SecondLife Didn't Fail - <AUTHOR> http://pandodaily.com/2012/07/06/philip-rosedale-the-media-is-wrong-secondlife-didnt-fail/ <comment><USER2> The first code I ever wrote, I wrote in Second Life.

The first interface I ever designed was for a HUD I built for the robot avatar I wanted to sell in Second Life.

The first time I ever heard the names Neal Stephenson or Charles Stross, it was in Second Life.

The first time I ever paid my rent based on work I had done entirely for and by myself, it was from selling hundreds of robots in Second Life.

I was 19. It was magic.

There's a substantial part of what I am today that I could not have become without what I learned from Second Life.

Yes, the developer tools are awful and the laggy experience can kill a lot of the fun. But fuck – I was selling killer robots to people and getting paid for it in what could become real money, somehow. Because that's how I wanted to use it. And it let me do all of that? Incredible.

<comment><USER3> This is entirely similar to my experience. I played when I was around 18 and created a hacky fix for skirts (they were an object attached to your body and when you sat down they would flow downwards still), this netted me a few hundred £ and started an enthusiasm for programming which has yet to stop. I still believe a 3D environment is one of the greatest ways to start learning object-orientated programming (due to the visual and tangible representation of your classes).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been a Second Life player for about six years now, and there isn't a lot of crossover between the audiences of SL and here, so I thought I'd weigh in on the 'success' of the game.

Originally there was a a huge amount of hype about the idea of real world businesses opening up an SL presence as something of a "new frontier", as well as vistualised museums, art exhibits, music shows and so on, but these for the most part never got off the ground.

Second Life generally has two sides; the first is an incredibly commercialist (to the point of being fetishistic) sector, where the players that prefer to treat SL as a kind of gigantic virtual dollset can buy clothing, hair, skins etc for their avatars, and has the same kind of draw as The Sims games, except this is real money we're talking about. This in itself gives one type of businesses at least a good way to generate income; 3D content creators.

The other side of SL are the very large groups of people that play the game to indulge in some sort of alternative fantasy. There are massive populations of furries, Goreans, BDSM practitioners and so on, who again are usually quite willing to pay for content for use in role playing in the virtual world.

I originally joined because I was interested in the technology side of things (I read an article somewhere about players using the in-game scripting systems to create 'virus objects' which spread across the world, which I thought was interesting enough to merit checking out) but I stayed because I found I had inadvertently formed a group of friends, and I even ended up getting engaged (in reality) to somebody I met there.

In a sense, Second Life has thrived, but not as a clean, bright new frontier as originally intended, but instead as a kind of collaborative roleplaying framework for people whose tastes are not really catered for anywhere else.

<comment><USER5> Giving a voice and a space to people who have nowhere else sounds like a success and social good to me.

<comment><USER6> It might also explain why they have a loyal but ultimately niche userbase.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In my first year of college, I bagged my first programming job using the Linden Scripting Language. I spent the majority of that Summer working "in- world" as part of Trinity College Dublin's CRITE project.

There was some real prospects in this area in terms of educational value for children but unfortunately the questionable nature of most of SecondLife clienteles activities makes it impossible to allow Children to just wander around.

I spent a lot of time working with OpenSim, the open source version, which was very very buggy when I used it but it allowed you to run the server, and I had some experiences bringing it into schools. Unfortunately due to problems such as "Wow my man just lost all his clothes", we could not go through with it.

I found it a wonderful environment for learning, particularly for coding. Its a very hands on approach when you can set up a listener like

listener = llListen(1000)

and then set up basic events for when a certain thing was said. It had a lovely feel to the programming and I made my first real money on it as well. I made a set of playable bagpipes for some person online, he sent me $50 dollars on Paypal. I also donated a lot of code free of charge and even had my name included on someones PHD.

All in all, it was wonderful place to work when I was there.

</comment><comment><USER8> If people from SL are asking themselves why it didn't grow more, here's my story:

In the past 5 years, I've spent about 5 hours reading and watching videos about SL. And yet I've never once downloaded and run the client. You know why? Because the whole gameworld is just too ugly.

There are many reasons for its ugliness. A missing lighting engine, that most of it is very empty, bad frame rate / low drawing distance, and also the fact that it's all made by the users and the majority of users don't have any taste.

I'd rather spend my time in WOW or Zelda, they appeal much more to my eyes. Or, you know, meet in real life.

<comment><USER9> I can sort of second this. I paid for a sub and let it lapse shortly afterwards. The akwardness of trying to do things, the ugliness of the world and the fact that my nieghbour made a huge sky-reaching tower covered in pornography and pictures of borat unimpressed me.

It was about 25% as cool as the hype.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> At the moment SecondLife is miles of empty houses, casinos, and furries, it's pretty sad, but salvageable. First there needs to be zones with something like property taxes based on foot traffic over an area. This would incentivize change, and renovation of an area instead of static dead content that persists forever. Next the viewer client needs to be scaled down a bit. SecondLife is very much ahead of its time (advanced 3d modeling, advanced scripting of objects) the result is a lagged experience. Wonder why Minecraft took off? It's because building in Minecraft is simple, in SecondLife building is a pain in the ass. Again - way too advanced, no simple options for people. Anyways I hope someone eventually gets it right because SecondLife made the same mistakes AlphaWorld did and is meeting a similar fate. Im holding out on Carmack's 3d goggles to re-enter the metaverse and sword fight you guys.

<comment><USER11> Personally, I think the easiness of building in SL is its downfall. Users obviously do not care about polycounts and performance, and the FPS is very low as a result.

<comment><USER12> Also keep in mind sim costs are very high, which means sims end up abandoned when folks decide that the few thousand dollars per month required to maintain the contract is too much.....

<comment><USER11> Yep, it's probitively expensive to rent a simulator, no wonder projects like OSGrid get any support.

<comment><USER11> *prohibitively

ouch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Any second life users here? Speak up please.

I've always found Second Life strange in that they claim million(s) of users and yet I've never met one. I've met WoW players, I've met EQ players, Diablo players, CoD players, Halo players, FF11 players, GTA players, etc etc etc. But I've never met a Second Life player. Just bad luck I guess?

<comment><USER14> I bet you have.

I'm not a second life player myself, but from what I've heard, a whole lot of it is based around sexuality that would be impossible, or at least not very acceptable (outside of the SF bay area, at least) in real life. I mean, if your thing is dragons or something, well hey, they can make that happen.

With a reputation like that, most people aren't going to be as 'out' about being a second life user as about enjoying 'modern warfare' or whatever, I mean, depending on local culture.

<comment><USER5> This sort of stealth is common in gender and sexual minorities. It can happen to people who are transgender. Lots of trans women have tales of being in a group of cis people and to conversation turning to how none of them have ever met a trans person. Or lots of (usually homophobic) straight people who think they've never met a gay person.

If there's a stigma or negativity attached to a thing, then don't use "I've never met anyone in $GROUP" as reliable data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> One relevant fact that's not mentioned in the story is how deeply SL can affect people. There's a significant portion that becomes obsessed with it to the point it takes precedence over their "real life"'s responsibilities.

I've read many a story of both "addicted" gamers and family members of gamers and some of them can be quite devastating.

[https://www.google.com/#hl=en&output=search&q=second...](https://www.google.com/#hl=en&output=search&q=second+life+ruined)

<comment><USER16> In a world where our interactions are ever more inauthentic, the virtual can seem more Real than the real.

Beside the grind, virtual worlds have managed to solve the deepest fears of human interaction, usually with the promise that you can reinvent yourself if everything goes bad. So they provide an outlet for Ambition. They also enable some sort of personal progress, some sort of real feeling of Change, which enables Love to take hold: people who are otherwise stuck in situations which they feel are beyond their power are enabled by this.

The question is not why videogames are so addictive. The question is why the real world isn't.

<comment><USER17> Want to elaborate on "inauthentic" interaction? Because that sounds like something the post office would say to imply that physical letters are more "authentic" than emails.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> How are we defining a success and a failure here? Second Life is still around. They're not raking in millions, but AFAIK they're profitable, provide value to their customers in return, and occupy a dominant position in their market. In what way have they failed?

</comment><comment><USER19> SL has always been a exceedingly poor technology implementation of an ill defined objective. It's pretty much a failure and an oddity.

Korean MMO's do it better. You can have your x-rated chat with digital paper doll avatars that will look as sexy as your credit card can muster in the cash shop.

The fact that huge swaths of SL is outright advertising spam is another reason to avoid it.

</comment><comment><USER20> It's sad that companies are so often judged by their growth potential and not their static value. It's of course the investors that are making these judgments and not the players.

