Elizabeth Holmes representing herself in Arizona civil case - <AUTHOR> https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/01/24/theranos-founder-holmes-phones-in-to-court-hearing-solo-after-lawyers-say-she-stiffed-them-report/ <comment><USER2> She's spending her money on the criminal case to keep her out of jail. She is 100% going to file for bankruptcy so she doesn't care about the civil case.

<comment><USER3> Does a bankruptcy eliminate a civil judgement? Why wouldn't everyone file and wipe out their civil case debt then? Seems too easy of a workaround.

<comment><USER4> Bankruptcy can discharge most judgements, but you actually have to be bankrupt. If you have $190 million and have a judgement against you of $200 million, you don't get to file bankruptcy and discharge the whole thing because you can't pay the full amount. You'll end up paying most of the judgement before you are actually bankrupt and can discharge the remaining amount.

<comment><USER5> Caveat: Some assets are protected during bankruptcy proceedings, 401ks federally, IRAs in most states, primary residence up to unlimited value in Florida.

Not legal advice: if you're going bankrupt with flush 401ks, IRAs, and a luxury residence, Florida is not a bad state to do it in.

<comment><USER6> Which is why many pro athletes move their residency to Florida the day they sign their multi-million dollar contracts and buy the biggest mansions they can afford.

<comment><USER7> That's the bonus. No state income tax of FL is your primary residence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What this article (but not others) fails to mention is that these lawyers are some of the best-paid in Silicon Valley: Cooley LLP. I know an acquisition where Cooley walked away with more than any employee. Cooley isn't going to be missing much.

I'm surprised Cooley would even take her as a client given the criminal case and her net worth versus the liabilities. I would have thought they're dump her years ago. "Lawyers getting stiffed" is a pretty biased headline. "Vultures discover empty carcass is actually empty" is more accurate.

<comment><USER9> David Boies [1] represented Microsoft in Microsoft vs. United States (USG won), SCO vs IBM (IBM won), he represented Harvey Weinstein, and he represented Virginia Roberts Giuffre vs Jeffrey Epstein (suspect committed suicide). He also took part in Bush vs Gore. He represented Oracle in Oracle vs Google (Google won), and he represented tobacco companies.

I'm not sure if he's still part of Theranos legal team (in whatever way) but he surely was in the past.

The point is, lawyers don't always end up standing on the right side of justice. They almost always end up getting on the paid side of the spectrum, though. Especially if they have a nice curriculum.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Boies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Boies)

<comment> blaser-waffle To paraphrase a lawyer friend of mine: "you don't represent the man, you don't represent the act, you represent the principle: everyone has a right to legal advice."

That taking morally reprehensible clients often pay well is just icing on the cake.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I remember reading an argument about Bernie Madoff: he'll spend the rest of his life in jail, but nobody can take away the 20 years when he was king of the world.

Holmes got half that. I wonder if they were worth it, or if she spent them dreading being found out.

<comment><USER11> I think deep down it's not enjoyable to be on top while knowing that there is a very good chance that you will be found out. I think is a very stressful experience.

<comment><USER12> These people are not normal

Imagine you defraud someone of 10 million. Then you think 'no, I want more'. I cannot put myself in their shoes, but I would like their shoes to go to jail for a long time.

Financial fraud should be treated like robbery.

<comment><USER13> 1% of people are psychopaths, according to internet surveys. I don't know how accurate they are, but assuming they are in the ballpark, I can imagine Madoff doing all of this and sleep good at night if he lacked all empathy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm not a fan of documentaries, but once this is all over I would definitely watch one on this. She was so young when she started the company, it's hard to believe she intended to defraud people from the start. I can't excuse any harm she caused, but I imagine she just got in over her head and couldn't let it go.

Edit: read some more about the people involved, sounds like it was worse than I thought. Sad :(

<comment><USER15> > She was so young when she started the company, it's hard to believe she > intended to defraud people from the start.

Why do you think that young people are immune from doing bad things? From all accounts, it seems she was a a sociopath.

<comment><USER16> Not sure why people are down voting you - based on what's out there she very likely _is_.

<comment><USER17> The point is logically disconnected from the question of whether the business plan at age 19 was to sell fake blood tests.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I fully expect that with her superior intellect that she'll deliver value to her defense the same way she delivered value to her investors and customers.

<comment><USER19> She'll tell the judge she's doing the work herself, but secretly in the back rooms will be a full team of lawyers doing the actual hoping nobody actually looks behind the curtain while raising VC money to support the case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> There's no real point in defending yourself in a civil trial if you can't afford the legal fees to start with (civil trials don't have criminal penalties -- you'll just pay damages, worst case).

Theory is she probably paid a lump sum for defense for her in criminal trial, which is absolutely the rational thing to do.

Holmes will, best case, come out of this whole saga bankrupt but free. Whether you think this is appropriate punishment for defrauding rich investors is up to you _.

_ yes, there was also over/underdiagnosis in Arizona. That's not the criminal trial though

<comment><USER21> > Whether you think this is appropriate punishment for defrauding rich > investors is up to you.

Since you almost seem to be soliciting an opinion... I think that the investors also bear a huge amount of the blame for not doing enough due diligence and investing in a company that was so incredibly mismanaged and corrupt with cronyism.

Without the ridiculous valuations and lack of oversight by experienced biotech hand, Holmes would never have been enabled to commit the "fraud" which was pretty evident to many outsiders after not much time at all.

That an investigative journalist revealed the deception, rather than the board realizing it and changing course first, is a huge indictment of the investors' position in our economy of being able to make decisions with hundreds of millions of dollars at a go.

<comment><USER22> Young, female founder, acts like the next Steve Jobs, claimed to have some kind of miracle technology... It was the perfect story. Every investor, board member, and media hack had the X-Files "I want to believe" poster hanging on their wall.

They kind of deserved to get swindled. The patients, not so much...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Has anyone dug through the old HN posts about Theranos? I remember people being highly skeptical. How close were they?

<comment><USER24> Ehh, nah:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6349349](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6349349)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9823638](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9823638)

<comment><USER25> This guy dropped by to lay down the truth: [https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=medman77](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=medman77)

His one and only comment. I wonder who he was.

<comment><USER26> That's actually kind of wild. This person nailed it to a T, and as their only comment of all time.

<comment><USER27> While hindsight is 20/20, most of their stuff he is talking about was visible to see , it is just that because VCs were putting money we all thought they must have done due diligence better than us armchair commentators, same with Wework .

Ultimately until shit hits the fan, everyone would naturally trust the guy backing his belief with cash better than anyone else's analysis.

If there was market to short startups perhaps it could be different

<comment><USER28> The VC I worked with at the time definitely did their due diligence, but it wasn't easy. When Theranos visited their office, they refused to sign an NDA, which immediately made the VCs suspicious. So they sent an employee to Walgreens to get the THeranos test and noticed that it included a full blood draw (when it should have just been the "nanotainer" or whatever). At that point they believed that Theranos was using their competitor's machines to implement the tests beause their tech didn't work yet.

<comment><USER27> The ones you worked for defn didn't put money , I am not sure the ones who did put money did any due diligence, if they did and knowingly put money they are no different from homes they were trying scam the next bigger guy then

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Bold move. Hope she spent the past year or so brushing up on legal knowledge

<comment><USER30> Not necessarily:

"She told the judge she wouldn't make any arguments, but would rely on arguments made by lawyers for the other defendants in the case, Bloomberg reported Friday, citing an unnamed lawyer said to be present at the proceedings."

<comment><USER29> That strikes me as even bolder. Implicit assumption that the argument works for both people. One small diff in circumstances and then she is lawyerless and without a Defence

<comment><USER31> Would not even require difference in circumstances, seems like the other defendants would be likely to just pin the blame on her if she isn't going to defend herself.

<comment><USER29> oh snap. Good point. As evil as it seems that might just work

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Prioritizing staying out of prison over civil judgements you can extinguish in bankruptcy. Prudent strategy considering constrained resources.

Disclaimer, personal opinion: Holmes should receive life for her actions in contributing to knowingly providing inaccurate test results people relied on for medical decisions.

