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facebook is partnering with stripe to power “buy” button
| if anyone from stripe is watching the thread: any chance of this supporting subscriptions? | sincere questions: so what was fb doing with paypal before? and hasn't fb already had a buy button which wasn't popular? |
facebook is partnering with stripe to power “buy” button
| sincere questions: so what was fb doing with paypal before? and hasn't fb already had a buy button which wasn't popular? | am i the only one who's interested in seeing how this plays out because i'm sceptic about people buying not even 0.1% of the time they "like" something? |
facebook is partnering with stripe to power “buy” button
| am i the only one who's interested in seeing how this plays out because i'm sceptic about people buying not even 0.1% of the time they "like" something? | stripe is really killing it this year with getting apple and now facebook on board with their service |
facebook is partnering with stripe to power “buy” button
| stripe is really killing it this year with getting apple and now facebook on board with their service | perfect timing? i just wrote a post on why stripe is becoming the transaction layer of the internet.<link> highlights:- agility in adopting new technologieswhether it’s bitcoin, stellar, or 139 other currencies, stripe is able to rapidly roll out developer kits and support for new forms of payment and protocols. to give context around this speed, the company announced support for stellar, a decentralized protocol for sending and receiving money in any pair of currencies, just hours after its announcement. while this was obviously behind a curtain, it speaks volumes about stripe being regarded as the first choice for these types of adoptions.- landing key dealswithin the span of 4 months, stripe announced partnerships with alipay, twitter, apple, and most recently facebook. for a company of 160 employees, and just under five years in age, these are huge wins to add to their gallery.- developer support and evangelismthe company extensively blogs, holds office hours and maintains an active irc channel to help companies integrate with their services. for a startup looking to gain market share, this is crucial. however, the real challenge lies in their ability to sustain this level of support as the company grows. another area still largely untapped by stripe is hackathons. by having mentors on-site and getting their client libraries in the hands of as many budding developers as possible, they can solidify their name as the go-to tool for online payments. |
an analysis of the cas trusted by ios 8.0
| that's sort of, but not really, what safecurves means. the curves marked "not safe" are mostly not misuse-resistant. it's much easier to end up with security vulnerabilities working with them than with the curves bernstein and lange design, which are designed for performance and to be bulletproof in actual use.(there is an idea in safecurves of "rigidity", which is roughly the extent to which we can be sure that the curve parameters weren't chosen to somehow advantage their designers; the curves mentioned in this post are not particularly rigid. if you believe the nist curves are all backdoored, then yes, you can't trust these curves). | horrible, horrible security practice to stop the user from inspecting the certificates being used in safari. |
an analysis of the cas trusted by ios 8.0
| horrible, horrible security practice to stop the user from inspecting the certificates being used in safari. | this is a controversial opinion, but i am actually of the view that ssl is structurally unworkable against nation-state-level adversaries. there are too many dark corners and not enough eyes, and you can't dig your way out of complexity with a volunteer standards committee.i am working on the problem (and by that i mean "it's in private beta"). mobile is sort of a unique opportunity because a typical mobile app doesn't have the same interoperability requirements as the web more broadly.however, it's hard to sell, which explains why nobody does it. first it's hard to sell commercially, which you really need if you want it audited by people who know what they're doing. but it's hard to even give it away, because nobody wants to be the test pilot when it comes to security.solving this requires a level of cooperation that we may not have as an industry right now. that may mean dark days ahead.email in profile, if you want to chat about it |
an analysis of the cas trusted by ios 8.0
| this is a controversial opinion, but i am actually of the view that ssl is structurally unworkable against nation-state-level adversaries. there are too many dark corners and not enough eyes, and you can't dig your way out of complexity with a volunteer standards committee.i am working on the problem (and by that i mean "it's in private beta"). mobile is sort of a unique opportunity because a typical mobile app doesn't have the same interoperability requirements as the web more broadly.however, it's hard to sell, which explains why nobody does it. first it's hard to sell commercially, which you really need if you want it audited by people who know what they're doing. but it's hard to even give it away, because nobody wants to be the test pilot when it comes to security.solving this requires a level of cooperation that we may not have as an industry right now. that may mean dark days ahead.email in profile, if you want to chat about it | actually, there are 45 cas run by symantec (!). tc trustcenter and geotrust are both symantec-owned. |
an analysis of the cas trusted by ios 8.0
| actually, there are 45 cas run by symantec (!). tc trustcenter and geotrust are both symantec-owned. | what's hn's attitude towards safecurves[1]? i know djb knows his stuff, but the very binary "safe" / "unsafe" breakdown seems a bit dubious. gmaxwell wrote a nice forum post[2] explaining why secp256k1 is safe for bitcoin despite its inclusion in the unsafe curves list.[1]: <link>
[2]: <link> |
lecture 2: how to start a startup
| the advice about burnout isn't so helpful.yes, perseverance is important (particularly for undergrads, who have probably never worked on a project with a time horizon longer than a semester), but you can't fix burnout just by lowering your head and trudging forward like a packhorse.i don't know if there's a single, quick fix for burnout, but taking a vacation is definitely a good idea -- even if it's only a few days. and if you can't take your mind off of what you're doing for a few days, something else is wrong.usually when people say "i can't take a break" they're engaging in catastrophic thinking. if for some reason they really can't take a break, it's time to take a good, hard look at how you're doing things, and see what it is that's causing that situation. in my experience, the root to your burnout will often lie in an honest exploration of that question, alone.it's incredibly helpful to get an outside perspective on your situation when you feel this way -- this is what counseling is for. if you can't afford that, talk honestly with a friend you can trust -- a friend who has no personal interest in the outcome. that's critical. if you ask your co-founder what you should do, you have to realize that s/he'll be biased. | as someone geographically & logically outside of the silicon valley bubble, working in the 'real economy' and a bit older than the y combinator target group it hurts me to see those kind of lectures / advice on startups.from my perspective it all seems like one big circle jerk, especially considering the hive-mind mentality here on hackernews where working 80hours+ / week for some fun app startup seems like good guidance for young people and something to strive for.the goal of a startup is to make money, not raising money. the sv scene seems to be concentrating on the latter since its influenced & guided completely by venture capitalists and their interests instead of market opportunities.to be provocative: just throw thousands of teenagers at random things, give them some pocket money and hope something sticks. motivate them by giving them some grand illusion of being an independent entrepreuner. burnout is just something that comes with the game. give them lectures to clone them into perfect worker bees for vcs as traditional education would clone them into perfect big corp employees.my advice to young people with drive is: go travel, see the world first. solve real problems. starting your typical sv startup is mostly an illusion and a bad proposition for you. young age is certainly good for coming up with disrupting ideas, but execution profits heavily from life experience - think of survivorship bias and don't be fooled by the few success stories. |
lecture 2: how to start a startup
| as someone geographically & logically outside of the silicon valley bubble, working in the 'real economy' and a bit older than the y combinator target group it hurts me to see those kind of lectures / advice on startups.from my perspective it all seems like one big circle jerk, especially considering the hive-mind mentality here on hackernews where working 80hours+ / week for some fun app startup seems like good guidance for young people and something to strive for.the goal of a startup is to make money, not raising money. the sv scene seems to be concentrating on the latter since its influenced & guided completely by venture capitalists and their interests instead of market opportunities.to be provocative: just throw thousands of teenagers at random things, give them some pocket money and hope something sticks. motivate them by giving them some grand illusion of being an independent entrepreuner. burnout is just something that comes with the game. give them lectures to clone them into perfect worker bees for vcs as traditional education would clone them into perfect big corp employees.my advice to young people with drive is: go travel, see the world first. solve real problems. starting your typical sv startup is mostly an illusion and a bad proposition for you. young age is certainly good for coming up with disrupting ideas, but execution profits heavily from life experience - think of survivorship bias and don't be fooled by the few success stories. | burnout:whatever you do, constantly be looking for ways to actively mitigate it. just working less is not the only way to prevent it. everyone has had times when they've worked long hours on something, and still felt great. think about what was special in those situations. ideas:1) play a sport.2) party hard, roughly 1 night per week, maybe friday. this works well for many extremely hard working professionals in nyc. not sure how well it would work in sv...3) when coding, try to break up tasks into self-contained chunks that you can start and finish within one day. accomplishing a new tangible goal each day can have a great mental effect. catching up on big half-finished tasks from the previous day can be stressful and mentally draining.4) be around people you love being around. you'll feel less stressed about escaping the office if the people you're looking forward to being around are inside instead of outside the office.5) notice how it's so hard to focus late into the evening at the office, but once you're home you feel awake again and can work? for the earliest stage startup, consider making your work environment more like a home, or literally work out of your home with your cofounder. your girlfriend/boyfriend may look down at you for doing this, get used to it. partners hate startups.6) go for walks twice per day, preferably outdoors, in a place where you're surrounded by lots of people - or alone in nature, whatever you feel like you're missing.7) kick out whining people, immediately. |
lecture 2: how to start a startup
| burnout:whatever you do, constantly be looking for ways to actively mitigate it. just working less is not the only way to prevent it. everyone has had times when they've worked long hours on something, and still felt great. think about what was special in those situations. ideas:1) play a sport.2) party hard, roughly 1 night per week, maybe friday. this works well for many extremely hard working professionals in nyc. not sure how well it would work in sv...3) when coding, try to break up tasks into self-contained chunks that you can start and finish within one day. accomplishing a new tangible goal each day can have a great mental effect. catching up on big half-finished tasks from the previous day can be stressful and mentally draining.4) be around people you love being around. you'll feel less stressed about escaping the office if the people you're looking forward to being around are inside instead of outside the office.5) notice how it's so hard to focus late into the evening at the office, but once you're home you feel awake again and can work? for the earliest stage startup, consider making your work environment more like a home, or literally work out of your home with your cofounder. your girlfriend/boyfriend may look down at you for doing this, get used to it. partners hate startups.6) go for walks twice per day, preferably outdoors, in a place where you're surrounded by lots of people - or alone in nature, whatever you feel like you're missing.7) kick out whining people, immediately. | i'm sorry, everyone in this god damn thread is stupid if you think there is a recipe for this shit. this is all part of the propaganda machine to make yc relevant.this is just a warning. down-vote me to heaven. |
lecture 2: how to start a startup
| i'm sorry, everyone in this god damn thread is stupid if you think there is a recipe for this shit. this is all part of the propaganda machine to make yc relevant.this is just a warning. down-vote me to heaven. | some notes i made. might include minor errors or misinterpretation on my side.-> how do you identify markets that are growing quickly? trust your instincts
students: watch what you're doing or your friends are doing
-> how do you deal with burnout as a founder? it's real life. you just have to get through it. canonical advice: go on a vacation. almost never works for a founder. you just keep going. you rely on people. you need a support network. address the challenges and things that are going wrong.