<comment><USER3> This drive for any business to continually grow (and this isn't a Valley specific problem) is a topic I could rant about for hours. From my understanding growth is necessary in public companies so shareholders can make a profit (assuming the company isn't big enough to issue huge dividends). What perplexes me is why people cared about SecondLife growing if it never tried to go public (beyond the initial investors caring).

<comment><USER21> I think (aiming for) growth is also necessary to offset risk. Naturally business will not be equally good from year to year. If you don't create surplus in the good years, you'll find yourself in trouble in the bad years.

<comment><USER18> Growth is like... the opposite of surplus.

<comment><USER21> How so?

<comment><USER18> What fauldsh said, basically.

Imagine that you've got a bunch of VCs who have decided to give you millions and millions. Yay money. You now have a surplus, but you have not grown. To grow, you have to _spend_ that money. That's the entire reason they gave you money. Goodbye surplus.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I played SL since 2006 and until 2009 or so, and I still keep up with it from time to time. I think one problem it has is that it tries to do a lot of things, and does none of them well. Building was fun for a while, but you hit a limit with what you can do with their in-world tools, and now they allow users to upload assets created in 3rd party 3D modeling tools (anything that can export to Collada format)

Users are slowly making SL better but it almost seems in spite of Linden Lab, not because of them (the improvement from LL are few and very far between)

<comment><USER23> I think its because SL is not growing wildly. Yeah, they generate $700M from the virtual economy, but what do they do with it? Without a focus on growing, there isn't as much of a focus on innovation. Plus, as the article states, they've tried a lot of things to get past the 1M active players number and haven't cracked it yet. This discourages them from trying anything expensive to stimulate growth, like improving building or implementing a more realistic physics engine to draw people into a virtual world that looks real and immersive.

Simply put, it looks like they're unwilling to take any risks to make significant changes to SL.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> It's fair to say that Second Life didn't fail. It's profitable and has a large stable userbase. It definitely didn't live up to expectations, though.

From my perspective, the problem was that the entire architecture is built around simulating on the server. This makes servers expensive, creates lag, and entirely prevents a whole type of 3D environments - anything that requires lag-free responsiveness, like a first person shooter.

Imagine if people could create any kind of 3D game in Second Life. People would be using that instead of Unity/Unreal/other game engines.

Games are a potentially huge market, if Second Life had tied into that it could have grown its userbase tremendously. It had almost all the necessary technology - it just was structured in a way that you just can't do responsive games.

(Btw, why does the article use SecondLife without a space between the two words?)

</comment><comment><USER25> I don't understand why the article talks about Secondlife in the past tense like it's dead. It looks like it's chugging along about as strong as ever

<comment><USER26> In fact, that seems to be the whole point of the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> "SecondLife has 1 million active users" and "$700 million a year in virtual goods transacted" sound a bit strange together.

Users spend $700 a year in SL?

<comment><USER28> "$700 million transacted" double(triple, etc) counts most of the money. I trade you $1 you trade someone else that $1, that's $2 transacted.

<comment><USER29> Regardless, though, that means that the per user transaction rate is $700 per year on average - the incomes of people in a country also reflect multiple spends of the same dollar, which is why velocity of money is so critical to an economy and why free flowing credit is so important to make sure people and businesses keep spending even in the face of short term flow stop ups.

That's an incredible amount of spending per user, if true. Especially sine all of that money could be converted to real world cash with relatively little friction, unlike most in-game currencies.

<comment><USER30> In niche MMOs it's not unusual for users to spend over 20 real dollars/month on micro transactions. I don't know what an average multiplier in terms of in- game transactions would be but 3x doesn't seem out of the question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is not succeeding:

"The problem — really the only problem, but a big one nonetheless — is they couldn't ever find a way to make those numbers grow. Nothing they did worked, and Rosedale doubts that even early Facebook integration would have helped."

It has also stagnated technologically, since revenue can't fund a level of development that would open new applications or market segments, nor market such new capabilities.

Second Life is a spectacular and obvious failure. It isn't a game (but it attracted all the trolls and griefers a game would attract). It isn't anything in particular. If you go to the site, there is a question: "What is Second Life?" Follow the link, and play the video. Now tell me if you have an answer.

<comment><USER32> Actually, one reason it's stagnated technically because Linden Labs aren't nearly as good at UI design as they think they are and lots of users are on forked older versions of the client software that predate their last UI redesign and don't support new features. It got so embarassing that they disabled the ability for users to advertise what viewer version they were running.

<comment><USER33> Sad. I worked at linden from 06-08, and later, when I found out that Viewer 2.0 had been developed in secret and the source thrown over the wall after release, I was stunned by the lack of awareness about how upsetting this kind of behavior is for open source developers who were working on the previous codebase. Even worse is the fact that those developers are _working for no pay._

Forks matter, and dilute the mindshare of the already small number of people that are actually capable of contributing to an open source project. I don't understand why there are so many companies (google with android, for example) who think it is ok to develop major new versions in secret and then just toss the code over the wall. It is hard enough to follow the changes to a large open source project, but at least keeping up with commits in real time as they happen makes digesting the changes easier. Lots of small bites to swallow spread out over a long time. With the huge source dump style, I would argue that it is basically impossible for even an extremely competent developer to understand all the changes, and the ramifications of all those changes.

Also, it's Linden Lab. Linden Lab. Not Linden Labs. That used to drive me crazy, I guess I shouldn't really care any more. :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Why do we see failure in a sustainable business that makes money.

<comment><USER35> Same reason we see a Baseball team that wins lots of games every year but never a world series as a failure.

More was promised / expected than delivered.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> 411 days ago, "The Failure Of Second Life": <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2574795>

</comment><comment><USER37> The reason why SL doesn't grow is because of all those furries ruining the place for everyone else. I never knew what yiffing was until I went on SL. Had they placed a few curbs on it, their world would've been better for everyone.

</comment><comment><USER38> A long time ago when I was just starting out at Activision we had some early virtual reality world pitched to us. Probably it was Knowledge Adventure Worlds which became KA Worlds that became I don't know what. Anyway, the guy pitching it said, "This will allow people to create their own entertainment."

The guy who ran the studio then-- Howard Marks-- said, "If people wanted to create their own entertainment we would have gone out of business a long time ago."

</comment><comment><USER39> Isn't an opportunity to grow in the mobile space? I don't like to use Second Life in "desktop mode" but when I am on "mobile chill out mode" it sounds perfect!

</comment><comment><USER40> It would be nice, given the thread, to hear experience of someone that makes money in SL. I watched the show about some guy that sells sex toys and was making seven figures. Wonder how hard it is to get there (I assume hard but would be great to hear some real users' opinion).

</comment><comment><USER11> I think Second Life has failed. Sure, it lives, but in 9 years Linden Labs have been unable to make the client run any smoother or load any faster.

<comment><USER12> Who uses Linden Labs' client anyway? ;-)

To the downvoters: The fact is that among SL folks the clearest way you spot a noob is that they are running the Linden Labs' client. Everyone else is on a third party one in part because, well Linden Labs is better at many things than building clients for their system. The two biggest viewers seem to be Phoenix and Firestorm, probably followed by Imprudence and a few others.

<comment><USER41> Interesting. If "noobs" have an inferior experience because of the LL client, they will not come back. If the hope is for the community to thrive and grow, perhaps the existence and superiority of third party clients should be more apparent. Seems the nobody else commenting on HN was aware of this.

<comment><USER12> I think you are right about this. In fact I would say it is likely a major issue in LL not getting a much larger user base.

There are a couple big problems with LL's clients.

The first one is that while they are LGPL the range of supported hardware, particularly on Linux, is vanishingly small. This means for most systems, it might work or it might not. If you ask for help you get a reply like "your video card is not supported. Sorry."

Again, it might work and on Windows it often does. On Linux it is another story. Often it works until such a point as there is a minor update and then framerates drop to maybe 0.5 to 2. Again, unless you have an nVidia or an ATI card, you are on your own.

The other, third party clients (many of which are open soruce) are often better in this regard. I have _never_ found that sort of problem to occur with a third party client though some of them have stability issues on some platforms.

I think LL more or less figures that since there are enough other open source clients for their network they really only have to do enough to get people started, but often this doesn't work. So I think that the poor initial user experience may be a big factor here, where it is a factor.

<comment><USER42> So which (if any) of these do you suggest for someone willing to give SL another look?

<comment><USER12> Imprudence has the best reputation regarding stability. It has been a while since I tried it though.

On Linux I have had the best luck with Phoenix. I found Firestorm to be unstable on each of my systems. There are some quirks relating to music/media tracks due to library versions the software was compiled against, but solutions are readily found there if you run into them.

