Enforcement of the Immigration Laws to Serve the National Interest [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/17_0220_S1_Enforcement-of-the-Immigration-Laws-to-Serve-the-National-Interest.pdf <comment><USER3> Oh my god.

So how about updating those laws? For example, an H1B who is fired has to leave the country by next day. This has always been ridiculous because: impossible. It wasn't enforced, so people could get new jobs or prepare properly for leaving.

I also hear from people who have gone through the green card process as adults that it is actually not possible to go through that process while remaining legal.

The craziness that is US immigration law (and pretty much anything having to do with _damn foreigners_ ) was only kept at bay by discretion, which is now removed.

Did I already say "Oh my god"?

<comment><USER4> Not true - there is in fact a 60 day grace period for people in H1-B status, which can be used to find a new job, or between jobs.

[https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2016-27540/p-217](https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2016-27540/p-217)

<comment><USER3> Yes. From the directive that's being talked about:

"all existing conflicting directives, memoranda, or field guidance regarding the enforcement of our immigration laws and priorities for removal are hereby immediately rescinded"

To me, what you referred to is exactly one of those "conflicting directives" that has now been rescinded, but I most certainly could be completely wrong about that.

<comment><USER5> Do "directive", "memoranda", and "field guidance" have specific legal meanings in this context? Would that include a "final rule"?

I think that statement must have limited scope because this six page memo could hardly replace the entire rulebook.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In reading this, I see that there will no longer be any groups that are allowed to remain in the US based on prosecutor discretion (eg: Dreamers, kids/babies who were raised here will be deported), 10,000 more officers will be hired, and they plan to deputize more local police departments to deport people without Customs & Border Protection involvement.

About the only major screwup here for effective mass deportations is the Trump administration is hiring too few people to round up these people. Back in the 1940s when we were rounding up Japanese to send to concentration camps, it took way more manpower to effectively round up that population to send them to squalid, disease filled camps we sent them to, and there weren't 6 million to be rounded up either.

Hopefully this will get more Americans politically active at the very least, as when the food is rotting in the fields due to a lack of farm hands, that is when we will see something similar to what is happening with Obamacare and Republican voters right now.

<comment><USER7> > Hopefully this will get more Americans politically active at the very least

FWIW, many of us became politically active for the first time in our lives _specifically because of_ the candidacy of DJT and the promises he made to deal with this issue.

A couple questions for HN, that I've yet to see answered without appeal to emotion:

1\. By what moral principle do noncitizens have the right to reside in a sovereign country?

2\. What is so morally outrageous about a sovereign country choosing to reduce its non-citizen : citizen ratio?

<comment><USER8> By what moral principle are citizens valued more than non-citizens?

<comment><USER7> There are many answers to this question, that have been rehashed elsewhere. Everything from citizens having more vested interest (skin in the game) in the future of their lands than noncitizens, to the protection of shared cultural heritage, to social cohesion borne of cultural integration and higher-trust societies, etc.

But I'm genuinely interested in answers to my questions devoid of appeal to emotion, not deflection to other questions.

<comment><USER8> > Everything from citizens having more vested interest (skin in the game) in > the future of their lands than noncitizens

An illegal immigrant from a poor country sells everything, and by a stroke of luck is successful in coming to the US. Then they spend some time there (say 15 years).

Surely they have more to lose than a legal qualified immigrant (now a citizen) that spent some 8 years jumping through the hoops? The qualified immigrant could just pick a country at random and have reasonable chance of starting over, while the minimum wage illegal can't do the same (and so has to hope the country doesn't crap itself).

>protection of shared cultural heritage

How much cultural heritage does a white protestant factory worker share with an illegal Chinese immigrant?

Is it more or less than they share with legal Chinese programmer who had recently been granted a citizenship?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Department personnel should prioritize removable aliens who: ... (2) have > been charged with any criminal offense that has not been resolved; ... (7) > in the judgment of an immigration officer, otheiwise pose a risk to public > safety or national security.

So, if they accuse you wrongfully, or are just having a bad hair day, you're out.

Having the opportunity for arbitrary abuse of power is a magnet for every nobody longing to be somebody. The Department of Humiliation Services will be home to all sorts of creeps.

<comment><USER5> Does that mean that a legal resident can be removed merely for being charged with a crime, or does it only apply to illegal residents (who can legally be removed regardless).

<comment><USER10> It does state `removable aliens`, which I would assume would not include a legal resident or nonresident alien. I initially read it as applying to all aliens, regardless of status.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> IANAL, but this part seems incredibly open-ended - does anyone know if this is standard? Namely, I'm referring to parts 2, 3, 5, and 6, of which 2 and 3 seem to contradict the idea of "innocent until proven guilty", though I don't know how that applies to non-citizens, and 5 and 6 which seem extremely open to interpretation.

> Additionally, regardless of the basis of removability, Department personnel > should prioritize removable aliens who: (I) have been convicted of any > criminal offense; (2) have been charged with any criminal offense that has > not been resolved; (3) have committed acts which constitute a chargeable > criminal offense; ( 4) have engaged in fraud or willful misrepresentation in > connection with any official matter before a governmental agency; (5) have > abused any program related to receipt of public benefits; (6) are subject to > a final order of removal but have not complied with their legal obligation > to depart the United States; or (7) in the judgment of an immigration > officer, otherwise pose a risk to public safety or national security.

<comment><USER11> (3) is inviting abuse of due process

<comment><USER12> I believe deportation is a civil offense [1], and is thus not under the same due process constraints of a criminal offense.

[1] [http://stopdeportationsnow.blogspot.com/2011/08/is- immigrati...](http://stopdeportationsnow.blogspot.com/2011/08/is-immigration- law-civil-or-criminal.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Good luck identifying and transporting 10-20 million people with due process while simultaneously not destroying the businesses that employ them, accidentally deporting citizens, and doing it outside the vision of cameras and youtube who will record thousands of frightened people behind razor wire or packed like sardines in railroad cars. 5-10% of the working population in this country are likely illegals generally working jobs no one else wants for low (and often illegal) pay. Who is going to build a 2000mi wall in Texas in the summer for minimum wage? Certainly no one reading HN.

<comment><USER14> There is no reason we can't institute work visas like other countries do. Regulate it, have it be based on need and expand it to all applicable countries, not just neighbors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I suspect illegal immigration populations will not go down much -- _however_ \-- open employers of illegal immigrants (farms, cleaning companies, construction companies) will simply further abuse illegal immigrants and threaten them with deportation for the slightest of slights.

<comment><USER16> and potentially opening up ways to force people into slavery. For all the rounding-up, shouldn't there be punishments for people who employ undocumented immigrants?

<comment><USER15> Totally agree. A sincere effort to stop illegal immigration would include penalties for the employers as well. Which is why the current EO seems disingenuous and more apt to intimidate+oppress rather than actually address all the root causes of illegal immigration.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Obama deported a lot of people and Trump is further expanding the deportations. The problem here is that we need immigration reform, not that we need to stop deporting people who have over stayed visas etc...

Immigrants are self selecting people who want to have a better life. Why the US cannot figure out how to streamline legal immigration has been a failure of the US government for many years. Instead of 10k more officers to implement deportations, a better use of money would have been to use those people to improve/speed up the immigration process.

<comment><USER7> > Immigrants are self selecting people who want to have a better life.

Being a developer/scientist/entrepreneur whose primary exposure to immigrants is of high-IQ, high-agency, personable people similar to ourselves, it's easy to allow anecdote to obscure the facts.

The facts are that immigrants - both legal and illegal - are far more likely than natives to parasitize the social services of their host country:

[http://cis.org/sites/cis.org/files/camarota-welfare- illegals...](http://cis.org/sites/cis.org/files/camarota-welfare- illegals-f1.png) [http://cis.org/sites/cis.org/files/camarota-welfare- illegals...](http://cis.org/sites/cis.org/files/camarota-welfare- illegals-f2.png)

<comment><USER12> The problem is that study in particular is very poorly done. I'll be charitable and say they did not do it on purpose: [https://www.cato.org/blog/center-immigration-studies- exagger...](https://www.cato.org/blog/center-immigration-studies-exaggerates- immigrant-welfare-use)

 _The interesting question is not whether poor people use more welfare than rich people but whether poor immigrants are more likely to use more welfare than poor natives. Our research found that poor immigrants are less likely to use welfare than poor natives. The CIS report isn't very useful because it doesn't correct for this._

<comment><USER17> That would be an interesting question if we were answering the purely academic question of "who's a better human being, immigrants or natives?"

I fully agree that on average, the American underclass is terrible and most immigrants are better people. As evidence of this, witness all the left wing types who seem to believe that the American underclass would rather sit around on welfare than do the work that illegal immigrants will no longer be doing.

But that's not the question we're asking. The question we're asking is whether a new immigrant - a person we have the choice of accepting or rejecting - <USER2> be a benefit to society or a parasite upon it? Many natives suck, but we're stuck with them. Does that mean we are forever obligated to import more people who suck only slightly less?

(For the record, I think the best solution is to end the welfare state and open our borders. I'm just arguing with bad reasoning.)

<comment><USER18> > witness all the left wing types who seem to believe that the American > underclass would rather sit around on welfare than do the work that illegal > immigrants will no longer be doing.

What? Isn't the "welfare queen" a right-wing talking point?

<comment><USER17> It's a common left wing talking point too: we need to import more Mexicans because "they do jobs that Americans just won't do". See the comment just above mine, for instance. This talking point is correct and I can back it up with Census and BLS stats if you like.

