A Dumb TV for Consumers - <AUTHOR> https://ironcast.tv/ <comment><USER2> >We removed everything that doesn't add to a simple experience; making it ultra-slim, pure and compatible with your other gadgets.

>The menu and remote has been replaced with the Iron Cast App, where your can create profiles and settings for any mood and atmosphere. You can choose between our carefully constructed profiles or simply create your own.

These two things seem at odds, the first thing everyone does is shovel in their own app.

It's also hard to consider dumb when it requires a smartphone to even use.

<comment><USER3> > It's also hard to consider dumb when it requires a smartphone to even use.

I think that in reality you don't even need to use the app. The TV should be powered on/off by your AV receiver or Apple TV or whatnot using HDMI-CEC.

<comment><USER4> Here I am, using an old fashioned physical button.

<comment><USER5> The way it should be. I once bought a computer monitor with capacitive "buttons." I'll never make that mistake again.

<comment><AUTHOR> Again, this remote app only lets you control color profiles. Not sure how often you do that, but I never touch those settings after initial calibration. It's been 10 years with my current plasma.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> No remote and required installation of a mobile app to control tv? That IS dumb.

<comment><USER7> I don't think the app is required if you hook up an Apple TV or similar.

<comment><USER8> Does Apple TV control brightness and Cable TV?

<comment><AUTHOR> I use plex, which can be hooked up to cable prividers.

But, I'm probably a target for this product as I have not had or used linear TV for 20 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> >Welded by danish design principles.

Looked that little gem up: "Scandinavian design represents a design philosophy that's characterized by functionality, simplicity, and clean lines."

Functionality and simplicity... that's already what a weld is... it's extremely functional and simple, melted metal to join metal. Clean lines? As in a welder who can do their job? I mean... duh? Really feels like someone saying "atm machine" and trying to make it seem like they art holy than thou.

I really hope they don't understand what "iron" means. Because an iron back tv... god have mercy on your spine when carrying that shit. Tvs don't have to double as barricades in case of a shoot out with the cops at your house. Tvs don't have to be sturdy. They're not gym equipment. You put them somewhere and they stay there like a glass vase. You look at it, not fondle it. Now, if it was really a Scandinavian inspired device... made of viking axes that have tasted blood... or get enough of these and they snap together to make a long boat. That's Scandinavian. Not "simple and functional clean lines". Bauhaus pre-dates that and whatever the Japanese call their style of design pre-dates that even more. Chill, ya' ain't the first. Stop making up silly names to feel special about your snowflake selves.

No remote... that's the problem with newer tvs that it's "solving"... by making the same mistake? The fucking remotes are useless and do the "handy little mobile app" which is always trash. Tactile people. Tactile. Smooth surfaces suck when it comes to remotes.

One HDMI... and they feel high and mighty for it... fuck you and your Apple design principles. Along with anything else they stand for. I bet they'll release a tv stand that costs a grand as well.

Why? Why are people doing this? This is crazy. It's crap like this where I go "Don't fix global warming, let's burn more coal! Humans need to learn the hard way of their mistakes."

It's the morning and I already need a drink...

A true dumb tv: no boot time because all it does is take a signal and spit it out. 3 HDMI ports minimum. Blueray player, a streaming device and game console. A real fucking remote that fits in my hand comfortably and the buttons stick out of the plastic so I can feel them and never have to look down. Extra points if they make one with Cherry MX keys. That'd be cool. Don't know if it's practical, but I'd definitely give it a try. And the inputs have separate buttons. None of this cycling crap with just a single "input/source" key.

<comment><USER10> I have to say that lots of TVs are only ever hooked to one input.

Also, having more than one input means you have to provide an interface to select between sources, which in my experience leads to "grandma, find the INPUT button" "..er the SOURCE button" "It must be somewhere on the back of the TV or on the remote"

<comment><USER9> >I have to say that lots of TVs are only ever hooked to one input.

I call bullshit on that. I know most people just use 2, but plenty use 3. You're using the same argument that Apple used to kill the headphone jack, that led to other phone manufacturers to follow suit. You don't have data on it and you're working within your own bias.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> How about a tv where pressing a number button takes you to that television channel no matter what state the tv is in. No switching sources or pressing exit buttons to reach the correct state. Just press a channel button and you get to tv. Just in case, god forbid, someone actually wants to use one to watch television on.

(Really iron back? Welded? That sounds incredibly heavy and just why??)

<comment><USER9> I'm thinking they really don't know what the word "iron" means. Or it's some new hipster phrase that refers to old stuff. I don't know. Because who the hell thinks a tv made of iron is necessary? The 90s called, they said you're an idiot because they tried that and are sorry for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Smart TV's cost a lot less than they would if Sony/Phillips/Samsung didn't resell your personal data they gather when the TV is plugged into the net.

So buy one of these good deals but don't plug it into the the net. Just get a NUC that you control and use that with one of the 3 or 4 HDMI ports you have.

You get a good deal on the TV, no one is listening to everything that's said in your living room and with a long range (eg Marathon) mouse you have all the remote control you need.

</comment><comment><USER13> Nice to see someone try to solve this problem!

Wishes: HDR.

A much larger size, like 85" class or whatever size is currently practical to manufacture.

An open standard for the app/control protocol in case the company goes under.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agree. I was just happy to finally see someone trying to create a simple screen, without the smart crap.

Perhaps doing a cheaper entry screen first is a resonable start, but I'd also like to see something bigger.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> They say the best speakers are the ones you add but it doesn't have ARC or optical... seems like this is only good for people with AV receivers. But those people obviously don't prioritize simplicity so I don't think this makes sense.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> They seem to have listened to feedback:

\- We embedded the Iron Cast Hub inside the TV, giving the Iron Cast TV 3 HDMI ports.

\- We updated the specs to reflect HDR, VESA and Embedded Wall Mount.

\- We changed the audio from analog to digital in both TV and Soundbar.

\- Finally, the biggest change, we added our Iron Cast Orb, for our dear fans of analog control.

I might have to get one just to support this venture.

</comment><comment><USER15> I was certain this was a parody site, but after reading the hilarious comments on HN I am no longer confident.

<comment><USER9> I'm really hoping so. Maybe it's an accidental early April fool's joke. Testing the site and someone posted it without thinking? If not, bring on global warming, we humans are never going to learn about useful technology. Just speed it up and let's get it over with.

Normally when you strip things away, you make things cheaper than the competition... not hike the price up by an extra $150 from the leading brand name.

If this tv was dirt cheap, I'd have no issues with it. It makes sense. As is... no and their air of superiority they have is the real thing everyone is angry about.

<comment><USER16> I would absolutely pay extra for a television without an onboard camera and stealth network connection, yes. It's sad that we should expect to pay extra for our televisions not to spy on us, but here we are.

We bought one of the last "non-smart" TVs available in the store just a few years ago and one of my great (arguably ridiculous) regrets is that when we went on the road this last time, we sold our place furnished, giving up that beautiful, giant, "dumb" TV to buyers who I'm sure don't appreciate its value.

<comment><USER9> I agree only if you're not buying a streaming device that has a built in mic that tracks and sends your info anyways.

Look, I'm against the tracking culture we're in. I refuse to get IoT anything and I don't do the whole home automation crap. But I find it dumb when someone says "I don't want a TV that has a mic in it and sends my data... Alexa, turn on my Apple TV and stream Stranger Things from Netflix."

Seriously... A lot of the same people have an Alexa/Google home/whatever. IoT devices throughout their home. Streaming boxes that only use voice commands. Yet they complain about smart tvs sending their data... Almost as bad as making a movie about aliens that die from touching water and they decide to invade a planet that's 70% covered in water and regularly has water fall from the sky.

<comment><USER16> This is such a fatalistic and sad attitude..."Why should I wear clothes anywhere if my doctor sees me naked?"

Apple, Google, and Amazon encrypt their data in transit, I have an ongoing customer relationship with them and I keep abreast of their privacy policies. I'm not happy, but I generally know what they're doing with my data.

Not so with my flippin' toaster or my computer monitor. And TV manufacturers have a very bad reputation when it comes to shipping everything they can get unencrypted back to home base.

<comment><USER9> They only reason they encrypt the data is so they can be the first ones to resell the data. They dont want someone to play interference and get the data for free. It's not for "the customer's safety". I dont care about the encryption, I dont want them collecting the data in the first place.

<comment><USER16> But the television's unencrypted collection is fine?

<comment><USER9> At a certain point, it doesn't matter in a practical aspect. It's like trying to figure out who gave you syphilis. You already got it. You need to deal with that first before caring about the "from who". Once the encrypted data is sold off, it's passed around more than a cheap hooker with VD.

Encryption is just the sedative they give you before they do execution by lethal injection. There should be no data collection, by anyone. Don't pretend that "Oh, we encrypt your data that we take from you, for your benefit. Because we _care_."

They _all_ need to stop collecting data and selling it off. FAANG and more. All of them. I'm fine with collecting anonymous view count/length of programs. That technically can benefit the consumer since it helps justify producers on what shows/movies to fund. Beyond that, there's no reason a single bit of voice data or transcript should go over the internet. No searches or anything IDing at all. No matter how secret squirrel they go about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> How is this better than any TV with Chromecast or Apple TV or whatever? What's the giant metal rectangle underneath for?