<comment><USER32> Imprudence is outdated these days, unfortunately. You'll find that a lot of avatars and content don't display properly with it these days because of mesh upload and other new features.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I enjoyed SL for a while. Some ideas to get more users: make it easier to obtain a good looking avatar, and fix the clunky controls.

</comment><comment><USER43> Just in case someone doesn't know. You can build your own:

<http://opensimulator.org/></comment>


Prepare to be scared - <AUTHOR> http://www.barackobama.com/horrifying

<comment><USER2> Wow, this is the least technical content, most political posting to make it to Hacker News that I've ever seen. Congratulations.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Always happy to please.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Startup scene in Singapore - <AUTHOR>

Greetings fellow HNers.
Was researching on startup scene in Singapore and found that though it's a highly convenient place to setup and run a business, the numbers (of startups) are still not that large.
Any comments/inputs/opinions on the trend? Do you see any reason why it has not become big yet?
Thanks.
Ref: http://startuplist.e27.sg/ <comment><USER2> That's a really interesting question. Singapore has a robust economy that is heavily centered around technology. However, from the little I know about the Singaporean economy (case studies, economic development, etc.) it seems to be an economy that is still heavily centered around technology clusters that cater to foreign direct investment. One interesting point that's been raised before is that the Singaporean education does an excellent job at teaching mathematics and other technical skills, but does not necessarily lend itself to individual exploration of ideas and independent learning (Fareed Zakaria wrote a piece mentioning this phenomena as a competitive advantage of the U.S. education system a couple years back). I also wonder how Singaporeans, as a whole, view failure.

Building an innovation economy is probably the single hardest problem in economic development. What seems to support such an economy is a large number of flagship technology companies, some successful local entrepreneurs to act as mentors and angels, research-focused universities (which Singapore has in spades) and a culture that welcomes failure as a key ingredient to success.

I think that Singapore has taken some very important steps in moving up the value chain and is well positioned to become a center of entrepreneurship in SE Asia. A class project I had during my graduate work was to determine how Singapore could make the next step up the value chain. We ultimately settled upon focusing on building out and supporting the burgeoning bio-tech industry, but doing so is almost too obvious, as it leverages two sectors that are already quite entrenched in Singapore - medicine and tech. I'd like to see more individual entrepreneurship and think that Singapore is probably best situated to make the leap to an innovation economy of all the countries in SE Asia.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for sharing your views.

>> Fareed Zakaria's piece mentioning this as a competitive advantage of the U.S. education system

I guess you are referring to the one where he mentions "Most of the world teaches the students how to take tests. American education teaches people how to think, how to solve problems. This is much more useful in the real world." That's true.

>> wonder how Singaporeans, as a whole, view failure

Though Singapore comprises of people with Asian ethnicity (where usually it's not the idea but the person that's considered a failure!), am told that people have a totally different and far-from-conservative outlook. Guess I will have to see it for myself and see.

>> think that Singapore is probably best situated to make the leap to an innovation economy of all the countries in SE Asia

Yes. The situation seems to be conducive, and immigration too should not be too fussy an issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hi raghava, I'm Singaporeans and I could connect you with some people who can help you in your research. Send me an email if you are interested. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Would mail! :)</comment></comment>


Please don't call them 'Legos' - <AUTHOR> http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/10839/legos-not-lego <comment><USER2> I don't care about the trademarks, but as a Brit 'Legos' always sounds wrong, like "I'm playing with my sheeps".

<comment><USER3> On the other hand, don't we in the UK always talk about "maths" rather than "math".

<comment><USER4> That's a different matter: how does one contract a plural - but the plural is still the same:

\- Math is short for mathematics, not for mathematic, which isn't a word (try looking up 'mathematic' sometime).

\- Maths is also short for mathematics.

<comment><USER5> The obvious comparison is to "physics" which is short for "physical sciences" IIRC.

Was mathematics once referred to as "the mathematical arts" or something?

(A similar way to appear very uncool is to walk into a record shop and proclaim, "look at all these vinyls!")

<comment><USER6> It isn't "short for" anything. This is just a normal suffix for fields of study: Physics, mechanics, politics, statistics, optics, ethics, linguistics, and so on.

Etymologically it is a plural suffix, but in modern English it is singular.

[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/-ics](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/-ics)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> British people don't call them lego because of trademark issues, we call them that because we consider it to be a mass noun.

<comment> a-priori Canadians too. Not sure why.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Trying to get people not to use the obvious plural is silly, but the insistance on all caps bothers me even more. It's right up there with Yahoo's exclamation mark. The convention is that everyone will call you, usually, by the name you choose, but demanding that other people use your preferred typographical novelty is lame.

</comment><comment> a-priori This may be a regional thing? I've always used "Lego" as a mass noun as in "I'm playing with Lego". The pluralization "Legos" sounds weird to me.

</comment><comment><USER9> As someone who spent a ludicrous amount of time during my childhood playing with _Legos_ and always referring to them as such to friends and family, I really don't appreciate this "request". I'm quick to correct my ways when I realize that I've been mispronouncing or misusing a word, but when we're talking about a children's toy brand (however cool it may be), let's just all take it easy.

</comment><comment><USER10> The title for this link needs to be fixed. It's a question with some answers, and very few of the answers reflect the position stated in the title.

</comment><comment><USER11> I have never played with only one lego therefore I refer to them as legos because I play with more than one.

<comment><USER12> But a single brick isn't called a lego, it's called a LEGO brick (or part). You have never played with one LEGO brick, you have played with LEGO bricks.

Would you build a house out of house bricks or out of houses?

<comment><USER11> Ask any kid from age 4-10 if they have ever called legos "lego bricks"</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do I stay productive at a desk during the workday? - <AUTHOR> I just started a new job (first out of college). I'm finding it relatively difficult to stay focused at my desk for the eight hours or so that I work each day. I have a pretty standard desk chair/dual monitors/stock keyboard and mouse.<p>Are there habits I should acquire or gear I should purchase to make things easier? Do you all have any tips to stay energized and productive in a desk job? <comment><USER2> Use the pomodoro technique. You focus for a finite amount of time then take a break. You can work up from 20-min sprints to 50-min sprints. It's healthier for your eyes, body and mind to take a break at least once per hour anyway.

When you break between sprints, make sure you're getting up and walking around - not just surfing Facebook. Get some water. Stretch. Do a few jumping jacks. Go to the kitchen and spend 5 minutes talking to whoever else is taking a break at the same time. Look out the window at the furthest thing you can see, to let your eyes relax.

Eat your lunch outside the office. Grab a sandwich and take a walk or sit in a nearby park. The point is to get your brain some variety.

Make sure you're getting enough exercise outside work. Be it jogging every morning, cycling to work, visiting the gym at lunch, pickup soccer in the afternoons, a softball league...

And finally, consider a sit-stand desk. Something as simple as changing posture can go a long way toward reducing physical and mental fatigue.

</comment><comment><USER3> Have you read about the Pomodoro Technique[0]? I use that, just a simple software timer in the corner (K.I.S.S.).

Plus regular exercise, healthy eating, getting enough sleep, and avoiding things that cause you to crash (soda, junk food, sugar in coffee, etc). Some colleagues have found standing desks useful, but that's very individual.

I use a vertical mouse but that's to avoid RSI, not to increase productivity (e.g. Anker 2.4G, or 3M Ergonomic Mouse). I also use a keyboard with Dome or Scissor Switches (think: laptop keyboard) on purpose since the depression pressure is lower (i.e. your fingers work less hard per keypress) which also helps with RSI. I also set brightness around 20-30% on LCDs and turn DPI on Windows up to 125% to help with eyestrain.

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

</comment><comment><USER4> What kind of distractions are you facing? The frequent visits to HN/Reddit? Or hearing your coworkers' chatter in the background? What are your expectations for what a distraction-free day should feel like?

FWIW, I've been using the Qbserve [0] time-tracking app. Even on a day like this, where I got in at around 6:30 AM and felt like I'd been writing code and documentation non-stop, it shows that I've only spent 5.5 hours (out of about 9 hours at work) on "productive" tasks (Sublime Text + Terminal + spreadsheets). I feel pretty drained, but I've apparently had about 3.5 hours of downtime.

If you don't already have headphones, get a pair, though that seems like obvious advice. I have some pretty good traditional headphones but I've found it useful to occasionally switch to wireless bluetooth ones that don't have the weight of a full set of headphones [1]

[0] Show HN: Qbserve [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11778077](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11778077)

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01GDIUA8Y/](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01GDIUA8Y/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I have a good attention span and am not easily distracted by sites like HN, but I've noticed that eye strain is a big problem. Also, like you mentioned, chattering coworkers (I've only worn earbuds so far; I need to drag my ATH-M50s to the office) is a big issue.