3. teama. co-founders-> co-founder relationships are among the most important in a company. #1 cause for early death: co-founder blowups.-> choosing a co-founder is a very important decision-> do not choose a random co-founder or someone who you're not friends with.-> yc batch where 9 startups choose a random co-founder and all 9 fell apart-> a good way to meet a co-founder is in college. next best thing is to work at an interesting company (e.g. facebook/google)-> it's better to have no co-founder than having a bad co-founder-> top 20 most valuable yc companies: all have at least 2 co-founders-> "be relentlessly resourceful" - look for this in potential co-founders. you need someone that behaves like james bond. smart, tough and calm-> you really want a technical co-founder-> software companies should be started by software people. not great non-technical managers.-> 2 or 3 co-founders is idealb. try not to hire-> try not to hire. it sucks to have a lot of employees (high burn-rate, complexity, tension, slow decision making, ...)-> be proud of what you can do what a small number of employees-> in the early days, only hire when you desperately need toc. get the best people-> airbnb spent 5 months hiring before they hired a person. brian chesky: "would you take the job if you had a medical diagnosis that says you only have a year left to live?" - culture of extremely dedicated people-> make sure everyone believes in your mission-> pick a company that's already working, but that not everyone has noticed yet. breakout trajectory.-> spend about 25% of your time hiring, once in hiring mode-> "mediocre engineers do not build great companies". a few bad hires can kill your startup-> get person referrals to hire-> look outside of the valley-> for most of the early hires, experience does not matter that much. go for aptitude-> are they smart, do they get things done, do i wanna spend a lot of time around them?-> try to work together on a project, instead of doing a formal interview-> care about projects and focus on references-> look for good communication skills, manic determination, animal test and someone you'd feel comfortable reporting to if the roles were reversed (mark zuckerberg)d. keep the best people around-> aim to give 10% of the company to the first 10 employees. vested over 4 years. if they're successful, they'll increase the company by way more than that-> fight with investors to reduce the amount of equity given. be generous with employees-> don't tell your employees they're fucking up every day, cause they will leave.-> give your team all the credit for all the good stuff. take responsibility for the bad stuff that happens.-> daniel pink: "autonomy, mastery and purpose"e. fire fast-> fire fast. everyone hopes that an employee will turn around.-> how do you balance firing people fast and making employees feel secure? everyone will screw up once, twice or more. you should be very loving, not take it out on them. if someone is getting every decision wrong, that's when you need to act. it'll be painfully aware to everyone.-> when should co-founders decide on equity split? not a discussion that gets easier with time. set this very soon after you start working together.-> how do you know if someone is not going to scale up to a role if they're inexperienced? smart people almost always will find a role within the company.-> what happens when the relationship with your co-founder falls apart? every co-founder (including yourself) has to have vesting. you pre-negotiate what happens when someone leaves. normal is 4 years. try to prevent dead weight.-> what about co-founders not working in the same location? don't do it. skeptical about remote teams in general. communication and speed outweigh everything else. video-conferencing and calls don't work that well.4. execution-> being a founder means signing up for this years long grind on (good) execution. everyone gets modeled after the founders. work hard, be frugal, focus on customers, etc.-> only executing well is what adds/creates value-> 5 jobs for a ceo: set the vision, raise money, evangelize, hire and manage, make sure the entire company executes-> 1. "can you figure out what to do?" 2. "can you get it done?"-> focus. one of the hard things about being a founder: 100 important things to do every day. a lot of things that look important do not matter. identify the two or three most important things and do these. say no a lot (97 out of 100 times).-> set overarching goals for the company. everyone in the company should know these. these are the key goals. repeat them. put them up on the walls. talk about them in meetings.-> communicate. you can't be focused without great communication.-> meet every week. focus on growth and momentum. have to right metrics. don't let the company get distracted by other things. you can easily get excited by your own pr.-> be in the same space with your co-founder.-> the secret to startup success is extreme focus and extreme dedication. not the best choice for work/life balance. outwork your competitors-> have a high execution speed. but be obsessed with quality at the same time. focus on quality for everything you do (e.g. buying computers/gear).-> be biased towards action. "i could do this great thing". every time you talk to the best founders, they have done something new.-> do huge things in small incremental pieces. there's almost always a way to break complexity down into smaller projects.-> be quick, do whatever it takes, show up a lot, don't give up and be courageous.-> "when i was running my own company, we felt we were about to lose a deal. critical deal for first customer in the space. we called them saying we had a better project/deal. we drove to the airport and showed up in person. we got to their office at 6am. they told us to go away. junior guy wanted to meet. then senior guy wanted to meet. within a week, we had an agreement."-> always keep momentum in growth. it's the lifeblood of startups. you want your company to be winning all the time. a winning team feels good and keeps winning.-> if you lose momentum, most founders try to get it back in the wrong way (rally troops with speeches). you have to save the vision speeches for when you're winning. sales fixes everything in a startup. figure out where you can get small wins.-> fights will break out when losing momentum.-> when facebook's growth slowed down: mark created a growth group. small fixes got the curb pack up. most prestigious group. one of facebook's best innovations that turned around the dynamic.-> ship product, launch new features, review metrics and milestones-> do not care about competitor noise in the press. don't worry about them at all until they're beating you with a real shipped product. |
from vim to emacs
| i used to be all vi all the time. one day i figured i ought to learn emacs. i don't remember what the exact impetus was, but i gave myself an 8 week challenge to use nothing but emacs. for the next ~7 years, i pretty much used nothing but emacs, and it was enlightening to work with text in the emacs concept, and to witness emacs' implementation of its concepts, and all the excellent modes that authors developed within its framework.fast-forward to about 4 months ago, and i thought: "my vi-fu isn't at the level of my emacs-fu", so i gave myself an 8 week challenge...if anybody were to ask me "should i learn emacs or vi?", an appropriate answer would be "yes." they're both awesome, and you can learn both. go for it. | i was a vim user for years. i accepted a challenge from the programmer who sat next to me (an emacs user): we'd swap editors for a week. every time either of us swore or complained about the editor, we'd pay the other a dollar.that was 2011. i've been an emacs user ever since. |
from vim to emacs
| i was a vim user for years. i accepted a challenge from the programmer who sat next to me (an emacs user): we'd swap editors for a week. every time either of us swore or complained about the editor, we'd pay the other a dollar.that was 2011. i've been an emacs user ever since. | i began using vim about a month ago and it has been totally revelatory to me, and believe quite honestly that it was the best career decision i've ever made. the one thing, however, is its speed. macvim gets very slow sometimes, particularly with buffers.so my question: how does emacs and vim compare speed-wise? i come from a sublime text background and really miss the ability to quickly navigate between tabs (buffers in vim), and sometimes it takes a full second. |
from vim to emacs
| i began using vim about a month ago and it has been totally revelatory to me, and believe quite honestly that it was the best career decision i've ever made. the one thing, however, is its speed. macvim gets very slow sometimes, particularly with buffers.so my question: how does emacs and vim compare speed-wise? i come from a sublime text background and really miss the ability to quickly navigate between tabs (buffers in vim), and sometimes it takes a full second. | i always have a hard time figuring out why people would switch from one tool to another just to start configuring the other to behave like the original tool. can someone name some reasons to switch from vim to a vim-like configured emacs?the reason i've seen mentioned by the author is to learn the other tool, in this case emacs. but for that i think the smarter way would be to learn to use emacs like emacs users do it. there's a reason why things are implemented differently, right? |
from vim to emacs
| i always have a hard time figuring out why people would switch from one tool to another just to start configuring the other to behave like the original tool. can someone name some reasons to switch from vim to a vim-like configured emacs?the reason i've seen mentioned by the author is to learn the other tool, in this case emacs. but for that i think the smarter way would be to learn to use emacs like emacs users do it. there's a reason why things are implemented differently, right? | bravo man, i tried to make the switch from vim to emacs evil and failed horribly. i would eventually throw emacs into a state where it wasn't in any of the evil modes, then bash my keyboard with c-x c-c. is it possible to use emacs+evil without knowing emacs inside and out?emacs with evil, without a doubt, runs so much smoother while editing large projects. the biggest point is that asynchronous operations are a lot easier to perform in emacs. you can get close to it with plugins like vim-dispatch or vimproc, but they always felt like a second class solution to me.you get cool stuff like search/replace preview and super smooth async operations in the background (like on the fly linting with flycheck).in the end, i'm still using vim. unite with vimproc is "good enough" for me. for me, the only real place where async operation is a huge problem is with file search operations. every few months i try to use emacs for a day, maybe next time it will stick :) |
earth’s water is older than the sun
| despite the media fanfare (<link>, i have some reservations giving credibility to a single model-generated study. not to say it’s groundless, but i wouldn’t jump to conclusions just yet. | the sun's hydrogen is older than the sun.
