Droid: iDon't Understand Search Engine Optimization - <AUTHOR> http://www.newmediacampaigns.com/page/microsite-search-engine-optimization

<comment><USER2> Funniest part is, you can't view the site on an iPhone. First thing I tried when I saw it was a flash site, seems like a terribly obvious oversight.

<comment><USER3> Perhaps that's the point. iDont display flash websites either.

<comment><USER4> Droid doesn't

<comment><USER5> For now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm pretty sure the verizonwireless.com domain has some serious trust within Google already, not to mention inbound links that have "droid" in the name. They don't need to do the on-page SEO Joe Blogger does.

That said, I really have to agree with this statement from the article: "As far as microsites and marketing landing pages go, DroidDoes.com is out of this world bad." I was really confused when I hit the page. It's like the opposite of Apple's pages and not in a good way.

<comment><USER7> Right, the site sucks (I hate Flash ad-sites especially) but that doesn't really have much to do with "SEO" which Verizon clearly does not need any of. What they need is a site that doesn't suck.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The Droid site is bad because it's poorly designed, not because it's Flash. As a Flash developer the site makes _me_ cringe.

<comment><USER9> Seems like a cute design, but done on a budget by Verizon. Their oversight to iPhones is possibly bigger than organic SERP.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I visited the site because I saw their commercial on TV. I imagine most folks will hear about it through their marketing campaigns.

They have plenty of smart folks over there - is it possible they did this intentionally? If their goal is to promote a phone launching later this week, perhaps SEO is not their top concern here?

<comment><USER11> Sure, why would they ever want extra hits from search engines (not just google remember, no other search engine can see this properly either). Why would they want extra traffic, surely they want to keep this a big a secret as possible??

The fact is that the people who did this have no idea, sure they can create fancy flash, but they are ignorant of almost everything else about the web.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> <http://www.google.com/search?q=droid>

"Droid". First match. Has summary.

SEO is snake oil.

<comment><USER12> The summary:

"Get to know Droid a little better. Droid Does the Network. Droid is exclusive to Verizon Wireless, the most reliable network available."

If you didn't know what the Droid was, _what would you think it was_ , and _why would you care_?

If you're not a VP of Marketing at Verizon, you're not going to like that copy.

It's getting harder and harder to claim that SEO is snake oil. Companies like Yelp and Mint have been built on SEO -- it's how they can out-market Citysearch and Intuit. Simple and standards-aware design and factual copy get you 90% of the way there; that last 10% is the difference between a solid site and a $170M buyout.

<comment><USER13> There's also that little thing where Intuit and Citysearch fail to innovate and have terrible products. That just _might_ have something to do with Yelp and Mint's success.</comment></comment></comment>


Windows RT: mission accomplished - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/3044635/windows-rt-mission-accomplished

<comment><USER2> So is the takeaway from the article that Windows RT is a positive net because Windows RT sucked so much that Microsoft had to make Windows 8 suck less?</comment>


Two-for-one: Amazon.com's Socially Engineered Replacement Order Scam - <AUTHOR> http://www.htmlist.com/rants/two-for-one-amazon-coms-socially-engineered-replacement-order-scam/ <comment><USER2> The title of this link is very misleading. Amazon is actually going out of its way to provide excellent customer service, and is being exploited by a scammer. It is therefore not "Amazon's Scam", but a scam perpetrated against Amazon.

As to whether or not something should be done, this is a sensitivity/specificity tradeoff. Too far in the other direction of distrusting customers and Amazon ends up like Paypal.

<comment><USER3> Paypal's customer service isn't bad because they don't trust the customer in terms of authentication - it's bad because they have horrible policies in place, and their reps are unintelligent, untrained, and unhelpful.

In any case, some authentication aside from "Full Name" would be nice. When I was with Liquid Web, I had a pass phrase set up, which I could pass off as regular conversation even in a crowded room without anyone suspecting it was my authentication. That works best. Even a birth date and city of birth would be better than a name.

<comment><USER4> As a former PayPal CSR I don't think I was unintelligent, untrained and unhelpful, oh well :)

<comment><USER5> As a such, perhaps you have some interesting insights into what might be causing PayPals uniquely poor (it seems) CS record? It seems that the majority of PayPals public CS failures could have been avoided with a minimum of, well, intelligence, training and helpfulness.

<comment><USER4> I guess being the middle man in a sale / money dispute usually makes at least one people unsatisfied of you ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I suspect this is a result of their attitude towards re-orders due to delivery issues, it would make sense that if CSR's are told "if a user wants a re- order, just do it" that they'd not really consider the implications of allowing them with a new address, because their attitude is do whatever to keep the customer happy.

I had a delivery of a game go missing (~$60 cost) so I opened a live chat and explained, then they shipped me a brand new order (which arrived!) without any hassle or confirmation that my prior delivery had _really_ been stolen. This seems like a trivial thing to abuse (and I'm sure many do). After my free re- order was placed I thought "that was cool, I'll order from Amazon in the future just in case...".

<comment><USER7> I'm sure that is what they are counting on and once it happens to people they probably become very loyal customers. At a previous place I lived my neighbors stole two Amazon packages from my doorstep. Amazon had no problem not only sending out replacements, but sending them to my work address instead. It made me very much want to order from Amazon from then on.

<comment><USER8> This customer service model, where the CSRs go above and beyond to help the customer with as little hassle as possible, is what built the initial customer base for Newegg. Those customers have largely remained loyal even though other online retailers have caught up in price. This is also what made Zappos very popular (eventually bought out by Amazon). So the strategy clearly works. I assume Amazon has calculated that the number of frauds is greatly outweighed by whatever business is generated from returning customers and great PR.

<comment><USER9> Your model should be made more dynamic, to include that Amazon can adjust to new fraudulent methods. Once a method is discovered for making fraudulent purchases, it will be reused and broadened. Like the story of the Dutch boy and the dike, it will get larger and larger until it collapses. Amazon no doubt figures that they can plug the hole early enough, and reports like this are part of that detection system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This thread reads like a giant love-letter to Amazon. As well it should.

Amazon is one of the _best companies in the world_ . I've been buying physical books from them for the last 8 years. I've recently started buying audiobooks at Audible, and have even more recently purchased the new Kindle Paperwhite, and have been burning through many, many ebooks. The _one_ time I had a problem with a physical shipment, they resent the book, no-questions-asked. From the looks of this thread, their customer service has stayed amazing.

My favorite Bezos quote, showing an approach that, over the long term, is amazingly profitable: "There are two types of companies: those that work hard to charge customers more, and those that work hard to charge customers less. Both approaches can work. We are firmly in the second camp."

By the way, I agree with the OP, asking a simple question to verify the credit card number would not hurt the customer service process, and would probably prevent some fraud.

<comment><USER11> Richard Stallman vehemently disagrees with you.

<http://stallman.org/amazon.html>

He cites DRM, remote wiping of Kindles, sweatshop conditions in some shipping facilities, cutting off service to Wikileaks, squeezing small publishers, not paying enough UK taxes, and being a member of a right-wing lobbying group.

<comment><USER10> Most of what he talks about, I don't care about. I used to care a lot about DRM, I in fact swore I'd never do business with Audible because of DRM. Turns out, I care less about the DRM than about getting good content at a good price. It's also part of moving everything to the cloud - I'm more used to the idea of not having a "physical" bookshelf full of books, but rather a bookshelf keep by Amazon. It actually makes things easier for me as a consumer. Remote wipe I assume was a one-off.

About the other stuff, it doesn't really impact me as an Amazon user. The only thing I'm interested in is them squeezing small publishers, because I do want to make sure I keep having good content... but so does Amazon, so I trust them to work it out. I don't mind if Amazon becomes a large publisher themselves, it'll probably work in my favor.

In general, almost everything Stallman cares about is uninteresting to me, and the few stuff I think he's "right" about I think he takes to extremes that are, frankly, crazy.

<comment><USER12> > Turns out, I care less about the DRM than about getting good content at a > good price.

As long as it's convenient. Not all DRM is equal. Even though I backup my Amazon books DRM-free, I only do it because it happens automatically when I connect my kindle to my PC. But compare that to the DRM in many PC games or the Audio CD DRM we had a few years ago. I'd rather skip a game than getting one that requires me to be online to play it in single player.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> 90% of these attempts at scamming the CSRs could be prevented if Amazon allowed me to provide a SMS address that they could send a message to for confirmation.

Every time I login to gmail over the web from anywhere but my personal computer, I take an (at most) 5 second pause while Google SMS's my cellphone and has me enter the 6 digit code. Failing that, in my wallet, I have a list of 12 Backup "Nuclear Codes" should I for some reason lose my iPhone and need to login to email in the intervening period while I get it replaced.

Trivial to implement, very secure.

<comment><USER14> GMail has a nice 2-factor scheme. While the SMS might need external services, the app-based verification keys are based on open standards and open-source code, and can be added to any web application with about 10 lines of code: <http://code.google.com/p/google-authenticator/>

There is even a Unix login module for adding it to SSH.

<comment><USER15> Amazon use the same two factor auth too. I've got my AWS account secured with the Google Authenticator app using TOTP codes as well as passwords.

It worries me that "consumer friendly" customer service leaks information like this, that could potentially lead to my AWS account getting suspended while fraud is investigated.

<comment><USER16> It's probably a good idea not to use the same Amazon account for AWS and personal shopping, just for this reason.