[https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/07/05/theran...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/07/05/theranos- elizabeth-holmes-lawsuits-patients-harm-arizona/742008002/)

[https://www.azcentral.com/story/money/business/health/2017/0...](https://www.azcentral.com/story/money/business/health/2017/04/18/theranos- reaches-465-million-settlement-arizona-blood-testing/100582618/)

<comment><USER32> She should be able to squeeze enough money out of the other high profile poeople in Theranos for her legal fees so not to spill stuff about them.

<comment><USER33> Are you suggesting she's blackmailing the others involved in the company? Is there any proof of this?

<comment><USER34> It's common for multiple groups to be defendants in the same civil suit. So, any of them can end up paying for the defense of all of them. For example suing the doctor and hospital for a botched surgery.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> The other sad thing about this, is that anyone who comes up with a legitimate tech along this line, will probably fail to get funding now

</comment><comment><USER36> Let this be a lesson of why it's a bad to let growth get ahead of science.

</comment><comment><USER37> I wonder if she is still using the fake voice in court.

</comment><comment><USER38> [deleted]

<comment><USER39> Subverting FDA regulations is the difference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Wow, who could have predicted that Holmes wouldn't pay her bills?

</comment><comment><USER32> "A man who is his own lawyer has a fool for his client"

<comment><USER41> Pretty much. Look how not listening to lawyers worked for Ross Ulbright or Hans Reiser. Both suffered from a severe case of Dunning Kruger. Both could have gotten off much lighter had they shut the fuck up and listened to their lawyers...

Only super arrogant people or crazy people are dumb enough to ignore their lawyer or go without.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Holmes is about to learn the limits of what a dewey eyed woman speaking in a fake baritone voice can do.

Hope she spends the rest of her days in prison for her deception.

</comment><comment><USER43> Did they steal the image captain? Seems a bit dated...

> Elizabeth Holmes dropped out of Stanford in 2003 as a 19-year-old to start > Theranos, a company now poised to disrupt the medical diagnostic test > market. She spoke about the company's vision at their headquarters in Palo > Alto, Calif., Thursday afternoon July 3, 2014. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News > Group)

<comment><USER44> Steal from themselves? The caption is just copied from their original story that used that photo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> How is what she did different from all the other silicon valley startups that fail? They get a buttload of money to develop something and then they cannot. From what I've read, most VCs today dont even expect to make their money off of an exit or an IPO, rather from their fees-but that's besides the point.

<comment><USER46> Pets.com didn't get anyone killed. There's an excellent chance that Theranos did.

<comment><USER47> No chance, at least one person did die: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Gibbons_(biochemist)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Gibbons_\(biochemist\))</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to sell a private version of my web application to clients? - <AUTHOR>

Hi all, I am building a web application with ruby on rails and some people have already asked for the ability to host the application on their own servers. They want to do this because they need to store sensitive data. I'm not particularly concerned about the fact that they could steal the source code, but rather on how to manage upgrades.
My idea was to setup git for them, so they can automatically download the current version.
I know github does something similar and I would like to know if someone has an idea about how they do it. <comment><USER3> If you go down this route of letting your clients install the software on their own servers, you are essentially selling enterprise software.

That's not necessarily a bad thing.. For one, you can charge quite a bit more for the software, support, configuration, etc. Just understand that it's a very different kind of business and sales model than a typical web application - know beforehand what you're getting yourself into.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the explanation. I decided I will not offer this as the standard solution. I'll rather offer it to those who really can't use a web application and are willing to pay an extra.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> One thing to consider. If you decide to host remotely, be prepared to give support. If you don't mind it though you will have a nice (depending on your view) source of extra income.

A better alternative might then be the opposite; create a hosted environment in which you provide them with the security they desire.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll try to look at this possibility, thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why don't you do the opposite: Create a hosted version that gives them the security they desire.

There's been plenty written on the disadvantages of hosting remotely - <USER2> around the inevitable support that comes with it.

Like Ford said: I've I asked people what they wanted they would have said faster horses.

</comment><comment><USER6> could set up something in the private version that pings home to find out if there's a new version available, and if there is, provides the download link or similar.</comment>


Work has started on the next generation of Apache web server - <AUTHOR> http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Work-has-started-on-the-next-generation-of-Apache-1203465.html

<comment><USER3> The 2.3 branch is a testing branch (that was alpha before 2.3.11, now is beta after 2.3.11).

What we will see is 2.4 (general/public release). And it won't really be stable / product-ready until about 6 months after: 2.4.8.

<http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.3/new_features_2_4.html>

<http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.3/developer/new_api_2_4.html>

The MPM for Windows is really great, it takes full advantage of the threaded nature of processes on Windows ... You can spin up 100s of threads in 1 process without much of an impact and have each thread do 1 connection (with a low 1 or 2 seconds keepalive to keep the client).

I'm mostly interested in Apache on Windows and have toyed around with the idea of including v2.3 in my WAMP distribution ( <http://www.devside.net/server/webdeveloper> ) in the experimental branch, with also some MySQL replacements such as MariaDB and Drizzle.

</comment><comment><USER4> Apache hacker here. AMA.

<comment><USER5> Why is apache so slow compared to Nginx, Cherokee, Lighttpd and many other web server softwares?

<comment><USER4> Different design goals. Apache is meant to be robust, extensible and portable.

* Robust: that's reflected in its internal API that makes it near impossible to leak resources.

* Extensible: witness the gazillion modules out there.

* Portable: compiles and runs on very exotic or outdated systems. SCO, IRIX, Digital UNIX, VMS, the list goes on.

nginx and such were designed from the ground up with performance in mind - <USER2> with success - but the trade-off is a lack of portability and an API that is much harder to program to.

<comment><USER6> Well gee. It's been a while since I've used Digital UNIX, Irix, SCO, or VMS.

Because they've become totally irrelevant.

Seems like a waste of resources when there are more pressing things to do than worry about the 5 people who (a) use VMS and (b) demand a bleeding-edge Apache.

<comment><USER7> No need to be so acerbic. They are providing a valuable service to you, for free. Apache is older, much more ubiquitous, supports more modules, has a more familiar setup and configuration system for many people, runs on more platforms, etc. It has more legacy issues, which are why it's so popular, but also why it moves slower. Nginx is much newer, doesn't have the same legacy issues, and so could afford to focus on speed.

There's a reason that Apache is installed on just about every random web host you can find, and has a module for every language or environment you need to deel with, while Nginx is a bit more of a specialty web server, usually used for dedicated sites that can spend the time to tune carefully for the highest performance. They both have their place.

It's great that Apache is still innovating moving towards loadable MPMs as well as adding an evented MPM. But it's not a bad thing that they're moving slower than a new server like Nginx; there's room for more than one great free web server in the world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interesting now lighttpd, nginx and apache are all going to have some degree of integration of Lua in request processing. Its really useful having a real programming language built right in.

<comment><USER9> Agreed, and lua is so nice to embed that it makes it easy. The only thing that compares is tcl, and, well... Yeah, go lua!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Does this mean that apache2 + the Lua support are going to be the next node.js? On a more serious note, this is super-exciting.

<comment><USER11> If you're interested in something like Node.js for Lua, check out Ignacio Burgueño's LuaNode.

<https://github.com/ignacio/LuaNode>

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> One of the things that impresses me the most with apache httpd (except for stability and configurability) is the amazing level of integration with perl, not much of a perl hacker myself, but I've done a little development of C stuff for apache, and from what I can see all of the C api is also accessible from mod_perl.

</comment><comment><USER13> Apache has a lot of distance to make up. Nginx with PHP-FPM and uWSGI are very fast and light on the memory. I also save time with my setup by not having to configure both Nginx and Apache (since Apache is way too slow to serve static content).</comment>


Startup Crawl during RubyConf (in SF, 11/20/09) - <AUTHOR> http://www.startupcrawl.com/

<comment><USER2> Did a YC-alum organize this?