boom. |
earth’s water is older than the sun
| the sun's hydrogen is older than the sun.
boom. | this greatly increases my expectations of life on other planets if true. |
earth’s water is older than the sun
| this greatly increases my expectations of life on other planets if true. | i've always wondered what percentage of water molecules on the earth have always been water molecules, i.e. since they became h20 how many have been separated by chemical processes and later recombined back into water. how you estimate that is beyond me. |
earth’s water is older than the sun
| i've always wondered what percentage of water molecules on the earth have always been water molecules, i.e. since they became h20 how many have been separated by chemical processes and later recombined back into water. how you estimate that is beyond me. | woah, think of the impact this has on homeopathy! with water having memory, that memory goes back to older than our sun. |
s.f., l.a. threaten uber, lyft, sidecar with legal action
| it's interesting to contrast this article with the update that was just emailed out to the uber oklahoma list:"today, we are thrilled to announce that the tulsa city council and mayor bartlett have paved the way for a permanent home for uberx in tulsa by signing the recently passed rideshare ordinance."<link> here's a copy of the ordinance: <link> | it will be interesting to see how this all plays out. uber has gotten big enough (and has enough cash) to put up a pretty good fight in court.at the same time, city attorney's have a lot of stuff on their plates. obviously someone thought this was worth spending on time (aka the higher ups want it to happen). |
s.f., l.a. threaten uber, lyft, sidecar with legal action
| it will be interesting to see how this all plays out. uber has gotten big enough (and has enough cash) to put up a pretty good fight in court.at the same time, city attorney's have a lot of stuff on their plates. obviously someone thought this was worth spending on time (aka the higher ups want it to happen). | the bit about uber saying it screened drivers thoroughly, and then the da (or the office) finding examples where that was clearly not true is interesting and (imho) not unreasonable.the weights and measures complaint i am curious about and wonder if it's to do with surge pricing. for the record i'm against surge pricing as i feel it amounts to usury in the aquinian sense. |
s.f., l.a. threaten uber, lyft, sidecar with legal action
| the bit about uber saying it screened drivers thoroughly, and then the da (or the office) finding examples where that was clearly not true is interesting and (imho) not unreasonable.the weights and measures complaint i am curious about and wonder if it's to do with surge pricing. for the record i'm against surge pricing as i feel it amounts to usury in the aquinian sense. | it is only a matter of time before these outfits are replaced by decentralised, actual peer-to-peer networks, either running off blockchain technology or similar decentralised databases, with no house take and the only option for government being charges against individual operators. there is no network lockin effect when drivers can easily install a competing app and drive for no commission to anyone else. |
s.f., l.a. threaten uber, lyft, sidecar with legal action
| it is only a matter of time before these outfits are replaced by decentralised, actual peer-to-peer networks, either running off blockchain technology or similar decentralised databases, with no house take and the only option for government being charges against individual operators. there is no network lockin effect when drivers can easily install a competing app and drive for no commission to anyone else. | i hadn't really thought about it before but it strikes me as kind of odd that a taxi/limo/uber with one passenger would be allowed to use the car pool lane... given that the driver wouldn't otherwise be going there. |
terror laws clear australian senate, enabling entire web to be monitored
| we are working on a grass roots campaign to raise awareness about these bills, mainly the data retention legislation which will be up for debate in the upcoming weeks.the campaign will focus on allowing constituents to easily contact their representatives via calls, emails, facebook and twitter.here is the campaign mockup -> <link> also have an animation in development to more easily explain in laymen terms the repercussions of the proposed legislation.for anyone inspired enough to want to help out there are a few roles to fill.1) website development<link> are a bunch of open issues but your best bet is to join us at #ausprivacy on freenode to get a better idea of what needs to be done and where we are at.2) legislator datasetwe have a large majority of the contact details for legislators thanks to openaustralia.org but there are quite a few missing still. so for those who can't help out with development, we would love help finding missing contact information. i have already wrote a call for help on reddit -> <link> press/mediaif you are a journalist or influential person/company who is interested in promoting the campaign, please shoot me an email(can be found in my hn profile) | incredible, even after seeing up close what america has gone through because of laws like these passed in the wake of 9/11, australia is going to pass the same sweeping type of surveillance laws? and australia doesn't even have the excuse of a recent terror attack.what is going on there, aussies? how is there enough support to pass these kinds of laws? (or is there?)i would have thought post-snowden this would have been out of the question. |
terror laws clear australian senate, enabling entire web to be monitored
| incredible, even after seeing up close what america has gone through because of laws like these passed in the wake of 9/11, australia is going to pass the same sweeping type of surveillance laws? and australia doesn't even have the excuse of a recent terror attack.what is going on there, aussies? how is there enough support to pass these kinds of laws? (or is there?)i would have thought post-snowden this would have been out of the question. | "the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. and where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. how did this happen? who's to blame? well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. i know why you did it. i know you were afraid. who wouldn't be? war, terror, disease. there were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense."
― alan moore, v for vendetta |
terror laws clear australian senate, enabling entire web to be monitored
| "the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. and where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. how did this happen? who's to blame? well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. i know why you did it. i know you were afraid. who wouldn't be? war, terror, disease. there were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense."
― alan moore, v for vendetta | i was ashamed to be an american when the patriot act passed and when it was reauthorized.and today, i get to be ashamed to be an australian, too.there's no need for these laws, and they'll be abused to do anything but "fight terrorism". |
terror laws clear australian senate, enabling entire web to be monitored
| i was ashamed to be an american when the patriot act passed and when it was reauthorized.and today, i get to be ashamed to be an australian, too.there's no need for these laws, and they'll be abused to do anything but "fight terrorism". | here's a good one: a few hours before the legislation came before parliament, but early enough to get extensive media coverage, a member of the australian defense force reported being attacked outside his house, whilst in uniform, by men of "middle eastern" appearance [1]. the "beheading" bogey was even worked into the story [2]. the next day, he withdraws the complaint [3]. to what extent was this an influence on the vote in parliament?[1] <link>[2] <link>[3] <link> |
managing a nightmare: cia reveals how it watched over destruction of gary webb
| on december 10, 2004, the journalist was found dead in his apartment, having ended his eight-year downfall with two .38-caliber bullets to the head.that's certainly interesting. how do you shoot yourself in the head twice? | i love how people display a "boys will be boys" attitude toward the cia and media these days. personally, i find this fucking disgusting. |
managing a nightmare: cia reveals how it watched over destruction of gary webb
| i love how people display a "boys will be boys" attitude toward the cia and media these days. personally, i find this fucking disgusting. | while the contra-la ghetto connection might be controversial, one thing everyone agrees with is that the american invasion of afghanistan has turned it into the largest producer of heroin in the world. creating an explosion of heroin addictions in many countries such as in russia, southern europe and the middle-east (vice also did a great documentary on iran):> since nato began its ‘war on terror’ in 2001, heroin production in afghanistan has increased 40-fold, according to the head of russia’s federal drug control service. “afghan heroin has killed more than 1 million people worldwide since ‘operation enduring freedom’ began, and over $1 trillion has been invested in transnational organized crime from drug sales,” viktor ivanov said earlier at a conference on the afghan drug problem in 2013.<link>
<link>; such has been the failure to combat the problem that more than 90 per cent of the heroin sold on britain’s streets is still made using opium from afghanistan. the united nations yesterday warned that the situation was out of control.<link> side-effects of instability due to war are massive and severely under-appreciated. |
managing a nightmare: cia reveals how it watched over destruction of gary webb
| while the contra-la ghetto connection might be controversial, one thing everyone agrees with is that the american invasion of afghanistan has turned it into the largest producer of heroin in the world. creating an explosion of heroin addictions in many countries such as in russia, southern europe and the middle-east (vice also did a great documentary on iran):> since nato began its ‘war on terror’ in 2001, heroin production in afghanistan has increased 40-fold, according to the head of russia’s federal drug control service. “afghan heroin has killed more than 1 million people worldwide since ‘operation enduring freedom’ began, and over $1 trillion has been invested in transnational organized crime from drug sales,” viktor ivanov said earlier at a conference on the afghan drug problem in 2013.<link>
<link>; such has been the failure to combat the problem that more than 90 per cent of the heroin sold on britain’s streets is still made using opium from afghanistan. the united nations yesterday warned that the situation was out of control.<link> side-effects of instability due to war are massive and severely under-appreciated. | so cia basically tossed some blood, with their "balanced report" and caused sharks to swarm in. and news worry why people don't trust them.i loved this quote: “and then i wrote some stories that made me realize how
sadly misplaced my bliss had been. the reason i’d
enjoyed such smooth sailing for so long hadn’t been, as
i’d assumed, because i was careful and diligent and
good at my job,” webb wrote. “the truth was that, in
all those years, i hadn’t written anything important
enough to suppress.”
it seems whenever someone does a moral thing in spite of society, he is often persecuted for it. from informants revealing secrets of bad government deals, to leakers, they all seem to be targets.and it's interesting who often funds the detractors. |
managing a nightmare: cia reveals how it watched over destruction of gary webb
| so cia basically tossed some blood, with their "balanced report" and caused sharks to swarm in. and news worry why people don't trust them.i loved this quote: “and then i wrote some stories that made me realize how
sadly misplaced my bliss had been. the reason i’d
enjoyed such smooth sailing for so long hadn’t been, as
i’d assumed, because i was careful and diligent and
good at my job,” webb wrote. “the truth was that, in
all those years, i hadn’t written anything important
enough to suppress.”