What's the point, besides hipsterism?

<comment><USER3> As someone who would buy this TV: the point is that it's not a TV, it's just a display.

I have external speakers, I never use the speakers in my TV. I have a streaming device, I never use the streaming features built into my TV. My streaming devices have their own remote controllers which interact with the TV using HDMI-CEC, I don't use my TV's remote controller.

All the "features" built into my TV are obstacles that I'm happy to pay to have removed. Due to the speakers being built in, the TV likes to randomly switch to those instead of my external ones. The streaming apps lead to the TV having an entire operating system of its own which causes it to take longer to power on, longer for me to get to the things I want and more complex to interact with and configure.

I essentially just want a really big PC monitor. Just give me something that takes a digital signal in and beams corresponding coloured lights into my eyeballs.

<comment><USER17> Then get a Vizio.

My P series can be run: with remote, with app, or via the tablet it came with (also app).

It's a barebones glorified monitor, but it works great for streaming.

<comment><USER3> Vizio isn't sold in the region of the world I live in and a quick Google tells me it still has nonsense I don't want built-in, at least the version they're advertising on their website.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I like the idea, but I don't think there's any cost savings here compared to a smart TV due to the lower volume and a relatively low incremental cost of adding in "smart" hardware and ports and speakers to every tv.

It's tough to say without knowing the exact panel, but looking at the specs (55", 4k, TFT) something comparable would be around $300-400.

<comment><USER19> Adding "smart" hardware & software into a TV is _negative_ incremental cost, because they make a profit selling your viewing information.

Source: I designed a product that helped networks package up and sell ad space based on this data. I am so not proud of this.

<comment><USER20> They track your viewing information from an hdmi source? I would hope most budget tvs decoding and analyzing the video to determine whats playing.

<comment><USER21> Yes, they can. The most pernicious version literally sends compressed screenshots to their data-harvesting services. Compression can be pretty aggressive, since they only really want to figure out what you're watching, and they have a full database. This process is essentially a hash-table of screen content; they can use compression on screenshots because that hardware codec is heavily optimized and quite cheap (witness mobile streaming video usage).

I have no idea which vendors/models currently do this, but several have been caught doing it in the wild; it's not just theoretical. Things like pi-holes and avoiding ever 'activating' your smart tv can help stop it, but if you want to use the built-in Netflix (etc) app, or look for firmware updates, or use a built in Roku or similar, then you're usually either doing something complicated (routing rules, pi-hole, etc) or giving in to your tv collecting data on you.

<comment><USER20> It would make a lot more sense to send the has database to the device.

If I wanted to block the TV from connecting I'd blacklist the Mac address on my router, not pihole, and just unlock it to update. If they stored all my screenshots or hashes forever then I'd lose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Neat but I think they went too minimal and a little too modern. More HDMI and no heavy metal back and I'd be interested. I know that creates an input switching problem but if they can make an auto switching HDMI hub, they could put it in the TV. (I've had mixed results here though.)

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess that's why the have the hdmi hub as some might want more ports.

I only use the one hdmi with ARC, and have no need for more as I have my additional ports in my AVP.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> If it's not less expensive than a smart TV, I'll continue buying smart TVs and just not configuring them. A smart TV makes a perfectly good dumb one. Just plug my Roku into the HDMI port. Newer Rokus come with tv power/volume buttons, so I don't touch the TV remote again.

<comment><USER24> Is there a substantive difference between something like the cheapo TCL with integrated Roku and a dumb / unconfigured smart TV with an external Roku?

Genuine question—I mean, is TCL+Roku likely to share different telemetry due to manufacturer requirements or pricing constraints?

<comment><USER23> It's probably fine, but then you have to trust both TCL and Roku. I'd rather just trust Roku. And not just for privacy, but for timely software updates, spare remotes, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> How is it a dumb tv when it requires a App to function?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's dumb as in no "smart" tracking features or apps built in. It's essentially a "monitor" or "just a screen".

<comment><USER26> Then why does it need an app?

<comment><AUTHOR> The app is there so you won't need an additional remote you'll never use. It's used for color calibration, that's it. How often do you calibrate your display?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I see so many big, cheap smart TVs on the market, and I feel like there should be some way to lobotomize the smart features away. Maybe there is some underground community of smart TV hackers that has just eluded my web searches.

</comment><comment><USER27> This doesn't seem like a "dumb tv", but instead the next level of "smart tv" \- needs an app and other bs- and then only has ONE video input.

How is any of this a good thing?

</comment><comment><USER28> I don't know about needed a phone app. Really, what we cable cutters really need is just a large computer monitor with HDMI and USB-C interfaces. The plug in a Fire, Apple TV, etc.

<comment><USER10> They could be just giving you a way into settings that HDMI-CEC doesn't define (does it?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I am very happy with my media-dedicated computer and my black-and-white Videosphere TV [jacked into the free digital signal channels with remote control].

I like to think myself unique, even if I'm not to a degree of a few thousand or so.

When I get a smartphone, I won't be using it to tune into The Late Night Show.

</comment><comment><USER30> Having to use my distracting phone (and make sure it is charged) just to change channels is weak.

<comment><AUTHOR> No channels, only color profiles and brightness. There's no tuner or apps in the TV which is why it's "dumb". It's a monitor basically. You hook up your AV-processor to it and use an apple tv remote or harmony or whatever.

It's what I do, and why I'll consider buying this as my 11 year old "dumb" plasma is starting to experience intermittent issues.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Eliminate all the bells and whistles and then pay extra to put them back in.

<comment><USER9> Don't forget it costs extra to have those bells and whistles removed. Looking at a samsung 55" 4k with hdr normal tv at $429 right now, that I can pick up at a local store right now.

Yet they want $599 for a kickstarter tv.

<comment><USER32> > samsung 55" 4k with hdr normal tv at $429

Link please?

<comment><USER33> Drive to your local Walmart.

<comment><USER32> I looked at Walmart's website and didn't see it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is the opposite of a dumb tv.

A dumb tv has a remote and no app.

This TV has no remote but has an app.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is not a "smart tv", it has no built in tracking features or apps, as pretty much all other TV's comes bundled with. The remote app is used to control color profiles and brightness (something one rarely do, after initial calibration), and there is nothing else to actually control as it is indeed a plain old monitor.

<comment><USER34> Ok. Then why not just add a simple remote to do that. What advantage does an _app_ have for that feature over a simple remote driven UI.

<comment><AUTHOR> I always have two things on the table: apple remote and my phone. Should I need to calibrate i have the app handy as opposed to a long gone remote, that when I find it have no batteries.

This would be the only benefit.

<comment><USER35> Unless the app goes out of date and no longer works on current smartphones/tablets, which does happen. I'd rather have the remote; batteries are cheap.

<comment><USER34> Also, most TV remotes seem to follow a standard, and as long as I can get into the TV UI, I can change settings.

So, even if the TV remote stops working, any kind of universal remote can help.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Like the idea of a dumb TV without a web browser, etc. But this implementation doesn't appeal to me. Sorry.

</comment><comment><USER37> Saying there's no remote is a marketing gimmick. There's a remote, your phone plus the app.

</comment><comment><USER38> >The menu and remote has been replaced with the Iron Cast App

dumb indeed, the consumers that is

</comment><comment><USER39> So, a monitor?

</comment><comment><USER40> Brilliant. I want one.

</comment><comment><USER41> This thing has so many bad points.

Ditch the app and have a simple remote control, one that can be replaced when it is lost. This thing will be obsolete as soon as the app is not updated. In fact, it should ship with 3 remotes.

Two HDMI inputs that are auto switching, and the TV should auto power on and off, like a monitor. One for the "sanctioned" streaming box (Apple TV, Amazon Fire), and another for Kodi based hardware.

Buttons on the side to access all functions when the remote is lost.

Might as well be 4K OLED too.</comment>


How to Help Save the Mentally Ill from Themselves - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/17/opinion/how-to-help-save-the-mentally-ill-from-themselves.html?ref=opinion&_r=0 <comment><USER2> It's sad what happened to the author's son, but historically laws allowing the state to 'interfere' with a person's psychiatric care choices have had some not insignificant amount of abuse. The author seems to want to expand "threat to themselves or others" from the current interpretation of physical violence / suicide to simply acting against their own best-interests, and while I understand how they came to that position, it's far too nebulous a test to guarantee perfectly sane, rational people won't be medicated or locked up simply for acting counter to common expectations.

<comment><USER3> Obligatory: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry_in_the_Soviet_Union)

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

...which allowed people who weren't crazy, but showed subtle signs (like, say, questioning Communism) that they _might_ become crazy, to be locked up "for their own protection".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Medicine does pretty well with popping my friend out of her psychotic states. But people on the traditional treatment programs never truly get better, they're just on the treatment merry-go-round for decades.

"The Doctor Isn't In" succinctly describes Psychiatry's big problem: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10315705](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10315705)

<comment><USER5> > But people on the traditional treatment programs never truly get better, > they're just on the treatment merry-go-round for decades.

