The Gentleperson's Guide To Forum Spies - <AUTHOR> http://cryptome.org/2012/07/gent-forum-spies.htm http://pastebin.com/irj4Fyd5<p>1. COINTELPRO Techniques for dilution, misdirection and control of a internet forum 2. Twenty-Five Rules of Disinformation 3. Eight Traits of the Disinformationalist 4. How to Spot a Spy (Cointelpro Agent) 5. Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression <comment><USER2> === How To Be A Paranoid Conspiracy Theorist And Make It Impossible For Others To Criticize You ===

1) Make a list of all the methods people use to criticize you. Such as demanding evidence, questioning your motives, calling you a conspiracy theorist.

2) Rename the list, "How to Control an Internet Forum, Rules of Disinformation, Techniques for Truth Suppression"

3) Mix in some legitimate methods so your agenda doesn't seem too obvious.

4) Publish list on the internet under the disguise of looking like you just want to help forum owners foresee and prevent trolling problems.

5) Watch as unknowing innocent people submit and upvote your propaganda thinking they're helping the community.

Read between the lines and you'll see it. And it was written in such a way that you can't criticize him in any way without breaking one his "Rules for Truth Suppression" or "Disinformation". Cleverly written in such a way that doesn't allow you to criticize obvious things or demand evidence. Thus making the author win no matter what. I live with a conspiracy theorist father who uses some of these himself. Not to mention I was a religious fanatic myself and am well trained in spotting the same bullshit I used to spread. Sorry man, nice try, pretty clever though.

<comment><USER3>
      > Make a list of all the methods people use to criticize
      > you. Such as ... calling you a conspiracy theorist.

Should we really encourage Ad Hominem as a valid criticism of an argument? If your only criticism of someone's statements is, "you're just a conspiracy nut," then your argument doesn't hold much water.

<comment><USER2> Yes you're right about Ad Hominem but that's not exactly what this is. This is "Classification". And classifying someone is just one of the many things a person uses in judging weather or not someone else is biased or open minded, weather their statements are more likely to be evidence or agenda based. And weather or not to further research their evidence and argue with them or just write them off as close minded, unchangeable, stubborn, and not worth dealing with. When someone tells us a statement, we don't immediately go out and start researching it to see if it's substantiated or not. If they seem like an open minded person and their statement seems well thought out and backed up by evidence, we accept what they say as truth and move forward with the conversation. If they come off as one sided from the perspective of [conservative, liberal, religious, atheist] without taking into consideration other view points or universal truths then why not call them what they are?

I know in politics classification is used to easily and cheaply attack someone unfairly but I can't help but think that in it's own way, it is a valid criticism.

When we say things like: "Of course you'd want to regulate everything, you're a liberal" and "Of course you'd want to deregulate everything, you're a conservative". What we're really doing is telling the person, "I think you're biased and you're not thinking outside of your own point of view". Is that not a valid criticism?

If a Christian extremist says to me "You're going to hell because you haven't accepted Jesus Christ as your savoir" and I reply with "of course you'd say that, you're a Christian extremist." Is that not a perfectly valid criticism and a very true statement?

It's not the best way to engage in a debate but not everyone has 2 and a half hours to argue with others. Sometimes you just need to remind someone that they're lost in their own lala land quickly and effectively. Nothing accomplishes that better than classification.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The problem with this is that it assumes that the only (or main) source of disinformation, propaganda and manipulation is the government. These techniques are used on a daily basis by people on all sides of every issue. Is it possible that some of them are paid government "spies"? Sure. However, it's likely that the vast majority of them are just independent trolls, skillful manipulators or bad arguers who've discovered that the techniques in question are an easy way to manipulate the discussion so that they can get the validation that they crave.

I think that the document itself merits some analysis when it comes to manipulation and disinformation. If you take the document at face value, the author's intention is to give information to other activists so that they can protect their communities from government manipulation. However, I think it's also possible that the list of behaviors is meant to be used by leaders to purge communities for (internal) political or personal reasons. Given a long enough posting history, you could use this list to accuse almost anyone of being a spy. I suspect that whatever the author's original intentions, the latter interpretation is going to end up being much more common. It's already easy enough to dismiss people who disagree with you as "government shills", and this will simply make it even easier to justify.

<comment><USER5> The best single rule I have found, useful for academic disciplines as well as internet forums is "Everybody overstates the accuracy, applicability, universality, precision, or other some other aspects of claims they have made." Anybody who actually cares enough about something to go through the trouble of writing it up, unless they are being paid by the word (which has been noted elsewhere has its own problems), is going to be emotionally invested in their work and writings. So my best advice is to assume from the beginning that it is overstated, and consider a weaker version, or a charitable interpretation, of their claims.

Given the limited amount of information available in an online post, a charitable interpretation is even more warranted online than in a book.

<comment><USER6> In light of the claim that everyone overstates their case, I've wondered if one would be well served by deliberately exaggerating to counteract the "charitable interpretation" you mention.

<comment><USER4> It's a cycle. The more people exaggerate to counteract "charitable interpretations", the more charitable interpretation is necessary to get back to the truth, and so on. The end result is a dysfunctional "discussion" where both sides are just repeating the most extreme views they can come up with in hopes that it will draw attention to the kernel of truth they started with.

<comment><USER6> The potential for a runaway positive feedback cycle is something I wanted to mention in my original post[0], but didn't due to sleep deprivation. I guess your mention of the cycle gave me the mental starting point necessary to put my thoughts into these few words.

In my childhood I had people take seriously things that I exaggerated or made up (they were silly things like made up names of plants), and as a result I gradually developed a desire to be as level and honest as possible. I frequently wonder whether I'm deluding myself into _believing_ that I'm not overstating my case (in which case I think my positions must be _very_ weak indeed), or doing myself a disservice by avoiding the exaggeration that most listeners expect.

[0] I hate making comments that sound like a retroactive reinterpretation of an earlier comment to make myself appear to have been more insightful or correct than I actually was; it reminds me of Adam Sandler's "me too" character from the SNL skit in which Jerry Seinfeld plays a distraught history teacher.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I had problems reading all of this because the tin foil hat I'm wearing kept slipping down over my eyes.

Seriously, guys, simply because you can describe something does not mean it exists. There are a LOT of ungrounded premises here. As an example, simply because somebody begins an argument with a weak premise doesn't mean that there's an organized effort at "consensus cracking". Sometimes people just make weak arguments.

There is a danger here, and it's the same exact danger as folks face that get caught up in lists of logical fallacies. The danger is that they believe that human conversations should follow a strict set of almost mathematical rules towards a logical and inescapable conclusion.

Got news for you: people are not robots. Conversations among people are messy, emotional, many times fruitless, and non-linear. Most every topic involves incomplete information, and the soul of rhetoric is emotive persuasion. The purpose of learning things like fallacies is to prevent them from being used in a careless, overt manner such as to shut down communication. It has nothing to do with eliminating them from speech or somehow perfecting the discussion. Intelligent people just make more subtle and persuasive fallacies, which makes sense when you realize decisions must be made on incomplete data. In the same manner effects such as these should be seen on all sorts of forums -- whether or not somebody is employing a tactic or not. The author is looking at this backwards.

That doesn't mean that such techniques aren't being used or wouldn't work -- although I have my doubts that you could constantly "own" a board through using them. Seems to me you'd just end up being cast as a manipulative asshole.

This article was just a little too much on the paranoid side for me. I'm not sure it belongs on HN, or that it contains any useful information at all. The problem is that these "principles" are presented more or less as simple supposition. It would be like reading a list of "wonderful" ideas for a startup. The only value some article like this would have is if it were somehow presented with empirical data of value provided. Of course, how you could actually produce value in taking a conversation off the rails is beyond me -- how do you know that by using one of these techniques you're not actually _assisting_ somebody in understanding a topic or gaining value from the forum? From what do you measure?

It's just speculative unsubstantiated paranoid bullshit held together by an intelligent mind and cogent essay. I'm not flagging it because in some sense I guess you could call it hacker art. Very Hari Seldon.

<comment><USER8> The fact that it's hard to prove is what makes it so effective. People blatantly post CIA-created propaganda on HN all the time, and even then it's virtually impossible to prove that they actually work for the government, so imagine how much harder it is when people are actually being more subtle.

<comment><USER4> Could you give some examples of "blatantly CIA-created propaganda" here on HN? If it's virtually impossible to prove, how are you so sure?

<comment><USER8> [https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome- instant&ie=...](https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome- instant&ie=UTF-8#hl=en&output=search&sclient=psy- ab&q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com%20%22world%20factbook%22&oq=&gs_l=&pbx=1&fp=89dccf89cf1c3a70&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&biw=1581&bih=857)

<comment><USER9> Citing economic data from the CIA World Fact Book isn't exactly propaganda.

<comment><USER8> Ever wonder why it is that the CIA says that the US has a 99% literacy rate, despite the fact that this is vastly higher than the Department of Education estimates?

To quote from Jonathan Kozol's book Illiterate in America, "For one hundred years, starting in 1840, the census posed the question of the population's literacy level in its ten-year compilations. The government removed this question from its survey in the 1940 census. The reason, according to a U.S. Census Bureau publication, was a general conviction that 'most people [by this time] could read and write ...'

In 1970, pressured by the military, the Bureau of the Census agreed to reinstate the literacy question. Even then, instead of posing questions about actual skills, the census simply asked adults how many years of school they had attended. More than 5 percent of those the census reached replied that they had had less than a fifth grade education. For no known reason, the government assumed that four fifths of these people probably could read and, on this dangerous assumption, it was publicly announced that 99 percent of all American adults could read and write. These are the figures which the U.S. government passed on to the United Nations for the purposes of worldwide compilations and comparisons."[1]

In short the CIA world factbook is basically propaganda in order to make the US look like the best country on earth in order to justify a foreign policy based on subjugating people of 'inferior races'. I'm not saying that every single person who cites it is either a government shill or a white supremacist, but where there's smoke there's often a fire.