it seems whenever someone does a moral thing in spite of society, he is often persecuted for it. from informants revealing secrets of bad government deals, to leakers, they all seem to be targets.and it's interesting who often funds the detractors. | i remember when webb's story came out and the l.a. times, my hometown paper, scrutinized the story. this was back in 1996 when the lat had a big investigative staff and was winning prizes at the same rate as the nyt.the lat's take on webb's story was important because south central la was an epicenter of the crack wars, and some of the characters in webb's story were la dealers.they basically shot the story down. the recollection of one of the lead lat reporters rings true:“as an l.a. times reporter, we saw this series in the san jose mercury news and ... kind of put it under a microscope. and we did it in a way that most of us who were involved in it, i think, would look back on that and say it was overkill. we had this huge team of people at the l.a. times and kind of piled on to one lone muckraker up in northern california.”this reaction to a new story is reminiscent of pg's idea of a "middlebrow dismissal" -- spending much energy poking holes in something new, but not really trying to pursue what's interesting about the new idea.edited to add: an excellent summary of this story by veteran la reporter marc cooper, on the occasion of webb's death: <link> |
easy, realtime, system-wide shellshock monitoring
| i guess there are already worms around, exploiting this bug.thus, has somebody thought of exploiting and patching the attackers in response? | i'll give props to hackers clever enough to poke holes in a massive beast of a system that enjoys boasting itself as "impenetrable", but these, i'm not too happy about - <link> the potential effects are much too close for comfort. |
easy, realtime, system-wide shellshock monitoring
| i'll give props to hackers clever enough to poke holes in a massive beast of a system that enjoys boasting itself as "impenetrable", but these, i'm not too happy about - <link> the potential effects are much too close for comfort. | this looks cool but i can't get it running on ubuntu 14.04. i just installed sysdig but i don't have the shellshock_detect chisel :/ is it available yet through apt? |
easy, realtime, system-wide shellshock monitoring
| this looks cool but i can't get it running on ubuntu 14.04. i just installed sysdig but i don't have the shellshock_detect chisel :/ is it available yet through apt? | has anybody looked for historical shellshock exploit traffic (in old/backed-up logfiles)?though none of the exploits i have seen thus far look very obfuscatible and therefore probably would've been discovered already. |
easy, realtime, system-wide shellshock monitoring
| has anybody looked for historical shellshock exploit traffic (in old/backed-up logfiles)?though none of the exploits i have seen thus far look very obfuscatible and therefore probably would've been discovered already. | just so i understand fully, this doesn't block attempts, just logs them? |
docker is the heroku killer
| just saw the spike in traffic this morning from my post being added here, thanks!i'm very much a "devops" guy. i like running my own servers. when i first took over a heroku based application it was extremely frustrating to me that i couldn't tweak nginx, apache, or some type of on-dyno cache without adding network overhead to each call. i was also dealing with a system that i took over after a buggy relaunch and at that time, heroku seemed to have fairly regular outages which was a problem for our customers who were already very sensitive to the quality issues of the relaunch. amplified the lack of control significantly because i was constantly aware of what i couldn't do to fix the problems.i'm still actively using heroku and the work they've done with their postgresql offering has been really impressive. it has been significantly more stable too. from a development efficiency standpoint, it really is hard to beat. they've silently implemented "shadowing" which is supposed to provided redundancy across availability zones (but not regions). the additional dyno size options have been great too. it is a great company. i just wish heroku had an option similar to rightscale to deploy within other data centers or at least aws regions - but that becomes complicated because of their network of add-on providers.what i was getting at with the article was exactly what arihant mentioned below. docker open sources the core piece that makes dyno-like functionality possible which opens the door for disruption in the paas market.for what it's worth i also posted a followup a couple of days later called tempering my docker enthusiam (<link> | until shit hits the fan.i really don't understand how all these "instead of heroku just use x"-people do not understand that one of the main benefits of heroku is not managing servers. if your app on heroku has an issue heroku will fix it (not your app of course). if your app on docker has an issue. who you gonna call? |
docker is the heroku killer
| until shit hits the fan.i really don't understand how all these "instead of heroku just use x"-people do not understand that one of the main benefits of heroku is not managing servers. if your app on heroku has an issue heroku will fix it (not your app of course). if your app on docker has an issue. who you gonna call? | the actual drawbacks (the author has chosen to ignore them):- less secure- you still have to update the system images and redeploy a lot (its made for that so its fine). you cant just spin an image and stop caring for it. libraries will update and potentially breaking ur app because u know, performance, sec fixes, the usual- docker itself is not very nicely made, hard to debug etc. hopefully will get fixed over time.what is actually does better?
its faster.. not 26:1 but it is faster obviously. mainly, you dont have to preprovision vms since there is no boot time. so you can deploy fast.
its also providing a much needed api/glue for all the things. |
docker is the heroku killer
| the actual drawbacks (the author has chosen to ignore them):- less secure- you still have to update the system images and redeploy a lot (its made for that so its fine). you cant just spin an image and stop caring for it. libraries will update and potentially breaking ur app because u know, performance, sec fixes, the usual- docker itself is not very nicely made, hard to debug etc. hopefully will get fixed over time.what is actually does better?
its faster.. not 26:1 but it is faster obviously. mainly, you dont have to preprovision vms since there is no boot time. so you can deploy fast.
its also providing a much needed api/glue for all the things. | (for us) docker is not about security or scalability but about (good enough) isolation, separation of concerns and reproducability. let me elaborate.* isolation: docker enables us to pack any software and let it run with close to none side effects. different versions of packages, libs and gems needed by apps don't interfere. it's like bundler but for all kind of dependencies not only gems.* separation of concerns: for our operations it doesn't matter what's inside a docker container. we have mid sized ruby web apps, small go demons, nginx with lua support compiled in, legacy php apps neatly packed in docker containers. they have a well defined interface: the build script which consistently sums up dependencies and the build process.
`docker run` wrappers which clearly state the interface of the running container like exposed ports and mounted volumes.* reproducability: we are able to run the same containers in development, staging and production. a dozen containers will easily run on a developers laptop.as a side effect the docker architecture makes us think harder about app architecture like which services are stateless and which are not and for what reason.the fact that containers share a kernel and thus are not 100% isolated or reproducable as with virtualization hasn't been an issue for us (so far).there are still issues and features we're missing. for example private docker repos are pita and building instead of pulling from a repo means you might get fooled by the build cache. and we'd love to have build in support (or at least a common standard or best practices) for orchestration. but all together for our needs it's already pretty useful. |
docker is the heroku killer
| (for us) docker is not about security or scalability but about (good enough) isolation, separation of concerns and reproducability. let me elaborate.* isolation: docker enables us to pack any software and let it run with close to none side effects. different versions of packages, libs and gems needed by apps don't interfere. it's like bundler but for all kind of dependencies not only gems.* separation of concerns: for our operations it doesn't matter what's inside a docker container. we have mid sized ruby web apps, small go demons, nginx with lua support compiled in, legacy php apps neatly packed in docker containers. they have a well defined interface: the build script which consistently sums up dependencies and the build process.
`docker run` wrappers which clearly state the interface of the running container like exposed ports and mounted volumes.* reproducability: we are able to run the same containers in development, staging and production. a dozen containers will easily run on a developers laptop.as a side effect the docker architecture makes us think harder about app architecture like which services are stateless and which are not and for what reason.the fact that containers share a kernel and thus are not 100% isolated or reproducable as with virtualization hasn't been an issue for us (so far).there are still issues and features we're missing. for example private docker repos are pita and building instead of pulling from a repo means you might get fooled by the build cache. and we'd love to have build in support (or at least a common standard or best practices) for orchestration. but all together for our needs it's already pretty useful. | docker is great, and i love docker. i have a couple of specialized non-http apps i'd love to deploy to a docker cloud, and i'm waiting for a convincing docker paas vendor to come along.but:1. a single, full-time sysadmin has a total employer cost of $200k per year in most tech markets.2. a single sysadmin won't provide 24x365 coverage. they sleep, they take weekends off, they go on vacation.3. i know people who run tech startups with 80+ employees and heavy server load who pay heroku a few grand per month, and they just don't care. it works great, and it's a rounding error compared to their programmer salaries.4. as i explained to one consulting client, if heroku goes down (they do, every couple of years), you spend your time reloading <link> and apologizing to your clients on the phone. and eventually the problem goes away by itself. if you run your own servers, it's all fun and games until you lose 2 raid drives and the raid controller board in one night over christmas vacation—one month after your sysadmin quit, leaving the backup system broken.in practical business terms, you need to be either huge or completely broke before heroku looks like a bad deal. $1000/month will buy you a lot of dynos, and for most actual business, $1000/month is a rounding error. |
re: cve-2014-6271 – remote code execution through bash
| this appears to be the same as <link> at least for 4.3.
but for 3.2 <link> did not work, i had to download bash32-053.bin from chet's email.procedure for ubuntu 8.04 and other installations where binaries are not available (default 8.04 lts server did not have m4 and bison dependencies), assuming that 1st patch has already been applied per <link> : #executing as root
#assume your sources are in /src:
cd /src/
echo "getting m4..."
wget <link>
tar zxvf m4-latest.tar.gz
cd m4-1.4.17/
./configure && make && sudo make install
cd /src/
echo "getting bison..."
wget <link>
tar zxvf bison-3.0.tar.gz
cd bison-3.0
./configure && make && sudo make install
echo "getting patch..."
