Show HN: Add chat like in Airbnb and LinkedIn to your platform in minutes - <AUTHOR> https://talkjs.com/hello <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN, I'm one of the cofounders of TalkJS.

We did post this to HN once before, but since then we've considerably improved both the product and the pricing. We're dying to hear what you all think of us!

<comment><USER2> Neat idea. Demo page isn't working on mobile so I wasn't able to check it out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh wow, that's not supposed to happen! Can you tell me more about your phone and browser?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hi do you want some feedback about the homepage?

When looking at the homepage, it's not clear to me what kind of chat you have in mind. (I haven't used Airbnb's or LinkedIn's chats.)

Is it for example:

\- Embedded comments like chat? Like Disqus, but chat instead.

\- Or one of those small pop up chats one can use, to talk with a company's support people?

\- Or maybe some more forum like stuff, where each forum topic is a chat?

Seems the last alternative ( ~= forum with chat topics) is what you're doing? Maybe if the images on the homepage was real screenshots, it'd be easier to understand (without looking at the demo).

About this: _" integrate two-way chat"_ — what is two way chat? Is there one way chat too? The person one talks with, then never replies?

About this: _" Everything you want"_ — hmm I think I don't know what i want or need. "Everything you want" doesn't mean much to me.

I'm a bit confused about what is your main product: is it the chat you're showing in the demo, or the popup chat dialog I can use to send messages to you ... or both? And do they integrate with each other somehow.

Ok I scroll down on the homepage ...

This: _" First, set up a dedicated page for your user's message inbox"_ — would I create one page for all users? Or maybe one per user? Hmm. I suppose it's the same for all users, and some session cookie determines what will be visible? Then change from "user's" to "users'".

This: _" there needs to be a trigger where people can initiate a chat with someone"_ sounds very technical. What about _" Add a start-chatting button"_ instead?

Hmm to me €49/month, and keeping data only 14 days, seems expensive.

In the demo: I'm a bit confused about if the left list, with topics, lists topics — or if it lists people? There's "Alice (you)" and someone else's name, but also topics that doesn't seem to be someone's name. Maybe have two lists: one for direct messages, one for other topics anyone can join? Or how does it work.

\---

I hope this feedback will be useful to you. If you want more feedback from other people, feel free to submit your website to _Usability Testing Exchange_ , [https://usability.testing.exchange](https://usability.testing.exchange) (I'm developing it).

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Kaj, thanks a lot for this feedback! We'll do our best to improve based on it :-)

</comment></comment><comment> onion-soup Looks great!

<comment><USER4> thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nice idea. Is Mobile integrated as a web view or it's for web apps only?

<comment><AUTHOR> The first. TalkJS does not currently have a native mobile version, but has been designed to work great on mobile as well, be it mobile browsers, Webviews or cordova.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> is the price providing a service or access to a widget. i would imagine I would want to chat with my clients, so just need a widget and backend for user/convo tracking.

<comment><USER4> hey– not sure I understand your question completely, can you shoot me an email at joshua [at] talkjs.com? thanks.</comment></comment>


When will the Arctic see its first ice free summer? - <AUTHOR> https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/when-will-the-arctic-see-its-first-ice-free-summer/ <comment><USER2> About 5 million years ago, for one.

</comment><comment><USER3> Despite my diligent stretching exercises, I've made scant progress towards my goal of having flying monkeys exit my anus, which I estimate having an equivalent likelihood as an "ice-free" arctic. The only way of successfully having an 'ice-free' arctic is redefining the terms, "ice-free" or "arctic" both of which are essentially marketing terms in the first place and relatively malleable. So, it's back to my exercises...

</comment><comment><USER4> Maybe even more importantly - what effects will an ice-free Arctic have? Slight weather perturbations, or the end of the world as we know it?

<comment><USER5> There's been speculation that the heart of the winter will shift. That instead of a cold arctic surrounded by permanent westerly winds the winds will shift so the coldest area is somewhere in North America during the northern winter.

That's just speculation at this point. We're entering unknown territory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Around the middle of the century, but predictions vary from soon up until 2100CE.

I hate these long-form articles with clickbait headlines.</comment>


How surgery got cheaper for many Californians - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/09/upshot/how-common-procedures-got-20-percent-cheaper-for-many-californians.html <comment><USER2> There was a Planet Money episode about insurers paying patients to choose cheaper options[1]. That helps reduce the burden of shopping around on the end user, so seems preferable to me.

In both cases, it's really telling to see that you can just go to another facility and get (presumably comparable) care for a third the cost. I don't know the best way to address that, but it shows it's something we need to work on addressing.

[1] [http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/10/02/445371930/episo...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/10/02/445371930/episode-655-pay- patients-save-money)

<comment><USER3> The hardest part is finding out which places are cheaper.

Many times, billing departments have straight out refused to tell me what I will pay.

Everyone else is happy signing blank checks, so they don't see the problem.

<comment><USER4> Yes! I was trying to forecast how much I would pay for prenatal service. I was told I needed to 1) call the doctor and get procedure codes for each visit 2) call the billing department, give them the codes, and find out how much I would get charged 3) call the insurance company to find out how much they'd cover. The doctor would charge different rates for the same procedures to different insurances and insurances would have different reimbursements. I believe lab work would have to be done in addition to that.

It would be a huge amount of work to compare insurance plans or doctors. Even chasing everything down after the fact requires hours on the phone.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: RecapJS – Record and Replay Browser Sessions Without Leaking User Data - <AUTHOR> https://recapjs.com/ <comment><USER2> Love the idea. Super useful for iterating over UX.

</comment><comment><USER3> awesome idea. I work at a financial institution, and the idea of a browser recording tool, would be ruled out due to regulations and concerns regarding the sharing of user data. However if the data was always encrypted, and redacted, this might be a more workable solution. This kind of tool is invaluable for UX research and bug reporting.

I'm not sure that just blurring the text input is sufficient for obfuscation, There are known methods for reversing blur like: [https://lifehacker.com/how- to-uncover-blurred-information-in...](https://lifehacker.com/how-to-uncover- blurred-information-in..). [http://www.fit.vutbr.cz/~ihradis/CNN- Deblur/](http://www.fit.vutbr.cz/~ihradis/CNN-Deblur/)

Another feature I would suggest is to monkey patch the browser `console` functions (e.g. log, warn, error, etc...) This way in addition to capture all the DOM related events, someone can also look and see what messages are appearing in the console. This is useful for debugging.

I keep getting this error: "Dang! There was an unexpected error, please try again. If the error persists please come back in a bit or get in touch with us!"

I'd like to get in touch with you. Do you have a handle or email I can DM?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your thoughtful comments!

Regarding blurring: It's just a visual layer on top. The actual content that is underneath the blurring layer is just some randomly generated data. If you are familiar with chrome debugger you can check it out for yourself. The actual data is never recorded when blurring is on.

Regarding console logging: It's already supported! There is a panel on top right of the replayer UI that opens a panel at the bottom. This will show you a record of console logs as well as network logs. We'll work on making it more discoverable.

Sorry that you are facing errors. Please send an email to email@example.com and we can sort it out for you.</comment></comment>


Tarsnap outage report: 2016-07-24 10:15:19--11:40:04 - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/onli/4feb522c6d4088cca3e9f3fa13aa7d9e <comment><USER2> As a satisfied Tarsnap customer - thanks to cperciva for this explanative post-mortem & making the refund automatic rather than based on who emails support and complains...

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought that post-mortem was especially good, that is why I shared it. It is interesting to read what can go wrong, and how it was detected.

Btw, I would have preferred to link to an online version of that email, but found none.

