bullying and sarcasm, and we'll allow bad stuff to get flagged and take it down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Excellent idea - we had a co-worker at my old job that had his OK Cupid profile in github. We all made pull requests and tried to make it far more appealing. It was fun, but I can also see how this could work as a site.

<comment><USER13> I love that... I wonder if he gave anyone commit privileges..

<comment><USER14> Personally I'd rather rebase than commit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> You guys should rotate a guy/girl image on the front page and a/b test. :-)

<comment><USER16> Notice red background.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Is there any way to demo / use this without FB? (I understand why you want to connect to FB though)

<comment><AUTHOR> Not right now. Maybe in the future we'll let you join using e-mail, but for now it makes it a lot easier to prevent people from faking their own profiles and it also speeds up the process of adding friends.

<comment><USER18> This.

"CupidWithFriends would like to access your public profile, friend list, email address, custom friends lists, birthday, current city and your friends' relationships, birthdays, current cities and photos." -> Cancel

(In general, I don't feel like Facebook should let me give my friends' photos [not just mine, but theirs] away to a 3rd party without their explicit consent first).

Relatedly, the 'Why Facebook' hover text says: "We use Facebook to make it easy to see which friends use the service, add existing friends, and prevent certain friends from seeing your profile. We do not post to your wall or spam your friends."

So my friends who I don't want to have see my profile will know I'm hiding it from them? Because they'll know I'm using the service, but they can't see my profile?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Had a similar idea a while back. Allow people to sign up, create a profile, etc. Then have matchmakers. People browsing profiles and matching people up. If they start dating, you get rep for being a good matchmaker.

<comment><USER5> sawyouatsinai.com is exactly this for jewish dating.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> That's really cool! I have worked along the lines of making a wiki-style profile for everyone (<http://wikisapien.com/>) but the whole dating angle gives this site a neat hook that should attract good users.

<comment><USER21> I think your project is quite nice, but I'm an extremely private person, and don't wish to be found by random folks I went to high school with or be stalked by ex-es. So, some way to not be listed in any searchable directory would be a must. The only simple way I can see this being feasible would be to only allow "un-listed" people to find the others. If two people are both "un- listed," I'm not sure how that would work. Perhaps they would have to exchange private keys in person?

<comment><USER20> You can set permission on who can see your account, and if one does not have permission to see you then you will not appear in the search results. In particular you can set it to be completely private.

<comment><USER22> Is the profile that's edited by those who have your permission to see you visible to others who don't have your permission to see you?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Wont people just make fake fb friends and write their own profile?

<comment><USER5> and do all the work? I would rather my friends write it up and get one of my close friends to make the edits I want.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Love the idea! One suggestion is to add a footer, even if it's just a copyright. Like Marissa Meyer said for Google, it gives the site more of a punctuated end.

</comment><comment><USER25> I love this concept. Your app seriously needs a few things though.

1) You have to be able to message people on a dating site, none of this coming soon button. 2) You have to be able to have some rudimentary search/filter. People want to find people of the gender they are interested in, location, etc.

You've probably thought of both of these already but a dating site really has to have both of those.

</comment><comment><USER26> The reviews are very well done but I'd still like to see more info/demo/screenshots before logging in with Facebook though.

</comment><comment><USER27> Copy is hilarious!

</comment><comment><USER28> That's great, but won't it be creepy to get messages from a dating website you never signed up to? Or is the person whose profile you're editing asked to give permission before the profile goes public?

<comment><USER29> Hah, it's the dating version of GetSatisfaction!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The logical next step is to hook up the bridesmaids with the best men who created the profiles for the happy couple.

</comment><comment><USER30> we built a whole site several years ago round this concept - www.datemymate.co.nz (bit outdated now, but you get it)

<comment><USER31> I like the idea. What happened? Social graph was not as pervasive as now.. I think this idea has a chance... Act quick before FB makes it a feature into their website... Linkedin has similar feature with their endorsement from coworkers..

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Landing page says nothing about the product. How about some information before forcing people to log in?

<comment><USER33> Right, I'm totally confused who this product is for. Is it for people who want to date, or for people who don't want to date but want to edit their friends' dating profiles?

How do I know if I have a friend who has a dating profile? Do they have to share that with me in a side channel like their newsfeed?

Don't get me wrong, Facebook should buy this "weekend project" for $10M before it gets out of hand. I'm just not sure if I'm going to regret clicking "Connect". Before we connect, how about you sell me on it.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is about playing the wingman role for your friends and helping them out.

What I've noticed happen is that after commenting on my friends' profiles, they've commented on mine. They just want to reciprocate the favor. But nobody joins the site asking their friends to do it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> See also: <http://www.mysinglefriend.com/>

</comment><comment><USER35> I wonder if making fake friend profiles for this and doing it that way would be effective.

<comment><AUTHOR> That won't work. You have to have 100+ Facebook friends to join.

<comment><USER35> Then I guess it'd just be a problem of dedication. Or outsourcing the job somewhere

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a lot of work to fake a profile, so it seems like the odds are much lower with us vs. another site where all you need is an e-mail address. I also think Facebook is also good at detecting fake accounts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Do you offer anything to people who won't connect to Facebook or whatever?

</comment><comment><USER37> This is a great idea.

</comment><comment><USER38> PHOTO UPLOAD FEATURE PLEASSSEEEEEEEE~~</comment>