Show HN: cvisual.ly - Resume / business card hybrid. Useful? - <AUTHOR> http://cvisual.ly

<comment><USER2> Definitely useful!

I think having text somewhere in the "what is cvisual" box that says "Click to see full working example" would be helpful. It wasn't immediately clear to me that the screencaps were clickable.

I'm not really feeling the domain either. just did a quick check and "bizcard.io" is available. it's $100, but kind of worth it for your app.</comment>


Design, Coffee, and Code: How We're Building a Company Half a World Away. - <AUTHOR> http://blog.cuphon.com/design-coffee-and-code-how-were-building-a-co

<comment><USER2> Great stats Garrett! Although I'd like to see #q-tips used as well.

</comment><comment><USER3> 69696, seriously?

<comment><USER4> They even use a "deals in your pants" line on the homepage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This one is going to the top :)</comment>


ASK : What are the most promising Silicon Valley startups to watch for in 2014? - <AUTHOR>

Here are my favourites.
1. Square
2. AirBnb
3. Uber
4. Pinterest
5. DropBox
6. Box
7. Next Labs
8. Jawbone
9. Arista <comment><USER2> Those are all established companies. (Although you slipped a few suspicious ones in there.) The most promising startups are the ones you haven't heard of yet.

</comment><comment><USER3> AvantCredit :)

</comment><comment><USER4> BRB</comment>


Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey – In Discussion (2014 BBC) - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGthlslH6p8 <comment><USER2> I didn't like the movie the first time I watched it. Second time, it intrigued me. Third time I saw what it might mean. Fourth time I became a fan.</comment>


A social annotating website? - <AUTHOR> https://annot.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> According to @brudgers' idea, I submitted the link pointing to the homepage again instead of @powerpore. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12787110](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12787110)

Actually I'm using this place to organize and share what I learned from hacking React and so far so good. But I'm worried what happens if Vandalism occurs. [https://annot.io/github.com/facebook/react](https://annot.io/github.com/facebook/react)</comment>


How to disable directory listing using PHP - <AUTHOR> http://circlewaves.com/blog/how-to-disable-directory-listing-using-php/

<comment><USER2> Wow, did you really post this?

Is this not one of the most fundamental things to learn with PHP?</comment>


EBay Acquires PhiSix To Integrate 3-D Virtual Try On Technology - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/19/ebay-acquires-phisix-to-integrate-3-d-virtual-try-on-technology-across-the-marketplace-and-more/

<comment><USER2> Congrats Team!</comment>


Game Theory: How can I utilize this new knowledge? - <AUTHOR> I finished Games of Strategy (4th ed) during the holidays. I could see using this knowledge in negotiations & maybe game design. Any other examples or ideas? <comment><USER2> It comes in handy with economic discussions, (barters, trades, etc.) as well as general debates / arguments with peers. There's many behavioral economic games and pro-social experiments in game theory that deal with improving social perception or increasing the odds of outcomes with framing / anchoring / priming.</comment>


Finding the Tennis Suspects - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@rkaplan/finding-the-tennis-suspects-c2d9f198c33d#.g93vsuejk <comment><USER2> Great work! As someone who never does data exploratino or use python, I appreciated how annotated your iPython notebook was. It was fun to read through. (link [https://github.com/BuzzFeedNews/2016-01-tennis-betting- analy...](https://github.com/BuzzFeedNews/2016-01-tennis-betting- analysis/blob/master/notebooks/tennis-analysis.ipynb) )

<comment><USER3> That's the iPython notebook published by BuzzFeed showing their procedure.

Here's the link for the relevant notebook for this work: [https://github.com/rkaplan/deanonymizing-tennis- suspects/blo...](https://github.com/rkaplan/deanonymizing-tennis- suspects/blob/master/notebooks/tennis-analysis.ipynb)

<comment><USER2> oops thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have no problem believing that there is match-fixing in tennis, especially among the non-elite ranks. However, it is still an extraordinary claim, and as such, requires extraordinary evidence. They have examined a dataset that includes match losses by 1,509 unique players. Among others, they have accused a fellow whose match results, by their own estimation, are 4.7% likely to have occurred by chance. If you're going to be involved in throwing around accusations of this magnitude, I'd like a little more rigor in the statistics. I don't know how they sleep at night.

<comment><USER5> Yep. "Assuming the initial odds are right, these guys may have cheated". That's one hell of an assumption. The odds moving is one of the strongest indicators of the initial odds not being right. Market efficiency etc.

<comment><USER6> Is the market truly efficient? Value betting is all about finding when it's not.

<comment><USER7> Iff NP=P.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I find this to be a useful example of the dangers of so-called anonymized data (namely, the danger that it isn't).

I'd be curious to know how much fuzzing of the percentages published by Buzzfeed would've been sufficient to prevent this sort of obvious matching.

</comment><comment><USER9> Something feels a bit ethically questionable about publishing the names like this.

<comment><USER10> It also seems really stupid. I would not be surprised if he got threatened with lawsuits from the named players.

<comment><USER11> On what grounds? They're not making any claims, they're just noting the fact that interesting and unlikely things happened to these guys' odds (public data) during matches.

They've gone through a reasonable degree of trouble to make sure their numbers are completely right too.

<comment><USER12> The original authors published accurate data. The medium author accused named individuals of cheating.

<comment><USER11> They're not, read again, in fact they start with a disclaimer explicitly stating they are not commenting on the allegations, only de-anonymising the data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It looks like someone is going to deal with a lawsuit. Good work, but if I was one of those players, I'd be very mad.

<comment><USER14> Not very likely in American courts given the public figure libel standard.[0]

Essentially, in order to accuse a public figure (e.g. politicians), you have to prove that the defendant acted with _actual malice._

Actual malice in this case is defined as either actual knowledge that the statements were false, or reckless disregard for the truth.

A reckless disregard for the truth is more than mere negligence, the person making the statement must have actual and demonstrable doubt as to the truth or falsity of the statements made. [1]

It is very difficult to meet that standard.

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

[1] _New York Times Co. v. Sullivan_ (1964)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Tennis is a puzzling sport - you can be up 5:0 and yet lose most of the following games as well as the match itself. Anyone that plays tennis knows about this "roller-coaster" (especially visible in WTA). "Unusual" is quite usual in tennis, honestly. You should take it into an account when you do stats. Obviously, people try to exploit this fact to make believable pre- determined matches, but it's really difficult to tell who is doing it, and who is simply more "unstable".

</comment><comment><USER16> Very clever. I just hope Buzzfeed don't chase you down and force you to take the list down!

</comment><comment><USER17> Seems choking is also now cheating.

Tennis is a confidence game, miss a big few shots and you stop going for them. It's all downhill from there.

We need to see the phone records.

