A $35 keyboard for children transformed me into a novelist - danso
https://onezero.medium.com/this-35-keyboard-for-children-transformed-me-into-a-novelist-436a55370ee5
======
benjohnson
The Japanese have modern devices like this - this one is about $250 and had a
E-ink display and a folding keyboard. You can put the keyboard in English mode
- a few keys are in odd places but bearable. It's increased my output by
several orders of magnitude.

[https://www.kingjim.co.jp/pomera/dm30/](https://www.kingjim.co.jp/pomera/dm30/)

~~~
inyorgroove
There is also the Freewrite, its a little expensive but is targeted to English
speakers: [https://getfreewrite.com/](https://getfreewrite.com/)

~~~
Digory
Beautiful, but $400 is steep for a monotasker. I'd gladly let students use
these in a class, though, as an alternative to notepads.

Which probably says something about the rise of keyboards and the fall of
handwriting; I get that ASCII is more useful than paper, but $400 buys a lot
of luxurious pens and paper.

~~~
BolexNOLA
Produces a lot of lost pens and paper in waste bins though!

~~~
splintercell
Check out the fountain pen thread from last week.

~~~
carterschonwald
Link please ? :)

Granted I’m a huge user of fountain pens and note books already :)

~~~
splintercell
There you go:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23497259](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23497259)

------
JoblessWonder
I have a very special place in my heart for the AlphaSmart brand. When I was a
kid in the 90's I had atrocious handwriting. No one could figure out why or
how to fix it. In middle school, one of the counselors had been given an
earlier model of the AlphaSmart as a demo unit and let me use it. It also
turned me into a writer. Instead of my teachers glossing over my chicken
scratch, they were able to read my typed assignments and offer me real
feedback. My confidence as a student and an intellectual returned. All because
I had a little keyboard to type on. Pretty crazy.

[Technical side note: Back in the day, to transfer what you typed you used to
plug it into the PS/2 keyboard port on a computer and press "send." It would
then recreate each keystroke for the computer, regardless of what program you
had open so if you hit send before opening up a word processor it would be
chaos until it finished transferring.]

~~~
frequentnapper
Lucky your teachers actually cared about you.

~~~
dividedbyzero
And had the resources to act on that. I've had the impression a bunch of my
teachers did care when kids were struggling, but didn't have a lot of options
to help really.

~~~
JoblessWonder
I agree. I think that teachers are relatively
powerless/underpaid/underappreciated/overworked (during the school year) and
that makes it so hard for them to help kids that are struggling. Let alone
help the kids who are struggling without interrupting the rest of the class.
It reminds me of the season of The Wire where it shows just how many systemic
issues there are in the education system.

My teachers were frustrated and sent me to the counselor, who lucked into a
solution for me. Combined with the fact that I was lucky enough to have a
computer at home to use, parents who supported me, and teachers who wanted me
to succeed was what made it work. Most people aren't as fortunate.

------
dougmwne
I think this is a worthy read because it looks a computing product from a
user's perspective instead of a engineer or an MBA. Multi-function everything
devices with the addictive potential of nicotine may be engineering marvels
and business rockstars, but this person wanted to write without distraction
and needed to reach into the past to find a product that met their needs.

And it's a fun exercise to take this user's need and whiteboard out a new
product for them. How are those ergonomics; could we hinge the display or
project it somehow in a way that will let them type longer without discomfort?
How's that LCD's readability; would eink be better? Should the device be doing
incremental backups to the cloud? Should it offer dictation?

~~~
tonyedgecombe
_Should the device be doing incremental backups to the cloud?_

I think one of the key features would be no network connection.

~~~
naikrovek
So a Linux machine (like an old laptop) booted into single-user mode seems
like a good approach here. Single shell, single application at a time, no GUI.

~~~
phone8675309
I have an old Linux laptop (an old iBook G4) that boots into a non graphical
environment and starts emacs in text mode on login with no network
connectivity by default.

It's my go-to for focus.

~~~
anythinggoesbay
This is so good. Can you please share how it can be done?

------
nate
It's wild what constraints can actually open up for your creativity. I love
making videos but ran out of the time I used to have to spend on it. And so
largely gave up trying. But I decided instead of complaining about it or
trying to find more time to pile on some constraints:

\- only film AND edit on my phone \- only create a movie as long as a single
song track. don't edit the song track besides muting clips of the song. \-
only spend < 60 minutes on editing the video \- publish daily

So now there's little workflow pauses waiting for files to transfer. It's now
impossible to spend too much time in a rat hole of an edit. Of course this
limits things I'd love to achieve with it, but on the other side, I get to
publish so many more ideas and feel insanely more creative with it.

Feeling stuck? Probably need a good dose of giving yourself what seems like
arbitrary and ridiculously limiting constraints.