Admittedly, it's only right wingers who bring that talking point up when discussing welfare.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Nice catch-all in the fifth paragraph:

 _" Additionally, regardless of the basis of removability, Department personnel should prioritize removable aliens who: [...] or (7) in the judgment of an immigration officer, otherwise pose a risk to public safety or national security."_

<comment><USER20> "Public safety" is surely too important to be left to the judgment of an individual. Why not create a Committee of Public Safety ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_of_Public_Safety](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_of_Public_Safety)) to make these determinations? What could possibly go wrong?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Lots of speculation about food prices etc. America has enough food to feed the world; Iowa grows enough to feed 2 United States. We'll not suffer.

That said, if we're going to have a roundup I hope it targets the biggest illegal alien demographic - middle European males overstaying their school visa. Just to be fair, you know, the white males that are the bulk of the problem should not be overlooked.

<comment><USER22> Iowa can feed the country, so long as you're fine with eating field corn and unprocessed soy, with a little pork on the side.

<comment><USER21> Iowa produces half the nation's pork. Billions of kilos. And corn is used in endless food products, like it or not.

<comment><USER22> Right. That corn is feedstock for making food/ethanol. It's not corn as you would eat.

Saying that Iowa covers the food problem is a little like saying that we've got transportation covered because there are railroads that move tons of stuff.

<comment><USER21> Its all corn you can eat. Just not as Green Giant Niblets in a can. Much is converted to starch, sugar, protein etc. and used in food manufacture.

Sure lots is used for feedstock and ethanol now; because its available and cheap.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> For someone with Trump's wealth, a doubling of all food prices won't mean much, but for the rest of the country that's going to have an enormous economic impact.

I get that these farm workers are technically breaking the law, but they're laws that have been knowingly not enforced for decades.

I honestly think the economic shock of this is going to cause another recession.

<comment><USER24> I think you're ignoring the effect this will have on lower class wages. Millions of people will replace those jobs taken by illegal immigrants, most of whom were working below minimum wage. That will tighten the labor pool of lower class jobs, and may lead to wage increases for the poorest in the country.

<comment><USER25> By the same logic you may try to destroy some capital (machines in factories, etc.). That would also place increased demand on labor.

The point is that reduction of capital or labor (in this case) does not cause increase in prosperity overall.

It does not add anything to the economy, it just takes away.

Even in recession, if you're getting poorer, it does not make sense to create pressures for general price increases by taking away stuff or people from the economy. It just makes your slide into poverty faster.

<comment><USER24> Your argument would be true if the lower and middle classes were benefiting from the growth of the economy, but it hasn't much at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I believe a lot of people could still benefit from reading about Broken Window fallacy, etc. It is still relevant 167 years later. Hint, it applies to labor too.

[http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html](http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html)

<comment><USER26> You should research the results of the theory in practice..

<comment><USER25> You can really not, because economy is a complex system where you can never control other factors.

At times, you may get actual reduction in some metric (say GDP), at others you may still get an increase in response to some major intervention into economy, because there are other inseparable overriding factors (like being in the middle of some major advance in technology, or business practices - but you can never know, control for that).

You can only reason apriori about economic forces/interactions.</comment></comment></comment>


Privacy breach: Xbox One a 'twisted nightmare' - <AUTHOR> http://games.ninemsn.com.au/news/privacy-breach-xbox-one-a-twisted-nightmare

<comment><USER2> Facial recognition, emotion tracking, heartbeat tracking, all while you watch ads. That's like a neuromarketer's dream.</comment>


Ask HN: Best way to introduce a young girl to computers? - <AUTHOR> My sweetheart's daughter is 7 years old and very precocious.  I'd love to give her the chance to get interested in computers at such a young age -- and not just playing games on them, but using them.  What would people recommend as the best approach? <comment><USER2> Put simply, you can give her the chance by giving her the chance.

What types of things is she interested in? Art? Music? Video? Programming? Something else entirely?

All of these things domains have relatively inexpensive tools available which would be accessible enough for her to use. (I'll admit that I am not the best resource for what those tools are).

The larger philosophical approach: show her that computers are tools that she can use to pursue her own interests and to create things. Provide support when necessary, but mostly let her figure things out on her own (and show her where to look when she wants to learn more; I learned a lot about how to use Photoshop from Photoshop tutorial sites, for example). If it's something you're pretty good with, "Hey, wanna see something cool?" works better than almost anything else.

It's okay if that's the extent to which she is interested in computers. It's also okay if she begins trying to create her own tools, as there are resources for that, too.

Finally, keep in mind that 7 year olds are constantly growing and changing, and that interests can change rapidly. It's okay if she spends 2 weeks straight working on GIMP, only to drop all of that the third week. The introduction of extrinsic motivators tends to diminish intrinsic motivation (Kohn, Pink), and she's still young enough that her sense of curiousity and adventure has hopefully not been fully squashed.

Good luck.

<comment><USER3> Yes. Since the question was regarding introduction to computers and not programming necessarily, I think this response is relevant. I can't locate the article but I recall reading that girls were much more interested in using computer tools to generate content, while it was the boys (or adult males) that were more often providing (writing) the tools. Not to generalize to all individuals, but empowering her with the tools to create content (e.g., GIMP or Google Sites) may be a strategic move.

<comment><USER4> _...girls were much more interested in using computer tools to generate content, while it was the boys (or adult males) that were more often providing (writing) the tools._

Sample of one, agreeing with your comment:

I'm female. I learned a little (x)html and css exactly for this reason. A friend liked something I had written and posted to an email list. She asked if she could publish it on her website. I said "sure". She later let me post more stuff there. Then she couldn't keep up and gifted me all the code. I knew absolutely nothing about code or running a website. I didn't even know what FTP meant. I started playing with the code by copying and pasting new background colors into the code. As my site grew, I had to figure out better navigation techniques...etc.

My sons are dragging me slowly into playing a wider variety of games by de- emphasizing all the "macho" stuff I hate (like the fighting) and emphasizing how much each game is "like" something I do like: Simcity. They didn't get me into playing stereotypical guy games by telling me it was wrong to be so girly or to have the objections I had. They sold me on it by showing me what was in it for me that fit with my "girly" interests.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for this, it's much appreciated.

It is my belief that geek culture is relatively gender blind but it is definitely true that there seem to be fewer girl geeks than guy geeks. I wish more women had engaged with computers so positively as you obviously have; the field would be richer for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you want to start teaching her how software works, Alice is a good start:

<http://www.alice.org/kelleher/storytelling/>

As well MIT scratch is a little more gender neutral:

<http://scratch.mit.edu/>

If you want to go less with the programming route and more of an artistic route, buying Photoshop or Pixelmator and working some tutorials will usually set the spark. I have found with my girls the art stuff took just a little spark and they ran with it. My 10 year old is now teaching my 3 year old design. The programming still takes active involvement on my part to help her through some of the tasks.

<comment><USER6> I second Scratch, it comes with a lot of examples which she can tweak, so she can explore changing settings. It's very intuitive, my daughter liked it a lot. It's available on Win, Mac and Linux too (on Ubuntu you need to install the squeak package first).

<comment><USER7> My (now 8 yo, but 7 at the time) daughter found Scratch to be mildly interesting, but not really compelling. She'd use it every now and again. But, she's pretty addicted to Kodu. I think the 3d aspect of it, as well as a more narrow topic (game/world creation and interaction) made things a lot more understandable for her, and allowed her to focus. She's still learning the same concepts, I believe, in the end, and that's what I'm after. I think of it as really a 3d Logo.

She's into 3 and 4 page programs now, with multiple actors, and fairly deep storylines.

<http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/kodu/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I fully believe that you should let your daughter do what _she_ wants to do, rather than forcing computers on her...

With that said, if she has a genuine interest, my project Hackety Hack[1] is designed to be the new BASIC for learning programming. It's built on Ruby, but starts you off with Turtle graphics, then some basic Ruby, and even GUI development. It comes with a bunch of sample programs that show you how to make all kinds of interesting things...

1: <http://hackety-hack.com/>

<comment><USER9> I'll put in my vote for hackety-hack as well. I'd also say that, if you want her to be awesome at programming, then force her to take piano lessons (or any instrument). There's a _very_ strong correlation between music skills and coding, and music is something kids can grasp really easily.

<comment><USER10> > There's a very strong correlation between music skills and coding

Really? That's the first time I've heard about it. Do you mind going into more detail, or sharing links? It's not at all obvious to me why the two skills would be correlated (perhaps because my only musical skill is completely average ability to play the guitar).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My input as a girl that was introduced to computers at a young age:

I was introduced to programming as a way of creating things, and as someone who likes creating things, it really excited me.

The first things that I made were webpages (inc. perl scripts, like for Mad Libs) and java applets (inc. an applet that let you dress up my friend in cool outfits, and another applet that was "illustrated Mad Libs," with photos of my friends and actions).

I later went on to major in Comp Sci at college, and we had to do all these boring* assignments in my first year (book inventories + pointers, woohoo), but thankfully I was already aware of how much cool stuff I could create and I stuck with it.

So, if she likes creation, then I recommend web programming (because it is creating plus instant sharing), and also programming languages that lend themselves towards graphical output (Processing is a particularly good one for newbies, and you can now teach her either traditional Java-based Processing or JS Processing).

*boring to me, atleast relatively.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Pamela. That plays well with my own skills, since I'm a web developer myself, so I'm glad to hear a qualified person so that it's a reasonable strategy.

