Throwaway90283

Use couchsurfing, and search for hosts that 'want to meet up', and were online in the past week. There are tons of people interesting in showing travelers their city, so send them messages. Or, check the couchsurfing forums and meetups. It's usually just a bunch of locals and travelers grabbing drinks. Popular cities have hundreds of people attending and daily events, while less popular cities might have 5 or 10 people getting together for drinks once a week. There are always new people at every meetup, so you'll fit right in showing up at the pub alone and joining the group.

Or, if you're staying somewhere for a few months, then offer couchsurfers a couch to sleep on. People are always passing through, so you give an interesting person your couch for a couple of nights, and discover the city with them.

It's made my travels a lot more fun, and I now pick places to live that are popular on couchsurfing because it's that much easier to meet people.

I just stumbled on this link, and apparently you can stop contributing to specific sites, and also select whether to contributor to all participating sites, or ones you specifically select.

http://www.droid-life.com/2015/04/21/this-is-google-contribu...

It looks overpriced. I need to be signed into my Google account at all times when browsing the internet, pay $10-15/mo, and even then, it's only removing something like 50-75% of advertisements. It's more expensive than ad block, it removes less ads than ad block, and it leaves a big empty space that ad block can typically remove.

This sounds like a poor experience for the end user, and I can't see it catching on.

This page has been online for a while, and it still appears to be limited to a very small, select number of publishers. Did anyone request an invitation and actually receive an invite during the last 5 months?

I'm assuming this is another Google service that'll die before I'm able to try it.

Upgrading their service is expensive. T-Mobile upgrades, then Sprint has to upgrade to compete, then T-Mobile has to upgrade again, then Sprint...

Instead what's going to happen, T-Mobile and Sprint both agree to offer the same performance, or focus on different regions.

It's like selling slices of pizza on the street. If you're smart, you and your competitor agree to sell at $5/slice. If you drop to $4, sure you'll get more customers for a short period of time, but then your competitor drops to $4, and now you both just cut 20% off your revenue for no reason.

I can't figure it out either. It's really difficult to determine the speed because of the scale involved here.

It looks small in the video, but that first stage is the height of a 20 story building. It can't tip over without destroying itself, and it's not something you want to get wet.

Kai Greenes is saying to use a lower weight so you can manage proper form. Sacrificing form just to hit a number goal, or to impress the person beside you at the gym is only going to lower your gains.

That has nothing to do with volume training, that's just proper weightlifting in general.

Try saying that on the radio, or at a meeting, or during a presentation, or when networking with someone.

It's a mess, you're having a drink and meet someone in your industry. Oh, visit my site, it's john.ninja, or http://john.ninja. They'll give you the 'huh?' look, and you need to explain that it ends in .ninja instead of .com.

You'll always need to write a longer address and can't say john.ninja. You'll always need to explain in a little more detail how to visit the website. If your site ever becomes a huge success, lots of people will be visiting john.com, so hopefully they don't run a similar business or anything inappropriate one day.

Imagine if you were Netflix, and you ran the business using the domain Netflix.video. You would be going insane right now, and be willing to spend a small fortune trying to get a hold of Netflix.com. If you bought the domain for 20 million, people would agree it was a good move and investment. That's just how important having the .com domain is to a business.

I believe it's still .com, then everything else, even if people typically find sites through search.

Why? If I write on a poster john.com, or on a cereal box, or on my business card, or I say 'visit us at john.com' on the radio, or my tv commercial says john.com at the end, people know exactly what to do. They recognize the words john.com as a website they can visit or search.

Now, if I say, 'visit us at john.ninja' on the radio, people have no idea what I'm even referring towards. If it's on my business card, people are wondering if my last name is ninja, or maybe this is just a fun play on words, and I refer to myself as john.ninja and the dot in-between the words is for design purposes. To fix that, you need to write more, www.john.ninja. However, it's still difficult for people to digest. Most people would probably ask, 'that's a website?', and then they would just visit google and type in 'john ninja', which may or may not get them to my site.

I didn't know how to write a line of PHP or MySQL (previously a frontend designer/developer). I went through a couple of the courses on Lynda because I had an idea for a project I wanted to develop. I started writing backend code for the project within a week of starting the Lynda tutorials to practice what I was learning. The project started gaining traction and users a couple of weeks after that, and I quit my job a year later. Today, it generates about 70k a year in passive income.