</comment><comment><USER18> What is the true motivation of doing this? (publishing the names, that is)</comment>


Removing Blender Game Engine from Blender 2.8 - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/themikepan/status/986308335438671872 <comment><AUTHOR> The captioned commit is [https://git.blender.org/gitweb/gitweb.cgi/blender.git/log/15...](https://git.blender.org/gitweb/gitweb.cgi/blender.git/log/159806140fd3)</comment>


Wireshark 3.0.0 Released - <AUTHOR> https://www.wireshark.org/docs/relnotes/wireshark-3.0.0.html <comment><USER2> Ah Wireshark. Brings me back to my teens, wardriving around a sleepy rural town and getting excited about seeing ARP packets in the wild. I don't have a nefarious bone in my body and of course I knew everyone in the town so, it was just curiosity. Really all we wanted was something faster than dialup.

<comment><USER3> Those were the days! [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardriving](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardriving)</comment></comment>


Data driven look into the pipeline - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/hackathon-hackers/gender-representation-in-hackathon-hackers-2bea7e3088c6 <comment><USER2> I would love to see more companies do this (e.g. via their Slackbot). Real diversity numbers are going to be key in making change.</comment>


Discrimination through optimization: How FB's ad delivery can skew outcomes - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.02095 <comment><USER2> > Critically, we observe significant skew in delivery along gender and racial > lines for "real" ads for employment and housing opportunities despite > neutral targeting parameters.

Authors states that even when advertisers are very inclusive in the target selection (trying to reach a broader public), optimization with neutral parameters can lead to kind of discrimination.As I understand, this would prevent some people from getting specific products, job offers, opportunities, you name it, simply because >they don't see it. Might not affect the advertiser (or might even be beneficial, on average?</comment>


AngularJS Performance Tuning for Long Lists - <AUTHOR> http://tech.small-improvements.com/2013/09/10/angularjs-performance-with-large-lists/

<comment><USER2> If you can afford the 500kb overhead, I'd just use React to render any 'slow' angular component such as tables and lists. More info, [https://youtu.be/XQM0K6YG18s?t=403](https://youtu.be/XQM0K6YG18s?t=403)</comment>


Ask HN: Will Amazon accept Litecoin and/or Bitcoin Cash payments this year? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I have heard Ripple (XRP) mentioned as well. XRP is centralized and currently used by a handful of banks, which could make Amazon like it a lot or hate it. Amazon sure did hate paying California taxes for many years.</comment>


Review my startup: http://nimbu.net/ - smart website monitoring - <AUTHOR>

I've finally taken the plunge and got my first startup out of the starting blocks.  It's been live for a week now and I've been adding new features almost daily.  I'd really appreciate any feedback.  http://nimbu.net/ <comment><USER2> I am a Pingdom customer and I think the thing that could make me shift is an enhanced form of custom check - like what Pingdom has today but better.

In my setup I made a public service where external tools can retrieve some realtime stats like current number of users, queue lengths, number of jobs processing etc. Pingdom uses this service in different custom checks and it kinda works, but I can't use the stats or graphs for anything. Not all checks should be described in a status code and response time - a simple number would be great. Make graphs with that and allow users to set a threshold for when alerts should be sent.

Another thing missing is support for basic authentication.

As others have noted your front page is not really getting the message through.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is a very interesting use case. I was thinking about allowing users to create scriptable tests and then provide reporting around that, I think it could meet your requirements. I will add the basic authentication stuff.

<comment><USER2> Scripting. I am not quite sure what you mean by that, but please make it simple. Pingdoms custom checks are simple because site owners just need to make an endpoint that prints out an xml snippet.

Fx. I have a service here: <http://api.convert.io/realtime.svc/pingdom/queue- length> which prints out: <pingdom_http_custom_check><status>OK</status><response_time>2</response_time></pingdom_http_custom_check>

How about you offer the same, but add a few more check types. One with the status/response time and another with just a single number.

<nimbu_http_custom_check><check_value>2</check_value></nimbu_http_custom_check>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> "Sign up" is two words.

After three sites, I was told I needed to upgrade. Clicking said link did nothing. But can still add sites by going to <http://nimbu.net/addresses/new>; an error is presented, but the site is added anyway.

Calling redirects failed is problematic; for example, try monitoring <http://www.google.com/> The non-US pingers will always fail due to country redirects. And <http://www.google.com/ncr> won't work either, because it always redirects.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comments, I will fix the bugs asap. On the redirect issue, do you think that receiving a redirect on a url you are monitoring should result in success? I hadn't thought about that before, maybe it should be an advanced option, eg. do you expect a 200 OK or (dropdown list of other responses).

<comment><USER3> The advanced option idea sounds good. By default, I'd suggest follow the redirect, and add the time of both requests together (e.g., do what a browser would). Other options would be to not follow the redirect, or to accept only a certain status code (e.g., 200)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why aren't you charging money? Excuse me for being blunt, but this is seriously silly - your purpose is to find if anyone will pay, right?

Also, one feature I myself would pay money for is sha256 validation of the content of specified files (html, js etc). Since I'm using AJAX I don't really have a problem with dynamic content. I want to be notified when/if my site is defaced. I will pay $5/month and consider it a real bargain, if you have multiple monitoring locations to make it hard for defacers to serve selective content.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your comments. I am working on the payment system now, I decided to launch the product early and gather some feedback while I'm doing that though. At the moment you can only monitor up to three sites.

The content validation idea is very good thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Use of Customer's Name and Company Name

Nimbu reserves the right to use your name and/or company name as a reference for marketing or promotional purposes on the Nimbu.com website and other communication with existing or potential Nimbu customers. To decline Nimbu this right you need to email email@example.com stating that you do not wish to be used as a reference."

This is completely unreasonable. You want me to email you to decline the right! You should have to _ask_ ME for the right!

<comment><AUTHOR> You're absolutely correct. I 'borrowed' the t&c's from somewhere else and I would never enforce this. In fact the testimonials I have on the homepage I have written to the individuals in question to ask for their permission. Am removing!

<comment><USER5> That's good news :) Good luck.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It seems to me that the only thing you monitor is the domain name, like pingdom. If this is the case, maybe you should make it clearer.

If not, you should make that clearer too. When I think of site monitor, what I want is to be able to monitor my hdd, cpu usage, ram spikes, main domains, etc. E.g. similar to serverdensity.com's offering.

Add some more info about exactly what you offer, and the cost. I know it says free on the sign-up page, but you should make it clear on the main page that this is a beta period.

Good job on actually launching though. Many people don't even make it that far!

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool - I will make it clearer. I actually have the server-side monitoring in development, but I'm trying to focus on this one product for now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Clickable: <http://nimbu.net/>

</comment><comment><USER8> Your Pricing and Signup link is deceiving. You should separate the pricing since that what I expect to see when I click on that link.