<comment><USER15> Yeah, I know that _now_…

I've got real live client sites which I haven't (yet) migrated important S3/Route53/EC2/CloudFront services out of the "I'll just try this out on my account to see if it'll work" setup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Sears built the reputation of Craftsman tools based on their unconditional lifetime guarantee; They also created a cottage industry of people searching yard sales, thrift stores and scrapyards for rusted old tools. A British clothing retailer (Marks & Spencer) was famous for an extremely liberal refund policy, which also made them a magnet for shoplifters and petty fraudsters.

I'm sure Amazon know how much this sort of fraud is costing them. I'm sure they've calculated that it's worth the cost, at least for now. Shrinkage is just another cost of doing business.

<comment><USER18> Worth the cost of asking for more information for the replacement of expensive items? It just takes a few more seconds to each rep and is surely shorter than all the new orders being placed for scammers.

<comment><USER19> Exactly. And what happens when a user needs a legitimate refund/exchange and Amazon then refuse because their account has had so much fraudulent account gone unnoticed? Not very good customer service at this point...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's a scam, certainly, but it's actually great customer service policy. If the only risk is the loss of value of a product to Amazon, and there is no personal data loss for a customer directly, then it's actually an acceptable loss policy to Amazon.

They (and most good businesses) would prefer the majority of their customer base be able to get refunds and deal with order issues swiftly than have to jump through hoops to prove who they are. Certainly an SMS PIN or other authentication method would make it more secure, but there is no further customer benefit. The monetary loss to Amazon is basically a rounding error so why make things more complicated?

<comment><USER21> This exactly. The net benefit to Amazon from improved customer service is likely worth the potential for a few lost products. Sure may be wrong, but to them it may just be a cost of doing business. It's not unlike many department store's policy of not targeting a shoplifter-in-action in a mall, especially once they've left the store (mostly for liability reasons).

<comment><USER13> "many department store's policy of not targeting a shoplifter-in-action in a mall"

Citation? I've never heard of such a policy. Every mall I've had knowledge of had a _very_ extensive security organization that was pretty effective at targeting shoplifters-in-action.

<comment><USER22> Apart from personal experience working in grocery stores, where nobody really cares, there is this: [http://marga.voxpublica.org/2012/08/shoplifting-and- magnetic...](http://marga.voxpublica.org/2012/08/shoplifting-and-magnetic- anti-theft-devices/)

Depends on where you go and which mall. Strip malls are a lot less effective with countering shoplifters than the 'real' malls.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I don't get it. What does the dot-email have to do with them social engineering their way to your order numbers?

Is the fact that they used a dot-email the weak link here, and what thankfully allowed you to catch on to the problem early?

If that is the case, why would an attacker use a dot-email, when they could just use any email.

<comment><USER24> I think they used the dot-notation to legitimate it, basically just a brick in the social engineering scheme pulled on the support rep.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's my thinking. I assume they figured that because the account they were "chatting as" was so close, it might help. Or they thought it had a dot initially and found out they were wrong when the rep said there were no orders.

Amazon lets you chat without signing in and you can claim to have any email address you want at that point, so it's tricky to say if this was intentional (hoping the reps were "dot blind") or if it was just a mistake/bad initial guess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It could also be that Amazon waives it's same address policy only around Christmas as it knows that a) people are travelling and b) a missed Christmas present is a bigger deal than a normal missed package.

It might have figured that this would be an acceptable loss given that it can only be exploited once a year.

</comment><comment><USER26> Its amazing that this scam seems like its being pulled off from outside the US, via a re-shipping service in Oregon. Anyone know how vulnerable international Amazon customers are to this same scam? I'm thinking that the scammers require some sort of re-shipping service, which are generally not as widely available as they are within the US.

<comment><USER27> I work at a small online retailer and almost all of our fraudulent orders are from outside the US. Use of a mail forwarding service is also typical.

<comment><USER28> When these fraudsters use mail forwarding services, do they have the address registered with the credit card company, and do you guys check that?

I ask because I live overseas and use a forwarding service quite a bit, but several smaller shops do flat refuse to ship to me, meaning I have to ship to my dad's and have him send it to my forwarding service, which ups the price a bit. And it's kinda frustrating, as I do have the address registered with my banks.

At least reading a story like this one explains to me a bit why things are the way they are.

<comment><USER29> They usually don't since they may not have the bank login information or be able to pass the bank's verification checks in order to change the registered info. Even if they do, merchants many times won't check because its very time consuming to call up the bank to verify shipping address.

Thats unfortunate that it causes you the hassle. But from the merchant's perspective, especially if they have been burned before, ship forwarding services are high risk.

Look at it this way. When you place your order, to the merchant, your IP will be from overseas, the credit card will be based in the US, and you are shipping to a ship forwarding facility. This is very typical of what fraud looks like with stolen US cards. The problem is that merchants bear the responsibility and chargebacks are a big problem, so they may not want to take the risk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Couldn't this be fixed by Amazon just requiring you to be logged in when you start a chat with them ?

Tiny bit of extra hassle for the user but is made up for by the fact that Amazon wouldn't need to bother asking any security questions to verify identity.

<comment><USER31> In this case the fraudster was logged in to an Amazon account. They created a new account using the alternative e-mail address and set the address differently to the original account.

They then claimed that the original account was lost due to the e-mail address being "hacked" and that they needed the order numbers. They then used the order numbers to request a replacement using their new account.

<comment><USER32> > _They created a new account using the alternative e-mail address and set the > address differently to the original account._ //

You lost me.

So customer Andy Blogger has account firstname.lastname@example.com.

Fraudster Bandy Logger creates account at Amazon using email address email@example.com and the verification email is sent to Andy's account (as gmail is dot blind in email addresses).

How does fraudster Bandy confirm ownership of the Amazon account so he can log in and change the accounts email address? Doesn't he have to create the account with the re-shippers postal address, then confirm the account with an email address they control, then change the email address to the one for the Gmail account ... doesn't that look pretty damn suspicious.

How about recording a short video on account creation, speaking/signing name or something similar. Then reps could confirm owner ship via video chat. Sure it would still be possible to abuse but would be a lot harder.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Wow Amazon customer service is amazing.

<comment><AUTHOR> I just wish they would add some challenge that wasn't publicly available information. The rep admitted to me on the phone that "that's all we need, and we can do a lot with just that." They can't place new orders or add billing methods, and she claimed they don't have access to even see your billing information anymore (perhaps since the Mat Honan debacle?) but yeah, eager to please, clearly.

<comment><USER24> Actually, all the reps would need to do is look at your history. Like "You recently returned a book, can you tell me what book?", and it would be pretty hard to social engineer it from some other source.

<comment><USER34> I like this idea. When I call my online brokerage, they ask, "For security, can you please name a stock that you currently own?"

<comment><USER5> AAPL. Now, I'd like to buy _a lot_ of penny stocks.

<comment><USER34> Long on AAPL? Hopefully not since September!

<comment><USER5> Sure, why not? They're still up 100% y/y. Either you're long on Apple, in which case it's just a little bumpy right now or you were long on Jobs, in which case you closed your position out when he passed away.

<comment><USER34> I was definitely long on Google during their Baidu incident. That was painful to weather!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I had a strange issue with my Amazon account a while back where I couldn't log in and when I finally could, all my account history was lost. I can't recall if it was my mistake (I've used dot-emails before), but this definitely reminds me of it.

As a Canadian shopper, the abuse of these shipping depots is a bit concerning to me, as I've used one of the depots mentioned in the post. These are such high volume shipping locations (to so many different addressees), I'm sure Amazon has shipped tonnes of orders to these locations and I'm wondering if they've investigated them before? These centers are very easy targets for abuse and I know Nike keeps a database of these addresses and blacklist them.

I'm not sure if they do it to prevent grey market exports or fraud, but (from a consumer perspective), I hope Amazon doesn't go this route.

</comment><comment><USER36> Thanks to Chris Cardinal for taking the time to write this up! I think it's important to be aware of current fraud like this since a lot of HN readers are probably also amazon customers (as I am myself).

Also interesting to know about gmail "dot blindness" - kind of like "plus addressing" you could use it to track who adds you to spam lists, by giving out different versions of your gmail address to different vendors (not that most people have time for that - I've never done this).

Plus addressing looks like this: email@example.com sends to firstname.lastname@example.com, but some site's email regex check do not allow this, so dot addressing could be used instead.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I will say this, since it's somewhat amusing, but it's the first time I've been scammed for negative $43 dollars. I wonder if the scammer figured that he could get me some hush money and hoped I'd let the rest slide?

</comment><comment><USER37> Amazon actually distinguishes between accounts with the SAME email address but different passwords. I don't know of any other site that uses email as an account identifier and lets multiple people use the same one.

<comment><USER38> They don't allow you to do this anymore. Back when Amazon started, lots of families only had one email address from their ISP. They allowed you to make multiple accounts with different passwords for this reason.

If you try to set it up today, it won't work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> As I recall, Apple was _the_ weak link in that identity theft, although Amazon was not blameless.

<comment><USER40> Everywhere I've ever shopped and every ATM I've used shows you the last 4 digits of your CC#, why Apple decided to use the first 4 is beyond me. Maybe they just wanted to _think different_?

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I, unwittingly, nearly pulled the same scam with Dell about 10 years ago.