You could say the same thing about a lot of neurological disorders. Or things like Type 1 Diabetes, come to that.

<comment><USER6> A lot of people can and do get better. I can't comment on whether traditional treatment works for that or not. Personally I think treating the person is more helpful in the long run.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here is a summary of the Bill: [http://murphy.house.gov/uploads/MHOnePager2.18.15.pdf](http://murphy.house.gov/uploads/MHOnePager2.18.15.pdf)

Here is the text of the Bill: [http://murphy.house.gov/uploads/HR3717%20Bill%20Text.pdf](http://murphy.house.gov/uploads/HR3717%20Bill%20Text.pdf)

Here are speeches and interviews about the Bill: [http://murphy.house.gov/helpingfamiliesinmentalhealthcrisisa...](http://murphy.house.gov/helpingfamiliesinmentalhealthcrisisact#Bill) Information

</comment><comment><USER8> I have had the experience of being taken into inpatient psychiatric care against my will. I fit the profile of someone that needed inpatient psychiatric help, but it would only be given to me if I was deemed a threat to myself or others. The doctors spoke with my family about possible things I had done that would fit that description, but I hadn't done anything to imply that. Finally, the doctors recommended to my family that they accuse me of danger to self or others anyway so I could get the "help I needed." They did and I was admitted.

So there are apparently ways to work around it if you really want someone to be an inpatient. Perhaps sometimes that's a good thing since wanting to kill people isn't the only prereq for needing help. Unfortunately I am now labeled as someone who needed to be locked up as a danger to self or others when I wasn't.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm curious, are there any studies that show antipsychotics not being harmful vs no medication in the long term (5-10yrs)?

<comment> xkcd-sucks Pretty much all antipsychotics, including the newer "atypicals," cause tardive diskinesia in about 30 percent of patients who are treated for more than 5ish years. The other side effects can be nastier, but TD is arguably the worst because it's permanent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Related:

[http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/man-found-dead-tent- er...](http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/man-found-dead-tent-erected- motel-room-article-1.2065448)

</comment><comment><USER10> > Most critically, the Murphy-Johnson bill provides incentives to fund > expanded treatment, called assisted outpatient treatment, or A.O.T.,

If you decide to websearch for this be aware that AOT often means "assertive outreach teams". They're different, although they work with similar people.

> only for those with a long history and pattern of proving a danger to > themselves or others.

This tends to mean at risk of killing are trying to kill other people, or at risk of dying by suicide. I'm not sure if the author's son would fit the definition.

> The specifics of A.O.T. vary by state, but judges can order patients to > undergo treatment while they live in the community instead of in prison or a > hospital.

In the UK "community treatment disorders" don't seem to reduce rates of re- admission to hospital. [http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-03...](http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366\(15\)00231-X/abstract)

> But A.O.T. is not carte blanche: It still requires court action and has > strict criteria to limit treatment to the most seriously ill.

It's pretty scary. I'd want to see more details of the checks and balances involved.

> Samhsa has used much of its budget to deal with less pernicious conditions > like trauma and stress.

Author is severely wrong here. "Trauma" covers stuff like borderline personality disorder, which can be a debilitating illness, with a high suicide rate, and high rates of accidental death, and a lot of very severe self harm.

Also, early intervention is important.

> It has also funded activist groups that oppose medication

That's not outrageous. Medication often fucking sucks, and there's not much evidence that it works effectively. It's often better to give people techniques to live with their illness, and keep people engaged with MH services, than to just give them a depot injection every six weeks.

> and mainstream psychiatric care for the seriously mentally ill.

Again, you don't have to look too far to find serious unwarranted interference with human rights when you start looking at MH treatment. This isn't just force feeding, or forced medication, or restraint and rapid tranquillisation, or detention in hospital against your will, but the lesser (still important) stuff like being fully involved in decisions about your life - what you eat, what you wear, how you spend your money, where you live.

Without details of the groups it's hard to know if they're idiots or reasonable.

<comment><USER11> >> It has also funded activist groups that oppose medication

>That's not outrageous. Medication often fucking sucks, and there's not much evidence that it works effectively. It's often better to give people techniques to live with their illness, and keep people engaged with MH services, than to just give them a depot injection every six weeks.

I know two people who absolutely cannot live without their meds and both are currently off them. One is homeless and the other is about to be homeless. Your knee-jerk reaction to the statement to which you are replying seems to indicate to me you've made up your mind about this, regardless of how much it helps or hurts.

You know how shit works in the US. Lobbyists can oppose the most sane things for completely stupid reasons. People that "oppose medication" seems to me, based on my experience, like completely stupidity. That's an extreme position. The other side (always medicate) is also extreme.

<comment> steve-howard Medication has some pretty serious side effects, and while the upside can outweigh the downside it's absolutely reasonable to oppose forcing other people to take medication.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: When did medium.com introduce a soft paywall? - <AUTHOR> <comment><AUTHOR> I just followed this link from the HN front page: [https://medium.com/@melissamcewen/who-killed-the-junior- deve...](https://medium.com/@melissamcewen/who-killed-the-junior- developer-33e9da2dc58c)

I was greeted with a popup informing me that I had now read one of three free stories.

</comment><comment><USER2> It was introduced last August.

Most posts are not paywalled, because users need to apply to a partner program and make sure their posts adhere to particular criteria in order to have the option of putting their posts behind the paywall.</comment>


Something revolutionary is coming to the world of football. - <AUTHOR> http://www.sportdaq.net/

<comment><USER2> Fuck landing pages that ask me for my email without giving me any info about what the app actually is.</comment>


OpenStack open source cloud platform needs to pick up the pace - <AUTHOR> http://servicesangle.com/blog/2012/04/20/openstack-open-source-cloud-needs-to-pick-up-the-pace/

<comment><USER3> Take note, the "Diamond Sponsor" of this website is EMC, the owners of VMWare, the creators of the vSphere/vCloud proprietary solutions that led to the creation of OpenStack.

</comment><comment><USER4> Not sure I agree with his comment about lockin to features / variants of OpenStack. The API stays the same between providers (well, to a point - <USER2> are always extensions and versions). I even expect that there will be some project soon, offering you a locally-deployed version of the panel, so you won't have to worry about that.

Or to put it another way - once you hire people able to scale your servers in a cloud, I'm pretty sure they're going to be capable of learning something like a new portal for OpenStack in max 5 minutes ;)

Dependency on some virtualisation technology is a different thing. But that's true by definition - if you start depending on Xen and migrate to someone using OpenVZ, you're going to have to update the code. It's not going to be a surprise for anyone I hope. It's a bit like using ORM supporting multiple databases... everyone would like to do that just so there's a possibility to switch when needed. In reality, almost noone ever does that once the product is live. And if they did, there would be some corner cases to fix, like the type of available indexes, query optimiser needing different hints, etc.

Like in many other areas, portable == you don't have to rewrite it from scratch. Very rarely it means that you can just flip the switch and be on a different platform / service / message bus / database / network / ... without _any_ work.

</comment><comment><USER5> When all of these are fixed, then OpenStack might have a fighting chance, but until then it needs to pick up the pace (and start producing quality software).

<http://etherpad.openstack.org/FolsomNovaOpsPainPoints>

</comment><comment><USER6> This article makes a good point.

Openstack has been around for 2 years, and you still can't go to rack space or HP or Dell and pay to use a public openstack cloud. Sure, Rackspace and HP have it in beta (finally!),but it is time to deliver.</comment>


Lower fertility is changing the world for the better - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14743589

<comment><USER2> Is it too early to start a media panic about the shrinking humanity?

In all seriousness, I've always looked at birth control and education and affluence as a virus which drastically reduces fertility. But obviously some people, besides their sex drive, have another not so common drive. Despite money, education and condoms they really, really want, not sex, but kids. And over time this trait will become more widespread in the population. We better have colonized space by then.

<comment><USER3> What makes you think that this not so common (as you yourself call it) drive will become more widespread? The graph in the article suggest a very strong correlation between wealth and low fertility.

Another trait is that of children-less lifestyles (sexual, medical or otherwise). If we're to keep up with the replacement-rate, that obviously means that someone needs to have more kids.

<comment><USER4> >What makes you think that this not so common (as you yourself call it) drive will become more widespread? The graph in the article suggest a very strong correlation between wealth and low fertility.

Evolution.

Right now, most people aren't that well adapted (in a Darwinian sense) to life in an affluent society. There's no reason to assume this will always be the case. The current speed of human evolution is over 100 times what it was in prehistoric times. Extreme environmental changes invariably lead to evolutionary changes.

<comment><USER3> > Evolution

What biological advantage does a large family have over a small family in an affluent society?

<comment><USER5> "What biological advantage does a large family have over a small family in an affluent society?"

The _definition_ of biological advantage is having a large number of offspring rather than a small one! (Simplifying a bit; said offspring should also reproduce, recursively, but it's a decent approximation to just consider offspring.) What kind of weird question is that?