<comment><USER11> In that case, here are my teaching materials for an HTML & CSS class - exercises and slides included: <http://www.teaching-materials.org/htmlcss/>

Web programming is actually harder to teach than other programming, I would say, because it involves so many different languages meshing together in this funny environment. But I think the practicality of it may outweigh the complexity of it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> By all means set her up with a good Logo implementation. Logo is a great way for kids to learn to program. Wikipedia seems to be a good starting point:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_%28programming_language%29>

</comment><comment><USER13> I imagine most kids find visually engaging things immediately interesting. The initial hook I used to get my sister interested in programming was the Raphael Playground: <http://raphaeljs.com/playground.html>

I walked her through how to use the reference to do more and was surprised how little hand-holding she needed. She's 11, not 7, though, so this could be beyond your kid's level.

What is your expertise in? My sister asked a lot of 'Why?'s and I imagine your kid will too, my area of expertise happens to be JavaScript (hence why I favor Raphael) so this worked well for me, but you would want to be prepared to have satisfactory answers.

</comment><comment><USER14> You might find things like <http://www.officelabs.com/ribbonhero> interesting. It's a game to teach Microsoft Office (Word, PowerPoint, Excel). I'm not a huge Windows fan.. but it would sure give anyone young the 1 up in terms of learning something which will be productive in the future in a fun way!

</comment><comment><USER15> You can start by showing her that there is more to a computer than games, the internet and facebook. Once you show people the variety of things you can do with a computer, then its up to them to follow the path to what interests them most.</comment>


Toilet paper startups are seeing huge surges in sales - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/online-toilet-paper-startups-surge-in-sales <comment><USER2> jokes on them: I don't use Toilet paper</comment>


YouTube's redesign is official, and there's a dark mode - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/05/youtubes-desktop-site-gets-a-material-design-makeover-asks-for-feedback/ <comment><USER2> They increased the size of some of the touch targets, which is probably the right call on a small mobile touchscreen, but needs to be carefully balanced with content density, as the negative spaces have been increasing over time and there's less and less content above the fold.

Of course, these screenshots are taken on a desktop with a respectable resolution, where the appeal of these changes for the viewer is less pronounced: there's some futzing around with the spacing, the default text size has slightly increased to no real benefit. There's more negative space on the desktop too, but the larger screen size offsets some of the losses. Dark mode is nice.

Overall, it feels like a bit of a wash, but, if they're gaining both a conforming design and a redone UI architecture, I can understand. I don't think it's a meaningful-enough improvement, but it's not an egregiously bad design either. In a few months, no one will remember what's different.

</comment><comment><USER3> I won't switch to the new layout until extensions like [https://github.com/ParticleCore/Particle](https://github.com/ParticleCore/Particle) [https://github.com/YePpHa/YouTubeCenter/](https://github.com/YePpHa/YouTubeCenter/) are fully supported.

After you try features like fullbrowser mode, disabled autoplay, PIP mode when you scroll down to read comments, animated thumbnail preview on hover, detailed information below the thumbnail like resolution/like ratio and many more it's impossible to go back.

</comment><comment><USER4> Seems to load a bit faster, and is more responsive in general. I kinda like it, especially the new dark mode.</comment>


I got invited to write for the Huffington Post today - <AUTHOR> http://heterocephalusgabler.wordpress.com/2014/04/25/im-in-a-right-huff/ <comment><USER2> _the class of people who own the world and control all the assets may finally begin to see the error of their ways_

Their ways? Arianna Huffington didn't cause the current epidemic of narcissism making people willing to write for free to stroke their ego as he aptly noted. She also didn't inherit HuffPo so all that talk about socialism and inheritance tax is just more signalling on the author's part. Which is why they chose him.

 _If some street hustler challenges you to a game of three card monte you don 't need to bother to play, just hand him the money, not because you're going to lose but because you owe him for the insight: he selected you._[1]

He owes them an article on cancer, I believe.

[1] [http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2013/05/dove.html](http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2013/05/dove.html)

<comment><USER3> _the current epidemic of narcissism making people willing to write for free to stroke their ego as he aptly noted_

To be fair, some people write for free to learn things, share things, and spread knowledge. That's why I started a blog. And virtually all professors, who produce work for journals, don't get paid directly via their writing, but rather via their home institution, and sometimes other means (like grants).

Universities are different than the HuffPo, but the point is still important.

<comment><USER4> I think the real point there is that the professors still get paid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Good for the writer. I have written for Hufpo once before and soon I realized how their model works:

1 - get free content from the writers.

2 - get free marketing and traffic from the writers (who tell their friends and follower about their article they've just posted on the Hufpo)

Most of the articles you write are all hidden in some sub-pages that no one but your friends or google seo would ever find.

edit: formatting.

<comment><USER6> This is the basic model of a lot of similar companies. Get people to provide content for free, then profit from control over the repository. If it weren't for copyright protections, HuffPo and its ilk would just copy your blog posts verbatim and call it a day. They're one step up from the sites that auto- generate product reviews or display reformatted Wikipedia articles.

<comment><USER7> _If it weren 't for copyright protections, HuffPo and its ilk would just copy your blog posts verbatim and call it a day._

They pretty much do anyway. Anything saying "CNN has reported..." is basically just a rewrite of the existing CNN article, to just enough of an extent that they avoid copyright issues. Do slightly better SEO (easy because huffingtonpost.com is more popular than cnn.com) and you get all the clicks. The organisation that spent money on the original reporting gets nothing. Yay.

<comment><USER8> I've been kicking around the idea of a plugin for FF or Chrome to root the source out of a few popular reblog sites (HuffPuff, Upworthy etc) as they usually link it.

Rarely do the reblog sites add much other than op-ed commentary to original news item and it'd save me time when someone sends me a link to a news item to root out the source.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I agree with the writer's points that HuffPo seems like a pretty bad deal for the writer; but honestly how different is that from HN? Ignoring the fact that HN makes no money; the product they offer is obviously desirable or people would stop visiting. Therefore, it is worth something.

A large portion of the top content on HN comes from peoples' personal blogs. While these blogs often run ads, I seriously doubt those ads provide much income beyond covering the hosting bills. So people are obviously willing to write for free.

HuffPo realized there was a market opportunity in connecting people who were writing for free anyway with an audience for their content. I guess my biggest problem with their business model is that the offer _seems_ like a freelance writing gig and could obviously dupe someone who doesn't ask the right questions.

So in the end I don't really have a problem with their business model, but their approach to sourcing content seems a bit disingenuous. If they were more up-front about the lack of payment, I would have less of a problem with this.

<comment><USER10> What are Huffington Post's intellectual property terms? That could be a big distinction between Huffington Post and HN.

On HN, nobody signs over any IP, nor does the copyright holder necessarily grant a license of any sort. (If you doubt that, consider the fact that I can submit _anyone 's_ URL to HN. So submitters aren't assumed to have any authority over the IP.)

With periodicals, though, there usually _is_ a contract with writers where rights are assigned to the publisher. Maybe the copyright, maybe just a license. There's usually something along those lines.

So the difference between HN and such periodicals (which may or may not include HuffPo) is the difference between merely sharing a link and signing over IP rights.

<comment><USER11> With HuffPo, you retain ownership of your work and are free to publish it anywhere else.

<comment><USER10> Good to know. In that case, probably the biggest distinction between HuffPo and HN is that HuffPo displays the content on their own site. For some writers, that might be a plus. For others, it might be a minus.

I've heard some professional writers say you should rarely or ever publish anything (e.g. a blog post) without remuneration. Not because it's wrong to do so, but because they consider it bad business. If they're right, I don't know if that should affect our judgment of a publisher who actively solicits unpaid submissions. Maybe the writers are undervaluing themselves, but then maybe the publisher isn't to blame for that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The same guy contacted me and I've submitted a couple of pieces since. He was very upfront and clear about what was being offered, i.e. submit the things you're writing anyway to us, and subject to editorial discretion they may be featured on some hugely-trafficked section, else just archived on "the blog".

For doing this they offer you a small profile with various links: to your amazon books, your website, twitter, an RSS feed as well as the "exposure" and (ever decreasing in value) bragging rights of writing (well, blogging) for the Huffington Post. You give them doctored versions of the blog posts you're writing anyway with a slight risk of hurting your own SEO.

I think everyone is privy to their business model but IMO it's win-win unless you're in a position where others are already keen to pay for your work.

<comment><USER12> If you look from the right angle everything it's win-win, the point is how much one win is worth compared to the other. Your boss tells you he would totally give you money if you do some boring chores he doesn't want to do, it's win-win. But if he gives you $1000 and then proceeds to make 10 times that with the product of your work, then it's actually a WIN-win for him.

<comment><USER11> I don't think this is a strong argument, how is everything win-win? What if I get hit by a car on the way home, is that win-win?Likewise getting fair compensation for a task, do boring/hard chores get money, isn't win-win it's zero-sum.

Re: the last sentence, welcome to capitalism where we don't typically evenly share out the earnings from anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Not related,but I would like to mention this regardless:

>>No party will suggest the rational solutions: if hard work makes us rich, let's tax inheritance at 85%, so the children of rich men have to work hard too. But no: that would never do

I never understood this argument. I am not rich by any means,but why would my children have to pay 85% on things that I want to leave them?? It's idiotic - I worked hard to earn those things,why would the government want 85% of their value?? On what basis and logical reason? To make my children "less lazy" by doing so?? They can mind their own children - I will mind mine.