I had a new notebook shipped to my house. It cost about $1600 new. The tracking information said it was delivered, so I hurried home to get it as I didn't want it on my doorstep. I get there, and no box. I checked the deck out back (where the UPS guy would sometimes leave things), and nothing. Crap.

So I call Dell, and after working with them for 20 minutes, I have a new replacement on the way. I basically had to "super pinky promise" that the notebook never really made it to me.

10 minutes later, my neighbor comes by and says "Hey, got a package for you!". Holy moly... I just social engineered the poor Indian lady at Dell. After a quick call back, the replacement is canceled.

To this day, I'm both shocked and very happy that Dell made it so easy. I like that they trusted me (a return customer) and tried to do the right thing. However, that trust is so easy to exploit.

I'm not sure what the answer is here. In this case, I can't blame amzn. I mean, they are trying to be helpful. How do you setup a system that's truly helpful w/o leaving wide gaps for scammers? Things like 2-factor auth, sms codes, etc will annoy most non techies (IMO).

</comment><comment><USER42> I'll vouch for the ease at which Amazon sends replacements for broken products. I've ordered obscure replacement phone parts (namely touch screens and lcd panels), but had issues with a couple. Amazon gladly refunded the defective ones on the spot, which allowed me to buy others right off the bat.

I really hope this gets stopped - I'd rather not have Amazon's generosity thrown down the drain because of a few scammers.

</comment><comment><USER43> I'd like to point out that this is almost ALWAYS the problem. People ALWAYS get hacked, not because they use "love123" as their passwords, not because their pc/mac wasn't up to date.

Nope. They get hacked because the security question ask for a pet name, or a school name, or a friend name. Freaking easy. They get hacked because support gives information without authenticating people.And so on.

Dear companies, stop doing that. Thanks.

<comment><USER26> You can add in there passwords not being secured properly by application developers too ... probably the biggest source of being hacked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I'm surprised Amazon was not suspicious that a service request had come from a location where the account has never been logged in from before.

</comment><comment><USER45> I reported this to a friend of mine who works in fraud detection at Amazon.

</comment><comment><USER46> I accidentally did something similar. I ordered an item, and paid for overnight shipping on a Thursday morning. The item didn't arrive as promised on Friday, in fact it didn't arrive until Wednesday the next week. That weekend, I called in complaining that I hadn't received my item. The label was printed Thursday, but UPS never picked up the package. They assumed it was lost and re-shipped my package. Low and behold, I received both packages and ended up with a 2 for 1. I kept the extra still in the box for a month, figuring I'd get a call from Amazon eventually asking for it back - when I never heard from them I decided to sell it.

<comment><USER5> So you're guilty of theft and fencing - and of abusing the trust Amazon extends to it's customers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wonder if I am being the target of this scam now too?

I just got an email from Amazon customer service asking if my recent customer serivce inquiry was handled satisfactory. I've not contacted Amazon or ordered from them in quite some time. So I wrote them and told them that (I also linked to this blog post on htmlist). Their reply:

> Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

> It looks like one of our customers mistyped his or her e-mail

> address when placing an order with us. You have _not_ been

> charged for anything as you didn't order.

mistyped their email address? This seems unlikely to me, as my gmail address is pretty unique and not likely "near" other people's addresses. I dunno, feels suspicious to me.

</comment><comment><USER47> I find it interesting that people are _still_ blaming Amazon for the Mat Honan iCloud hack, when it was Apple who was so lax in letting someone reset a password with as little as the last four digits of a credit card number.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd Amazon terminated my account. Great. (And that of the other woman this happened to.) EDIT: Being told that it was just on hold despite the customer service email and my account being locked out. Oy.

</comment><comment><USER48> What's the deal with these reshippers? It seems like the weak point in the scam, Amazon should either blacklist their addresses or coordinate with them to authenticate where the package is actually going.

<comment><USER29> While there are higher risk, you can't really just blacklist them all since there are a lot of legit orders that get sent to reshippers. For example, customers buying from overseas and the merchant may not offer international shipping. So you have to look at other data points as well.

In this case, having an established order and delivery history and then to have it shipped to reshipping is odd and should've raised a flag.

I'm sure Amazon's fraud system knows about that address. But maybe that flag is not exposed or given to the csrs. That particular one in Oregon is used fairly frequently by fraudsters. We've seen it a number of times among our merchants.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Witty how he flips the Amazon "smile from a to z" upside down into a frown.

</comment><comment><USER50> "And up until early this afternoon, the whois information for my domain"

Whois information is archived basically permanently by many online databases. Changing it doesn't help anything - the old values are easy to find.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep. Aware of that, mostly hoping to remove some of the low-hanging fruit. My fault for stupidly posting my real information in my domain records.

<comment><USER51> That's not stupid, that's what is asked and for a long time it was not a problem. Times have changed, that's it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Hey, I have an idea: how about stop using Amazon and start buying and selling from your local community, small businesses, like with actual people who can get to know you and who aren't susceptible to this kind of nonsense?

The cool thing about dealing locally is that you no longer have to wade through bureaucracy to get customer service - you can walk up to a flesh-and- blood person and talk to them face to face! And, unless they have masks from "Mission: Impossible" you'll be very, very difficult to spoof!

<comment><USER53> Because I personally don't value seeing a flesh-and-blood person very much. In my experience, Amazon has them beat in price, convenience, and customer service (they replace items and take my returns without an attitude, always). They also carry items my local stores wouldn't dream of carrying.

The only time I buy from local stores is when I absolutely must have it that day. And it looks like Amazon might even be doing that soon.

<comment><USER52> Perhaps I'm spoiled but there are two very good camera shops nearby. They are more expensive than Amazon, but they are also the hubs of the local photographer community, and the people that run them are neighbors. They also have consignment, used gear, etc. and for those time when I shoot film they do a great job of developing.

The inconvenience of going there is far outweighed by the benefits. Perhaps that's why they have survived in the era of Amazon and Best Buy! But I really really encourage people to actively search for local independent photog places (I mean, not Scammy's, er I mean Sammy's) if you take photography seriously at all, the premium is worth it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I actually use the local lab/photog shop for prints and camera work and lens rentals, but they want $1,150 for the T4i with 18-135 STM. Amazon sold it to me for $799. (It's back up to $865 now, but still.)

I looked, but I couldn't justify the extra $350 at this time.

<comment><USER52> Hmm. Normally the price discrepancies aren't that large, so I can't blame you there. Next time try talking to them - camera shops know whats up and will often work with you on the price. Negotiation is also one of the nice parts of dealing with actual real-life people.

<comment><USER54> That's one of the reasons I don't like shopping offline- I hate the act of negotiation about price of something. I also don't like to negotiate on price when I'm selling something myself. If I'd be willing to sell it cheaper, I'd put a cheaper price tag on it.

Reminds me of classifieds like "will sell for $100. Serious buyer will get $30 discount".

<comment><USER52> I hear ya. In this case, there's not much of a negotiation - it's more of a "Well, I want to support local business, but Amazon has this product for $350 cheaper. Can I work with you on price?" Then, if they don't come down in price, you buy it from Amazon.

Local stores are not all the same, of course. Some, perhaps many, local stores don't deserve to survive. They are poorly run and perfectly willing to scam people who don't know the market price of stuff. But still I'm eager to at least try to work with them to avoid living in a world of nothing but enormous, monolithic corporations. Granted _retail_ isn't exactly my favorite industry - I'd much rather support small makers of things - but I still try.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> How did this Chris Cardinal guy find out about the original camera order, if he didn't have access to firstname.lastname@example.com?

<comment><AUTHOR> Further down in the article I mention that a possible vector was that I tweeted from my personal Twitter that I was considering buying a T4i and that someone searching for that might consider me a target and try.

It's definitely an interesting question, but it's clear he was just hunting and pecking, which is why he wanted all the order numbers from November and December... not sure if he initiated a few other chat sessions to figure out what was in each order and found a high-ticket item to pursue, or what, but it's a good question... I don't know what made me an initial target at all.

Interestingly enough, Amazon offers a "Tweet this purchase" option which I did NOT avail myself of, but which would definitely exacerbate this problem.

(Also, my name is Chris Cardinal. I don't know the scammer's name, but of course he couldn't request Amazon to change the shipping address AND the name for the replacement order. That would be a bridge too far.)

<comment><USER55> Ah, didn't realize he used the same name. So potentially

1) first chat session with Amazon support to claim that he lost access to his email and needs order #s (which is what you've tested out, and it works)

2) subsequent sessions from different accounts with various dot placements to inquire about the status of specific order #s

3) when a high-value item is found, sticking to the original dotted address, and asking for replacement

Is your mailing address available from public sources?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, it was on the whois for several of my domains. I've since privatized them, but the caches will remain. Oh, how they'll remain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> In passing, not fair to blame Amazon because Apple uses effectively public information (last 4 of CC, which is known to every restaurant waiter and shop clerk in America), as a secret key.</comment>


AWS Redshift: How Amazon Changed The Game - <AUTHOR> http://blog.aggregateknowledge.com/2013/05/16/aws-redshift-how-amazon-changed-the-game/ <comment><USER2> This blog post is great - extremely detailed and informative. We're running Infobright (paid version) and so I love to hear from people using other technologies at large scale (> 1B rows) and how it compares to what they were using before. Redshift has definitely attracted our attention.