Also, to bundle a reply to another of your concerns, of course you don't observe changes yet. If you have one population averaging 3 children per couple and another of equal size averaging 1, in the first generation it may not look like that big a deal, but by the fourth or fifth generation the 1-child-per-couple group has been effectively eliminated as a significant part of the population. Surprisingly small differences magnify surprisingly rapidly across generations; evolutionists have observed species going extinct because of far smaller differences than that. I just used large numbers to make the point more understandable, it applies equally to 2.1 children vs 2.15, it just takes a few more generations in that case... and not even _all_ that many.

<comment><USER3> > The definition of biological advantage is having a large number of offspring > rather than a small one! (Simplifying a bit; said offspring should also > reproduce, recursively, but it's a decent approximation to just consider > offspring.) What kind of weird question is that?

In animals, yes. Humans, especially in affluent societies have more sophisticated goals. Obviously, reproduction is important, but we will also pursue irrational goals, such as self-realization, quality of life, love, ethics and so on. The idea that we consider it a virtue to raise a child with Asbergers syndrome or other genetic defects is evidence to that, and in an evolutionary context decidedly self-destructive. In fact, I feel queasy even writing this, so strong is our opposition to applying our intelligence to raising the quality of our gene pool = eugenics.

My point is, although ill-articulated in a biological context, how does having a large family further any of the goals that a affluent individual in a wealthy society has? I'm not talking material wealth, even though that applies as well, but also the "soft" goals of contributing great ideas, science, arts, all the jazz, to the greater good of humanity. My point is; is a family with 10 kids more likely to foster a Miles Davis, Ernest Hemingway, Obama, Reagan, whatever floats your boat, than a family with one or two?

<comment><USER5> And my point is that your point doesn't matter. Evolution doesn't care about your "goals". If _any_ chunk of a population reproduces more than others, consistently, it will eventually form the majority, in a fairly short period of time.

You seem to be trying to prevent this from being true by sheer volume of analysis. Evolution doesn't care about your analysis, either. It doesn't matter _why_ some people have more children than others in an affluent society. It doesn't even have to be an integer number of children like "3" vs. "2", it only has to be a trend.

If you want to have a separate debate about how children impact your quality of life, than say so and have at it. It is from my reading of your other messages that I get the sense that you are almost willfully denying what other people are saying. Perhaps that is not true. But step one is to agree that in the end, it simply doesn't matter what the reasons are, only the actions and their results.

<comment><USER3> Yes, I was wrong to get this tangled up with evolution. Obviously, if it's a hereditary trait, it will spread and become prevalent.

What I was trying to argue, clouded by my lack of understanding of the exact biological meaning of the word trait (i.e. something hereditary rather than a preference a person might have), was that there seems to be little evidence, which is backed by the statistics in the article, that a preference towards many children is hereditary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is pure speculation, and I have no facts to back this up, but I suspect that if humanity begins to shrink, it will become an age of robotics. I think the biggest boost to robotics will happen when the number of people available for hard/simple labor drops off.

But that's just speculation.

<comment><USER2> I think it's more then speculation. Japan very anti immigrant has relied on much more robotics. The rest of the industrialized world, especially the US, prefers immigration.

<comment><USER7> Japan does something else which is very interesting and less known: starts hiring at _very_ low ages. My Japanese teacher told me her first job interview was in secondary school, and it is pretty standard for somebody her age.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There is a lot wrong with this article, but I don't have the patience to go through all of the unstated assumptions; so I will just use one point as an example:

"And everywhere, it is changing traditional family life by enabling women to work and children to be educated."

How is it that women working outside the home is better than women working inside the home? There is an unstated assumption that working outside is better; an assertion unsupported by any data.

Concerning children's education, one need only point to US literacy rates from 1850 to the present to see that the two (women working, children educated) are not connected.

As a secondary point I will point out that demographics are not mentioned in this article, apparently the author has never viewed the movie "Idiocracy" ...

<comment><USER9> Obviously, the movie "Idiocracy" is a source of scholarly learning.

<comment><USER10> That movie is fantastic. The entertainment value is beneficial, but the predictive warning is certainly as influential as the book The Time Machine which contained similar analogies.

<comment><USER11> I'm gonna have to disagree. It was entertaining, but the movie was entirely farcical. Its assumption re:how the world might potentially degenerate was silly, but I'm baffled at how people think that could possibly happen. It's like watching Office Space by the same director and thinking that taking a guy's stapler will definitely lead to him burning down a building.

Comparing the influence of a cheesy movie to one of the stapleholds of science fiction is ridiculous. The fact that Idiocracy owes its existence to the concepts of The Time Machine suggests that it's a derivative work, meaning it's not as influential at all. I'm not saying The Time Machine was a good warning, either, not as much as 1984 and _certainly_ not as much as Brave New World, which is arguably _the_ best prediction we've seen from a book, so saying Idiocracy is as right as The Time Machine isn't saying much to begin with.

<comment><USER10> I never said it was true, and it is certainly for entertainment purposes as its primary focus. If you were to summarize its predictive nature, it would result in a one sentence statement. Brave New World and 1984 are better in their predictive aspects, but I was not comparing Idiocracy to them. I was primarily comparing it to The Time Machine and well... to itself in a way. The intent of the movie was not as a documentary on the condition of humanity, but as a plot device, it can serve the purpose of warning us of the danger of thinking we can predict everything when we cannot predict much of anything at all.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


12 Strong proofs to debunk SEO myths and educate clients about SEO - <AUTHOR> http://seohimanshu.com/2010/12/05/12-strong-proofs-debunk-seo-myths-educate-clients-seo/

<comment><USER2> Good post!</comment>


The HTC Zoe ecosystem, a short automated video editor and cloud service - <AUTHOR> http://www.networkworld.com/article/2824992/opensource-subnet/htc-wants-you-to-edit-videos-and-take-better-selfies.html

<comment><AUTHOR> "HTC debuts Zoe, short automated video editor and cloud service. The Zoe short automated video editor and cloud service is HTC's chance at creating a missing ingredient — an ongoing open ecosystem that keeps Android and iOS users engaged with the company between phone upgrades.

Zoe fits somewhere between Instagram's Hyperlapse, which processes videos into short time-lapsed video, and Google Auto Awesome Stories,

A few details about the Zoe app and cloud service, users can combine videos automatically into a composite video of 7, 15, and 30 seconds in length. No surprise, the video lengths align with Snapchat, Hyperlapse, and Facebook. An algorithm chooses how to edit the videos into a short series of highlights. After the composite video has been created, it can be set to music with another algorithm aligning the music by beat with the video scene transitions. Themes with Instagram-like filters and special transitions can be applied to the video mashup.

Friends can be invited to collaborate and add their own video highlights to the video mashup uploaded to the Zoe cloud service."</comment>


Microsoft.com gets a makeover - <AUTHOR> http://microsoft.com

<comment><USER3> Does it look to anyone else as though the yellow square in the logo is slightly out of place? It's ever-so-slightly disconcerting. I wonder if it's an optical illusion or a subpixel thing.

EDIT: The green square as well appears to be shifted upward by less than a pixel, if that makes any sense.

</comment><comment><USER4> Can't find the original HN submission, but someone posted this interesting article about it a few days ago: [http://rainypixels.com/words/the-story-of- the-new-microsoft-...](http://rainypixels.com/words/the-story-of-the-new- microsoft-com)

<comment><USER5> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4602638>

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Try the site on a mobile device (or resize your browser window). Looks like they're employing a responsive layout.

I've always wondered why Apple doesn't make Apple.com easier to use on mobile devices. Maybe because they expect people to use the Apple Store app - <USER2> though it's only available to a select few countries?

<comment><USER3> Also try Ctrl+Shift+M if you're on a newer version of Firefox.

<comment><USER6> You know I'd missed that and it's pretty damned useful too!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This was done by the guys at Paravel. <http://paravelinc.com/work/microsoft.php>

</comment><comment><USER8> Looks like the new Myspace, but brighter :)

</comment><comment><USER9> It's gorgeous. I really like Microsoft's new look, and I'm a big fan of text (done right) instead of icons.

<comment><USER10> I really like it too. I'm afraid that if Windows 8 doesn't go over well, the whole look will get trashed by association.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> products -> windows 7 -> shop now -> windows 7 store link -> error

apparently they were making $0 on windows sales from windows.com site otherwise that bug wouldnt make it into live system

<comment><USER12> I can't reproduce any error there. Perhaps they fixed it?</comment></comment>


Device creates negative mass and a novel way to generate lasers - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2018-01-device-negative-massand-lasers.html <comment><USER2> For the confused (like I was):

 _" They did not create an entity that actually possesses "negative mass". They created configurations of energy states within a material that CAN BE CHARACTERIZED as a quasiparticle; there is no requirement that we think of it as a particle-like entity, it's just convenient from certain respects. In turn that quasiparticle behaves, in at least some respects, as if it were a particle with "negative mass", although from the sound of things, "negative inertia" would be a more accurate description of the phenomena they actually observed." \- DarkLordKelvin _

</comment><comment><USER3> Given the need for negative mass, I ask the obligatory question as to whether or not this is even the smallest step towards the Alcubierre drive?