Lynda brought me from not knowing how to declare a variable, to being able to develop a simple site with a database, user registration, commenting, administrative pages, etc, in a very short period of time. It's a great resource to hit the ground running in a week. However, like you said, you then need to to grow using other resources to learn how to sprint.

You want to develop a body cam for law enforcement? I don't think current systems or costs are holding them back at the moment. Instead, most law enforcement agencies simply don't want them. Even if they were mandatory, they would likely be disabled, or accidentally broken or obscured during key events.

If you want to see officers wearing body cams one day, you're better off getting involved in politics.

It's easy to paste in a block of code to insert ads. Accepting payments, tracking them on user accounts, and hiding those ads is obviously a little more complicated.

If Google Contribute (https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/) doesn't pull a Google and remain invite only until death, it'll simplify the process and we might see this become a more common approach.

I really don't like the idea of every site attempting to roll out their own solution. It would be nice to have a system to manage subscriptions across a variety of websites. I log-in, and I can see all the sites I'm subscribed to at the moment. I can then toggle individual sites on or off with the push of a button, or I can change payment plans for individual sites (if I switch to the HN $2/mo plan, my username appears in blue). Sites could then query the payment info using some kind of API and user tokens, to see what user is currently subscribed to what plan.

I think my favorite is the bug where you could delete any folder from a user's computer, just by linking them to a site with a few lines of code inserted in the source. I think it was on XP, and it would trigger Windows help to open at the same time.

No need to track 50,000 aircraft. Instead, have the stream automatically switch on when the plane is in distress, when it's losing altitude, when an emergency has been triggered, or when it's going off the flight path.

Is it free housekeeping, or cheaper cleaning? You're claiming both, so what's the business plan and how much are people saving?

Secondly, people always take free samples, so what's the benefit of cleaning their home? Why can't you walk down the street and hand out advertisements and free toothpaste or lotion samples? You can easily give out hundreds in an afternoon, and it doesn't cost a thing. So, why clean a house for free, or give them $10 or $20 off the cleaning, just to drop off a couple of samples in one household?

Why is it surprising?

It's faster and cheaper to write clickbait articles, and they have a wider appeal. People are much more likely to click and share something with the name, 'What Disney character are you?' or 'Top 10 reasons you should start going out on Tuesday nights', compared to anything on Gigaom. It takes a lot of time to write proper articles, to check the facts, to follow up with sources, and to maintain a respectable reputation.

I'm sure they could trim the fat, and maintain a small group of dedicated writers, pay the bills and make a living. However, they raised quite a bit of money, so they kind of need to go big or die at this point, and going big is not easy for the reasons I mentioned above.

I've seen my site copied countless times. There are at least 5 or 6 clones that are blatant knockoffs. There are people that bought the non .com domains of my site, and copied the images I designed, and sections of my html code. There are well known companies that have literally copied some of my content word for word and passed it off as their own. One of the clones is similar to your situation, they created their clone for a different country and language, and have a few hundred thousand users.

I stopped caring. I'm by far the leader in the space, and I spend my time ensuring I provide a superior service to the clones. It's actually turned out in the benefit of everyone. It provided motivation, and I worked twice as hard to stay ahead of the pack, so now my site is extremely polished. My users are happy, because they've seen the service continue to improve.

So, my advice is not to worry about it, and to focus on providing the best experience for users, so your competitors have no room. However, keep an eye on the competition, and make sure they're not beating you in any area, that might persuade users to switch services.

I have a Samsung Series 9, which was renamed to the Ativ Book 9 in recent years, so they may have improved on some of the below issues.

1. Some of the media keys don't work on Windows 8, even with Samsung software (laptop shipped with Windows 7, and they offered limited support with Windows 8).

2. The touchpad is awful. I can click on some right sides of the touchpad and it left clicks, or sometimes it right clicks when I click on the left side. My old netbook and dell laptops had much better touchpads. Thankfully, the touchpad is rarely used.

3. Usb or mini hdmi devices sometimes disconnect if I wiggle or bump the plug.

4. Ports are too close together. I have 3 or 4 flash drives (some fairly slim - http://www.testberichte.de/imgs/p_imgs/Mushkin+Ventura+Pro+%...), and none of them fit in the left port, because they hit the power cable. In the right port, they're also tight if I have headphones plugged in. You really need to be careful with the cables and devices you own, because you only have a millimeter or two of clearance between them.

5. The power cable on the side is annoying. When I move the laptop when it's plugged in, the cable always wants to fold under the device. I guess it's better than my dell, where the cable would pull out the back at the slightest movement.