<comment><USER3> It was posted to the tarsnap-announce mailing list: [http://mail.tarsnap.com/tarsnap- announce/msg00035.html](http://mail.tarsnap.com/tarsnap- announce/msg00035.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. That would have been the better link.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to get started in robotics programming - <AUTHOR> I am currently a software developer but have a strong interest in learning how to program robots. I  was wondering if anyone had any advice on the best way to get started learning. Also if anyone has any good beginner projects that could be worked on?<p>Thanks <comment><USER2> I think the best way to get started is to learn ROS [https://ros.org](https://ros.org) programming and use a simulator [https://gazebosim.org](https://gazebosim.org). This will enable you to get started for free using any robot, without the complexity of dealing with hardware at the same time. Then when you understand the code you apply it to a real robot.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks! ill definitely check that out

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> There are tons of arduino and raspberry pi kits out there. Get one and try to do something with it. I built a bounce & turn vacuum to learn.</comment>


Advise about your startup idea. - <AUTHOR>

The single biggest problem (IMHO) for a startup is traction. Getting people to stop whatever it is they are doing and use your product is impossible at least 90% of the time. I know this because it has happened to me several times.
So here is one advise I would like to share with startups: build a product that does not require users to come to your website. In other words, do not change your end users' current behaviors. The best way to do this is to integrate with the applications they are already using. One application that is common to all internet users is Email. We all go it. If your audience can make use of your product by simply sending an email then you are ahead of the curve. Doubt it? Ask Posterous, CCBetty, or Snoozemail. So if you are readying to build a CRM app, or Search engine etc.. figure how to make it work from Email or IM or similar products others have already accepted.
Edit: And in regards to CRM, what small businesses really need is not a light version of SalesForce, its a product that can make sense of forwarded emails. <comment><USER2> I agree with the OP, but want to make sure that everybody realizes each market is unique.

My startup is in the b2b sphere (specifically, industrial research, design, and manufacturing). Our product is slowly growing and getting traction, but that's only because we don't expect to have tens of thousands of users. Each of our users is worth more to us than the average twitter user, so we put more time into recruiting them to the site (generally it's a personal contact 50%+ of the time that gets them there).

So in our case, we can afford to put the time in with individual users. We thus don't really need to integrate with existing products, because our market doesn't demand it. In fact, in the IRDM area, I've found that almost everything is proprietary and very secretive; every company protects its trade secrets tightly (not because they are advanced or cutting edge... just because they hold on to every minor edge they can, regardless of the wisdom of doing so). In short, it's very old school business-types who think their secret sauce is in their product rather than in their relationships and experience.

But I would definitely like to second the "figure how to make it work from Email or IM or similar products others have already accepted." Our app has put a lot of focus on email interaction, which I think is crucial for us to succeed.

I guess all I'm saying is that you really should make sure you know what your ideal user is like. If they're like mine, then you have a little more leeway because they're a little more used to the non-integration of different components (i.e. they are willing to try anything).

</comment><comment><USER3> This is part of the reason for the explosion of Twitter and Facebook apps. Developers are taking advantage of the fact that millions of users are already using these platforms and that there are easy and powerful APIs that allow applications to be built on top of them.</comment>


Is Apple Really Your Privacy Hero? - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-08/is-apple-really-your-privacy-hero <comment><USER2> This article clumsily papers over the fundamental difference between Apple, and companies like Facebook and Google: Apple _does not collect or possess that customer data in the first place_. That is the essence of why, and how, Apple can manage to be a better steward of your privacy: it doesn't collect all kinds of data on you. That data is under _your_ control, as a user, which is how it should be. But that in turn means that you have to be responsible for who you share that data with.

<comment><USER3> There is no difference, other than that Apple tried to chase Google's and Facebook's ad-based business model wit iAds but failed miserably. The result was a shift towards privacy to try to drain the profits of those two companies.

But make no mistake, Apple won't think twice before handing over data to the government or any other party if it makes business sense, as they did in China.

<comment><USER4> If that's what you took away from the iAds situation, then you horribly misunderstood that. iAds was a feature available to developers to help monetize free apps. Yes, Apple got a cut of that but that's not at all the same as Google's or Facebook's ad-based model since their ads are targeted. Apple explicitly did not target based on personal data in iAds.

Also, your China example is also a straw man because Apple's terms in China explicitly allowed for that before they even sold a single phone there. In the US, for example, Apple isn't able to provide personal data to authorities. It can only provide information that doesn't live on-device and that's stored unencrypted which, as of right now, is nothing unless a user explicitly asks for it to be stored unencrypted.

<comment><USER5> _Apple explicitly did not target based on personal data in iAds._

I don't know if ads on AppleTV to be part of iAds or not, but I was a little surprised to see this menu on my AppleTV today:

Settings > General > Privacy > Advertising

The choices for this are Limit Ad Tracking, Reset Advertising Identifier, and About Advertising and Privacy.

Apple has an entire web page showing how to opt-out of targeted advertising on its devices, including the iPhone:

[https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202074](https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT202074)

The most telling one is

Settings > Privacy > Location Services > System Services > Location-Based Apple Ads

<comment><USER6> First off... iAds is something completely different from what you've just posted about. iAds was a platform available to developers. It has nothing to do with Apple providing advertisements to you.

Second, did you read that page at all, then? That's not at all the same as advertising based on your personal data. That's Apple showing you App Store promotions based on the searches you're typing in from the App Store and is completely localized to the App Store and App Store search. It's what allows you to go to the App Store and have the McDonald's sponsored ad show up when you visit a McDonald's. The only information being sent is your search term, anonymously, and the location-based ads are served based on iBeacons. None of your personal info is ever sent outgoing from your phone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> A quick summary: iOS has very coarse-grained controls for app permissions to the contact list, either allowing all access to data about every contact, including free-form text notes that could contain arbitrary sensitive information, or no contact list access at all. The App Store's policies controlling use of contact list data are too weak without technical enforcement. (It's also noted that Google has the same problem with Android and the Play Store, but the author argues that Apple is more hypocritical because of its public pro-privacy stance.) To correct the problem:

> _the first step is obvious: Restrict [apps] from getting any information > from users ' lists beyond phone numbers and email addresses. The next step > is redesigning the controls of the list to allow users to encrypt or decline > to share certain contacts. The names in a contact list could be benign, or > they could be revealing—a doctor's patients, a dealmaker's network, a > journalist's sources._

<comment><USER7> While iOS can improve on a lot of things the biggest factor here is that Apple's business model does not revolve around their user's data.

If I'm in all honest i don't have that many apps on my iPhone and the same goes for most of the people I know the app craze has I think settled down quite a bit.

I have 15 apps installed and only 3 have access to my contact list and those are Protonmail, Signal and WhatsApp which I would allow access too anyhow for convenience.

Apple can and should improve permission granularity but as far as contacts go I'm not sure that it's even a good idea.

All or nothing seems like a good compromise to ensure that apps that you don't want to have access to contacts don't, how many usecases can you see when you'll have to go to individual contacts and approve them one by one?

The best thing beyond that that Apple can implement is per field permissions e.g. I would like ProtonMail to only have access to the contact name and email fields but not to phone number or address but this level of granularity isn't available on any platform afaik.

<comment><USER8> > only 3 have access to my contact list and those are Protonmail, Signal and > WhatsApp

Yeah, one of them shares your contacts with Facebook. Might as well given all 15 this permission..

<comment><USER9> I avoid sharing data with FB, but personally I would rather share my contacts with FB than with some random app developers.

<comment><USER10> Don't worry, FB will share it with random app developers on your behalf.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > When developers get our information, and that of the acquaintances in our > contacts list, it's theirs to use and move around unseen by Apple. It can be > sold to data brokers, shared with political campaigns, or posted on the > internet. The new rule forbids that, but Apple does nothing to make it > technically difficult for developers to harvest the information.

The article seems to really be trying hard to gloss over a lot of details to make a relatively minor complaint (really? The notes field in your contacts is your big concern?).

It's perfectly clear when you try to use an app that wants to access your contacts, and Apple makes it very easy to prevent. And unlike other platforms, apps are required to still work even if you deny such access.

</comment><comment><USER12> Apple respects your privacy because Tim Cook says so, and so does their webpage. Without any audit of the code, you're taking it on faith. And their privacy statement seemingly has a "nowness" to it, non-committal. There is no assurance of privacy in the future. For example, Apple could have said ...

"We are committed to never sharing your data with 3rd parties or governments for the entirety of our existence as a company. This contract can not be changed, and in doing so we are guilty of blah blah" (not a lawyer)

Questions I have are...

Is there privacy statement a legally binding contract? Is there any legal recourse for customers if they are have found to violate it?

Is it only applicable to particular countries? Does it change when you go to different countries?

Could Apple decide that the data they harvest is more valuable then their privacy claim and retract their so-called privacy commitment? Could retroactive data then be exploited?