<comment><USER4> They examine a quasiparticle, so its "mass" is a number describing the behavior of an emergent excitation of the semiconductor. It's not actually mass in the sense of an elementary particle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Re: Alcubierre drive

It needs imaginary mass, not just negative mass.

Edit: I confused the drive's requirements with tachyons.

<comment><USER6> Just take the square root of the negative mass and there you are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Original press release: [http://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/vamivakas- microcavity-ne...](http://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/vamivakas-microcavity- negative-mass-generate-lasers-290202/)

</comment><comment><USER8> Wait, they made roton quasiparticles, not actual exotic matter, right?

</comment><comment><USER9> Any theoretical bearing on the Alcubierre Drive or is this a different domain- specific concept of negative mass?

<comment><USER4> The latter ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasiparticle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasiparticle))

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> lightsabers?</comment>


How Much (Or Little) the Middle Class Makes - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2015/03/19/394057221/how-much-or-little-the-middle-class-makes-in-30-u-s-cities <comment><USER2> Here's a chart I think everyone should keep in mind when we argue about what happened to the middle class: [http://www.familyfacts.org/charts/340/married- couple-familie...](http://www.familyfacts.org/charts/340/married-couple- families-have-higher-incomes).

Single-parent households have always made less money, and the percentage of single-parent households has doubled to about 25% since 1960. That creates a lot of downward pressure on the income "median household" that is the result of sociological rather than economic factors.

Married couples where only the husband works make almost twice as much now, in constant dollars, as they did in 1950. Married couples where both spouses work make almost three times as much as they did in 1950.

I see some comments in this thread along the lines of "back in the day, middle class people could afford a house, two cars, college for their kids, and vacations." I think this view is more based on mistaken notions of what middle class families could actually afford in 1950. Partly, this is the byproduct of the fact that media always dramatically overstates the living conditions of people at any given income level.

Take, for example, "Leave it to Beaver" which is portrayed as archetypal of a 1950's middle class family with stay at home wife. But the Cleavers are an upper class family! Both parents attended college; the husband drives a top of the line car and has a white collar job. In the show, they have a nice colonial home, a small TV, and one nice car. Today, they'd be a dual-income couple with a McMansion, a couple of BMWs, and several flat screen TVs.

<comment><USER3> Why are you using 1950 as the baseline? My understanding is that concerns about middle class stagnation are due to flat or declining incomes starting in the late 1970s to the early 1980s.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think the disconnect is that these people have an Upper Class salary nationally (the student linked at the top), but choose (and I stress the word choose) to live a middle class lifestyle locally.

For instance, with that upper class salary they could likely get a home outside the city with a pool, park a couple expensive bmw cars out front and go on expensive vacations, buy the latest toys, etc.

Or, they can live close to work/coast/lake/whatever and be house-rich, but poor everywhere else.

Middle-class people don't have such an option. Their salary leads to outskirt/suburb house without pool, without bmw, etc. And no option to live close to what they desire. People in the bracket sniffing the upper-class usually buy token "I'm rich" status items (designer clothes/phones/etc) which they can't really afford except maybe sporadically.

Poor people are worse off, they live in location with an x-block radius they rarely leave.

<comment><USER5> While this is something to this, you also can't separate cost of living from salary comparisons. People making a lot, but having to spend a lot, working in the Bay area, NYC, DC, LA, etc. etc., don't have the options of keeping their salary and moving to a Cleveland suburb for the lower cost of living.

Even if there were enough jobs for people do it, they wouldn't pay enough.

They are essentially getting a premium salary because they have to pay a premium COL. It's not really a choice because the premium salary only comes if you work on the premium area.

So it's not really accurate to call a developer who make 130k in Palo Alto "upper class" and call a developer who makes 70k in Arlington Heights, IL middle class. They probably lead similar lifestyles.

<comment><USER6> This is true, but the developer in Palo Alto has the option to scale back her lifestyle and bank a lot of cash, whereas the developer in Arlington Heights will bank much less cash if he scales back his lifestyle.

Not arguing, just adding more "shape to that curve" :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Does it matter how much money they make? My understanding is that the difference between middle class and upper class isn't how much they make, it is how they make that money. The upper class is the only class that makes the majority of its income from investments, while lower and middle class make their income from wages and salaries.

In other words, the "job" of the upper class is to manage their wealth.

<comment><USER8> I don't believe that there is any true definition of classes here in the states. Some look only at the numbers, some look at how money is made, some look at the type of work, etc.

To me the distinction is all about quality of life. The "middle class" software engineering DINK couple in the bay area making $250,000 is absolutely in the upper class despite the fact that they still have to work every day.

<comment><USER9> My personal definitions for class boundaries are as follows:

      -Poor: Can't afford basic necessities without assistance.
      -Lower: Can't afford leisure time or discretionary spending.  May work multiple jobs.
      -Lower-middle: Earns an hourly wage.  Works at least 40 hours per week, and receives overtime premiums for more.
      -Upper-middle: Earns a weekly salary.  Expected to work 40 hours per week or less, and additional hours are compensated appropriately.
      -Upper: Works only to the extent needed to pay for luxuries.  Never fears the loss of a job.
      -Rich: Never needs to work: is completely secure financially.

Those are somewhat subjective, but they work for me. That DINK couple is solidly upper-middle class, but that is the class with the most potential for individually motivated upward mobility. If they voluntarily limited annual expenses to $50k, got annual raises of 1%, experienced annual expense inflation of 5%, and earned 6% on their investments, they could meet expenses without working after 6 years. Their investment income would exceed their working income after 17 years. They could retire in the 18th year, and would never _need_ to work again. Practically speaking, they would likely continue working, for additional self-worth, savings, and social status, but with the confidence that only "go to Hell money" can imbue.

(Of course, income taxes make such a rapid rise impossible. With an income of $250k, you're likely paying at least $100k in taxes alone. Ignore that for this thought experiment.)

They won't be rich. They wouldn't buy a nice house without a loan, for instance, but they would surely get the most favorable interest rate available. They could still be threatened by a market crash. They wouldn't be VCs, but they could be angels or entrepreneurs.

<comment><USER10> I think those definitions are over-thought-out. There's little fundamentally different among those first five. To me, if you depend on someone else (have to work, or get assistance) to live the way you want to live, you're in one class, and if you don't, you're in the other one. Everyone in those first five groups are N paychecks away from $0, the only difference is what that number N is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think the issue here is that both sides are talking past each other.

Middle class used to mean 2 separate things.

1) You made a certain income.

and

2) you were able to support a particular life style on that salary( detached house, 2 cars, vacations, able to put your kids through school), or what every your definition of middle class was.

The problem is that with inflation on some of these things, notably houses and university, someone who is middle class by definition 1 ins't middle class by definition 2.

Here is the original piece that the article is commenting on:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/29/upshot/why-obamas- proposal...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/29/upshot/why-obamas-proposal- for-529s-had-no-chance.html?rref=upshot&abt=0002&abg=1)

For what its worth I tend to agree with the original article.

With Montessori (private school) for 2 kids, a nice house in a good neighborhood in a big city, and the fact that I reinvest all my money back into my company it certainly feels like I'm living a middle class lifestyle.

I also completely agree that you can't use just salary as your measure of middle class. It looses meaning when comparing small town to a city like NY.

<comment><USER12> [https://soundcloud.com/mia-riker-norrie/classical-rap-pdq- ba...](https://soundcloud.com/mia-riker-norrie/classical-rap-pdq-bach)

From the early 90's, a take on how hard is it live on six figures on the Upper West Side. (I coincidentally happened to listen to an old cassette tape with this, and then read this thread.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> ITT and every similar conversation in the US, people desperately redefining middle class such that they are comfortably in it. In Lake Woebegone all children are above average but their parents are definitely middle class.

It would be a harmless cultural quirk but for the fact when it comes to talking about taxing the rich (or other means testing) it turns out that there aren't any.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm sick to death of hearing about salary in connection to the middle class. How much money you have put away in the bank is of far greater consequence than how much you made last year.

I have two friends, one is a Public Defender and one is a Software Engineer. The Public Defender comes from money and has no problem going to nice restaurants, she drives a nice car, etc; her father pays for her to go home for visits (she's a sweet girl, but she's rich). The Software Engineer is paying off his loans from an Ivy League school and has to pay for all of his flights back home.

Edit: What I was trying to say is that salary is a poor indicator of wealth.

<comment><USER12> Don't try to enter a profession dominated by trustafarians. (I have not heard of PD as such a profession, BTW, and you may not have been saying it was.) Life is hard enough without fighting uphill on Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> One thing a Bay area friend of mine pointed out is that Amazon charges the same price regardless of your cost of living (modulo sales tax, in some cases). Stuff just doesn't seem as expensive making $100,000 in SF as it does making $60,000 in Ann Arbor.

House? Yes. Bar of soap at a Sacramento St. boutique? Yes. LEGOs on Amazon? Not so much.

<comment><USER16> That's hardly unique to Amazon. It applies to any nationwide company, and most any nationwide product.

<comment><USER17> I assume that part was implied.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is actually a nice summary of data, not an opinion piece.