<comment><USER3> I was chatting with some scribd folks today, and apparently they wanted to organize this because rubyconf was going on?</comment></comment>


Survey reveals bias against Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 - <AUTHOR> http://www.bostonherald.com/jobfind/news/technology/view/2011_0613survey_reveals_bias_against_microsofts_windows_phone_7_survey_reveals_bias_against_windows_phone_7/srvc=home&position=also <comment><USER2> I used Windows Mobile 5 and 6. The hill (of their own making) that Microsoft has to climb to get me to even remotely think of them as the provider of a modern smartphone platform is monumental.

</comment><comment><USER3>
        "It's time for a phone to save us from our phones,"

I haven't seen WinMo 7 commercials, but is this really their motto? Really?

I own an iPhone 3GS and a Galaxy S and for the first time in 10 years I'm actually excited about my phones - and Microsoft is telling me I need to be saved? Even though I worked really hard escaping the lock-in they've had on me with Windows and I still have to explain my choice of software to people that still send me files that can only be opened with Windows-software?

I can't believe the nerve of some people.

<comment> dorian-graph > I haven't seen WinMo 7 commercials

Really? Well, here's a simple starting place. The videos + commentary will should help explain their slogan.

<http://mashable.com/2010/10/11/windows-phone-7-ads/> (And the SGS is an awesome phone)

<comment><USER3> OK, that kind of makes some sense - apparently that quote needs some context.

Still, Microsoft's commercials are awful as always.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> While I agree that the shit-pile Microsoft faces is of their own making, I do think that it is bias, and a really clear bias.

I'm an android/linux user, and it is quite clear that a lot of the IT community who don't use Microsoft products have a fair amount of contempt for the Microsoft OS, and their products.

The products really should be judged on their merits and innovations rather than the history/marketing of the company. In that respect, for once, Microsoft seems to have done a good job, with a new interface which genuinely seems to be trying to do something new.

It is unfair to immediately dismiss anything, without seeing how it pans out, which I saw a hell of a lot of both when Nokia sided with Microsoft and when Microsoft acquired Skype. The bias is clearly there, and it is not justified.

</comment><comment><USER5> I think bias might be a little too strong a word. While there's always going to be some bias, my guess is the reluctance to promote WP7 is half lack of training (have the MS reps been by for a morning training session, did they bring marketing materials, and did they leave their contact info?) and half skepticism that the device is probably a lame duck.

If MS is really selling the thing for 1 cent online, that also creates a perception that the phone has little value (if they're just _giving_ it away!), and reinforces its small market share.

They've been thoroughly beaten to the punch in every way by their competitors and no amount of playing catch up is likely going to help them.In the words of Sun Tzu, "Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win."

</comment><comment><USER6> Instead of millions of dollars on tv commercials (or in addition to), I don't understand why MS doesn't use $ to place real working devices in major stores. Apple's done this very well. Pretty much every best buy has working iphones that you can touch and play with to see how it _really_ feels, instead of a cardboard cutout 'screen' slapped on an empty case. This would give them at least as much ROI as the Seinfeld and WP7 commercials. It might even allow the sales reps to, gasp, touch a working model on the floor.

</comment><comment><USER7> Asking around shops in downtown Boston hardly classifies as a 'survey', more like 'crappy journalism'.

<comment><USER6> It's not a survey, correct, but I'd hardly call it crappy. Reporting on firsthand experiences in multiple shops, and noticing that _each one_ tried to talk her out of a Windows phone and in to something else indicates _something's_ at play. Diff commission structure biased against WP7 devices. Cultural bias?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> There's a big fat ad in the middle of the page visually and verbally trumpeting the Boston Herald's availability on Blackberry, Android and iPhone.

But not Windows Phone 7.

(In fairness, "Your phone not listed?" is displayed at the bottom of the ad.)

</comment><comment> dorian-graph Reminds me of the Mojave experiment Microsoft conducted.

<comment><USER9> Sounds like a "sponsored" piece of journalism.</comment></comment>


Command-line Fu  - <AUTHOR> http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/browse/sort-by-votes <comment><USER2> It would be really cool if shell lines included some sort of hyper-linking to man pages based on the grammar of each shell command and its arguments. Have one line that is the hyperlinked command, and another than has the command in a textfield. So rather than just a site of semi-magical incantations, it can be a catalyst for exploratory learning.

It is a little-pie-in-the-sky, I admit. The top command when I visited was `sudo`. What argument `sudo` takes depends upon the shell the user is using to execute `sudo`. Perhaps this could be a preference set somewhere, along with the OS being used. And maybe have a sister site where people contribute shell command grammars in some standardized syntax. I wonder how many people would be willing to provide those, though. Hmm.

This wasn't mentioned in the prior submission of this site, and it didn't occur to me until seeing it again. Just thinking out loud.

<comment><USER3> I think that's a great idea, though it's worth noting that the command line options to commands can be subtly different between Linux and BSD (and sometimes different Linux distros). It helps when people use the long options (--quiet rather than -q), when available; they're usually easier to translate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This site was submitted for review here not too long ago.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=467692>

</comment><comment><USER5> There's also the very similar <http://www.shell-fu.org/>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> for the osx crowd, try:

      man -t UNIX_COMMAND | open -f -a preview

<comment><USER6> Cute. An artefact from a time when text was still written on the assumption that the primary consumption would happen through print.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Looks a lot like Snipt, which I have been using:

<http://snipt.net>

<comment><USER8> Never heard of snipt, but having just taken a look I have to say it does, at a first glance.

Snipt seems to be a more general code-snippet site, though whereas commandline-fu focuses solely on the command line.

While we're off on a mild tangent, check out dotfiles.org for collections of some cool unix rc files. It complements commandline-fu nicely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> They went for the terminal look, but some of us have dark on light terminals too! Finally a site where command-control-alt-8 comes in handy.

Great tips though, although not all of them work on OSX, and it does't advertise this. Love the !! command (runs previous command as sudo), had completely forgotten about it.

</comment><comment><USER10> Warning: This site may be addictive for some of you.

</comment><comment><USER8> Hm. The site admin uses the name 'root', which is generally frowned upon by the unix community...

(I kid! I kid! I'm taking it out of context! Don't flame me, bro!)

Cool site, picked up two gems after only about 20 seconds on the main page.

</comment><comment><USER11> While we're talking about the command line and bash, can someone recommend a decent book on the topic? I've been spending a lot of time these days on the command line grepping and chopping up our log files looking for trends and bugs, and I've suddenly realized how lame I am at the command line compared to many of my colleagues and how much faster I could be if I knew more of the ins and outs of bash.

<comment><USER12> I personally like "From Bash to Z Shell: Conquering the Command Line."

It focuses somewhat more on zsh (my shell of choice) than on bash, but one of the authors contributes heavily to zsh. Even so, bash users will see lots of great hints and tips. The shells' own man pages are more reference-style (see zshall), which I find heavy going when it comes to learning how to use the environment more effectively. The book explains use cases and provides examples in a way that makes the reference material more understandable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> That green they use is kinda hard on the eyes...

</comment><comment><USER14> This is pretty subjective, but the green/white text on black makes it unreadable for me.

I have a 'zap colors' bookmarklet that fixes it for me, but you may want to consider whether the color choice (albeit cute) is most effective.

</comment><comment><USER15> curl <http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/browse> 2>/dev/null | grep '="command"' | perl -pe 's#</?div.*?>##g' | bash

</comment><comment><USER16> osx/Linux ssh-copy-id replacement:

cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub | ssh 'ip/port/options' "cat >> 'home directory'/.ssh/authorized_keys"

<comment><USER17> ssh-copy-id is already part of OpenSSH, which is part of OS X / Linux. It also sets file and directory modes properly.

<comment><USER16> It's a script that comes with most distros, but, not with Leopard by default at least. You probably could add it, but, it's a simple command either way and not everyone can add scripts like that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> man -k a e i o u</comment>


Linus Torvalds gives a tour of his home office - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuS-3HSnpq4 <comment><USER2> About that sword at the end: Finland (and Sweden) have this old tradition that PhD's have a hat and a sword [1] as part of the academic dress [2].