[1] [http://eserver.org/courses/spring97/76100o/readings/kozol.ht...](http://eserver.org/courses/spring97/76100o/readings/kozol.html)

<comment><USER9> I have no dispute with the idea that statistics have biases.

However, the fact is that most of the time the parts of the CIA World Fact book quoted on HN are GDP, GDP/capita, life expectancy etc. There are often biases in these figures as well, but the CIA World Fact Book is really just acting as a convenient aggregator of these numbers.

Again, with emphasis added:

Citing _economic data_ from the CIA World Fact Book isn't exactly propaganda

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Reading the list of 25 tactics at the bottom, the average forums troll is a master of the great majority. It makes you wonder what qualifications the people hiring for a position like this are looking for...

      * How many boards have you been banned from
      * What's the largest flamewar you've ever incited
      * Can you describe an instance that you've caused a respected community member to break the board rules in frustration?

</comment><comment><USER11> It sure does seem like catnip for message board addicts that the government sees those people and their boards as so important that a coherent and documented strategy is needed to disrupt them.

<comment><USER12> The media not-so-infrequently points out that the CIA monitors terrorist recruitment forums. Suppose those reports are true, would it make sense to develop a plan for disrupting such sites?

<comment><AUTHOR> DHS monitors a huge list of sites with forums and comment sections via automated software. They have a big list of terms, like a threat zeitgeist.

<comment><USER13> There's a big difference between aggregate monitoring what folks on the Internet say, and actively attempting to subvert the discussions on one particular message board.

The former is something that every large consumer company does with tools like Radian6. The latter is the realm of grandiosity bordering on paranoid schizophrenia.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> [http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/07/counterterrorism- tro...](http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/07/counterterrorism-trolls/)

Revival of contelpro techniques, in startup form. There's a recent HN discussion on it, but I can't seem to find it right now.

edit: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4267490>

</comment><comment><USER15> The majority of these tactics would not work in the wild without huge amounts of work. For example, "forum sliding" would be noticed on a forum slow enough that it's needed: on a forum large enough that it would go un-noticed doesn't need such behaviour. Any forum small enough for this to work is going to have active staff members that will notice a string of crappy posts.

If a forum is small enough (and has staff that don't care) for any of these techniques to be effective then the people that you're "converting" to your cause are going to be such a drop in the ocean that it's a complete waste of time. That might work on an issue with only 100 people that care about it, but global politics or anything that really _matters_ it won't.

<comment><USER16> True but I suppose if you assume something like a negative political story, the major sites would be the target. a large team of people could try to flood all of the major discussion sites. Obviously it doesn't go away, but we all get distracted with shiny things and the original story quietly goes away.

I have no doubt that groups are trying to do this. How often they succeed is the question.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Topic dilution:

Ubuntuforum moderators pounce on that in the main support categories. They also like to merge threads on similar technical issues. The tendency is towards _long_ threads about an issue e.g. sound problems on a new release with certain sound cards. You have to trawl through a lot of posts, but you do get all the context. More leeway for opinions in the non-technical categories.

CentOS forum moderators use quite a different approach in the release specific categories. They seem to like a 'post=support ticket' style. They strongly _discourage_ posting a similar problem on the end of an existing issue, they prefer a fresh post. Produces short threads each with a specific issue; clarify the issue, achieve a resolution, then out. You rely on post subject headings to spot a pattern. As CentOS changes less quickly than Ubuntu, this is probably manageable.

Any 'spying' (e.g propaganda against open-source development &c) is hard on these forums. Potential spies would need to clock the different styles.

</comment><comment><USER18> FFS, not that crap, not again, not here.

<comment><USER19> Setting paranoia about you being one of them aside, and asking you to set aside your kneejerk reaction to being against this being posted, would you care to elaborate? I've never seen this before and it seems quite interesting.

<comment><USER18> Yea, _they_ have an entire army dedicated to nothing but trolling the brave enemies of the state who converge at places like www.abovetopsecret.com and dailypail.com. FFS. Those places are a pit of back stabbing, turf wars, elaborated socket puppetry and so on because they attract a crowd that is borderline crazy, and a few trolls preying on them.

If you build a place for destructive and often psychotic people, you would need a dedicated three letter agency to _prevent_ them from going on each others throat.

<comment><USER19> The point that's being made is that it's not that hard to disrupt a functioning online community, so you wouldn't even need an army. You could probably do it with a staff of a dozen or less, and honestly looking at how places like reddit and slashdot have transformed over the years I really wouldn't be surprised if there was at least some influence by government agencies(how do those same 5 military propaganda images keep getting to the front page? I'd also be curious to see how those getting to the frontpage compares to recruitment needs for the military. Not saying that it's a conspiracy, but it would be an interesting thing to examine). The tone of those places has changed, and any intelligent, valid criticism of the status quo is consistently ignored and rallied against. I don't know if it's just because people are by and large impulsive and unable to handle criticism, or because of a conspiracy, but the former lends itself to control by the latter.

It would be a bit naive to rule it out completely, but it would be pretty silly to say for certain that it's a conspiracy.

<comment><USER18> The author simply observes some negative tendencies in online communities that can easily explained by simple social dynamics and asserts that sinister cabal is responsible. That is his whole point, and he doesn't argue very good. For the love of god, look at the first point! FORUM SLIDING my ass. To make that work, you'd have to fake a dozen threads to drown a real one. And you'd have fake them convincingly, or they would simply be ignored.

I don't want to get overly confrontational, but your lament about reddit's decline goes into the same direction. That community has grown by a thousandfold. It's self image of a salon for educated and cultivated discourse is a sick joke. You don't need a conspiracy to explain how those pictures show up on the front page. They carry a simple, emotional message. Reddit's user base likes them, as they like rage comics, pictures of cute animals, stupid memes and rape jokes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Guys... Companies and other groups have been doing this for ages. It's very easy to disrupt public forums like HN or Slashdot and it has been shown to occur in Digg. I'm quite surprised it doesn't happen more often.

</comment><comment><USER21> I hope the Tech Evangelists (shills) don't get a hold of this document. Give this a read, the good stuff starts at Page 3. [http://techrights.org/wp- content/uploads/2008/08/comes-3096....](http://techrights.org/wp- content/uploads/2008/08/comes-3096.pdf)

<comment><USER22> Developers, developers, developers? NO! MICROSOFT, MICROSOFT, MICROSOFT!

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Does this remind anyone of the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks? The way the legitimate investigations (9/11 commission, etc) were trammeled and the way the "truther" movement was marginalized?</comment>


AIG may sue US Government for "unfair" bailout terms - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/08/us-aig-lawsuit-government-idUSBRE9070GR20130108

<comment><USER2> Discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5024900></comment>


Anybody here regularly lift weights? - <AUTHOR>

I am looking for some beta testers for an app I am working on ( http://overtrainer.com/ ). If anybody out there wants to play around and give some feedback I would be greatful.
The app is for planning, logging and tracking results of workouts mainly weight lifting movements right now.
Thanks! <comment><AUTHOR> Link (for lazy people like me): <http://overtrainer.com/>

<comment><USER2> Why would you call a site for athletes overtrainer? That's like naming your dating site herpesSpace.

<comment><USER3> Most people I've seen taking a logbook approach to working out over-train...

First of all, if you have time to take notes or carry a water bottle while working out, as far as I'm concerned you're doing it wrong. Pick up the pace. It's almost always just porky nerds who have notebooks.

A structured planned mentality to lifting is counter-productive. In terms of how much and how hard to go, you really need to listen to your body on any given day. Some times your immune system really is telling you to take it light and easy and wrap it up in fifteen minutes.

Also, it's most effective to dramatically vary routines and volume/intensity quite randomly from a large repertoire of exercises to prevent habituation. This simply doesn't produce useful time series, so notes are pointless.

Perhaps the biggest problem with a structured and planned approach to exercise is that it's not playful. It's of the wrong mentality to enjoy yourself.

<comment><USER4> Without some kind of logbook, how do you even evaluate how well you're doing?

In my experience, most successful bodybuilders take a scientific approach to their training. The main variables that affect physique are genetics, diet, and routine. Different diets and routines work for different people, so to achieve the best results it's important to experiment. A log book gives you data to learn how to improve your routine.

Even your point on the importance of varying routines is best achieved by using a log book. Try a steady routine for 3 months and measure your gains. Then try "dramatically varying" your routine for 3 months and measure your gains. Now you have data to support your own optimal workout plan.

Finally, to your point about picking up the pace: most routines involve rest between sets, so if you log while resting then it doesn't slow you down.

<comment><USER5> Not genetics. Diet, Regular Workouts, and Sleep will lead to similar results for a given age group. There is nothing in genetics that will make you inept, except of course genetic mutations that are sometimes bad and sometimes good. But for normal people, genetics do not matter. One will never reach their genetic "glass ceiling" in fitness. I would also maybe add not having injuries. Because that also stops a person from training as much as they could otherwise.

What you eat and at which points you eat it, what and how regularly you work out, whether you get enough sleep, and whether you currently have injuries are the most important factors. A fifth factor would probably be whether you have a workout partner to motivate you and spot you, so you always have a spotter, and thus can push yourself harder and get the most out of each exercise.

<comment><USER4> Genetics has a huge influence over your physique. For example, if you take a random sample of people who do not exercise regularly, there will be a wide variation in their bicep sizes.