6. Battery life is poor. I keep the battery saver enabled, which only charges the device to 80%. It goes from 80% to dead in about 1 to 1.5 hours, with just general browsing on the internet.

On the plus side, the screen is perfect, it's extremely lightweight, very quiet, it's now my favorite keyboard, and it's fast enough for everyday work. So, it has flaws, but it's the best laptop I've owned to date, and I'd either buy the newer model or one of apple's offerings the next time around.

Simple answer. Download the apps from your top competitors and start using them. When you get bored of them and quit in an hour, or a week, you'll know why they're dead.

I'm hoping it brings some fun, education uses. For example, VR cooking with Gordon Ramsey, where you're in a virtual kitchen, cooking along with a professional chef. Or VR public speaking. Most people are scared of speaking in public, so you can practice in front of a VR crowd. You could have DLC for classroom speaking, weddings, boardrooms, etc. I figure you could setup a 3D 360 camera in front of a group of volunteers, and then just use that video for the VR experience. It would also be great for training. Ever run a backhoe? A typical setup is two sticks for moving the bucket, so you could make an easy simulator with the Valve VR controllers to give people practice in a variety of situations. Or driving simulators for new drivers, where they can practice their parking.

You need real world training for all of the above, but I'd be curious to see how the VR training could help people get started. I wouldn't buy a VR headset for any of these things alone, but combine it with games, entertainment, virtual workspaces (you could be sitting in a 10x10 basement, but feel like you're sitting at a desk in a penthouse overlooking New York), and I think they could be quite versatile, and a worthwhile purchase.

I can imagine big business in creating alternate reality assets, such as virtual homes. I wonder if you could combine the real world and the virtual world as well. For example, I'm building a new home, so I make a 20x20 room, dividing a 5x20 and 15x20 section with a sliding door. I put a bed in the 15x20 area, and a railing in the 5x20 section. There's nothing passed the railing, it's just a railing 2ft from a blank wall. However, I create a virtual world that matches the geometry. I put on the headset, and I can sit down on my virtual bed, or walk across the room and slide the door to the balcony. With the headset, the balcony looks like it's on the 20th floor, overlooking the ocean. I can lean on the railing and look down at the world below, while in the real world, I'm just wearing a headset staring at the wall in front of me. I could put a fan in the 5x20 room, so in VR, it feels like there's a breeze on the balcony.

It sounds a little crazy, but is it? You can turn an unfinished space, such as a basement, into a billion dollar VR dream home. There could be a VR home generator, where you enter the floor plan of your basement, and it generates a VR home with rooms and doors that match that space. I'm curious to see where things go, it'll be an interesting decade.

They should concentrate on a wide variety of features and make it modular. That way, I could download a build with bold, italic, and spoiler syntax. Or, someone else could download one with only lists, strikeouts, headings, and math formulas. When you're missing even one feature, people go elsewhere.

Lastly, why is everyone hellbent on following the original syntax like it's the word of God? Anytime I hear someone complain about an issue in Markdown, people point to the 2004 syntax and how it's true to spec. Users don't care, they want something usable. I'd be happy if someone creates a completely new spec, and I never hear the word Markdown again. I'm tired of the same issues being passed down.

If it's a good idea, people will copy it. Nonetheless, you have one thing in your favor, and that's a head start. You develop it right the first time around, and leave little room for the competition to improve on the service. By the time the competition arrives on the scene, you already have a user base that's growing.

Including the name is a great idea. I feel like stock photos of business offices and people are a turn off. Anytime I see them on a site, I figure it's a basement operation being run by amateurs. Why are they posting a photo of a random boardroom and not their own? My only conclusion, they have no office. Why are they showing a photo of a random woman with a headset? They must have no dedicated support in house.

Real photos always stand out. If I'm looking for a webhost, and they show an actual photo of their datacenter, with one of their staff members standing inside, that's a huge plus. They actually have physical access to the datacenter. If I need something, they can get it done. They're not just reselling someone else's service.

Same here, I enjoy A/B testing often, along with analyzing numbers and data. When I opened this article and saw the A/B/C image at the top, I was excited to see the results. Then... nothing.

This article references a number of different studies, but I really wanted to see some hard numbers with these concepts being used.

Show me that someone pointing at that newsletter button is 25% more effective than a photo of someone with their arms crossed. Or, show me that smiling asian male in a suit will out perform an attractive business woman in casual clothes.

Take some photos of the same person, in the same clothes, one with them pointing at the call to action, another with them looking at the call to action, another with them standing in a neutral pose, and another with arms crossed. Show me those numbers, and which increases sales.

