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iUsedToCodeon Ask HN: What is the biggest untapped opportunity for startups?

I'm not into the 'zombie apocalypse' type scenarios, but you can't be serious in thinking that hammers are as efective as a shotgun.

Plus, note that we only make it easier to get a permit if you're a sane, law-abiding adult.

iUsedToCodeon Ask HN: What is the biggest untapped opportunity for startups?

I might have chosen wrong arguments, i agree. Most of the people get permits for sports or just collecting. We're not creating another Army or militia. I don't believe that a couple thousands of gun owners, with no disicpline or logistics could change the outcome of any conflict. But having a permit helps with the attitude of readiness and self sufficiency.

The times are right, because many people are researching guns now due to external factors. It's a growing market for such NGO as mine (even though i don't profit off it).

Plus, take into account that US has a very messed up situation with guns, laws and relations between groups of people. Nobody's trying to copy that over here, we have better role models.

iUsedToCodeon Ask HN: What is the biggest untapped opportunity for startups?

I accept the risk that some people will die doing something they like, like driving a sports car, skydiving, eating lots of red meat or shooting a gun. It's just life. People die from all things.

US model is fucked beyond recognition and nobody wants to import it. I'm rather talking about the German or French model. Both of those countries have about 10-15 times the number of guns than poland (used for hunting, sports, and so on).

iUsedToCodeon Ask HN: What is the biggest untapped opportunity for startups?

I'm doing exactly this, spreading the opportunity to legally own a firearm in Poland (https://braterstwo.eu). It's a Wordpress plugin, php scripts and a bit of legal stuff (creating a NGO, bank account with automatic payment identifications, etc).

It allows lots of people (thousands now) to obtain a permit. Poland has the lowest quantity of firearms in the whole Europe (and one of the lowest in the world). Taking the current mood around us now (terror attacks, war in Ukraine and possibly -- god I hope not -- other eastern countries) and the obvious coolness of legally owning a firearm i think it's a good initiative. Legal owners tend to be more law abiding and more self sufficient. We need role models like that, IMO.

I encourage more programmers to automate stuff that the state messes up. It's a lot of things!

PS. My NGO only helps lawful, sane adults. No felon, no person with mental illness and no kids can obtain a gun permit in Poland.

iUsedToCodeon Tarsnap – Online backups for the truly paranoid

I've been using tarsnap as a backup tool for a small NGO, especially backing up DB. I take a dump of the DB every 2 hours (we have almost 1k users now) and send it over.

The biggest pain is that it now takes ages to list archives. I think i have like 1500 of them. But otherwise: i'm really glad tarsnap exists. I deposited $5 in november and have $4.673539677478560010 left (i'm pretty sure Colin can now tell who i am, using the unique amount of picodollars)

My stats now:

  pawwer@pro16:~$ tarsnap --print-stats --humanize-numbers
                  Total size  Compressed size
  All archives       137 GB            42 GB
  (unique data)    2.0 GB           489 MB

  pawwer@pro16:~$ tarsnap --list-archives | wc -l
  1425

Thanks, Colin. It's a great service.

However, i backup my personal photos someplace else, tarsnap is a bit pricey for that. You can get backblaze for $0.005 / GB month with free transfer, so i use that.

iUsedToCodeon New technique stores summer heat until it's needed in winter

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pump

You could have just googled it. The heat is moved around, it's not created. You can move energy, can't you?

iUsedToCodeon The science of Westworld

Why not just very good VR? Cannot believe it'd be more difficult than creating robots that can't be told from real humans.

iUsedToCodeon AdNauseam Banned from the Google Web Store

Consider using Ublock Origin, lightweight, more honest and well behaving adblocker.

iUsedToCodeon AdNauseam Banned from the Google Web Store

It's supposed to mess up the stats and inject uncertainty into ad analysis.

They are trying to bring down the price of ads on the internet, thus making them unprofitable. I hope they succeed.

iUsedToCodeon AdNauseam Banned from the Google Web Store

This is why i don't use Chrome. Enough of my life is in google's hands. I believe they are already too big.

I wish for a more open smartphone ecosystem and better tools for privacy.

iUsedToCodeon If you get rich, you won’t quit working for long

I retired at 25 due to startup and some inheritance. Being free all the time can be depressing and i began to look for challenges. It's not so easy if you don't "need" to go through all the bullshit and hard work that gives you results in the long run.

So now i'm focused on social issues. Fixing small social problem arising due to bad laws with a bit of automation. I'm on my second startup (or rather NGO) in that area and it brings me a lot of satisfaction.