Genetics also controls things like metabolism and how well you respond to weight training, so you need to adjust your diet accordingly. I do agree with you that motivation and a good routine can create superior results in anyone. I was just pointing out that some people will have to work harder than others, diet harder, or eat more, or whatever.

<comment><USER5> I disagree. Genetics have very little influence over one's physique as long as other more important factors are considered, such as the person's activity level, amount of sleep, eating patterns, and work out routine. For a given person, those will be the differentials.

Also, focusing on genetics ignores the fact that the exercise routines would be different for each person. Without knowing one's own genome sequence, a person who tries to stay active will learn what their body's preference is in terms of exercise. For me, I focused on muscle size. Other athletes focus on weight. Others focus on speed and conditioning. One will figure out which sports their body is meant for soon enough if they exercise regularly. The factors I've mentioned are also ones the person will learn to adjust--not their genetics.

I don't know much about my genetics except that I'm taller than my parents. But I have observed changes in my body after working out regularly. These changes included improvements in metabolism, hunger, body mass, mood, confidence, speed, and posture. My genetics presumably did not change in the same span of time. (Neither are they something I can control.)

So therefore, the person's activity level, amount of sleep, eating patterns, and a stable, consistent, work out routine are what matter the most.

Comparing two different people entirely (in other words, two people with different genetics) is purely theoretical and not practical, as each individual would have had different prior sports experience, confidence level, access to quality foods, knowledge about nutrition, free time, and more. Even if one did somehow match two people with the same activity levels at a given point in time, they are almost guaranteed to have entirely different results in the future for those reasons.

Similarly, two twins with identical genes will have huge differences in fitness if one considers the factors I've mentioned and one doesn't. Also, their metabolism levels, "bicep size", and other body features will be noticeably different.

Genes might cap one's maximum ability: some people have genetic diseases affecting their physical ability, while others have "caps" that are greater than those of other people. But while in the first case it might be easier to zero in on somebody's (physical) limits correctly, in everybody else, it is impossible to tell how strong, fast, athletic, or muscular a given person can be, or what their metabolism will be like, when they're athletic. Progressing from spending 20 minutes exercising, three times a week, to playing sports for 2 hours at a time three times a week, lifting weights for 90 minutes four times a week, and running for about 30 minutes a few times a week, all at once, does not depend on one's genes. Also, I want to point out that it may only be record-setting Olympic athletes who truly get close to their genetic caps, and therefore genetics are not a factor for most normal people.

Finally, regarding bicep size, here is a quote from the first search result on Google:

"Genetics play perhaps the most important part of not only how large your arms can be but also their shape. Now if you are not a genetically gifted bodybuilder do not take this statement as a cause for you to have a yard sale and sell your weights. True, you may not be able to develop a 21" arm but this will not prevent you from sporting an 18" or even 19" well shaped and defined arm and whats wrong with that? A well shaped defined 18" arm is much more impressive than a flat chunk of flesh that measures 21" anyway. It takes a lot of time and experience before one can say for certain any lack of arm development is due to genetics. Dont be quick in jumping to this assessment; its the lazy way out."

<http://www.criticalbench.com/armmass.htm>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think the user interface for data entry is the key problem in using software to track gym workouts. I lift 4x per week and have tried various workout logging software, but have yet to find anything that works better than a simple notebook and pen.

A typical session's data includes 6 exercises, 4 sets each, weight and rep count for each set, so 48 numbers altogether, all related to each other in different ways. Plus I like to keep notes in the margin like "grip the bar wider" or "slower negative movement".

If you can create an iphone app with a user interface that makes it really really easy to enter workout data, then I think you would find a large market. I payed for gyminee.com because I thought it might deliver this, but the data entry was still too annoying. The built-in Notes program on the iphone was actually better.

Also, as other people have mentioned, "overtraining" has negative connotations, so I'm curious why you picked this name.

Best of luck. I think this is something people want.

</comment><comment><USER6> I am of the opinion that lifting weights is just damage and not really useful in comparison to many other activities.

I was a college football player and could put 375lb above my head, squat over 500lb and bench press 225lb over 30 times.

That said. That is not health, but damage.

Unless you can move your _own_ body weight efficiently what is the point in lifting metal.

Try Tai Chi or some form of movement that works on integrating the control of the entire body. Almost all weightlifting is isolating muscles and detaching the control of the muscles from each other.

Muscles are also one of the weakest parts of the body structurally so strengthening them does little for the overall strength of the body, which is only what most weight lifting succeeds in doing . There are better ways to strengthen the joints and bones and tendons and ligaments.

<comment><USER2> "There are better ways to strengthen the joints and bones and tendons and ligaments."

First, lifting weights does strengthen bones via Wolff's Law. Second, lifting also strengthens tendons and ligaments, but probably not the kind of lifting you did for football. To strengthen these, you'd do something like 4 x 100 squats with 115lbs, ass to ankles.

<comment><USER6> But there are still "better ways". I was not discounting the ability of weightlifting to strengthen bones, tendons, and ligaments, but to point out that other ways may be more beneficial and healthier and have less negative effects.

Weightlifting of almost all forms generally promotes overall tension in the body, which, in my opinion, is not a good thing.

<comment><USER7> Sorry, I'm calling bs on your lifts. Additionally, you don't know what you're talking about. The sports athlete lifts (correctly) to enhance his/her body's ability to generate force for a particular sport, that's all. If the athlete does not lift correctly, that's not the barbell's fault. The Oly lifter measurably generates more force than athletes in any other sport. Ex. When Reza Zadeh weighed 300, at 6 ft tall he could high jump a 6 ft bar. (He's about 370 now). Even well into my 30's, at near 300 I could standing long jump over 10 feet. I throw stuff though, I'm not an oly lifter.

If you're trying to throw a baseball, lifting might slow you down, but you won't be able to throw a 2k disc very far, and pitchers aren't very good batters either. The top discus throwers in the world all have huge lifts, and we all know what muscles do for batting.

But all this is off-point anyway. The thread starter just wants peeps to beta for him. If you don't like to lift, or you don't like to keep a journal while lifting, don't beta test.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I workout regularly and have for quite a few years.

a) I don't track the numbers, I know what I lift without writing it down.

b) Overtrainer is a bad name...as mentioned. Over training almost never happens and has a bad stigma. People have difficulty getting TO the gym, not staying away.

c) I don't see it solving a problem. How many people do you know that say 'I wish I could have better charts of my lifting amounts'? Or 'I wish I didn't workout as often'.

Sorry for the negative feedback, but it's sincere.

<comment><USER9> "How many people do you know that say 'I wish I could have better charts of my lifting amounts'?"

BodySpace on bodybuilding.com, which does this, currently has over 200,000 active members - so quite a few actually.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Sorry I should have said please leave contact info, or email me at firstname.lastname@example.com if you would like to do some testing with it

Sorry about the ambiguity!

</comment><comment><USER10> I used to lift a couple times a day and am looking to get back into it, though probably only once a day. I'd be happy to test out the app.

<comment><USER3> Forty minutes twice a week is more than enough time if you're doing it right. If you can lift two days in a row in perfect comfort you're doing it wrong.

<comment><USER10> Actually it's exceedingly simple: You don't work the same muscle groups more than every 2-3 days. Your argument suggests that if I do legs in the morning I shouldn't be able to do bi/tri that evening for example, which is pretty asinine.

We are talking about two different things. I was power lifting which involves different workouts than total-body or body-weight exercises, for example. For the most part, though, the morning was reserved for cardio and very little lifting, mainly just some body-weight exercises.

40 minutes twice a week isn't nearly enough unless you're not looking for very good gains.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've just started working out in the last few weeks, now that college has started.

1) Is your start-up one that would help me, new and inexperienced? If so, I'm interested, providing:

2) Do you need people testing that aren't particularly skilled at working out?

Either way, best of luck with your app.

<comment><AUTHOR> Although this is geared towards the more experienced I would like to hear your thoughts as someone starting out. Let me know at email@example.com if you would like to play around with it.

Thanks

<comment><USER12> Market research question. Are there more people starting to exercise and looking for help or more people who already are exercising and would like help?

One difference between the two groups is that the former hasn't gotten past the "most people quit after 2 months" stage. Is that more of a need than better recordkeeping is for the latter? (Successful first products tend to be painkillers, not vitamins.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> How do we get the app or contact you for feedback?

Your page seems to only have a sign-up for notifications, but doesn't send a response...

BTW - I've been looking for, and even considered developing, an iPhone app like this. Most are made for runners and calorie-counters, not work-outs.

</comment><comment><USER14> We should get in contact. I work on <http://voomaxer.com> and my mantra is to prevent people from overtraining.

So far I only handle run/walk/swim/bike/sleep/heart/weight but I want to get into weights.

</comment><comment><USER12> You asked people what they thought and you're arguing with them.

If there are other people who like overtrainer, great. However, right now the only feedback is negative. Until you've got more, you're wrong.

</comment><comment><USER15> Hey, I lift almost everyday as well as doing cardio. I'd love to check out your app and give you some feedback.

EDIT: sorry, realized i forgot my contact info and emailed you instead

</comment><comment><USER16> Hi EJS,

I'm definitely interesting in testing out the app. I have given a lot of thought to this. I used to work for pumpone.com and know a few of the issues.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'd happily beta test. I currently use <http://www.gyminee.com> to track my workouts.

</comment><comment><USER18> I do a morning routine using the program "Body for Life"..

</comment><comment><USER19> nice tagline for the post. its a great idea to have beta testers be in your target market

</comment><comment><USER20> Me too!

Oh wait no, this is HN, not a general discussion forum. My bad.</comment>


Programming Rules and Conventions - <AUTHOR> http://www.erlang.se/doc/programming_rules.shtml

<comment><USER2> Although the examples are in Erlang, none of this seems particularly Erlang- specific

<comment><USER3> This isn't true.

