Are Android customers left to rot the moment we walk out of the store? - <AUTHOR> http://www.webiphany.com/2010/11/21/are-android-customers-going-to-be-left-to-rot-by-manufacturers-the-moment-we-walk-out-of-the-store/

<comment><USER2> Yes, it's totally an issue. On the other hand, he's willing to hack his iPhone but not his Android?

It's different on Android. After the initial root, you get your future OS updates from the community. There's no reason to ever go back to the base. On the iPhone, you may have to revert your jailbreak at some point, like the author mentions.

After the initial root, which can be a pain (another thing to blame on short- sighted carriers and manufacturers), a custom ROM is actually far easier than updating many phones. There are ROM managers available in the Market that will manage them for you.

You can even change ROMs without even plugging into a computer. Try that with an iPhone.

<comment><USER3> Your argument is completely valid for this community, people who like to go off the reservation and run their own applications, code and OS.

However, the big draw of an iPhone is that it _is_ a managed device, not a full-fledged computer+phone. Anybody who really wants to root their phone should get an Android device, the overarching purpose of an iPhone is to take away this control for the type of stability a casual user needs. It's totally counterintuitive to want to have complete user control of a _managed_ device.

Furthermore, the issue of carriers not updating phones is an issue anyone who _doesn't_ root their phone. It's like saying your car can get double the mileage, but you have to pull out the transmission by hand to install a clutch.

I made my parents get a Mac so I didn't have to keep fixing their BIOS. I'll be damned if I'm going to drive 370 miles to re-flash their phone after Android gets buggy and slow due to background processes. (They dig their feet into the ground, and will simply _not learn_ about this.)

<comment><USER4> Those ordinary people will still get an Android, because it's on two-for-one offer or the salesman tells them to. And they'll be quite happy because their phone will make calls, and pick up their email, surf the web, play angry birds and give them directions and all the other things that a modern smartphone does. They'll never read Engadget and find out that they're a whole 6 months behind the software curve, and even if someone tells them they will quite rightly not care.

Because that is what we're talking about isn't it? Not BIOS problems or constant malware infestations, but geek rage at not being on the cutting edge. The intersection of people who care and can't help themselves is insignificant and consists mainly of whiny tech power-users who have nowhere to go but Android.

<comment><USER3> I don't know many non-developers using Android that have ever downloaded an application, let alone set up their email.

I don't know many non-developers using iOS that don't have a favorite app.

But yes, I am seeing a ton of people getting Android phones because it's what the salesman's hawking. Preference in this situation is tantamount to just straight up object-lust. Those who make do are probably better off than the rest of us arguing constantly about superiority.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > _I think the same goes for T-Mobile._

Carriers get a cut of the Android Market revenue (10% of the sale), so they do have some interest in seeing you upgrade your phone. However, they also insist on exhaustively testing everything that runs on their networks (or, at least, everything you get from them), which gets expensive. I'd _hope_ the Market revenue would be more than the testing costs, but I don't know.

<comment><USER6> That's definitely the biggest issue. Back in my Symbian days we'd see everything go through essentially 3 testing cycles.

1\. Acceptance test at the OEM level 2\. Acceptance test for each individual phone 3\. Another round of testing at the carrier level.

It's that third round of testing that was always the most frustrating, as it was rarely well executed. We'd get a lot of really ticky-tack things ("bugs" in the form of "I don't think feature X should work this way"), while the big problems were rarely caught. We finally built out a rather large internal QA staff which was much more effective.

I'm not against testing, but the carriers need to adapt to the new environment. Instead of trying to catch every bug (and failing) be much quicker to push updates to the network. I'd much rather have an update every month or two, rather than wait 4 or 5 months to get a fix in.

This is one thing Apple gets right. The cadence of their updates is perfect.

<comment><USER5> At a minimum, Android needs to organize the base OS with a package system, so they can ship incremental updates which the OEMs can test quickly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I get the same sinking feeling every time I check for an OS update on my Samsung Fascinate and it's not there.

No update means:

\- ZERO GPS functionality (Verizon reps acknowledge this) \- crippled performance on what's supposed to be top-of-the-line hardware (because the Samsung version of Android 2.1 uses a badly written swap filesystem)

My iPhone 3G has a better UI, multitouch, and even now feels like a more solidly built device. On the other hand, I've never had a dropped call on Verizon in San Francisco. I'd rather have a mostly-functioning, always- connected device than a beautiful idiot that connects to a network incapable of delivering even SMS.

</comment><comment><USER8> I see lots of comments, but nobody mentioning Cyanogenmod, or the excellent communities at xda-developers for exactly this situation.

In brief -- if you don't want the reference Google Developer phone (soon to be released Nexus 2 / S perhaps? Right now Nexus One), root your phone, and install cyanogenmod.

I'm reminded reading the linked article that oh, say, four years ago, phone OS'es never updated, with the possible exception of Nokia's higher end E-series. Today, with a hacked Android phone, you could install nightly builds off the Android Open Source Project Trunk if you chose.

This is a big difference, and is something the poster can in fact do with his Samsung Galaxy S. So, why the complaining? All this is easily discoverable with some research before purchase of the phone.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you suggesting that everyone who purchases an Android phone root it?

I can absolutely root my phone. I just worry about things like the issue I detailed with my iPhone. I do think rooting is much easier than before, and there are still warnings in every forum I look at that indicate "if your phone explodes, don't blame us!"

I think it is a reasonable expectation that if I have a two year contract when I buy this phone that there should be a responsibility to upgrade that phone, and six months after the OS has been released seems out of bounds.

I don't agree about this being easy to research before purchasing the phone. When I purchase a Samsung Galaxy, is this the S? Is this some other Galaxy? Would this process work for rooting: [http://answers.oreilly.com/topic/2271-how-to-root-your- andro...](http://answers.oreilly.com/topic/2271-how-to-root-your-android- phone-with-one-click/). (It does not by the way.) When I was at Google I/O they said there were sixty devices shipping with Android, and I am sure there are more now. It is actually non-trivial to keep all these details in your head unless that is what you want to do all day. I simply want to use my phone, and without Android 2.2 I am unable to use tethering, front facing camera for a bunch of apps, etc.

<comment><USER2> Instead of buying a phone from the carrier, if you want freedom you will have to look elsewhere. Buy a unlocked+rooted phone off EBay (let somebody else take the risk) or buy a developer phone (like the Nexus One).

You bought a locked-down, rights-stealing, consumer phone that is made for people who don't know better. You should totally know better. :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Does anyone know if you can install stock Android on, say, the Desire, and get it to act like a Nexus One (OTA updates, etc)? I'm not sure I see that much of a benefit in having HTC Sense, although it does have some good features.

<comment><USER10> Most phones, especially HTC ones, have a ROM that's basically stock Android.

<comment><USER9> Does this mean that I can install the updates and then install Sense on top? I'm a bit confused, I'm also not clear what custom ROMs provide and what the downsides are... I read some wikis but they don't mention downsides much.

<comment><USER10> I think most of the Sense stuff are system level packages, so you'd either have to find a ROM that included them or monkey around with ADB to get put Sense back on top. But if you want an stock Android experience that would seem to preclude Sense in large part.

What the custom ROMs provide really depends on what phone you're on and the goal of the ROM. A lot of them are really nothing more than a new skin, but some make bigger tweaks. I've got the Vibrant, and there are custom ROMs for Froyo even though T-Mobile hasn't released an official ROM for that yet. There are also a number of 2.1 ROMs that have other customizations (overclocking, underclocking, changing battery behavior)

<comment><USER9> I see, thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Caveat emptor, if you did not think of how you were going to hack your phone when purchasing. There is a reason I am rocking the original Motorola Droid, and it is this exact reason. It really has nothing to do with Android, per se, and more to do with you.

</comment><comment><USER12> It was my understanding that this is one reason why Apple does some strange accounting and why there are fees to get your iPod Touch upgraded, but not your iPhone. Part of the price of the phone is set aside to pay for future updates. So, you're not just paying for an iPhone, but also for access to future versions of iOS (up to a certain point). So not only is there an App Store incentive to get your to upgrade your iPhone, you already paid them to do it.

It doesn't seem like other manufacturers do the same thing. This could explain part of why they take so long in upgrading Android versions.

</comment><comment><USER13> T-mobile just updated all myTouch, myTouch 3G to Android 2.2. Fortunately I have a myTouch 4G, but I feel comfortable that T-mobile will provide it with future updates.

</comment><comment><USER14> Yes, and the mobile networks and device manufactures have no incentive to update; they actually want you to buy a new phone!!!

<comment><USER15> They're forgetting about those of us who haven't bought yet, and are watching how badly they are treating the early adopters. I was excited about the Samsung Epic when it first came out, and planning to get one when my Sprint refresh cycle comes around in January, but having seen how glacially slow Samsung has been to fix the problems people have been having with the phone, I now don't think I'll ever buy a Samsung phone.

<comment><USER14> Yeah, they have. Apple and Windows 7 are going to split the market if they don't start paying attention to their existing handset owners. (Both of those are doing centralized updates).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Of course not. We can open bugs... and then the bugs are left to rot.

Like the Arabic text input, Portuguese dictionary, imap folder support...

The last one with hundreds of comments and no word from google for half year.</comment>


HN London meetup tonight (New Venue) - <AUTHOR>

Quick reminder that London HN meetup is tonight at The Water Poet in Shoreditch from 18:00 http://www.waterpoet.co.uk/ . Please note that we recently changed the venue due to (unexpectedly) high demand. Look forward to seeing you all there. <comment><USER2> Ok see you there. Can someone put up a sign or something as everyone has a macbook and looks like a geek nowadays

<comment><USER2> opps, something has come up, I probably won't be able to make it now, really sorry. catch you all at the next one instead

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Could somebody point me to the mailing list where this was set up?