Otherwise, I'm full of doubt.

http://www.nickkolenda.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/pointi...

That image freaks me out, it looks like an overly confident guy that is pretending he's well off, and it looks like he's about to give me some awful speech about the 10 secrets to success. I wouldn't want to donate to a kickstarter with that image, because I don't want that guy to get my money (even though it's a stock photo, I associate him with the project).

Then, I look at another example...

http://www.nickkolenda.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/stock-...

The article says the asian male is probably best, because he's asian, and smiling more. I'd disagree again, I prefer A, the guy looks more down to earth in the casual clothes, and as a late twenties male, he looks very relatable. That's the kind of person I'd want to donate money towards.

This is all speculation though, we need real world numbers, otherwise this article is pointless.

Depends on the niche. I run a tech site with 1.2 million daily page views, and yet Google reports 400,000 ad impressions a day. The other 66% are being blocked. This isn't hard to believe, since all my tech friends run ad blockers.

Random story from last week, and my experience with Apple software. I don't use Apple products too often, but I was downloading some apps for a family members ipod touch 4g (latest model being 5g). The 4g only supports up to iOS 6, and nearly every app I tried downloading on the device gave an error saying it required iOS 7 and it couldn't be installed.

I thought that was strange, I used most of these apps before on older devices, why does everything no longer work on a device that's relatively new? According to those error messages the device is basically useful, it can't install apps any more, which is the heart of the ipod touch.

I searched around online and there's an official solution. I had to install itunes on a computer and login to the same account as the Apple account on the device. Then I had to download the incorrect iOS 7 version of the free app I wanted. That would assign it as a purchase to the Apple account. Then I could delete that download. Then, I had to open up the Apple store on the device like I was doing previously, find the free app on there again, and click download. After doing all that, it wouldn't give an error saying the device wasn't supported, but now ask if I wanted to install the last compatible version.

My mind was blown. How could such popular software provide such an awful user experience? The ipod touch said the app isn't supported for the device, but then I 'buy' the free app on itunes, and magically it is supported and I can download a compatible release.

What's the issue? People use these silly websites and applications, and they provide a service. Why do we need 100 different to-do list applications? Well, because everyone has unique needs. Some people want a simple list, some people want categories, some people want to organize it by priority levels, some people want it to look like a piece of virtual paper while others prefer a modern design, some want to self host it, and others want it stored in the cloud.

And what's wrong with niche social networks? You're on HN, this is a fairly niche place. Did you want it merged with Reddit, Facebook, Tumblr, etc?

I run a popular site that heavily uses flexboxes, with dozens of flex containers on every page, different alignments, etc. I just checked pagespeed insights, and the site renders fine in the little mobile phone preview from your image, so it's definitely supported. Check your code, it might be incorrect, you might need webkit prefixes, or you might be using outdated flexbox specs that have been dropped.

Few things to keep in mind...

1. It takes a while to see results. This is something you do for life. Don't start working out 2 hours a day, get burnt out because you're not looking like a Greek God by next month, and give up. Your goal isn't to get fit the next few weeks, it's to turn your life around and to get into a balanced routine.

2. Find exercises you enjoy. I hate treadmills, I get bored after a few minutes and I can never stay motivated to use them. However, I enjoy biking, I can bike for hours in a nearby park, my legs will be burning, and I'll be having fun. Indoor exercise bikes I don't mind either. The same applies to weights, I use a few dumbbells and they're alright, but I really enjoy bodyweight exercises. I've been having a lot of fun with weighted parallel bar dips, and pullups lately. I see results with them, and look forward to it. My advice is to try out lots of difference exercises, and pick the ones that feel right for you, while still covering all the major muscle groups. This is the difference between going to the gym on a regular basis, and making excuses not to go. If you hate your workout routine, you're not going to stay motivated.

3. Work is always there. Until you die, there will always be code to refactor, bugs to fix, support questions to respond to, features to add, and higher revenue targets. It doesn't end, you'll never be done. Similar to exercise, it's a lifetime process, so you need to find balance. Set aside a day a week, like Sunday, where you don't work at all, you just clean your house, organize your desk, wash dishes, go shopping, return e-mails to friends and family, and get everything non-work related finished. Also, do the same daily, and set aside certain hours for yourself. For example, every evening, 5-8, you spent time exercising, then making a decent dinner. It doesn't matter what you do, just pick specific hours, and spend it improving yourself.