We're in an open floor plan and so I don't get more than maybe 20 minutes of focus at most before people talking near me disturbs me.

Maybe it's because of the eye strain difference, but I can sit and read a book for hours upon hours and not have an issue while something about sitting at a desk and staring at a computer makes me want start to fidget and look elsewhere.

<comment><USER5> Consider buying some noise cancelling headphones. You may also benefit from dimming your screen, installing f.lux and perhaps wearing some Gunnar computer glasses. It's also important to ensure your monitor is at a proper height, at no point should you have to look upward on your monitor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What are you actually _doing_ at your desk and how does it add up to the bigger picture of your life?

IMHO fancy gear and trying to force new habits are only curing symptoms of of a more underlying problem: the tasks you're doing at your new job are too divorced from what you want to accomplish day-to-day (could also be due to genuine lack of energy which is covered by another comment).

Take some time figure out some goals for yourself if you don't have any yet, connect the dots between what you have to accomplish in your new job to those goals, then connect the minute tasks you do at your desk to those accomplishments. If you just keep doing work without tying it to something bigger it will definitely be an uphill battle to stay focused on what you must get done.

Though tying your job to your goals is definitely not a silver bullet. There are other tricks to try out _after_ setting your goals that could help, such as using the pomodoro technique.

</comment><comment><USER7> There are three types of things which you should do in parallel:

1) Make your mind sharper

2) Make your tasks clearer

3) Make your distractions more distant.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>-- 1\. Sharpening your mind

Your mind is a part of your body, so you need to take care of your body.

A) Have good sleep hygiene. I need 8.5 hours of sleep a night to be at my best. Figure out what that number is for you and follow through on it. An extra hour of wakefulness is a waste of time if it makes you 40% as effective the next day. Make sure your mattress doesn't suck. If it does, definitely spend the $200 for a new one[1]. Play white noise[2] on your phone and put your phone away from you as you sleep so you aren't tempted by it at night. Spend $10 on a good sleeping mask [3]. Go to sleep and get up at the same times every day, even on weekends.

B) Eat good food with a high protein content. The very cheapest way to do this is something like soylent[4] and a blender bottle[5]. Somewhat better than that is using paprika[6] to plan meals and cook food with a timered slow cooker[7], but keep in mind that setting up an efficient kitchen takes time. Another method is to prep all your meals on Sunday[8]

C) Excercise and meditate regularly. A 20-minute intense run is really great for keeping yourself sharp. Not only that, but when you feel like your head is full of cotton, this is a good way to clear your mind.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>----- 2) Make your tasks more clear.

If your tasks or goals lack clarity, then it is that much harder to figure out what your next step is, so your brain will seek stimulation and micro- accomplishment where it can. This is a more complicated topic because it depends on your company culture. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team is a good read on this topic.

Frequent communication is important. Daily standups are good. Pairing is great, particularly as you are starting out and you are at the keyboard so that someone's knowledge flows through you.

With programming, one of the most important things you can do is use Test Driven Development. It leads you to break down tasks and give yourself a clear next task: make the failing test pass.

If you are asked to work with an API and the documentation is in a foreign language, insist that the company hires professional translation.

If you join a company and can't find out whom you report to, start looking for a new job.

\</comment><comment>----- 3) Make distractions more distant.

Replace the "frequently visited pages" new tab screen with a calming natural image[9].

Block yourself from visiting distracting pages using Freedom, which lets you make different sets of urls to block and lets you schedule them to come on automatically[10].

[1] [http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/90283797/](http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/90283797/)

[2] [https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/rainy-mood-rain-sounds- for/i...](https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/rainy-mood-rain-sounds- for/id566752651?mt=8) [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.TailoredMu...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.TailoredMusic.RainyMood&hl=en)

[3] [http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/store/product/bucky- reg-40-b...](http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/store/product/bucky- reg-40-blinks-ultralight-sleep-mask/1043238446)

[4] [https://www.soylent.com/product/powder/](https://www.soylent.com/product/powder/)

[5] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5PTTH0ftsY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5PTTH0ftsY)

[6] [https://paprikaapp.com/](https://paprikaapp.com/)

[7] [http://thesweethome.com/reviews/best-slow- cooker/](http://thesweethome.com/reviews/best-slow-cooker/)

[8] [https://www.reddit.com/r/MealPrepSunday/](https://www.reddit.com/r/MealPrepSunday/)

[9] [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/momentum/laookkfkn...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/momentum/laookkfknpbbblfpciffpaejjkokdgca?hl=en)

[10] [https://freedom.refersion.com/c/dbe7b2](https://freedom.refersion.com/c/dbe7b2)

</comment><comment><USER8> Ask for part-time for proportionally reduced salary?</comment>


For the first time, workers are paying a higher tax rate than investors, owners - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/10/16/us-now-taxes-wages-higher-rate-than-capital-fueling-income-inequality-study-finds/ <comment><USER2> Tax on labor is perverse. Why should workers be paying higher tax than a robot?

Wage taxes for under $50k in income should be zero. Ditch all earmarked tariffs and implement a 5% across the board import tariff which is essentially a national sales tax. Cut the NDAA operational budget in favor of letting the 50 States implement Swiss style defenses. Equalize the US Postal Service budget with NASA. Build 1 foot diameter pneumatic/hyper loop tubes under the interstate network to modernize small package and bulk data transfer.

Have DOE make electric steel smelting and electric based low carbon fertilizer/cement production a top priority. Increase the NSF budget for grinder/sifter/centrifuge/pickerBot tech so a modern municipal recycling rig can be modular to a few semis. Same for a modular ethanol production rig that farm cooperatives can use.

Take bids on electric USPTO/DOD short and long haul trucks. Mandate as part of the contracts they also be available commercially in the same quantity for no more 10% more.

The harder win will be more efficient allocation of workers. Govt agencies could grease the wheels by doing one click job applications on linkedIn etc, and offering training benefits to all part time workers.

Govt student loans need to be burned to the ground in favor of GI bill style packages where you do a year of government service in return for having some school paid for. There should be no age limit.

Healthcare is simple. All Medicare/Medicaid bills paid to providers should be public record. Sunlight will quickly cleanse market inefficiencies.

<comment><USER3> This was such an exciting comment to read.

It's easy to forget how many potentially revolutionary ideas are yet to be tried, once we remember the power of good government.

Although I am also skeptical of hyperloop delivery, it seems worth costing.

I hope the US snaps out of its market obsession and starts experimenting with this sort of thing, before it's too late.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Investors and business owners are wealthy enough to lobby for lower taxes. Workers aren't so they get the least favorable tax treatment.</comment>


Ask HN: Which VPN are you using and why? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Private Internet Access!! Cheap, reliable and fast vpn. Also multiple locations.

</comment><comment><USER3> ExpressVPN, all the usual features including pc/linux/osx/android/ios.

But, what I really like is almost 24/7 live chat to resolve any issues that arise, like BBC blocking a particular server or similar.

</comment><comment><USER4> VyprVPN. I can choose different locations around the world, it's fast and reliable, and it automatically connects when I am ion untrusted public wifi. Does come at a subscription cost though

</comment><comment><USER5> OpenVPN hosted on a DO droplet - because I use the droplet for things and I can trust it more than I can trust a third party vpn provider</comment>


Why I Froze My Eggs - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323628004578458882165244260.html

<comment><USER2> This line from the article is what stood out most to me "And it's a buzz kill on dates when you feel compelled to ask the guy sitting across from you, clutching his craft beer, "So do you think you might want kids someday?""

Is that really the case? I mean if your intention of dating is to meet someone that may eventually turn into a lifelong partner, knowing if their stance on children is congruent with your own definitely seems like something you'd want to hash out pretty darn early.

<comment><USER3> _your intention of dating is to meet someone that may eventually turn into a lifelong partner_

That's not really typical.

<comment><USER4> I think it's pretty common in certain crowds, for example geeky grad students. And if you're looking for something serious, wouldn't you want to filter out people who just want to use you for a fling?

<comment><USER5> It also depends on age and gender. The "biological clock" is not a myth. Women entirely unconcerned about long-term prospects at 22 often do a 180 by 27.