<comment><USER14> > but why would my children have to pay 85% on things that I want to leave > them?? It's idiotic.

No, it's not idiotic. It's income to them they receive without working, it should be taxed higher because those who work for their money should not be taxed higher than those who simply have it given to them.

> I worked hard to earn those things,why would the government want 85% of > their value??

Yes, and that's yours, not your children's. The only person you can give large sums of money to tax free is your spouse; to everyone else, that's new income and it should be taxed, and large sums should be taxed heavily because inherited wealth is anathema to democracy.

You can't have a functioning democracy and allow capital accumulation to the elite in such large sums that their children become kings with the power to buy politicians and affect law without having the benefit of having worked for that money and really understanding what it means to not be wealthy.

> On what basis and logical reason? To make my children "less lazy" by doing > so??

No, to stop them from destroying society.

> They can mind their own children - I will mind mine.

You live in a community and it's not all about you and yours; try not thinking about yourself so much and look at the bigger picture. Inherited wealth is bad for society, earned wealth is good for society. You earned your money, keep it; your children should earn their own on their own.

<comment><USER13> >>It's income to them they receive without working, it should be taxed higher because those who work for their money should not be taxed higher than those who simply have it given to them.

This literally does not make any sense. I paid tax on all those things. My children are using the benefits of my work, that is correct - but I paid my duties for the money I made.

>> without having the benefit of having worked for that money and really understanding what it means to not be wealthy.

So why don't we send everyone for a mandatory work in orphanages or homeless shelters for a couple months,if its about teaching people a lesson? Since when is it the governments job to make people " understand what it means to not be wealthy."?

>>inherited wealth is anathema to democracy.

So why don't we ban it altogether? Once you hit 18 years of age, you are given a government-built apartament, $1000 pocket money, and off you go, enjoy democracy. Meanwhile, if you die, all your possessions can go to the government who will make sure that your wealth is redistributed to the greatest benefit of the society. Sounds like the right kind of democracy to me.

<comment><USER15> Wow, talk about black-and-white thinking.

Consider: There may be other alternatives that fall between the extremes of "My kids get all the free money I can give them!" and "The government should confiscate all possessions and give everyone a state-sponsored apartment."

<comment><USER13> Yes, for me it's either no inheritance tax, or 100% inheritance tax. Anything in between doesn't make sense as it it completely arbitrary. Why 10%? Or 60%? Or 85%? If you support the notion that children should work for themselves, then don't let them inherit anything from their parents - in which case, the government has to provide at least a place to live in. If you don't support the notion of taxing inheritance(like I do) then you should support the idea of inheritance tax being 0. Again - no tax is being evaded here. A person who made that money/bought those things already paid the tax on them. The government got their share in this already.

<comment><USER14> > Yes, for me it's either no inheritance tax, or 100% inheritance tax.

Then you need to mature your point of view because the world isn't so absurdly simple and black and white.

No thinking person can look at this country (U.S.) today and say accumulated wealth isn't causing a whole host of problems. The wealth inequality in this country is bad and needs to be addressed. The rich are out of control.

<comment><USER16> Yeah but taxes aren't why. Its the rigged financial markets that have swiftly vacuumed up all the money and put it into the hands of those that - guess what - handle money.

<comment><USER14> There is no one why, there's a host of things that allow wealth accumulation and they all need to be tackled, but inherited wealth produces dangerous people: aristocrats who have no idea what it means to work and no appreciation for those that do, and that cannot be ignored.

And without all that wealth accumulation, the financial markets wouldn't be rigged. They were rigged by the wealthy buying politicians to get the laws they like passed. The markets are a symptom of the problem, they aren't the problem itself; accumulated wealth is the problem.

<comment><USER16> But the fix is to undo the damage to the markets. At bottom humans are always the problem; but that's not actionable.

<comment><USER14> Nope, that's just treating a symptom; they'd just immediately break the market again and that's putting aside the point that they own your politicians and simply wouldn't allow you to fix it. Until you deal with severe wealth accumulation, nothing else matters and yes it is actionable. The French lopped off a few heads, it worked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I can not stress this enough: NEVER work for free. Don't do unpaid internships. Also try to avoid selling yourself under value (hint: you are probably worth at least twice you could imagine). Ever had someone accept your demanded rate without negotiating? You know you must ask for more next time.

Besides owing it to yourself, working for less than your right wage will harm your industry.

<comment><USER18> im just kidding, but if they are working for 0 and you said they are worth twice as much as they imagine (0), aren't they still worth 0? :P

reminds me of al bundy, no phone calls today, but tomorrow twice as many!

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I can understand the frustration of the author, however, HuffPo is not a government or social entity. It IS part of the free market. I am a huge proponent of the free market, however, that does not mean the free market will be perfect. In the short term, there are fits and starts and cycles that everything goes through, but it is only through the free market that we will progress over the long-term.

Writers are unfortunately caught up in one of these free-market tornadoes, and to survive, they need to transform.

The author, instead of looking at this as "writing for free", should look at this as an opportunity to create his personal platform. HuffPo is paying him by giving access to their audience. It is up to him to take advantage of that. Yes, it's not easy, but it's reality.

<comment><USER7> But what is the actual benefit of the HuffPo platform? I don't think anyone sees "HuffPo Contributor" as a byline and considers the author to somehow be a legitimate writer. Nor does HuffPo give any percentage of ad revenue.

The best possible scenario is that readers get used to seeing your name on the Huffington Post, so they return for your future posts. Great. You don't get paid for them either.

Can you point out even one success from this platform? Someone who started out on HuffPo and has become successful?

<comment><USER11> I don't think that's how the world works, you don't go from "I blogged at the Huffington Post" to President, but maybe it gets you a paid journalism gig, or a book deal, or it just fractionally helps the pagerank of your own site. Maybe it just looks slightly more interesting on a résumé than your wordpress blog. What do you expect to get out of writing about your interests in your free time?

Anecdotal example: I'm essentially a nobody but was approached by a literary agent after a HP blog post.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> _I then researched how long people typically last writing for the Daily Show (about 6 weeks)_

This seems awfully short. Can anyone shed some light on why this is the case?

</comment><comment><USER21> " _The wealthiest families in the UK are those of the Earl of Cadogan and the Duke of Westminster, both of which inherited ownership of prime London real estate. They have done nothing to develop that real estate, nothing to earn it, and their ownership benefits absolutely nobody except for themselves. In fact, their total control pushes housing costs so high that the entire nation has become indebted to pay excessive mortgage costs, simply to protect their ownership of land that is, in national and global terms, economically dormant._ "

This is completely true, apparently. I was just listening to an _Economist_ podcast episode on real estate in London. Existing housing property cannot be redeveloped for higher density because the existing long-term leases do not come up for renewal at the same time and must be renewable. On the other hand, the freeholder (the one actually owning the property) is in theory responsible for infrastructure but is apparently free from that responsibility in practice.

London sounds worse than San Francisco.

</comment><comment><USER22> Great blog, very enlightening write up.

for as far as I could figure out...

If a for-profit business seeks to employ you without financial compensation they are breaking the law. If you offer your services below minimum wage you are breaking the law. If the worker's services are an integral part of the employer's business the worker is an employee of that company. If the role isn't an essential functions of the company you could be a contractor.

Either way you must pay wages.

Or can the text on pages like these be stretched to say exactly the opposite of what it says?

us: [http://www.dol.gov/elaws/esa/flsa/docs/volunteers.asp](http://www.dol.gov/elaws/esa/flsa/docs/volunteers.asp)

      Under the FLSA, employees may not volunteer services to for-profit private sector employers.

uk: [https://www.gov.uk/employment-rights-for- interns](https://www.gov.uk/employment-rights-for-interns)

      Employers can't avoid paying the National Minimum Wage if it's due by:
        saying or stating that it doesn't apply
        making a written agreement saying someone isn't a worker or that they're a volunteer

The netherlands: [http://www.belastingtips.nl/zakelijk/aftrekbare_kosten/vergo...](http://www.belastingtips.nl/zakelijk/aftrekbare_kosten/vergoeding_voor_vrijwilliger/)

      Vrijwilliger verricht werkzaamheden voor een organisatie zonder winstoogmerk.
      De organisatie mag geen (bedrijf) B.V. of N.V. zijn, tenzij sportvereniging.
      De vrijwilliger verricht het werk niet als zijn beroep.

translation: Must be a no-profit, must not be the same work as your paid job. You may help relatives for free as long as you are not getting social support.

I'm curious now, how does Hufington Post (New York) do it?

</comment><comment><USER23> I write free articles only for marketing, and only on sites that will give me traffic that makes it worth my time.

This means that such sites will get only thinky veiled marketing.

</comment><comment><USER24> Scalzi's thoughts on the matter [1] are a classic entry into this genre and make for an enjoyable read.

[1] [http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/12/09/a-note-to-you- should-y...](http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/12/09/a-note-to-you-should-you- be-thinking-of-asking-me-to-write-for-you-for-free/)

</comment><comment><USER25> I wouldn't pay him either. I got bored after the second paragraph.

Before you downvote: I have hired hundreds of writers in my time, and am currently paying out hundreds of dollars/day to content creators at [http://newslines.org/newslines-rewards/](http://newslines.org/newslines- rewards/)

<comment><USER26> For the curious:

 _We pay $1 for each approved post. Each post is 50-100 words, has to follow our simple style guide, and must to link to an original news article._

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I sympathize and share the author's dislike of this particular business model, however, I am fairly certain the Huffpo staffer addressed didn't read past the first paragraph.