Other than that, I think the idea is straight forward and decently presented. I would like you to highlight on that front page what makes you different (read: exceptional) than other providers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I take your point about the pricing, will separate them for now.

My aim is to provide more data analysis than other monitoring sites and give you feedback on the performance of your web application.

<comment><USER8> Having a features page which explains that in a little more detail might be beneficial. Same with have a feature 'grid' that compares your service to others.

I have signed up and am testing it out, so far it looks very easy to use. I do like the visualization with Google Maps to get various response times. Very impressive.

<comment><USER7> I would second this. Some of the features look really intriguing -- like the uptime graphs and the global visualization -- but I want more info -- like how often my site is pinged and from how many different locations.

<comment><USER9> +1 - I'm always looking for a better simple solution for multiple domains, but I won't sign up until I know what I'm getting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> It has been interesting reading the recent getting users thread [<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=902322>] as I've been trying a lot of the methods on there to gain some traction, so far without much success. Any other tips?

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm a big fan of demos. If I don't see a demo, I usually won't go through an install just to see how it looks.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comment. There is no installation required so I'm not sure what you mean. You can try the site functionality for free so that would work as a demo. If you mean you don't want to sign up, then would a screencast work in that situation?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Something simple - Add margin to the left side. It is very hard to read with the text up against the edge of the browser.

It would be good to understand the location of the server(s) doing the monitoring.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, will do. The servers are currently in Florida, California and London. I will be adding more soon hopefully. I will create a Help/Info section detailing where the servers are and more details about how often they poll/what their user agent is etc.. You can see all the servers on a map in the website detail page if you have a website setup.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Nimbu = Lemon in Hindi

</comment><comment><USER13> I need a way to remove a site from my list.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can remove a site by clicking the detail link (the link from the dashboard) and then there is a delete link in the top right hand corner. I will work on making this more obvious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> why is this better then <http://pingdom.com> ?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a competitive product I guess. I have used pingdom for years and most of the development of this product has been to satisfy me as a developer and what I want out of a monitoring product. I always found the interface of pingdom to be cluttered and clunky and the information I really wanted was always lots of clicks away. I admit though that the good things about pingdom I have tried to incorporate into this product.

The unique aspect of this product is the individual analysis of data and suggestions/alerts before your site goes down. It will warn you if things suddenly change on your site, something that I don't think any other sites do.</comment></comment>


SoftBank's second Vision Fund starting life a lot smaller than the first - <AUTHOR> https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/11/17/business/corporate-business/softbank-vision-fund/ <comment><AUTHOR> > The company has raised roughly $2 billion for the second Vision Fund so it > can start backing startups, according to two people familiar with the > matter. This stage of the fundraising process is known as a first close, and > SoftBank will continue gathering commitments.

> Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and Abu Dhabi's Mubadala Investment > Co., which contributed $45 billion and $15 billion, respectively, to the > first fund, are reconsidering how much they will put into the new fund, > Bloomberg News previously reported.

></comment>


Kindle Sales Plunge Made Amazon.com's Gross Margin Look Better - <AUTHOR> http://seekingalpha.com/article/557151-kindle-sales-plunge-made-amazon-com-s-gross-margin-look-better?source=yahoo

<comment><USER2> I think it's too early to suggest how the digital goods market will develop in terms of share - we only know that it is developing. An interesting perspective though the fact the author is short on Amazon is nothing new either.</comment>


How to prevent Visual Studio 2012's all caps menus - <AUTHOR> http://www.richard-banks.org/2012/06/how-to-prevent-visual-studio-2012-all.html

<comment><USER2> It's an interesting change. I remember watching a documentary recently about the development of motorway signs in the UK. When considering the psychology of recognising words quickly, Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert realised that the caps-only typography of the time would slow down the time it took for drivers to recognise a sign- properly capitalised sentences have more distinctive shapes, allowing people to skim read them. more: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_font> It's interesting that when using VS 2012, I do tend to actually have to read the words, rather than just recognise them.

</comment><comment><USER3> I often think, on seeing new releases of Microsoft products with "features" like this, that they simply have too many people who don't know how to leave well enough alone. Each of the last few versions of VS seems to include a lot of unnecessary UI churn - 2008 had a bunch of subtle but pointless changes, 2010 looks gratuitously different to every other Windows app and now in 2012 they're fiddling with the menu capitalisation. I'd much rather that they left all that alone and spent half that effort just fixing bugs - better C++0x support, make Intellisense actually work (I hear that one may have happened anyway in 2010?), fix the funky weird bugs in the text editor, fix some crashes.

I can only assume that they're adding a lot of visible bling changes because they think that will drive more upgrades, but honestly, the menus were fine as lower case. Leave them alone.

<comment><USER4> The Developer division is just another group of people within Microsoft with their own goals. The connection between them and the Office division or the Windows division is incidental. In my opinion, Visual Studio has been going downhill ever since version 6.

<comment><USER3> I'm not quite sure, but assume that the connection to Windows/Office you talk about is in response to my suggesting that the menus should be consistent with everything else? I see that as more of a UI principle than a consequence of how closely the teams are bound within MS.

I think there have been good features since; the VC++ compiler improved a lot in 2003 and the ability to debug into STL containers (IIRC, 2005?) is brilliant. I just wish I could get things like that without the bloat* and UI churn.

*: yes, I know "bloat" is an overused term, but honestly, VS2008 is several gigabytes and takes an hour and multiple reboots to install, plus another half-hour for the service pack. I find that a bit extreme for what is basically a compiler and, as described in another thread, a glorified text editor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The only reason that makes any sense is that this feature is a distraction, to draw criticism away from the rest of the UI changes (flat, grey) and other issues like the overwhelming crazy focus on Metro.

This way, they can do something visible, moronic, then backpedal, and claim "hey we fixed the issue requested by 95% of customers!"

Or at least I want to believe that, because the alternative is too horrible to contemplate.

</comment><comment><USER6> In the UserVoice site linked on the announcement there is a feature request to remove ALL CAPS. It already has 2000 votes, maybe they could change their mind? After all, they did for the colors given the huge feedback.

[http://visualstudio.uservoice.com/forums/121579-visual- studi...](http://visualstudio.uservoice.com/forums/121579-visual- studio/suggestions/2628203-remove-all-caps-)

</comment><comment><USER7> How on _earth_ did they get like that in the first place?

<comment><USER8> In their article where they announced the new UI, the explicitly stated that they removed all caps from the panel headers as people didn't like it, and then in the line below immediately said they'd put the menu items in all caps.

I actually read it twice and laughed out loud. No idea what they were thinking. Thankfully it looks like we can turn it off!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Install the new Visual Studio 2012! It is two times more visual than the previous one!