</comment><comment><USER13> Yup, they really are your privacy hero when comparing with competitors.

<comment><USER14> That's what I was thinking.

Does it matter?

They're no worse than MS (maybe better? Honestly don't know). They're way better than Google. Or Amazon.

If we ignore phones or what Android does natively, TV makers like LG and Samsung and even Sony have all sorts of stuff on their TVs to spy on you.

My guess is Apple could fall very far and still be one of the best, because the bar is incredibly low.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Yes.

Unlike FB they don't do secret backdoor deals with phone manufacturers to spy on you. Also they don't spy on you. Also they don't make ALL their money from advertising creating an unavoidable incentive for violating your privacy (and wasting your time but that's beside the point).

Unlike Android they aren't a Wild West of malware and dodgy phone manufacturers who do secret deals with everyone to spy on you.

Unlike Google they don't make almost all their money from advertising (see above).

Unlike Microsoft they don't bake ads into their OS despite the fact that they don't make much money from it. Also they aren't trying to compete with Google. Also hardware Wild West thing.

Unl

<comment><USER16> > Unlike FB they don't do secret backdoor deals with phone manufacturers to > spy on you. Also they don't spy on you.

How do you know this to be true?

<comment><USER4> Apple manufactures all their own devices. They don't have any incentive to do so nor any way to do so since they're not dealing with 3rd party phone manufacturers.

<comment><USER16> A) Of course they have incentive to do so. They Also have incentive to hide it tho.

B) Not dealing with 3rd party manufacturers seems unrelated to the discussion. Can you expand?

<comment><USER4> A) I disagree. Apple's incentive is in getting people to pay top dollar to live in the Apple ecosystem. They require a certain level of trust. Selling out people's data to Facebook does not achieve that end. The risk of getting caught is far higher than the reward from those analytics.

B) Apple controls the entire supply chain for iPhones. They have no need from a profit standpoint to try and insert hardware that allows other companies to do anything to their users. The secret backdoors are almost always the result of some exchange - FB offers data about users in exchange for the ability to insert hardware/software into a phone. Since that exchange doesn't exist for Apple, there's no reason for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> >Apple does not collect or possess that customer data in the first place.

I'm genuinely curious. How do you know that?

<comment><USER4> The data is encrypted. The US government has attempted to retrieve customer data from Apple and they were unable to comply.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> There is no fundamental difference. The difference is that at this point in time, it's more profitable for Apple to not collect and posses data than the other way around.

That is not a given.

The only future-proof way around this is to be in control of the software (and hardware) you use, something Apple is not very comfortable with.

<comment><USER19> There is another, more future-proof way around this - legislature similar to GDPR.

<comment><USER20> Seeing how Do Not Call registry has failed, I have little faith in a GDPR like legislation being properly enforced. The likes of Google and FB can easily lobby/bribe their way out of it, or simply just pay the fines and business as usual. Unfortunately having a company like Apple with the aligned financial incentives is best defense we have.

<comment><USER21> Even Google can't count on being able to 'bribe' their way out of GDPR compliance, as complaints can be brought individually. And the fines have to be large, as a percentage of revenue, or they are useless. GDPR is pretty strong on this, but I would have liked the ceilings on fines to be even higher.

I have zero hope that we'll get anything remotely comparable in the USA, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Everyone talks about the 'collecting' of customer data.

Like simply collecting and holding that data is somehow wrong.

Apple doesn't collect the same customer data that Google does, but even if they did, it's much much more important to talk about how that data is used.

Google are an advertising company. It's in their best interest to use that data to INFLUENCE you to the whims of the highest bidder.

Google are running a platform whereby they sell their brainwashing services to anyone willing to pay. That's not an exaggeration.

</comment><comment><USER23> That headline is an interesting choice of phrase. Are we expecting big tech corporations to almost literally be superheroes or villains?

It does seem like many people expect them to fight for justice. Protect the innocents. Maybe not punch the bad guys, but at least banish them.

This is not what corporate PR is usually going for. But suppose someone decided, heck yeah, we're going to be a virtual superhero, and just ran with that?

</comment><comment><USER24> Apple is a huge company that needs to grow every year and has access to a lot of data. I think even if Apple is doing well now they easily can change their data strategy to make more money or be forced by governments.

We should work on a system where it's not possible for a company to accumulate that much data.

</comment><comment><USER25> Hardly. But I trust them marginally more than say Google.

</comment><comment><USER26> This is a Facebook submarine [1].

[1] [http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

<comment><USER27> Eh. Without proof that seems like a method of easy dismissal instead of arguing why it's wrong.

And if it is PR, it's a weird tactic. The article seems to be using FB as benchmark for "worst offender".

<comment><USER26> This story basically has no meat other than "the permissions API for contacts isn't granular enough" padded with casting aspersions on Apple, by the Facebook beat reporter. There are no quotes from anyone in the infosec field who is familiar with the technical underpinnings of iOS or is otherwise familiar with Apple's history with privacy (policy, technical, business model, etc). The entire premise of this story which amounts to "Is Apple really so virtuous?" is completely unsubstantiated.

So sure, I don't have any definite proof that this was a story planted by Facebook's PR team. That would require me to have seen the communications between this reporter and them, but I don't think the hurdle is "beyond a reasonable doubt" to say this was _A Facebook Production_ given the context (the running spat between Tim Cook and Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook employees on Twitter whining about this very thing, etc).

<comment><USER27> >This story basically has no meat other than "the permissions API for contacts isn't granular enough" padded with casting aspersions on Apple, by the Facebook beat reporter.

I'm not defending the quality of the article, it's _bad_. And I think if the reasons you just listed were in your original comment, I would have upvoted it instead of viewing it as overly dismissive.

>I don't think the hurdle is "beyond a reasonable doubt" to say this was a Facebook Production given the context

For sure, the bar is low because the stakes are low. But a shitty writer and a need to inflate word count for the editor yields articles like this as well, no need for a PR conspiracy. I guess it depends a lot on how you feel about Hanlon's razor.

<comment><USER26> >I'm not defending the quality of the article, it's bad. And I think if the reasons you just listed were in your original comment, I would have upvoted it instead of viewing it as overly dismissive.

That's fair. I should have written a fuller comment off the bat, but everyone can read my reasoning now.

>For sure, the bar is low because the stakes are low. But a shitty writer and a need to inflate word count for the editor yields articles like this as well, no need for a PR conspiracy. I guess it depends a lot on how you feel about Hanlon's razor.

I actually don't think this is anything particularly nefarious or underhanded. It's all in the game, as Omar would say. In fact I'm amused by how transparently bad it is. She brings up some good points (the permissions should be more granular) but the framing of the story is clearly working in service of Facebook's agenda. The actual solution that needs to happen isn't technical at all. It requires new legislation establishing equivalents to Data Protection Commissioners in the EU and creating a comprehensive, omnibus policy for them to enforce.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Apple are no better data hoarders.

A personal anecdote - last year I tried to (for the first time) use an iPhone. First of all, why do we need to "activate" it? What's wrong with just turning it on and using?

Then comes data collection, they wouldn't allow me to use my smartphone without a SIM card (I couldn't use my old SIM in that moment because it was not in the micro format). So, you can't "activate" your iPhone and use it as wifi-only device, they want your SIM card's data first.

OK, trying again with an old inactive SIM card from the drawer, now they want my full name, my email, my telephone, my birthday and my address. Why though? I decided to play their game and entered bogus data and a temporary email address. Now they want me to confirm the email and the telephone. Just let me use it already! I managed to confirm the email (the unconfirmed telephone number was nagging in the notifications area), and hooray, I already could use some of my phone and get online.

Next comes the iTunes account. If you want to install any app from the store you must have an iTunes account. Again, full name, telephone, address, zip code, etc.. In the end it refused to register (maybe some algo detected my bogus data which I didn't even try to make it look legit) and it just suggested to contact their support.

This is when I reseted it and decided to return it.

<comment><USER29> "No better"? I'll disagree there.

"This is when I reseted it and decided to return it" \- I respect this. I'm honestly very curious what you've decided on in its place.

<comment><USER30> > I'm honestly very curious what you've decided on in its place.