I listened to the recent Redshift performance webinar and was surprised by:

\- the hard maximum 15 concurrent queries (14 when you reserve one for management)

\- the need to pre-assign queries into queues so that fast queries don't get blocked by slower ones

\- the recommendation to vacuum after large inserts (showing its Postgres roots) and to limit query concurrency to 3 while vacuuming.

Have these limitations caused problems for anyone?

Edit: formatting, grammar.

<comment><USER3> We're currently running Impala in production with a table that currently has over 4.5B rows which powers an internal log analysis website. We don't have any hard limitations for concurrent queries, and no vacuuming since the data lives within Hadoop. We've been pretty happy with it so far.

<comment><USER4> What kind of performance are you getting, and how many nodes do you have?

<comment><USER3> We have a 14 node cluster, the nodes have anywhere between 4-6 disks. Performance has been pretty amazing, we can do ad-hoc queries on this 4.5B row table. Each node has read throughput at about ~1.3GB/s for full table scans (data is snappy compressed, store as RCFile: columnar).

<comment><USER2> That sounds pretty fantastic - when you say "ad-hoc" do you mean that it's fast enough to be directly queried from a UI - are we talking seconds or minutes for your queries?

What drawbacks have you found with Impala? I've been keeping an eye on it, and also Shark: <http://shark.cs.berkeley.edu/>

<comment><USER3> It depends, if you plan to scan our entire data set it could take 30-40 seconds (roughly ~2.8TB), but we have our data partitioned based on a key that makes sense for the kind of data you'd need to populate a web page and these queries are fast enough (< 2 seconds) for aggregations that come in via AJAX.

We haven't yet had a chance to optimize our environment either. For example, our nodes are still running a pretty old version of CentOS, so we have LLVM disabled (which would help a lot for huge batch computations...see [http://blog.cloudera.com/blog/2013/02/inside-cloudera- impala...](http://blog.cloudera.com/blog/2013/02/inside-cloudera-impala- runtime-code-generation/)).

Also, our data is stored in RCFile, which is not exactly the most optimized columnar storage format. We're working on a plan to get everything over the new Parquet (<http://parquet.io/>) columnar format for another boost in performance.

We haven't come across any real drawbacks using Impala as of yet, it fits our needs pretty well.

Disclaimer: I work for Cloudera in their internal Tools Team, we like to dog food our stuff :).

Edit: One drawback of Impala is the lack of UDF support, but this is something that will be coming in a later release.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you like Redshift, you really should look at BitYota (<http://www.bityota.com/>). Launched the same day at the AWS Re:invent show as Redshift, it provides much of the performance of Redshift with much more customization, as well as a more rounded set of SQL extensions (including SQL-2003 OLAP functions and UDFs in multiple languages).

I don't work for them, but they make a good product.

<comment><USER6> One of the big advantages of redshift is the postgres protocol compatibility. Which means I don't have to rewrite code to connect to redshift and run queries. It seems that BitYota wants me to run queries via json. Really? Why would I lock my code into using something like that?

<comment><USER5> I think you are misreading the Bityota pages. On the contrary, you CAN run queries with JSON... but you can also just pass in regular SQL statements. I guess Postgres direct protocol is handy; I find that ODBC covers many of my needs, so I haven't actually looked at Bityota as a Postgres drop-in.

Might be worth playing with what Bityota offers; Postgres is awesome but sometimes makes you bend over backwards to do things that are easier in other systems. Paraccel/Redshift has some good extensions, but sometimes there are better ways to do things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> You down with MPP? You know what it means?

(Seriously, what does it mean?)

<comment><USER8> I had to look that up. Massively Parallel Processing.

<comment><USER9> What the author is trying to say is that (IMHO) running a database on a MPP (quite common these days, or easily stood up in a data center or Amazon) is still a pain.

Outside of Postgres, none of the truly open-source databases scale well with MPPs. You're still stuck with mostly single-core processing.

So you can pay good $$$$$ to the commercial database providers to provide you with a good database that _may_ scale to your needs.

Or use Redshift for a great analytics DB at a reasonable price. (Note: we heavily use HBase where I am at, but that's comparing apples to oranges.)

<comment><USER10> Apples to Oranges, how so, if you don't mind me asking? What about HBase makes it different from RedShift/Greenplum/Oracle?

<comment><USER11> HBase isn't built for analysis workloads. It doesn't have a complex query engine, so you end up having to do massive scans (which aren't especially fast), transfer a ton of data to the node where your analytics code is running, and do the computation there. If things are too big to run on one machine, that's your problem, not HBase's.

On the other hand, Impala, RedShift, Oracle Exadata, etc. let you ask the database to do work at a much higher level, which allows for much better performance because the data storage and computation layers can work in tandem (so you can prune down to only the data your query needs at each storage node before hitting the network, for example), and the database does the work of optimizing for multiple cores and nodes, not the writer of the analysis routine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think there are still definitely workloads suitable to other data store setups like graph, tabular, etc. (at least based on performance testing i've seen in the past). On the plus side a lot of standard crappy workloads (weblog reduction) will work wonderfully in columnar setups like redshift.

</comment><comment><USER13> The comments on pricing of alternative products were ... odd. E.g., Netezza was available for purchase, hardware of course included, at $20K/TB several years ago, counting 2.25X compression.

Well, except for the last such comment, which contradicted some of the prior ones by 1-2 orders of magnitude.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Sure, sure there are other open-source options out there that aren't Hadoop, > but for example Impala 1.0 just came out...

Although Impala isn't technically Hadoop, it's daemons are co-located with each your Hadoop Data Nodes, and talks directly to HDFS and HBase. Also, there is no ETL process with Impala, you could drop a few billion row flat files into Hadoop and query it within a few minutes.

</comment><comment><USER14> "..hop onto Hadoop and ride the open-source rodeo with Hive or Pig by your side." - Laughed at this sentence. Well written!

</comment><comment><USER15> I wish Salesforce would follow. At the moment 2Gb of database storage costs nearly same as 2Tb of storage at Redshift. And yes, that doesn't include the licence itself.

</comment><comment><USER16> Well written article! Realistic from an ops perspective but also has marginal AWS cost calculations, which are very interesting but difficult to estimate.</comment>


What's really going on in a salary negotiation - <AUTHOR> https://www.negotiatewith.us/blog/whats-really-going-on-in-a-salary-negotiation?aakH <comment><USER2> This appears to be an ad.</comment>


An innocent typo led to a giant 212-story obelisk in Microsoft Flight Simulator - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/21/21395084/microsoft-flight-simulator-melbourne-obelish-openstreetmap-bing-maps-data-glitch <comment><USER2> Discussed 3 days ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24222491](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24222491)</comment>


Samsung planning legal offensive against Apple's unreleased iPhone 5 - <AUTHOR> http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2011/09/133_94958.html <comment><USER2> "A nuclear blaster is a good weapon, but it can point both ways." \- Salvor Hardin</comment>


Load Testing – Node.js vs Single Threaded Python Web Server vs PHP5+Apache2.2 - <AUTHOR> http://www.m4mum.com/techblog/?p=12

<comment><USER2> I was really hoping to see some good comparison here, but all it manages to say is that node is great at handling concurrent requests, Apache/PHP is slower but just fine, and a single threaded server (in Python here) isn't suitable.</comment>


Dead Men Write No Code - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@gavanw/dead-men-write-no-code-e9a7c5daf5d <comment><USER3> I had a TIA at 28 working like that. Some people need warning signs and I definitely did as I thought I was invincible. I recovered physically in a few months but the shock took years; dying never occured to me. I get more work done now than I did then, working 4 hours standing behind a computer while spending the rest of the day walking in nature and thinking and having conversations via Skype with my peers. I believed then fast typing and iterating for long stretches of time was a thing that speeds up work and could do it for 18 hours a day: it is nonsense. Programmers who believe that have a lot to learn. They might be dead or worse before that though.

<comment><USER4> Glad to hear you are ok. I am also an advocate of shorter work schedules - <USER2> was not my recent incident, but rather having a child that prompted this. Having a child reduced my available hours and made me optimize the time I did have to work - and I found out I was _more_ productive when I used my time carefully, rather than allowing procrastination and working longer hours. To be clear, even with a child my hours were much longer than they should have been (12 hours a day, 7 days a week, vs 15 hour days)

<comment><USER3> I think that is important to get out there: those long work hours and, while coding is a brain activity and logically can take place mostly in your brain much faster than you can ever type, advocating long hours behind a computer is not more productive. It really does not have to be. And that is important!

<comment><USER5> Amen! I once worked for a company with a lot of agents on customer computers (think anti-virus, though that wasn't it). We were forced to work late one night to get an auto update out. We were tired and screwed up, and lost connectivity to about 300,000 machines. We were not forced to work late like that again.

<comment><USER3> I actually liked that pressure; besides a short period of extreme stress (1-2 months maybe) I enjoyed all of it but I did not notice my body didn't like it. Only after I learnt it was all stupid of me and that pressure did not actually make the work better / more effective.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _I have rationalized it with the "wealth before health" attitude that seems to be prevalent in the startup world (even though wealth is not my primary motivator, you get the idea). "I just need to make it through this year, and then I can exercise" and "exercise will kill my productivity" are two lies I have been telling myself for the past several years. I have taken a similar attitude with my diet, which is far from great._

Wow. That describes my attitude for the last year or so to a "T". Pushing off "getting healthy" for the "more successful" me that lies ahead. No more of that. I definitely needed to read this article tonight - time to get back to a regular routine and try to live a more maintainable lifestyle!