</comment><comment><USER10> Years ago, I overheard a hallway conversation about some performance tuning they were doing in VS 200x. Apparently they discovered several thousand hash tables during the startup of the IDE.

Not instances of hash tables. They found several thousand /implementations/ of hash tables.

While I'm sure this story expanded every time it was told, I'm also sure there was a kernel of truth to it.

Software is hard.

</comment><comment><USER11> Does anyone have info as to why Microsoft decided to go with an all caps menu?

<comment><USER12> They wanted to reduce the prevalence of lines, borders, etc. in the UI, so they needed another way to distinguish the menu items from other text.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Excellent!

Now we just need someone who goes in the ressources and changes them to the old icons from VS20008.

Maybe it's even possible to hack away the rest of the Metro design ugliness

</comment><comment><USER14> Too much noise for such a insignificant thing.

<comment><USER15> Not insignificant at all. Good product and interface design is the accumulation of 1000's of details all done right.

Just a couple of interface missteps can have a hugely negative effect. In this case, many people are justly bothered by the sight of a menu appearing to yell at them, a menu that may sit on their screen for eight hours a day.

More than this, such a bad design decision is a symbol of a broken product design process at Microsoft, which means it's probably not just the menu bar alone.

<comment><USER14> It's a freaking IDE !!! There's no good interface design when it comes to IDEs. Everything that matters is to make everything configurable cause people will tweak things to their own liking.

Also i'm not even looking at menus. Keyboard shortcuts FTW.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> to remove ALL CAPS you download this extension from visaul studio gallery: [http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/a83505c6-77b3-...](http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/a83505c6-77b3-44a6-b53b-73d77cba84c8) It can also make menu lowercase or even hide it altogether.

</comment><comment><USER17> Eh! Remember they have another software; they explained the reasoning behind different sized menus and buttons.</comment>


Crawling and Indexing: Technical SEO Basics That Drive Revenue - <AUTHOR> https://rozhon.com/blog/crawling-indexing-technical-seo-basics-that-drive-revenue/ <comment><USER2> I really hope this is targeted at legacy sites. A well patterned and modern site developed in the past five years shouldn't have these issues.

Edit: The claim that Google ignores canonical refs should have a solid reference. I'm dubious but happy to be enlightened!

<comment><USER3> > A well patterned and modern site developed in the past five years shouldn't > have these issues.

You would think so, but...

\- One of my clients is a Fortune-10 company. One of their e-commerce sites wasn't rendering HTML (I think it was built with React) which _completely_ prevented search engine indexing. Was a huge jump in organic traffic when we got that fixed after I caught it.

\- Another client lets its users to have publicly accessible project pages (think GitHub). This resulted in Google indexing X0,000 of these URLs, many of which have 1) duplicate content, 2) minimal organic traffic, 3) minimal value to business. We de-indexed those pages and organic traffic is way up.

\- And so on...

This is why people like the author can make a living doing nothing but SEO work.

<comment><USER4> I see so many people that create sites using React (and the like) because it's the cool new framework that offers all the glitter, but they totally ignore the fact of SEO and accessibility.</comment></comment></comment>


Geometric Algebra - <AUTHOR> http://www.euclideanspace.com/maths/algebra/clifford/ <comment><AUTHOR> I love how geometric algebra encodes many ideas into one formalism.

It always amazes me how many physics problems can be expressed with this algebra.

One of my toy projects used conformal Clifford algebra to express and solve inverse kinematics problems.

This site covers everything you need to do it.</comment>


500MW from half a gram of hydrogen: The hunt for fusion power heats up - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/123837-500mw-from-half-a-gram-of-hydrogen-the-hunt-for-fusion-power-heats-up <comment><USER2> I'm not sure why we're still pursuing the incrediblly difficult and expensive route of fusion when thorium is simple, safe, inexpensive and incredibly abundant.

<comment><USER3> I completely agree, especially since Norway has large reserves of the stuff. One challenge though, is that uranium is also abundantly available and still much cheaper to mine than thorium. Another challenge is that it is not the fuel which drives the cost, as in conventional power plants; it is the capital cost concerned with building the reactors themselves. Therefore, a thorium- fueled reactor has to be considerably cheaper to build than a uranium-fueled reactor and it is easy to pose the question if this will ever be true. There has to be some serious subsidizing to incentivize commercial development, adaption and investment.

<comment><USER4> 1\. Thorium is a natural by-product, in fact it is in the waste slurry, from rare earth mineral mining.

2\. Tiny amounts are required relative to uranium for electricity production. We have already mined in the West more than we will need for a hundred years, if we had production Molten Salt Reactors today.

3\. It is far more electrically efficient than uranium.

So, there is no comparison purely based on which is the better fuel for fission. Thorium wins by multiple factors if not magnitude across many aspects, including fission waste prodcuts.

However, that said, the trust cost of fission is, as you mentioned, the upfront cost of the nuclear reactors. Since this quasi-government industry has seen little innovation in practice for 70+ years, conventional nuclear power plants have remained enormous capital sinks and risky endeavours.

There is now some serious research going into MSRs (including thorium) and other nuclear tech. But it is mainly being led by China, excluding sidetracking efforts like the Travelling Wave Reactors of Bill Gates et. al, who _need_ as much energy as they can get.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Fusion idea that I've always had. Why can't we scale up a something like a car engine's piston and cylinder to be 1000's of times bigger and explode hydrogen bombs in it to move the piston up and down?

I know it sounds kind of absurd to think about but it seems like it would work to me. Can anyone explain why it wouldn't work? Is it just a cost issue?

<comment><USER5> Funny this was down voted on the same day we have this article on the front page: Bill Gates: We need crazy energy entrepreneurs

Perhaps we're part of the problem? We should discuss radical energy ideas, teach others what wouldn't work, and how to change them, not poo poo them.

<comment><USER6> Only for some definitions of crazy. Bill Gates isn't using pyramid power to cure malaria, is he?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This article talks about tokamaks like they're the only magnetic confinement technology out there. Things like stellarators and dipoles have been gaining a lot of ground lately and could one day overtake tokamaks as the standard magnetic confinement tech.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendelstein_7-X> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levitated_dipole>

</comment><comment><USER8> They probably mean MW/h ...

<comment><USER9> I thought that, but I now think it means in a single run, using just half a gram of hydrogen, the peak output power is 500MW, it would be helpful if it also mentioned how much usable energy was generated too.