The first time I met my now-wife (24), she said in no uncertain terms she didn't want kids. After two years of dating, kids suddenly became super important to her and panic started to set in about possibly not being able to have them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Perhaps it could be advantageous for men to freeze their sperm at a young age, too. There is some evidence that the older the father is at conception, the more likely his child is to have autism. There's also at least one study that suggests that the link can skip a generation: if a man is relatively old when he has a son, then his grandson is more likely to have autism. (That said, conflicting studies exist, and more research is required.)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternal_age_effect>

[http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/29/grandfathers-age- li...](http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/29/grandfathers-age-linked-to- autism/)

<comment><USER7> I would tend to take most knowledge on what causes autism with a shaker or two of salt at this point in time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It should be noted that the success rate of frozen eggs is not great. The data is all over the place, but generally, implantation and pregnancy rates are substantially less than a coin flip.

</comment><comment><USER8> Embarrassingly enough I expected this to be an article about chicken's eggs.

</comment><comment><USER9> What's really impressive are the comments. If you ever wondered about readers of the wsj, this should cinch it.

</comment><comment><USER10> There is a better option that allows you to have as many children as you want whenever you want: adoption. Why bring in more children into the world when there are already so many that are unwanted?

<comment><USER11> We're mammals. Do you really think that's a satisfying answer?

<comment><USER10> I will certainly acknowledge that there is a biological imperative to reproduce. However, I think we should work together to promote adoption of children. I don't see any logical reason to think of adoption of an infant any differently than spawning your own. Its safer for the adoptive mother's health and most certainly an improvement for the infant. Other than the pregnancy and birth process being replaced with lots of paperwork and interviews, it is a very similar experience. In both cases you end up with a child of your own to love and care for.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, I think adoption is much better, too. Unfortunately most people aren't wired that way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wonder what a woman that spends $50,000 to freeze her eggs in her mid thirties would say about a man who spends $50,000 in his mid thirties on a sports car.

<comment><USER5> Because having and raising children, which creates a huge positive externalize in society, is the same thing as a sports car, which is a luxury good for personal consumption?

<comment><USER13> The point is that she spent $50k because she spent too much time not focusing on starting a family and instead was doing something else which was probably a self-centered lifestyle. She would have nothing to say to the man who bought the car.

<comment><USER14> A man can father children and buy a extravagant car in his 20s or his 50s. A woman freezing her eggs is doing so in response to a biological constraint that men don't face; they aren't comparable situations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Did someone take into account the kids? My dad turned 60 recently, and the mere thought that he will be a pensioner before I make any considerable amount of money and likely senile/needing full-time care by the time I turn 35 is…weird.

<comment><USER16> I don't understand your comment. How old are you? Would you rather take care of your aging dad (assuming that's necessary, which is a big "if") between 35-45 or between 50-60? Does it even matter? Why is that thought weird? Would you rather not exist?

<comment><USER15> I'm 22 now and I would rather prefer to deal with all the problems caused by old age when I'm 50 or 60. More importantly, I wouldn't mind having more than about ten to 15 years left with him.

<comment><USER16> My dad died last year at 71. I never had to take care of him, he was a relatively healthy guy and his death was unexpected. I enjoyed my time with my dad, and I have no regrets. Seize the day, and don't waste time worrying about things that may never happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> At age 36, with no kids and no marriage, she had to obliterate her savings to fund 50k? I feel like some part of her "big life plan" went south.

It's rather troubling she mentions having insurance cover this procedure...

</comment><comment><USER4> From what I've read, fertility starts declining at 35, so if you're going to freeze eggs, probably best to do it before then.</comment>


Diversity vs. Equality - <AUTHOR> http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/01/diversity-versus-equality.html <comment><USER2> Not sure I get where "diversity vs equality" comes into play here...

It says that government officials engage in positive discrimination towards women + minorities. I don't know much about Australia, but in America government hiring is supposed to exhibit positive discrimination (because governments are supposed to hire according to affirmative action guidelines), so what's the point of this study?</comment>


Amazon Will Pay Shoppers $5 to Walk Out of Stores Empty-Handed - <AUTHOR> http://allthingsd.com/20111206/amazon-will-pay-shoppers-5-to-walk-out-of-stores-empty-handed <comment><USER3> Retailers aren't all lumbering behemoths being driven into extinction by online merchants. Many have figured out that they are actually running showrooms and charge the manufacturers rent for displaying their wares. Supermarkets have been playing this game for years, renting shelf space by the foot to people like Coca-Cola.

Meanwhile, people like WalMart make a business out of logistics, they only carry stuff where they have a strong financial advantage. It's not impossible, but it's hard to beat their prices when you factor in shipping.

It will be interesting to see how Amazon and WalMart match up against each other over the next decade. I wouldn't be surprised if WalMart start displaying higher online prices right beside their merchandise in the store.

<comment><USER4> What shipping? Amazon ships for free on any decent-sized ($25+) order.

I'm skeptical that Walmart can really beat Amazon via logistics. They're both top-notch operators in that realm, but Amazon's product pipeline is a huge advantage - they don't have to manage nearly as many locations, nor do they have to hold as much inventory relative to sales volumes because they have fewer fulfillment centers.

And their Subscribe and Save program (which offers a 15% discount on common household products) is aimed directly at Walmart and the price clubs. ([http://www.amazon.com/gp/subscribe-and- save/details/index.ht...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/subscribe-and- save/details/index.html))

<comment><USER5> Of course, the "free shipping" takes a lot longer (sometimes a week longer) than even their standard shipping. If you want free shipping that takes place reliably quickly, you have to sign up for Amazon Prime, at which point free shipping is no longer free.

<comment><USER4> Prime's about what, $7 a month? Each mile I drive costs $0.20 in gas. If having Prime saves me just half an hour / 35 mi of driving a month (less than two trips to Walmart), it's cheaper than going to the store.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Very interesting move by amazon. No doubt the retaliation will be political in nature and focus on the unfairness of no sales tax, well the retaliation is already underway and lobbyists have been hired and working on this issue for some years now.

I have always had a paper notebook I carry around with me. Sometimes I will be shopping for something and the local store will have many models but none on display and almost no information about features. Let's take BluRay players for example. The local store has about 30 models of these. A couple are on display but not plugged in. What is really important to me is the player not take 5 minutes to cue the movie because the processor is underpowered and the DRM on BluRay uses a complex scheme involving Java code and decrypting. I also want to know how the menus are arranged, because most remotes are infuriating to use and user interface is important. You would think this would be an ideal situation for brick and mortar because knowledgable sales clerks would be able to answer my questions and allow me to test the merchandise using the large screen TVs they have set up for the purpose. Alas, no. The era of sales clerks knowing accurate information about products ended many years ago. Such places can not be found. The era of being allowed to test things in store has likewise ended.

So what I do is write down the model names of a half dozen of the most likely candidates and then go read online reviews to find if there are complaints about cuing speed. Finding out about the menu design is nearly impossible though unless I can find a pdf manual to download that comprehensively documents the menu structure (seldom the case). Having found the best product, I return to the brick and mortar store and purchase the item.

What happens sometimes in these endeavors is a manager comes up to me and accuses me of being a "price checker" for the competition. He will tell me that the license that governs my entry to the store prohibits this and that I am now banned from the store and police will be called in the future.

I assure him I am not a competitor's price checker, I am trying to get information about the product since his own people don't know anything. He is not interested. I am now banned from the store.

So then I buy from amazon. If the product sucks I return it. This is an inefficient process, I would much rather buy locally but local merchants aren't hearing of it.

<comment><USER7> _He will tell me that the license that governs my entry to the store prohibits this and that I am now banned from the store and police will be called in the future._

That is absolutely hilarious. I'm suddenly eager to walk into random Best Buys and try this. If it doesn't work, I'll try purchasing something and leaving without stopping at the receipt checker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is an ingenious move by Bezos & co. Not only do they train consumers to price-shop using Amazon (which usually beats brick & mortars), but they gain a treasure trove of information on their competitor's holiday pricing.

I'd hate to be a competitor Amazon takes seriously.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think Amazon will eventually open a big box store. They won't carry any inventory-- just one copy of each item. You scan the items you want and choose shipping to your home or next-day pickup at the store. With so many big box stores shutting down the real estate will be cheap. And with no inventory turnover there would be relatively no employee overhead. If walmart has 100k SKUs an Amazon storefront could offer 250k SKUs. It would be massively disruptive for items that are more difficult to browse/evaluate online (read: clothing).

<comment><USER10> Do you know if anybody has tried a showroom/ship model for those sorts of purchases at any scale?

I've wanted to see somebody try the model for a while, because without testing I have trouble guessing the balance between 'get to see things in person' and 'still have to wait a day or three for delivery' and I'd love to see the results.

<comment><USER11> Sears does this in some locations. They'll have a small storefront with a low amount of inventory. Some best-selling products and seasonal products sit on the floor/shelves to be seen, there are product specialists working in the store who know the catalog, and you order what you're looking for. The employee will answer your questions, then the item gets shipped to the store or to your home.