<comment><USER7> I read this several years ago, and it has ever since resonated with me...

The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, he said:

"Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived."

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> _I've worked 80-hour weeks for the past decade (occasionally 100-hour weeks)_

Wow. This if anything will screw you up. 12 hours of work + 8 hours of sleep per day 7 days a week leaves you with 4 hours for commuting, showering, making dinner, doing laundry, working out and relaxing.

Doing eighty hours per week can be wonderfully efficient - for a few weeks. After that you start to get sloppy, and soon you're performing worse than those doing a 40 hour week. Work a not a sprint, and not even a marathon, and more like running around the globe because you like to run.

Work shouldn't even be means to an end of becoming rich, and being rich without a respected job you're proud of is boring and hollow. Unlike prestige, once your income or wealth exceeds the limit where you have to stress about money, having more money won't make your life happier.

<comment><USER4> 40 hours of solid, uninterrupted work is worth 80 hours of procrastination/interruption-filled work. You have to choose those hours carefully. I remember when I worked in an office, we would always go out to lunch at 12:00 and the resulting 3 hours would be destroyed for me by a food comma and the disorientation from leaving my desk for an hour.

<comment><USER9> That probably says more about what you ate for lunch than the time.

<comment><USER4> Just a rack of ribs, nothing out of the usual

<comment><USER10> Having a food coma for three hours is a flag for your meal being "unusual".

<comment><USER11> Or undiagnosed medical conditions - I am very careful not to eat to much at lunch for that reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I was diagnosed with a DVT three weeks ago. The perfect storm of sedentary lifestyle (though I do work standing up about 66% of the day), overweight, smoking and falling asleep for 10 hours straight on a flight from Vietnam to NYC with my leg folded underneath me.

The only symptom was a charlie horse feeling in my left leg the next day. No swelling, no redness.

My clot was controversial though, apparently they weren't 100% sure it was a DVT or a clot in the muscle close to the deep vein. We are treating it like is a DVT though. I'll be on blood thinners (Xarelto) for the next 3 months. Already quit smoking, am walking twice daily.

The flight back to Vietnam was a little anxious though.

<comment><USER4> Yep, I should add in that flights are a very common catalyst for DVTs. So common that they often call it "economy class syndrome" ([http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=15...](http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=15872)) - my clot was possibly catalyzed by a flight but that is not yet conclusive. Needless to say, try to move around as much as possible on a flight (even it means wiggling your toes or legs), and stay healthy (you are much more likely to get a DVT from a flight if you are already unhealthy).

<comment><USER13> If there's a possibility that this came from a flight then you may want to add that to the story. When was the last flight you took prior to the 2 weeks of the pain starting?

<comment><USER4> Will do - there was about a one week gap between the flight and the first symptoms. So, I'd say the flight likely accelerated something, if it wasn't the direct cause. However, I also think that my sitting for very long periods of time was also a contributing factor regardless (I should add in that the chair I have been using recently is a little long in the base and sometimes cuts off my circulation slightly)

<comment><USER13> It may be possible. How long was the flight? IT just seems unlikely since I have had doctors ask me have you flown in the last 24 hours.

<comment><USER4> Flight was 7 hours, but in two shifts (5 hours and 2 hours, with a 2-3 hour layover).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I dropped 50 lbs 2014-2015. It's worked wonders for my confidence. I didn't really need the boost for dating since I'm in a long term relationship. It did come at a time when I transitioned to a new role within my company and needed a massive boost of confidence to get over imposter syndrome and pioneer my own destiny.

<comment><USER4> I've fluctuated in the range of about 30 or 40 pounds in terms of my weight. It is much harder to motivate once you are in a relationship (that's just the way it goes). But it will go a long way towards making you feel better in other ways, both physically and mentally. And of course, it will help keep you alive. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I feel like sharing something. It's somewhat a tangent to this article (and isn't special enough to really share as a separate submission or anything) but still related.

For a while, I was working 40+ hours per week at my dayjob and making far less than the median programmer salary in my city. I was paid hourly (so holidays were the worst; no paid time off but not allowed to work), had no benefits, etc.

A lot of articles I read on HN at the time made me feel worse about my situation, because their words of encouragement ("value yourself! demand more! you can't help the people you love if you die!" etc) when filtered through my circumstances ("plead guily to a federal felony" -> immediate permanent disadvantage with any salary or benefits negotiation; you're lucky if _anyone, anywhere_ will even believe they're _legally allowed_ to hire you) made me question whether or not I even valued myself.

I decided that, if the posts on HN and Reddit decrying impostor syndrome and investing time in one's health were at all applicable to me, I clearly must not care if I live or die. So I started downing more and more energy drinks and spending more and more time on side-projects, hoping that one of them would finally become impressive enough to serve as a distraction to prospective employers.

That line of thinking only got derailed when I realized that employment is a sucker's game and consulting is the way to go. None of the messages intended to change my mind had a positive effect, they just made me sad.

All of the "take care of yourself" styled articles made me feel bad but never prompted positive change. The title "Dead Men Write No Code" made me remember the older posts I read and I sort of rolled my eyes expecting the same spiel I've heard a thousand times. I was pleasantly surprised to see a well-written, concise, and on-point warning about symptoms and their possible consequences.

If anyone reading this is in the same sort of situation I was in (working 40+ thankless hours per week and spending all your off-time trying to work on building your own company to get out of your own personal hell), I'm sorry to say I don't have any advice to offer. Every situation is different. Feel free to reach out to me, however, if you need someone to vent to. And if I do have any ideas, I'll let you know.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for sharing, I think this is totally relevant.

"working 40+ thankless hours per week and spending all your off-time trying to work on building your own company to get out of your own personal hell"

This was me circa 2006 to 2013. I now have what many would consider a dream job, and even I myself thought it to be one at first. But the truth is even the job you think you will enjoy the most might not end up that (I still am very grateful to be in my position in spite of current challenges though). The line that separates the super successful from the average person is ridiculously thin (hence all the talk of imposter syndrome, here on HN and elsewhere).

I don't have any good advice in this respect either, other than you have to find a way to be happy, whatever that entails. A common notion is that you need to get rich to live the life you want, but this is not necessarily true.

As for the felony, I suppose it depends what it is (I'm not asking you to disclose it). Some things might be harder for an employer to swallow than others. If your felony was hacking into the Pentagon, I'd put that directly on your resume.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> > I have rationalized it with the "wealth before health"

Good to have recognized this cultural jedi mind trick for what it is.

It seems to me that the ultimate investments are not in bank accounts but the health and well being of ourselves and those around us. This is built up out of a million near-invislbe things in daily life, that could never be bought later on.

</comment><comment><USER17> A very well written wake up call. It's pretty much exactly what I'm doing right now and I needed the motivation to make physical exertion a mandatory part of my daily life. Thanks for posting.

<comment><USER4> Thanks, as I've mentioned elsewhere - I am (possibly) alive right now because someone else took the time to write about this in their blog (the one I reached with Google). I feel obligated to help spread some additional awareness.

<comment><USER18> Like almost everybody else here, I've been meaning to get more exercise. I got a couple of exercise apps on my phone. I have an app to track my daily progress and one that tries to keep me accountable. I've bought shoes and clothes. I bought a rack, a barbell, 280 lbs of plates, a bunch of dumbbells, and a bench. I installed a pullup bar in my house. I bought a standup paddleboard and a new bicycle. I've done everything except actually exercise.

Your post has motivated me to actually stop preparing and start working. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> >The simple truth is that if you are getting blood clots in your 30s (I am 34), there is something horribly wrong with your lifestyle

I'm not so sure... I tend to think the sedentary lifestyle is revealing some kind of predisposition for them (especially given Gavan's apparent level of fitness and activity).

<comment><USER4> There is a genetic trait called Factor V Leiden which will make you predisposed to blood clots (some tests can reveal if you have it). I am not sure if I have it but it can be a factor outside of diet and exercise. But you don't need my case as a warning - studies have linked sitting to death for at least several years now. How valid they are is up for question, but better safe than sorry. :)

<comment><USER20> > but better safe than sorry. :)

While I agree that as a culture we need to prioritize our health a lot more, it's a dangerous attitude to claim that "it's better to be safe than sorry". Doing things out of fear and ignorance is not better than making well-educated decisions. In all fairness, there is plenty of evidence to support that apes (that's us) are not meant to sit all day.

<comment><USER4> Definitely agree. On an added note (about safe vs sorry) - while in this case I was "lucky" to have my hypochondria be correct, the vast majority of the time symptoms that I worry about are nothing. If I went to the doctor for every little symptom I got, that would be expensive and time-consuming.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Following the passage of Obamacare, insurance companies are required to cover blood labs as part of an annual preventative care visit. This is a great opportunity that far to many people pass up. You get a lot more insight out of those labs than you do from just blood pressure and resting heart rate -- especially if you track things year-to-year.

<comment><USER22> Just a heads up that this may not be the case for everyone. I have an ACA plan and while the PCP visit was free, the blood test he ordered was not. There's still some confusion about exactly what's covered and what's not, and it sounds like it could change over time.

[http://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2015/03/08/does-the-aca- ac...](http://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2015/03/08/does-the-aca-actually- mandate-free-checkups/)

<comment><USER21> Sorry, to be clear -- an annual PCP visit may result in the doctor ordering a blood test that you have to partially pay for, depending on what the doctor thinks needs to be done following his/her examination of you.