<comment><USER4> It was originally posted to HN here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1434964>

Here's the HN London google group: <http://groups.google.com/group/hn-london>

And the facebook group: [http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6677098162&v=info](http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6677098162&v=info)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just on the off chance people based in the Midlands are reading this and wishing they could go - is there enough interest for a meetup in the Midlands?

<comment><USER6> Where in the Midlands? and, yeh, I'd be up for it (depending on the locale

<comment><USER5> Birmingham? Nottingham?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'll be there, probably a little earlier, around 5pm.

Will have a "Hacker's Delight" book on me, which should be a pretty good sign. ;)

</comment><comment><USER8> I've never been to a HN meetup before - I'm looking forward to this.

Anyone bringing laptops to show off their work?

If you're interested in Tornado or realtime in general, I'd love to talk.

Also, if you have a good graphic design contact with knowledge of web fonts, bring them (or their contact details) along!

</comment><comment><USER6> Bah. In the end I won't make it; we have a huge backlog of work so I can't get away in time to catch the train.

Keep posting future meets to the mailing list that was set up though; I'm often down there & would love to meet you guys.

</comment><comment><USER9> Would love to make it, too, but am wrapping up at my current client's and will be late this evening.

Have a good evening - looks like it'll be a lovely warm night for it!

</comment><comment><USER10> Arg. I'm only landing at Gatwick at 20:15.

I can't imagine that I'd be able to get there until around 22:00. I don't suppose that anyone will still be around then?

<comment><AUTHOR> Possibly. Call the bar closer to the time and check, their number is 020 7426 0495. In any case we hope to make this a regular event, so hopefully there will be more opportunities in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Excellent pub, good choice. Won't be able to make it though.

</comment><comment><USER12> Fyi we're in the backroom, spot the guys with beards and glasses. I'm the asian guy in a light purple shirt and glasses if you're completely lost.

</comment><comment><USER13> I work about 30 seconds away from the Water Poet but I'm not in the office today! Have a good one and hopefully I'll see you all at the next one.

<comment><USER4> Thanks. We'll keep HN posted about future HN London meetups. Hopefully we'll do another one at the similar time next month.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Hm no way I can get there for 6, miles away from me (and finish at 6) - is it vitally important to arrive on time?

<comment><AUTHOR> Any time is good. We'll be there most of the evening.

<comment><USER14> Is there a reserved area? Or is it a matter of walking around and finding the people talking about programming/startups? :-)

<comment><USER4> We've reserved space for 60, in the "back barn". Walking around to find people talking about startups will work too :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Reading this i was wondering if any HN-ers based in Scotland are willing to get together and do a similar meetup?

</comment><comment><USER16> Is there an announcement list for future events? I just found this thread...to late for me on this one.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, see coderholic's post for Google and Facebook groups

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> There shortly. I'm the Australian guy in a brown t shirt with a chandelier printed on it.

</comment><comment><USER17> Thanks to Dmitri (hi) for setting this up. Good event!

</comment><comment><USER18> Hohoho, just as I land in NYC. Next time.

</comment><comment><USER19> I plan to be there too...</comment>


Ask HN: Please review ting: my Google App Engine project - <AUTHOR>

Hello HN:
ting displays only top 7 results and related tags. Users submit links and associate relevant tags with their link. The tag set with most value is displayed on top.
ting is still very new and the database is empty except my own links and these few sample searches that I prepared for your review: "new york hotels", "startup", "google app engine" and "python."
I really enjoyed working with Google App Engine and Python and I thank you for your comments both here and in the help page if you wish http://ting-1.appspot.com/help. <comment><AUTHOR> <http://ting-1.appspot.com/></comment>


Ask HN: What's the least expensive service to host a new SaaS platform? - <AUTHOR> <comment> tony-allan It really depends on the resources your service will consume: cpu, memory, storage, bandwidth, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm thinking in terms of a proof of concept with hopeful expansion in the future.

<comment><USER2> Heroku is free for experimentation and very easy to set up, but gets pricey once you start paying</comment></comment></comment>


Total Surface Area Required to Fuel the World with Solar (2009 Est) - <AUTHOR> http://landartgenerator.org/blagi/archives/127 <comment><USER2> American stoves transform kWh-energy to BTU-energy. This does not just happen 1:1, like elsewhere in the world, where stoves just waste kWhs. Quote American Physical Society: "There are generation efficiencies, limited by the Second Law of Thermodynamics and design practicalities". This is quite amazing. Free energy rules.</comment>


Trudeau in self-isolation as wife Sophie Grégoire tested for new coronavirus - <AUTHOR> https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-trudeau-in-self-isolation-as-wife-sophie-tested-for-new-coronavirus/ <comment><USER2> Piggy-backing off this, does anyone have any tips for navigating the news when there's a large undercurrent of panic beneath the surface?

I get that the news has the motto of _if it bleeds, it leads_ but I also need to know the major events occurring in the world.

Personally I've been trying to view the news as something that is more panic inducing in such a trying time. I've tried to recognize that the language being used is coming from people who may be just as scared as anyone else, and that feeds into a self-reinforcing loop.

I've also found that reading Reddit's comments are anxiety-inducing, so I've tried to stick to the study-and-facts-only subreddit: [https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/](https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/)

<comment><USER3> > I also need to know the major events occurring in the world.

I'm curious what line of work you're in which requires you to know all that.

<comment><USER2> That's my concession to my nature. I want to know all the things happening around the world, and have since I was young. I decided to try to temper it, rather than deny it outright.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> More from CBC: [https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/covid19-premiers- coronaviru...](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/covid19-premiers- coronavirus-1.5495001)

</comment><comment><USER4> Opposition Leader of the NDP Jagmeet Singh also in self-isolation because he hasn't been feeling well.

<comment><USER5> NDP no longer the official opposition, so it's not quite accurate to refer to Jagmeet Singh as the Opposition leader anymore.

<comment><USER6> well, he's a leader of an opposition party. just not the Official Opposition

<comment><USER7> In Canadian politics "opposition leader" implies leader of the "official opposition", which has a meaning significantly different than simply not the party in control of parliament.

<comment><USER8> It's not only in Canadian politics but in most parliamentary republics.

The US doesn't have a direct equivalent but the closest one would be the minority leader.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The Brazilian communications minister tested positive for Coronavirus last night too, raising questions about both Jair Bolsonaro and more importantly, President Trump and VP Pence, with whom he was staying at Mar-a-Lago last weeked (along with several other high level people).

Edit: this isn't a rumor, and seems extremely relevant. [https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/487244-trump- say...](https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/487244-trump-says-hes-not- concerned-by-brazilian-coronavirus-case)

<comment><USER10> What that the reason why the President looked to worried last night? Or was it that he has his meeting with the representatives from all major banks just before, and they explained to him that you cannot fix a real-world crisis with virtual money?

<comment><USER11> Worried? Chaos is the new cocaine.</comment></comment></comment>


Down the Rat Hole - <AUTHOR> http://mkaz.com/2014/06/30/down-the-rat-hole/

<comment><USER2> I don't think is necessarily a bad thing. You sound like a good starter of projects. For one reason or another you haven't followed them through. Either you haven't been truely interested enough to follow it through to the next stage and let yourself properly invest or you need a colleague that gets excited about projects with you to help drive each other along.

You're a step further than I get. But I see myself more as someone that will run with a project as oppose to creating one.

Good luck finding the one that sticks!</comment>


Trump Wants NASA to Visit Jupiter's Moon Europa and Explore the Solar System - <AUTHOR> http://www.inquisitr.com/3710152/forget-mars-trump-wants-nasa-to-visit-jupiters-moon-europa-and-explore-the-solar-system/ <comment><USER2> It's hard to take seriously any website that includes sidebar links to "Alien UFO Invasion Fleet Will Reach Earth In September 2017, Obama Allegedly Warns Putin".

I'll believe it when I see it, but with Peter Thiel on side, I wouldn't completely rule it out. I mean, the part about Trump increasing focus & investment in NASA. Not the alien invasion thing.

</comment><comment><USER3> But I was told by my TV and friends on facebook that Trump is an evil racist with no other intent in life than to eat the souls of poor mexican anchor children while he destroys every scientific achievement ever created by the western world as the god fearing republican he is!

<comment><USER4> Many people don't like to hear this, but since at least Carter->Reagan Republicans have been a lot better in supporting things like science and space exploration. Probably because no part of our collation considers them intrinsically wrong or evil.

ADDED: LBJ->Nixon cannot be used to judge this due the the was in Vietnam (and to a lesser extent that might hold true for W after 9/11, and he showed his usual "genius" in picking NASA leadership), Nixon/Ford->Carter, though, would bear investigation. And Carter was absolute, total death to _anything_ nuclear, it's just like him to take a small minded view of his experiences in cleaning up this mess: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalk_River_Laboratories#1952_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalk_River_Laboratories#1952_NRX- incident) And, hmmm, this _official_ NASA history says " _Jimmy Carter was perhaps the least supportive of U.S. human space efforts of any president in the last half-century...._ " [http://www.nasa.gov/50th/50th_magazine/10presidents.html](http://www.nasa.gov/50th/50th_magazine/10presidents.html)

Obama might be an exception, though, and I'm pretty sure that's true for space. He's not from the same generation as the bulk of those cultural anti- science Baby Boomer, about my age, in fact, was I'd guess wowed by the Apollo program like I was. Would have to check for his support of science research, though.

I witnessed this first hand when Clinton NASA cutbacks killed the space technologies etc. company I started working at in late 1993, (ADDED:) and they're mentioned in the above NASA history link in the added paragraph above. And of course the cancellation of the already being built Superconducting Supercollider had much more than direct effects, which included a line running outside the MIT EECS Undergraduate Office of students transferring into the department.