It's not a huge operation, but they do this in a lot of small towns across America, towns that can't support a full store but would still like the benefits of having a location to visit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Handling delivery of packages is sill a major annoyance of online shopping. I love Amazon but consumer-side logistics could use some serious improvement. The drive to reduce shipping prices as much as possible has definite downsides.

\- Items consistently damaged/stolen during shipment. \- Delivery of incorrect items/wrong address. \- No place to leave packages during the day if you live in an apartment with no doorman. \- Impossible to schedule delivery, especially before the first delivery attempt. It is unwise to order things while traveling. \- Carriers lie about delivery attempts and times. \- Distribution center for package pick up is 10 miles away and only open M-F 9-5.

<comment><USER13> Idea: a site designed to build and maintain a trusted local network of people who are at home or work all day, and who will receive packages for you, for a small commission.

<comment><USER14> So a PO Box that only charges when you get something? FedEx has a "Hold at Location" service.

<comment><USER13> Which is fine except when the location is 20 miles across town.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I honestly don't know how Amazon stays in business, their customer service is almost too good, they are the anti-paypal.

Just today I wrote them a detailed email about a problem I had with a product I bought and was expecting instructions on how to return it, etc. - <USER2> they just refunded the whole purchase price and told me to keep it. Kinda blew my mind.

</comment><comment><USER16> The problem here is this isn't a sustainable strategy long term. While Amazon has succeeded in killing the bookstore, this works because consumers are willing to accept "browsing" for books online.

The same is not true for many other types of goods, such as clothes. Shops are performing a useful function in letting consumers see, touch and try what they buy. So what Amazon is doing here basically parasitical, but a smart parasite doesn't kill it's host.

There's a reason why Jeff Bezos invested in SecondLife ( <http://goo.gl/PluAT> )...

<comment><USER17> > _The same is not true for many other types of goods, such as clothes. Shops > are performing a useful function in letting consumers see, touch and try > what they buy._

I used to feel the same way, but now I feel that this experience is highly overrated. If I could get away with buying all of my clothes on Zappos and Amazon (especially Zappos!), I would. They have plenty of pictures so that I know exactly what the clothes look like. Reviews from other users tell me _more_ about the quality than I would be able to discern by simply handling the clothing in a store (e.g. how well it holds up to wear and tear). If an article of clothing doesn't quite fit right or if the color is a little off from how it appeared online, free two-way shipping solves my problem quickly and easily. Even in the cases where I have to exchange an item because of size or color problems, the total experience still requires way less time and effort than a single trip to a brick-and-mortar store.

The only reason why I think that brick-and-mortar clothing stores might survive against sites like Zappos is that most of the women I know (especially my wife) _really_ enjoy the experience of shopping for clothes. Then again, I used to enjoy browsing electronics stores the same way, but I sure don't miss it anymore. Also, the aspect of clothes shopping that my wife seems to enjoy most is "getting deals:" using complicated combinations of sales, specials, and coupons to knock the price down as far as possible (in other words, to pay a price I would consider sane). It's not the only thing she enjoys about clothes shopping, but it's a very big part. If online clothes prices were to get sufficiently low, they would become such a "great deal" that I think she would be unable to resist. This process has already begun: she buys most of our daughters' clothes, and an increasing percentage of her own, online now.

<comment><USER18> And this is destroying your local retail market. Eventually, once all of the mom and pop shops are pushed out, we will be left with nothing but big box places that do their best to bone the consumer at every turn.

It is simply not possible to eek out anything more than a lower-middle class living owning a retail store any more. Honestly, it is pretty sad to watch. There are a lot of small, local businesses getting hammered away by these retail giants and are almost powerless to stop it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Last weekend, I was at a used books shop. I saw a guy with some iphone app, checking the price of _each and every_ book in the shop (there were lots of books for $1). The store people noticed, but didn't say anything, at least I didn't see them say anything. I bet they weren't happy about it.

How long before we just place an order, online, in a centralized place, and pick one of these:

cheapest

fastest delivery

highest quality

or some combination of these, and the app finds the best place to order (amazon, walmart etc) and automatically places the order?

<comment><USER20> I'll bet that guy was looking for steals as far as the $1 discount goes. He was checking the Amazon price to see what he could flip them for.

There were a couple of stories like this about flea markets and such on HN a while back.

<comment><USER19> Probably. I wouldn't have noticed at all, except for the beep sound, every single time his phone read the barcode. He looked experienced in this, as he was going through 15-20 books a minute (never reading the title or anything, pick the book, read the barcode, check price, move on).

<comment><USER21> Slate ran an interesting article last year about this aspect of the used book market: [http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2010/10/confes...](http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2010/10/confessions_of_a_usedbook_salesman.single.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is off topic but people are discussing Amazon and shipping so I figured I'd ask this here, because it's always confused me. Why do so many American based companies refuse to ship to Canada or limit what they do ship to Canada (Amazon, has Amazon.ca, but the selection is nothing compared to the .com, which does not ship to Canada)? It seems strange with things like NAFTA in place that companies would restrict their market power by eliminating a potential buying supply that for all intents and purposes is very similar (in terms of shipping costs, dollar value etc). So HN, what am I missing here?

<comment><USER23> I'm pretty sure that this is due to Canada's cultural protection laws, not US companies declining to take your money for some reason. this article talks about this a bit: [http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/amazon- given-g...](http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/amazon-given-green- light-to-set-up-shop-in-canada/article1532080/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> How long before stores start deliberately finding ways to kill cell phone reception?

<comment><USER25> The FCC strictly prohibits this I believe.

<comment><USER11> They can't prohibit a store from building thick cement walls or putting metal cages around the walls. The only thing banned is cell-blockers.

<comment><USER26> Once they start messing with that, legal or not, I feel there will be a huge political backlash. While the confrontation will be fascinating to watch, I believe the "stop messing with the cell phone" party will win.

<comment><USER11> It really depends on if you can prove malicious intent. I know in the back of Wal Mart, for example, my cell reception is terrible. There are metal walls everywhere, thick metal shelves, and the back of the store is made of concrete and rebar. When I go into a store, I really expect my cell service to drop out. I expect a lot of people have the same expectation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I really wonder how this will impact the commercial real estate market and if commercial real estate is an incredibly bad investment these days even at its current lows. As we all know, you have this obvious and unstoppable force of doing stuff now at home online. More and more people who used to go to stores now stay at home to shop and more and more people can perform their jobs via telecommuting rather than sitting in an office. Consequently, we have less and less need for commercial real estate space. My feeling is that in X years commercial real estate will be even more vastly under occupied and will only be occupied by services that cant be done online (restaurants, bars, night clubs, salon). Maybe as a result the expanding geographic human footprint on the earth will slow down a bit in that Walmart wont need be putting up its next super store.

</comment><comment><USER28> This is exactly what I've done at Fry's (50% of the time as they match prices lots of times) and any of the bigger bookstores ever since I got 3G. I'm surprised Amazon, or any other online retailer, has come up with this strategy this late.

<comment><USER26> I feel no remorse doing this at Fry's. But at a place such as Books Inc. (your basic friendly neighborhood book store), well, I'd rather just buy it from the store.

Borders is gone. If Books Inc goes too, downtown will be a much less interesting place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I remember reading a story about a year ago, reporting that stores would ask people using their smartphones to leave - they were worried that they were checking for lower prices in the area. This seems like it might be met with the same sort of attitude, at first.

<comment><USER30> When I'm in a store, I like to scan product's barcodes to see what the reviews are on Amazon. If it's a few dollars difference in price, then I'll still purchase the item, depending on if the rating is good enough. If the price is more than several dollars, though, I'll have to decide whether to pay extra for instant gratification, or if it's worth waiting a few days to get to me.

If a store attempts to stop me from scanning barcodes in this manner, I just mark it as a store that is not competitive price-wise and will no longer go there.

<comment><USER31> What you are saying is completely valid if you are comparing the prices between two physical stores in the same general area. The problem (which may or may not be an actual problem) is that the overhead of operating a store that allows browsing demands the price to not be competitive against amazon (if you are defining not competitive as 10% more expensive).

This will only become an increasing problem as more people do what is discussed in the article. Best Buy will have to handle all of the foot traffic for both their own sales and for Amazon sales, that will lower their conversion rates which means they have to have an even higher markup which will drive more people to buy online and so on. At some point the store will go out of business and you won't even be able to pay the $10 extra to be able to physically compare products even if you wanted to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> How many people who use Amazon frequently work at home or have a spouse/partner at home during the day? I would love to use Amazon for the bulk of my purchases, but I can't take delivery at work and there is no one to receive packages at my home during the day. It's completely infeasible for me to use Amazon except for occaisonal orders where it is worth taking time to stay home or visit the UPS depot to actually receive my orders.