<comment><USER28> On what do you base your fair certainty?

<comment><USER27> The fact the reply to an offer by an editor started with three or four paragraphs of political ideology.

<comment><USER28> ...the assumption being that the editor has an aversion toward political ideology?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Did you ask money to prove a point or just to stroke more your ego?

<comment><USER30> How about to put some food on the table?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> By the same logic the author shouldn't tweet for free either.</comment>


Walking backwards can boost your short-term memory, study suggests - <AUTHOR> https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6398085/Walking-backwards-boost-short-term-memory.html <comment><USER2> Great, a popular article about "research" that doesn't link to the study itself. Wonderful, we should just totally believe what this person says.</comment>


Ask HN: Using fb/twtr login to show users as "verified" on our platform legal? - <AUTHOR> <comment><AUTHOR> What i mean by above is , if a verified user registers with my platform with fb/twitter. Can i use the "verified status" to show the user as "verified" on my platform?</comment>


A First Course in Design and Analysis of Experiments (2010) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://users.stat.umn.edu/~gary/book/fcdae.pdf <comment><USER2> Design of Experiments was probably the most important engineering course I took as an engineering undergrad.

And it's so important that it really should be taught at an even more basic 5th grade level for the general public. This is how you get people to be more analytical in life, to see through bullshit.</comment>


How can SOPA or Protect IP hurt a small social networking site? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> If one or more users link to some infringing content, the rightholders can demand the seizure of the domain if they feel the users' actions are damaging enough to them.</comment>


Top 5 exceptions in AppEngine - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sfalma.com/post/5007292243/top-5-exceptions-in-google-app-engine

<comment><USER2> I am looking forward to the rarest. Has anyone come across TombstonedTaskError ?

<comment><USER3> Yes. Happens when you enqueue a task with the same name as a previously enqueued task.</comment></comment>


Planning scientific equipment for Antarctic conditions - <AUTHOR> http://www.antarctica.gov.au/science/science-support/scientific-equipment <comment><USER2> Working in a system where people say: "STS has a low temperature environmental chamber which is used by STS staff for equipment development and testing down to −85 Celsius. It may be possible for you to use this chamber to temperature test your own equipment" is what science is about, we have learned from our mistakes, can we help you to not do the same.

The reference to XLR connectors, an aged technology, shows the ruggedness of the the design, a good example of the evolution of survival of the fittest in design. It is not the best, but the most fit.

</comment><comment><USER3> Battery systems aren't designed for temperatures below -40°C.

I'm currently looking at building a cold weather tower for use as a non- rotator SatNOGS ground station.

One solution I've found is using snow as an insulator. If you insulate a battery box then cover it in one foot of snow you can effectively insulate batteries against cold temperatures.

Tests I've conducted with temperature sensors: -34°C air temperature. -24°C under 2" of snow. -17°C under one foot of snow. That's without heating.

If you use a heater and an alternative energy source, you can keep the batteries warm and toasty within their optimal operational specification of 0°C to 20°C.

I'm in the Canadian arctic and seasonal winter temperatures are between -35°C and -44°C.

I'm also looking at using SkelCaps from Skeleton Technologies out of Estonia. I haven't tested them yet, but I suspect their curved graphene ultra capacitors should do quite well in the extreme cold.

</comment><comment><USER4> I did robotics research in Antarctica. The key challenge I encountered was designing an appropriate interface for interacting with a robot in that environment. Coding was completely impossible when it was -25 or -40 out, but we still needed a minimal interface for interacting with a semi-autonomous robot, and few off the shelf solutions worked well, so we basically ended up with ruggedized laptops and minimal interaction.

<comment><USER5> Did you consider something along the lines of a keyboard in a glovebox with a heater minus the gloves?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I haven't been to Antarctica but have done a lot of cold weather hiking (mostly in Iceland) with various electronic equipment.

One tip relevant to this article that you can use to increase the performance of battery powered electronic equipment by keeping it heated.

Of course you're not going to bring along dedicated heating equipment, but you yourself function as a portable heat generator.

So e.g. if you need to carry a radio you can arrange your clothing so it's strapped to your chest with the battery facing your body, with all your clothing going over the radio, and a hands-free headset on a wire going up to your neck to use the radio.

</comment><comment><USER7> My father did two winter tours with ANARE, at Casey and Davis, as the base communications technician. What I gleaned is this: if the diesel ever freezes, you are buggered.

To me the idea of being stranded in a sunless chillvoid for months on end seems like a prelude to actual hell. But he loved it. He truly loved it.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is interesting but I don't know how practical it is.

The key takeaway is...

> The single most important thing is to test your equipment before taking it > to Antarctica. This is obvious, but many people don't do it and their > research programs are compromised by equipment failures which are completely > avoidable. [....] Make sure that your equipment works correctly at the > temperatures you will encounter in Antarctica.

But no advice is given on where to find a test environment that can simulate:

> Temperatures may occasionally go below −80 Celsius in far inland regions.

> The wind can blow up to 200 km/h in coastal regions, and it will carry grit > in areas where there is no snow cover.

> Antarctica has very dry air which results in large amounts of static > electricity, particularly when the wind is strong. Static electricity can > instantly destroy unprotected electronic equipment.

<comment><USER9> Commercial environmental test labs exist and are widely used to test electronic equipment. The ESD testing shouldn't be an issue for any of these labs, but the temperature and grit testing might be a little extreme for the equipment at some labs. Still, my experience has been that these labs are eager to solve any unusual environmental testing requirements and they can probably figure something out.

<comment><USER10> Sure, but not on a shoestring budget.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Tangentially-related: Wendover's video on Antarctica: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-s3j-ptJD10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-s3j-ptJD10)</comment>


Cloud and Field: On the resurgence of "field guides" in a networked age - <AUTHOR> https://placesjournal.org/article/cloud-and-field/ <comment><USER2> Warning - this article is in the academic literary genre in which you score points for name dropping, making "connections", asking "questions", and using as many words as possible. I was unable to find the point of the article.

Sample:

> ...we seek once again to "make visible the invisible," to open the "black > box," while also, paradoxically, aestheticizing the wires and algorithms > themselves. We have accelerated the cycles of making-visible and making- > invisible that are so entangled with Western urban planning and its > ideologies. How do we reconcile our competing aspirations for ordered > knowledge about how the world works with our desire to believe in its magic?

<comment><USER3> yeah, i hate this style of writing. it's designed to make people feel dumb, but if you're smart enough to actually parse the language, you realize they're not saying anything.

also, they just draw the wrong conclusions.

 _The Cloud is composed of multiple levels of code, and no one person can see, let alone interpret, the full stack._

this isn't true. i've worked with a handful of people throughout my career that could tell you exactly how the entire thing works, from x86 registers all the way to javascript running in the browser and everything in between, including details of the content addressable memory on the layer 2 switches! certainly not literally everything that exists, but they understand the entire stack for sure. i suspect there are at least one of these types that exist at every 'cloud' company actually building products.

i think to a lay person technology just seems impossible to fully understand because they do not understand even the most basic things. it's just projection.

<comment><USER4> I hear these people are called 'full stack developers' even. Though I wouldn't want to use the colonial methods of 'looking, collecting, and record-keeping.' I've heard that doing these things is how you understand systems from front to back.

I wonder what will happen when she finds out about the master/slave relationship inherent in replicated datasets. Is Cassandra transgressing the boundaries of colonial data replication?

<comment><USER5> Towards a transgressive hermaneutics of colonial replication in postmodern data storage?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting paper, I wonder what her thoughts on the hermeneutics of quantum gravity are.

<comment><USER6> Ha! I got a good laugh out of this comment.

For those wanting the "inside baseball" reference: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am reminded of Foucault's referencing of Borges' fictional Chinese encyclopedia, Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge. Which divides animals into 14 categories:

        Those that belong to the emperor
        Embalmed ones
        Those that are trained
        Sucking pigs
        Mermaids (or Sirens)
        Fabulous ones
        Stray dogs
        Those that are included in this classification
        Those that tremble as if they were mad
        Innumerable ones
        Those drawn with a very fine camel hair brush
        Et cetera
        Those that have just broken the flower vase
        Those that, at a distance, resemble flies

I think people have realized for some time that all efforts at cataloging carry the baggage of ethnocentrism and cultural biases.

PS I am agreeing with danielvf.

</comment><comment><USER8> The "cloud" is not organized in such a way as the article wishes it to be, to have ecologies to be explored, such that a field guide or niche study is appropriate.

Lots of assumptions required to back the parallels, most of them off-base, and so the article kind of just confuses like urban exploration and eco/techno- tourism as some kind of like 21st Darwinian voyage stuff that will tell us the hidden structures we're creating and unintentionally relying on as a new networked, data-laden society.

At least I think that's what they're getting at.

The linked videos are cool though on their own merits.

<comment><USER9> The central sentence is a few paragraphs in: "And again we are searching for the right metaphors and models to guide our investigation." That's what the whole article is about. People are looking for a useful way to describe the masses of new infrastructure, and this article lists some of them. It also calls out past and present ways of looking at the world, for context.</comment></comment>


Britain poised for third phase of industrial revolution - <AUTHOR> http://www.bsr-russia.com/en/economy/item/1097-britain-poised-for-third-phase-of-industrial-revolution.html

<comment><USER2> I don't know what this article is really trying to say, if it's saying that a zero cost labour force will drive a third industrial revolution, then I'd disagree. The economy here in the UK is on the brink of collapse, as is our government. While the coalition looks solid on the outside the two parties involved are both undergoing an internal identity crisis, with some members of the lib dems leaning to the right and some tories leaning towards the centre. It's not really a radical government in any other concept than it's doing what is the only option left - to stop spending money.