<comment><USER5> _Probably because no part of our collation considers them intrinsically wrong or evil._

Which party would be more interested in keeping defense contractors in business?

<comment><USER4> That goes a zillions times more for defense contractors, in not considering them evil, _especially_ including keeping them in business.

Hard to win, impossible nowadays against a serious opponent, if you've let them go out of business. And many many of our troops needlessly died in WWII due to our playing catch up because we'd neglected these "merchants of death".

Also goes for defense related research, etc.; our response to that is not 1 ton ANFO IEDs ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterling_Hall_bombing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterling_Hall_bombing)).

The Romans had it right, " _si vis pacem, para bellum_ " ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Si_vis_pacem,_para_bellum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Si_vis_pacem,_para_bellum)).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> RIP Orion

</comment><comment><USER7> Cool.</comment>


Berry-Phase Quantum Logic Operations in Diamond Robust to Noise - <AUTHOR> http://www.ecnmag.com/news/2016/02/moving-electrons-around-loops-light-quantum-device-based-geometry <comment><AUTHOR> The pdf is pay-walled on Nature; thankfully, it is up on Arxiv too: [http://arxiv.org/pdf/1507.08993v1.pdf](http://arxiv.org/pdf/1507.08993v1.pdf)</comment>


Arduino Announces New Brand, Genuino, Manufacturing Partnership with Adafruit - <AUTHOR> http://makezine.com/2015/05/16/arduino-adafruit-manufacturing-genuino/ <comment><USER2> This is why you want to get your trademarks and domains set up early.

        arduino.cc - the original
        arduinosrl.it - the rogue manufacturer. Uses same logo.
        arduino.net - Poser porn
        arduino.com - T-shirt store

The US trademark is owned by "ARDUINO, LLC LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY MASSACHUSETTS", whoever they are.

<comment><USER3> In all fairness, the Arduino name is itself originally take from the name of a bar in Italy where the project founders used to hang out. Think about how that bar owner would feel about this...

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arduino#History](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arduino#History)

<comment><USER4> Trademarks are limited to the area of product they apply to. The purpose of trademarks is "identify and distinguish the goods/services of one seller or provider from those of others, and to indicate the source of the goods/services." No one is going to be surprised that those 2 arduinos aren't the same entity, or walk into the bar and wonder why little computers aren't on the menu, so trademark law completely ignores this, and it's extremely common so the bar owner shouldn't feel bad at all.

You can change your name to Barak Obama, and you'll get internet commenters saying things that start with "in all fairness...", but the white house won't be returning your calls.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I still don't understand what kind of standing the Arduino brand stealers (formerly Smart Projects, first manufacturers of Arduino) have to take over the brand worldwide.

<comment><USER6> You mean that the factory that was building the Arduinos just took over the brand?

<comment><USER7> From the article: "Much of 2015 has seen the open-source board maker defending itself from its former manufacturing partner, which recently claimed ownership of the brand, launched its own Arduino product line and website, and has worked to bar distributors from buying Arduino products from other manufacturers."

<comment><USER6> Yes, I saw that, but does "manufacturing partner" mean "factory"?

<comment><USER8> Pretty much, yes.

From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arduino#Legal_dispute](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arduino#Legal_dispute)

      At the end of 2008, Gianluca Martino's company, Smart Projects,
      registered the Arduino trademark in Italy and kept this a secret from the
      other co-founders for about two years. This was revealed when the
      Arduino company tried to register the trademark in other areas of the
      world (they originally registered only in the US), and discovered that it
      was already registered in Italy. Negotiations with Gianluca and his
      company to bring the trademark under control of the original Arduino
      company were not successful, and in 2014 Smart Projects began refusing to
      pay royalties. Smart Projects appointed a new CEO, Mr. Musto, who
      renamed the company to Arduino SRL and created a website named
      arduino.org, copying the graphics and layout of the original Arduino.cc.
      This resulted in a rift in the Arduino development team, and although all
      Arduino boards are still available to consumers, and the designs are
      open source, the implications of this are uncertain.

<comment><USER6> Oh wow, that's super dodgy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think they should have just chosen some new unique name. "Genuino" is just baking the memory of this schism into their new brand, and comes off as a blatant legal manoeuvre rather than taking the high road and starting over with branding.

<comment><USER10> Isn't Genuino unique enough? And it's a clever play on the original name (genuine with an -uino suffix like the original).

<comment><USER11> It's not clever at all. Genuino sounds like a cheap knock off, like countless other *duinos: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arduino_boards_and_comp...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arduino_boards_and_compatible_systems#Arduino- compatible_boards)

arduino.cc has stated that they're not fans of spawn-offs with that suffix:

>Note that while we don't attempt to restrict uses of the "duino" suffix, its use causes the Italians on the team to cringe (apparently it sounds terrible); you might want to avoid it. (It's also trademarked by a Hungarian company.)

Source: [http://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/FAQ](http://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/FAQ)

<comment><USER12> "Genuino" is the actual Italian word for "genuine".

To Italians it sounds very good, and evokes images of a "handcrafted" brand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> An article from March that explains the split in a bit more detail: [http://hackaday.com/2015/03/12/arduino-v-arduino-part- ii/](http://hackaday.com/2015/03/12/arduino-v-arduino-part-ii/)

</comment><comment><USER14> Excellent move. Reclaiming the Arduino (soon to be Genuino) movement and also bringing manufacturing to the US. Adafruit has been a great part of the maker movement here, glad to see them participating in this next phase of the Arduino.

</comment><comment><USER15> Well played, Genuino.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you revive a company from a death spiral? - <AUTHOR>

What does history teach us about this?
I was part of a company that went down this path. It's surreal in some ways. A company that was one positioned for "world domination" is suddenly in a "chaotic confused" state.
Some situations I had to go through as an employee:
Press is never good.
Human capital starts hemorrhaging
Leading to buggy product sand releases. Quality drops dramatically. Customer service to bugs to lunches.
Cafeteria conversations are never positive.
You start to see hopes fade despite the salaries.
Everything management communicates will seem like a lie.
There is a lot of "strategically realigning" corporate talk
From recent times:
Marissa Mayer taking over Yahoo
Don Mattrick taking over Zynga
X going to take over Microsoft
Y to take over BlackBerry
Sony….
If I remember, pg talked about acquisitions as a way to jump out of the spiral.
What are the other strategies that you have seen? <comment><USER2> Hmm...your examples are dissimilar: Yahoo and Microsoft have very different challenges than Blackberry or Nokia (they're in a much better position), and I'd put Zynga in a third category.

That said: some notorious companies have executed big turnarounds from near- death to leading.

The most notorious is of course Apple :) .

In the tech sector we've witnessed the reinvention of IBM (from mainframes to services), mostly copied by HP.

Some articles:

[http://www.marketwatch.com/story/americas-ten-biggest- corpor...](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/americas-ten-biggest-corporate- turnarounds-2011-02-03)

[http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/turnaround/](http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/turnaround/)

<comment><USER2> One thing all turnarounds had in common: change starts at the top. Out with the old CEO (and preferrably most of the upper management).

As you said, morale and bad press are huge issues. I think Yahoo! did pretty well on those fronts with Mayer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's almost impossible to do. You're better off leaving.</comment>


The definitive list of lists (of lists) curated on GitHub - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jnv/lists <comment><USER2> I'm kind of tempted to fork this, parse the text into a data format (such as CSV), and then write a script to fetch Github stats for each list, particularly last commit time, number of commits, number of contributors, and # of stars...it probably took a lot of time to gather all these links...but a massive list of links with not much differentiation (until you click through) ends up being a limited resource...but it's just a few steps from being something that's easier to filter and categorize.

Edit: Maybe I'll work on it this weekend...half-hoping OP just has it in a spreadsheet and is generating the list from that...

<comment><USER3> Working on it now and hopefully I'll get it committed this morning.

EDIT: Done and PR filed: [https://github.com/jnv/lists/pull/41](https://github.com/jnv/lists/pull/41)

Raw CSV blob available at: [https://github.com/minimaxir/lists/blob/5c5f1ea22db00be5c8ca...](https://github.com/minimaxir/lists/blob/5c5f1ea22db00be5c8ca250415dcddc49df1cdda/list.csv)

<comment><USER4> Why isn't your speed and talent being used for something more useful.

<comment><USER3> Fair question. :p

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting to see the original Yahoo! reinvented this way.

</comment><comment><USER6> I am happy to see a link to the list itself is contained within the list. I can have a sound sleep.

<comment><USER7> I will have a bad night. It should be split into a list of lists that contain themselves, and a list of lists that don't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Github should ship something in order to replace this lists/awesome/best etc. This should be replaced by explore feature.

</comment><comment><USER9> Added this to the article: Overview of the Best Github projects [https://medium.com/@RecurVoice/overview-of-the-best- github-p...](https://medium.com/@RecurVoice/overview-of-the-best-github- projects-6658bdc60710)

</comment><comment><USER10> What's the rule for adding something to this? It seems like they're all links to github repositories that consist entirely of lists, but is it acceptable to link to an awesome resource within a repository?

<comment><USER11> Create a list of awesome-resources and add your list to this list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> whats missing is "bash" and "prompt". would love ways to improve bash,zsh,etc

nvm, theres this: [https://github.com/alebcay/awesome- shell](https://github.com/alebcay/awesome-shell)</comment>


To detect cancer we turned genomes into images and put them through DCNNs - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@leonardvandriel/2d40360fcfcc <comment><USER2> How come this is not bigger news?

<comment><USER3> It's the deep learning equivalent of a souped-up Honda Civic. Sure, with enough tweaking it'll eventually be competitive, but you could have just bought a racecar.

Variant calling doesn't look like it needs to be turned into a image in the first place. You'd probably be better off feeding a regular, non-convolutional network some tabular data.