For example:

3.13 Do not program "defensively" suggests that the programmer should allow functions to crash if given unhandled input types. This does not work in _most_ other programming languages to create a fault tolerant application.

A number of advice points about process/module organization also do not apply to most languages.

Tagging messages? Makes sense in lisp (and a few others), but again, not in most languages

Not to trap exits, again Erlang specific.

I could go on and on. Did you even read this?

<comment><USER4> > 3.13 Do not program "defensively" suggests that the programmer should allow > functions to crash if given unhandled input types. This does not work in > most other programming languages to create a fault tolerant application.

Incidentally, this applies to languages with exceptions as well. The hardest to catch bugs are when bad behaviour is hidden inside a too general try/catch.

> Not to trap exits, again Erlang specific.

Yes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This reference is full of sound advice for the new Erlang programmer. If you break it, you need to have a good reason to do so.

Also the seasoned Erlang programmer will find it useful.

</comment><comment><USER6> _Don't allow private data structure to "leak" out of a module_ offers a great example in module, type, or even class design.

<comment><USER7> I saw this, and was reminded that OO languages have language constructs to enforce this, i.e. the "private" keyword.

If you want to make something private (e.g. your internal implementation) it's better to make it private (resulting in an error if someone accesses it) than to make it public, and write a rule in section 3.11 of a convention document and hope everyone using your code has read it and obeys it.

<comment> qu4z-2 Except that the rule there is equally applicable to OO languages, and is more about what you should and shouldn't expose in your interface.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> loup-vaillant _3.1 Export as few functions as possible from a module_ — _3.2 Try to reduce intermodule dependencies_

At last a coding convention guide that deals with something other than _syntax_. And at the very beginning to boot. If I ever have a say to such things at work, I'm going to take some inspiration from that.

</comment><comment><USER8> How good can a programming language with such a long and complex programming rules and conventions book be?

<comment><USER9> In fact many of the listed practices are common to all programming languages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why not program defensively?

<comment><USER3> This is a basic tenet of erlang. The philosophy is that if the inputs are bad, don't try to handle it. Crash the process to isolate the issue from the rest of the system (and god forbid, your database). Erlang's supervisor trees will restart the process for you.

<comment><USER9> Well that was unexpected! It makes me curious about the Erlang way. Thanks for the reply.

<comment><USER3> One of the other comments mentions validating user inputs which makes sense and is an exception to my comment above.

For the most part though, my comment stands, and it is, indeed one of the more unique and charming aspects of erlang.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


AWS Import/Export: Ship Us That Disk - <AUTHOR> http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2009/05/send-us-that-data.html <comment><USER2> Already posted (twice) discussion at

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=620091></comment>


Ask HN: How is your programming-at-home/hobby environment set up? - <AUTHOR> Pics if you want! Though I'm more interested in environment i.e. virtual machine or dedicated machine. I've been trying to set up like a small hobby workstation kind of thing that's distraction-free so I could do little web development or app development projects with server hosting...something along those lines. I was wondering how other people have their home-productivity areas set up so I could get some ideas! <comment><USER2> I currently do a lot of TI-84+ programming (I'm in high school, can you tell? :) so I don't need much but I tend to have the TI Device Explorer open in one window at the top right corner (this is Windows, few of these apps work in Ubuntu sadly), an IDE in the left half, and Windows Explorer in the bottom right. Sometimes I also have some website in the background in Firefox for reference. Maybe I'm not your target audience but I figured I'd chime in.</comment>


The Cost of Developing for BlackBerry - <AUTHOR> http://www.mobilitea.com/blog/2009/06/28/the-cost-of-developing-for-blackberry/ For those entrepreneurs looking to get started developing for a mobile platform such as BlackBerry OS, this article is for you. I cover initial costs, whether they are necessary or optional, and explain the purpose of each. <comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys,I wrote this blog for those entrepreneurs who are looking to get started developing for a mobile platform such as the BlackBerry OS. I cover initial costs, whether they are necessary or optional, and explain the purpose of each. Have fun!</comment>


High Definition SATA Cable for Audio - <AUTHOR> https://jcat.eu/product/hd-sata-cable/ <comment><USER2> [https://klappav.com.au/collections/new- arrivals/products/ls-...](https://klappav.com.au/collections/new- arrivals/products/ls-4004-air-speaker-cable-3-0m-pair-banana-spade-adaptor- pure-silver)

      "AND WHAT ABOUT THE AUDIO QUALITY?

       Basically, adding conductor material
       leads to an increase of the
       controlled currency throughput."

What a refreshingly honest claim. More conductor material does indeed increase current throughput. Wait no, sorry, I misread the sentence. It leads to an increase in _currency_ throughput? That's even more honest. $54,000 AUD for 3 meters of speaker wire is massive currency throughput indeed.

</comment><comment><USER2> If anyone in the tech sphere needs convincing that all audiophile claims that claim to defy objective measurement are bullshit, this ought to do it. Anyone with half a clue about computers will understand that SATA cables cannot possibly make a difference, yet many people are convinced by things like this. And if you can be convinced by this, you can be convinced by things that sound far more plausible.

Therefore it should be clear that people's subjective experience of sound quality is dominated by expectations. The placebo effect overwhelms our ability to judge sound quality with our ears.

Of course, once you realise that all sound recording is _by definition the measurement of sound waves_ it should be obvious and incontrovertible that all aspects of sound reproduction are entirely susceptible to objective measurement.

</comment><comment><USER3> I feel like there's a vast untapped market for audiophile-type products for other artistic domains. "Store your ebooks on our Precision Reference USB Key (only $1800) and the characters will be more believable and the plots more exciting!"

</comment><comment><USER4> The founder introducing the cable on their forum [1]:

 _" Why did I introduce new models? First and most important reason for me is always better sound. Second reason is compatibility and ease of installation.

JCAT HD SATA Cable offers much better sound quality compared to discontinued JCAT SATA v2. It can be used with any SATA drives, but It sounds best with music library HDDs.

JCAT Reference SATA Cable is in a completely different league: much better resolution, dynamics. Darker, more natural tone. It can be used with all SATA drives, but it's best to have it on OS drive.

I personally use the Reference on OS drive and the HD Cable on my media library HDD.

Let me know if you have any questions.

BR,

Marcin"_

[1] [http://jplay.eu/forum/index.php?/topic/2457-jcat- reference-s...](http://jplay.eu/forum/index.php?/topic/2457-jcat-reference- sata-cable/)

<comment><USER5> This is next level snake oil. A SATA cable that gives data stored on the disk a "much better resolution, dynamics. Darker, more natural tone". :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Offers improvement of sound quality & image quality"

Also improves image quality. I can't wait until they provide a high definition SSD.

I wonder if audiophiles are switching to M2 SSDs to avoid all audio and image degradation from SATA cables.

</comment><comment><USER7> LOL: "First ever audiophile network interface for music streaming":

[https://jcat.eu/product/net-card-femto-audiophile-network- ad...](https://jcat.eu/product/net-card-femto-audiophile-network-adapter/)

</comment><comment><USER8> That's not as cool as their Reference SATA Cable [https://jcat.eu/product/reference-sata- cable/](https://jcat.eu/product/reference-sata-cable/)

</comment><comment><USER9> [http://consumerist.com/362926/do-coat-hangers-sound-as- good-...](http://consumerist.com/362926/do-coat-hangers-sound-as-good-monster- cables)

</comment><comment><USER10> > Marcin Ostapowicz is the only representative of audio industry in Poland who > succeeded in Japan.

[https://jcat.eu/about/](https://jcat.eu/about/)

</comment><comment><USER11> These guys are like the Monster Audio of the 2020s.

</comment><comment><USER12> but, but! less packet loss, so the system has more time to process the _right_ signals instead of all that nasty error correction!1!!°oO0°oOo°

(FEEL THE DIFFERENCE)</comment>


Meet a Shenzhen Maker: Mr. Chen - <AUTHOR> http://www.hoektronics.com/2013/01/05/meet-a-shenzhen-maker-mr-chen/ <comment><USER3> Reading stories about Shenzhen makes me terrified for the future of electrical engineering in the United States.

Here in Silicon Valley I often have to wait a week to get a board fabbed and another week to get it assembled. I usually have to order the parts myself from Digikey, which takes a few days, and then manually build the kits. If something goes wrong during the bring up, I need to either spend boatloads of money on overnight shipping (and get the order in before _ pm) or... well... there is no other option as pending time going to Jameco or Halted would likely be wasted, especially with even slightly uncommon or specialized parts.

In Shenzhen, however, everything is within reach and ridiculously fast. All of the factories and assembly houses are there and they even have malls that contain just about every electronics part you can imagine so if you need some rare IC you are almost guaranteed to have it the same day. Not to mention the EE communities like bbs.eetop.cn which contain not only software that is almost impossible to find through English channels (stuff that is prohibitively expensive specifically), but also many many datasheets and documentation that is usually under NDA and can sometimes be impossible to get if you can't convince the manufacturer that you might buy tens or hundreds of thousands of chips in the future.

What strikes me is how practical this guy's setup is. He isn't a Maker, he is a hobbyist manufacturer. I don't often see DIY pick n places and other more industrial manufacturing equipment this side of the Pacific (although this may just be a result of my ignorance).

<comment><USER4> If you are building a product, you don't really want to be using rare ICs. When you are making a decent number, you don't want to always be hunting for reliable suppliers (i.e. counterfeited SD cards <http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?page_id=1022> ). I like that when I'm buying parts from Digikey, I get what I actually ordered. When or if I want to take my chances and cut costs, I have the option to have it built overseas. But prototyping parts cost is a rounding error in any decent product run.