<comment><USER10> I don't think anyone knows how much 'usable' energy ITER will generate (plus, ITER won't be a power plant -- the heat produced will actually be thrown away -- so I guess we won't ever know.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Looks like those sun gamma rays haven't been following their diet.</comment>


Moto Droid Gets Froyo 2.2 - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/05/motorola-droid-gets-early-android-2-2-rom-ready-to-download/

<comment><AUTHOR> It appears someone leaked it, and it was built from source, not a port/hack job of the nexus one rom.</comment>


A Brain-Computer Interface for Speech - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/news/528741/a-speech-synthesizer-direct-to-the-brain/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20140709 <comment><USER2> The article gives a link to one paper from last year, but they give the pay- walled nature.com link when it's available for free on nih.gov

"Functional Organization of Human Sensorimotor Cortex for Speech Articulation"

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3606666/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3606666/)</comment>


BBVA acquires Finnish banking startup Holvi - <AUTHOR> https://info.bbva.com/en/news/general/bbva-acquires-finnish-banking-start-holvi/ <comment><USER2> BBVA is expanding, first the acquisition of (Bank) Simple [0] and now Holvi.

One thing i'm not sure about: is this a sign that BBVA has a good digital strategy by acquiring these neo-banks. Or does this show that a stand-alone neo-bank is not a easy / realistic thing to accomplish (yet)? Most, if not all, neo-banks struggle to get real customers (e.g. regular users, outside the 'TechCrunch PR wave group') and are either acquired (BBVA doing well here) or becoming software vendors to banks, vs a challenger to banks (e.g. Moven (bank) [1]).

[0] [http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/02/20/bbva-buys-banking- sta...](http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/02/20/bbva-buys-banking-start-up- simple-for-117-million/?_r=0) [1] [https://newsroom.accenture.com/industries/banking/accenture-...](https://newsroom.accenture.com/industries/banking/accenture- and-moven-join-forces-to-transform-digital-banking-solutions.htm)

<comment><USER3> Perhaps these acquisitions are not so much a bet on "neo-banks", but rather serve as an insurance to make sure they never grow large and pose a threat?

<comment><USER4> BBVA barely had a footprint in the US before the Simple acquisition so it wasn't insurance, it was one of the cheapest ways to enter the US market.

<comment><USER5> BBVA Compass(1) was 30th in the ranking of the 50 largest banks in the U.S. (SNL financial data from 2013), definitely not the biggest one but it's harsh to say that it barely had any footprint.

(1) BBVA bought Compass in 2007

<comment><USER4> Sure, but bank size falls off very quickly after the biggest four. Compass is about 3% of the size of JPMorgan by assets (source: [http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/03/03/ranking- the-50-big...](http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/03/03/ranking- the-50-biggest-banks-from-j-p-morgan-to-firstmerit/)), and 10% of the size of JPMorgan by branches ([http://www.usbanklocations.com/bank-rank/number-of- branches....](http://www.usbanklocations.com/bank-rank/number-of- branches.html)). Theirs are less than 0.7% of bank branches in the US, compared to JPMorgan's 6.6% of branches.

You can disagree with whether this means they had barely any footprint or not, I guess that's semantics, but it certainly makes more sense that they would buy them to expand, not to get rid of a competitor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Fintech has been heating up immensely in Europe. Innovation labs & internal startups within old school banks are scooping up tech talent around the continent, and trying to find innovation partners with any kind of fintech understanding: payments, distributed ledger, know-your-customer-tech, etc.

European ranking regulation is forcing banks to open up API's to 3rd parties during next couple of years. Not much is clear at this point as to what it will actually enable, but if there is ever going to be a opening for banking disruption in Europe it would be starting about now.

<comment><USER7> Indeed the Payment Services Directive (PSD2) has pave the way for the realization of third party 'access to account' (XS2A). This will aceelerate the trend of digital transformation in banking even more! [http://www.sepaforcorporates.com/single-euro-payments- area/5...](http://www.sepaforcorporates.com/single-euro-payments- area/5-things-need-know-psd2-payment-services-directive/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Congratulations to the Holvi team. Johan, the CEO, is one of the nicest guys in the industry.

</comment><comment><USER9> Congratulations to the Holvi team, great service</comment>


Do you know of a good solution to tab your code for you? - <AUTHOR>

Does anybody know of a good solution to auto-tab your code? <comment><USER2> Tabbing your code is really something you want handled by your text editor. What text editor are you using?

Most emacs modes do this automatically. For languages with braces like C++, Perl, or Ruby you just hit tab on any line, and it automatically indents it correctly. For languages like Python tab will cycle through the possible acceptable indentations.

Other text editors like Eclipse (and I believe vi) will indent correctly by default when you hit enter, but after that nothing is automatic. But that's pretty good too.

<comment><AUTHOR> The problem I have is that I just wrote a bunch of shit in vi (which has _not_ been auto-indenting for me, though I should probably check my .vimrc or whatever), and now I'm editing it using TextMate, and the formatting is all screwed up.

<comment><USER3> What language is your code in? If it's a curly-brace language (c, c++, java, etc.), then the following should properly indent everything using Vim:

      gg=G

If not (or if that doesn't work right), you can use visual mode to quickly change indents on large sections at once:

Select a set of lines using:

      V

and then press (for example):

      2>

to add 2 tabs to the beginning of the selected lines.

Or to go the other way (remove 2 tabs):

      2<

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> 'indent' in most unixes.</comment>


Python: Intro to Decorators - <AUTHOR> http://personalpages.tds.net/~kent37/kk/00001.html <comment><USER2> Do decorators actually provide any other utility than application of one or more HOF's at function definition time?

</comment><comment><USER3> I have been looking for something on decorators for a while now. Thanks a lot :)

</comment><comment><USER4> The linked Python Decorate Library <http://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonDecoratorLibrary> is nice too.</comment>


Show HN: Simple Face Recognition Attendance System - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/natsu90/whoiscomingto.party <comment><USER2> I'm sorry to say this because you probably worked hard and did a good technical job. But as AI/DL experts we always need to think about ethical concerns related to our work, and I would not want to release code like this online for free.

I'm very well aware that with just a bit of technical knowledge this can be reproduced by others even without this repo. And of course all sorts of organizations and governments can do this in a second. But this shouldn't stop us from remembering that this kind of thing is not a toy, and I would not like to make life easier for somebody that doesn't know much about ML, but is very happy to be served an easy solution to whatever their morally dodgy problem is.

<comment><USER3> Someone who can technically deploy this, but not create it, can also easily pay the small amount needed to get someone to recreate this project.

Not to be a downer on it, but it's a hobby project and hobby-projects should never be a part of anyone's threat profile, or we end up with things like chemistry kit neutering of the 1970s.

<comment><USER4> Precisely. When the technology has become simple enough that it's in "hobby project in github" territory, plugging our ears and pretending not teaching people how to use the technology will solve the social problems is dodging the underlying issue.

<comment><USER5> I agree. There is a chance that sufficient spread of this will help develop appropriate counter measures as well.

But yeah, cat is out of the bag. Best we can do now is declaw it.

edit: I forgot to add that I am absolutely amazed at the pace of development in this space.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This does seem cool, but I would also not want to come to your party if you're going to be running facial recognition on me...