<comment><USER4> This is right, a convolutoonal network is the right choice for images, but images are not the right choice for "vectorising" the genomic data, because vectorising it in a 2D grid and then using a convolutional network on it (a network designed to exploit spatial hierarchy) is introducing unnecessary and arbitrary constraints on data locality. Definitely a souped up Honda Civic - love the metaphor</comment></comment></comment>


Why It Was Easier to Be Skinny in the 1980s (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/09/why-it-was-easier-to-be-skinny-in-the-1980s/407974/ <comment><USER2> I'm always immediately skeptical/frustrated/disappointed when a publication writes a story about scientific research and can't even be bothered to provide a link to the article they're writing about. That link should be in the first sentence.</comment>


CUPS 2.1 Is Adding Basic 3D Printer Support - <AUTHOR> http://www.cups.org/blog.php?L1087 <comment><USER2> This makes more sense than it might first appear. By adding this to CUPS, you can take advantage of its print spooler, filter pipeline, and OS connectivity support (USB, parallel, etc.).

<comment><USER3> Also logical is integration with existing program UI dialogs, print to file and other features.

 _Added support for 3D printers (basic types only, no built-in filters) based on PWG white paper._ ... can anyone find the white paper?

<comment><USER4> No, it makes no sense. Right now 3D printers eat files, so printing to file is tautology. 3D printers also tent to be very unreliable, you need ability to pause the print (jams, skips). How is putting CUPS between you and the printer helpful?

<comment><USER5> In addition to the other replies, there is also the ability to unify slicing from common formats into the data necessary for each individual printer.

I'm not up to date on the current state of the art, but 15 years ago industrial 3D printers required solid model generation, slicing using either some proprietary software or solidworks, and transmission to the device over network share, ftp, or sneakernet. Some or all of those parts could be common to a print system, reducing the scope for machine vendors, and allowing operators to mix and match components in interesting ways.

<comment><USER6> > 3D printers required solid model generation, slicing using either some > proprietary software or solidworks, and transmission to the device over > network share, ftp, or sneakernet.

These days(for me, and most of the stuff I've seen) it's solid model generation, slicing using free/open source(slic3r or equivalent), transmission over usb.

It's an interesting idea, but part of the problem is slicing is currently a tricky operation. I change settings based on a variety of things. I'm not certain what this is cutting out, cause I doubt they made their own slicer. If this is just taking pre-sliced data files, then you have to run everything through your slicer before you can send it to CUPS anyways. If they are integrating a slicer into CUPS, that'd be interesting, but I'd be really interested to see how they handle the many many settings that you can(need) to configure to get your slicer to output a file that the printer will work with.

Another issue is quality of progress display. I like to be able to see the print while it's printing, and track variables like temp of the printhead and progress through the print. Bear in mind, the average hobbyist 3d printer is going to take more then a couple hours to print anything of halfway decent size, so "oh you can just sit and watch it" isn't an answer. I personally use OctoPrint, which lets me track the print, and even see it using a webcam.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I stopped printing on Linux when it switched from the old printcap based tools (which while hard to configure, mostly worked) to CUPS. I was an experienced sysadmin, but no amount of configuration could make CUPS print anything but the text of postscript files to my laser printer.

I'm sure it's gotten much better, but CUPS is pretty opaque, and when you're doing 3D printing, controlling the conversion pipeline from model to print code is typically done manually with a great attention to detail.

<comment><USER8> I'm kind of surprised to hear that CUPS gives some people so much trouble. I've been using OS X and Linux since around 2001 and neither have given me any mentionable trouble with printing. It's always been install drivers -> flawless printing. In the case of my newest printer, I didn't even need to install drivers since it's AirPrint compliant. CUPS has been great for me.

<comment> TD-Linux This mirrors my experience. When I was in college I was always able to plug some random person's printer in via USB and it "just worked". I'm also able to autodiscover and print to all of the laser printers at work. (this is on Linux)

<comment><USER9> Have you tried debugging things when cups doesn't "just work"? printcap was much simpler, which made it easier to understand and diagnose problems.

In general I think there's a positive correlation between the precentage of cases where software "just works" with no manual intervention and the effort required to diagnose the cases where it doesn't.

<comment><USER7> Yes, I spent plenty of time debugging CUPS in the old days. But I haven't, in ages. printcap may have been simpler, but shortly before CUPS was released, the linux implementation had matured significantly and could do many basic conversion operations. Distros supported this and handled things like ghostscript conversion.

These days, I print in a number of ways that work fine, including Mac OS X (a version of CUPS which has already been debugged and polished for many printers I use), Windows (my preferred printing system since it supports the largest number of printers), and Google Cloud Print (for the set of printers I use that have that as their access protocol).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Maybe someone can explain how this works to me: In the white paper ([http://ftp.pwg.org/pub/pwg/BOFs/3d-printing/wd-apple- ipp3d-2...](http://ftp.pwg.org/pub/pwg/BOFs/3d-printing/wd-apple- ipp3d-20150123.pdf)) section 5, it lists a bunch of attributes ("material- type", "filament-retraction-speed", etc.) These are all attributes that would be inputs to a slicer. Furthermore, there are a million such parameters (CUPS will never cover them all), are different between different slicers, are ever- changing, and sometimes undocumented.

Why would cups concern itself with these parameters, versus, for example, just acting as a transport for the actual print file (gcode, x3g, etc.)? I feel like this is akin to having CUPS assemble a PDF, versus just acting as a transport for postscript file that gets printed.

<comment><USER11> Well, CUPS does assembly PDFs nowadays.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> OS X's been using CUPS for a long time and, as other OS X users have noted, doesn't have the reliability problems people are reporting here on Linux. So those problems must have to do with things that aren't directly CUPS related, like possibly an application, PPD, Ghostscript, backend, or network or USB problem. Each distro packages this up a bit differently and with different versions so that could also be part of the inconsistency.

</comment><comment><USER13> Offtopic: What is currently the best home 3D printer? I am looking for something that produces reasonable level of detail and items that aren't easily destroyed by applying slight rotational forces.

<comment><USER14> What's your budget? 3D printers for home use vary in price from a few hundred dollars to many thousands of dollars. Also, they vary quite a bit in terms of the materials they support printing.

If you want one example of a good high end 3D printer for the home market, I'd say take a look at the Form 1+:

[http://formlabs.com/products/form-1-plus/](http://formlabs.com/products/form-1-plus/)

<comment><USER7> When I visited Autodesk, they had a ton of broken Form1+'s on the shelf. They said they always broke.

<comment><USER14> Good to know, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> fake-name Can we first stop making fucking ANY x support depend on the entire CUPS subsystem?

I have a LOT of different computers/VMs that need X in some form, and will never, ever EVER print anything. Why do I need the 10+ CUPS packages to install a minimal desktop environment?

This is also true for audio bullcrap.

</comment><comment><USER15> ...why, was printer software becoming too reliable?

<comment><USER2> Why would this addition hurt reliability?

<comment><USER15> While my comment was a bit glib, new features do have a tendency to introduce complexity & bugs on seemingly entirely unrelated parts of software. If CUPS is going to make a big push on integrating 3d printing, I'd bet you that it causes more than one bug with the normal 2d printing, even if it is a compile- time option.

I just hope that the 3d part of CUPS is easily removable... I'd hate to see it part of the common user experience, CUPS already has a reputation for a complex and bewildering UI as-is.

<comment><USER2> > While my comment was a bit glib, new features do have a tendency to > introduce complexity & bugs on seemingly entirely unrelated parts of > software.

This is true. Given CUPS's modularity, I think this won't add too much complexity, though.

> I just hope that the 3d part of CUPS is easily removable... I'd hate to see > it part of the common user experience, CUPS already has a reputation for a > complex and bewildering UI as-is.

I don't imagine it affecting the normal user experience at all. 3D printers are still printers and presumably configured similarly.

<comment><USER6> meh, the only similarities between 3d printers and "normal" printers is the word printer in the name and the fact that they are output devices. 3d printers have much more in common with 3 axis CNC machines then with printers. In fact, the control code that many hobbyist 3d printers use is actually based on the control code used by CNC machines.

<comment><USER16> I thought that too first, but actually they do seem quite similar. Main difference from computers point of view is that paper printers take in postscript and 3d printers take in gcode. Of course the printer itself is completely different but that is all quite opaque to the computer.

<comment><USER6> If you want to be that pedantic, there is little difference between a monitor and a printer. There are a lot of configuration differences between 3d printers and normal.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Less notification requests in Chrome 80 - <AUTHOR> https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/01/08/notification-requests-in-chrome-80-will-be-far-less-annoying/ <comment><AUTHOR> I wish I knew why notification request blocking wasn't the default behavior from the beginning</comment>


This Is Why You Don't Go to the Gym - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/01/this-is-why-you-dont-go-to-the-gym/251332/ <comment><USER2> One of the articles the author links to is a lot more helpful and concrete [1]. The meat of it:

 _"Shaul's guys out in Wyoming get massively strong and powerful on precisely three gym sessions a week, each lasting an hour and no more. Louie Simmons, the single biggest name in gorilla-style competitive power lifting, will tell you that 45 minutes is the max length of any smart training session.

But you can't spend the first 15 minutes watching CNN from the treadmill and the last 15 "warming down." Every second has to count, and it all starts with understanding the four basic muscular aptitudes: strength, power, muscle mass, and muscular endurance. [...]

The whole trick to athletic training — and this is true for everybody from bodybuilders to marathoners to noncompetitive athletes just in it for health, or even vanity — is timing each subsequent workout so it hits the middle of that so-called supercompensation peak, when a muscle has already bounced back even stronger than before but hasn't yet returned to baseline. [...]