[1] [http://www.lut.fi/documents/10633/139156/opiskelu- tohtoriohj...](http://www.lut.fi/documents/10633/139156/opiskelu- tohtoriohjelmat-paakuva-615x295-tohtorinhattu-miekat.jpg)

[2] [http://www.helsinki.fi/filtdkpromootio2010/_Y5I6060.JPG](http://www.helsinki.fi/filtdkpromootio2010/_Y5I6060.JPG)

</comment><comment><USER3> I liked that, what a nice guy. This is the dilbert he has framed on his wall:

[http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1999-03-29/](http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1999-03-29/)

[http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1999-03-30/](http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1999-03-30/)

<comment><USER4> He looked like he was barely restraining himself from killing the cameraman.

That is not a guy who's comfortable on camera.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This seems to be the original Linux Foundation video, with way more views. (But exactly the same content.)

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

<comment><USER6> Thanks for posting this the links to the Greg Kroah-Hartman workspace were not on the original link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> He came and spoke at my university a couple months back. He was a really nice personable guy, especially considering how many people wanted to chat with him. It was very surreal being so close to someone acting so normal with the realization that he created so much of what you use everyday. The entire CS department felt like they'd just seen God.

</comment><comment><USER8> Another productive night owl succumbs to the gravity of the nuclear family. Funny that it even happens to people like Linus.

<comment><USER9> Since we only get one life to live, might well be worth getting to try out a few different lifestyles throughout it? After years of night productivity, maybe one wants to try something new? :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's comforting to see that someone who is as accomplished as Linus Torvalds, is even messier than me.

<comment><USER11> You are not messy enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Notes:

      -uses the web browser for email
      -uses standing desk with treadmill
      -old desk is very dirty
      -doesn't like light in his room

<comment><USER13>
      - wears sandals with socks

<comment><USER14> It's a European thing. And actually very comfortable if you can get those little things between your toes while your socks are on.

<comment><USER15> > It's a European thing.

Pff. Socks in sandals is basically considered a fashion-sin by most people. But I can only speak for my part of Europe.

<comment><USER16> It's a way to filter out those people who consider fashion important. ;-)

<comment><USER15> "Most people find it a fashion-sin", as in _most people_ , including those who don't even care about Fashion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's nice to see someone as important as Linus just act so normal, as if he didn't create some of the most important software in the world. I really like that he doesn't espouse minimalist, nitty-gritty Linux distros, but rather just likes stuff that works.

</comment><comment><USER18> The laptop on his desk is his Pixel. Still IMO the best piece laptop ever made.

I still wish it was dual-bootbable.

<comment><USER19> I would trademark "dual-bootbable" right now if I were you

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> He seems so nice in person.. Looking at the way he rips people apart when they write bad code, this Linus is lovable..

<comment><USER21> He seems like a goofy old man, I was expecting a meaner, pissed off version.

<comment><USER22> Old, seriously? The guy is in his mid-forties and you make him sound like he lives in a retirement home.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I wonder if his virtual office( backup, code, projects ) is more organized.

<comment><USER24> He uses Git IIRC. In fact, he invented Git.

<comment><USER25> Well, I've seen some extremely disorganized git repos.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The stack of hard drives definitely got a chuckle out of me. Which of us hasn't, at some point, had an old hard drive or two sitting around for exactly that reason? You don't want to wipe the old drive until you've got the new one up and running, and at that point there are more interesting things to do, and the old drive isn't even connected anymore and... meh, add it to the stack.

<comment><USER27> I used to put a cp -rp of the old drive onto the new drive. I think I have three or four drives deep by now, back to my ancient 386 running Windows 95.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> > for some reason people keep sending me penguins

i would be careful. there could be cameras in there.

</comment><comment><USER29> I couldn't agree more about the old "garbage" lying around.

</comment><comment><USER30> I was surprised he doesn't use Emacs instead of a terminal.

</comment><comment><USER31> He uses only one monitor?

[http://i.imgur.com/FFE1ysu.png](http://i.imgur.com/FFE1ysu.png)

Perhaps it lets him stay focused. He also doesn't use a debugger if I remember correctly.

<comment><USER32> Aaron Swartz offered an interesting insight into this on The Setup [1]

 _I don 't have any extra displays. When I was little, I'd read Adam Engst talk about how great a second monitor was and lust after one, but never could bring myself to buy one. When I went to work for Condé Nast they gave us all nice big external Dell monitors and I found that I just couldn't get in the habit of using two screens. Everyone talks about how great it is to have more screen real estate, but apparently for what I do it doesn't really matter. I spend nearly all of my time on the computer staring at a block of text of one sort or another (emails, web pages, code) and no matter how big my screen is, I can't read more than a couple words at a time. Everything else on the screen is mostly a distraction. But maybe I'd feel differently if I wasn't so nearsighted._

I've found working on just my 15" laptop leads to much less procrastination (sometimes).

[1] [http://aaron.swartz.usesthis.com/](http://aaron.swartz.usesthis.com/)

<comment><USER33> I also find having lots of stuff open distracting. One screen and virtual desktops so the browser, irc and other crap can be kept off the code view really helps me focus. Colour noise also distracts me, and browsers really are good at throwing a lot of it at you. When I'm coding, my display is effectively monochrome with dark grey terminals and lighter grey text with a warm reddish orange cast.

As far as coding goes, living in a monastery with a laggy internet connection, using a slow netbook with 11" screen was one of my most productive times.

<comment><USER24> > As far as coding goes, living in a monastery with a laggy internet > connection, using a slow netbook with 11" screen was one of my most > productive times.

That's one of the most amazing things I have heard in a while.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Adobe's Kickbox: The Kit to Launch Your Next Big Idea - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcodesign.com/3042128/adobes-kickbox-the-kit-to-launch-your-next-big-idea?utm_source=facebook <comment><USER2> What a fantastic idea.</comment>


Fingers.el: Modal text editing for Emacs - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/fgeller/fingers.el

<comment><USER2> I presume this is another way to avoid the infamous Emacs pinky.

What I am currently trying out is sticky keys (on Xfce). I find that it slows me down a bit, but I'm extra careful as well. I still hold my fingers on Control and Shift when doing Copy in Paste in the browser, though.

</comment><comment><USER3> So this is basically a toned down version of evil?

<comment><USER4> Looks to me like something similar to Evil, but which follows no Vim conventions at all and has way fewer features. Maybe there's an audience for it; I tend to think if you're going to go with modal editing Vim offers a tried and true model, for which Evil mode already provides a really good implementation.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How the PayPal Verification process works? - <AUTHOR>

Hi, I heard lot of horror stories about PayPal verification process. I have a fake account since I'm in a country where you can't receive funds with PayPal. I verified my account with a Virtual Credit Card that made me match its information with my entered ones.
I made this, well, 3 years ago and just forgot about it. I'm logging from my local IP (always), but  the other country is a neighboring one. Last days, I read a discussion on how someone account was blocked because he reached a $3.3K limit and how it took him two weeks to get verified. I was little bit frightened because I had a good balance there and my account is very active.
I was surprised that with the VCC and the 3 years-old verification, my account is still verified and there is no limit to my transactions. Hell, the verification process only took me 5 minutes! I read on the PayPal website that the verification process is a very strict one (and is similar to military process or some crap like that).
So is the PayPal verification process fundamentally broken? How it stops legitimate users, while fake ones are not caught? Why PayPal is not working on this? What's problem actually? <comment><USER2> The verification process for buyers, and money receiving services is a rather straightforward debitcard existence + validity check. Note, that Paypal's risk exposure in this situation is limited, and they have literally a decade of experience knowing what these risks are.

The verification process for sellers, and especially for people wanting to accept credit cards is another matter entirely. Due to the higher risk exposure for Paypal, a number of factors are taken into consideration here, such as your credit score, personal / business background, nationality, business type, and vertical-specific risk exposure.

You mentioned, that you're doing business via a fake account. For as long as real (non-fraudulent) money is exchanging hands, you're mostly good from PP's risk-exposure POV. However the moment you'll start exposing your account to fraud, and your risk profile goes up, will be the second when Paypal will bail on you, with no recourse -after all, you are using a fake account, and breaking TOS.

Do your own reality-check, and determine if this is an acceptable risk for you to do business via PP. You might want to also start exploring your options, to have at least one other payment provider to fall back on, as insurance.