In contrast I hate hyperbolic statements like "the middle class is vanishing" which pretty much has to be literally untrue but I can appreciate as an attempt to express something true about the objective difficulties of the middle. I just don't think it helps much to hammer on a rhetoric that is calculated to fog the brain.

Good short summaries like this are I think easy to understand and contribute better to a national dialog.

<comment><USER19> >>In contrast I hate hyperbolic statements like "the middle class is vanishing" which pretty much has to be literally untrue

Why does it have to be "literally untrue"?

<comment><USER20> If you took a strictly income- or wealth-based definition of "middle class", which I don't, I suppose the existence of a middle class is tautologous in the same way as "half our schoolchildren are below average".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> >About the data: We used the family income data from the 2013 American Community Survey. This counts only families, which the government defines as households with two or more people related by birth, marriage or adoption.

I find the fact that the data doesn't include data from single adults interesting and a potentially large gap in the data.

</comment><comment><USER22> Interesting discussion. I don't know if I have ever read a serious definition for segregating the income streams. There are people who are 'oor', people who are 'not poor', and people who are 'rich'. I've always assumed the people who were 'not poor' and 'not rich' were the folks being referred to as 'middle class'. If you read pg's essay on money he discusses "wealth" versus "money".

That difference, for me, explains why you need a bigger salary in the Bay Area to cover basic expenses rather than say El Paso, so a $150K salary in the Bay Area might make you exactly as "wealthy" as a $50K salary in El Paso.

So then the question for me is, does wealth define rich/middle/poor ? Someone with two houses rich? one house middle? no houses poor? transportation? food?

<comment><USER23> >so a $150K salary in the Bay Area might make you exactly as "wealthy" as a $50K salary in El Paso.

So, kind of an aside, the Bay Area example _can_ work out much better for you, if you're a property owner. Since, while you're paying a lot, you're also getting a lot of equity compared to most other places and that equity (assuming a bubble doesn't burst) is the same anywhere you take it. I've met many CA/NY transplants who have brought a lot of equity with them and driven up housing prices because not only are they used to paying a higher % of salary, they also have CA housing equity, I guess what I'm saying is the inflated cost of housing isn't necessarily a sunk cost/equalizer in the long run if you can plan accordingly.

It's making lower and middle class areas into upper and middle class areas rather quickly (not the only reason of course).

<comment><USER22> That is a good point.

Through the multiplying effects of leverage a 10% gain on your house here is a much bigger advantage in purchasing a house elsewhere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Taking a subset of statistical average income is not the proper way to define the "Middle Class." It's better defined by what you can achieve with a specific income. Can you afford higher education both for you and your offspring? Can you afford to own your home? Can you afford reasonable and convenient means of transportation for your area (multiple family cars in rural areas, but maybe one or even none in urban ones)? Can you afford occasional leisure activities? Can you afford to have a savings and retirement account? Do medical expenses not worry you?

Meeting most or all of these requirements is what sets people into the middle class. I agree with the article that this number is different as you need to take into account local cost of living, but a lot of these requirements are not tied to local costs. I also think this probably puts this number at a higher point than many people think. I have many friends that think, "Oh, I make $20/hr. I'm middle class now!" And I don't agree. You're still going to struggle with bills at that level of income. Middle class is about being above that struggle most of the time. There's a freedom that comes with not having a loan for your education, vehicles, emergency spending (credit cards), etc. And a middle class family should have that freedom.

I don't know that I can see $250k being middle class still, but I do think in the SF Bay area, a family making $150k is quite reasonably still middle class. The upper bound of the middle class is I think harder to define than the lower bound. Once you always have the option of not working for long stretches of time (more than several months) that might be a good indicator of upper class.

I think throughout the last 40 years or so we've gradually become so accustomed to the diminishing size of the middle class. We don't realize what it used to mean. We forget that a time existed where a family with a good budget could live on one income and still afford a house, two cars, college funds for the kids, vacations, and savings.

<comment><USER25> _I think throughout the last 40 years or so we 've gradually become so accustomed to the diminishing size of the middle class. We don't realize what it used to mean. We forget that a time existed where a family with a good budget could live on one income and still afford a house, two cars, college funds for the kids, vacations, and savings._

The middle class has "diminished" in large part because more households rose into higher income levels[1][2].

Many households could still live on one income, but choose not to because the opportunity cost of not working is too high: Mom and dad would both rather have the money, go on international vacations, eat out more often, take yoga classes, buy more gizmos... All stuff that people did much less of 40 years ago.

[1] [http://www.cnbc.com/id/48754974](http://www.cnbc.com/id/48754974)

[2] [http://www.aei.org/publication/yes-the-middle-class-has- been...](http://www.aei.org/publication/yes-the-middle-class-has-been- disappearing-but-they-havent-fallen-into-the-lower-class-theyve-risen-into- the-upper-class/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is interesting but not super useful since there's a vast difference even within cities. I live in San Diego and know the areas right along the coast are above even the top of that income distribution but the homes are so expensive even to rent that those people are still probably middle-class.

<comment><USER27> This does not make them middle class. They are choosing to live in the expensive area and thus paying heavily for it. They could move 20 miles outside of the city, commute longer, keep the same high paying job and live in a mansion. The fact that they have a choice is what makes them not in the middle class. They see value in paying the extra cost to live in the expensive area and thus they choose to pay the premium.

People in the true middle class would not have the luxury of choice. They have no option to live in the wealthy area because they are not wealthy.

<comment><USER28> When I think of upper class, I think of well-dressed gents and ladies who cruise around the world finding the next humble village that needs their charity.

Driving an hour each way to some kind of desk job to finance a McMansion in the exurbs, eh... maybe it's me but there's just no way I can line that up with any definition of "upper class".</comment></comment></comment>


Flirting Social Network Likealittle Hits 20M Pageviews In 6 Weeks - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/19/likealittle/

<comment><USER2> More than anything, I'm just impressed that this made it to the 50+ campuses without the tech world having any clue.

edit: ...and I'm in college. I wonder if this says anything about me :P

<comment><USER3> Sometimes I still wish I was in college to figure out how this is on 50+ campuses, and today is the first day I'm hearing about the company. I'm married, and my college days are behind me, but I would have been all over this service in my younger days. I wonder if it'll go the Facebook route and eventually serve a more global market? Love the idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The 20M pageviews are likely from people trying to figure out how the hell to use the damn site. UI is TERRIBLE. 90% of the "updates" look like spam. Spelling mistakes are rampant throughout the entire front-end. Looks like the whole thing was thrown together in a weekend. PLEASE let this thing die a quick and painless death.

 __* quick edit - Also, from the looks of it, they are hiring for EVERY possible type of position (ui, design, backend, front-end, marketers etc.)

In all honesty the entire thing just feels like a desperate attempt to duplicate the success of facebook with a bunch of fake "statistics" and randomly generated content.

<comment><USER5> _Looks like the whole thing was thrown together in a weekend._

FDR once said that nothing "just happens". Twitter looks like it was thrown together over a weekend, bit.ly looks like it was thrown together over a weekend, Hackers News looks like it was thrown together over a weekend. Everything most people ever poured thousands of hours of thought and sweat and dedication into probably looks like it was thrown together over a weekend. 20M Pageviews In 6 Weeks do not "just happen". I guarantee you that there is a team of very talented people working around the clock to make this product what it is. You can question the quality of their work, but there are tens of thousands of people who clearly disagree with you, and they didn't come about over the weekend.

 _PLEASE let this thing die a quick and painless death._

I never understood why someone would say that. There are people who spent a long time thinking about the product, building it, tweaking it, pouring their work into it, and inevitably someone comes along and says "let this thing die a quick death". Does it detract from your life? Does it detract from anyone's life? It makes people happy, otherwise they wouldn't be using it. Why would you wish failure upon someone else's work?

<comment><USER6> > FDR once said that nothing "just happens". Twitter looks like it was thrown > together over a weekend,

I agree with 'nothing just happens', but Twitter, right now, doesn't look like a weekend project. Maybe Twttr did when it first started though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I just threw up a fake post as a blonde girl - 3 replies from guys: "Boysenberry says let me take you out...baby girl you're a cutie let me take you out, to a dinner and a movie?"

I think they may run into the Chatroulette problem...

But very impressive growth indeed!

</comment><comment><USER8> I don't like to be the cynical one (hmm), but I'm not at all convinced. An awful lot of the "dialog" looks like it is generated content. Maybe not all of it, but there is a lot that sets off alarms for me.

<Insert obligatory thread about Turing tests, Twitter, 4chan etc here I guess />

If I'm wrong, then please pretend you never read this, and DON'T THINK AUTO GENERATING CONTENT IS A GOOD IDEA!

<comment><USER9> I go to Stanford. A _lot_ of people were talking about likealittle within a couple weeks of its launch. Not startup nerds, people who found the product fun. Based on the number of mentions of it I hear about (including some people in my dorm posting >5 joking flirts in the course of 10 minutes while hanging out), I find the high number of posts and comments totally believable.

College students love wasting time and love interacting.

Also, I'm looking at the posts from my dorm, and I know for a fact that at least most of it is real.

<comment><USER8> It doesn't surprise me that it works & gets interest, but I do wonder how they got over the cold start problem.