Oh, and spend 'boatloads of money on overnight shipping' -- $65. How much is a programmer per hour in Silicon Valley?

You could also move to Thief River Falls :)

I like buying cheap junk from dealextreme, but when I need something reliable that'll be around for a while, I'm glad to pay more for something from a real company.

Also, SparkFun has a few pick&place and I know a few people with them around, being used to varying levels.

<comment><USER5> _You could also move to Thief River Falls :)_

I laughed at that, even with the smiley. I live about 6 hours from Thief River Falls (home of DigiKey) and it's about -12F here right now at 7:30AM. Just checked the Thief River Falls weather and it's a balmy -24F there right now.

I don't think we'll be seeing a flood of Bay Area HN'ers moving here any time soon :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I live in Shenzhen, have good sourcing relationships and know my way around the various electronics markets, so if anybody needs a thrustworthy contact in this part of the world, feel free to write me.

I am from Denmark originally and I live and work in shenzhen in the mobile phone industry.

<comment><USER7> You don't have any contact info in your profile.

<comment><USER6> Oh.. thanks :)

Thought my email was visible.

<comment><USER8> perhaps obscure your email address a bit so you get less automated enlargement spam

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Major props to Mr. Chen. Just because we think Silicon Valley is the hotbed of innovation doesn't mean it isn't happening elsewhere.

In fact I'd wager that a large part of the silicon valley culture is getting set in their ways and not willing to experiment with truly disruptive ideas.

</comment><comment><USER10> I read this and realised I had not yet managed to join the 21 st Century. yet here in the UK I am a supposedly cutting edge developer - open source, experienced et al.

I need to run faster to catch up - and the whole country needs to run like Usain

</comment><comment><USER11> 花小钱,赚大钱 actually translates to, "you got to spend money to make money". Subtleties in the Chinese language.

<comment><USER12> Well, there's also the size nuance here -- that you need to spend far less than you'll end up earning. For the non-Chinese speakers out there, it literally means "Spend [a] small [amount of] money, make big money," with the same implication found in the techie epigram "Weeks of coding can save you hours of planning."

<comment><USER13> It roughly correlates to the expression, 'It takes a little bit of money to make a lot of money' -- implying the need to spend a little and also the contrast in relative quantities.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> For those who are interested in Shenzhen's DIY scene, I suggest you take a look at <http://www.szdiy.org/>. There is also a Freenode channel #szdiy (which is not very active).

</comment><comment><USER15> Awesome. I went to Huaqiangbei while I tagged along on my wife's business trip in Shenzhen and hoped to see some of the work guys like Mr. Chen are doing. Unfortunately being foreign there apparently screams "corporate buyer" and it reminded me a little of the old days of Circuit City when you'd be the only guy in the store and 25 bored, commissioned sales guys descended upon you.

</comment><comment><USER10> In the UK there is a show called "The Jeremy Kyle Show". where stupid ugly people come on stage to blame each other for various family squabbles in the name of entertainment.

I caught 30 secs of it just after watching the OP video and realised that the old refrain "stealing our jobs" is not true - the Jeremy Kyle show fodder did not and would never have a job as a short run PCB manufacturer.

I do not know how we will share the wealth that the next generation of technology will generate, but I do know that 100 years ago Britain nearly revolted against a social system where the upper classes "worked not nor did they sow" \- and now we shall have a class of people who cannot work nor sow.

It's an old meme in HN it just hit me this morning a bit harder

<comment><USER16> I believe that in former times the number of uneducated people with few skills were much higher than today. Unlike today there were plenty of jobs for those who had no education nor skills. Only the difficulty with finding gainful employment for those people - and the need for founders, makers etc. - <USER2> our attention to them in the first place (a microtrend of glorification of those people through shows like the one you've mentioned nonwithstanding).

Regarding the upper class who does not work that maybe the trust fund kids?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Nice timing - I just heard about "Pick and Place" machines on the "New Disruptors" podcast. Turns out, for relatively small volume, you can build your own manufacturing line with a dozen or so of these devices.

</comment><comment><USER18> It's not that unusual. Lots of companies start out the way this guy did. This happens all over the world, not just in China. In order to scale things up, you either rely on manual labor or automated machinery. And you can outsource both.

</comment><comment><USER19> Nice to see an article about China here. When I read Fred Wilson or Paul Graham I always wonder what they think about China and all the weird stuff happening in this country, but they seem either uninterested or deaf.

</comment><comment><USER20> He's living a small dream of mine.

</comment><comment><USER21> I put a similar setup together through <http://buildyourcnc.com/PickandPlaceMachineTheredFrog.aspx></comment>


China No Longer Top Holder of US Treasuries - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/id/40682653

<comment><USER2> The difference being that the Fed can monetize it all, while the Chinese can't. Unless, of course, they decide to surreptitiously print money as well (the kind of printing tech that the US Treasury uses is easily available to the Chinese).

</comment><comment><USER3> Tyler Durden! EDIT: Oh nvm I see from the gravatar that the analyst cited is using a pseudonym.</comment>


On Pricing Strategy - <AUTHOR>

I'm working on a business model that requires charging something for a web-based service (not consulting/nothing hourly). I've never known where to begin the process of arriving at the 'right' price. Clearly, there are marketing/customer perception implications to:
1) providing something on a free trial basis initially
2) increasing the cost of a service later 3) charging too little and being deemed insignificant "How could $5/month give me that much value?" 4) charging too much and being seen as a ripoff, leaving room for others to step in.
I know it's easy enough to arrive at or at least be aware of a market price (median/average) if there's enough competition in the space to do a back-of-napkin statistical analysis. I'm not sure how that carries over into concepts with a 'first mover' advantage, or markets where competition is light.
I know there must be theory relevant to this (probably volumes). Can anyone recommend a place to start? How have you dealt with pricing your startup's services?
<comment><USER2> 1\. Go out and tell your customers "I have this product, it does X, Y, & Z" (make sure you use the present tense).

2\. Tell them it costs $D

3\. Observe

4\. Change D as necessary

5\. Repeat until the reaction you consistently get is "Wow! That's awesome, what's your website, I'm going to buy it when I get home."

Market research is the best way to figure prices out. Alternatively, as yubrew said, comparables works. Think outside the box when you're trying to come up with indirect competitors. We are building a subscription-based web app, but an alternative to our service could be a book. That books costs a certain amount of money. Thus, we can charge at least that amount, plus a premium because, well, our service is a lot better.

<comment><USER3> I would like to add that "3. Observe" can get complicated. Initially, the metric to "Observe" should be how many people buy it. Then you can look at total revenues generated at $D price, total sales generated per customer at $D price, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ahh right, I think I remember reading a blog post about pricing strategy for ebooks marketed on ClickBank that explored this. Very interesting.

Thank you (all) for the comments - this is remarkably informative.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I have dealt with this problem before. Even if you are a first mover, you will still have indirect competitors, and customers used to paying a certain price and buying at a certain frequency. Talk to your customers, find out how they are consuming, and position your product accordingly.

Really Basic Example: A skype based cell phone should be priced similarly to comparable phones, with a premium because skype is cheaper than other cell phone plans.

For web products, one trick I learned is to use Google Adwords with different prices and features listed, and observe CTR.

</comment><comment><USER4> You are approaching this problem from a wrong side. First you need to determine how much your service is worth to the customers, in monetary terms. Then you can base your price on that. Normally you would divide your service benefits into two parts: "commodity" and "unique". You would charge what it costs you to provide it for the commodity part and how much it is worth to the customer for the "unique" part.

Also note that educating the customer about the value (in monetary terms) that they will receive by using your service is the key to make this strategy work.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's all about getting inside your target customers' heads and dissecting their buying decisions. Only then can you hit upon the right strategy. When you have drastically different buyer profiles, then you segment the market. In other words, you need to first answer questions like is this an impulse buy, is this a comparison buy, is it personal or company money being used, etc.

My last startup charged for a web-based service. It was a consumer impulse buy and so we tried to keep the price down for that reason. When we got enough size, we ran statistical tests to figure out the best price point in terms of maximization of profits.

I also have had experience selling an online book. As you suggest, sometimes the demand curve is not a straight line and raising the price can increase volume because prices can of course influence perceived value. I raised it from $9.99 to $24.99 and that is exactly what happened--increased volume.

<comment><USER6> Completely Off topic here...I visited your personal website, and all I can say is 'Wow' . Plenty of useful info...keep up the good work!! BTW You think groupomatic will be a better meetup.com? Or are you trying for something different?

<comment><USER5> Thanks. I'm glad you found my person site useful. I have a lot more I am planning to write and have already half-written. I just got distracted with groupomatic.

No, I am not trying something different with groupomatic. You hit on the head. I am trying to be a better meetup.com. I imagine it will be a slow, long haul, but it doesn't hurt to be free :). I tried to start out as simple as possible and not just copy all their functionality. In so doing I've already made several departures, errr improvements imo, e.g. group scheduling, no forced site registration, group specific handles, etc.

<comment><USER7> The following is a great book on pricing

[http://www.amazon.com/Strategy-Tactics-Pricing-Growing- Profi...](http://www.amazon.com/Strategy-Tactics-Pricing-Growing- Profitably/dp/0131856774/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-8559143-0407837?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1187123864&sr=1-1)

It was on the reading list for a pricing class I took. All I can say is that pricing should be the culmination of your marketing strategy. The book does a great job of explaining some real rationale and logical thinking on how to set your price.

The nice advantage you appear to have is that you can tweak or iterate your pricing strategy? maybe try different prices for different people or times of the day/month/year?