It can be hard to believe a true strength coach the first time he tells you that by pressing and dead-lifting on even days, squatting and doing chin-ups on odd days, avoiding all other exercises, and adding a little to the bar each time, you'll be stronger than you've ever been in only a month's time. Thanks to the fitness industry, we're so conditioned to equate sophistication with complexity — and to think we've got to "work each body part" — that our gut just says, No way; that can't work. But it works like magic, and the entire body hardens up in unison.

Finally, keep it simple; understand that variety is overrated. Variety does stave off boredom — it's fun to mix in new exercises all the time — but a guy who hasn't trained in a long time, if ever, will get stronger faster on the simplest program of squats, dead lifts, and presses, three times a week."_

[1] [http://www.mensjournal.com/everything-you-know-about- fitness...](http://www.mensjournal.com/everything-you-know-about-fitness-is-a- lie/print/)

<comment><USER3> If you are serious about it, there's a book by Mark Rippetoe called Starting Strength that explains this in more detail.

<comment><USER4> And a (somewhat disorganized) wiki about the book, with enough info to learn the lifts and do the program, here: [http://startingstrength.wikia.com/wiki/Starting_Strength_Wik...](http://startingstrength.wikia.com/wiki/Starting_Strength_Wiki)

Using this program and nothing else, between November 1 and December 23 of this year, my squat went from 180 to 270, my deadlift from 180 to 305, and my bench press from 120 to 165.

You do not need to be an expert, or know how to lift to do the program. It is (for me) almost exactly one hour a day, three days a week.

Make working out a habit, not a question of willpower. It needs to "just be", or else you, if you're at all like me, won't do it. That's why I don't care much about variety; I don't need variety in brushing my teeth either.

edit: Also, the /r/fitness FAQ is quite good: <http://www.reddit.com/help/faqs/Fitness>

<comment><USER5> Congrats! That's some pretty big gains < 2 months. I have been lifting long enough now that those sorts of gains are a forgotten memory. My deadlift is at 525 now, and I'd like to say that 600 seems reachable, but damn it's just so heavy. It's to the point where I can feel a strength difference between 1-2 lbs of more/less bodyweight. I often wonder if there is a way to figure out my personal potential max in a lift. I love dead lifting, but it would be nice to know if I'm at 50% of my possible strength or 90%.

The hour workout touches on some studies that I have read that going over an hour often doesn't get you much with respect to strength training.

Another good book is "The New Rules of Lifting."

<comment><USER4> I love deadlifting, if I wasn't in the offseason training for a sport I might be able to get up into your realm :)

There's something so basic and satisfying about picking up something really heavy.

It seems (from my reading) that once you reach weights like yours, progression gets much harder. There's lots of tricky assistance work you need to figure out, you need to eat like a friggin animal, and you need to work just hard enough to not overtrain.

In other words, good luck!

<comment><USER5> Thanks! Yeah, if I could keep my eating right I could probably get there. I am much stronger with my weight over 200lbs, but life has been so busy I'm down around a lean 185-190 right now. For me finding time for the gym has been the easy part. Figuring out how to eat enough through the day has always been the problem.

And yeah, progression slows and waivers depending on current bodyweight, current emotional state, time of day, etc... It can take months to add another 5lbs onto the bar.

<comment><USER4> If you haven't been, /r/weightroom has a bunch of guys that are lifting in your ballpark or greater, and might be a useful resource.

It's much more useful for lifters than /r/fitness is. <http://www.reddit.com/r/weightroom>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you haven't heard me say it enough, note that bit about "Given the choice between buying X units one at a time or 2X units all at once for a modest discount, people will often buy 2X units and fail to use them all." That is _very important_ to keep in mind when designing e.g. the packaging options of a SaaS business.

<comment><USER7> My own utterly unscientific data suggests that this is a form of hyperbolically discounted loss-aversion - the 'loss' of the discount on additional units is felt more acutely than the more real loss of units purchased but never used.

Combining this principle with a time-limited offer can be staggeringly effective, I imagine by enhancing the sense of impending loss. I've seen orders-of-magnitude difference in revenue from such "new customer only" discounts.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to have a bath in acetone to sluice off the shame.

<comment><USER8> I love the retailers who try to tap in to this with the time-limited offers that never seem to expire!

<comment><USER9> Dreamhost suckered me that way. A few years ago they offered a limited time special anniversary discount (only 11 days left!!), however, the anniversary sale was still on months later and there were only 11 days left!!

I will never, ever use them again for doing that to me.

<comment><USER10> Oh come on. They're a hosting company. How was their service? Didn't you know what you were getting for the money? Would you have waited for _hosting_ until a special offer came along?

<comment><USER11> Customers tend to get pissed off when they realize they've been lied to. I think his anger is justified.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've always found that if I just put on my workout clothes, It's really hard to convince myself that I shouldn't be going and take them off. So, to get myself to go, I tell myself that I'm just putting on my clothes, which seems like way less of a commitment when I'm sitting on the couch. By the time I've laced up my shoes, I'm in the workout mindset.

Really, vI know I can trick that part of myself. Trying to swallow a bitter pill whole is difficult and can be counterproductive to positive reinforcement that will get you to go again. Break down that commitment into pieces and the initial energy threshold is a hell of a lot lower. You'll see the positive results more easily and expect them less because you've broken down your "I should be getting in shape" personal investment into smaller pieces, so it seems smaller overall. It stops being a matter of "I better see some results for all my trouble."

Without the self-guilt trip you'll be reinforcing a positive feedback loop, which is the only sustainable way you're going to get in shape--if you enjoy doing it.

<comment><USER2> _"To get myself to go, I tell myself that I'm just putting on my [workout] clothes"_

That's a great suggestion. Also, if you exercise at home instead of at a gym, you can tell yourself you're just going to do a 10 minute set. Once you're done with that one, your heartbeat will be up and you'll have enough energy to keep up for a few more.

Bribes/rewards are also good motivators. If you promise yourself a minute of reading HN for every minute you work out, you have something to look forward to. (Make sure you don't let yourself take the reward before you do the work, that's a BIG trap.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think those theories are missing the main point. Going to the gym is not fun, because gyms have a crappy user experience.

So let's say you join a gym, but don't know very much about working out. You walk into a room with hundreds of machines, and are expected to know how to structure a work-out, how each machine works, be familiar with all the muscle groups and exercises, and also really care about planning out and recording every exercise you do to track your progress on the gyms website. It's the biggest turn-off.

Why can't a gym hold your hand and treat you like somebody who wants to start working out but doesn't know anything yet? "Express tracks" are a good start, where 10 machines are set up in a row, and if you do 3 sets on each one, you have a good work-out session. That's easy to understand and do. And maybe later, once people have created their habits, they are more likely to learn the finer details. But expecting every new member to care about putting a ton of effort into learning everything about working out is a killer.

<comment><USER14> Hmm, with the exception of the tiny mom and pop gyms just about every gym I've been to over the years has pushed an initial free personal trainer session with the hope you sign up for more.

Working out is, well, work. If you're out of shape it's not fun and if you don't have the motivation to get in shape it's not going to work. To be perfectly honest, I think that's what a good (read: effective) trainer does more than anything else - instill motivation. There's plenty of info on how to work out, and barring that, you can quickly observe how people use the equipment and their form. You can watch trainers instructing others. It's really not that hard. I started at 13 years old, years before the world wide web existed, and basically learned everything I needed from a subscription to a couple muscle mags. Aside from that, the only people I learned from initially were other friends my age that were also beginning to work out because we certainly didn't have the $$ for trainers. I went from 90 lbs. to 130 lbs. in that first year. Basically I was just really sick of of being 90 lbs. That's it.

I'd almost equate it with coding, expecting some hand holding will get you only so far. The internal motivation will have to be there sooner or later or it won't stick.

Nowadays I don't do it nearly as much, but I can't take more than 3 or so days off because I begin to feel like crap, and I'm addicted to not feeling like crap.

<comment><USER8> _Working out is, well, work. If you're out of shape it's not fun and if you don't have the motivation to get in shape it's not going to work._

Amen. It has little to do with user experience. Even _when_ I was in shape and going regularly, there were days it was hard to get myself there- you are constantly, slowly adding weight, so it is _always_ hard.

Driving out of a deep squat is always the hardest part for me. I find it just requires so much more willpower than a press or the like.

<comment><USER15> _Driving out of a deep squat is always the hardest part for me. I find it just requires so much more willpower than a press or the like._

It probably also requires recruiting more muscles at the same time and coordinating them all, and more effort to keep your balance (recruiting even more small muscles), which adds to the complexity of the exercise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I don't really like going to the gym, but I love running outside. There are a few things that keep me going:

1\. I keep in mind that I have never regretted going for a run.

2\. A few times a week, I run with friends in a training group. When someone expects to see me there, I am much more likely to go.

3\. I keep a training log. I mark completed days with a green dot (even rest days), and missed workouts with a red dot.

4\. I read about running. It's inspiring to hear others' stories.

5\. I sign up for races. If a race is coming up, I know I can't brush off workouts.

I started running again a couple years ago after about 8 years of not working out. It was difficult and painful for a couple months, but it got easier and more fun. I do have to sacrifice some family time, but I want my son to see me having a fit lifestyle. Sometimes, I'll bring him along in a stoller.

<comment><USER8> I actually have a lot of trouble running outside. You see, I can't pace myself for sh*t, so I always wind up running at like a 6-minute-mile pace no matter what shape I'm in or how far I'm going. I've discovered treadmills are useful in that regard.

<comment><USER16> Pacing can be difficult. On a hard workout, I find I can go out way too fast. I wear a Garmin watch that lets me monitor my pace and adjust it. Some of the people I run with are really good at setting a pace, so I'll follow them. Getting a feel for setting the pace just takes some practice.

<comment><USER4> It may also be worthwhile to go to the track and practice a pace. After you run 100 laps at a certain speed, it's easier to find that speed again.