Me too. I'm looking for something with good privacy and good security, including things like anti-imaging or timely security updates for at least 3 years (don't change my phone very often). Seems like I could either buy Apple, maybe flash LineageOS (what a pain), or not use a smartphone.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What Google Analytics metrics do you check? - <AUTHOR> What are the important metrics do you check on a daily/weekly/monthly basis to understand the traffic on your website. <comment><USER2> The usual: clicks and impressions (which I check daily) to see if pages are receiving the expected traffic, be sure to keep an eye on your budget and the cost per clicks and you be just fine :)</comment>


Ask HN: Should I add a forum to my blog? - <AUTHOR>

Hey guys and gals.<p>I'm considering adding a forum to my blog (http://ios-blog.co.uk) to help developers interact with each other and to also allow a faster and better help service for the audience. What do you think? <comment><USER2> Depends on your blog.

I would ask myself the following questions:

\- Does the audience you are addressing already have a "home"?

Your primary goal shouldn't be to run a forum for the sake of running a forum. Your primary motivation should be to give your community a home.

\- Can you reach initial traction?

How many readers do you have? How many of them do you think will contribute to the forum? Your blog seems to be pretty popular. Why don't start with one category and see how it develops?

Looking at your blog, I don't think that this will be a problem. Nevertheless, you need to be prepared to spend quite some time answering questions in your forum yourself.

When in doubt, fake it 'til you make it. That's how reddit got started: By creating massive amounts of fake accounts and posting everything they found online.

Here are a few "golden rules" on running a forum:

\- Don't start with n different categories.

Start with one instead. See what people are talking about. If a category becomes to cluttered, add a new one.

Don't try to structure your forum before you have content!

\- Ask users what they want.

\- Define the scope of your forum.

What should be the primary topic people are supposed to talk about. An off- topic board is ok, but it'g good to have a general idea on what your community is supposed to look like.

\- Sign up beta users first.

It's probably a good idea to start with a small core group before launching and inviting everyone. People won't post in an empty forum, because they think it's dead. By starting with a small core audience, you have two advantages:

1\. They feel special because they are first. 2\. They KNOW the forum is empty, but NOT DEAD.

However you decide, good luck! Running a community is tough, but a lot of fun.

<comment><AUTHOR> Absolutely sound advice - internet points for you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you have never done a forum before, it's a lot of work, I can't stress this point enough. You'd want to find 50 loyal people to start it off. Have a quick search about what Reddit and Quora did in their early stages.</comment>


Amazon EC2 Container Service Agent - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/aws/amazon-ecs-agent

<comment><AUTHOR> This is the bit that runs inside the EC2 instance to make a box EC3S enabled.</comment>


Fossilized snapshot of mass death found on North Dakota ranch - <AUTHOR> https://www.agweek.com/node/4593281 <comment><USER2> See [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19526679](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19526679) for a previous discussion of the same story. (But with a different news source.)</comment>


Want To Hook Your Users? Drive Them Crazy. - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/25/want-to-hook-your-users-drive-them-crazy/

<comment><USER2> Here's the gist:

\- Rather than using conventional feedback loops, companies today are employing a new, stronger habit-forming mechanism to hook users—the desire engine.

\- At the heart of the desire engine is a variable schedule of rewards: a powerful hack that focuses attention, provides pleasure, and infatuates the mind.

\- Our search for variable rewards is about an endless desire for three types of rewards: those of the tribe, the hunt and the self.</comment>


Show HN: If you own a SaaS product, get benefited with OneClick trials - <AUTHOR> https://www.saastraq.com <comment><AUTHOR> I'm sorry if I couldn't grab your attention in any of my previous posts. I and my friend are building SaaStraQ. A one-stop platform to try multiple saas products in OneClick.

We all know trials are good for both, users and product owners.

Today, we opened up SaaS partners onboarding.

If you own a saas product, you are most welcome to visit SaaStraQ, Sign up for free, complete your business profile and start adding your products. That's it!

Soon you may expect a good number of trials on your listed products.

I would love to get your feedback on this.

See you soon!</comment>


Sweden's proposed six-hour workday - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/06/02/how-great-would-swedens-proposed-six-hour-workday-be-this-great <comment><USER2> I moved from the US (high on the list) to the Netherlands (bottom of the list) a while ago. Different jobs and sectors vary, but the theme I can confirm is that the Dutch feel more productive, generally (I work in software development).

In very broad terms, the Dutch are more likely to plan and stick to those plans. Personal time and time off are valued, so you need to be efficient in your working hours. You can't really expect someone to respond to your emails after working hours. Having to work in the weekends at all is a sign of bad project management, and should be exceptional. Meetings have agendas which are sent out ahead of time.

Americans are generally more optimistic, which makes for worse time management and planning, which leads to overtime and stress. Being seen at work somehow equals working, and internal guilt for not working efficiently while at work leads to more weekend work. There's a big focus how much you've 'worked' this week. Interruption is common for things which could be structured.

To be honest, it's been pretty difficult to adjust, but the payoff is huge. Actual free time after work, real weekends, and longer vacations are all possible because people plan... whereas friends back home are often unable to plan vacations because they/their boss don't know how busy they'll be in 5 months.

<comment><USER3> I have the same experience in Switzerland. I moved from the u.s. (s.f., boston, dc, socal) and despite working less we get a lot more done than in the u.s.

We have an 8.5 hour workday in Switzerland which we strictly stick to - we get comp time if you work over. In the u.s. we were pretty regularly working 10 hour days and 12 wasn't unusual, but we were wasting so much time.

A good example is meetings - most people get to the meeting 5 minutes before the start time. As soon as enough people arrive (usually 5 minutes before the start time or right at the start time) the meeting starts. If the meeting doesn't start by 10 minutes after because someone is missing it's cancelled. There's no smalltalk at the beginning, no socializing, no standing around stuffing your face...

Our company was bought by an American company and some of the Swiss staff transferred to the u.s. for awhile. Meetings were one of the most confusing changes for them - they'd be waiting in the conference room with no one showing up, then a few stragglers 10 minutes after the start time, and then every stands around talking about non-work stuff like they were at a high- school mixer. One colleague asked to have them start the meeting the first few time but eventually gave up and just started doing it the American way.

<comment><USER4> And yet people complain about the pointlessness of meetings despite not doing anything to make them more efficient (cf start _and end_ on time, avoid chit- chat, stick to the agenda, send actions quickly afterwards etc). It only takes a small about of self-discipline to get there but everyone has to exercise it.

I'm lucky to have learned from some excellent meeting-chairs but have only been able to reproduce the efficiency when I formed and ran my own team. Never pulled it off when joining someone else's.

<comment><USER5> The #1 thing to make meetings more efficient is _not to have them_. Very many meetings, IME, are held for purposes for which a face-to-face meeting is not an efficient tool, and for which decentralized, asynchronous mechanisms like email would serve better.

<comment><USER6> So what would be your rules of thumb for when meetings are worthwhile?

<comment><USER5> The simple two-part question to identify when a meeting is worthwhile and what the scope of the meeting should be (and what should be in other channels): Is simultaneous, interactive, many-to-many communication necessary, and why, specifically, is it necessary? (A followup, to make sure that people are _ready_ to have the meeting -- another common problem that makes meetings a waste of time and results in inappropriate things being done in the meeting venue -- is to ask: "what needs to happen _first_ so that people are ready to engage in that many-to-many interaction"?)

Lots of meetings, IME, are held by one person to gather information from many people or to distribute information from one person to many people -- these kind of one-to-many or many-to-one scenarios are the easiest thing to see doesn't require a meeting (many-to-one being the more inefficient.) There's even some cases of many-to-many communication where there isn't any real need for interactivity. And plenty of cases where a meeting that is held for a many-to-many interactive purpose spends much of its time doing top-down, one- to-many communication for much of the meeting because something that ought to have been distributed to be reviewed by participants to be ready for a productive meeting was instead distributed for the first time in the meeting, wasting most of the meeting time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > "though the United States is an outlier here, working both long and hard"

The article conflates productivity with 'working hard'. Productivity is a measure of how much value is produced ('money is made') per hour of work.

A bulldozer operator working an 8 hour day to move a few tons of dirt is more productive than a worker who needs many 12 hour work days to move the same amount of dirt with a shovel and wheelbarrow. A trader at a bank who moves millions of shares with a phone call and a few mouse clicks is more productive than the bulldozer operator. Does this mean the banker works hardest and the guy with the shovel the least hard?