Good luck!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Pick a price you think is right. (It is random sometimes. Intel said how about $80 for the 8080 chip). get feedback. Sometimes raising the price increases market share ie... wine. For a web service there are no cost of goods or product costs to use as a basis and then add 100% margin. Unless you are going to turn off all your potential customers at once, which is unlikely, just do it and iterate.seems like it would be easier to lower price than raise it.

</comment><comment><USER9> To add to all the extremely good suggestions here: try out 3[1] prices in parallel: set up different websites pointing to the same content, just use different css's. Then go with the one that works best.

1\. 3 is an arbitrary number; pick whatever works for you.

</comment><comment><USER10> Bottom line...something is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. It is better to initially price too high than too low. It is easy to lower a price but extremely hard to increase it. Go high and be willing to negotiate.

</comment><comment><USER11> It might work if you pick out a price you think you'd pay for it, mark it up by 100%, and slowly decrease it over time.

</comment><comment><USER12> IF your customers are the everyday internet consumers then forget charging, unless you want to turn into a call center.</comment>


CGrep: a context-aware grep for source codes - <AUTHOR> http://awgn.github.io/cgrep/ <comment><USER2> This looks like a cool idea. I think a couple of (neat!) examples, stuff you can't easily do with normal grep, will go a very long way. The list of features is secondary in my opinion.

<comment><USER3> You basically had this with the Smalltalk refactoring Browser, where each search popped up displayed in a browser window. Then you could easily AND such searches together by executing a script in the browser window. Slightly more sophisticated combinations were possible with just a few lines of scripting.

On top of that, everything above applied to syntax-driven rewrites and refactorings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> blah.c:

      void foo(item *x)
      {
          x->blah(1, 2, 3);
          x->blah (4, 5,
                6);
          blah (7, 5, 1);
          foo (4, 5, 6);
          x->blah (4,
                5, 6);
      }

      void foo2(item y, item *x)
      {
          y.blah(1, 2, 3);
          y.blah (4, 5,
                6);
          blah (7, 5, 1);
          foo (4, 5, 6);
          x->blah (4,
                5, 6);
      }

search in blah.c for a call to _blah()_ with _5_ as 2nd argument from any structure or pointer.

      cgrep --code --semantic '_1 . OR -> blah ( _2 , 5, _3 )' blah.c

output:

      blah.c:6:    x->blah (4, 5,
      blah.c:7:          6);
      blah.c:10:    x->blah (4,
      blah.c:11:          5, 6);
      blah.c:18:    y.blah (4, 5,
      blah.c:19:          6);
      blah.c:22:    x->blah (4,
      blah.c:23:          5, 6);

</comment><comment><USER5> I've thought about something like this before, and I'm really excited to see how fully-featured it is. Written in Haskell is also a big plus.

</comment><comment><USER6> Funny, there was a bell-labs project with same name. It seems to be dead[0], but when we travel the time a few years back, we get a wonderful project homepage[1].

[0] [http://www1.bell-labs.com/project/wwexptools/cgrep/](http://www1.bell- labs.com/project/wwexptools/cgrep/)

[1] [https://web.archive.org/web/20080513225010/http://www1.bell-...](https://web.archive.org/web/20080513225010/http://www1.bell- labs.com/project/wwexptools/cgrep/)

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm not sure where the documentation is.

<comment><USER8> It's in the README at the repo: [https://github.com/awgn/cgrep](https://github.com/awgn/cgrep)

<comment><USER7> Any examples?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was curious, but had no idea how to use this on Ubuntu

sudo apt-get install haskell-platform

download and extract the tarball

cd awgn-cgrep-8af1beb

cabal cgrep.cabal

Unfortunately what stops me using it on a large codebase is that I can't exclude directories like .repo (not sure about .git).

</comment><comment><USER10> Darn, no SQL support. I often find myself wishing something like this existed for SQL, so I could, say, find all places where field X in table Y is updated, or referenced in a WHERE clause predicate, etc.

<comment> mh- interesting request; I've wanted something like this before but never enough to really look for it.

I'm surprised there isn't a tool that can do this already.. perhaps under the guise of refactoring?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> a binary for os x would be nice, since installing cabal/ghc currently is a bit of a pain

<comment><USER12> Isn't that just a brew install away?

<comment><USER13> It is a package install away: [http://www.haskell.org/platform/mac.html](http://www.haskell.org/platform/mac.html)

On my machine it is significantly slower than `ag` (Silver Searcher) for basic searches, but it should install and run.

<comment><USER11> ok thats a way. i usually like to install stuff with homebrew.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> How do I build this for Windows? I think I have something Haskell related installed because I see lambda as an icon on the .hs files.

</comment><comment><USER15> What is the difference between this and ack?

[http://beyondgrep.com](http://beyondgrep.com)

<comment><USER16> This is aware of some basic language semantics like literals, identifiers, etc. Or so it seems. Peek at the github page [https://github.com/awgn/cgrep](https://github.com/awgn/cgrep) for a little more info.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Would love a UI for this and an editor -- I still use TextWrangler/BBEdit daily to grep large chunks of source code and then edit in place (e.g. for refactoring). Just getting the search results requires opening up each file individually then editing, which is just too slow.

</comment><comment><USER18> JSON output is incredibly useful in combination with jq[1] for processing the output. Some things become much easier than with standard *nix tools IMO.

[1] [http://stedolan.github.io/jq/](http://stedolan.github.io/jq/)

</comment><comment><USER19> Have you tried [https://github.com/zeux/qgrep](https://github.com/zeux/qgrep) ??? Fast regular expression grep for source code with incremental index updates

</comment><comment><USER20> Any examples or reasons why I should use this over the_silver_searcher?

</comment><comment><USER21> How does this compare with Ack?

</comment><comment><USER22> can it be integrated with sublime text ?

</comment><comment><USER23> Examples or it didn't happen.

<comment><USER24> e.g. $ cgrep -r --header "stdio.h" to search recursively for headers

$cgrep -r --identifier VARname to search for a variable

etc..

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> It really sucks that 15 languages that people use _less_ than C# are supported before anyone thinks of adding support for C#.

Why does everyone hate Microsoft's languages and love Apples?

<comment><USER26> The most reasonable explanation is that this is developed by (an) Apple user(s) and adding support for Apple's languages is simply easier and more valuable than adding languages for a platform they don't use. If it's worth it to you or other C# users, I'm sure they wouldn't mind you submitting a pull request.

<comment><USER25> They actually do support C#, but I missed it because I read the list too quickly.</comment></comment></comment>


How to Test Your Netflix Streaming Speed - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2014/06/netflix-streaming-test <comment><USER2> > Within a few seconds, my Netflix stream _topped out_ at 3000 Kbps (3 Mbps) > and a resolution of 1280 x 720.

This confirms my suspicion which I mentioned in a previous comment in another thread:

> I think Netflix has a weird way of measuring bandwidth, unlike say the way > Speedtest.net would do it. I've noticed this before when they compared > Google Fiber to something like Comcast, and Google Fiber won [1], but was > only slightly better, so I was thinking "that can't be right - Google's > fiber is 50x faster. So why isn't that being shown here?" I think Netflix > just shows what's the "maximum" speed needed to deliver their service. It > doesn't actually measure the speed of that ISP's connection. So all they > care about in their test is whether the ISP meets that ~3 Mbps they need for > a perfect Netflix streaming.

[1] - [http://www3.pcmag.com/media/images/381404-netflix-april- isp-...](http://www3.pcmag.com/media/images/381404-netflix-april-isp-speed- test.jpg)

From the Netflix test perspective, as long as your ISP can hit 3 Mbps, that's a _great ISP_. I think we all know that not to be the case. If an ISP gets 1,000 Mbps, Netflix doesn't take that into consideration in this "ISP speed index".

<comment><USER3> > I think Netflix just shows what's the "maximum" speed needed to deliver > their service.

Exactly this. Assuming your connection is faster than 3 Mbps, the number they are showing is neither the bandwidth your ISP is providing you, nor the instantaneous rate that bits are flowing to your home network. If you have a faster connection, they will send you large chunks of bits at a rate higher than 3 Mbps (upto 35 Mbps from what I've seen), and then send nothing for several seconds.

It seems that Netflix tops out at 5.8 Mbps and 1920x1080 no matter how capable your network connection is -- that's the highest number this test will produce.

<comment><USER4> I've seen around 10Mbps for Super HD streams.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The reviews on the Netflix site are, of course, absurdist.

[http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/70136810?sod=search- autocompl...](http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/70136810?sod=search-autocomplete) if you have Netflix, if you don't it's pretty much what you'd expect:

        Very avant-guarde. Reminds me of Picasso's Blue Period.
        Scenery was beautiful and deep, but acting left
        something to be desired. That said, the sexual charge
        among the cast keeps you involved. All in all a great
        date movie.

\--

        .....................................................
        .....................................................
        .....................................................
        .....................................................
        .....Still a better love story than Twilight.

</comment><comment><USER6> This is amazing. I am with Verizon Fios and the speed peaked at 560kps. If I use a vpn, it reaches 3000kps very quickly.

<comment><USER7> I had similar results. Internet only ATT Uverse at home. Started at 560 dropped to 235 and never made it above 560. VPNed using openvpn into work where it is a commercial ATT fiber connection. Started at 560 and within 4 minutes was at 3000.

I am shocked.

<comment><USER8> It strikes me like this would be good evidence in an antitrust case against ATT, Verizon, and other ISPs. In most markets there is only one high speed ISP, and one can argue that they are using their monopoly power to force other competitors to their TV programming business out of business. Also, on the consumer side, this might be a good class action case, though thanks to the wonderful state of Texas such cases are rather hard to litigate nowadays.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Time Warner in NC (Raleigh area) is quite obviously throttling netflix. I did some tests back and forth with viewing directly and via a vpn I have in DC. Direct I have hit 3k a few times but normally I can't get above 1k. Activate the vpn and I hit 3k within 20-30 secs....