<comment><USER17> I use Runkeeper for my iPhone. There's this great belt you can buy that holsters it (Spibelt), can't even feel it there. Coaching on how fast you're going every half mile. You can calibrate pretty quickly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> A little more than a year ago I found a way to get paid to get in shape when I started refereeing soccer. Indeed, the more fit I become, the higher the level of game to which I am likely to be assigned, and consequentially, the more I am paid...it's a fitness hack for someone who doesn't like to exercise, but can buy into the idea of training.

</comment><comment><USER19> I found a link to the Harvard graduates' Gym Pact program: <http://www.gym- pact.com/>. It's an iPhone app, and it purports to actually pay you the money paid by those who didn't go to the gym if you really do go to the gym. Another similar program is the free online service Beeminder at <https://www.beeminder.com/>. It lets you track anything numeric, such as visits to the gym, and if you fall below the goal you set for yourself a week ago, you get charged money.

<comment><USER20> Thanks for the Beeminder plug! (I'm a co-founder.) As I just replied to another comment here about StickK, we think of ourselves as StickK.com for data nerds. We think we're drastically better than StickK for data-oriented goals (like weight loss, or anything you can make a graph of).

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I workout from home, I started a couple of months ago with cardio to loose some fat, and now I'm starting p90x.

The reason I don't go to the gym isn't because I gave up, it's just I don't like that "all" gym environment, plus the fact that I have to drive there, wait for people to let me use a specific machine etc...

with the money I'd spent on a gym, I'm building my own little private gym.

I can't recommend enough for all of us geeks to workout. I used to drink sugar drinks, eat fat food, all that crap. Even though I wasn't fat I was starting to gain weight and man, I was embarrassed of how out of shape I was.

Look it as hacking your own body ;) make it better, each week you will se improvements, get in shape. Just because we are geeks doesn't mean we can't have a great body for ladies ;P

<comment><USER22> P90X is an ok program, but it's ridiculously inefficient. If you learn basic barbell training, I guarantee that you won't have to wait much, if at all, at the gym. Most folks shy away from barbells and that's an advantage to the person who knows what they're doing.

<comment> brown9-2 The most waiting you'll have to do is when someone is curling in the squat rack.

<comment><USER5> Ugh, don't get me started. I have a t-shirt I wear on squat days and it reads in nice big letters:

"Don't curl in the squat rack!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is silly, is it _really_ that hard to go to the gym?

I mean, you just go the first time. Then when it is "tomorrow". You just go again. Then the next day ... again. It's not that difficult a concept, the only thing you must take care of is that you don't break the cycle.

When I was still going to a gym I was there two hours every evening, at the same time, no matter what. When I suddenly couldn't afford it anymore it was horrible ... all that free time and nothing to do with it. Sure, eventually new habits formed, but it was hard as hell.[1]

Really the only thing it takes is a bit of stubbornness, all these silly tricks into making yourself more stubborn are just that ... silly. You don't need them.

There's nothing easier in the world than making the same default decision every day. Doesn't even require much thought.

[1] this was a few years ago, got into boxing when I had the money again, then became broke and am finally getting back to boxing this week ... money's a bitch like that, luxury-ish expenses are the first to go

edit: why all the downvotes? Picking a habit and making sure you don't break it is one of the most effective ways of sticking to something ... [http://theclosetentrepreneur.com/seinfelds-secret- motivation...](http://theclosetentrepreneur.com/seinfelds-secret-motivational- technique)

<comment><USER24> _two hours every evening_

Bodybuilders don't work out that much, you know.

<comment><USER18> Two hours a day is a lot of family time to lose for many parents, and more than an old bum knee may take.

<comment><USER25> So don't spend two hours. Exercise isn't an all or nothing game. There's a TED talk out there somewhere (google it) which explains that you get exponentially more out of exercise from about the 15 minute mark, and it hits a peak around half an hour. The study showed that the single best thing you can do for your health (the closest thing there is to a silver bullet, if you will); and this applied to both average sized people and the obese, smokers and non-smokers, etc, was to get 30 mins daily exercise. But even if you can't get that much, 15 minutes isn't wasting your time.

Furthermore, exercise doesn't take up your time, it actually increases it. Not just in the years in your life and how much less time you spend in those years being sick; that's obvious. But every single day.

Tim Ferriss tells this story about how Richard Branson was once asked the single biggest thing most people could do to increase productivity. Due to the fact that he's one of the busiest men on the planet, every single person in the audience leaned forward with bated breath. His answer? Exercise daily. It improves the quality of your sleep, so you need less. It makes you more emotionally stable, so you're more motivated. And most importantly, it increases mental clarity, so you're more focused through-out the day. Branson said that it gives him multiple hours more productivity every day. It's bull to say you don't have enough time every day to exercise; if you're that busy then in fact you don't have enough time to NOT exercise.

Finally, just thought it was worth mentioning that half hour of exercise doesn't even have to be strenuous. In the study I mentioned before they recommended walking, because it's the best overall for your body (too many people run on concrete these days). Swimming is also very good. Neither of these have to be exhausting. Hence why I take the 30-35 minute walk to work every day. My other exercise is a bonus.

<comment><USER18> I'm not arguing that 30 minutes of exercise isn't healthy - the parent post to which my comment responded was two hours a day. I'd be dead in a week if I tried that because my spouse would kill me.

So much exercise advice is disingenuous: 30 minutes exercise != 30 minutes out of one's day

Change cloths, warm up, exercise, cool down, shower, change clothes: there's significant overhead even if one doesn't have to travel to the gym.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm about to leave soon, so I'll make it quick:

In a previous post I already lauded the book "The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work"[1].

The book is based on scientific results.

In the chapter "The 20 second rule" the author talks about the "activation energy" required to start a task and recommends reducing it as much as possible. Every 20 seconds (hence the title of the chapter) removed between you sitting on the couch and starting what you wanted to start makes a difference.

I have a nice pullup bar hanging from the wall that's staring at me and every other day I follow the simplefit[2] program. Have been following it for weeks now. "Activition energy" being so low... even when I dread doing sport (yes, there are such days) I tell myself it's at most 20 minutes and I can start right away so the pullup bar is looking at me with a face and I shrug and do it. My energy and endurance has increased noticably.

Gotta run now (not to the gym hyuk hyuk), I'll be happy to answer any questions tomorrow.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Happiness-Advantage-Principles- Psychol...](http://www.amazon.com/Happiness-Advantage-Principles-Psychology- Performance/dp/0307591549/) [2] <http://simplefit.org>

<comment><USER27> I bought a weight set. It also stares at me every day. And I work out almost every day. I don't have serious motivational problems.

I could go to a gym in theory, but it's at least 20 minutes away, there would be a whole ritual to dress up, go there, workout, cool off, come back. It would take an extra hour and I imagine many gym goers are paying extra in time to work out. It wears on your motivation.

I know I'd skip many more days, the results would be even less apparent which would undermine my motivation.

Most important exercises can be done with a barbell and 2-300 lbs of plates. At home, without a rack, you could safely squat 150 after getting there with powercleans and overhead prss. Then you could go to a gym once a week for its racks, leg press, etc.

The only thing I regret is buying standard plates, barbells and dumbbells instead of olympics. Standard barbells can't handle more than 230 lbs safely. It would be nice to deadlift and bench 300 lbs at home. Pain in the ass to sell the old set. So if you go this route, I'd recommend spending more and getting olympics. And don't worry about sucky olympic dumbbells, do Starting Strength, it's fine without them.

<comment><USER28> >Standard barbells can't handle more than 230 lbs safely.

Did you get a hollow bar or something? I regularly deadlift 350# on my 6 foot standard bar with no problems. And I haven't seen any claims about safety issues elsewhere. If you actually look at the bars, the central section when the maximum loading is is the same diameter on standard and Olympic bars.

<comment><USER27> I don't know if it's hollow. It's ~10 lbs, 5ft, came with a cheap 110 lb weight set.

I googled up standard barbell weight capacity and most responses on forums and articles say that standards are only rated for ~230 lbs. This one says 300 [http://www.building-muscle101.com/weight-lifting- equipment.h...](http://www.building-muscle101.com/weight-lifting- equipment.html) this guy says ~200 [http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=945996&pa...](http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=945996&page=1)

Here it says 200 for 5ft <http://www.bigfitness.com/noname8.html> and 250 for 6ft <http://www.bigfitness.com/weigbarbr6st1.html>

It's a nightmare trying to find out the specs. I prefer a 5ft bar. Say I get more plates and this bar can't handle them, then I have to try other bars. I wish I could sell this weight set and get olympics. No worries about capacities there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> > Recently, a couple of Harvard graduates launched a program called Gym Pact > based on the simple principle that if skipping the gym is a broken contract > with ourselves, we ought to pay a penalty for slacking.

Hmm, this site does this for many years already: <http://www.stickk.com/>

Tried it once with some friends and it worked perfect, even without a financial penalty.

<comment><USER30> <http://www.stickk.com/> is a great site. I think learned about it a while ago here on HN. I use it to motivate myself to go out running in the mornings. If I don't go running at least four days a week, $10 goes to a climate change denial charity (this was chosen by me, not a reflection of the sites politics).

It certainly works - there has been many a cold, rainy morning this winter that it's been the deciding factor in getting me out the door...

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I'm actually pretty good about going to the gym, but I'm overweight anyway. The reason is that I'm good at doing what I should do, but bad about not doing what I shouldn't do.

A hard workout takes a while, but then you're done, and you feel great. Not eating the donut takes a while, but an hour later, you aren't done not eating the donut. Oh no, not at all. It still beckons.

</comment><comment><USER32> Hiring a personal trainer (who is used by an early facebook engineering director, friend, and investor of mine) is probably the best health related decision i have made in a long time. One or two times a week, plus tracking diet with her help, and advice tracking and motivation for on my own gym sessions, total bargain.