Hope this helps.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. This is really helpful. I'm using PayPal because some clients and services only pay with it. I'm spending the money on online services and to buy stuff. Does this make me exposed to risk?

Another thing, I'm using my real information. Just a fake address. I heard from a user that he did that and then when he got caught, the disabled his account and transferred his balance to his bank account. Can this be true? And what are the legal issues that can happen?

I'm doing legal stuff.

<comment><USER2> > Thanks. This is really helpful. I'm using PayPal because some clients and > services only pay with it. I'm spending the money on online services and to > buy stuff. Does this make me exposed to risk?

Clients here are the only thing that could expose you to risk: if any of them attempts a fraud on you via PP, that will register, and can lead to account disabling, as described above.

> Another thing, I'm using my real information. Just a fake address. I heard > from a user that he did that and then when he got caught, the disabled his > account and transferred his balance to his bank account. Can this be true? > And what are the legal issues that can happen?

Might be true; I'm sceptical though -there were large number of reported cases, in which no money was refunded after disabling the account.

Legal-wise, while they _could_ start a lawsuit, so far there has been no precedence of PP doing so -it simply doesn't make any cost/benefit sense. The most likely outcome is disabling your account, with no money back, and no recourse.

Hope this helps.</comment></comment></comment>


Can the iPad Rescue a Struggling American Education System? - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/03/tablets-revolutionizing-education/

<comment><USER2> no</comment>


The Growth Stacks of 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://segment.com/blog/the-growth-stacks-of-2019/ <comment><USER2> This is a great example of a "launch" post:

1\. Provide huge value based on data that only Segment has, which makes the post worth reading and - more importantly - shareable (though it would be nice to see the names for every company in each chart, not just one or two)

2\. Segue nicely to calling out their new Developer Center[1], which streamlines the process of building on Segment.

Very nicely done.

FWIW I explored building on Segment in 2014, and just completed our integration on their new Dev Center. The latter experience was a lot more streamlined than the former appeared it would be. Also nicely done!

1- [https://app.segment.com/developer/request- access](https://app.segment.com/developer/request-access)

</comment><comment><USER3> The color schemes used in these graphs are not usable for me as a colorblind person. The green-yellow and orange-yellow are indistinguishable to me. That seems like an odd choice when there are only 3 colors in the graph. My general rule is use primary colors and fall back to variations in brightness when you run out to maximize the distance between the points in the gamut.

<comment><USER4> Ah sorry about that, this is a great point.

I generated these via the seaborn palette in matplotlib[1], but agree that these could be way clearer. I'll see what I can do about changing the line type on them to make them a little bit more differentiated.

[1]: [https://seaborn.pydata.org/](https://seaborn.pydata.org/)

<comment><USER5> Seaborn has a colorblind-specific color palette: [https://seaborn.pydata.org/tutorial/color_palettes.html#qual...](https://seaborn.pydata.org/tutorial/color_palettes.html#qualitative- color-palettes)

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h I feel like that's should be the default? People tend to forgot accessibility, so defaults matter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm Calvin, one of the Segment co-founders.

We're excited to share some of our data around the evolution of the growth + saas ecosystems.

There are so many tools out there, that it's often incredibly hard to pick one.

We wanted to share the trends about what we're seeing to make it easier for companies to choose between the thousands of tools on the market. And we wanted to highlight a few of the new startups that we think are poised to grow significantly.

We welcome your feedback here! Deeper analysis to come.

<comment><USER6> Calvin - give your content marketing team a raise - or yourself since it's your byline :)

This is an outstanding breakdown and I loved the "highlight" strategy.

Composition feels a lot more like high quality / expensive financial services report aka Greenstreet Advisors but targeted to growth ecosystem.

Couple of questions:

1) If you could pick 3 early stage companies in your analysis to be an investor in which 3 would you select?

2) Do you guys have a data business around anonymous usage beyond this article or planning to get into the space?

<comment><USER4> Thanks, glad you liked it!

1) Honestly, there are a _lot_ more than just three startups here who seem to be growing actively. In general, I tend to bias towards great product quality and design, which puts Vitally, Split, ClearBrain, and Kustomer far up my list (and also a part of the reason we've highlighted them). That said, there are a ton of other companies in the space doing really interesting things.

2) No, at the heart of it, our revenue comes from our happy customers. We don't plan to sell or share our user's data with other companies the way data brokers do. We just help our customers make better use of their own data for their own businesses. Occasionally, we'll create trend reports like this that show aggregate trends to help our customers make better decisions.

<comment><USER7> Aw, blushing over here :) Thanks for the mention Calvin! We (Vitally) are thrilled to be one of the first custom-built Segment integrations and look forward to continuing to work with you all!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Congrats to the Segment team. Here at Candu Labs, [https://www.candu.ai](https://www.candu.ai), we've just finished integrating with them and it's been a really great experience. The docs are super clear, and the Segment's team really worked around the clock to help us get their integration done. I'd really recommend integrating with them.

</comment><comment><USER9> @calvinfo: Under Raw Data, it appears a trend line is missing for Zapier.

"Some raw data tools on Segment's platform, like Webhooks and Zapier, enable even more tools we don't support today. Others provide a means for companies to run their own custom data pipelines, like Amazon S3 and Kinesis."

[https://i.imgur.com/3uXq0T4.png](https://i.imgur.com/3uXq0T4.png)

<comment><USER10> I think they bundled webhooks into zapier, not sure though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> What's the percentage of Segment customers who use Segment Warehouse? I believe that their Warehouse offering is a deal-breaker for data-driven startups which want to see the big picture.

We're working on building a product which provides Mixpanel-like UI for Segment Warehouse users so I would love hearing your experience.

<comment><USER4> I can't share the exact number, but it's high (above 33%) across all customers on our paid plans.

For companies on our business tier, it's even higher (above 66%). Most of these companies are doing more advanced data analysis, and it's hard to replace the utility of a warehouse for analysts at a certain point.

<comment><USER11> That's great for us, thanks for sharing! :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Thanks a ton for putting this together, this seems great! Congrats to the Segment

</comment><comment><USER13> Initially I balked at this - 5,000 different SaaS tools in the Marketing space. Even a Pointy Haired Boss's head would explode.

But the breakdown and explanations of each area actually made it possible to understand what each area "does" \- enough to imagine one could write some code for ones own startup of one needed too - usually a good indicator I am starting to grok things

It's interesting to see the ways things like BigTable / Query are getting used for real world, and seeing some of the challenges (the forest / trees problem of individual users and accounts)

Thank you - worth bookmarking :-)

</comment><comment><USER14> Wonderful to see this innovative platform grow, and even better to be a part of it!

Our process of building Personyze's integration with the Segment platform recently was easy and truly enjoyable, from start to finish. They have been pleasant to work with, and have guided us in a very clear and straightforward manner every step of the way.

I know I speak for the rest of our team when I say that we are proud to be integrated with Segment, and look forward to expanding the integration even further, in the future.

</comment><comment><USER15> Amazing well done Calvin.

Have been a long time Segment user and a big fan of what you guys are doing.

When we recently started our own analytics company dreamdata.io, an multi- touch, account-based attribution tool we always saw Segment as the top 1 place to integrate and initially focused on only solving the problem for Segment customers.

Happy to share that we did the implementation in a very short time and the partnership team at Segment was really amazing. Implementation, testing, and documentation all in high quality and when in doubt the Segment team was ready to help.

</comment><comment><USER16> Very excited to see Segment launch their Developer Center in conjunction with this Growth Stack overview. Our company (ClearBrain) was one of the early technology partners to build into their Development Center, and it's been a transformative impact on our business.

As an analytics company, one of the first hurdles to getting a customer successful is onboarding their data. Every customer has heteregenous schemas and then you need to wait weeks to collect enough data to find reasonable results. Segment made this dead simple by providing an API spec with a standardized schema that just took a couple days for us to integrate with. Once integrated, you gain access to 1000s of mutual companies using Segment, who can stream you their data in exactly the same format (a huge win for analytics efforts and data normalization).