<comment><USER4> Don't worry; your attendance is irrelevant.

Your Facebook friend will come to the party and be recognized, and you'll show up in the photos they've publicized. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> While this is only a personal project for fun, please keep in mind that some countries, such as Germany, have strict laws about personal data. And even if they do not have those, as the developer you are always responsible for your code and the data you gather. Face recognition is a mighty and scary tool, so maybe you can use it to teach your guests in a fun way about it?

Also, many face recognition systems are based on open source datasets that are NOT balanced. This can lead to your non-white, non-male friends being not recognized ect. This is both a real problem and also to a dampened mood at your party. Have fun, but be safe and conscious about it!

<comment><USER4> > as a developer you are always responsible for your code

I believe most open source licenses explicitly declare that the developers abrogating that responsibility, including the MIT license under which this project is released.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Me and my friend had thought about this idea back when we were in college except we were doing it for class attendance.

The professor would take a snap with his phone and then app would give attendance in single shot. Dived into it a little and realized face detection is easy while face recognition is not.

One more thing we were wondering about was how to bypass this attendance system and realized that a photo of individual is enough to proxy his attendance.

Cool project btw.

<comment><USER9> [https://www.datainspektionen.se/nyheter/2019/sanktionsavgift...](https://www.datainspektionen.se/nyheter/2019/sanktionsavgift- for-ansiktsigenkanning-i-skola/)

Translated from swedish: A swedish hight school did a pilot with a class with 22 pupils with facial recognition for taking attendance. The school is fined with 20 000 USD for invading the pupils privacy. All pupils has agreed to participate but that doesn't matter since the pupils is dependent to the school, they cannot agree to something like this.

<comment><USER4> Wow. Sweden has profoundly misapplied the concept of privacy when it is no longer possible for a person to voluntarily yield privacy for a project they find interesting.

<comment><USER10> Sweden is, on the other hand, not the only country that doesn't let minors or people in a position of dependence "voluntarily" yield anything. The problem in those cases is that it's hard to determine how voluntary the yielding actually is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> You make reference to a "weights" folder, but I'm not seeing it in the repo - am I looking in the wrong place?

EDIT: My mistake, you said it was in the library repo and there it was. For anyone who needs it - [https://github.com/justadudewhohacks/face- api.js](https://github.com/justadudewhohacks/face-api.js)

</comment><comment><USER4> Very neat demo. I can imagine putting something like this into a sort of robot butler for house-guests. "I'm afraid the person you're seeking isn't in right now; shall I tell them you called?" Of course, people don't really call on each other these days as they did in the Victorian era.

</comment><comment><USER12> Any plans to add face authentication and liveliness?</comment>


Bruce Schneier: "Click Here to Kill Everybody" [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkJCI3_jbtg <comment><USER2> I have a bad feeling Bruce's fears might be realized in my lifetime

<comment><USER3> I absolutely agree with you. However, I _do_ have a _good_ feeling that someone (Bruce) is talking about this now. Talking about it extensively, with a consistent message (for over 20 years), building a reputation, and building a wealth of knowledge that'll be accessible to policy makers, lawmakers, and laypeople when things _really_ start to catch on fire. When the policy makers and lawmakers start to freak out and ask "where can I learn more about this?", there will already be a wealth of Bruce's work to reference.

<comment><USER4> We are so lucky to have someone like Scheier who both understands the problems at a deep level and is able to explain it to non-techy's in a way they can understand.</comment></comment></comment>


A Dark Room: The Best-Selling Game That No One Can Explain  - <AUTHOR> http://newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2014/06/a-dark-room-the-best-selling-game-that-no-one-can-explain.html <comment><USER3> _"I want to kindle the creative spirit in others," Townsend told me over e-mail. "My games are open-source because I want people to learn from them, or use them to build their own things."_

Notice how open sourcing their product had no impact on their sales. I'll be so happy when defensive software licensing dies after people realize code isn't worth protecting.

(Some code is worth licensing. It was most of Id Software's revenue stream. I'm referring to all other code that isn't designed to be licensed, which people still insist on being paranoid about protecting.)

<comment><USER4> It's worth noting that the web version is open source, but the version for sale on the iOS Appstore is not open source.

<comment><USER5> Shouldn't it be open source under the terms of the original game's license? ([https://tldrlegal.com/license/mozilla-public- license-2.0-(mp...](https://tldrlegal.com/license/mozilla-public- license-2.0-\(mpl-2\))) Or is a port not considered a derivative work?

<comment><USER6> A port is a derivative work, yes, though the MPL has a kind of unique rule for derivative works. You can combine MPL-licensed source files with non-MPL- licensed source files, as long as all changes to the original MPL-licensed source files stay MPL.

I think what's really happening though is that they're not relying on the MPL at all for permission to do the iOS port, but on a direct license from Townsend. It sounds like there is even some kind of formal business relationship (the article is a bit vague on it, but it _sounds_ like Townsend is involved in the port and getting a share of the profits).

<comment><USER5> My impression (based on the article alone) was that the author of the ios version is pretty much benefiting from the sales exclusively. Perhaps I missed something or there are sources that provide more information on the matter, but Townsend saying 'of course you can adapt it for the iPhone' almost sounds like he left money on the table.

If he isn't getting a share of the sales and didn't explicitly provide a license to release the ios app under different terms, then I feel it _should_ be open source (at least the parts derived from the original).

<comment><USER7> This is false. Of course Michael is benefitting from the sales and the work he put in.

<comment><USER5> > Of course Michael is benefitting from the sales and the work he put in.

Based on... what? You don't see it as possible that when granting permission for the iOS adaptation he just assumed it would be freely available, like the original? (at the time of my previous comment, there was no response from the author of the iOS port)

<comment><USER7> >Based on... what?

Okay. Let me make sure sure everything is _crystal_ clear:

\- I found the game online via a tweet.

\- Viewed source and saw's Michael's contact information.

\- Emailed him and asked him if I could do a for-pay rendition of it on iOS and that I'd split profits with him.

\- He agreed.

\- I built it with his oversight/input.

\- He get's a 50% royalty on all sales.

\- And now? Well, Michael and I get to deal with ADR clones that just wrap the original via PhoneGap.

\- And what do the clone say when we try to report them to Apple? "hey! it's open source!"

<comment><USER5> Thanks. I was merely arguing that based on the article, we don't really get clarification on whether Townsend was being compensated. When I replied to your previous post I didn't realize you were the author of the port.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'd be happy to answer any questions if you have any.

<comment><USER8> I'm surprised this game hasn't earned you enough to retire on. It's been #1 on the paid list for a long time, I figured you guys must be rolling in the dough, but in the article it says you would need to repeat the success of the game every year for you to quit your day job. That's unbelievable.