A high productivity per hour in a country means fewer ditches are dug using shovels, and more credit default swaps are sold. It doesn't mean people are working harder. It also doesn't necessarily mean the shovel digging country is organizing its economy less efficiently. Where the cost of labor is a few dollar per day, investing in a bulldozer might never pay off. Hiring 100 guys with shovels and wheelbarrows could be more efficient than hiring one guy with a bulldozer.

<comment><USER8> I fear you're also conflating two things: money made and actual value produced.

Suppose the trader is selling credit default swaps and helping cause a big financial crash, or the bulldozer operator is destroying acres of forest to clear the way for a tobacco plantation. What they do may be very valuable to the people paying them (and hence, if they're lucky, lucrative for them personally) but have substantially _negative_ net value by any reasonable measure.

So "amount of hard work" is at _two_ removes from what (I think) really matters, namely amount of actual value produced.

<comment><USER9> So can the guy with the shovel.

Ultimately, the concept of "actual value" can be defined as one of two things: money (for things that have value for an individual) and laws (for things that have value for the society, e.g. externalities). Simply said, the society values certain things (short-term profit, growth, cars, cheap food, human lives) more than others (long-term stability, the environment, clean air, rainforest, empty space). These sentiments change, but they change slowly, because we live in a democracy (and because people value social/cultural stability and safety).

As far as the financial crisis is concerned, it's easy to say after the fact. Was Einstein's research net-negatively-valuable, because it resulted in the atomic bomb, or was it net-negatively-valuable, because it ended the war? Whenever there is innovation, there is a risk of the innovation resulting in something "bad". That doesn't mean that the value of research is negative. People are simply short-sighted and/or not smart enough to foresee bad consequences. Btw, I'm sure you're doing the same thing - consuming cheap electronic devices produced using non-recyclable rare resources by workers whose raising wages will (1) significantly increase pollution and (2) significantly increase their quality of life. Is that "good" or "bad"?

<comment><USER10> Economists have long accepted that individuals and society have vary different short term costs and bennifits for the same activity. Abstractly it's the basis for having governments in the first place. But that's a long way from saying laws directly account for all known externality's.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If someone gave me the chance of a 30-hour work week, I would rather work 4 days of 7,5 hours than 5 days of 6 hours. Just the hassle of getting up early, dressing up for work, commuting etc. isn't really worth it when I'm only going to work 6 hours anyway. I'd rather take an extra day off.

<comment><USER12> This is a fairly common thing here in the Netherlands actually, four day work week. Most of my colleagues I know who does this to have some extra time with their family/kids.

Usually it's a split in the middle of the week or something, for example my manager doesn't work tuesday's, it's his "papadag" as he then spends time with his kids and don't have to send them off to day-care or get a nanny.

Another colleague of mine dropped his contract from 40 hours a week down to 32 hours so he would have an extra day to work on his music career and an upcoming album.

Obviously these arrangements will affect your salary as you work less.

<comment><USER13> > obviously these arrangements will affect your salary

I don't really find this obvious or self-evident. One of my very biggest complaints about the economic climate today is that all of the productivity gains go to the owners, and very little to workers. If I as a worker am producing more, it follows that I should be working less, or paid more (which amounts to the same thing.) to do otherwise eliminates jobs that would otherwise need to be done, and takes advantage of workers.

<comment><USER14> >gains go to the owners, and very little to workers.

If there is such an obvious imbalance, why doesn't everyone just quit and start their own company?

<comment><USER15> Because of the obvious barriers to entry to reach a point where you are exploiting workers? Or because some people probably would prefer not to exploit others for profit?

Your point would make some sense if all owners of companies bootstrapped them from startups, when in reality they were likely just someone who was otherwise wealthy and became owners once it was already a successful company when the original owners already cashed out (or passed on, depending on the age of the company).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm Dutch and I work 4 days a week. My productivity in my startup is the same. This is what researchers say about our average number of hours per week:

For example, Dutch workers are on par with American workers in terms of productivity per hour. They pay higher taxes and earn less than Americans. But on average, they work roughly 11 weeks less than their American counterparts each year, have access to government-funded health care, pay little or nothing for a college education, and have far more leisure time than the American. When UNICEF recently ranked 21 industrialized nations by well-being for children, Netherlands was on top and the United States was near the bottom, in 20th place.

<comment><USER17> For the day off does the entire company not work or do different people take different days off. My reasoning is because if you are working supporting a 24x5 or 24x7 platform then you need full time cover.

<comment><USER18> Friday is by far the most popular day to take off. Many offices are nearly empty on Friday. I'm currently alternating weekly between Fridays and Wednesdays, with my wife taking the opposite day, because we both agree Wednesday's free afternoon would be a great time to do things with our son, but it's also a day with important stuff happening at work. Before that, I had Mondays off.

Jobs that need full time cover tend to have a schedule for their employees. And when it's 24x5 or 24x7, you're going to need a schedule anyway, because a regular 40 hour work week doesn't cover that either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This stood out to me:

>The Swedish town of Kiruna actually gave up its six-hour working days in 2005 after finding that the increased intensity of work was not a positive. "People have seen there that the intensity of the job increases significantly, with negative effects on health as a consequence,"

Could that be because we are used to fit our work in 8 hours and work accordingly? Doing 100% of your work in 75% of the time does sound more intense.

It might be interesting to see how the stress changes as people get used to a 6h day.

<comment><USER20> This was the big problem in France when they passed the 35h work week with no pay loss. Workers were suddenly expected to do the same output in 4h less, and this increased stress levels quite a bit -- or so I've been told by friends who live there.

<comment><USER21> It may be true in some fields, but it's not my experience. A lot of workers in France work more than 35 hours. In particular, most qualified workers (in the software industry for instance) don't have a fixed schedule and overtime isn't paid. To compensate for the 4 hours (going from 39h to 35h) they have more vacation days. It amounts to about 10 days annually depending on the company. Besides, some people are pressured not to take those day off. Several friends of mine work long hours (> 10) and don't take more that 4-5 weeks vacation a year (which is good compared to the US or Asia, but far from the promised 35 hours a week).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> As we move from the Industrial Age to the Information Age, it becomes more about managing our energy as individuals, not how many hours we're putting on the clock

Tony Schwarz's "Leading at Google" talk on this topic is excellent - [http://youtu.be/tke6X2eME3c](http://youtu.be/tke6X2eME3c)

</comment><comment><USER23> And once again the Netherlands shows up on the bottom of that list, so I'll say it once more: we have a high participation of women in the work force, but most of those only work part-time, often in stereotypically "women's jobs" (receptionist, secretary, kindergarten).

Makes the stats look much more progressive than reality, even though 32/36 hour work weeks are common.

<comment><USER18> Even so, just the reactions from Dutch people here on HN show that a lot of them are working 4 days a week. I do it too. My brother does it. Many of my neighbours do it. A 4 day work week is particularly popular with parents.

<comment><USER24> I'd love to work 4d/week, but how does it affect retirement fund buildup?

<comment><USER25> You build it up at 4/5 the rate that you otherwise would have.

<comment><USER18> More precisely: you build it up at a rate relative to your income, which is probably 4/5 of what it'd otherwise be. But if that 4/5 is enough for you, the retirement funds will probably be too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I love seeing Netherland at the bottom of lists like this: [http://cf.datawrapper.de/mv47r/3/](http://cf.datawrapper.de/mv47r/3/)

I too work 4 days a week, and wouldn't have it any other way. I have had to reject at least one very interesting job offer for it, though. Even when employers know full well that a 4 day work week makes sense, some of them still have trouble accepting it. It makes for weird conversations where they totally agree with me, and still cannot do it.

</comment><comment><USER26> Why does government set N hours _at all_? It's must be up to business! E.g., if I have a software company, I want my employees to work 20 hours a week. Isn't it obviously better way for everyone?

<comment><USER27> When it was left up to business, we had 14 hour+ days. It took many decades of extensive strikes and demonstrations, during which dozens of workers were killed, before the 8 hour day became the norm.