Highly recommend other companies to consider integrating with Segment. The ease of integration and access to a platform serving thousands of customers is especially helpful for startups.

</comment><comment><USER17> Amazing article. It'll be interesting to see what this same data looked like 5 Years ago...

</comment><comment><USER18> Congrats to Segment! We (ScopeAI) got a chance to work with Calvin and the team to build an integration. The processes couldn't have been clearer and the value add for our customer is huge!

</comment><comment><USER19> FYI Calvin - The anchor to CRMs in the list of quick links is broken. The ID on the header is "#c-r-ms" and should be "#crms"

<comment><USER4> Thanks, fixed!

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Very exciting to see Segment here. It was a breeze to integrate with and use their data from our clients. Congrats Calvin!

</comment><comment><USER21> I can't access this link. Site seems down.

<comment><USER22> Are you running pi-hole or something? I'm getting "uMatrix has prevented the following page from loading", segment seems to be some sort of spyware company.

<comment><USER21> I am, in fact, set it up this weekend.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: ThemeForest for Twitter Bootstrap - <AUTHOR> https://bootstrapthemes.me/

<comment><USER2> Site looks good, but you might want to hold off "launching" until you've got a few more themes up there. As is, I'm assuming the HN audience is your desired customer base? First impressions are big, and if everyone sees a barren wasteland of a themes market, you're probably not going to be first on their mind when they're looking to spend money. My suggestion is to find as many bootstrap developers as you can, let them know about your site and it's payout split. Try relaunching with 20+ themes. Keep up the good work!

<comment><USER3> I completely agree. Finding just one theme on there was really disappointing. At least make a dozen or so yourself and post them up there if you can't find anyone else that wants to be one of the first posters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Agree with the others that say you should get some more themes in the system. I just submitted a theme based on my site to help out!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestion, and I'll checkout your theme!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> <https://wrapbootstrap.com/></comment>


The World's Longest URL "Shortener" - <AUTHOR> http://aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey All, OP here, contrary to popular belief I did not make this :) I saw it on GitHub when I noticed someone who starred the Prefect repo had the username `programming`, clicked their profile and saw this: [https://github.com/programming/aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...](https://github.com/programming/aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa) and just thought it was hilarious. Knew you all would get a kick out of it!

<comment><USER2> The way GitHub displays it [1] is equally great too.

[1] - [https://i.imgur.com/mPqrvaU.png](https://i.imgur.com/mPqrvaU.png)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Good job! Reminds me of my favorite email service [http://abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyza...](http://abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijk.com).

<comment><USER4> I'm open to requests for anyone wanting to get their own aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.com email forwarder.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here's a shorter link:

[http://aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...](http://aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.com/#aAaAaaAaaaAAAAaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaAaaa)

<comment><USER6> And a link to this discussion:

        http://aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.com/#AAaaAaaAAAAAAAAAAAaAaaAaAAaaAaaAaAaaAaaA

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The query assigned looks to be random a & A, this is genius.

Watch out for my knock off, bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb.com

</comment><comment><USER8> If you are going for the longest possible URLls they all should be 2047 characters long[0]

[0] [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/417142/what-is-the- maxim...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/417142/what-is-the-maximum- length-of-a-url-in-different-browsers)

</comment><comment><USER9> [http://aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...](http://aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.com/#AAaAAAAaaAaaAAaaAaAaAAaAaAaAaAaaAaAAAAaA)

The race is to get the longest shortened URL

</comment><comment><USER10> Wow - this domain name causes HN to be wider than the screen on mobile!

</comment><comment><USER11> Should make a knockoff with wwwwwwwww's since those are the widest characters (in non-fixed width fonts)

</comment><comment><USER12> How about a version of this that just uses a's (or A's), based on the number of a's in the URL?

</comment><comment><USER13> Wondering if it is just fun project or there is real world application for this idea?

<comment><USER4> Mostly for fun. I'd be surprised if there were any real life applications for this!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> How many A's is that? I can't really tell on mobile.

<comment><USER15> 63 a

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Haaaaa haaaaa haaaa

</comment><comment><USER17> Hacker news tested, Tarzan approved.

</comment><comment><USER18> Thank god for people like you

</comment><comment><USER19> How does this work?

<comment><USER20> The source code (JavaScript) is quite readable.

This seems to be the backing store:

[https://www.jsonstore.io/9cfa993cd55704f2254949dc21a5f3a7a63...](https://www.jsonstore.io/9cfa993cd55704f2254949dc21a5f3a7a63ae2c6425fb242b575a1951d359b69)

With the ability to get a specific key from this style of URL:

[https://www.jsonstore.io/9cfa993cd55704f2254949dc21a5f3a7a63...](https://www.jsonstore.io/9cfa993cd55704f2254949dc21a5f3a7a63ae2c6425fb242b575a1951d359b69/AAAAAAAAAAaAaAAaAAaAAaaAAaaaaAaaaaAAaAAa)

And post to it to set a value.

There's no security though - anyone can overwrite any URL - e.g. in the console on that page:

        pushJSON(endpoint + '/AAAAaaAaAaaAAaaAAAAAaAAAAaAAaAAaaaAAAAaA', 'http://www.example.com/');

<comment><USER21> Looks like there's a limit to the number of urls shortened... it's throwing out the old ones. Womp, womp. :P

<comment><USER22> Or some people are Curling random stuff into the JSON endpoint

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Cool stuff.</comment>


Adwords' Keyword Tool replacement story - <AUTHOR> http://growthhacker.am/post/59670896552/the-big-g-is-hiding-data-again-adwords-keyword-tool <comment><USER2> Well its not that bad, as I first thought. Here is what I know from playing with new tool for some time:

1\. How can I see the exact match search volume? - The search number you see is actually exact match.

2\. But why are the exact match search volumes higher/lower than those in the old keyword tool? - Because KW Tool was showing the search volumes in the current month. KW Planner calculates the average per year, so that's why the numbers are different.

3\. Well, but it doesn't show the local search volume! - It does show ONLY local search volume of the country you selected in targeting. If you want to see global search statistics, then change targeting to all countries.

4\. But but... it doesn't show search trends! - Yeah it does, just hover your mouse over that small graph icon right of the keyword. These new search trends are actually far more better, cause you can see exact names of the months.

<comment><USER3> Regarding #2, I don't ever recall Google giving current month's search volume data in the old keyword tool. As far as I know, they showed a rolling 12-month average which was usually 1-2 months behind. If you wanted numbers at the monthly level, then you would have to export your results to get the monthly breakdown. Even then, the export didn't include the current month's data. For example, if I exported some keyword data in July it would only show me up to May.

Also, the reason I found search volume data differing between old KW tool and new KW planner is because Google now lumps all device types into one number. Previously, they defaulted to Desktop and Laptop only, so you'd have to change your filters to get Mobile. Now they lump Desktop, Laptop, and Mobile into one number which accounts for the higher search volumes in the current tool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Anyone complaining about how the tool got worse is not using it to improve their AdWords Paid Search campaigns, they are using it to scrape out keyword demand data for SEO.

Don't try and lump this in with legitimate Google complaints.

<comment><USER5> Why do you think paid search campaigns don't need more detailed data? Why do you seem to think SEOs shouldn't get data?

<comment><USER6> >Why do you seem to think SEOs shouldn't get data?

Because they pollute the real results. If you write your content for search engines and not for users then it's bad content.

<comment><USER5> You've been drinking the Google kool-aid. Google has always been the primary financier of web spam on the Internet. They knowingly profit from Adsense on spam sites. If they wanted to, they could end web-spam over night by banning Adsense accounts for spamming.

SEO is just another form of marketing. It is no more/less legitimate than PPC campaigns. In fact, PPC ads are far worse because Google does little to police them. As long as Google makes money, they don't care if you scam users. That's why they paid half a billion dollars in a settlement to the FTC for knowingly selling illegal pharmaceutical ads.

<comment><USER7> Like it is that simple. There are millions of adsense accounts. You can't hand pick everyone. Penguin 2.0 was supposed to hurt spam sites and judging by the fuss it created in Blackhat SEO sites it succeeded a lot.