Basic blood work of a preventative-care nature, such as HDL/LDL ratio, triglycerides, etc, is covered. Those are the metrics I was referring to in the parent comment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> On a side note: A very cheap solution to mimic a standing desk:

Use your ironing board, mine does the job. It goes barely high enough, I put an additional book under the Notebook and now it's the right hight, enough room for Notebook, Lamp and a Book and it's next to my desk so I can easily switch back to it if I want.

Actually it does such a good job, that I don't think I'll buy a standing desk now, good that I don't iron my clothes anyway ;)

<comment><USER24> I find that when I stand in front of a laptop, either the keys are too high or the screen is too low, and I bend my back a lot. Of course the proportions are the same when sitting, but in a chair, my lower back is supported so it's not so bad. But when I stand, my posture is _awful_. How do you deal with this?

<comment><USER25> British workplace safety rules essentially prevent use of laptops for any sustained use. (These rules apply to employees working from home, adhering to them is a barrier to allowing working from home.)

"when using a laptop without additional equipment (laptop stand, full sized keyboard and mouse), it is advisable that its use is restricted to spells of 30-40 minutes with significant task breaks between

"A laptop should not be used where a standard DSE [Display Screen Equipment] workstation set up can be reasonably provided" [1]

If you can't buy a monitor you could get a laptop stand ("Bräda") from Ikea, to improve the angle of the display [2]. Or make one.

I don't know of any alternative to a separate keyboard and mouse.

[1] [http://www.bradford.gov.uk/hands/documents/New%20Ways%20of%2...](http://www.bradford.gov.uk/hands/documents/New%20Ways%20of%20Working/Laptops%20&%20other%20PCDs%20Guidance.pdf)

[2] [http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/categories/departments/wor...](http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/categories/departments/workspaces/24830/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Very scary. Not only am I even MUCH more sedentary than this guy, and also 34 years old, according to 23andme I am at very very high risk for blood clotting.

<comment><USER3> Do a checkup to see if you are doing as bad as you think and have your blood checked. Not more you can do besides getting a standing desk and realise you are a good while into your one life. You can take aspirin if your stomach can take it: half a day seems to benefit everyone with or without dispositions. Better in my very humble, previously hypochondriac and stressed person, opinion to live a nice life not thinkig about this crap and money and carreer too much but focus on family and friends and hobbies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Please learn about "body-weight workouts." Yoga is the original body-weight workout. But there are many others.

You don't need a gym to get a full workout. All I have is a doorway pull-up bar and a yoga mat. I get a full body-weight workout in less than 10 minutes spread over 1 minute breaks through the entire day. And I love long walks.

<comment><USER4> Yep, here is one such variant for those interested: [http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/09/the- scientific-7-mi...](http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/09/the- scientific-7-minute-workout/?_r=0)

<comment><USER28> I'm using this app daily. There's some annoying monetization stuff in there (They charge you if you miss more than 3 days of exercise per month - hmm. Now that I said it, I guess that's not a terrible idea per se), but the basic 7-minutes-per-day is enough for me at least. [http://perigee.se/apps/seven/](http://perigee.se/apps/seven/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Strokes are the leading cause of death in my family.

Grandfathered into "real" testing at 23andMe, I was unsurprised to learn that I have 2.9x the average risk of developing a venous throboembalism (VTE): deep vein thrombosis (DVT) or pulmonary embolism (PE).

I'm only in my late 30s, but I have embarked on a number of lifestyle changes, mostly in the habit category. I use a standing desk at home. I'm sensitive about things like extended sitting, leg-crossing, not moving during flights flights. I use [http://breaktimeapp.com](http://breaktimeapp.com) when working to remind me to get up for a couple of minutes every 30 minutes.

It's more or less built into the way I behave, which I hope to help as I get older and the risk really accelerates.

<comment><USER30> I tested as 6x the average risk of developing DVT at 23andme (average risk is about 10%). I don't see pulmonary embolism listed in my report.

I'm "middle-aged" but so far haven't had this happen, despite some extra risk factors - I've been on the Pill for ~20 years and I do sit a lot (I'm a software developer). I'm not a frequent flyer, but I have flown many times and never had a problem. I naturally shift position pretty often when sitting, so I'm not sure if this helps. Or maybe whatever gene is responsible is just there, and hasn't turned on yet. How to stop it from turning on? I don't think anyone knows.

I was surprised to see that OP got a DVT when he walks 1-3 miles every day. That seems far better than what most people do (I try to walk about 2-3 mi per day). I don't see how switching to running could be more preventive.

<comment><USER29> The F5, F2, and ABO risk variants are for developing VTEs, a DVT is a type of VTE, and a PE is a DVT that makes it to the lungs. If you have one or more of the variants, it's already "on."

I'm not a physician and don't even play one on the internet, but if I were a mid-aged woman I would consider an IUD (with or without hormones) as an effective alternative to the pill. Even hormonal IUDs have vastly lower dosages than the pill.

Like the "sitting epidemic," VTEs care more about sustained periods of immobility, regardless of fitness levels. Paradoxically, even though obesity is its own risk factor, seriously atheletic types are highly vulnerable too: higher fitness -> lower heartrate -> slower circulation -> clotting. Sports teams are known to wear compression stockings on flights to combat the issue.

If you're 6x, I'd highly recommend reading about lifestyle changes. Best wishes!

<comment><USER30> I have the F5 and F2, but not ABO.

 _but if I were a mid-aged woman I would consider an IUD (with or without hormones) as an effective alternative to the pill_

I take the pill as a treatment for severe dysmenorrhea which did not respond to any other treatments. To my knowledge, regular IUDs do not help with that. When I saw the 23andme results years ago, I didn't know there were any options beside the Pill for dysmenorrhea. I had to make the choice between continuing to hold down a regular job, and accepting the risk. I probably would have been wise to bring up the test results with my doctors, but I have low expectations of them (revolving door treatment). So I just made the decision on my own.

After hunting around, I see there are IUDs that come with hormones that have been known to help with dysmenorrhea: [http://www.uptodate.com/contents/long- term-methods-of-birth-...](http://www.uptodate.com/contents/long-term-methods- of-birth-control-beyond-the-basics) It's something my doctors never mentioned to me.

I'm nearing the time when I should stop taking BCP, so I don't see the point in experimenting with other options, given I've survived till now (IUDs are usually planned to be used for 1+ years). I did find that I had to switch between a few different types of pills before I found one that had the best effect, and doing this for an IUD would be quite a production, if it even worked.

It's interesting to me that I've never had a doctor mention to me risks for DVT at all. Doctors ask for a family history (no history of blood clots in my family). Based on that, I guess they have assumed I do not have a high risk for blood clots.

Here's a relevant quote: [https://bedsider.org/features/168-risky- business-2-migraines...](https://bedsider.org/features/168-risky- business-2-migraines-high-blood-pressure-and-blood-clots) "Some types of genetic testing can reveal a predisposition for blood clots or stroke (though it's not clear if a genetic test that shows this predisposition actually predicts that the condition will develop)."

 _higher fitness - > lower heartrate -> slower circulation -> clotting_

Interestingly, Serena Williams was reported to have DVT (she had a PE although I haven't found a source that said it was definitely from DVT). She had recently had an injury to a foot which required surgery and 18 stitches, and also it happened on a flight...

I am reasonably athletic, but my resting heart rate is about 80 bpm. Maybe that's something that's been helping me.

Aside from genetics, the risk factors for DVT are reportedly: 1) Smoking 2) Birth control pills 3) Hormone replacement therapy with estrogen and progesterone 4) Recent surgery, especially on the legs or belly 5) A long hospital stay involving bed rest 6) Some cancers 7) Pregnancy and childbirth, particularly with C-section 8) Age over 70 9) Obesity [http://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20110302/serena-williams- pulm...](http://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20110302/serena-williams-pulmonary- embolism-hematoma-faq-03022011?page=4)

Notice they don't even mention travel at webmd....

So if I get off the BCP, avoid surgery, and die before 70, maybe I'll be fine ;)

<comment><USER29> I'm rooting for ya! (and me)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Long hours of programming can lead to many problems. Repetitive stress injuries from keyboards and mice are common, for example. Read through some of the stories:

[https://github.com/melling/ErgonomicNotes](https://github.com/melling/ErgonomicNotes)

We need a Programmer's Health Guide that include exercise, ergonomics, etc.

<comment><USER32> I started working as a programmer when I was 18...at 23, I had my first visit to physical therapy, for emacs pinky and elbow tendonitis.

At 25 I went back to physical therapy, this time for chronic pain in my upper back. Therapy unraveled a whole slew of postural and motor pattern issues, and I've been at it for nearly 2 years now. Additionally, for the past 1.5 years I added workouts with a personal trainer specialized in corrective work.

I've learned a ton. Sitting and using your hands with shoulders internally rotated (typing, writing, etc.) for the majority of your time (from 1st grade through adulthood as a desk worker) is so terrible for you. The good news is that it's possible to completely reverse and become pain-free. The bad news is that it might take a huge amount of effort—but personally, I really enjoy it.

Ergonomics are critical, as well. I have both a Kinesis Advantage keyboard and a motorized sit-stand desk. Moving around (not just sitting, not just standing) is the key.