It basically turns fitness from a long feedback cycle to basically daily. I would probably cover up to 1k per month in employee fitness related costs; it is a huge boost to health, motivation, and productivity.

</comment><comment><USER33> I've found that classes are best for me. A few years ago I started going to an aerobics class that emphasized strength. Then I did a boot camp. In 2010 I started doing Crossfit and hope to do it the rest of my life. They push me well out of my comfort zone, and the group aspect makes it both competitive and collegial.

Last year I decided two times a week was good enough for me and it's worked. I'm in fantastic shape.

<comment><USER34> I started doing crossfit about 3 months ago and absolutely love it.

Being a global and pretty standardised thing there are gyms all around the world you can attend. Despite the language barrier you still know what to do. For instance I am in Tokyo currently and about to go here: <http://chikaracrossfit.com/> If I were in Denmark then I'd love to drop in here: <http://butcherslab.dk/>

Just as being a developer allows you to network globally, crossfit does too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I see these articles more and more lately. They aren't really saying anything new: people don't like putting effort into long term goals. This is just a corollary of the concept of instant gratification.

People go to college and invest years in an education that they grind out day in and day out because they feel (not think! it's not a logical process) there is value in the long term effort. When the same people don't exercise and eat right over a long term period, they are demonstrating that they don't value their health. Sure they might think and say they do, but obviously they aren't taking the appropriate steps. They just don't care.

<comment><USER36> > People go to college and invest years in an education that they grind out > day in and day out because they feel ... there is value in the long term > effort.

Many go to college simply because their lives will not feel complete until they can study certain subjects at the hands of masters. Much like how entrepreneurs feel their life will not be complete until they try to build that product; even knowing the odds are against them seeing it become a success.

I would argue that the rest go because they've been pressured to do so, not because they see a real long-term benefit in their actions. There is _a lot_ of negativity towards those who do not have degrees. Getting a degree is needed to fit in and not become a social outcast.

People who make poor lifestyle choices do have their own fair share of pressure and negativity, but, unlike those without degrees, we generally accept them in our society.

Nobody is going to pass up the world's best programmer because he has a few extra pounds on his person. Lots of people would pass over the world's best programmer because he doesn't have a degree.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> _According to the theory of decision fatigue, the simple act of making any decision depletes us of a limited store of willpower._

I'm a bit worried about this theory becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Ever since first reading about it, my thoughts sometimes go along these lines:

 _\- I should do X now.

\- But wait, I've already done A, B, and D. Man, I feel like I have depleted my willpower on those three tasks! So, I'm leaving it till tomorrow._

And so I'm confused because I suspect I would be better off if I never found out about the theory, but there's no way to 'unread' it and make myself a control for checking the limits of my own willpower.

</comment><comment><USER37> One trick that seems to have made it easier for me is changing the question from "Do/Should/Can I go to the gym today?" (which is just an opportunity to come up with excuses) to "How do I go to the gym today?".

It seems to tie into the decision fatigue theory. Instead trying to figure out if I can based on meetings/workload/other things in my schedule, I've already made my decision to go on certain days (in my case, every other day) and I just need to make sure my schedule works.

</comment><comment><USER38> As a hacker what gets me to the gym is that I realized its all just a numbers game. I weigh x. It will take x amount of days eating x amount of calories. I do x amount of reps time the number of sets per each workout. When I go to the gym I record everything. Every rep and half rep. I wrote a program to learn python and to track my gym progress. Realizing its all just a numbers game really helped me sorta do the math on taking care of myself for the long term.

<comment><USER5> Exactly. The biggest mistake most people make when starting a gym program is not tracking progress.

<comment><USER39> I'm going to disagree. The biggest mistake most people make is not showing up.

I've arranged things so that when my kids have swim lessons, I go to the gym. It doesn't matter if I track progress or not, because I'm not looking to "make progress". I want to be in better shape. Going regularly is the key. Just as a photographer will tell you that the best camera is the one you have with you, the best workout is the one you actually do.

As a side effect, I lift 150% - 250% of the weight that I did when I started, and I can do many, many more reps. I no longer get backaches, and I can't remember the last time I was out of breath from a normal activity.

<comment><USER5> Showing up obviously is key, but the underlying issue is maintaining long term motivation. I found most people need to feel they are accomplishing _something_ in order to stay motivated. Measuring allows that.

Another thing that trips many people up is they are unsure what to do. Having a written plan when they show up removes that hurdle. Much like having a TODO list helps many people complete them, having a written TODO list of exercises helps people to show up.

 _It doesn't matter if I track progress or not, because I'm not looking to "make progress". I want to be in better shape._

BTW, be in _better shape_ is called progress. Although be in better shape isn't a very good SMART goal. While it is measurable it's not specific enough or time bound.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> This is one of the fastest ways to get fit, and doesn't require more than 15 minutes (even giving 5 for farting around) or any equipment.

1 Round is 2-3 minutes

* Burpees(pushup variation) x 30 seconds

* Shadow box x 30 seconds -- This isn't rest. Treat it like a fight. Add kicks, knees, elbows, etc.

* Rest 1 minute between rounds.

Make rounds longer, try to beat your reps, or add a weighted vest if you really want to challenge yourself.

</comment><comment><USER41> I am one of those people that doesn't have a reason to go to the gym so I never promise myself to go. And since I look at my money situation before spending it, I know it is too expensive due to the risk of ending up not going but still paying. People with money to spend easily spend it on things they don't need. Too bad not everyone is really conscious about their ways so they think they can promise themselves something but in reality there is a super high probability they won't keep the promise to themselves.

You can tell people a hundred times they won't keep their promise and the reason and whatever, they will still think they can keep it because their motivation is still high because they haven't done anything yet.

Gyms here have trials.

</comment><comment><USER42> We can boil it down to incentives. Are the incentives (we recognize) strong enough to get us to pay for a membership and go to the gym? Maybe yes. Maybe no. Maybe maybe. The "maybe Maybe" wins the day in most cases. It's no surprise that the gyms are winning out here. Their goal is sales not necessarily our fitness. If they make good coin and facilitate people getting fit then good show. If they make good coin and the customers fail well such is life. Free will is after all free will.

So what can we say for the minority that pay the 30(+) silver pieces and actually make it happen? I say good show! To those who pay and drop off I say keep on; don't give up, go back and try again! Tomorrow is another day. Don't Judas yourself.

</comment><comment><USER43> what about the fact that most people fuck around in the gym and see no results?

</comment><comment><USER44> Well right now I don't go because the parking lot has been completely full the past 2 weeks. But I expect that will resolve itself soon :)

</comment><comment><USER45> i can imagine that some online services are doing the same thing, or at least hoping for the same effect: users who pay a subscription fee but don't use it. of course, when they do, if they didn't expect it and can't afford to scale they go under.

anyone know how big the parallels are between the economic models used by gyms and many online services?

<comment><USER46> >90% of sites on the web pay a shared hosting company that offers unlimited disk space and bandwidth.

Every Netflix subscriber that has a red envelope sitting on a table somewhere for weeks at a time.

Comcast internet service comes with 1GB of storage for a personal website. They don't have 22,000 terabytes in hard drives allocated to that, I'm sure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I'm surprised no one has mentioned the website NerdFitness (<http://nerdfitness.com/blog/>) yet. Steve runs a really great blog for those looking to get started doing fitness. The forum there is a good place to ask basic fitness questions too.

<comment><USER48> I have heard about them, but they seem kinda cultish to me -- once you are in, you are in for life, we don't know diet soda is bad for you, but it is not natural, so it properly is, etc, etc.

But hey, if it works for you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> _WHY CAN'T PEOPLE KEEP THEIR GYM PROMISES? FOR THE SAME REASON CONGRESS CAN'T PASS DEFICIT REDUCTION._

Congress doesn't have the proper incentives to reduce the deficit. People do have good incentives to go to the gym. (Coincidentally, I just got back from the gym. It feels really good.)

</comment><comment><USER50> I wonder if it worked to offer customers a monthly fee of $100 and give them $5 back each time they come to the gym. Going seven times a month would make it cheaper than a $70 monthly flat fee, yet very few people would probably still get there more than ten times a month.

</comment><comment><USER51> I usually just throw on my workout clothes and take a pre-workout product, then I'm ready to work out. I don't know if pre-workout drinks work all that well but they certainly add a placebo effect that makes me feel ready to workout...caffeine can help too.

<comment><USER5> I used to drink a Speed Stacks when I could buy them cheaply from a distributor friend. They were pretty strong so I would drink 1/2 and then switch to water. Then I would use the other 1/2 for the next workout.

Now that I don't have the hookup, Red Bull on sale seems to work pretty well for a low cost energy drink.

Each person is different and needs to find that balance to just enough energy to go 110%, but not so much that you lose focus.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> article contradicts itself.. they say that majority will buy monthly pass for $70 instead of paying $10 per visit and do just 4 visit, effectively loosing money.

And then they tell that people are more likely to do gym workouts if they will be taxed. But isn't subscribing to plan already form of financial incentive?

I have quite different idea of gyms. Gyms are for people who build their body, not for someone who need to fix health. For someone who need to fix health - they need to change their routine to introduce physical work somewhere. This is more complicated than buying membership, I agree. But this is what will not use your willpower and give you long term results.

<comment><USER53> No, the $70 a month, once paid, is a sunk cost. You can't get that back if you decide to skip today.

But, if you get taxed if you don't go, then your choice of being lazy _right now_ will cost you money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> I think the reality is that most people just don't care much about going to the gym. There is a real societal pressure to feel obligated to 'get fit,' but that's not enough to create behavioral change, and it shouldn't be.

</comment><comment><USER55> how about tying your gym visits to your health insurance premiums?