How can flappy birds be making $50k per day, and your #1 paid app only makes $2k per day?

<comment><USER7> We've had 630k downloads to date. 30% goes to Apple. Michael and I split the rest. From my half, the IRS gets 45%. So my net so far is $120k.

Now, given that we're no where near the #1 spot, we're averaging about $1,000 a day. But that figure is dropping too. ADR is a depreciating asset with a life span of two years I'd say (making this assumption based on what I've seen with other paid apps and their rank history).

<comment><USER8> Wow, I'm shocked at how less frequently paid apps are downloaded. Don't get me wrong, 630k downloads of a paid app is very impressive, but it's ridiculous that you only make ~$100k out of the deal.

Do you have any statistics on how far players have made it in your game? I, for one, downloaded the game just to see what it was about. This is not my type of game, so I quit after only playing about 10 minutes.

Reason I ask is that you could test this out as a freemium app. Free to download, but after a certain period, the user has to pay to continue.

Let's say 20% of people that download it are hooked. If you get 20x the download rate on free, that means you could have a 400% increase in revenue. It might be worth testing out.

<comment><USER7> We didn't want to break the immersion. ADR simply wants to be that game you pay for one time up front and enjoy (hopefully). No strings attached. We simply request that you gift the game to someone else if you like it :-)

<comment><USER8> Well, the good news is that you have 600k fans. The next game you put out will probably be a hit as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A Dark Room is a fantastic game, and I'm super happy for Michael and Amir's success on the App Store.

That being said, I think the atmosphere is far superior on the browser: [http://adarkroom.doublespeakgames.com/](http://adarkroom.doublespeakgames.com/) (But throw them the $0.99 too!)

</comment><comment><USER10> It's fantastic to see this game finally get recognized. Amir is a great developer and it has been a lot of fun to watch the game progress over the past few months.

He's maintained a developer blog throughout the process. It's a really interesting read: [http://amirrajan.net/a-dark- room/](http://amirrajan.net/a-dark-room/)

I first learned of A Dark Room when Amir presented it to the local Dallas Ruby group. His presentation on development in RubyMotion is worth a read as well: [http://amirrajan.net/12k-lines-of-RM/](http://amirrajan.net/12k-lines-of-RM/)

<comment><USER11> Reading his developer blog, I was completely caught off guard when he said (weeks in) that he had only then realized that there was a second phase of the game. Good for him for not just saying, "Oh, wow, never mind!" at that point! (But also, it's interesting that he found the first phase alone worth recreating. It's engaging, but most of the game's depth of story comes later.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Reminds me a lot about [http://game.notch.net/drowning/](http://game.notch.net/drowning/) \- or is this the inspiration for that?

<comment><USER13> I was just looking to see if anyone had commented that as I was thinking the same thing, does anyone know which was first?

<comment><USER12> After playing a while, this game turns out to be a lot bigger than expected.

<comment><USER13> agreed, it's fun too!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I remember playing this with my co-workers as an in browser game when it got posted to HN last year. It's a must-download app IMO.

Here's the previous discussion.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5961205](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5961205)

EDIT: I didn't realize the game had been monetized. Is it worth the 0.99c over the HTML5 original?

<comment><USER15> it seems likely that it is worth 1/3rd of a coffee, yes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Are they planning an android app? It looks like there is a clone currently on the app store but it would be nice to support the original:

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ariyalion....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ariyalion.darkroom)

<comment><USER17> Yes, they are using Ruby Motion and are apparently testing the beta Android support right now, aimed at late summer launch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Interesting note, it is written in Rubymotion (not Obj-C or Swift). Here are his comments:

"It just felt like everything was thought through, distilled down, and presented in a form that was immediately familiar to me given my Ruby background (and the "Ruby mindset")." [http://blog.rubymotion.com/post/82087136696/rubymotion- succe...](http://blog.rubymotion.com/post/82087136696/rubymotion-success- story-a-dark-room)

</comment><comment><USER19> Why do these articles never include links to the content they are reporting on? This is the web, not a print magazine.

<comment><USER20> The New Yorker is a wonderful print magazine which posts some (all I think if you have a subscription) of its articles online, primarily for convenience. I think for many of its audience, the smattering of links that could accompany an article like this might truly take away from the intended atmosphere if you will the article and publication intends to provide.

Certainly for me I find it refreshing and I try to read their magazine as much as I can. I've learned plenty and can choose what I'd like to follow up on myself as opposed to through the guidance of the editor, author, or web designer who is creating the online edition. And the flow is never disrupted by text which indicates a link whether in the traditional blue with underline or otherwise.

We can all google, but to enjoy an article is a pleasure in its own right.

<comment><USER21> It's not just about following up, it is about separating fact from fraud and building a culture of honesty and accuracy, especially in the modern era where fake information is so easy to create and spread.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Amir was here in OKC this past Tuesday giving a talk on RubyMotion. It was pretty interesting hearing him talk about the process and how the game sat on tens of downloads a day for 3 months before seemingly randomly shooting to the top of the App Store and now to 600k+ downloads.

</comment><comment><USER22> There's a loosely defined sub genre of incremental games if you enjoy A Dark Room:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/incremental_games](http://www.reddit.com/r/incremental_games)

</comment><comment><USER23> "The improbable best-seller is a variation on primordial text adventures like Colossal Cave Adventure and Zork"

In as much as Doom is, yes.

</comment><comment><USER24> Bought this game right before a flight. (Come to think of it, the only time I've bought games on the App Store was prior to a flight.) Was intrigued by all the feedback left in the App Store. The hours of entertainment were well worth the $0.99.

</comment><comment><USER25> I'm going to eat now, cheat mode on:

window.setInterval(function(){

      $("#gatherButton").click()

}, 5000);

window.setInterval(function(){

      $("#trapsButton").click()

}, 5000);

window.setInterval(function(){

      $("#end").click()

}, 20000);

<comment><USER26> If you want to directly cheat, you can just look at the memory and then set the values to things directly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> "A Dark Room doesn't require any particular permissions".

I wish other game developers would take note.

</comment><comment><USER28> you should add google text ads.

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        discount offer. Limited
        time only.
        https://fireplaces.biz

<comment><USER29> An intriguing idea... the text content enabling relevant ads. The problem is it would break immersion (even text ads, because they bring in the outside world).

I wonder if there is a way to incorporate ads, so that it does not break immersion? e.g. non-trading aliens visiting earth, being puzzled by the ads. Perhaps some way of mocking them. Or, a game based on ads - <USER2> similarities between them; or links (similar to wikipedia-based games). Unfortunately, I would guess that reacting to ads might breach Adwords' terms of service.