<comment><USER5> They hand pick spam sites and remove them every day... There is an entire department dedicated to detecting spam.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm quite confused with the new Planner - when I searched for a specific keyword in the old Keywords Tool it gave me around 40k global searches, but when I searched for the same keyword in the new Planner, it shows 10 (ten) global searches. I don't get it, there is some new algorithm or maybe the new Planner just doesn't have all the data yet?

<comment><USER4> The old tool defaulted to BROAD match, meaning you might get something like this:

phone - 1,200,000 home phone - 36,000

you would get really high numbers because people are searching for smart phone, mobile phone, landline phone, phone bill, et cetera and those are all counted under phone. Also, if you SUMMED the two keywords, you were actually double counting because home phone is already included in phone's count.

Google decided that this defaulting to BROAD match was causing confusion and double counting for people who didn't understand match types, so now when you get something like:

phone - 10,000 home phone - 12,000

because a lot less people just type phone or home phone.

More Detail: [https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/3141229](https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/3141229)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Growth Hacking": It's not SEO sliminess, we swear.

</comment><comment><USER10> And where before it was public, now it's only viewable when logged into an AdWords account. I used to refer clients to it for keyword inspiration when writing content for SEO purposes, but this is no longer an option.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sadly. I also liked this option. I wonder how much it will affect people dealing with SEO.

<comment><USER11> It's irritating for losing query volume, but it became harder and harder to generate good ideas in the past few years.

Using tools like UberSuggest (ubersuggest.org) which runs off Google Suggest, or pulling from Google itself ([http://clients1.google.com/complete/search?hl=en&output=tool...](http://clients1.google.com/complete/search?hl=en&output=toolbar&q=keyword%20research)) is better.

Since Suggest is for users, and it shows the most popular, you can cream off suggested queries which _may_ be based on query volumes. It's relative, but it'll do for now :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> So, on the topic of the (not provided) "data hiding" and now this... if it's just because of users using secure search, is this really as big of a travesty or a problem as its made out to be?

To me it looks like SEO/Marketing folk acting like it's the end of the world that 50% of clickthroughs are (not provided). And for them, it may be bad as they like having that data (which they certainly didn't have a little over a decade ago).

On the other hand though, if I'm using Google secure search, as a user, this seems like behavior that benefits me privacy-wise.

Am I missing some aspect here?

</comment><comment><USER13> The search button says it all - "Get Ideas", not "Get Info". You can't even choose Broad, Phrase, or Exact. This is a shocking tool. I feel that in addition to its philandering with the NSA, Google is abandoning every principle it once stood for.

<comment><USER14> Oh, look. Google changed a service and now they're "abandoning every principle it once stood for".

Which has been said by someone, somewhere, (or some variation) for literally every service change Google has ever done. Stop it. You're adding nothing.

And they are not "philandering" with the NSA. They are subject to NSL's just like everyone else.

<comment><USER13> Couldn't disagree more.

Google won over developers in the beginning because they provided information on search, essentially making the SEO business possible.

Hiding information is a increasingly popular trend that SysAdmin's, above other people, should be wary and distrustful of.

If you vehemently demand that Google (or any other company) has absolutely no obligation to its community, then don't be surprised when you're left with absolutely nothing.

What next? You're going to demand that banks increase fees for the fun of it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What are the alternative? We couldn't have all been so complacent that there aren't any good keyword tool alternative is there? Perhaps, it's time for a google scrapper? If google won't give you the data, maybe it can be inferred?

<comment><USER16> scrape it from where? That tool is the only real souce for how many local people are searching for a keyword

<comment><USER17> Exactly. Twas the only place I know to scrape from.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Google's post on the issue: [https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/3141229](https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/3141229)

It reads like "We're screwing you, so deal with it."

</comment><comment><USER18> -1 for disabling zoom on mobile devices</comment>


Fusion Garage's website goes dark - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/17/fusion-garages-website-goes-dark-has-it-bit-the-dust/ <comment><USER2> If you don't know, Fusion Garage is the company we were working with on the Crunchpad:

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

they went off on their own, released the JooJoo and then the Grid10 tablet, and then things ended in a way nobody expected.

There is still an ongoing lawsuit between Techcrunch and Fusion Garage (I have no idea what happens to that now, a lot of money was spent on lawyers and the trial was scheduled for next year)

They have taken fully paid-up pre-orders for the Grid10 tablet, so those customers are out now (this is why Paypal doesn't allow pre-orders). I also feel for some of the employees who were genuinely smart and good people.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting, thanks for commenting about it. If you don't mind, any thoughts on the company or the product?

<comment><USER2> I sniffed out that Fusion Garage were more talk than substance when I went to Singapore to see them the first time. I wrote an email, which is now part of the legal case, warning about it. The entire story is interesting and funny, I will write it up at some point (not soon).

The product was ok, you can see the pictures of the last prototype we worked on here:

[http://nikcub.appspot.com/posts/crunchpad-proof- obviousness-...](http://nikcub.appspot.com/posts/crunchpad-proof-obviousness- in-ipad-design)

It takes a long time to polish a hardware product to the point that it is ready for mass market. FG rushed the product out, so it didn't surprise me that it wasn't well received. But apparently there are a loyal group of hobbyists who like the JooJoo

If the partnership persisted, we would have likely switched to an ARM based board and chipset after the first batch of orders. The Intel Atom stuff didn't live up to expectations. I think we could have built something really nice and useful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've got a Touch Book [1] from AlwaysInnovating. Those guys are like energizer bunnies somehow they keep on going. Given the way the whole TC/FG thing came off and exploded I am not too surprised about them going dark. One of the quotes Scott McNealy made at Sun has stuck with me over the years, he said "Running a company is like running a gauntlet of windows that are slamming shut. Trip just once, and the window can slam shut before you pass it." That really resonated with me and Sun lived with the mindset that tripping was death. The tablet market has had some early folks in it, but they have not been able to use their small size to run faster than the big guys. And Apple of course threw everyone a curve ball.

[1] <http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/home/index.htm>

<comment><USER4> Looks neat. What's the battery life like? can I put a Clear dongle (<http://www.clear.com/>) in it?

<comment><USER3> No reason why you couldn't that I can see. If you have Android or Linux drivers for it (ARM). I found (find? since I still have it) pretty slow with respect to UI actions and so its not something I could adopt as an everyday tablet but the keyboard thing was pretty cool (and still is). However with the keyboard attached its effectively an ARM based laptop.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Update: We have a comment from Fusion Garage's PR agency: 'Unfortunately, none of our efforts have resulted in any communication from the company to the customers. Given all of this, we don't have any other choice but to cease working with FG effective tomorrow.'"

<comment><USER6> I don't think I've ever seen public relations people burn a bridge like that. They must be annoyed.

<comment><USER5> Bad for them to be seen to be involved with an out-of-control client. If they're also unlikely to be paid, the bridge might not be worth a whole lot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why did these guys bite off more than they could chew?

They had already differentiated themselves with some great hardware. The modified Android OS seemed completely unnecessary.

Even big tablet manufactures like ASUS barely modify the standard Android OS.

<comment><USER8> Lots of companies die because of bad strategic decisions. These guys were positioned to become millionaires or to make nothing and they made some bad strategic calls and got the nothing.

Good example of a company with good tech, good timing, and a good idea that fails because of business decisions. This is the kind of case where it seems a Harvard MBA could have made all the difference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The whole thing was a sad farce from the start, really. I feel bad for the people who were sincerely anticipating this device, hanging out on forums about it and everything.</comment>


Ask YC: startup or traditional work experience?   - <AUTHOR> If a founder works on his company for a year, but can't seem to make it work, do future hiring managers see that time spent as a negative (couldn't find a way to make the company work, why would we hire them) or a positive (imagine all the lessons and skills they have developed in that year)?<p>Would that year in the startup put you ahead of the pack, or behind it, since you would essentially have one less year of traditional work experience. <comment><USER2> At my last employer, there was one former founder that I ended up giving a "No hire" recommendation to my boss on. During the interview, it came out that his idea of founding a company was that he had this wildly ambitious, game- changing idea, and then he _outsourced it to a bunch of Russian programmers to write_ , using his parents' money. And then he blamed them for not delivering when I asked him what he'd learned from the experience.