I don't see this revolution in the UK. There's a fair old bit of unemployment, nobody wants to spend money and interest rates are so low that any savings are being pretty much destroyed. Add rising prices for common things like food and petrol and you're not really creating the conditions for an industrial revolution.

<comment><USER3> What the article is trying to say is that Britain is once again leading the world thanks to the far sighted, determined and wise leadership of the Conservative Party.

It's a little comical considering that Germany, Switzerland and many others are much further along the way towards a knowledge driven re-emergence of manufacturing that doesn't depend on cheap labour.

Britain is a glorified hedge fund with no manufacturing to speak of.

<comment><USER2> I'd say that the concept of our economy as a glorified hedge fund is going a bit too far. Ireland is a glorified hedge fund due to it's tax policies and financial investments. Britain is able to trade on it's asset base which is actually pretty large compared to the likes of Ireland. The manufacturing of which you speak has gone downhill, but given the country's history as the manufacturing powerhouse of the world initially, followed by the dissolution, renaissance and redissolution of it's base I don't see that as a huge problem. The British economy these days is largely a value-add services-driven economy. We don't manufacture because it's cheaper to get other countries to manufacture then develop services on top and make money through arbitrage on the difference. I'm not suggesting this is sustainable but it's the only thing we can do for now to remain competitive.

<comment><USER3> Of course "glorified hedge fund" is an exaggeration and the UK does have pockets of innovation in industries like biotech. Services is 75% of GDP, 10% of GDP is financial services in the narrowest sense. That's compared to 7.5% in the US and 3.8% in Germany. How much of that huge services sector is linked to financial services? My own observation is that about half of all IT jobs in the UK are related to finance. I think it's fair to say that the value Britain adds to the world economy is dominated by investment banking.

There are historical reasons for that, but the extremely lax approach to regulation plays a huge role as well. The UK is where hedge funds and investment banks from all over the world go to do the most daring kinds of gambles. AIG was the biggest insurer in the world. Their small London office bankrupted the entire company. Why was that office in London instead of New York?

But my point is that any claim that the UK is leading the world in terms of a new type of knowledge driven, highly automated manufacturing model is completely delusional. It just doesn't exist outside of a few speeches David Cameron gave during the election campaign. Britain is not even on the map when it comes to technology.

I don't know if this is a big problem. Maybe the world can sustain a few bloated financial centres and will do so for a long time to come. But if it turns out that finance as a share of world GDP has peaked, then the UK is in a very dire situation, arguably the worst outside if Iceland.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The idea is that robotic manufacturing would be the next stage of the industrial revolution. Meaning that lost manufacturing jobs are not necessarily a bad thing, but rather a natural procession to more advanced division of labor. Indeed, the focus on "keeping jobs" at all costs may be harming development.

But we could also say robots are a means to evade the uncompetitive nature of the labor market. By adding restrictions, politicians are forcing businesses to shift their manufacturing to automatic processes rather than human laborers. So we have lower skilled people prevented from working (and sometimes from ever gaining employment), expensive high-skilled technicians and engineers and expensive technology. The free market will route against barriers, often with unintended consequences. For now at least, Chinese laborers are a better alternative to autonomous robots.

</comment><comment><USER5> > _Such has been the success of computer technology that whole swathes of > industry (such as book printing, but there are many others) no longer need > any workers at all. Everything is computer-controlled, computer-driven. > Suddenly there are NO labour costs, so the former advantages of the Third > World are being rapidly wiped out once again._

i don't follow how the article goes from this to looking forward to everyone being involved in a 3rd industrial revolution. the conclusion i would draw is that there is an unprecedented unemployment crisis looming.

<comment><USER6> _i don't follow how the article goes from this to looking forward to everyone being involved in a 3rd industrial revolution. the conclusion i would draw is that there is an unprecedented unemployment crisis looming._

Yes, it does seem that there will be unprecedented unemployment crisis. However, who will buy all the goods that the robot produce?

Moreover, it does seem time and time again that people manages to find work. Some people say there's alway works to do.

Thus, it is imperative that entrepreneurs find new uses for the unemployed masses, educators to reacess how they teach, and so on, to ease the growing pain. Let face it, we don't want to get another Luddite rebellion.

<comment><USER5> > _However, who will buy all the goods that the robot produce?_

absolutely, that's part of the problem.

> _Moreover, it does seem time and time again that people manages to find > work. Some people say there's alway works to do._

the vast majority of unemployed people will not "find work". they will be "given work" by other people who are in a position to take advantage of them.

if the benefits of automation aren't socialized you can count on increasingly sadistic ways of "putting people to use".

<comment><USER6> >the vast majority of unemployed people will not "find work". they will be "given work" by other people who are in a position to take advantage of them.

That's of course, when only industrialization is the _only factor_. When you factor in all the other technological factors and social trends, the picture will begins to look different, if not radically so.

<comment><USER7> Please to elaborate on these "other technological factors and social trends." If there's too much panic on one side by those who are losing their jobs, there seems to be a great deal of hand waving and talk about "other factors" by those who are less affected by these "trends".

<comment><USER6> The Flynn effect trend seem to indicate that the population is getting smarter over time. However, it would probably only slow down the loss of jobs. Unless, IQ increase dramatically.

Than there's the emerging invisible economy in which everything is determined by supply & demand, but also contracts that are per se, not "enforceable", and where reputation matters. That where people can find jobs in spite of the structural deficiency in the wider economy that forbid the price floor for labor to drop to where it needs to be. They are happening _now_.

But there's the past record in which new jobs are created out of jobs being eliminated by robots. There are demands for humans to program them, probably repair them, and so on. It might happen again with this process of industrialization.

There's another factor: prosthetic that effect a superhuman attribute or merging of humans into machines. It seem to take forever right now, though. This could be simply be our linear point of views, but not the actual development rate.

But then again, whether or not we have jobs in the future is not determined by what arguments I make, but of the facts.

<comment><USER8> > Unless, IQ increase dramatically.

100 IQ is defined as the average in the population under study, therefore increase / decrease is impossible.

<comment><USER6> >100 IQ is defined as the average in the population under study, therefore increase / decrease is impossible.

By our standard, most people 100 years ago would be classified as retarded. Thus, what I meant by increase in IQ is in relative to past populations.

An errors? Perhaps, but that's nitpicking.

<comment><USER8> I would say that "smarter over time" is the wrong conclusion of the Flynn effect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I used to own one of these <http://www.panasonicfa.com/?id=TAWERS> and it did not replace the worker. It did make him twice as productive with better quality, but he still had to load and unload it. The machine cost $1600 per month on a lease, so it wasn't 'free' either. It also took someone with programming skills to get it going, which again was not free. So while I am a big fan of automation, the thought that it is free and requires no workers is a fantasy.

</comment><comment><USER10> I disagree. It very much looks like most or all western countries are about to follow Japan's track of long decline.

An important missing part is also energy availability : See this for instance: <http://netenergy.theoildrum.com/node/7069>

<comment><USER11> What was the winning strategy in Japan? Can you recommend something to read about how the people who _are_ succeeding in Japan are doing it, and which strategies they are following?

<comment><USER10> Anyone who would know what would be a winning strategy for Japan right now would be rich quick :) Japan after roaring 80s and a huge real estate boom, crashed in 1990 and never recovered. The last numbers are really frightening, see [http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6010227/Webshare/China%20Japan%20Pre...](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6010227/Webshare/China%20Japan%20Presentation%20v3%20-%20By%20Vitaliy%20Katsenelson.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The first 40% of the article started out OK actually.

Then it goes to pot and turns into some sort of political rant which some point I don't understand.

Also, what BS about worker-less automated factories. Has he even seen high tech factories? They will still need workers for many years to come. And anyway, these factories are more likely to be in the BRIC and other low cost countries still.

A flurry of these factories firstly are not coming to the UK and secondly (if they did) are not likely to bring the UK back to relevancy.

</comment><comment><USER13> If Britain can drive costs down by automating factories, then I'm sure China can, too. They have a lot of skilled people, they've proven their willingness to invest big money on manufacturing, and unlike Britain, China actually has a credible plan to deliver cheap electricity over the next two or three decades. Oh, and they have cheap labor to fill in the gaps where you still need people, which is another plus.

<comment><USER14> I get what you're saying about energy costs, but I'm not as convinced. We (first-world) got a lot of cheap manufacturing inputs because we ignored (i.e. passed on to next generations) some of the costs of energy, namely pollution and water use in coal. One of the reasons we were able to do that in the 50s and 60s is that we hadn't really convinced ourselves it would be as bad as the environmentalists said, so we ignored it.

China won't be able to pass those externalities on to future generations as we did. The reason is that we serve as an example of what happens when you do ignore the full cost of energy generation, and there is already significant local concern about pollution from unrestricted manufacturing and energy generation.

I think China will not have the luxury that we had of several decades of ignoring some hidden input costs. They will be forced to implement full environmental impact controls which will drive up energy costs.