The US union that is now the AFL-CIO leadership in pushing for the 8 hour day led directly to making May 1st the international day for labor demonstrations, in part in commemoration of the Chicago Haymarket Massacre.

If you want your employers to be able work _less_ , nothing is stopping you most places. But experience is that not having an upper bound caused employers to take massive advantage.

<comment><USER28> You seem to know a lot about this and it's something I've always been interested in:

When laws were passed to mandate 8 hour work days, what % of companies had 8 hour work days already? 10%? 20%? 80%?

Nowadays we know that total productivity is higher if you have 8 hour work days, even though you work less total hours, because your productivity per hour is much higher. Was something like this known at the time? Or was the push to 8 hour work days only so that people could spend time with their family? What kinds of arguments were used?

<comment><USER29> "Nowadays we know that total productivity is higher if you have 8 hour work days,"

We _know_? Surely on a planet with 7 billion people, some of them can maintain their work efficiency for more than 8 hours. What about the Steve Jobs and John Carmack's of the world? I don't see them being 9-5 people.

<comment><USER30> That seems to have a peculiar and unlikely assumption that they would have produced less by working fewer hours, while almost all human experiences show those at the top of their profession rarely if ever got there by merely punching a timeclock more than the next tier down.

I will never be a world class ballet dancer or world class basketball player simply by putting in a little more time than the next guy.

<comment><USER29> Yes more time won't make you world class, but I bet the world class ballet dancer and basketball players often put in more than 8 hours a day.

<comment><USER31> Probably but at some point you get diminishing returns. The human body needs rest to recover.

<comment><USER29> Absolutely. But I bet the world class athlete knows where that point is for themselves far better than a legislator.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I hope we start seeing more things like this, especially in the US. Does 6 hours a day maximize happiness / productivity? I don't know. Does 8 hours? It's the custom, but I don't know. I think it's almost impossible that 8 hours is the best number across every industry => vertical => company. I'd love to see more experimentation

<comment><USER33> 8 hours for work, 8 for leisure, 8 for sleep and 2 rest days a week seems reasonable, at least mathematically speaking. If it were up to me, I'd include commuting time in those 8 work hours as well, making the number no more than 7 hours.

<comment><USER34> You're basing your assessment of reasonableness on the aesthetically pleasing properties of symmetry? :-)

<comment><USER33> Not really. Eight hours for sleep covers almost everyone's biological requirements. It's hard to decide in what proportion to split the remaining 16. So split it 50-50 unless someone can propose something better!

<comment><USER35> That's a bafflingly unfounded and useless "suggestion!" Enormous amounts of people have been working 8 hour shifts for decades -- instead of just guessing that the status quo is probably optimal, why not ask a variety of people if they think two hours more of family/leisure/commute/exercise/learning time would be of any benefit?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Currently there is not much discussion about a general reduction of the work day to 6 hours in Sweden.

If anything politicians are pushing for more work (though not longer days). Lower sick pay, later retirement and conversion of part time jobs to full time have been implemented or proposed.

(Also, it is not Volvo Cars that is downsizing, it is Volvo Group).

<comment><USER37> MP just decided to go into the election with a 35 hour work day proposal. I also believe V and F! are in support of a work hour reduction to varying degrees.

So there is definitely a push to reduce the work day (Though possibly not to 6 hours).

<comment><USER36> Forgot about the recent (mp) proposal. Maybe there will be a new debate on the length of a work day/week in time for the election then.

<comment><USER35> It's been a long standing point on the MP party program, although perhaps an often neglected one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I wonder how much the length of the work week is related to cultural belief in upward mobility, either for yourself or for your children.

When I was a kid, my own family - mostly blue-collar, unionized workers - would've only supported a reduction in the work week if that meant they could start getting overtime sooner. They didn't have to, because they were unionized, but they worked as much as they could. They'd happily work holidays like Christmas because it meant they got triple-time. If you gave them a six- hour day at the same rate of pay, they'd celebrate - and then go looking for a part-time job. They did this because they wanted a better life for themselves and their children - not too many six-year-old working class kids had a TRS-80 in their bedroom, but I did.

If they didn't believe a better life for themselves or their children was particularly possible, perhaps they would've wanted to work less - but that cultural trait was such a big part of their lives, they would've been entirely different people without it. I have a hard time even picturing it.

Because of this, when I read articles like the one linked, they seem _so_ strange - I'm not judging, not at all, but it really highlights how different cultures are wired _completely_ differently.

<comment><USER39> Father-son income elasticity is higher in the US than in most of Europe. This means that the income of the son more strongly follows the income of the father.

The difference you speak of may be due to the fact that making lots of money more strongly determines whether your son will too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I wonder how many hours people work naturally if you don't need the money and quite enjoy what you do. Say you're building some software project because you want to do it. I wouldn't mind betting most people would work more than 36 hours a week. I daresay you could make an argument that people should not be forced to work much longer than that just to make ends meet.

</comment><comment><USER41> I wonder if the government workers, who will still work 8 hours a day will have a loss of productivity due to a conscious attempt to help the move to six-hour workdays.

</comment><comment><USER42> The problem is not six or eight hours working day, the problem is funding. What I understand the red-green ruling alliance has not put away any funding for this reform, so as usual Göteborg flush their public economy down the toilet and which of course hurts the smaller cities in the same region where they share public programs with Göteborg. Same old story with this city.

And is going to be required to hire more employees because of regulations on how many available workers per shift on typical government job.

Göteborg has of 2013 a debt of 37,5 billion SEK. On top of that it has 13,5 billions SEK in unfunded penions debts.

There is a reason why Göteborg, or Röteborg (Rottenburg) in "folkmun", has one of the highest taxes in Sweden - poor management.

</comment><comment><USER43> I'd rather go to 4 days a week. One less commute.

</comment><comment><USER44> San Francsico local 6 proposed a 10hr/4 day work week; Sat- Mon off. The electricians voted it down. My dad never understood why. As a kid, neither did I understand why anyone wouldn't want hours like this. By the way, getting to the job site is 60% of the hassle, the rest is boring construction. I honestly think all jobs would benefit from just getting rid of Mondays? Two days off is just not enough time; unless you have no life and live through your job. The problem is many of us do not even remotely like our job, or our felllow workers. We hate coming in and seeing the the same people--especially the one's who haven't realized this is no dress rehearsal. We were born and we die --it's a simple equation. A great line I heard out of a movie, 'Give me a hair cut that says I go to a job I hate, only to adorn my spoild wife with consumer crap, and keep my ungrateful kids adorned in expensive jeans for the next thirty years; until I get the courage to blow my head off with a shotgun.' Extreme statement, but rang true with me. Oh yea, to every girlfriend who claimed to love their job-- Great--get your MBA. Put on the pants suit. Climb the ladder. It's my turn to stay home and take care of the spawn. Me and the kids want electronic toys. It's O.K. if your working late, or go to china for Apple. Just send us the checks! We'll be fine. (In all honestly, I think people(especially Americans) want what they can't have, and don't know when they are offered a good deal.)

</comment><comment><USER45> A 6-hour workday would be 30 hours/week. If we're going to reduce the working week, then instead of spreading that over 5 days, why not work a 4-day week (7.5 hours/day)? That would reduce commuting congestion by 20%, and make everyone who doesn't like spending an hour a day in a traffic jam happy.

<comment><USER46> Why would you spend an hour a day in a traffic jam? Is there something wrong with your public transport system?

<comment><USER47> I default to America as that's where I live. I don't think much of our public transport. Sure where I live they probably don't need more than just the buses we have but I had never seen a passenger train (just cargo, as far as I know) until I went abroad. The ease of getting around was amazing and I could totally see not owning a car there. I'm sure there is just as good public transport here but it doesn't seem to be the way we are built.

Anywhere that has hour long traffic daily should probably be big enough to have better public transport so I'll give you that...

<comment><USER31> Where do you live where you've never seen a passenger train? The Northeast has a busy train route between cities.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_Corridor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_Corridor)

Some cities (even some small ones) have EXCELLENT public transport but some places have zero public transport. And with widespread suburban sprawl it gets worse since you generally need a car to live in suburbia.

<comment><USER47> I live in Green Bay, WI. Not huge like Madison/Milwaukee but a decent size (IMO). Maybe I have just been really unlucky or oblivious. I only just found out last year that every year, for a long time now, ships come and port here, like galleons and stuff] for a few days as part of some event. So I could see me just not spotting one if it did happen.