<comment><USER10> Connecting to a VPN routes you around the congestion point between TWC and NetFlix's CDN. This is kind of exactly what ISPs are upset about. They can have more than enough bandwidth but NetFlix's size and lack of network diversity requires them to make special accommodations.

<comment><USER11> Netflix are paying to have the data delivered to the door of TWC (to TWC's router at the correct TWC regional point for the customer requesting the data). TWC is limiting the incoming rate and not delivering the data to their paying customers. Netflix cannot provide diversity within TWC's network and it shouldn't really matter what port the data show up on.

Peering is a special deal for huge ISPs already. If you are small/medium size you will have to pay Level3/Cogent etc. for them to deliver data to you. Now the big players without competitors are pushing to alter the terms so the internet so that they get paid by both ends. And if companies give in the incentive for the ISPs is to worsen performance so more people have to pay for decent performance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I always just start up any 1080P stream and then watch my router traffic graph. I guess this assumes nothing else is going through the router. I am seeing 5.2 Mbps right now on a 1080P stream, although some times it is closer to 6 Mbps. Assuming the DSL link is good I always get 1080P. My physical link is a 6 Mbps DSL link from Sonic.net. It would make me sad if I had a 50 Mbps link from AT&T or Verizon and couldn't stream in HD.

</comment><comment><USER13> On a Mac, you can press Shift+Option+LeftClick > A/V Stats on any Netflix stream to see the video bitrate (and a whole lot more). It's the "playing bitrate v" value.

Also, the test video is strange. [http://www.netflix.com/WiPlayer?movieid=70136810](http://www.netflix.com/WiPlayer?movieid=70136810)

<comment><USER14> Thanks that is very cool. I knew about Ctrl-Shift-Alt-S which shows you the bitrate and lets you manually select it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm in New Zealand. For giggles I tried running this test from my TV via Chromecast. I expected terrible results. Instead I hit 4300Kbps somewhere around the point where the dude was doing the sweet moon walk whilst e-mailing his grandmother. Since then it's stayed right there.

At least, I assume it was his grandmother.

</comment><comment><USER16> > The highest speed in the U.S. is 3.03 Mbps

Actually Google Fiber takes the cake at 3.51 Mbs ... you click on "show smaller isps" link on [http://ispspeedindex.netflix.com/](http://ispspeedindex.netflix.com/)

</comment><comment><USER17> I had kind of noticed this in my casual viewing and this test confirms it: my Apple TV does a much better job of keeping the resolution and bitrate up than my TiVo. Also, they both do much better job than Chrome on my Mac.

</comment><comment><USER18> Can't actually test this with my preferred browser: Netflix uses Microsoft Silverlight for some mysterious reason, which is not supported under Chrome, which is either the 1st or 2nd most popular browser on the Mac.

Pretty shoddy. Get with it, Netflix and Microsoft.

<comment><USER19> Are you certain? I watch Netflix with Chrome on my macbook pro pretty frequently. Although I do hope they ditch silverlight anyway.

<comment> X-Istence The new Safari in OS X Yosemite will use the new HTML 5 media extension stuff that allows streaming video directly without using Silverlight :-).

Now we just need to get Chrome on board too!

<comment><USER20> I just ran the test on Safari in Yosemite using HTML5. Looks great, but pegged my CPU.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Side Effects May Include Anything - <AUTHOR> http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/01/20/side-effects-may-include-anything/ <comment><USER2> Pavlovian conditioning -

When you are on hacker news and think side effects means IO operations performed by your function.</comment>


Reading List: Implementation of Database Systems - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs286.net/home/reading-list

<comment><USER2> there is currently an interesting discussion going on at the ArangoDB mailing list, whether to embed Node/V8 in a database: [https://groups.google.com/d/msg/arangodb/h5a-71H4LUM/VWNTCsg...](https://groups.google.com/d/msg/arangodb/h5a-71H4LUM/VWNTCsge4sAJ)

what do you think - in the context of database concepts?</comment>


The Great Hanoi Rat Massacre of 1902 Did Not Go as Planned - <AUTHOR> http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/hanoi-rat-massacre-1902?ref=hn <comment><USER2> Much like the Indian viper massacre or many similar pay for kills schemes. [http://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-cobra-effect-a-new- freak...](http://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-cobra-effect-a-new-freakonomics- radio-podcast/)

Tinfoil hat me wonders if it was a miniscule cost jobs program to curry favor with locals, even though this would never be acknowledged.</comment>


Microservices and Testing – Lessons Learned - <AUTHOR> http://microservice-on-my-mind.blogspot.com/2018/08/microservices-and-testing-lessons.html <comment><USER2> > These snapshots are then checked-in into the source control with the > service.

What's responsible for updating these recordings when the dependencies change? Seems like unless you've automated that (or have some kind of linter in CI that checks that recordings match real behavior) services will run the risk of testing against unrealistic data.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good question - In theory the frequency depends on the factor of how frequently other teams are introducing breaking changes in terms of API. If the dependency is too early in development phase and API is changing a lot, then probably that api should not be consumed (internally we don't allow such api to hit prod). But still its a good practice to update snapshots (like you said for stale/seed data) and I have been part of teams that have daily or weekly schedule jobs to run these updates (Both approaches work fine).

<comment><AUTHOR> Also the process of updating the snapshot should be dead simple!</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Issue Haven – a collection of open issues for newcomers to Open Source - <AUTHOR> https://issuehaven.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN,

I'm a high school student who found myself struggling to find places to apply my programming skills aside from simple projects and CS contest problems, and ran into many people who faced the same issue.

In response, I made Issue Haven over the course of the past few months to automatically curate a catalogue of beginner-friendly issues from large projects on Github (i.e. cerbot, Ansible).

This is my largest project to-date (and Show HN) so all feedback is greatly welcomed!</comment>


Advanced Placement – Because We Don't Trust Teachers - <AUTHOR> http://cestlaz.github.io/posts/ap-we-dont-trust-teachers/#.Vy3PekoaAjE.hackernews <comment><USER2> Here in the UK, all high school exams are set by exam boards, which are independent of the schools (the schools get a choice and can offer exams from a mixture of exam boards - so if one exam board is messing up too badly schools can just choose another).

That seems like common sense to me - it makes sure anyone looking at someone's grades knows an A from a poor inner city school is the same as an A from the most prestigious private school. How else would you stop standards getting out of alignment at different schools and across the country?

<comment><USER3> If you look at the states'-rights arguments for why schools should be controlled and funded at the hyper-local rather than federal level, it seems many people in the US believe standards _should_ be out of alignment across the country. People with political power honestly believe that kids in Kentucky ought to be educated differently than kids in Wisconsin.

<comment><USER4> That seems pretty reasonable to me, though I don't think you're stating the position very clearly. It's more that people in Kentucky want control over the schools in Kentucky (which, you know, they're paying for) and don't really care what people in Wisconsin want to do with schools in Wisconsin. And vice versa.

<comment><USER3> Sure, and wanting control is definitely what's really going on. What's curious is when the _argument_ for wanting control is a belief that the appropriate education differs based on geography.

<comment><USER4> How many people do you see making that argument?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I can only speak as someone who has gone through (the pain that was) High School, including many AP courses but I have to strongly disagree with this article.

> I usually use phrases like "society doesn't trust" but let's personalize it > this time – for parents, think about whether or not you trust your kids > teachers? Do you a large private, unaccountable organization more?

In my experience College Board is infinitely more accountable than any of the teachers. The AP tests are graded anonymously, with graders blinded to student and school. I've literally had teachers give me different credit for nearly the same work as another student because they "just didn't get the feeling I understood the material" or some thinly veiled attempt at saying the didn't like me. Looking back I wouldn't trust some of my teachers to wash my car let alone determine my future.

> You trust your child's teacher with your child's well being every day but > you don't trust him to say whether or not your kid knows calculus?

If your kid can't take care of his own well-being by High School you've failed as a parent. If you think it's your job to take care of your student's well- being, you've failed as a teacher. You're supposed to teach them, not change their diapers.

> Then you teach the class and in May, one to two months before the end of the > semester the kids take the AP exam - you don't see results until the summer.

This is the only point I can partially agree with. Having your entire score come down to one test adds a lot of variables, but in the age of testing this isn't just limited to APs. Thankfully there's enough data you send to college that a single bad data point doesn't hurt too much. And if you really understand the material, retaking a course isn't that bad.

<comment><AUTHOR> What you're describing isn't accountability. It's unbiased grading. Grading can be done blind without the college board.

Who does the college board answer to?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's worth noting that the author here seems to be a teacher.

One design feature of AP classes is to indeed remove some discretion from teachers. This is a drawback when you have amazing teachers, and a godsend if you have bad or just plain lazy teachers. This is the same pattern as checks- and-balances vs dictators.

Since APs are a control mechanism for teachers then, I would take the article's opinion of APs with a grain of salt. A much more neutral party would be that of a student: a bad test causes pain similar to a bad teacher.

The good news about the student point of view is that most people here can draw from personal experience -- real data.

He cites an AP Calc teacher who was really stellar but got punished by not covering enough material by the time of the AP test.

In your experience, what fraction reflects that AP Calc example above (where discretion is used well at the detriment of the test), and what fraction reflect teachers using discretion badly (and getting caught by the test)? For me the ratio is like 1:3 if not 1:5.