<comment><USER18> The local hospital did that for employees at the health club they developed. People signed in and then hung out drinking free coffee and socializng in the juice bar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> I just rode my bike back from the gym, and have been going regularly for about twenty years. It's the only time I have to catch up on podcasts.

</comment><comment><USER57> I've found that paid classes or personal training beat 'the gym' as the instructors are highly motivated to keep you coming back...

</comment><comment><USER58> My god, the least interesting post in years... When will we have a How to loose weight by eating three burgers a day?

</comment><comment><USER59> brilliant startup idea: a gym that's also a strip club :p

<comment><USER48> I cannot contemplate the kind of mind that can make that connection but you will properly be a valuable member around here.

Anyway you should properly find some other way to make it nice to be there since otherwise you will lose the female part of the equation.

</comment></comment><comment> guard-of-terra There seems to be an elephant in the room: gym is boring, pointless and offers too few bang for the trouble.

It's inherently boring. Walking is fun. Hiking is fun. Chopping lumber is fun. Swimming in rivers and lakes is fun (pools - less so). You see new things and move yourself around.

In gym, nothing really changes, you just do some repetitive things in a big room without windows. Sitting in cubicle is probably more fun because you've got web access at least.

I don't know if the problem is inherently solvable or not.

<comment><USER60> Find a gym that isn't boring. They exist. Flip tires, pull a sled, climb a rope, throw a heavy ball...

Doing a bodybuilding routine is incredibly boring, but finding something you like at the gym can be very rewarding. Like anything else though, you have to work a bit to find out the good stuff amongst the crap.

<comment><USER8> Yea, you can always trade off some optimality for interesting if you need. Weight lifting isn't the only way to get in shape, it's just the most methodical & straight-forward.</comment></comment></comment>


Driver Plows Through Pack Of Cyclists, Claims Self-Defense - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/02/28/134143818/driver-plows-through-critical-mass-ride-claims-self-defense

<comment><USER2> Hopefully this sociopath will be in jail for some time. That's what he deserves.</comment>


What's the best programming language for entrepreneurs? - <AUTHOR> https://finotto.org/web-development/best-programming-language/ <comment><USER2> > What's the best programming language for entrepreneurs

There aren't best programming language. All depends how you want to solve the problem.</comment>


Client-Side Web Application Development with JavaScript & Backbone.js - <AUTHOR> http://publish.luisrei.com/articles/backbone.html

<comment><USER2> These days it is inconceivable to make any webapp, big or small, without some kind of Javascript MV* framework. IMHO Backbone is a great choice as it isn't too opinionated to start with, but scales to more complex scenarios.

What would be "nice to have" was a part regarding memory leaks, as it can become a problem with Backbone's Views.

<comment><AUTHOR> you mean like if you fail to unbind/remove stuff?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Great tuturial to build an application in Backbone.js! Another great contribution from @lrei</comment>


Show HN: My first website: A story sharing website for cubicle workers - <AUTHOR>

http://mycubiclesucks.com
It's the first website I've created. I know it doesn't really solve any problems but it's just for fun.
I used to work in a cubicle and always had stories I wanted to share about the funny things that happened. Hopefully you guys enjoy it.
PS I'm working out some of the bugs in IE but if you see others, just let me know.
Also, I just released it today so there's barely any content. Feel free to post your own.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Looks like a good start. Almost everyone I know who works in a cubicle enjoys talking about how much they hate it.

Good call on allowing stories to be submitted without logging in. You might want to add an image uploader, but I assume it's on the list somewhere.

One thing I don't see is _why_ someone should register on the site. Does it convey any benefits? If so, they're not listed anywhere.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! Yup the image upload is next on the list.

Yeah, right now there isn't much difference between a registered and anonymous user. One thing it does though is save your stories you submit and allows you to comment. It's mainly just for additional features that I might add in the future. I'm considering opening comments open to anonymous users as well but there's some spam protection things that I'll have to work out first.

<comment><USER3> You can try out existing comments solutions like disqus, just an idea

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> My cubicle is awesome: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KyhLSWlfNQ>

But anyway, if you are starting a site like this, pre-populate it before announcing it. The picture of your phone is OK, but the office space quote just made me roll my eyes. Hire a writer, if you must ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> I acknowledged the quote in the comments. I just put it there so it wasn't blank.

And I didn't know it was acceptable to fake user generated content o.O

<comment><USER4> _And I didn't know it was acceptable to fake user generated content o.O_

Reddit got started this way. The founders submitted a bunch of links under random names so the site looked larger than it is. Then real people started submitting, because "hey look at all of these people submitting stuff!"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> <http://mycubiclesucks.com>

</comment><comment><USER5> Otherwise, the design seems OK. Maybe you could emulating the mechanics inside FML(www.fmylife.com), and yes, you really need to pre-populate the site.</comment>


Three Little Birds – Deriving the Y Combinator - <AUTHOR> http://samesake.com/log/2013/01/03/Three-little-birds/ Just what the world needs, another post explaining the y combinator! Hope someone can glean some information from this, I learned a fair bit in writing it :) <comment><USER2> As a professional programmer with a strong interest in functional programming, but none of the formal background, I should be the perfect reader for this article. Unfortunately, I found it to be a complete syntactic and semantic mess. I'll enumerate a few of the problems that tripped me up as I read:

* The underlying metaphor is poorly explained. E.g. The identity bird: "when you call out a bird to it it simply calls that bird back to you". The notion of "calling out a bird" is awkward and confusing. On first reading, it seems to imply that one calls out the _name_ of a bird, which is simply wrong. I understand that birds represent higher-order functions, but if I didn't, I would never grasp it from reading this article. (I doubt that Smullyan was this sloppy in his original description of the metaphor.)

* The mockingbird "duplicates its input". No, it doesn't. It applies its input to itself, which is totally different from duplicating it. The next sentence is also confusing at best: "If you call some bird x to the mockingbird it will call back as if the bird x had called out to itself". The phrase "as if" is wrong and misleading, and bird x is _not_ calling out some unspecified value to itself. A better description is that the _mockingbird_ function calls out bird x to bird x. That's a huge difference.

* I had to read this phrase about five times before I could parse it: "The mental giants who computed before computers spoke to this magical bird chiefly for this purpose". And once parsed and understood, it still fails to explain why we're suddenly talking about factorials instead of birds. What makes this bird metaphorically "mechanical" or "foreign" is mysterious. It just does factorials somehow because it doesn't "follow the rules of regular combinator birds but it will follow some". Come again?

* The next sentence is where I started to give up: "Initially we call the strange factorial out to the mockingbird, which calls back the same thing as calling the strange bird to itself". Is the "fact" variable supposed to be the strange factorial? What is the strange bird? None of this terminology actually appears in the function that is supposedly being explained here. I had to ignore the text and work out the purpose of the function myself.

I'm sure there's value in this metaphor - I love the other Smullyan books that I've read and have a lot of respect for his careful puzzle-making. But I'm afraid this article doesn't do him justice as written.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I'll work on elucidating the metaphor and being explicit about what I mean when I say things like 'duplicates input' (uses the parameter more than once in it's body, this is a term from Smullyan), as well as clarifying some of the language.

I want to make the idea simple to parse by breaking it down into it's pieces, if it's noticeably hard to swallow (or as you said the commentary actually detracts from my code examples) then I did it wrong!

 _Edit_ : I changed some terminology and clarified the points you mentioned, hope this helps anyone who reads this in the future, thanks again for taking the time to leave feedback :)

<comment><USER2> Happy to help. I think you might also want to improve this phrase: "its impact on computer science cannot be understanded". Truly, I have not understanded it at all. :) Perhaps you meant "overstated"?

More importantly, I think that line 4 of strangeFact is a key concept that needs better explanation. Your current description ("What this does is bind the parameter fact to our strange factorial bird and return a function who knows how to do this again should it ever need another copy of itself") is confusing, IMHO. It's not clear what you mean by "should it ever need another copy of itself". It would be especially nice if you could explain this idea in terms of birds, rather than parameter bindings. Otherwise, the metaphor becomes rather superficial, I think.

I'll try to work through the rest of the article as well, time permitting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Where did I misplace my +100 wand? Great post, combinators are a not-so-hidden passion of mine and they inspire a lot of really practical applications in JavaScript and Ruby.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I actually got the bug to write this post from reading your wonderful js combinator book[1] over the holiday, which reminded me that I also had a copy of To Mock a Mockingbird in my to read pile.

When I got to the bit where Smullyan describes the first sage bird (He explains: _"This is quite simple ... for any bird x, Θx = M(Lx). Since x is fond of M(Lx) and M(Lx) = Θx, then x is fond of Θx, which means that Θ is a sage bird."_ ), I felt like I had been hit by a brick wall as it was anything but simple for me, having previously grasped at understanding the y combinator.

Only by understanding the discrete moving parts was I able to finally wrap my head around what was going on. Like many others when I had my a-ha! moment I wanted to share.

Thank you for making content like this digestible!

1: <https://leanpub.com/javascript-allonge>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Jim Weirich derives the Y combinator in pure Ruby here:

<http://vimeo.com/45140590>

EDIT: Correct video <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FITJMJjASUs>

It is some of the ugliest ruby code I have ever seen, but it was something amazing to watch happen live.

<comment><USER5> Is the Ruby hiding in that video? I briefly skimmed it and all I saw was JavaScript.

<comment><USER4> You are correct, I edited the comment with the right video.</comment></comment></comment>


A regex for fixing e-mail typos (turn "joegmai.cm" into "joegmail.com") - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/charliepark/fat_fingers

<comment><USER2> What happens when someone tries to enter an email from e.g Cameroon (.cm), Macau (.mo), Oman (.om), Niger (.ne), Greece (.gr)? And even a domain like 'gill.com' gets "corrected" to 'gmail.com'.

Unconditional server-side "correction" is the wrong solution, a client-side javascript warning is much better.</comment>