It could be done in a positive way, like TV shows about advertisement (The Gruen Transfer; those best-of compilations). This is kind of crazy, but: given text content, _rating_ ads, for best targeting, worst targeting, controversial targeting, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Black Swan - Nassim Taleb

[http://www.amazon.com/The-Black-Swan-Improbable- Robustness/d...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Black-Swan-Improbable- Robustness/dp/081297381X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1402701647&sr=8-2&keywords=black+swan)

<comment><USER31> Wow, because random apps have _never_ shot to the top of the listings! Gee whillikers, that sure was an unpredictable black swan, totally outside previous reference classes!

<comment><USER30> Taleb talks about books/movies/etc becoming successes with little to no predictability. Games fall into this category. Hard to tell which games will become runaway successes, especially from small studios. But you know, it's cool, you can just be a dick about it instead.

<comment><USER31> > Taleb talks about books/movies/etc becoming successes with little to no > predictability

No, Taleb loves to sophistically equivocate between meanings of 'black swan' to neutralize any criticism. Did a perfectly ordinary phenomenon in network dynamics and winner-take-all scenarios happen? Taleb takes this as an example. Does someone point out that this is consistent with all past experience and non-power-law distributions like log-normals? Oh, suddenly, he means black swans are totally unpredictable things like 9/11!

<comment><USER30> Well, he actually calls things relating to those areas mentioned (arts, etc) as grey swans because they do happen, but you can't really predict which of the multitude of things coming out will become the next runaway success. Either way, seems to be a sore spot for you. Chill out.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why Android, The #1 Mobile Platform, Won't Get Great Music Apps - <AUTHOR> http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2013/07/30/why-android-the-1-mobile-platform-wont-get-great-music-apps/

<comment><USER2> <sigh> Just remember: Bug 3434 [http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=3434](http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=3434)</comment>


Hipset (YC S12) Shows You The Music Content Facebook's Been Hiding - <AUTHOR> http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2012/08/hipset-tracksby.html

<comment><USER2> The article shows a fundamental misunderstanding how Facebook filtering works. If Facebook didn't have any kind of filtering on page updates then they'd flood out friend updates which are much more important.

The likelihood that a particular fanpage update will get filtered out for an individual user is dependent on how the user has interacted with the fanpage in the past. If a user frequently clicks through/comments/etc on updates from a fanpage then updates from that fanpage are far less likely to get filtered out.

The whole sponsored stories thing was introduced a long time after Facebook had started doing filtering.

Saying that the filtering is a conspiracy to help Facebook make money may well be libelous.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm going to repeat what ig1 said but it bears repeating: I'm forced to correct musicians all the time on this: EVERY SINGLE THING is filtered by Facebook based on what they think you want to see. If you're not interacting with a band, they show it less frequently. Same thing with friends, TV shows, everything.

This rumor that FB is doing this to charge bands infuriates me on a daily basis. The ability to pay to show to all fans is a great way to tell FB a post is really important. Only money can keep that honest.

<comment><USER4> _Only money can keep that honest._

<cynical>I guess bands with more money can be more honest then.</cynical>

<comment><USER5> Being successful in life depends on getting the right things right and at the right time. A band who cannot engage their audience is akin to a magician with no stage presence. There are two paths to Facebook success I see in this thread thus far. Engage your audience so they participate, or pay to make them see you. It's not fair, but things rarely are.

Though to be honest, if you have to pay in order for your fans to take notice of you, you're doing something wrong on the engaging fans front (although you must be doing something right on the 'making money' front).

<comment><USER3> I agree with you except where you say it's not fair. That's totally fair. Engage or die, or as a last resort, pay. Why not? I LOVE the pay option: it allows me to pay when things are really, really important, and it's usually less than $10. Awesome! Without that, what could I do when I really need everyone to know about a show, giveaway, or video shoot?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What's stopping Facebook from adding a filter by "Pages / Music" feature?</comment>


OneLook – Dictionary Search with Wildcards - <AUTHOR> https://onelook.com/ <comment><USER2> I'm the developer of OneLook and happy to answer any questions about it! It's been running continuously since 1996 and I've been (very slowly) adding features to it over the past couple of decades.

<comment><USER3> where do you get the word lists from?

edit : never mind, found the list [https://www.onelook.com/?d=all_&v=s&sort=&langdf=all](https://www.onelook.com/?d=all_&v=s&sort=&langdf=all)

<comment><USER2> OneLook crawls and indexes the headwords from ~1000 online dictionaries and glossaries. When you do a wildcard search, it searches all of these lists at once. Clicking on one of the results will show you the sources. The sites range from small subject-specific glossaries with a few dozen words, to commercial dictionaries like Merriam-Webster and OED.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This, along with [https://nutrimatic.org](https://nutrimatic.org), gets used a lot during puzzlehunts. Very neat tool.

<comment><USER5> And Nutrimatic's own instructions link to [http://www.oneacross.com/](http://www.oneacross.com/) which is crossword- specific. I've been using OneLook when I get really stuck on a crossword, but of course there are more options!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I could really use something like that, with the additional ability to add custom sources.

My use cases:

I read e-books in Calibre[1]. When I read novels in The Witcher series or in the Forgotten Realms meta-series, I need to lookup words that _may or may not_ be just a creature in the universe of the novel. Having a page that automatically looks up a word in both real dictionaries and in The Witcher or Forgotten Realms wiki would be really cool.

My daughter also reads e-books in Calibre, but her English is nowhere near my level. It's a second language for her. So she needs to be able to look up words in English-Chinese dictionaries.

[1]: [https://calibre-ebook.com/](https://calibre-ebook.com/)

</comment><comment><USER7> I wrote a similar app long ago and people still seem to be using it: [http://chir.ag/projects/tip-of-my-tongue/](http://chir.ag/projects/tip-of-my- tongue/)

</comment><comment><USER8> OneLook also offers a nice API: [http://www.datamuse.com/api/](http://www.datamuse.com/api/) which I've used for a web-based Pictionary game

</comment><comment><USER9> If there's any other word-geeks out there, check out [http://wordo.co](http://wordo.co) and follow me there: [https://wordo.co/@aminozuur](https://wordo.co/@aminozuur) i'll follow back so we can both learn interesting words

</comment><comment><USER10> I use the OneLook reverse dictionary all the time to try to find the right word (not for crosswords), but I do wish it were smarter. If only someone would make a deep-learning-based reverse dictionary.

<comment><USER2> Me too! I've carved out some time this summer to look into some approaches to the problem based on the BERT architecture. A few years ago I tried some (pre- BERT) deep-learning based approaches, but nothing panned out. The "dumb" information-retrieval based approach that my service currently uses is certainly bad, but stubbornly not as bad as all the alternatives I've tried in the 15 years since creating it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> My favorite version of this has been [https://www.quinapalus.com/cgi- bin/qat?dict=6](https://www.quinapalus.com/cgi-bin/qat?dict=6)</comment>