cd /src/
#replace line below with wget <link> tomorrow
wget <link>
cd bash-4.3
patch -p0 < ../eol-pushback.patch
./configure --bindir=/bin && make && sudo make install | not having worked with bash (et al) in ages i wonder whether allowing a function definition (even without trailing commands) is not still hole? what if you defined a function 'ls() { evil... }'... could a cgi script making a call to 'ls' actually end up with the function instead of the real 'ls'? |
re: cve-2014-6271 – remote code execution through bash
| not having worked with bash (et al) in ages i wonder whether allowing a function definition (even without trailing commands) is not still hole? what if you defined a function 'ls() { evil... }'... could a cgi script making a call to 'ls' actually end up with the function instead of the real 'ls'? | debian patched this 8 hours ago, redhat issued a patch about 3 hours ago, i believe centos is still vulnerable, ubuntu 14.10 isn't patched yet, ubuntu 14.04 was patched about 3 hours ago. |
re: cve-2014-6271 – remote code execution through bash
| debian patched this 8 hours ago, redhat issued a patch about 3 hours ago, i believe centos is still vulnerable, ubuntu 14.10 isn't patched yet, ubuntu 14.04 was patched about 3 hours ago. | this issue is an awesome demonstration of how bad closed ecosystems are. the open systems that are running on linux (redhat, ubuntu, etc) are patched and updated.however, osx which is also affected is still waiting. if i owned an apple server i'd be screaming right now.embedded devices with closed eco systems are also stuffed (we've got to moved to open router firmware like openwrt). basically, you can carry on as normal if you use open source the way it was intended. |
re: cve-2014-6271 – remote code execution through bash
| this issue is an awesome demonstration of how bad closed ecosystems are. the open systems that are running on linux (redhat, ubuntu, etc) are patched and updated.however, osx which is also affected is still waiting. if i owned an apple server i'd be screaming right now.embedded devices with closed eco systems are also stuffed (we've got to moved to open router firmware like openwrt). basically, you can carry on as normal if you use open source the way it was intended. | and i'd like to thank gentoo developers for the usual very fast response they had towards this security advisory.the moment i saw the news here, i ran to update my stuff -- the patch was already there, marked stable in the official gentoo repositories.my impression is that they're following very closely the progression of this event and the relevant glsa entries are being updated without any noticeable delays.thanks for running the show guys, you're true professionals!here's the relevant gentoo linux security advisory (glsa) link: <link> |
you keep offering me more money, but that's not what i want
i have been working as a full stack web developer for 12 years. right now i have 10 job offers. i am one of the best in my city and i've produced some amazing products. but i don't want to work for any of these companies. they keep offering me more money, but that isn't what i want. i want my life back. i want time. you want to pay me 11x minimum wage, but i'm still considering a job at starbucks or maybe uber. while my friends lived their lives, dating, finding wives, i built your companies. i will not work for you anymore unless you offer me time. let me work 3 days a week and you will retain your talent. only pay me for 3 days. i don't need medical or benefits. you can even pay me less than market value for my job. i just want time. i have so much to offer the world and i want some of my own life. if it comes between getting paid 200 / hr to work somewhere 5 days a week or living out of a car so that i can experience life again i will choose my car. please email me at [email protected] if anyone has any ideas. thank you. | with respect, you not having time is your fault not your employers or any prospective employers.if you want time set that as your expectation with an employer, negotiate it if you are moving between employers. most employers are reasonably flexible in the technology world, but of course there are exceptions and some business fields outside tech aren't so amenable so ymmv there. if you can't find an employer willing to work with you, but you are as good as you say, freelance. hell you can work 2-3 months, take of a couple of months off or get a longer term gig where you work 20-30 hrs a week. many people have already pointed this out to you.employment or freelancing is a contract (even if not written), so if you set expectations up front or negotiate in good faith with an existing employer, you likely can have your cake and eat some of it too. but don't expect anyone to read your mind, you have to be up front. | you've likely considered this, but for those in a similar position, why not freelance and just choose your months? you likely have many contacts in the field and i'm sure you do very good work. work half the year and do whatever you want the other half, surely your hourly working half the year is enough to sustain you (since it would be $100/hr for anyone else working full-time) |
you keep offering me more money, but that's not what i want
i have been working as a full stack web developer for 12 years. right now i have 10 job offers. i am one of the best in my city and i've produced some amazing products. but i don't want to work for any of these companies. they keep offering me more money, but that isn't what i want. i want my life back. i want time. you want to pay me 11x minimum wage, but i'm still considering a job at starbucks or maybe uber. while my friends lived their lives, dating, finding wives, i built your companies. i will not work for you anymore unless you offer me time. let me work 3 days a week and you will retain your talent. only pay me for 3 days. i don't need medical or benefits. you can even pay me less than market value for my job. i just want time. i have so much to offer the world and i want some of my own life. if it comes between getting paid 200 / hr to work somewhere 5 days a week or living out of a car so that i can experience life again i will choose my car. please email me at [email protected] if anyone has any ideas. thank you. | you've likely considered this, but for those in a similar position, why not freelance and just choose your months? you likely have many contacts in the field and i'm sure you do very good work. work half the year and do whatever you want the other half, surely your hourly working half the year is enough to sustain you (since it would be $100/hr for anyone else working full-time) | work for a few months at $200/hr and then take many more months off. you don't even have to ask. just quit.or just work 40/hours a week. that really won't hold you back from having a life.if you think having a real job is less stressful, you're nuts. being poor is a bad time. and good luck having a family as an uber driver. you really want to stay in $200/hour software fantasy land. |
you keep offering me more money, but that's not what i want
i have been working as a full stack web developer for 12 years. right now i have 10 job offers. i am one of the best in my city and i've produced some amazing products. but i don't want to work for any of these companies. they keep offering me more money, but that isn't what i want. i want my life back. i want time. you want to pay me 11x minimum wage, but i'm still considering a job at starbucks or maybe uber. while my friends lived their lives, dating, finding wives, i built your companies. i will not work for you anymore unless you offer me time. let me work 3 days a week and you will retain your talent. only pay me for 3 days. i don't need medical or benefits. you can even pay me less than market value for my job. i just want time. i have so much to offer the world and i want some of my own life. if it comes between getting paid 200 / hr to work somewhere 5 days a week or living out of a car so that i can experience life again i will choose my car. please email me at [email protected] if anyone has any ideas. thank you. | work for a few months at $200/hr and then take many more months off. you don't even have to ask. just quit.or just work 40/hours a week. that really won't hold you back from having a life.if you think having a real job is less stressful, you're nuts. being poor is a bad time. and good luck having a family as an uber driver. you really want to stay in $200/hour software fantasy land. | the nice thing about being paid three times what you need to live comfortably is that you can then save all the money you need to live in a third of the time. you're then free to quit your job and go live your life during that other two thirds of the time.in my experience, i've found that 3 to 6 month contracts work best for this, as it gives you a good 9 months to a year to relax before you need to start thinking about work again.as you've noticed, there are no other professions that pay this well and are in this high of demand for talent. think very hard before you throw that away to drive taxis full time.since you say you've been doing this for 12 years, you no doubt have a few dollars saved away (especially since you claim not to have had a "life" during that time in which to spend your money.) i'd recommend forgoing every one of those job offers for the moment and taking a good year off starting today. go travel the world and find that life. come back when the money starts running out or (likely to happen sooner) you miss having to use your brain.good luck! |
you keep offering me more money, but that's not what i want
i have been working as a full stack web developer for 12 years. right now i have 10 job offers. i am one of the best in my city and i've produced some amazing products. but i don't want to work for any of these companies. they keep offering me more money, but that isn't what i want. i want my life back. i want time. you want to pay me 11x minimum wage, but i'm still considering a job at starbucks or maybe uber. while my friends lived their lives, dating, finding wives, i built your companies. i will not work for you anymore unless you offer me time. let me work 3 days a week and you will retain your talent. only pay me for 3 days. i don't need medical or benefits. you can even pay me less than market value for my job. i just want time. i have so much to offer the world and i want some of my own life. if it comes between getting paid 200 / hr to work somewhere 5 days a week or living out of a car so that i can experience life again i will choose my car. please email me at [email protected] if anyone has any ideas. thank you. | the nice thing about being paid three times what you need to live comfortably is that you can then save all the money you need to live in a third of the time. you're then free to quit your job and go live your life during that other two thirds of the time.in my experience, i've found that 3 to 6 month contracts work best for this, as it gives you a good 9 months to a year to relax before you need to start thinking about work again.as you've noticed, there are no other professions that pay this well and are in this high of demand for talent. think very hard before you throw that away to drive taxis full time.since you say you've been doing this for 12 years, you no doubt have a few dollars saved away (especially since you claim not to have had a "life" during that time in which to spend your money.) i'd recommend forgoing every one of those job offers for the moment and taking a good year off starting today. go travel the world and find that life. come back when the money starts running out or (likely to happen sooner) you miss having to use your brain.good luck! | freelance. i recently took a month off and traveled around asia. i regularly take 3 and 4 day weekends. i fully intend to take 3-6 months off sometime in the next 6 months.if you're half as good as you say, freelancing should be a very easy option and provide you with all the flexibility you want. find companies in need that can provide lots of work and then manage their expectations around your availability. |
india's mars mission: picture that spoke 1,000 words
| two thumbs up!