Until Amazon solves this problem, they're not a serious competitor to traditional retail.

<comment><USER33> Depends where you live. With rare exceptions, for better of worse, shippers just leave packages at my door. (Or in the case of USPS hanging from my mailbox because the carrier doesn't want to take the time to drive down my driveway---grr.) Sometimes I have to sign a signature release form left on my door. But very rarely do I have to go to the post office or UPS depot, which I agree would be a real pain if I had to do it for every mail order purchase.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I was shopping for toys for my 4 year old this black friday, and I scanned a few of them ( if not all ) and the discounted toys where at the same price as Amazon.

eg: Lego Train Set

Store: $21.99

Amazon: $19.99

while the store price is marked as 20% off, and the Amazon price is marked as Prime, i went with Amazon Prime for the most part, the free shipping always wins for me, I wish this promotion was already active back then.

</comment><comment><USER11> Now when are they going to add this feature to their Windows Phone app? Windows Phone already has the capability built-in (through Bing Vision) to scan barcodes and price-match, but Amazon's app adds more features on top of that. Kinda ridiculous that they haven't added that to their app on this platform.

</comment><comment><USER35> It sounds gimmicky when you add on top of the 3 item, 2 day, and 5% off restrictions that it's only on select products and valid in select stores. Nice headline news, but shouldn't Amazon be looking to find people who'll become long-term users?

<comment><USER36> This is finding long term users. It's getting people into the habit of checking Amazon's prices using their phones. Generally, Amazon is competitive enough that they can beat brick and mortar prices, especially when you take sales tax into account (in some states, at least).

It's also trying to get people who don't normally shop online to try it out, under the assumption that once they do it a few times, they'll feel more comfortable doing it in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Given Amazon's history of displaying different prices to different users, I wonder if they'll use this technology to optimize their prices to beat a specific competitor but perhaps not go as low as they could.

<comment><USER38> Not this again. Amazon does not do this in the way that you imply. They try to have a single page for a given item (not always successfully). On that page, different users may see an offer for the SAME item from a DIFFERENT merchant - the price is set by the merchant, not Amazon. If you don't like it (and if there is a choice) click on the "N more used & new" link close to the buy button to see all the offers from various merchants.

Amazon themselves DO NOT show different prices to different customers for the same item sold by the "primary" Amazon merchant. However, they also run a merchant called "Warehouse Deals" which is basically B-grade stock. Obviously this is cheaper, with limited availability.

Disclaimer: ex-employee.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> This is what I was kind of doing for books in Barnes and Noble: check the contents, read a few pages, then buy the e-book or physical book online. With this app it would make it super convenient to compare prices and order instantly after doing such a thing. I would imagine this will extend to clothing and other things, i.e. people will try the clothes and look at stuff in physical stores then order online if there is no rush to have the item. Who would have thought the online world would be such a force to reckon with?

</comment><comment><USER40> This is why stores should start offering free wifi - so they can see how much this is affecting their bottom line.

<comment><USER41> But wouldn't the store have to be sniffing the actual content of the traffic? Not a great move if it got out, and I might just assume that's happening anyway and not use it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I love this. Stores hate it when people do stuff like this, and that's what makes it so fun.</comment>


Rust Language Cheat Sheet - <AUTHOR> https://cheats.rs/ <comment><USER2> I love the design of this site. It is compact, dense and to the point. I think we need to port cheatsheets for most popular languages in this format. There is also Learn Y in X minutes[1] which I often refer to but a cheatsheet like this where everything is neatly organized would be a huge help. I jump between 3-4 languages everyday and it is a pain in the ass to Google syntax, frankly embarrassing that I have to.

[1] [https://learnxinyminutes.com/](https://learnxinyminutes.com/)

<comment><USER3> Oh, my! I have spend countless hours on the web looking for (and successfully finding, of course) cheat sheets for all sorts of languages, but somehow I had never come across this site. This is extremely well done. Thank you,spectramax, for basically revolutionizing my life this morning! :)

<comment> andrewl-hn Surprisingly, [https://learnxinyminutes.com/docs/bash/](https://learnxinyminutes.com/docs/bash/) is the best resource out there to learn shell scripting. This page basically turned me from a novice who could only write two commands with | or && between them to a competent shell programmer. My shell scripts have functions, descriptive variables, error handling, good formatting, etc.

<comment><USER4> I find shellcheck to be really great to go to the step beyound. It find a lot of things that make most shell script brittle and teach you some best practice.

Add shfmt on top and you are good to go.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great quick reference, but a wasted opportunity to call the site "cheate.rs".

</comment><comment><USER6> The explanation of lifetimes linked here is really great - I think this goes a little further than just a cheat sheet. Seems to be more like excellent Clif notes.

<comment><USER7> Lifetimes are about where I bowed out of Rust. I haven't worked with C++ before, or really ever thought about borrowing or lifetimes, so it never really clicked in my head. What's worse is the Rust community's desire to remind you to "Just read the book". Maybe this would be a worthwhile read to get back into it?

<comment><USER8> The Book by Steve Klabnik looks fantastic for newer programmers, but as an experienced programmer I did find it difficult to get into. On the other hand, the O'Reilly book by Jim Blandy and Jason Orendorff is just amazing for experienced programmers (and would be unsuitable for new programmers). It's the best programming language book I've ever read. It's great that both books exist, filling those two niches.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Author here. Thank you all for your comments, issues and pull requests. You are amazing!

</comment><comment><USER10> Any plans on adding Box, Rc, RefCell, and the differences thereof? That's the thing that trips me up the most right now.

<comment><USER11> To give you a quick summary:

Box is (mostly) used in two specific circumstances: when you want to have ownership of something that lives longer than a single function, and to create heterogeneous lists of things (a "trait object").

Rc is used when you need multiple ownership of something, and you're not going to be sharing those things between threads.

RefCell is a type that moves the borrow checker to runtime; it's useful when you're trying to mutate something, and Rust's static checking can't tell that it's okay. If you mess it up, you'll get a panic. This often happens in combination with Rc, since Rc makes something have multiple owners.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you had an equivalent Cheat Sheet for other programming languages (no programs or opinions), which language would look best?

<comment><USER13> Smalltalk. Or Forth.

This cheatsheet is syntactic, both have very little syntax. You can famously exercise all of Smalltalk's syntax on half a postcard: [https://miro.medium.com/max/1000/1*Aa0AEoUgjZov8yrgdplsIg.pn...](https://miro.medium.com/max/1000/1*Aa0AEoUgjZov8yrgdplsIg.png)

(the example doesn't feature primitives calls, not because they don't fit — a primitive call would be <primitive: xxx> — but because their use case is extremely specific to _implementing_ a system).

<comment><USER14> Scheme has to fall somewhere between Smalltalk and Forth for quantity of syntax too. To me, these are the prettiest languages.

<comment><USER13> I didn't mention lisps because I'm never sure how to classify "built-in" special forms: should they be considered normal names and thus omitted from a syntactic overview or should they be considered keywords and included?

On the one hand they usually have non-normal evaluation and custom mini- languages, on the other so do most macros otherwise you'd just use a function.

But yeah, these are the sort of languages I think of as "simple": small languages which reach "smallness" by giving access to a limited set of extremely powerful constructs.

<comment><USER14> Yes, and I'm not sure the R*RS standards even specify which special forms are fundamental vs implemented by macros. However, Smalltalk has some keywords too. In any case, it could be a concise cheat sheet.

<comment><USER13> > However, Smalltalk has some keywords too.

Indeed but they're all on the postcard above (true, false, nil, super and self).

Smalltalk's closest thing to built-in special forms would be primitives but they have a generic "shape" and they're pretty much always used as implementation details for the "normal" messages which system users interact with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Pretty solid list, only thing I saw missing was binary representation for literals("0b0000_1000") which is really handy when working with micros or other things that use a lot of flags or bits.

</comment><comment><USER16> As a Rust noob, what's the rhyme or reason for semicolons?

I see the example:

       struct S {}

but here the semicolon is required:

       type T = S;

or you get weird errors. It's hard to predict when a semicolon is required at least for type declarations, is there an underlying principle?

<comment><USER17> They appear to be similar to the way most other languages like C and Java use semicolons, where a semicolon isn't required after a code block (generally denoted by squiggly brackets), but is required at the end of most (all?) other statements.