I am open to the idea that there may be good ways to give teachers more discretion in positive ways, but I think it really needs to be acknowledged that APs exist in the first place to solve a problem, a problem that can't just be waved away without convincing data that show an alternative system performs better.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm the guy that wrote the article and yep - I'm a teacher. Really good points here. I already know the answers with respect to my school and schools of friends and colleagues but that is a small sample and not necessarily representative. It's part of what colors my opinion and yes - I agree, one should take everything with a grain of salt.

I know for teachers of APCS (my subject), they used to have a large case study to cover. Teacher's for which the case study fit naturally into their teaching approach, it worked pretty well. For people like myself and many friends and colleagues, it was a large 100 page document with all sorts of ins and outs that took time from teaching, you know, CS.

To your point, a weaker or less knowledgeable CS teacher would probably end up using the case study as a support which could be a good thing.

I guess this also brings a question of depth to mind - in AP Calc, should kids be proving and deriving or memorizing. I'm in the prove and derive camp but a lot of people think otherwise.

Anyway - thanks for your comment here - would you mind cut and pasting it over on the blog - I think it's a really good point and would love to save it for posterity and future readers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wish more of my children's education required two well-qualified parties to agree before being implemented.

That doesn't mean I trust either party more than the other; it means I want two people to sign off on major decisions, without me having to judge which is more credible.

<comment><USER8> What aspects of your child's education would you feel should fall under this "two party" rule? Where does that professional trust break down?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> All well and good if your kids are from a school known to the admissions department at the colleges they are applying to, otherwise the AP courses, with all their flaws, are a reasonable compromise that gets them college credit.

My kids took a different route when faced with a truly incompetent high school calculus teacher. My wife convinced the high school to allow them to take courses at the local community college for both high school and college credit. The courses were approved by the University of California so there was no issue about transfer of credits.

<comment><AUTHOR> Colleges don't see AP scores until after a student is admitted so admissions only sees the fact that the kid is in the class. Also, from what I can tell, admissions offices do have a pretty good feel for the schools they read for.

Once a kid is accepted, schools already give placement tests so that takes care of that issue.

On the credit front, I think partnering with a college would yield better results (like what you did).

I also wonder how much the credits mean - if a kid can knock off a full semester, it's obviously a big saving but given the way colleges charge undergrads - a fixed amount for a varying number of credits, at the end of the day, I wonder if it makes much of a difference for a kid that gets a small handful of credits.

<comment><USER10> 1) AP exams can be taken independent of whether you've taken the class. A high school freshman can take any AP exam.

2) It's common in competitive high schools for students to start taking AP classes in junior year (or even sophomore year), so top colleges definitely do see AP scores for most of the top 30% of students applying.

For me, AP credit was huge. It let me skip calculus in college and a bunch of other very time-consuming classes (foreign language, etc.). Instead, it cleared up my schedule so by the end of college I was able to take multiple graduate CS classes.</comment></comment></comment>


Chart of the day, Microsoft edition  - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2013/09/03/chart-of-the-day-microsoft-edition/?ftcamp=crm/email/201393/nbe/AlphavilleHongKong/product

<comment><USER2> > the single factor determining Microsoft's future: if the company can > navigate the move from the desktop to mobile, it will succeed; if it can't, > it will fail.

Sounds fair, but the vultures have been circling a long time now. Here's one of my favorites, from a former head warning of the dangers of open source: [http://www.synthesist.net/writing/onleavingms.html](http://www.synthesist.net/writing/onleavingms.html)

Sure, he hits some good points, back in 2003. Then the poor, failing company saw a decade of earnings most successful companies would kill for.

Counting up reasons a company will ultimately fail rarely reveals the day or the hour.

IBM also saw some dark days. How many products did they base their entire business around that have since become obsolete? Though I have only a loose grip on what their core business is anymore, I have no doubt that they'll be here next year. I'm more suspicious about the new restaurant down the street.

A new restaurant has to make brilliant decisions every week. Microsoft can probably be stupid for thirty years. A certain amount of capital buys you a hell of a lot of indulgences.</comment>


Ask HN: Review my Android mod Startup - <AUTHOR>

Frontpage lets you browse your favourite news and social feeds from your Android Lock Screen. No inputting passwords or fumbling through multiple apps.
It is very much a minimum viable product right now - it has minimal functionality and a lot of work still to be done.
Once installed, simply activate Frontpage from Frontpage's settings tab, turn the screen off, and when you turn it back on you can begin browsing content.
We'd love to hear what you think!
http://www.frontpageapp.com <comment><USER2> In your landing page, the "Get it on Google Play" button is blocking the top menu bar.

Also, your product has the same name as a Microsoft product. That's a bad idea. You're never going to get any traffic even if someone searches for your exact name, plus if you ever get even a little big Microsoft's legal team is going to be all over you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi rbchv, thanks for taking a minute to check out Frontpage.

The site has some issues for sure. Try zooming out - unfortunately it is currently styled with a native width of 1300 which is too wide and causes some resizing problems.

As for the name, there are standards in place regarding trademarks and logos which require a level of similarity between products. There is no conflict here. Thanks for looking out though!

What did you think of the app itself? Try it out!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The price is free!

frontpageapp.com</comment>


Cracks in the Billion-Dollar Startup Club - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/articles/cracks-in-silicon-valleys-billion-dollar-startup-club-1417810965

<comment><USER2> It would be nice if I didn't have to subscribe or sign up just to read it.</comment>


The 3 Most Impactful Design/Dev Tools - <AUTHOR> http://www.developertown.com/3-impactful-design-tools/ <comment><USER2> Misleading title—all of these are design or prototyping tools.</comment>


Microsoft Sweetens 'Buy a New PC' Deal for Windows XP Users with $100 Savings - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2455305,00.asp

<comment><USER2> When Microsoft offers a big discount on Windows 8.1 for people dumping XP, then there will be something worth writing about, and Microsoft will seem a bit less predatory.</comment>


Any book recommendations for Back End Infrastructure - <AUTHOR>

Anyone recommend any books for Best Practices and Development of Back End Infrastructure? I'm well versed in MYsql, Java, PHP, Ruby. <comment><USER2> I'd start here - <http://astore.amazon.com/possiboutpos-20>

There's no one book telling you "this is how you should do blah". You have to research. You'll notice those books deal with scaling websites to millions of users but I always found the lesson they teach/preach to be really important.

Anyway, once you start covering those topics a lot you notice patterns and hopefully you can start to incorporate that sort of thinking into your own development.

One thing to remember. Good design/engineering is about simplicity and elegance. Those are two beautiful things.</comment>


Blog: Visual Studio add-ins, extensions and tools - <AUTHOR> http://visualstudioaddins.svprogramming.net/

<comment><USER2> Another good tool (especially if you're a Vim fan) is ViEmu: <http://www.viemu.com/> . I remember using it a few years ago and it brought over a lot of the functionality that vim users have grown to appreciate. I had a really good experience with the developer as well; he cares and has created a very good addon that I don't think I could live without if I was forced to use Visual Studio.

EDIT: So the story, just in case anyone is interested, is this. I was doing an internship at a small healthcare company in the IT department and was writing a web app in asp.net mvc. I downloaded the ViEmu trial and had been running it for about a month and was loving it. But then my trial was about to expire and I only had like 3 weeks left at the company. I made a random one-off comment about how I wished I had just an extra week or two on my trial as this was pretty much the only time I would be using VS. The developer emailed me with an extended trial key and was extremely helpful throughout the entire process.

</comment><comment><USER3> Great reviews.

You may want to check out ReSharper which is just fantastic, <http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/>

<comment><USER4> Everybody using VS should already know about Resharper. But just in case someone doesn't - this is a must to have if you work for enterprise, request it from your employer now!

<comment><USER5> Sorry, but I disagree that this is a must-have.

Resharper slows VS down immensely and adds way too much cruft in my opinion.

<comment><USER4> I'm not noticing it on a VERY large project, but my installed RAM is 12GB. The trade-off between RAM and productivity is in the Reshaper's favour IMO.

<comment><USER6> Agreed - the benefits of ReSharper far outweigh the negatives IMHO, it does love RAM though.

If its slowing your machine down, there's a few things you can do like turn off code analysis which will help, you can optionally run this later.

As for the additional things it "adds", there's pretty much an option to enable/disable/customise everything.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Adults in the Room - <AUTHOR> https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/the-adults-in-the-room-1837487584 <comment><USER2> I don't understand ... why do people keep submitting this? What value does this have? How does this enrich my life? When I've read this, how am I a better person?

What of consequence have I learned?

What am I missing?

</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>==

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20902514](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20902514)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20789479](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20789479)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20786676](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20786676)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20782097](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20782097)

</comment><comment><USER3> Maybe, just maybe... the owners already have a dozen other sites doing "woke journalism" and simply want to compete in Sports news as well. That the woke journalism at Deadspin actually dilutes and weakens their brands even if less profitable because it covers a broader market.

Much the same way as cereal companies carry "healthy" options despite most of their sales being "sugar" options, or that pasta sauce companies sell many varieties of sauce, even if some don't sell as well or have as high a margin. It's about covering the zones (to burrow a sports metaphor).

In the end, I think "The Adults In The Room" are short sighted and ignorant of anything resembling a bigger picture. And those journalists working for an e-Sports magazine might be better off going elsewhere if they don't actually want to write about Sports.

\--- edit:

Beyond this, the story is from a few months ago... and this was my feeling at that time.</comment>


The Mindtribe Approach to Rock - <AUTHOR> http://www.mindtribe.com/2016/05/the-mindtribe-approach-to-rock/ <comment><USER2> I keep coming back to my Pedaltrain boards, because I reorganize my pedalboards so often. The light weight and ease of dealing with the Velcro are huge wins.

Lately, I've shifted to a two-board model. First board has overdrives, second board has time-based effects. It seems easier than trying to Tetris a working design together that makes key pedals readily available underfoot.</comment>