<link> to all involved :) | a most excellent picture!i (english, from london) am currently teaching a group of mainly cs grads here in mumbai (malad, if anyone knows it). about 20% of the group are female, and they are very impressive. based on my experience, the more women india can tempt into science and it, the better! |
india's mars mission: picture that spoke 1,000 words
| a most excellent picture!i (english, from london) am currently teaching a group of mainly cs grads here in mumbai (malad, if anyone knows it). about 20% of the group are female, and they are very impressive. based on my experience, the more women india can tempt into science and it, the better! | wow, a positive article about indian society on hn ?
i'm impressed. |
india's mars mission: picture that spoke 1,000 words
| wow, a positive article about indian society on hn ?
i'm impressed. | mom celebrating mom :) on a serious note: indeed, a proud moment.quoting from the article:- look at our rocket scientists, said one tweet, when women working in call centres think that wearing jeans "makes them modern and scientific". somebody wondered why "no matter how much women succeed/achieve, the focus ultimately is on what they are wearing?" that, another respondent tweeted, is "because we have newspapers telling us that smart career women don't wear saris only western business suits!".- some 20% of isro's 14,246 employees are women and their numbers are growing. |
india's mars mission: picture that spoke 1,000 words
| mom celebrating mom :) on a serious note: indeed, a proud moment.quoting from the article:- look at our rocket scientists, said one tweet, when women working in call centres think that wearing jeans "makes them modern and scientific". somebody wondered why "no matter how much women succeed/achieve, the focus ultimately is on what they are wearing?" that, another respondent tweeted, is "because we have newspapers telling us that smart career women don't wear saris only western business suits!".- some 20% of isro's 14,246 employees are women and their numbers are growing. | simply brilliant picture ...!! |
stood – a laptop stand made of wood
| sockpuppet accounts, votes, and comments are not ok on hacker news. | awesome! that's exactly something i was looking for! |
stood – a laptop stand made of wood
| awesome! that's exactly something i was looking for! | hi! i'm the creator of this laptop stand, for any questions i'll be here to answer them! |
stood – a laptop stand made of wood
| hi! i'm the creator of this laptop stand, for any questions i'll be here to answer them! | wo wo wooooo |
stood – a laptop stand made of wood
| wo wo wooooo | bought as a gift, i'm on my third purchase. simple and smart design. i no longer take it off from my laptop. great! |
cognitive artificial intelligence: the micropsi project
| this looks interesting, but it would be useful if there was some kind of written explanation of what it is about. it appears to be some kind of agent based system. <link> mentions minecraft connectivity which is interesting but slightly confusing. | would there be any interest in a forked node.js version of micropsi2 ? would that even be helpful in any way? |
cognitive artificial intelligence: the micropsi project
| would there be any interest in a forked node.js version of micropsi2 ? would that even be helpful in any way? | here is a demonstration of micropsi from this year's agi 2014 conference - the video isn't that great but joscha gives a great talk:
<link> |
cognitive artificial intelligence: the micropsi project
| here is a demonstration of micropsi from this year's agi 2014 conference - the video isn't that great but joscha gives a great talk:
<link> | everyone should at least watch the talk on the front page. it's very insightful. |
cognitive artificial intelligence: the micropsi project
| everyone should at least watch the talk on the front page. it's very insightful. | what is it able to do? |
the economics of a web-based book
| the author's very own essay is a counter-example to the argument that ad blocking starves the web to death.what ad blocking does is eliminate lowest common denominator [ that denominator being inversely proportional to the amount of money an advertizer is willing to pay ] from pages that are willing to accept the risks of placing crappy advertizing alongside their content.good advertizing extends content. the author's pitch for his book and fonts is a case in point. if the essay's page had been covered with advertisements for "local women who want to meet six-pack abs making $5000 a week surfing the internet" or used <blink>, i would not have been pitched the book and fonts because crude forms of advertizing correlate with crude forms of content.this hn page is another example of big money to be made with a subtle pitch [ the article talks about a business model in the same branch of the spiral galaxy as ycombinator's ]. the monetization of exhaust fumes is just extremely long tail.in the end, successful advertizing depends on segmentation. ad-block serves advertizers needs by not putting ads in front of people who might be inclined to form a negative impression of their business when shown ads on a webpage. i still hold hp creepy based on their targeting me in the early days of this capability [ and before i used ad blocking and noscript ]. | i thought this may be of interest to hn since the author posts here occasionally and there has been past discussion of his book/typesetting framework [0].i personally found "butterick's practical typography" very compelling, and i happily paid for it (apparently well above the median selling price!). i'm a little disappointed to read that mr. butterick has only made something less than $15k over the course of the first year; while he seems cheerful about it in the post, i can't imagine that such a payout comes close to covering his opportunity cost for creating a high quality book.economic structures that support high-quality open-access content seem to be an ongoing challenge with no clear answers.[0] <link> |
the economics of a web-based book
| i thought this may be of interest to hn since the author posts here occasionally and there has been past discussion of his book/typesetting framework [0].i personally found "butterick's practical typography" very compelling, and i happily paid for it (apparently well above the median selling price!). i'm a little disappointed to read that mr. butterick has only made something less than $15k over the course of the first year; while he seems cheerful about it in the post, i can't imagine that such a payout comes close to covering his opportunity cost for creating a high quality book.economic structures that support high-quality open-access content seem to be an ongoing challenge with no clear answers.[0] <link> | i'd suggest, if you want to run publishing on niche business topics as a business, that you take a page out of the nathan barry / brennan dunn / et al formula. (there exist many others who do similar things, but they're locally recognizable examples of it.)trade the book, or some other incentive [+], for the customer's email address. attention is fleeting, but relationships with one's email list are enduring, if you do them correctly.send people who give you their email address lots of valuable stuff for free. then, ask them to buy your products. charge an appropriate amount for those products.the math is, as has been widely reported by people writing books/etc on hn about a wide range of niche business topics, quite attractive. (ballpark numbers? 650k people with some level of interaction with an online version of the book implies probably between 20k and 50k folks who would have been happy to swap their email address for a downloadable version. that's basically a nice house which temporarily happens to exist inside of an e.g. mailchimp account.)[+] i will note the author appears to have aesthetic reasons to reject creating a pdf/e-book/etc version of the book, despite people literally offering him money to do so. <link>'s-no-e-book-or-pdf.... there must be something which adds incremental value to the book which would justify incremental closeness to a portion of the readers. |
the economics of a web-based book
| i'd suggest, if you want to run publishing on niche business topics as a business, that you take a page out of the nathan barry / brennan dunn / et al formula. (there exist many others who do similar things, but they're locally recognizable examples of it.)trade the book, or some other incentive [+], for the customer's email address. attention is fleeting, but relationships with one's email list are enduring, if you do them correctly.send people who give you their email address lots of valuable stuff for free. then, ask them to buy your products. charge an appropriate amount for those products.the math is, as has been widely reported by people writing books/etc on hn about a wide range of niche business topics, quite attractive. (ballpark numbers? 650k people with some level of interaction with an online version of the book implies probably between 20k and 50k folks who would have been happy to swap their email address for a downloadable version. that's basically a nice house which temporarily happens to exist inside of an e.g. mailchimp account.)[+] i will note the author appears to have aesthetic reasons to reject creating a pdf/e-book/etc version of the book, despite people literally offering him money to do so. <link>'s-no-e-book-or-pdf.... there must be something which adds incremental value to the book which would justify incremental closeness to a portion of the readers. | "what’s most interesting to me, however, is that so many more readers were willing to buy a font license (at $59–299) than to make a donation (at $5–10). don’t get me wrong—i’m utterly grateful. but it’s counterintuitive: i never expected that the cheaper option would be so much less popular. economists, i invite your explanations."this is not surprising to me at all. there are multiple reasons why the font sale is easier to make.the whole book is an excellent sales pitch for the fonts. it's hard to believe you didn't design it that way, because you did everything right. you establish credibility as an expert. you give the reader a gift of useful information. you explain at length the value of the product. you even help the reader see herself as someone who's savvy enough to buy the product (copy like: "you are not apathetic" in the times new roman page.)so you have a great sales pitch for the fonts. whereas the donation suffers in comparison. there's no quid pro quo -- i understand you see the book itself as the value they'd be paying for, but that value is already in the past by the time they're deciding to donate. it changes the psychology.also, plenty of people can plunk down a company card to buy a font (or a book). it's a legitimate business expense that's easy to justify. it can be much harder to justify a "donation" to a random author on the internet. for this reason alone, you'd be better off changing "donation" to an e-book sale, even if the e-book is just the same content as the website. |
the economics of a web-based book
| "what’s most interesting to me, however, is that so many more readers were willing to buy a font license (at $59–299) than to make a donation (at $5–10). don’t get me wrong—i’m utterly grateful. but it’s counterintuitive: i never expected that the cheaper option would be so much less popular. economists, i invite your explanations."this is not surprising to me at all. there are multiple reasons why the font sale is easier to make.the whole book is an excellent sales pitch for the fonts. it's hard to believe you didn't design it that way, because you did everything right. you establish credibility as an expert. you give the reader a gift of useful information. you explain at length the value of the product. you even help the reader see herself as someone who's savvy enough to buy the product (copy like: "you are not apathetic" in the times new roman page.)so you have a great sales pitch for the fonts. whereas the donation suffers in comparison. there's no quid pro quo -- i understand you see the book itself as the value they'd be paying for, but that value is already in the past by the time they're deciding to donate. it changes the psychology.also, plenty of people can plunk down a company card to buy a font (or a book). it's a legitimate business expense that's easy to justify. it can be much harder to justify a "donation" to a random author on the internet. for this reason alone, you'd be better off changing "donation" to an e-book sale, even if the e-book is just the same content as the website. | dear author,i read (parts) of your book, and didn't pay. why? because it was an interesting diversion, not something i was actually interested in. if it had been locked behind a paywall, it would not have affected my life in any meaningful way. it was merely, for better or worse, a pleasant diversion, drifting in a sea full of diversions.i don't imagine that i am in any way alone in this. looking at your numbers, i'd say that your 2-300 paying people are the true readership and audience of your book; the rest of us were there for a diversion; because it was another blue link in a sea of blue links.don't take this as a negative sign. typography is necessarily a niche field, and at the least, you've introduced over 600,000 new people to typography. it might not help you now, but if even 0.01% of those 600,000 start investing time and money into typography, well, it's more impact you would have had if the content had been hidden behind a paywall. cold comfort for sure, but in the age of browsers, typography is a dying art. new blood should always be welcome.sincerely,