They do have some dam projects for hydropower generation left to bring online, but I can't see any really major projects being implemented after that. Then there's nuclear, about which I don't know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> He would have made a better argument by using ARM as an example of developing British IP and licensing it to others to manufacture.</comment>


Ask HN: How do we pick an user ID while building a social-platform? - <AUTHOR> We're a team of 20 and 22 y.o. building an idea-sharing platform called Meraki. This is our very first try at building an app and also the very first try at building a social platform. The platform that we're building - Meraki - uses only Facebook and Twitter APIs to signup and login. The new users are then asked to pick a username. We want to provide a functionality to users to change their usernames later on.
Now, the problem is that we cannot use FB username, FB email, Twitter username or Twitter email or the Meraki username as a constant user identity for their actions on the app because it may vary as user can change it anytime.
How do we or what do we choose as a User identity? Providing numbers-identity to newly signed up users doesn't seem that attractive to us. <comment><USER2> You don't use an external ID.

You use an internal ID that you control, which fits the requirements of your design.

External authenticators can then associate to your internal account as you design. If the external authenticators can be 'renamed' you'll want to insist on a sidechannel (often email) and recovery process for that channel (or SMS is popular).

Any data you collect can and will be used against your customers in the event of liquidation and/or oppressive governments in the jurisdictions your servers are hosted in: I recommend allowing 'email only' as an option for your users.

</comment><comment><USER3> For internal purposes, a 64 bit GUID will be sufficient. Look how Twitter uses Snowflake - [https://github.com/twitter/snowflake](https://github.com/twitter/snowflake) \- that's a scalable way to generate unique IDs which won't ever be revealed to the user.

For default user names, I quite like how gfycat does it - [http://gfycat.com/about](http://gfycat.com/about) \- AdjectiveAdjectiveAnimal - so a user is given a default name like "ReluctantCandidWombat". Fun, unique, hard to iterate, and hopefully provides an incentive to the user to change it later.

</comment><comment><USER4> You will need two things:

One, a human facing unique id (or 'nickname') -- such as palakz -- which you can use in your HI and whatnot. This one could even change over time.

Two, a computer facing unique id (or 'subject') which uniquely identifies the person in your application, usually a guid, long integer or whatnot. This one never changes.

Then combine the two and put them either in a secure (encrypted) cookie (for your web app) or token (for your mobile app) and you are basically done.

This for example is how authentication on Twitter works. Every person on Twitter has a unique id (probably designated through Snowflake mentioned below) and a self chosen name (which you can also change if I remember correctly). The former is stored in a secure cookie (in the web app) or a token (in the mobile app) together with some other static user information (e.g. nickname). When visiting a page requiring authentication the id is exposed to the backend code so it can recognize who you are and for example decide what actions to take (e.g. take you to the onboarding page or your personal timeline)

Hope this helps :)

<comment><USER5> Looking at Twitter is a good way to anticipate some edge cases.

For example, think about identity from a social perspective. On Twitter, identity is defined not just by the "@handle", but by the name and avatar image as well. Changing the name or avatar has little consequence in Twitter's platform, so some users do that a lot to play with their identity.

BTW, playing with identity--defining it, testing new attributes, evolving it over time--is a MAJOR attraction of social networks, if not the main reason anyone uses social networks at all. If your platform attempts to treat identity purely as a fixed thing, you're going to have trouble with long-term engagement. You need to give users identifying attributes that they can easily change regularly.

Speaking of which--while Twitter users can change their @username, it breaks all previous conversations. Why? Because Twitter manages conversational references solely by the text of the tweet. So if you change your @username to @newname, all those @username references in old conversations will go black (i.e. not be linked anymore).

I believe it also releases your old @username for someone else to register!

So, it seems quite uncommon for folks to change their @usernames on Twitter. In fact the few people and orgs I know who wanted a new ID on Twitter just started a new account and then used their old account to tell their followers to follow the new one. That way old conversations stay linked and in control. And it's a sort of follow "list cleaning" in that only the most engaged folks follow you to the new account.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > The platform that we're building uses only Facebook and Twitter APIs to > signup and login.

No normal email only sign-up? Does your demographic not include people who prefer not linking their accounts to external identity providers?

</comment><comment><USER7> Just so you know, I googled Meraki and got this: [https://www.meraki.com/](https://www.meraki.com/)

My opinion is that having number based user accounts is fine as long as you don't provide any access to them in any of your request parameters.

They should be safely maintained server side, within sessions, and any request for other user's details is done via their username.

My last point is that a user should never be able to find out their user id #.

If you allow users to change their username, then you put the responsibility in the users hands to update their external links.

Eg. If I change my twitter handle, I have no idea how many places I have that referenced - so I just don't do it (not sure if you even can change it at will actually)

</comment><comment><USER8> You need to have your own IDs IMHO, so that people can associate multiple accounts (ex., both Facebook and Twitter). Could you go with something simple, like a timestamp with microseconds or a timestamp plus a random number?

If you don't want to allow that, why not just to fb_{facebook_id, tw_{twitter_id}, etc.?

</comment><comment><USER9> You might want to consider a name that isn't owned by a tech giant: [https://www.meraki.com/](https://www.meraki.com/)

Also, I recommend just using email for logins. They can change their username whenever, but the email stays the same.

</comment><comment><USER10> Others have good suggestions, but I would also add that login and user should be decoupled. A user should be able to login with facebook or twitter (or email) and have them be the same account.

</comment><comment><USER11> Good luck using the name "Meraki"; Cisco will have a shitfit.

</comment><comment><USER12> combination of uuid and uui4 - unique and will never collide.

</comment><comment><USER13> You use a GUID or counter as a user ID, and add a username field which resolves to this ID?

You would then have to enforce username uniqueness when assigning/renaming usernames.

<comment><USER14> Counters are a bad idea if they're ever used in a user-facing context. They're trivially enumerable so an outside party can write a script that iterates over them, which is usually a bad thing. That's easy to block, but it's better to design the system in a way that makes it impossible in the first place.

Plus, user-facing counters can leak business information - if I sign up and see example.com/user/1234 as my user page and then I create another account a week later and get example.com/user/1235 then I know the platform isn't growing very quickly.

tl;dr Don't use counters for anything that that'll end up on the frontend.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> if you are using a noSQL database like mongo, couch, or even firebase, an _id will automatically get generated when you insert an user. You could create a hash of that _id as your user id.</comment>


Last minute halloween interactive art exhibit - <AUTHOR>

In an attempt to avoid giving little kids extra refined sugar, we are giving them glow in the dark bracelets. In our front yard, we are going to set up a webcam running Glowdoodle (http://glowdoodle.com) and a big projector on the front of our house.  Using the glow sticks, the kids will paint in the air, effectively light-graffitiing our house!<p>Glowdoodle is part of a research project from my friends at the MIT Media Lab. <comment><USER2> Pretty cool project! Is there a feed anywhere, or will you post the results afterwards?</comment>


Anonymous hacks PBS, releases admin info, 'dox' on employees, and more - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/#!/AnonymousWiki/status/185900203444940800 <comment><USER2> Lame. Why would you even target PBS? They're a completely innocent organization and provide us with quality programming like Nova.</comment>


Show HN: SpeakingPuppy – Snapchat-like AR for your dog - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/speakingpuppy/id1405200668?ls=1&mt=8 <comment><USER2> Hey HN, I made this app, let me know if you have any questions! It uses a TensorFlow/Keras model to detect the dog's facial features, and a custom AR interface for estimating 3D pose.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you have any plans for a social component to the app i.e. following other dogs and sharing "stories"/videos?

Great work! My kid is hooked.

<comment><USER2> Maybe in the future -- a bigger commitment to create the infrastructure needed for that. For now, just looking to get feedback and reactions : )

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Your app is very impressive from a technological point of view.

However, I would like to point out that while there are ~400 million dogs in the world, there are only ~200.000 wolves left. Things are getting out of hand.

<comment><USER2> Yes, although wolves are making a comeback in some parts of the world, so there's something to be optimistic about!

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Gif of it in action: [https://twitter.com/i/status/1032148934108409856](https://twitter.com/i/status/1032148934108409856)</comment>


Phonon heat transfer across a vacuum through quantum fluctuations - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1800-4 <comment><USER2> This brings to mind this dormant company that I ran across _decades_ ago that proposed a cooling solution based on electron tunneling. The company and it's corporate structure never felt very legitimate, and the whole thing was very hand-wavy...

[http://www.coolchips.gi/technology/overview.shtml](http://www.coolchips.gi/technology/overview.shtml)

<comment><USER3> That was the exact thing I was thinking about. They are in the category of "too good to be true" technologies that I check on once every year or two when I remember them, like EESTOR.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So there isn't a phonon field?

The concept of phonons is confusing because unlike other particles, phonons don't have an accompanying fundamental field. They seem more like an emergent phenomenon. Why should phonons be considered particles?

<comment><USER5> Phonons are the minimum quantum excitation of vibration within a material. Just as harmonic oscillators have quantum energy levels, so do materials. You are correct -- they are an emergent phenomenon.

In the case of phonons, they can carry momentum, they travel like particles. A sibling comment is correct -- they are technically quasi-particles [1]. It is okay to think about a phonon field within a material. That field is not fundamental, in the sense that an electron is presently-believed to be fundamental, but that doesn't keep it from being a _very_ useful way to think about condensed-matter physics.

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

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Excellent "civilian" explanation: [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/space-heater- scie...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/space-heater-scientists- find-new-way-to-transfer-energy-through-a-vacuum/)

</comment><comment><USER6> There is a link on the page to rent or buy article. How do you rent an article?

<comment><USER7> You actively work to forget what you read in the article after the rental period is over.

<comment><USER8> Maxwell's demon, again?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If confirmed this would be pretty cool. Information transferred through vacuum without bosons but fluctuation only.