Not sure why a train would actually come through here though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> For what it's worth, here's a list of countries ranked by worker productivity (measured by GDP per hour worked): [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_\(PPP\)_per_hour_worked)

</comment><comment><USER29> So what is the optimal work day for productivity? Many folks here believe it's a (proven?) fact that less than 40 is actually more productive. However, surely 40 is more productive than 0. So, what is the magic number?

Personally, I don't think this is that simple. Heck, humans just aren't that simple. I think some people and some professions are more productive above 40 and others are more productive under 40. That's why I'm in favor of a system that leaves this as a point of negotiation between the employee and employer. Just like there is no one-size fits all salary for, say, a java developer with 5 years experience (how fast is he? how buggy is his code? can he work independently? etc), why would expect to find a one size fits all for work day length?

<comment><USER49> It seems that 40 hours is basically optimal for turn of the 20th century factory work. I've seen several references[0] that the optimum for knowledge work is 35 hours, but I'd LOVE a detailed citation.

While you are correct that people vary, many managers seem extremely ignorant of 200 years of research on this topic and start from grossly wrong initial conditions (e.g., "40 hours is the bare minimum and should be considered slacking: a professional works until the job is done and we really expect 50 hours; we prefer passionate people, which starts at around 55 hours"). It would be far better for almost everyone if the typical standard expectation were based on a typical standard human, not on outliers (e.g., people who carry the DEC2 mutation and need only 6 hours sleep).

Look at it another way: the 75% of the workforce who is average would stop burning themselves out to the point of negative productivity, and supermen like yourself would be truly recognized for your outstanding contributions, rather than just "meh, meets expectations".

[0] e.g. [http://www.slideshare.net/flowtown/rules-of- productivity-275...](http://www.slideshare.net/flowtown/rules-of- productivity-2756161)

<comment><USER50> [http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/](http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/)

"An average worker needs to work a mere 11 hours per week to produce as much as one working 40 hours per week in 1950. (The data here is from the US, but productivity increases in Europe and Japan have been of the same magnitude.) The conclusion is inescapable: if productivity means anything at all, a worker should be able to earn the same standard of living as a 1950 worker in only 11 hours per week."

<comment><USER49> Thanks; I'm familiar with that. Regardless of how total output compares with days of yore, this is now: I'd like to see research demonstrating that, over time, knowledge workers on a 35 hour schedule outproduce those on a 40 hour schedule.

<comment><USER50> The French have the highest GDP per capita per hour worked (right up there with the Dutch), while working close to the fewest hours. Is that not a sign of productivity?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I work for six hours a day. It fits very nicely into a 7.5 to 8 hour work day with enough rest time to get a proper six hours out.

I find that knowingly working only six hours lets me take better breaks because I don't feel like I'm supposed to be working eight hours.

</comment><comment><USER52> Seriously want to move to Europe now. As a U.S. citizen and web developer, how hard is this to do? Can I just get a remote job here and then move? What are the VISA issues?

My biggest concern is that my salary won't be enough to pay my ~$1k/month student loan debt.

</comment><comment><USER53> It is not the duty of the lawmaker but of the contracting parties (= employer and employee) to define the amount of work hours per day.

There are many variables in the process:

\- Demand for money of the employee (poor father of five vs. rich single)

\- Demand for work of the employer (company needs a helping hand vs company needs to recruit a new team)

\- Scale effect of product (does one additional hour or man lead to one additional unit produced?, compare laying bricks vs programming)

These variables are unknown to the lawmaker for each specific instance, so any a-priori determination of the amount of work hours per week cannot be optimal.

<comment><USER35> There are pretty severe network effects in place, though, as well as obvious imbalance of power (the wage worker is, almost by definition, relatively poor, indebted, etc). Working hours have always been a big part of labor politics. The individual contractual perspective is not the whole story.

<comment><USER53> I don't know what network effects you mean.

But I agree with the imbalance of power, at least in the common case. However, the more specific and difficult your job is, the more the power leans towards the employee.

Still, I believe any kind of power inequality will manifest itself somewhere whether you fix working hours or not.

<comment><USER35> Almost every time I've talked to someone about reducing their working hours, the most serious reason not to has been something like "but everyone else is working 8 hours."

It's not like the "invisible hand" simply discovered the optimum life arrangement for all workers everywhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I found the Netherlands numbers strange, but then worked on a Dutch project. They were very industrious, and planned things well in advance, including avoiding work on Fridays or during their sacred vacations. If you can pull off 1400 hours in a year, god bless!

</comment><comment><USER55> Why isn't it just standard to be paid by the hour? A fixed hours-per-week seems backwards.

<comment><USER56> Some workers are pretty interchangeable. If Sarah can assemble parts at the same rate as Sven, then the employer shouldn't care who does it, right? However, for specialized positions or ones that are knowledge-based, this doesn't work. Sarah is a lawyer who's been working on a case for the past 3 months, so it will take her much less time to complete the next step than Sven, who has been working on something else. So in that case, the employer would be pretty unhappy about Sarah wanting to work 30 hours a week, even if Sven is willing to pick up the extra 10.

Software developers with the same skills working on the same product are generally closer to the former than the latter, but it depends.

The other thing is that there are many fixed costs associated with hiring an employee. They need a desk and office space and computer, they need health insurance/unemployment, you need HR to manage all of this. So it ends up being much more expensive (and complicated) to have two part time employees than one fulltime one. If most benefits were decoupled from employment, a lot (but not all) of these costs go away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Germany seems to be unrealistically low in the diagram. It is very untypical for people here to work less than 40 hours per week and lunch hour is not included in the work time (means you actually stay 45 hours at work in a usual contract).

<comment><USER27> The article points out that Germany is pulled down by a lot of people working part-time jobs.

<comment><USER57> Yeah but these shouldn't be considered in such kind of statistics, right? Doesn't make sense to compare part-time workers and full-time workers when a country wants to limit their numbers of full-time hours.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> The same chart as in article, just visualized on a map: [https://datawrapper.de/chart/85fbQ/preview](https://datawrapper.de/chart/85fbQ/preview)

</comment><comment><USER59> A possible issue with the experiment—the Hawthorne effect [1].

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

</comment><comment><USER60> The list of countries is so strange to look at with so many countries that have low GDP / capita or recent depressions / austerity forced on them and . . . The US near the top

</comment><comment><USER61> I work from home, and I find if I eliminate distraction and go zone-in coding, then six hours are a lot more productive then 8 hours of fooling around.

Organization is key (not hours).

</comment><comment><USER62> Greece is second in the list of most working hours per year and still heavily indebted. The price of political corruption.

</comment><comment><USER63> In other words, government workers. People not truly beholden to anyone. An entity that cannot lose money can make stupid decisions and generally get by with them because apathy of the public is an exploitable resource.

So the title is wholly misleading. I guess politicians of a certain style in Sweden need to lock in the public employee vote?

Call me when innovation starts and not grand standing and vote buying

<comment><USER64> Ignorant comment, trying to apply one's own bias or perspective of government work in his country to that in a completely different (social/cultural/economic) entity.. Imagine if your Stanford grads picked government work to better their local society rather then a profit-driven startup then you begin to see another viewpoint

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> The innovative US economy will make it all irrelevant anyway by introducing more and more work from home jobs. Work from home is almost common in the US and basically non-existent in Europe. I wouldn't trade Swedish 6-hour workday with my American-based 8-hour while working from my coach at home. Somehow socialists are always one step behind Mother Nature, i.e. free markets.

<comment><USER27> The "innovative US economy" had to be forced by socialist unions to cut the working day to roughly 8 days. It took decades of strikes, demonstrations and bloodshed to reach that goal.

You know why people demonstrate and celebrate workers right on May 1st? Because then largely socialist and anarchist US unions decided, led by the AFL, in 1888 to restart demonstrations for the 8 hour working day with a major demonstration on May 1st 1890 in part in honour of those who died during the Haymarket Massacre. In 1889, the AFL approached the socialist Second International to suggest coordinated demonstrations internationally, and the Second International agreed.

So when you enjoy your "American-based 8-hour" working day, remember it came to be thanks to socialist unions.