But not having to do stuff can be sometimes as hard as having to do stuff.

iUsedToCodeon Things You Notice When You Quit the News

I unplugged my antenna almost two years ago. The only time i switch the TV on is when i wanna watch a movie on a bigger screen -- but i only connect my laptop to it. The antenna is cut right through.

There were a couple of moments when i was exposed to news. I couldn't believe it's this much manipulated and in your face sensationalist. Watching this everyday must be toxic as hell.

I spend lots of time on the internet though, so it's not like am disconnected. I just dodge the most vulgar of manipulations (i hope).

iUsedToCodeon Ask HN: What free or low-cost static site hosting do you use most?

What's that mean for the common folk? Are they slower?

iUsedToCodeon Ask HN: What free or low-cost static site hosting do you use most?

Can't find english language switch. Only german then?

iUsedToCodeon Ask HN: What free or low-cost static site hosting do you use most?

I use linuxpl.com (https://linuxpl.com/Hosting-Serwery-wirtualne) which is ~ 12 usd / year (so just $1/ month). Comes with 2 GB of space and 50 gb bandwidth per month.

SSH access, shared hosting (so pretty powerful CPU/ram there). Currently i have about 700 daily unique visitors and growing. Used to deploy custom sites, now i use mostly wordpress. Also, i use it for my git remote repos.

Great service. Been using if for years, awesome quality for the money.

Lately had some issues but the support is helpful and they fixed whatever i wanted, enabling SSI, fixing response headers, etc. Never had to wait for a reply longer than 6 hours (usually it's just minutes, really). As a bonus, admin staff is available through odlschool IM app - Gadu-Gadu. And PHP 7 is available and easy to switch to.

The site's in polish, which sucks for you guys, but it's by far the cheapest and best solution i have for low cost hosting. I'm a happy customer.

iUsedToCodeon Plasma Mobile – Turns your phone into a fully open hacking device

I've been using Linux on desktop for years and love how flexible and open it is. I use maybe 1% of its capabilities and it's amazing.

I'd love to be able to have a working, stable and open mobile system. I don't want to be locked in into Google because i don't trust them (or anybody else) enough.

Android is great but i miss linux-like feeling of possibilities. But it can be due to my lack of technical skills. Maybe if i rooted the phone it'd be good enough now?

Anyway, i hope they succeed.

iUsedToCodeon Linux Market Share on Desktop

I've been using Linux since high school (late 20 here) and i cannot imagine going back to windows. I'm always surprised when a fellow programmer says they use windows at home.

I couldn't live without command prompt. I love updating everything with one move. Now you can even use Steam on linux. Some apps are lacking, but most people don't edit videos or play with Photoshop. Especially now, since most of the desktop usage is internet and web browser, i see no reason to stick with Windows.

But mostly, i just like being in control. Using some perl i can automate almost any menial task.

iUsedToCodeon Zuckerberg wanted meet at Clinton campaign to understand “political operations”

Nobody wants to touch a political issue with a stick. The US election is a nightmare now, you get no good choices. Well, i think it was similar this couple of years across many places. Democracy is just not compatible with huge masses of not-so-well-educated people millions of who are dependent on the social security programs.

I don't have a better solution. I just see that all this corruption, this waste and idiocy is almost scary. I cant wait for AI or something similar to help sort this out. People fundamentally cannot make good decisions about so many complex issues all at once.

But if you don't talk about politics here, that's ok too. I enjoy the high quality of conversations and don't want to lower it.

iUsedToCodeon OpenSSL after Heartbleed

How come the biggest names in IT don't work towards creating a modern, better security library?

It's pennies for them, they wouldn't even see it on the balance. Having security issues slows down business significantly. Non-geeks keep hearing about major bugs in basic security and it surely has a negative effect on the spread of internet and services based on it.

iUsedToCodeon The VeraCrypt Audit Results

Thanks for the info. Not only am i more sure that VeraCrypt is a good alternative to discontinued TrueCrypt (which i used and loved for years), but i learned about a new version with important bug fixes.

I should donate to more open source projects. I use them everyday. Yesterday i found "paste" program and almost broke down crying that somebody 40 years earlier provided free solution to problems i didn't even know i had. I love that about free software.

iUsedToCodeon An External Replication on the Effects of Test-driven Development [pdf]

The research seems low quality. Whenever i try creating something more complex than just a CRUD webapp, i'm always relieved after getting a significant code coverage.

It may be because i'm a medicore programmer (i mostly do hobby projects), but getting assurance that my 'small change here' didn't mess up anything major in a distant part of the system is quite relaxing.

Obviously i only test logic and usually write the tests after coding. It still helps with my flow.