I guess I'm just overly suspicious.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> to be honest, it doesn't seem like it would have that much staying power. The dynamics are just not there.

Right now there is a ton of traffic because it's the hot new thing on campus, but essentially it's the missed encounters section of craigslist.

<comment><USER11> Except that (a) it's more real-time than CL and (b) CL has done little to innovate in what is now a mobile/location-based world.

Ignoring that, it's still not a bad thing to be compared to CL.

<comment><USER12> You'll likely see companies successfully spin off of "parts" of Craigslist, which are being neglected. The major issue with Craigslist is that it's not organized well. It's extremely chaotic, requiring users to spend lots of time searching the site, learning where stuff is, and memorizing its ebbs and flows. It's this giant database of useful information which is screaming for somebody to make it simpler to use. CL prevents this with their lack of 3rd party developer support, so different databases will pop up and slowly chip away at them until they either open their API's, or die off.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Blue, blue, blue. . . twitter is blue, facebook is blue, most of microsoft/bing is blue, even gmail (default) is blue. A more creative / edgy design would help a lot.

Design critique aside, the idea is a very good one.

<comment><USER14> Apple love blue too: Finder, Mail, Safari, iTunes, Xcode, Application Loader, iDVD, Quicktime Player, the Folder. Even Word and Photoshop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Having recently been in college, I know first hand how addicted people get to facebook, always having it open in a tab. This looks similar because now the information isn't stagnant and always available, it's constantly changing. If you don't check it, you might miss out on that cute guy/girl who noticed you, and everyone is always looking for that..right?

I think it's a great idea - but just as quick as it's blowing up, it can also deflate imo. As someone else mentioned, it shouldn't get that chatroullette syndrome, where every post from a girl is met with "down to fuck??!!" and "here's a pic of my penis ___". If it gets labeled as "stalker, creepy, gross, lame" by girls and they leave, guys will obviously follow suit...something to watch for

</comment><comment><USER16> Recent comment by PG on the outing of startups who anonymously post jobs: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2022335>. In my eyes such a thing falls in the "not-unethical-but-something-you-shouldn't-do" category. There's nothing strictly wrong with it since you are just using publicly available information, but it is a courtesy not to. Sure perhaps someone else will out a startup, but you don't have to be that guy.

<comment><USER17> Unless this was just a plot from them to get more publicity.

<comment><USER16> If so than they can anonymously leak their identity themselves. It's still not necessary to have someone else do it for them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Love how something gets tech crunch overage when they are trying to keep a low profile when all these other startups who bug them by email constantly struggle to get a mention.

</comment><comment><USER19> Their URLs are also great:

<http://likealittle.com/omg/show_choices>

An omg controller?

<comment><USER20> Probably just an OMG route.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I am suprised by detractors - come on people: social dynamics, plus anonymity, plus flirting, plus cyber stalking?

This has the perfect viral pull of "I wonder if anybody likes me" - kind of like that brilliant old Classmates.com line "Is an old classmate searching for you?" or HotOrNot.com

Facebook-attaché Formspring.me has nailed the anon part alone and been rewarded with insane, fairly sustainable traffic:

<http://siteanalytics.compete.com/formspring.me/>

I'm not sure this is a huge, revolutionary business but I'll bet that these guys do pretty darn well and as a feeder to dating sites they'll crush it (which incidentally powered a huge part of FB's early revenue and is still an important cornerstone).

<comment><USER22> I totally agree. Facebook has become a bad place to flirt. Who wants to share pictures of their grandma with their latest crush? This has the potential of becoming the standard for dating.

<comment><USER23> I agree its a great idea. Feels like real time missed connections for college kids. Craiglist should of seen this coming.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I can see a facebook 'team acquisition' in the near future.

</comment><comment><USER25> Is this any different than <http://isawyou.mit.edu/> or <http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~spottedatharvard/>?

<comment><USER26> Penn's "34th St" magazine has been doing this every semester for a while now: <http://www.34st.com/content/2010/dec/shoutouts-fall-2010>

The formula works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> At least we know who that anonymous job advert was for last week.

</comment><comment><USER28> The idea definitely has potential. The current market they are targeting is the best setting for this kind of application. A bunch of horny college students in a confined location, i.e. a campus. If the founders manage things right I think they could turn this into a great platform for developers and advertisers and this comes at just the right time because everyone and their gandma at this point has a location aware mobile device.

<comment><USER29> I imagine to myself LikeALittle.com pitch deck slide:

Total Available Market: "A bunch of horny college students in a confined location, i.e. a campus"

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> How has nobody compared this to the FitFinder yet? It was clearly better executed than this is and had gained traction in the UK.

The only reason it was shutdown was because the founder was told he would be fined heavily and wouldn't receive a degree if he didn't.

</comment><comment><USER31> Let's see how long before this post gets canned. Or is the cat out of the bag already?

<comment><USER24> Given that the link is to techcrunch...

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Awww, I had the same idea last year, while taking the daily train, but I never really believed in it. Actually I was also hoping to have iphones regularly advertise the owner's page on which to anonymously comment.

</comment><comment><USER33> Apparently you get a refund if you don't find your 'future mate' within 28 hours.

<http://likealittle.com/about>

<comment><USER34> It's a free service from what I can tell....

<comment><USER33> I'm sure someone will email, complain and demand some non-existing money back! :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Looks like it's already being abused <http://likealittle.com/stanford/></comment>


Rust IDE Built Using the IntelliJ Platform - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/intellij-rust/intellij-rust <comment><USER2> Am I the only one who thinks that Rust will really take off only when IntelliJ releases an IDE for it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Nope - I'm certain it would generate a huge amount of interest in the language. I just haven't seen anything from them to suggest it's in their plans, sadly...</comment></comment>


Another Silly Startup Analogy - <AUTHOR> http://diegobasch.com/another-silly-startup-analogy

<comment><USER3> What is it with this recent, rampant meme anyway? "Oh, startups, it's all luck". Some people just seem determined to denigrate even the _idea_ that hard work, blood, sweat, tears and sheer force of will can lead someone to success.

I don't buy it. I don't think that was ever true, and I think it's even less true today.

Today we can run startups with far less overhead and at far lower cost, thanks to open-source, cloud computing, social media and other developments, and we can build profitable, successful startups without necessarily needing to build "the next Facebook".

Thanks to @sgblank and others in the Lean Startup community, we have developed much more detailed processes for going from Idea -> Company -> Company with Customers, leaving less to happenstance than ever before.

The Internet - Angel List, Twitter, LinkedIn, Hoovers, and other resources, make it easier than ever to find customers, partners, investors, resellers and the like.

I keep coming back to this old saw, which - despite being a total cliche - <USER2> the ring of truth to it:

 _The harder I work, the luckier I get_

or maybe this one:

 _Luck is where preparation meets opportunity_

Closing thought:

 _They're sitting out there waiting to give you their money. Are you gonna take it? Are you man enough to take it?_

...

 _The money is out there, you pick it up, it's yours. You don't, I got no sympathy for ya_ [1]

[1]: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kZg_ALxEz0>

<comment><USER4> > Some people just seem determined to denigrate even the idea that hard work, > blood, sweat, tears and sheer force of will can lead someone to success.

I think the bigger issue is that there are a lot more people that invest hard work, blood, sweat, etc. _and fail_ than people who do all those things and succeed. It's still silly to say it's _all_ luck, but I think it's fair to say that luck (by which I just mean circumstances that cannot be predicted or controlled by the founders/workers) plays a large part in success.

<comment><USER3> _I think the bigger issue is that there are a lot more people that invest hard work, blood, sweat, etc. and fail than people who do all those things and succeed._

I should have explained my position a bit more clearly... what I'm getting at is that, in business, you don't ever _fail_ the way you do in this game show scenario. In the show, you get _one_ shot at the "win" and you win or lose, do or die, game over. In Real Life, as long as you're breathing, you get to _keep trying_. Failure is never final. If Startup A doesn't succeed, you take the lessons you learned from it, and do Startup B. The only way you ever really fail is when you run out of time.

Given that, I posit that if you are dedicated, determined and persistent enough, you can _usually_ find a way to success through "blood, swear, tears and sheer force of will".

Yes, "black swan" events can come along and cripple you, but I'm treating those as outliers that aren't significant for the point of this conversation. You may, of course, disagree with that position.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The best startup analogy is that of a band. Everybody is in one, or if not, they want to be. A lot of work and sweat is invested, often after hours. If you get kicked out, or the band breaks up, you start another. Everyone dreams of making it big, but few do, and a lot end up making a lot less money than they think they will due to the record labels (VCs). But the dream lives on.

<comment><USER6> That's when someone realise and came up with the idea of American Idol and screws up the whole process.

<comment><USER7> Techcrunch 50, Demo day?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Just to confirm, because I fear the game show has a loophole, what is preventing you from eyeballing the key when he picks it, memorizing the notches, then you have a much better chance of getting the correct one. Prisoners have been known to memorize notches on a key in order to build duplicates and break out of jail.