<comment><USER65> I appreciate Unions and I strongly believe that capitalism works well only in connection with democracy. Sure if people who just didn't try hard enough at school and end up at bad jobs vote for 6 or even 2-hour day work, let them have it! I don't care, I'm paid per hour I want to put as many hours as possible.

<comment><USER27> The point was that your supposedly amazing free market was not what led to the 8-hour day. It took bloodshed and illegal strikes; demonstrations and decades of fighting for legislation.

<comment><USER65> Please note that in communistic states people worked regularly over 8 hours long after 8-hours work week was legislated in the USA. My point is that system evolution via democratic process is much better than bloody revolution that left-wing quite often has on its mouth.

<comment><USER27> What does "communistic states" have to do with anything? They were/are kleptocratic oligarchies that are so stratified that they have even worse class systems than capitalist states.

> My point is that system evolution via democratic process is much better than > bloody revolution that left-wing quite often has on its mouth.

It was not evolution via democratic process that gave us the 8 hour day. It was not bloody revolution either, but plenty of blood has been shed during the fight for decent working conditions. People _were_ outright killed. People _were_ arrested. People _were_ intimidated; blacklisted.

The current system is only as good as it is because our forefathers were brave enough to stand up and fight even when they had to break the law, and even when they in many cases risked their life to fight the conditions of the time.

And they _had_ to: Plenty of people died because of the disproportionate powers of employees to dictate conditions. Such as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, where 146 people died when the factory burned because the employees kept the doors locked during working hours to prevent unauthorized breaks(!):

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fir...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire)

<comment><USER65> My grandad worked 14 hours+ shifts in 1950s and 1960s in communistic Poland in a steel mill. _Anybody_ who would refuse would end up in jail or even worse - gulag - for treason.

As bad as capitalism is it will never, ever be as bad as communism can be.

<comment><USER31> Capitalism if done wrong _can be_ just as shitty.

<comment><USER65> Obvious lie. What in the history of the human kind was worse than Cambodia, Cultural Revolution in China or North Korea today? Nazi Germany? Still had 'socialists' in their party name...</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why does Apple bundle the Yahoo Stock App as a default feature? - <AUTHOR> The Yahoo Stock app surfaces mostly churn news generated for  stock price manipulation. Why isn't there a cleaner alternative pinned by Apple? <comment><USER2> Still. Why does apple use the yahoo data feed for its default app? It's shit.

</comment><comment><USER3> The native Stock app is made by Apple; it just uses Yahoo data.

</comment><comment><USER4> Apple does not bundle the Yahoo Stock App.</comment>


Popular web host SiteGround to completely remove Cpanel customer accounts - HN-Censorship Within the next couple weeks SiteGround will force its current users (shared & cloud) to use their in-house "Site Tools", removing Cpanel entirely. <comment><AUTHOR> SiteGround, along with Singlehop, is a Chinese front company for the military. I don't necessarily blame them for buying out the world's registrars and hosting services...the rollout of Tor was a giant wake up call to the CCP that can theoretically run almost anywhere as it is software. The only way to compete with such a high level software solution is to make absolute sure you have as much of the hardware boxed in and squatted on as possible.

The proof btw is the fact that some of Siteground's servers are using banners that are _only_ used by a specific set of companies in China...the "sinister 6" I once heard them called. Venus, TOP-SEC, SANGFOR, NSFOCUS, and Hillstone Networks were all formed in the early 1990's (some under different names) by the MSS, the Ministry of State Security. It is like a combination of the CIA and the FBI. As for the last of the 6, that would fascinatingly need H3C, formed out of a partial merger between Huawei and 3Com.

All of these companies sell exclusively defensive firewall, DDOS and NG-WAF- like products. At one time there mission was more defensive, the Chinese were paranoid, rightly IMO, that they were running entirely on American software and thus very vulnerable (with the exception of the Titan Rain attack in 2003). However after the GFC in 2008, as hacking became more aggressive, China would start leveraging these firms for surveillance and DDOS on an extraordinary level. Now they have grown so bold as to do things that are frankly somewhat humorously obvious if the situation was not so serious and the political leadership of most countries devoid (purely due to birth years and what they were exposed to) technical experience.

EDIT: because the Alexa Top 1 Million is pretty well sanitized, best resource I recommend is a book from the Naval Institute Press that came out two weeks ago: [https://www.usni.org/press/books/chinese-communist- espionage](https://www.usni.org/press/books/chinese-communist-espionage)

</comment><comment><USER2> I would like to invite current PHP developers and freelancers to come try out my project in light of this news. Amezmo provides managed hosting fully integrated with GitHub/GitLab (but not required) for deployments. Lots of other features too ,but I won't name them here.</comment>


Silicon Valley Entrepreneur, Girlfriend Arrested In FBI Takedown Of Redbook - <AUTHOR> http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/06/25/eric-omuro-silicon-valley-entrepreneur-arrested-as-fbi-takes-down-san-francisco-sex-encounter-website-myredbook-com-redbook-prostitution/ <comment><USER2> Interesting how what they were running is not only perfectly legal but also big business in other parts of the world. E.g. Where I live in Germany

<comment><USER3> Quite frankly I'm surprised they weren't operating out of a country where it was acceptable, it's equally surprising to me that it took the authorities this long to shut it down.</comment></comment>


Encrypted email ProtonMail offers up to 45% discounts for Black Friday - <AUTHOR> https://protonmail.com/blog/black-friday-cyber-monday-2017/ <comment><USER2> If I change my current subscription to a 2-year subscription, the black-friday deal I get is only -€3.16</comment>


Manhattan was almost home to a 200-foot-tall owl mausoleum - <AUTHOR> http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/manhattan-was-almost-home-to-a-200-foot-tall-owl-mausoleum

<comment><AUTHOR> A newspaper tycoon commissioned a sarcophagus in the form of a huge owl. He wanted his coffin to be suspended inside the owl's body by iron chains.</comment>


Docs.Microsoft.com moving to GitHub issues for user comments - <AUTHOR> https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/teamblog/a-new-feedback-system-is-coming-to-docs <comment><USER2> Some things MS does lately makes me think it's the end of days, and they are doing great things. Then I see Windows 10 load the marketing FUD pushing Edge over Chrome.</comment>


Ask HN: Who wrote the content of your website? - <AUTHOR>

Yes, that might be a stupid question, but I am willing to hire a person who will take our technical documents (internal) and produce a website which describe the product in a clear way.
Did you hire an external?
What's the title shall I use, if I want to publish an ad for it?
Feel free to recommend me one. <comment><USER2> After posting a number of jobs on freelancer.com I eventually found a guy for our content in the Philippines who was amazing and very cheap.

Id say try freelancer, odesk, etc but be very clear about what you want and expect to test out a lot of people with small tests before you find someone who is good. Once found get them on it fulltime for a few days or weeks until its done.

A great trick is to hide in the spec you give them a sentence that asks them to bring X up, this way you can tell if they read it or not.

<comment><USER3> I've never given a spec to someone and needed to trick them into revealing whether they actually looked at it or not. That says a lot about outsourcing.

<comment><USER2> It's unfortunate but it works, I actually picked it up from working at a Bank where the guys implementing the tech specs we wrote never read them correctly. These were in house guys making big bucks, arghhh

At the end of the day people matter, I use outsourcing for minor tasks to save a few bucks and keep great people around for everything else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Whenever we did our internal documentation, we tried avoiding getting people outside involved as much as possible. When producing product info sites, we sometimes hired outside, but a lot of the detail was still left with us.

This is for the simple reason that no one understood our products better than us at the time. We may hire a consultant to help us better explain it, but we would always do our own stuff.

You're looking for a designer and creative consultant.

<comment><AUTHOR> Obviously, we will provide all the information and the content. But there shall be one who can take those technical terms and feature lists and turn them into a great product description.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd call this person a technical writer, and it's a pretty tough job to fill. I have some experience in this area, so if you'd like to talk about options feel free to email me - firstname.lastname@example.com.

</comment><comment><USER6> So you're looking for a copywriter

<comment><AUTHOR> It might be more than that, as the writer shall have the ability to understand and explain sophisticated technical terms

<comment><USER6> So, a technical copywriter. Those are kinda hard to find.</comment></comment></comment>