For some time now I've been meaning to write up a detailed case study of myself; essentially a how-to on how to become and stay healthy as a desk worker. It's good to read that at least 1 person might be interested in such a thing :P

<comment><USER31> Maybe you could bullet point the things you've found helpful in the HN comments? Hopefully, you'll write a blog but at least people could still learn from you, even if you don't get around to a blog. I'd like to know what you've done with a trainer, for instance.

<comment><USER32> Heh, there's a lot to cover. First of all, just go to physical therapy if you have any pain. Even if you know the rehab exercises, doing them with perfect form will be very challenging.

* Muscles typically work in agonist/antagonist pairs. You bend your arm at the elbow, the bicep contracts, and the triceps lengthen. Straighten your arm and your triceps contract while your bicep lengthens.

* When 1 muscle in a pair is overly active, it will shorten and become tight while its antagonist muscle lengthens and becomes weak. This is imbalance. The weaker, lengthened muscle will often develop painful trigger points in protest. This is referred pain.

* To restore balance, you need to strengthen and learn to activate the lengthened muscle while relaxing (inhibiting) the tight muscle.

* Foam roll and stretch the tight muscles, strengthen the weak muscles

\--

Upper crossed syndrome is common issue amongst desk workers. See [http://www.muscleimbalancesyndromes.com/janda- syndromes/uppe...](http://www.muscleimbalancesyndromes.com/janda- syndromes/upper-crossed-syndrome/)

For this you would

* Need to develop: scapular stability, scapular retraction, and scapular depression

* Need to inhibit: scapular elevation

* Maintain neutral chin tuck in pretty much all movements.

* ITYW exercises: when doing Ts, focus on squeezing at your mid traps (mid back), with neutral scapular elevation. During Ws, focus on scapular retraction and depression at the same time.

* Wall slides or wall angels

* Band pull-aparts

* Deadlifts

* Farmer carries

* External shoulder rotations

* Face pulls, finishing with external rotation at shoulder

* Rows

* Reverse flyes (palms down for posterior delts, thumbs pointing up for more mid trapezius and other back muscles)

Before doing a heavy lift (like rows), you might do an activation exercise beforehand (Ts and Ws) to focus on activating the muscles you want to work (mid and lower trapezius).

Similarly, if you want to workout your (tight) chest, you ought to do activation work for you back (ITYWs, wall angels) to ensure that your agonist/antagonist pairs "remember" each other and your chest doesn't tighten back up too much.

Hopefully that should give you plenty of material to google with. I'd love to go into further detail (there's plenty more to cover) but I mustn't spend too much time writing comments on HN :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I was an this road, too. My way to change the daily routines was to stop using cars and public transport. Everywhere I go these days, I go by bike. With the one exception of client meetings where I need to wear a suit. This saved me tons of money, too.

The other change I did (also to fight me really bad day/night rhythm, was signing up for the local swimmers club. For a small yearly fee you can use the swimming hall before the opening hours. That forces me to get up early and doesn't hurt healthwise.

</comment><comment><USER34> I made a new years resolution to run one mile every day. It's very quick (~10 minutes), it jump starts the day, and it keeps me active. Not counting sick days, I've missed two days thus far.

<comment><USER35> Interesting idea. I've tried to exercise most of my life, and running is a favourite - however, my legs/knees can't take the impact any more and I'm much more into cycling. I really want to exercise after I get up in the morning, but don't think I have the time. I might give this a go. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I work all days being a single person start-up and thinking, coding, iterating. But what I have seen is I do not work all the time. I keep doing other stuff like household chores, attending to family, going out etc. In short I do very focused work in short bursts, say an hour or two in a day 2 or 3 times. I sleep as well in between if I cannot concentrate. I have found it very difficult to be doing something at a stretch. In fact I shutdown and do thinking with a notebook, fall asleep, wake up and continue thinking where I left and find sometimes interesting and easy way to solve things. Then I go and code it. I have found I cannot fit my thought process in a well-defined time boundary of morning 9 - 5 like I was expected in a day job.

</comment><comment><USER37> I had a CS professor die mid term. He was 50. [http://wiki.yak.net/77](http://wiki.yak.net/77) He was out for a jog.

Dennis Ritchie died at age 70. Heart problems & prostate.

Steve Jobs. Age 56. Pancreatic cancer.

Of course these are just a few. CS is a young field, but by now we should have enough statistics to begin to reveal how a (very) sedentary lifestyle affects lifespan.

<comment><USER38> Was your professor sedentary? He died jogging.

Jobs dies from following quack pseusomedicine and ignoring the treatment he needed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> For my fellow hypochondriacs, DVT like symptoms in the leg can also be caused by issues with the glutes or piriformis (piriformis syndrome).

Of course, I'm not saying to be not worried because I certainly was freaking out when I googled my DVT-like symptoms. However, many symptoms tends to lead you the the scariest medical conditions that have those symptoms.

Nonetheless, eat better and move your body more often.

</comment><comment><USER40> I scary to think about. I currently spend my days in a start up incubator and a majority of people in there are on this same schedule. They sit for 8-10 hours a day and rarely exercise, all with the hope and sometime soon they will be back to living an active lifestyle (once they have money)

<comment><USER41> Let them know, and this is from a dude that's been doing it for some of the brightest stars in tech since the 1990's, that the money never comes. Tell them to take care of their health now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Treadmill desks are a relatively inexpensive option now.

* Treadmills designed for walking run about $1000

* Standing desks with accessories run from $300 - $500

UPDATE: forgot to add that you can probably make these tax deductible as well since it's being used for work

<comment><USER4> And I should add, for the person not ready to drop ~$2000 on their setup: I guarantee your healthcare bills will run much higher than that - you can't put a price on your life. Alternately you can hack a cheap solution, but if you have the money, a "real" setup is hard to beat.

<comment><USER43> Weirdly enough, coming from a country with public healthcare my first thought was "ha, my bills will be exactly zero!", but after 5 seconds I realised that it's not about the bill, it's about staying healthy :P Weird reaction on my part.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There's a lot of good info here as well as some misinformation. As a fellow anxiety sufferer this is all too familiar.

In medicine there an idea of Virchow's_triad [0]. Either there's something wrong with your blood, the blood vessel walls became injured or there is abnormal blood flow.

In young people and even 34 is fairly young. Blood clots aren't all that common. Even in long haul air travel the risk is so much higher in the elderly, obese and those who have had recent surgery.

What I am trying to bring up here is there are other factors that could be at play other than stasis. Could Gavan have bumped his leg into something and not even noticed? Could he have a genetic component that leads to increased clotting? Usually in these cases there is a lot of follow up. Usually the person is put on blood thinners if there's a legitimate cause. Or maybe he really is just so unhealthy that he got a bloodclot all while walking 3 miles a day. I know if I emailed my doctor right now and asked her about this. She would get back to me and tell me that this is a very rare rare case. Usually just getting up to go get a drink every now and then or to go to the bathroom is enough to recalibrate pressure in your lower legs. Many people don't walk 3 miles a day, especially in suburbia. Some do though. I guess I am saying is a lot of people sit a lot. A lot of people don't walk 3 miles per day and something specific to Gavan's physiology may be at play here.

What we can do though is take this as a warning call and thank Gavan for sharing with us. It certainly woke me up a bit more.

* Drink a lot of water.

* Don't eat a lot of sugar.

* Stand when you can. If you have a standing desk. Great.

* Get up and take breaks when you can. Set a reminder. I get up every hour.

* At lunch get out and go for a walk.

* Try to hit the 10k steps per day.

There's also a tool we can use to access the likelihood of DVT. It's the very same tool Primary care doctors will use and it's called the Well's criteria. Here's a interactive calculator [http://www.mdcalc.com/wells-criteria-for- dvt/](http://www.mdcalc.com/wells-criteria-for-dvt/)

You should read up on it if interested. There's also the "Primary Care Rule for DVT" [http://www.aafp.org/afp/2011/1215/p1417.html](http://www.aafp.org/afp/2011/1215/p1417.html)

Though for this one you need to have a D-Dimer taken which is a blood test.

0 - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virchow's_triad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virchow's_triad)

<comment><USER4> You are correct - there are so many factors to consider, and I am by no means an expert and would definitely accept being wrong in any given area. The general advice that I can give, that will probably keep a person healthier than not, is to exercise, eat well, and not sit for too long. This goes beyond just DVTs - this is advice for living long in general. :) Even outside of clots, sitting is shown to severely cut back the benefits of exercise (although like all studies, this should be taken with a grain of salt as well). 66 percent of studies are wrong, as they say. The reverse advice goes as well - you should not stand all the time either - this is shown to have adverse effects as well.

And as a minor additional note - my 1-3 miles of walking tends more often towards the low end of that range (especially when I am in a rush to get work done), although I do randomly take longer walks (sometimes as far as 5 miles).

<comment><USER13> There's a lot and that's why seeing a doctor is so very important. I am actually having an anxiety attack right now after reading your post. You didn't cause it :) but it certainly did stir up some stuff with my anxiety.

For an anxiety sufferer like ourselves. It can be very hard. I have numbness in my left hand, an odd pain in my back and shortness of breadth. This could be a lot of things. Things I'd rather everybody not mention because I know them well. But if I went to the ER every time these things popped up well at one time in my life I'd live there. The probability suggests that I am fine. The probability suggests that after thousands of trials similar to this of which I ended up fine, I will likely be fine here. There's a chance I will not be but it's a chance I need to take.