falcolas |
why question answering is hard
| ... but also fascinating to work on. | question answering is hard!a couple of years ago i wrote a question answering system too; it's just sitting on my drive. i haven't decided what to do with it. maybe open source it?you can see a demo here <link> there any interest in open sourcing it? |
why question answering is hard
| question answering is hard!a couple of years ago i wrote a question answering system too; it's just sitting on my drive. i haven't decided what to do with it. maybe open source it?you can see a demo here <link> there any interest in open sourcing it? | question answering is actually much harder than was is presented in the article because most questions people ask are not factoid questions. consider the following that watson needed to address at a recent customer engagement (an insurance company):* can you help me with life insurance?* what benefits will i lose when i leave?* what last minute things should i take advantage of in the military before i go?the answers to these questions are not entities (people, place, dates) as in factoid questions. they may be procedures, they may depend on the user, further clarification/dialog may be required before being answered, they may not have a single answer or require a combination of answers, etc.also watson does not try to formalize all knowledge even when answering factoid questions. many of the candidates generated do not actually come from a formal knowledge graph, instead they are generated on the fly from analyzing all the pieces of text that seem contextually relevant. |
why question answering is hard
| question answering is actually much harder than was is presented in the article because most questions people ask are not factoid questions. consider the following that watson needed to address at a recent customer engagement (an insurance company):* can you help me with life insurance?* what benefits will i lose when i leave?* what last minute things should i take advantage of in the military before i go?the answers to these questions are not entities (people, place, dates) as in factoid questions. they may be procedures, they may depend on the user, further clarification/dialog may be required before being answered, they may not have a single answer or require a combination of answers, etc.also watson does not try to formalize all knowledge even when answering factoid questions. many of the candidates generated do not actually come from a formal knowledge graph, instead they are generated on the fly from analyzing all the pieces of text that seem contextually relevant. | question answering is an amazing problem. i built factoid qa systems using a mix of nlp, open relation extraction (dependency relation classification via svms), semantic web stuff via triple stores (virtuoso) and answer candidate ranking algorithms (classify the questions in to different types via keywords) and using those to determine whether i should use a search engine, or lookup system.i think for those who want to get started in the field understanding some of the more complex nlp techniques, information retrieval, and some idea of how triple stores work gets you to building a qa system.this is actually why i jumped in to deep learning. the hardest part of nlp for open ended question answering is coming up with all of the different features.deep learning with textual representations fixes this.the tech stack was <link> for those who are curious. i'd be happy to answer anything specific. qa systems are a little esoteric due to the combination of techniques used to build them, but they aren't as mysterious if you put in the effort to understand what they actually are. |
why question answering is hard
| question answering is an amazing problem. i built factoid qa systems using a mix of nlp, open relation extraction (dependency relation classification via svms), semantic web stuff via triple stores (virtuoso) and answer candidate ranking algorithms (classify the questions in to different types via keywords) and using those to determine whether i should use a search engine, or lookup system.i think for those who want to get started in the field understanding some of the more complex nlp techniques, information retrieval, and some idea of how triple stores work gets you to building a qa system.this is actually why i jumped in to deep learning. the hardest part of nlp for open ended question answering is coming up with all of the different features.deep learning with textual representations fixes this.the tech stack was <link> for those who are curious. i'd be happy to answer anything specific. qa systems are a little esoteric due to the combination of techniques used to build them, but they aren't as mysterious if you put in the effort to understand what they actually are. | also there's the problem of context. when someone asks you a question you generally know what kind of answer they expect.in this classic example from richard feynman [1] the answer to "why is aunt minnie in the hospital" can be "she broke her hip", "she slipped on the ice and broke her hip", "an ambulance took her there", "because her husband is concerned for her well being".what's interesting about the watson approach is that, by taking intelligently composed web pages as input (as opposed to randomly generated texts, or an arbitrary list of atomic facts) the context is already "baked in". put another way, people make web pages with sentences like "aunt minnie is in the hospital because she fell and broke her hip", and don't make web pages with sentences like "aunt minnie is in the hospital because the ambulance was headed there and the friction between aunt minnie and the bed in the ambulance was high enough to keep them from becoming relatively displaced".[1] <link> i notice, of course, that i have now created a web page with that exact sentence.) |
when global warming kills your god
| i highly doubt that the yup’ik fishermen are even contributors to global climate change, but we expect them to then completely stop fishing the waters they have fished for decades because of change we're largely to blame for?from forced settlements to fishing bans, we're still forcing our will on indigenous people.edit: the religious argument does seem a stretch to me, and wouldn't be necessary if common sense was used. | globar warming is definitely contributing to this process, but i think some people are definitely trying to fight natural processes which would have happened anyway. sure, it's sad that a village or a road got taken by water - but that would have happened eventually anyway, right?in poland there used to be a church build right by the sea on a cliff - but the sea has eroded the cliff(as seas do), and now only one wall of that church stands, on a tiny piece of land , and which is getting further eroded every single year. yet because the church(or rather, those few bricks of the last remaining wall) have a religious significance to some people, millions of zlotys are spent each year trying to reinforce that one remaining bit of rock. why? the cliff erosion is a completely natural process which was bound to happen. and there are even people who say it's "work of god" that the wall is still standing - while to others it's completely clear that only massive reinforcements that are built with hard cash are keeping it standing. |
when global warming kills your god
| globar warming is definitely contributing to this process, but i think some people are definitely trying to fight natural processes which would have happened anyway. sure, it's sad that a village or a road got taken by water - but that would have happened eventually anyway, right?in poland there used to be a church build right by the sea on a cliff - but the sea has eroded the cliff(as seas do), and now only one wall of that church stands, on a tiny piece of land , and which is getting further eroded every single year. yet because the church(or rather, those few bricks of the last remaining wall) have a religious significance to some people, millions of zlotys are spent each year trying to reinforce that one remaining bit of rock. why? the cliff erosion is a completely natural process which was bound to happen. and there are even people who say it's "work of god" that the wall is still standing - while to others it's completely clear that only massive reinforcements that are built with hard cash are keeping it standing. | "the yup´ik way of life is non negotiable."sound familiar? |
when global warming kills your god
| "the yup´ik way of life is non negotiable."sound familiar? | if global warming is killing your god, it may be time to find a new god. after reading the description of yup’ik religion in the article, all i can say is that their perception of what is necessary to do is not the only possible response to the situation that faces yup’ik people in that place. the environment has been changing throughout the existence of human beings (we know from archaeology that humankind has lived through ice ages and some major changes in sea level already), so human beings will have to go on being adaptable to face the changes that are inevitable in the environment, and think with sound judgment about how to keep some kinds of changes from happening, if that results in the best trade-offs for humankind. religion can not be exempted from that general process of human beings reality-checking their own thinking to see if their adaptations to their environment (and adaptations of their environment) are successful or not. |
when global warming kills your god
| if global warming is killing your god, it may be time to find a new god. after reading the description of yup’ik religion in the article, all i can say is that their perception of what is necessary to do is not the only possible response to the situation that faces yup’ik people in that place. the environment has been changing throughout the existence of human beings (we know from archaeology that humankind has lived through ice ages and some major changes in sea level already), so human beings will have to go on being adaptable to face the changes that are inevitable in the environment, and think with sound judgment about how to keep some kinds of changes from happening, if that results in the best trade-offs for humankind. religion can not be exempted from that general process of human beings reality-checking their own thinking to see if their adaptations to their environment (and adaptations of their environment) are successful or not. | i was hoping the title would refer to, you know, our tacit "god": our unrelenting faith in gratification through material consumption; essentially unbounded and ever-accelerating growth; and the idea that we can safely ignore any non-human impact this pursuit of "happiness" may have (or for that matter, to future human generations). |
meeting strangers in the street
| the writing on this piece is so elegant and smooth. i didn't even care about the game really, i would pay money to read this woman's autobiography. or writing about eating candy bars. or anything. and she has a blog! i'm having one of my 'the internet is amazing' moments. | i played ingress in way early beta when most the portals were just fire stations, post offices, and landmarks. i found myself driving through local towns until 3 am to claim "just one more."i quit after maxing out a level 8 because it was just so repetitious.they've since added badges and upped it to level 16 but i can't find the motivation. =( |
meeting strangers in the street
| i played ingress in way early beta when most the portals were just fire stations, post offices, and landmarks. i found myself driving through local towns until 3 am to claim "just one more."i quit after maxing out a level 8 because it was just so repetitious.they've since added badges and upped it to level 16 but i can't find the motivation. =( | i started ingress thinking it would be fun, good exercise, and force me to explore my city more. instead, i stared into my phone until i arrived at a zipcar parking spot which, through whatever agreement existed between google and zipcar, was a point of interest in the game.i quit, and i've never been tempted to play again. just going for a walk without my phone is much nicer. |
meeting strangers in the street
| i started ingress thinking it would be fun, good exercise, and force me to explore my city more. instead, i stared into my phone until i arrived at a zipcar parking spot which, through whatever agreement existed between google and zipcar, was a point of interest in the game.i quit, and i've never been tempted to play again. just going for a walk without my phone is much nicer. | i've never heard of ingress before, i wasn't sure if i was reading some genius surrealist piece or if this was real. |
meeting strangers in the street
| i've never heard of ingress before, i wasn't sure if i was reading some genius surrealist piece or if this was real. | i think, for me, the game falls into the same category as eve. fun to read about, but i don't think i could ever commit that much time to it, but it does sound like it's great fun. |
glass doesn't flow (2011)