<comment><USER9> The correct key wasn't put on full display, and the kids didn't really get much time to look over each key to pick the right one. He may have been able to determine the head shape in that time, but not much else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I was a contestant in that show back then. I did win the skill based game and got to the final round. I was absolutely certain that I was going to pick the winning key (it's nuts to think that, I know). It's funny how even that is similar to startups.

</comment><comment><USER11> Nice analogy. Feel that way all the time.

</comment><comment><USER12> The analogy fits.

<comment><USER3> I don't see it. In the game, you pick one key, right? And it either works or it doesn't. It's totally binary, and total chance.

Success in business doesn't work like that. As long as you're alive and aren't dead broke and destitute you can keep trying (keep pulling another key) and there are degrees of success... you might _only_ build a multi-million dollar company and not a billion dollar company. OK, how sad. Or maybe you get acquired for just enough where you, as a founder, walk away with a million even. What a tragedy.

And finally, I believe that skill matters, and that business success is not just a question of chance. Sure, and unlucky "black swan" negative event can short-circuit you, but you don't necessarily _need_ "good luck" to succeed. You can chip away at it slowly, grind, build, grind, build, sweat, bleed, grind, build, and work your way up.

<comment><USER13> The point is that some people grind, build, grind, build, sweat, bleed, grind, build their whole lives without ever getting that stroke of good luck that brings success.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Depressing analogy :(</comment>


Google Chrome Pages Refresh 28% Faster Because of Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://1reddrop.com/2017/01/28/google-chrome-firefox-pages-refresh-28-faster-facebook-video/ <comment><USER2> The original source[0] contains the technical background anyone here is probably looking for.

TL;DR:

\- Chrome needlessly revalidated all resources after a POST request

\- Firefox gets a "cache-control: immutable" header to indicate that a resource will never change and thus doesn't need to be revalidated.

[0]: [https://code.facebook.com/posts/557147474482256/this- browser...](https://code.facebook.com/posts/557147474482256/this-browser- tweak-saved-60-of-requests-to-facebook/)

</comment><comment><USER3> "a social media company with no experience in the browser technology space"

I don't think anyone believes that Facebook has anything short of a huge breadth of software development expertise, manpower, and initiative.

On a personal note, I'm quite happy about cache-control: immutable. All my personal web projects embed content hashes in URIs for static resources (except those with published URIs). This makes things a little simpler.

<comment><USER4> > "a social media company with no experience in the browser technology space"

Yeah, this article is sub-par HN submission.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> HN talked about "cache-control: immutable" a few days ago, this is like the kindergarten version explanation of that. Not HN-worthy, IMO.

</comment><comment><USER6> Here's a more indepth technical article from Facebook: [https://code.facebook.com/posts/557147474482256/this- browser...](https://code.facebook.com/posts/557147474482256/this-browser- tweak-saved-60-of-requests-to-facebook/)

<comment><USER7> The original post should be updated to point to this link.

Interesting read. Also seems like a subtle jab at Microsoft and Apple when they said, "We're happy to have such a good working relationship with our friends on the Chrome and Firefox teams." Conditional requests were actually higher on IE and Safari than Firefox, so chances are they tried to engage with those teams but were shut down?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I thought this would be a much more technical article, but it basically boiled down to Facebook suggesting to Chrome that Chrome not reload static things.

"Technically, when you refresh a browser page, it is counted as the next visit to that page. What Facebook did was to suggest that Chrome and Firefox only revalidate the main resource, or the page itself, rather than images, scripts and other resources."

</comment><comment><USER9> I still don't really get what's so special about "cache-control: immutable". Isn't it the same as setting the cache expiration date to something like in a year or two? Why is a special property needed for this?

<comment><USER10> When you hit the reload button, the browsers would still revalidate resources with long expiration dates. The fixes in the Facebook post are that Chrome changed to no longer do this on any subresource, and Firefox changed to no longer do this on cache-control: immutable resources.

<comment><USER11> I thought this was possible... that explains my frustration with "why won't the damn thing not revalidate" when I last tried it (I think that was a few years ago by now).

Weird though, it seems so obvious and I thought something like no-revalidate existed. I guess I'm confusing no-cache and must-revalidate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is great! I mean, this was an Opera feature for 20 years, but who cares...

</comment><comment><USER13> I guess it depends on what the definition of refresh is. What do I want the button to do when I press it, as a user? I guess only refreshing the main html, and not cached resources is an OK design, as long as shift+refresh still refreshes everything.

<comment><USER11> That question is kind of irrelevant. The immutable header is set on items that will never ever ever change. If you expect those to get updated with a ctrl+f5 or something, you shouldn't be setting the immutable header for that item.

The only times I can imagine you want to refresh immutable items anyway is when debugging the network: when your download was corrupted, to watch page timings in the developer console, or when watching the traffic flow in wireshark or something. In those cases I guess there should be a developer option, but you specifically talked about "as a user".

<comment><USER14> It isn't just the immutable header though. Chrome is changing existing behavior for resources that do not have that header. AFAICT, Firefox is the only browser with current plans for immutable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I predict quite a bit of scattered chaos when these changes roll out. Mobile will be especially fun for help desks, as there is no obvious way to do shift-f5 for a hard reload.

</comment><comment><USER15> HTTP PATCH but for a GET

<comment><USER16> How is it that at all?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> OK, so this is why I have to press shift every time I reload the app I am developing! Great job.

<comment><USER18> Keep DevTools open with "disable cache" in the network tab ticked.

<comment><USER17> Thank you for the tip.</comment></comment></comment>


How We Rebuilt Our Business Model – In One Week - <AUTHOR> http://planetary.io/notes/long-live-the-studio

<comment><USER2> I don't seem to get why this is called a "Rebuilt Business Model". Seems more like just offering the same service (design consulting) but calling it something new. With that said, I like the imagery on your site.

</comment><comment><USER3> Having worked at a place that sold web design packages in the past, I'm fairly convinced that I'll only work for design/development clients that can afford to pay hourly. That being said, this could be a good way for them to pick up some narrowly scoped work from their existing client base. Assuming that customers understand the deal, it could work. In my experience, they'll want to make changes, and the best way to handle that situation is by the hour.

</comment><comment><USER4> Productized consulting is probably a step up from regular old just selling your time and worth investigating for people doing consulting. If you can nail down what the product is and how to produce it in a fairly regular way, then you can hire someone to do it while you sell it, and grow the business.

<comment><USER5> I agree, if nothing else the productized plans are directly addressing business problems that the client has - which is a much better starting point than some random hourly work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This isn't a business model rebuild. It is hardly a business remodel. You changed your pricing, and a purchase model.

If you changed your business model you would be going from Hourly Design Consulting for pay, to something like Selling predesigned websites.

Or offering self service design.

AirBNB changed the "hotel" business model because it went from B2C to C2C.

Tesla changed the Car business model from Franchisee to Consumer to "Direct to consumer".

Several Design studios, and stock photo companies changed their business model from "Design once sell once" to "Design once sell many" but all you did was change your pricing model.

<comment><USER7> They are indeed redesigning how they frame their work to their clients. Even though the technical work is similar, the customer relationship is different.</comment></comment>


Who's Responsible For The Explosion In Government Spending? - <AUTHOR> http://whatblag.com/2011/07/11/whos-responsible-for-the-explosion-in-government-spending/ <comment><USER2> An interesting argument. However the financial crisis just hit as well. We may have been sailing ontop of a whale thinking we're in clear waters under Bush.</comment>


Show HN: An app to tweet text as an image - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN. PG recently tweeted and said there should be an app to tweet text as an image. I made a quick version of this a while back. However, unfortunately pics posted from the API don't automatically display inline. There are some tweaks on this version to be done (some stuff are hardcoded). Go crazy if you want to.<p>http://www.tweetimg.com/ <comment><USER2> Really wacky idea - Encrypt the message with another image. Why would anyone want this? To get a secret message without leaking as much metadata as email. Instead of sending a 1 on 1 message to a specific email address, you're publishing it to many potential recipients. I have no clue how useful it would be, but seems like a fun excuse to use wand / imagemagick.

Look at the "Encrypting Image Data" section: [http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/transform/](http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/transform/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I did [http://www.notegraphy.com](http://www.notegraphy.com) while ago. You can write, style and the share on Twitter, Facebook or Tumblr and more from the web, iOS devices or Android.

Feedback is welcome.

</comment><comment><USER4> Clever name, but are these images guaranteed to be SFW?

<comment><USER5> Is text always guaranteed to be SFW?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Neat, but maybe another font or less image compression (or lack of anti- aliasing?). The images look blurry to me.

</comment><comment><USER7> Clickable: [http://www.tweetimg.com/](http://www.tweetimg.com/)</comment>


Show HN: ChopChop, yet another project management app - <AUTHOR> http://220.127.116.11/
Its more of a work in progress.
Not looking at this project as a business at this point. I hate drag-N-Drop project management apps...so built this.
If you find the courage to check it out:
User Manual:
Few things to try after signing up:
- Press Double Shift after signing up.
- Try clicking on one (or many tasks, holding shift) and then press up/down arrow
- Try clicking on one (or many tasks, holding shift) and then press enter. <comment><AUTHOR> clickable link:

[http://22.214.171.124/](http://18.104.22.168/)</comment>