</comment><comment><USER10> Could this be used for cooling spacecraft someday?

<comment><USER11> I think not. The heat flux decays exponentially with increasing distance between the objects. This is an extremely short range phenomenon, like electron tunneling.

<comment> caleb-allen My wish of a quantum heater will remain unfulfilled!

<comment><USER12> Every heater is a quantum heater.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The dangers of relying on startup steroids - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/3/2993999/pinterest-burn-facebook-open-graph-startup-steroids

<comment><USER2> I don't know if OMGPOP integrated with Open Graph, but there story is certainly similar.

A mobile app powered largely by Facebook interactions takes off like a rocket ship. In less than month is adds so many millions of users that it gets bought for $180 million dollars.

A company that was in the red is suddenly worth a ton of cash. Cut to a few weeks later, and Draw Something is shedding users like water off a duck's back.

[http://www.betabeat.com/2012/05/02/draw-something-decline- om...](http://www.betabeat.com/2012/05/02/draw-something-decline-omg-pop- zynga-05022012/)

<comment><USER3> Honestly, I wonder what would have happened if any other company bought them instead of Zynga. I imagine that it wouldn't be dropping users quite as quickly.

It still would drop users, because the game itself isn't that deep. But I don't think it would be shedding users nearly as much as they are currently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think I miss the part where Pinterest got burned by Facebook? Seems like engagement just dropped off (and to far higher levels than pre-FB). How's that Facebook's fault in any way?

<comment><USER2> Facebook shut down a big component of their Open Graph integration: the spammy auto-publishing. The decline followed shortly after. <https://twitter.com/#!/rabois/status/194259967816105984>

<comment><USER4> I must've completely missed that. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> TheVerge writing content for HN is not a good sign.

<comment><USER6> Why is that?

<comment><USER5> Because they're a rag and if they're allowed to get a foothold here we'll get more of their sleazy summary spam too. If cloning Engadget's not enough for them tough shit.

<comment><USER7> The Verge does lots of summaries, but that doesn't make them sleazy. They would be sleazy if they failed to produce lots of good original content. They would be sleazy if their summaries weren't clearly marked as such. They would be sleazy if they didn't properly attribute & link their sources.

The Verge tries to be the best single source for gadget news, and they're succeeding, in my opinion.

Also, the creators of the Verge should be lauded for leaving AOL rather then being scorned for "cloning".</comment></comment></comment></comment>


2009 Predictions: iPhone Gaming Will Replace Nintendo and Sony - <AUTHOR> http://ryanspoon.com/blog/2008/12/29/2009-predictions-iphone-gaming-will-replace-nintendo-and-sony/ <comment><USER2> OK, let me point out that the Nintendo DS has a web browser, Wi-Fi connectivity, and _actually works_ as a gaming device.

I think the DS would be more likely to be successful adding calling features (like the PSP has with full-on Skype support) than an iPhone would be adding real tactile gaming controls and becoming a legitimate platform.

I get it - I get it - people _want_ the iPhone to be the magical "one device". But I'll tell you what - Nintendo has never lost a handheld generation (Lynx, Game Gear, and PSP to date) and they don't look like they're going to any time soon.

<comment><USER3> I agree. Anyone who thinks a touchscreen-only device can replace tactile buttons on a gaming device is on crack. Although, the DS doesn't have a web browser built in except on the newer DSi, which is currently only available in Japan, and all web browsers on the DS/DSi have generally sucked for anything beyond text-only browsing. The homebrew browsers are actually somewhat better than commercial ones, although I don't have a DSi yet but from what I've seen the DSi's browser is still pretty slow. I wouldn't compare DS web browsing to the iPhone, but then I wouldn't compare iPhone gaming to the DS/PSP.

The biggest factor for me is the games, though, and only a Nintendo platform will ever have Nintendo games (industry trolls that keep calling for Nintendo to become a third-party developer notwithstanding). Nintendo is definitely one of the top game development houses out there, and Apple doesn't really have anything that can compete. Nintendo understands games, Apple does not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is beyond ludicrous. Buttons and joypads can't simply be plastered onto the touch screen; controls have to be tactile or else you will make mistakes. When I misspell a word typing I can just go back and erase. When the game mistakes which button I press and my character dies, I get frustrated and pissed off.

<comment><USER5> I get frustrated and pissed off even when I mispell a word typing on the iPhone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not so sure... how many children own an iphone, or are likely to own one in the coming year? I'd wager it would be a small fraction of the number of DS/PSP owners.

Wishful thinking at its finest. I get that iphones are popular, they're just not _that_ popular.

</comment><comment><USER7> Monkey ball arrived and all have mimicked since.</comment>


Web Research Drives More Real-World Purchases - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/23/web-research-drives-more-real-world-purchases/index.html?ref=technology

<comment><USER2> ...says the company whose business depends on exactly that behavior.

That said, at my day job working for one of the largest US multichannel retailers, we see this behavior a lot.</comment>


Ask HN: Review our site - WorkingPoint - <AUTHOR>

http://www.workingpoint.com
I am trying to figure out what I can do to promote our bookkeeping/accounting software.
Our customers love us, and CPC advertising is doing great, but we are struggling with organic traffic.
Does anyone here have suggestions on what things I can try to promote our site?
Specifically, what do you guys think would be an easy market to target? Any specific industries?
Should we do referrals? pump out an API? Mobile Apps?
Some people in our space include outright, freshbooks, indinero, etc... and they are all doing a kick ass job with SEO, PR, and what not, but we have always struggled with this.
Also, hiring outside SEO consulting has not done much for us...
All suggestions and comments are appreciated.
Disclaimer: This post may seem a bit self-serving and spammy, but it's really not. I am genuinely interested in how other startup approach "traditional marketing", because as an engineer, analyzing CPC, CPM is much easier for me. Unfortunately that is not a viable solution. <comment><USER2> Looking at the price, you might be under pricing your offering. Quickbooks goes from between $160 and $320 and intuit does force after a few years. I would add a third more expensive plan if I were you.

Also you should talk about benefits, not features. Technical people like features (we implemented them after all) but most users want to know about the benefits. It is easier to sell how the software will benefit them vs how cool a feature is has.

If CPC is working great and you are gaining paying customers, I'd keep doing more of that. As long as your customer acquisition cost is low, then keep pumping money into CPC for the time being.

You seem to have a lot of good content. I'm surprised that you are struggling with organic traffic. I just checked out the customer list you have, very impressive. It would appear that you are doing quite well. Perhaps you just need to add another plan and get more revenue per client?

<comment><AUTHOR> I like your "benefit" proposition. I will definitely keep this in mind on my next foray into marketing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> A couple suggestions:

The tagline "The Online Small Business Management Solution" doesn't scream bookkeeping to me. If I hadn't read your HN post to know this is primarily a bookkeeping app, I would have never known.

Also, trim down the list on the right of the homepage (the one with Accounting, Invoicing, etc). It's overwhelming to look at and you could use that space to draw people into your call to action...Sign Up Now (which is hidden below the fold).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestions. I am not a fan of the tagline either, but I may be over simplifying by saying we do "bookkeeping", we have a lot more than that.

<comment><USER4> Yes, but you should still have 1 focus. Don't worry that you can't explain _everything_ in the tagline, "bookkeeping" is much better than "management". You have to be specific. You'll get a chance to explain all the other wonderful stuff later :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> <http://www.workingpoint.com>

</comment><comment><USER6> I'd suggest that you change your homepage 'Sign Up Now' button to something clearer which emphasises that all of the features are available for free; e.g. "Sign Up Now - It's Free". This button should then link to a enhanced version of <https://signup.workingpoint.com/free/> (which may highlight that for only $10 a month you also get the premium features).

Your free offering provides a great deal of useful functionality - I'd concentrate on getting people into the free plan, then once all of their important data and processes are going through your system, it will be relatively easy to have a strategy to encourage users onto your paid plans.

It wasn't until I went to the 'pricing and sign-up' page that I could tell that practically 90% of the functionality could be used for free.

</comment><comment><USER7> I would agree the list on the right side is just too long. Maybe tweak the homepage design a bit to scream book keeping software.

I also noticed you didn't mention conversion rate.. traffic is great but if you aren't converting what's the use? Maybe promoting signup might help too and just get more conversions out of your current traffic. Also Signal vs Noise from 37signals has some cool articles on homepage design vs conversion.

My main income is from ecommerce.. if you had an API with Mageno, CREloaded, OSCommerce, ZenCart.. sure some of those might be out dated and old. but they have a heavy user base.. once integrated use that angle to get free traffic as well.

Goodluck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. Our conversion rate is good for CPC. We have done a ton of work with LPs and A/B testing, so we feel confident in that area.

I will look at the API consumers you mentioned. Thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Hmm. You've done a good job promoting it now, I'm looking into it :P. Any chance you guys integrate with shopping carts (magento, etc)?

I work a lot with organic SEO, not so much with Social Media. Let me know if you all need a little help, I'm close with some excellent social media types as well. email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER9> I will give you an idea. I'm sure you have tons of data on small/medium businesses income and expenses. Anonymize it and publish juicy reports and then promote that data (pretty much like OKCupid).

<comment><AUTHOR> Good idea. I think I will make this one of my next project.

<comment><USER10> I like this idea, but also consider your privacy policy before doing this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What do you mean when you say "do referrals"? Are you thinking organic (cheap) or paid (expensive)?

<comment><AUTHOR> Give our customers incentive to refer their friends?</comment></comment>