| it's kind of funny that even in glassblowing circles this myth gets propagated...where the old methods of making panes are generally well known and understood (see the picture of the crown glass in the article). | this is not such a great article. it's true that the meme "glass is a liquid" is tiresome and incorrect, and it is true that glass doesn't flow at usual temperatures, but glass is very special and interesting because it doesn't undergo a state transition from liquid to solid state. so in a very specific technical sense, glass can be considered liquid, but there are many definitions of liquid and solids and this one doesn't align with people's naive definition.i hoped would article would touch these special properties of glass.<link> |
glass doesn't flow (2011)
| this is not such a great article. it's true that the meme "glass is a liquid" is tiresome and incorrect, and it is true that glass doesn't flow at usual temperatures, but glass is very special and interesting because it doesn't undergo a state transition from liquid to solid state. so in a very specific technical sense, glass can be considered liquid, but there are many definitions of liquid and solids and this one doesn't align with people's naive definition.i hoped would article would touch these special properties of glass.<link> | as a side note, the corning museum of glass is totally worth the trip. amazing place. |
glass doesn't flow (2011)
| as a side note, the corning museum of glass is totally worth the trip. amazing place. | i never thought glass was a liquid until 2-xl told me so and got me believing the myth because why would a toy robot lie to me!? |
glass doesn't flow (2011)
| i never thought glass was a liquid until 2-xl told me so and got me believing the myth because why would a toy robot lie to me!? | my girlfriend and i met another couple to go canoeing one day on town lake. the guy in the other boat was a chemist. he trotted out the old "glass is a liquid" thing, and i explained no, that's not true, and i went into great detail. but he stuck to his guns and insisted, and then played the "professional chemist" card, saying "i think i know a little bit more about chemistry than a guy who makes webpages."i was furious, but my dogged insistence that i was right was starting to draw glares from both of the women, so reluctantly, in the name of peace, i dropped it. then the ass had the gall to say "haha, don't worry, i'm sure there's a lot of things about webpages that you could correct me on!"the worst part is, if i sent him this article, and any number of others proving the same point, he'd just say "what? why are we talking about glass?" that conversation was nothing to him, and i'm sure he's already forgotten it. |
the days they changed the gauge (1966)
| "...crews of various sizes charged with various goats" -- should be "goals". that really threw me for a bit. | i thought this was going to be about the gwr in britain (e.g. <link> ). again the big conversion was made over a single weekend. |
the days they changed the gauge (1966)
| i thought this was going to be about the gwr in britain (e.g. <link> ). again the big conversion was made over a single weekend. | and here i thought it was really cool when i migrated a 1gb database from mysql to postgres. |
the days they changed the gauge (1966)
| and here i thought it was really cool when i migrated a 1gb database from mysql to postgres. | there are still some seriously annoying gauge incompatibilities in the world. the biggest one is that russia and the cis states use a metric gauge, incompatible with both western europe and china. the uk and europe still use crappy link and pin couplers from the 19th century on freight equipment, which is just insane at this late date. somebody has to climb in between cars to couple them, and car and train sizes are limited because the coupler design is weaker than the us aar coupler or russian couplers. |
the days they changed the gauge (1966)
| there are still some seriously annoying gauge incompatibilities in the world. the biggest one is that russia and the cis states use a metric gauge, incompatible with both western europe and china. the uk and europe still use crappy link and pin couplers from the 19th century on freight equipment, which is just insane at this late date. somebody has to climb in between cars to couple them, and car and train sizes are limited because the coupler design is weaker than the us aar coupler or russian couplers. | wheel trucks being changed at interchange points as necessarythis is still done in trains between china and north korea, maybe other places, to accomodate for different gauges. |
the invention machine: cleveland duo churns out ideas worth billions
| i like the success stories they gave but would be really curious at how many times they have hit the proverbial brick wall. the lesson being, that while they may hit a large number of brick walls there is always another success to be had. too many just give up when the dream isn't realized immediately. | how do they reach the right people in these mega corporations to get all these contracts? wouldn't they need a large, world-class sales team?i think that's what the article is leaving out. you can't just open for business and have giant corporations beat down your door. |
the invention machine: cleveland duo churns out ideas worth billions
| how do they reach the right people in these mega corporations to get all these contracts? wouldn't they need a large, world-class sales team?i think that's what the article is leaving out. you can't just open for business and have giant corporations beat down your door. | at first i was worried this was going to be another patent troll story, but was pleasantly surprised. an actual company doing freelance product development, using the patent system as it was intended. no mention of whether they abuse the system too, but overall quite interesting. |
the invention machine: cleveland duo churns out ideas worth billions
| at first i was worried this was going to be another patent troll story, but was pleasantly surprised. an actual company doing freelance product development, using the patent system as it was intended. no mention of whether they abuse the system too, but overall quite interesting. | whatever your views on the patent system, i think its worth thinking about companies like this, that just have engineers who do r&d without being backed by big sales and marketing teams. there is a lot of value to business models like this one (and arm, etc). they don't need to think about users, scaling, marketing, etc, just the technology. its not good for innovation if the only companies that can make money off r&d are ones that build end-user products to put it into, because ultimately the optimal conditions for many kinds of r&d aren't all that compatible with the conditions in product-focused organizations. |
the invention machine: cleveland duo churns out ideas worth billions
| whatever your views on the patent system, i think its worth thinking about companies like this, that just have engineers who do r&d without being backed by big sales and marketing teams. there is a lot of value to business models like this one (and arm, etc). they don't need to think about users, scaling, marketing, etc, just the technology. its not good for innovation if the only companies that can make money off r&d are ones that build end-user products to put it into, because ultimately the optimal conditions for many kinds of r&d aren't all that compatible with the conditions in product-focused organizations. | nottingham anticipates bigger results from the firm’s latest play: healthspot, a kiosk that comes with pull-out medical instruments and a high-definition screen that allows for remote, yet face-to-face, medical appointments.interesting video here:
<link> this feels way too close to the idiocracy medical scanning machine:
<link> |
show hn: soothe – uber for massages
| seems the same as <link> | will the uber model work for a good or service that isn't commoditized? all we ask of a transportation service like uber is to get us from point a to point b cheaply and safely. a massage is more complex and doesn't have a two item to do list that can simply be checked off and labeled "a good massage". this means the standard deviation of quality is a lot larger. there is also a benefit of loyalty. massages are a more personal and customized experience than transportation and there would be a greater benefit to having your masseuse know your preferences. |
show hn: soothe – uber for massages
| will the uber model work for a good or service that isn't commoditized? all we ask of a transportation service like uber is to get us from point a to point b cheaply and safely. a massage is more complex and doesn't have a two item to do list that can simply be checked off and labeled "a good massage". this means the standard deviation of quality is a lot larger. there is also a benefit of loyalty. massages are a more personal and customized experience than transportation and there would be a greater benefit to having your masseuse know your preferences. | i wonder the legal implications this is going to have regarding prostitution. i don't say this is intentional from the part of soothe's creators, but they will have to deal with (and accepting the legal liabilities of) an issue that is already there (fake massage parlors offering sexual services). |
show hn: soothe – uber for massages
| i wonder the legal implications this is going to have regarding prostitution. i don't say this is intentional from the part of soothe's creators, but they will have to deal with (and accepting the legal liabilities of) an issue that is already there (fake massage parlors offering sexual services). | the problem with uber for massages (and other uber for _) is that the people that are searching for a new service provider aren't going to (possibly ever) go find a new provider for some services, on a regular basis. they find one they like and they stick with it. this is distinctly different than uber's model because there's not really driver loyalty like there is with a massage or maid service. this means the contractors can just cut out soothe after develop a reputation with clients. |
show hn: soothe – uber for massages
| the problem with uber for massages (and other uber for _) is that the people that are searching for a new service provider aren't going to (possibly ever) go find a new provider for some services, on a regular basis. they find one they like and they stick with it. this is distinctly different than uber's model because there's not really driver loyalty like there is with a massage or maid service. this means the contractors can just cut out soothe after develop a reputation with clients. | seeing a lot of massage startups lately. we're at a coworking space where people book conference rooms and get massages done in them. if you use this service, please don't do this. (if you do, please pick a scented oil that doesn't smell like bacteria and pine trees.) |
flanby bird – the french presidential version of flappy bird
| i like the face of this president, looks better than the true one ;-) more smart | great fork, well done with nice graphics. |
flanby bird – the french presidential version of flappy bird
| great fork, well done with nice graphics. | ty guys ;) |
flanby bird – the french presidential version of flappy bird
| ty guys ;) | yeah, french people are going to have so much fun with this one ! |
flanby bird – the french presidential version of flappy bird
| yeah, french people are going to have so much fun with this one ! | oh, this is going to be fun. love political content that has nothing to do with politics, if you catch my drift. |
use python in excel without add-ins
| this is fantastic - i am going to start testing it now. i write a fair amount of vb macros, and would much prefer to be able to use python.and, if they could create a plugin that allowed libre office to do the same, they could solve one of the last remaining major interoperability issues with lo and excel: the inability to run vb macros in lo. that would be huge. | i am guessing datanitro isn't happy about this |
use python in excel without add-ins
| i am guessing datanitro isn't happy about this | not the same thing, but this made me think about it and readers might be interested to know that the xlrd, xlwt and xlutils python modules (<link> allow you to manipulate excel files in python, without even having excel installed (it's pure python, so it also works on linux, for example). |
use python in excel without add-ins
| not the same thing, but this made me think about it and readers might be interested to know that the xlrd, xlwt and xlutils python modules (<link> allow you to manipulate excel files in python, without even having excel installed (it's pure python, so it also works on linux, for example). | kind of a serious difference... this is using excel in python. python is not running inside excel with this. |
use python in excel without add-ins
| kind of a serious difference... this is using excel in python. python is not running inside excel with this. | awesome to see a foss solution for this.ben at datanitro[1], a paid solution that's been around for a while, has been awesome in my occasional correspondence with him as a user. anyone looking for xlwing's functionality with commercial support etc should give them a look.[1] <link> |