Let's think of the red flags there: 1) Doesn't have a clear conception of what he's capable of. 2) Unwilling to get hands dirty and code. 3) Because of this, didn't learn any technical skills that'll be useful in the job. 4) Won't take responsibility for his own failures.

In almost any other situation I can think of, doing your own startup would put you way ahead of the pack. I was actually pretty excited about the above candidate when I saw "founder" on his resume, 'till he blew it in the interview.

</comment><comment><USER3> There are a lot of variables involved here.

Hiring Managers == Humans == Emotional Logic

There will never be a 100% case, the closest you might get is that a hiring manager who is startup oriented could see that year as valuable productive time. A hiring manager who feels that only time spent in the ranks at BigCo is worthwhile might see that as a wasted year.

The reality though is that there are all kinds of companies, all kinds of hiring managers, and all kinds of opportunities out there.

Taking a shot at your own idea for year will open some doors and close others if you suddenly decide to go the "traditional" route. It is my personal opinion that working for a halfway decent organization for a year will open _more_ net doors for you than working on your own in solitude for a year (assuming that after that year you are likely to seek different employment). So, if you don't have formal experience I would guide you down that path first, unless your idea is a really-super-killer-1-person-can-build it sort of thing.

<comment><USER4> _Hiring Managers == Humans == Emotional Logic_

Nothing will ever be more true than this when it comes to the problems in the work force.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> <ResumeEntry>

April, 2007 to March, 2008. XYZ Company. Web Progammer.

One of 2 on development team that analyzed, designed, developed, tested, and deployed XYZ's primary web application. Grew application to 10,000 uniques per day in 8 months. Used <abc> framework, <def> language, and <ghi> testing facility. Wrote 450 original <def> programs and maintained several thousand <pqr> programs. Excellent references upon request.

Reason for leaving: Business failed.

</ResumeEntry>

So, what's the problem?

</comment><comment><USER6> I asked some managers this once, and they all said that startup experience was at least as good as big co experience. It's in an essay I wrote; I forget which.

<comment><USER7> "Hiring is obsolete" is the one.

I remember because I translated it a while ago to Portuguese.

<http://lullis.infogami.com/pg/hiring>

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Depending on the company, I would simply adapt the resume to reflect what you think they want to hear.

For the larger (possibly non-technical) companies, I would list the experiences and qualifications relating only to the directly applicable work you did (Developed this product, worked with that other thing, etc...). I would drop the title of "founder" and substitute it with "Lead Developer" or something similar.

For either a smaller company (where you may be expected to wear multiple hats) or a technological company (Google), I would put that "Founder" title right up there where it can be seen.

In the end, the resume is for getting an interview. There is nothing wrong with adapting it to reflect what the companies want to hear, provided that there is no stretch of the truth.

</comment><comment><USER9> I have an entry about a startup I co-founded that failed on my resume. I also explicitly put in the description: "I learned a lot...from the business' failure."

I've been doing a lot of interviews lately, and most people are impressed that 1) I tried to start a company at all and 2) that I'm willing to admit that it failed

I would definitely keep it on there, as long as it was a good learning experience for you.

<comment><USER10> I think this pretty well defines it. Even if it failed, it shows you had the confidence enough in your own ability to try. If you admit it failed, it shows that you're humble enough to admit when something went wrong without shifting blame.

I figure running a startup is like getting your MBA... but on crack.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I won't say it's "as good as big co experience" (pg), but it is valuable. A lot of how someone interprets your year depends on who's looking at your resume (they're not obsolete, no matter what anyone says). If on one hand you're applying to JP Morgan, there's a chance a hiring manager might not like the fact that your history isn't driven by credentialed companies. On the other, if you're applying to a Valley firm--another startup or someone like Google or Yahoo, they're likely to think your experience was valuable and showed initiative and guts.

</comment><comment><USER12> I've seen a number of resumes which significantly over-stated the experience someone had gained while self-employed, but it's difficult to verify what the person accomplished without being able to contact clients and/or coworkers.

Just don't over-state what you did, and try to stay in touch with any collaborators or clients who could serve as references, and I see no reason why a startup can't be a great piece of experience to put on your resume.

</comment><comment><USER13> I always viewed someone with startup experience as having better management potential and as someone likely to be able to better see the "big picture." Whereas someone with more low-level big company experience as being more of a "good employee." With that in mind, you can see that the type of job in question will determine whether that experience is a positive or negative.

</comment><comment><USER14> Why not do both? I work for a large internet company during the day. When I get home at home, the coding continues on my personal projects.

I think that's what Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft mean when they are looking for people with "self-started" projects.

</comment><comment><USER15> I would assume you'd get both kinds of reactions. I think a better question might be, which kind of manager/company would you prefer to work with in the future?

</comment><comment><USER16> Startup hiring manager: big positive

BigCo hiring manager: mild negative

People who hire generally look for the candidate that "fits" overall before passing the candidate on to more specific people. At a startup that's probably a bigger issue than at a large company, just because the culture is more malleable.

<comment><USER17> Strong disagree. I work at one of the biggest companies. I help out with hiring. Startups are a plus, and it's not just me.

We, like everyone else, look for evidence that you've done stuff. In a startup, what you've done is obvious.

<comment><USER16> It is? That hasn't been my experience. In my job hunt, and I'll admit that I'm well away from the center of things, my last position (co-founder of digg) is a distinct negative.

Most hiring managers haven't heard of it, question why I'm not mentioned more prominently, etc, worry that I will leave for some other pie-in-the-sky startup. The only interest I get is from early stage startups.

But again, it's all about fit. If you're 22 and messing with startups it looks like youthful experimentation. If you're 45 and messing with startups you get passed over.

<comment><USER17> Ah, I bet that last point is key. I know nothing about how hiring works for senior positions.

One way or another, I hope you find a job you love.

<comment><USER16> This is the under-publicized reason why people do startups - because they can't find an appropriate job.

I was reading an article a while back about "older" entrepreneurs (mostly successful ones). Almost every one of them said their main motivation was lack of career opportunities.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why Dropbox's Space Race is Genius - <AUTHOR> http://sorryhumans.com/dropbox.html

<comment><AUTHOR> (This is my first blog post)

<comment><USER2> Nice first post! Keep up your motivation to write; you will be well-served.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> As well as the fact that once enough of your classmates have Dropbox, its collaboration features and shared folders will really shine. Once you've worked on a group project without having to email files back and forth, you never want to go back.

</comment><comment><USER4> Actually after the Space Race I canceled my paid subscription because +8GB will make the free subscription enough for me. I wonder how many other people did the same?

<comment><AUTHOR> I hadn't really thought about this as an option, but I think it's an interesting thing to point out. My hunch is that not many college students actually pay for Dropbox's service as it stands, though. Not to mention, the main-main goal is probably user acquisition which this should definitely aid in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> if you use MS skydrive you get 7gb free?

no selective sync but i hear it is coming.. i signed up before when you got 25gb free..</comment>


Air France Concorde Crash - 10 Years Later - <AUTHOR> http://jmarbach.com/air-france-concorde-crash-10-years-later <comment><USER2> The cause listed in the article (ingesting of the tire pieces) was not correct. The official cause was a lot more complex than that:

 _During the Concorde's subsequent take-off run, this piece of debris, still lying on the runway, ruptured a tyre which then burst. A large chunk of this (4.5 kilograms or 9.9 lb) struck the underside of the aircraft's wing structure at well over 300 kilometres per hour (190 mph). Although it did not directly puncture any of the fuel tanks, it sent out a pressure shockwave that eventually ruptured the number five fuel tank at the weakest point, just above the landing gear. Leaking fuel rushing over the top of the wing was ignited by an electric arc in the landing gear bay or through contact with severed electrical cables._

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_4590#Flight>

There are alternate theories as well (also in the Wikipedia article).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the additional detail regarding the cause of the crash. I've added the correction to the post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Thanks for posting this. I had lost site of the Concorde's fatal flight. Good perspective.</comment>