<comment><USER18> The most confusing thing ever is, of course, the fact that C struct/union and C++ class declarations _do_ require a semicolon after the closing curly bracket. This is because type declarations are permitted to occur inline in certain contexts, notably as the type specifier in a variable declaration.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Ralf Biedert, thanks so much for this! I've been learning Rust via the Rust Book for the past few months and this will help so, so much - fantastic work.

<comment><USER20> I know everyone says how good Rust's documentation is but I tried learning Rust with The Rust Book and found it frustrating: too long and wordy on the easy bits and without useful insight on the hard bits. I ended up buying Programming Rust by Jim Blandy [0] on a recommendation from HN comments and found it must easier to learn from. I'm already familiar with several other languages, which that book assumes, so your milage may vary.

[0] [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Programming-Rust-Jim- Blandy/dp/1491...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Programming-Rust-Jim- Blandy/dp/1491927283)

<comment><USER21> You're not alone. I found the Rust book very hard going, whereas Programming Rust was just the right amount of rigor and interesting examples for me.

<comment><USER11> This is why I'm glad we have both; I don't think one resource could ever satisfy everyone. Pumped to see Rust in Action getting closer to publication too!

<comment><USER22> I just bought Rust in Action a couple weeks ago (after having gone up to chapter 11 in the No Starch book). It's definitely good to have both. I'll probably do 1/2 the new book, finish the 1st one and then finish the new one.

I did pretty much the same thing with Dave Thomas's Programming Elixir book, bailing halfway through, using a 2nd resource to consolidate, and then returning to finish it.

I like learning Rust so far. The main thing I wonder is what kinds of projects are good to do while learning. I went from Node to Rails to Phoenix and normally I just rewrite web apps I've previously created in the language I'm learning. With Rust, it feels like I should build something different, something lower-level like a tool, an emulator or a 2D game.

<comment><USER23> > I like learning Rust so far. The main thing I wonder is what kinds of > projects are good to do while learning. I went from Node to Rails to Phoenix > and normally I just rewrite web apps I've previously created in the language > I'm learning. With Rust, it feels like I should build something different, > something lower-level like a tool, an emulator or a 2D game.

If your experience is web apps, I would stick with that; Rust has a great web app story in the form of at least two mature frameworks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Really enjoyed the fact that there was an "Idiomatic Rust" section.

</comment><comment><USER25> > unsafe {}

> If you need to crash your code in production

heh :-)

</comment><comment><USER26> The first ' in '' is red and the second one is black. Does the syntax highlighter maybe work on ucs-16 characters wrongly?

</comment><comment><USER27> Anyone remember when rust had ~ and @?

</comment><comment><USER28> [https://archive.is/utKnz](https://archive.is/utKnz)

</comment><comment><USER29> This is great. Nice work!

</comment><comment><USER30> Just to be funny, it's a Cheatbook.

</comment><comment><USER31> Very nice!</comment>


Show HN: Pictuo is a visual RSS reader - <AUTHOR> http://pictuo.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Pictuo is basically a visual RSS reader at its core. I'm a designer and I was tired of using text oriented readers like Google Reader to consume all my image based feeds. I've been working on this for awhile, but I recently removed the invitation system. Feedback welcome!

<comment><USER2> Great idea! UI is also great and easy to use but you should put an example for the custom feed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not sure what you mean. Do you mean the landing page screen? I am in the middle of a redesign of that page. Hoping to have it up this week.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's great stuff! Perhaps a tiny bit slow to load images - can you scale back the number per page or something to speed it up?

</comment><comment><USER4> Nice. The world is finally ready for this!</comment>


Web-APIs integration platform [Rate my MVP] - <AUTHOR> http://elastic.io

<comment><AUTHOR> Please review our MVP. We are doing node.js based web-api integration platform. Example: displaying data from excell file on the Google-maps, or synchronizing wufoo.com registration form results with mailchimp.com. In short everything that has an API.</comment>


Rongorongo - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rongorongo <comment><USER2> I love that this language, with no translation and no meaning or sounds for each character, is getting Unicode fields.

<comment><USER3> Another language, Linear A, from the Minoan civilisation (centred on Crete), is also undeciphered and has Unicode codepoints: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_A](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_A)

<comment><USER4> Nitpicking here: Linear A is a language script, we don't know whether rongorongo is a script or just decoration. Also, the character set of Linear A is pretty much the same as the one for Linear B (which most likely adopted them), which is ancient greek.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Larger image (than Wikipedia) [https://imgur.com/a/Li0zdP4](https://imgur.com/a/Li0zdP4)

<comment><USER6> Interesting how much repetition with slight modding there is. I see a lot of birds, bugs, plants, and maybe people (with eyes)? Really fascinating.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> >>For example, the Atlas of Languages states, "It was probably used as a memory aid or for decorative purposes, not for recording the Rapanui language of the islanders." If this is the case, then there is little hope of ever deciphering it.

</comment><comment><USER8> An ornate and fascinating, possible independent invention of writing, represented by a 649x270 130kb jpg image on Wikipedia.

<comment><USER9> It's actually a sharpened version of the original image, which is 35kb.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rongorongo_B-v_Aruku- Kure...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rongorongo_B-v_Aruku- Kurenga_\(color\).jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm always so skeptical that historians and archaeologists and such have any idea what they're talking about or if it's all just a self-reinforcing web of made up stuff founded through the human talent to find patterns where they aren't actually present.

If I wanted to challenge the claims made on that wiki page with a lot of "how did you come to that conclusion?" and drill all the way down, is it possible? Is it all founded on solid ground in referenced materials? Does it ever get challenged deeply by those whose academic careers don't depend on buying in to it all?

Maybe I'm being way too paranoid.

<comment><USER11> Wikipedia isn't the forum for any of that. Journals, books, and other literature are the place for discussions about ontology and methodology.

My experience with archaeology is that it's more self critical than you probably expect.</comment></comment>


SF educators still waiting for promised teacher housing - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/SF-educators-still-waiting-for-promised-teacher-10929900.php <comment><USER2> This is a serious failure of my city, I really wish people started doing the right thing around here.

</comment><comment><USER3> What a waste of time. Raise taxes and pay them more.

<comment><USER4> Absolutely. What a silly way to subsidize a salary.</comment></comment>


Yahoo Pays 30MM for Summly To Acquire Team, Team Did Not Build App. - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/the-17-year-old-that-yahoo-paid-30-million-was-renting-his-startups-core-technology-2013-3

<comment><USER2> This article doesn't even mention that only 2 Summly employees are joining Yahoo (oh Business Insider).

> _SRI International, with the help of the Summly team, built the > summarisation technology behind Summly. They own a small share in the > company and are helping us improve the algorithm._

This lends more credibility to the theory that Yahoo wanted to buy SRI / SRI's technology, but that since the technology was either licensed or co-developed with Summly in a way that Summly would have to be bought out as well.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is bullshit. There's a who's-who of A-list investors who put their money into a 17-year-old's company. The kind of people who didn't get rich by putting their money into the hands of a 17-year-old. They knew something you didn't. And that something is quite probably that somebody at Yahoo! had the authority to invest a large amount of money and make a lot of people wealthier in the process.

By Occam's razor, the most likely explanation is simple corruption.

<comment><USER4> By Occam's razor they wouldn't have done it through a 17 year old.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've seen more innovation on Hacker News in an _hour_ than this company seems to have made in 2 years.

</comment><comment><USER6> ahahahaha, Explain to me how you bought 30M of value from a kid who still needs to go to school?</comment>


Trump Knows You Better Than You Know Yourself - <AUTHOR> https://antidotezine.com/2017/01/22/trump-knows-you/ <comment><USER2> The computing part of this sounds fairly straightforward to me; if the psychological things described in the article are real, then no doubt you would be able to measure and exploit them in the ways described. But the psychology strikes me as black magic. Is anyone qualified to comment on how plausible it is?

</comment><comment><USER3> If you feel like the article is too long, you can watch this 11 minutes presentation: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8Dd5aVXLCc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8Dd5aVXLCc). It summarizes their methodology.

I took the presentation link from the article.

</comment><comment><USER4> This seems suspect. This article seems to poke some holes: [https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-12-08/no-big- da...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-12-08/no-big-data-didn-t- win-the-u-s-election)

</comment><comment><USER5> So this is very intriguing.

The whole time while I'm reading this, and it's a good piece, I can't help but think if I'm reading some fake news?

Is this for real? I for one hate this whole I'll give you all my private info for a chance to use your free services and tools. I don't know how others feel.

<comment><USER6> After reading, I think it's obvious that the author has seriously overestimated the impact of the technology. It could have had as great an effect as the author's tone implies but I'm not sure the evidence is available.</comment></comment>