Wish you the best :)

<comment><USER4> I get so many symptoms on and off (which include numbness, aches, shortness of breath, chest pain). The way I bring myself to relax about these things is that I don't worry about them unless they persist for a particularly long time without any breaks in their occurrence. I actually expressed similar sentiments just now in another comment about the pitfalls of worrying too much.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Today I completed my 30 technologies in 30 days challenge - <AUTHOR>

Today, I completed my 30 technologies in 30 days challenge. It has been an amazing and enriching experience. Everyday I learned a new technology, developed application, blogged about it. You can read all the blogs in the series here https://www.openshift.com/blogs/learning-30-technologies-in-30-days-a-developer-challenge. Topics covered include latest JavaScript MV* framework, Sentiment analysis, Python Flask framework, Stanford Core NLP package, Grails , Docker,etc. I am happy :). What you all think? <comment><AUTHOR> Link [https://www.openshift.com/blogs/learning-30-technologies- in-...](https://www.openshift.com/blogs/learning-30-technologies-in-30-days-a- developer-challenge)

</comment><comment><USER2> Congrats! I've actually had TextBlob bookmarked to play around with soon, glad you chose it for one of your posts.

</comment><comment><USER3> Awesome work. I've got enough bookmarks from your discoveries to keep me learning for the next year. Props.

</comment><comment><USER4> \- CONGRATULATIONS!!!</comment>


Butter is not back: Limiting saturated fat still best for heart health - <AUTHOR> http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/butter-is-not-back-limiting-saturated-fat-still-best-for-heart-health/ <comment><USER2> A life without butter is a life unlived.</comment>


Feedwords: Set Your Phasers to "Handy" - Build your own RSS feeds from dev blogs by keyword - <AUTHOR> http://feedwords.net/

<comment><AUTHOR> hey all - last night, i saw a post about mememixr and the comments regarding filtering. in response, i put together a django application lets you build rss feeds with keywords out of aggregated articles from some of the big development blogs/data sources.

for example, i can say "give me articles with 'python', 'django', 'php', and 'mootools' in the title or [rss] content from reddit, news.yc, and fyynd but not digg-programming, techcrunch, or mixx.

you also get a snappy url, like: <http://mattdennewitz.feedwords.net/feeds/python-feed/>

there isnt really a design (kind of an anti-design, really) but everything's operational, save for a delete button or two. its probably best still called "alpha", but the critical functionality is there and its totally usable. please also feel free to suggest more feeds to aggregate.

<comment><USER2> Nice, but how is it different from subscribing to a Google Blogsearch feed:

[http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&#...](http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&scoring=d&q=php+%28smarty+OR+cakephp+OR+symphony+OR+zend%29)

[http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch_feeds?hl=en&scor...](http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch_feeds?hl=en&scoring=d&q=php+)(smarty+OR+cakephp+OR+symphony+OR+zend)&ie=utf-8&num=10&output=rss

<comment><AUTHOR> my first inclination is to say "better signal:noise ratio" but time will tell :)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Any help or suggestion for a template Pitch email to bloggers? - <AUTHOR>

Hi Hackers,<p>I'm trying to pitch my service to some bloggers and couldn't get one to cover it till now, so I assume ,maybe it's the way I write my pitch, I've tried Peldi email pith and other templates, but no success till now, any help on a template pitch for a service like http://www.gmbhnews.com ?<p>(disclosure: Not native english speaker) <comment><USER2> I would strongly consider making a site which sells the product distinct from the product itself. A blogger is going to probably be evaluating your pitch from their laptop, not from their iPhone.

Dear Real Name of Blogger,

Explain how I came to read his blog. Stroke his ego. Express genuine personal interest in blogger's favorite subjects, demonstrating that I am not an outsourced Indian spammer working his way through an Excel file of bloggers to spam.

Introduce product. Give elevator pitch. Explain why product is intensely interesting to blogger's audience. Include link to landing page on site, which gives a brief feature tour, further selling of the product as an interesting bit of news, and possibly a media kit including screenshots/logos which they can use in their presentation. (Personalize the landing page -- it will both make them respond more favorably and ensure that they don't link to it and link to your service instead. You can also track who opens your emails, who actually visits your landing page, what product videos they were actually interested in, etc.)

Suggest possible angles on story. Namedrop subjects which are on the author's radar like a pro. Suggest possible angles on story. Suggest possible angles on story.

Mention other coverage your product has received, particularly coverage from the blogger's perceived rivals or sources they look up to. In the alternative, mention prominent people who haven't covered you yet but probably will, so that the blogger can scoop them.

Offer to answer any questions blogger has about product. Close warmly.

Regards,

Your Name Here

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot, this is of great help.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Here are some articles / links that might help:

<http://thomaskorte.com/archive/how-to-cold-email> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1351460>

Here's some things you shouldn't do:

[http://www.jonathanfields.com/blog/trainwreck-blogger-jv- pit...](http://www.jonathanfields.com/blog/trainwreck-blogger-jv-pitches-what- not-to-do/) <http://www.jonathanfields.com/blog/pr-social-media-gone-bad/>

Hope it helps!

</comment><comment><USER4> You should visit <http://niceemails.com>. Nice Emails is the premiere marketplace for purchasing Premium Email and E-card Templates.</comment>


Any feedback on side project: reverse groupon 'AskForADeal' (in Santa monica) - <AUTHOR>

Started this reverse groupon to be for national brands, but pivoted it to be for just one location and local business started accepting deals.<p>It's essentially Groupon in reverse:
http://santamonica.askforadeal.com <comment><USER3> So let's say you have 100 deal requests for a given business, but with varying %off and amounts.

What do you do next? Go to the target business? Let's say you go ahead with this idea, what if half the people drop out if the deal amount is doubled or %off is halved?

I'd like to know why the sliders, and how it's different from Loopt: <http://www.businessinsider.com/loopt-u-deals-2011-6>

</comment><comment><USER4> Business owners might appreciate an opportunity to be part of a feedback loop they can generalize - say greater than 30% discount just isn't possible due to cost structure (group buy won't matter)- let them indicate that somehow for their business to filter/feedback future requests, so they don't feel like they are getting bullied with a lot of requests greater than that.

For users, maybe let them also offer non-monetary factors for discount - off- peak / non-prime hours, introduce a friend, available on short notice to fill a cancellation, post a blog or tweet, post a local sign, ??, etc. - <USER2> a little for the discount where the retailer would see value in the barter. Groupon can't do this, but your personalized approach seems ideal for this.

In cases where business finds deals that work, archive them for the business, then offer to post or syndicate them on-demand as desired by business to drum up demand on an ongoing basis.

And to keep users interested, do something where you as the service do random (or not so random) selections and 'make the discount' happen for the requester, at _no_ cost to the merchant.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's interesting, but perhaps counter-intuitive (at least for me).

Based on what I have seen from your "users" (or army of employees) people are requesting deals from businesses that they already like and frequent. Generally speaking, you frequent a business because you like and receive what you perceive to be fair value for what the money you spend there. If I go to the cafe down the street 5 days a week because I like it and am willing to pay full price, I have no real reason to ask them for a discount - I am satisfied paying full price.

Now, it does make sense to me to request discounts from places that I want to try as a way to get me in the door. However, actually requesting a deal from these new places requires work on my end, whereas I can just sit around and lazily let Groupon/LivingSocial push new deals to new places on a daily basis.

Cool idea, but not something I see myself using.

</comment><comment><USER6> It could work maybe as a way to actually build a more efficient kind of Groupon. Instead of having to convince businesses to run deals you let users bug them until they do, and they run better deals because they're the ones users asked for. You also don't need to take a cut (or at most a very small one) since your effort is rather limited.

Ultimately it seems you end up in the same place as Groupon as far as using it. People would want to know what deals were already available, so they don't have to ask for one themselves most of the time.

It's got a massive chicken-n-egg problem, so that's the real challenge in making it work. Using the "bowling pin" strategy and starting in Santa Monica should help.

It's interesting and different, which I like.

</comment><comment><USER7> I do this already manually (i.e. contacted various businesses to see who can offer me a deal on 7 suits for a wedding party). I love the idea of it being automated for me.

</comment><comment><USER8> An optional free text field is the way forward as I can envisage a few people having other requests (particular dates they need the discount on, specific products they're interested in, justifications for asking for such an outrageous discount etc.) as well.

I think a typical use case would be someone looking for a better deal when they've got a big group of people to entertain, in which case there's a particular time frame they're interested in.

</comment><comment><USER9> The only problem I see is that why would anyone want to use it. There are _so_ many (and I mean really many) daily deal websites out there now that sell just about anything; chances are most people can find what they want at the price they desire, or at least close enough to beat inputting a bunch of numbers into a third-party website and waiting for some conclusion that may not even materialize.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think this could be a good idea as long as the companies in the drop down have agreed to be apart of the deal. Also I'd recommend having a directory around the companies so that there is some marketing for the companies where visitors can find out what they do and through that discovery ask for a deal

</comment><comment><USER11> You need to make it much much simpler. Just ask people to choose a business. You decide the numbers.

Fix the discount at some reasonable number around the average of Groupon-type discounts.

The amount spent will be decided by the type of business anyway.

</comment><comment><USER12> I really like the idea. There may be some interesting challenges in terms of acquiring businesses to buy-in to the concept. There is definitely an opportunity there. Best of luck.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> link: <http://santamonica.askforadeal.com>

</comment><comment><USER13> Seems like a novel idea. Are you hoping to monetize this?</comment>