~~~
munificent
I've been getting into making electronic music and figuring out a workflow
that balances these constraints is really challenging.

The most powerful, expressive, flexible, and affordable way to make music, by
far, is to do everything in a DAW inside a computer. Ableton + a few software
synth plug-ins is a _ridiculously_ powerful platform to make music in. You
could produce albums for the rest of your life and never run out of
inspiration. And the user interface for Ableton is just an absolute delight.

But it's _so_ powerful that it takes me forever to get anything done. It's
easy to spend three hours tweaking reverb settings and never finish anything.

The other approach is to do everything in dedicated hardware with real
synthesizers. It's expensive to buy gear and a hassle to wire everything up.
Decide that you want delay on your bass instead of the lead? That's five
minutes of futzing with cables versus a single drag-and-drop in Ableton. Want
two different reverb settings for the pad and the clap? Better shell out
another $300 to buy a second reverb pedal. Undo? You're lucky if your
sequencer supports it.

But because the set of options is so much narrower and the cost for rethinking
choices is higher, the hardware environment pushes you forward and makes you
want to finish things.

The tricky part is that, to a listener, the music made on hardware often just
isn't as good in many ways as that made in a DAW. Listeners today are used to
lots and lots of layers and very surgical production and mixing. That's easy
(but time-consuming) in a DAW, but very difficult (and expensive) in hardware.

Finding the right balance here is hard.

~~~
fb03
That is totally my experience with my hobbyist music making endeavour too!

I thought owning more plugins and getting better gear would mean I'd make lots
and lots of music.

When I started out 9 years ago, I had Renoise, zero paid plugins (only free
vsts like Synth1 and friends) and a cheap pair of earbuds. I didn't even
understood basic things like translation, gain staging and etc, and I'd always
wonder why my tracks wouldn't play correctly on other people's speakers
(channels would clash frequencies, elements would downright disappear and
etc).

Yet, my most creative, layered and musical (data amount, transitions and
overall creativity) time was at that period. And I typed it all in using the
computer keyboard. In a computer in the middle of the living room.

Now I have a huge desk with a pro usb audio dac, Yamaha Hs8 Monitors
(excellent, btw), all plugged in with proper balanced xlr cables, 2 midi
keyboards, an ATH-m50 pair of cans for when I can't be noisy in the Study
(small kids), lots of paid plugins like Sylenth1 and Serum, a plethora of
sample libraries scavenged and assembled painstakingly through the years...
only the good stuff, categorized, ready to double click and peruse.

....It's been two years since the last time I actually used all this stuff

You guys are right. I need to get back to the basics.

What use is to be able to put 80+ tracks in your software because now you have
a good pc that can handle that many if you can't even write the first part
down because there are soooo many options and you're lost tweaking knobs.

"tweakititis" is a thing in music making.

One of my tracks, btw, if any of you got curious at what kind of music I make:
[https://soundcloud.com/flipbit03/ibu-
kid](https://soundcloud.com/flipbit03/ibu-kid)

~~~
munificent
Yes, I'm 100% with you. I've finished two tracks using Reason and Ableton with
dozens of unfinished things laying around. And those two tracks took weeks.

Meanwhile, with my little Electribe 2 and a couple of guitar pedals, I
finished three tracks in like a tenth of the time and _enjoyed_ it a hell of a
lot more.

But, on the other hand, those two tracks I made on the computer are, I think,
much better songs for someone to listen to.

So a big part of this dilemma is how much do I optimize for _my_ enjoyment of
the _process_ versus the _listener 's_ enjoyment of the _product_? The two are
not purely orthogonal. It's hard to make something people like if you're
miserable doing it. But they aren't entirely aligned either, as can be
witnessed by all of the many many ambient modular jams that I'm sure were fun
for the artist to make but are just pointless boring noodling to the listener.

 _> One of my tracks, btw, if any of you got curious at what kind of music I
make: [https://soundcloud.com/flipbit03/ibu-
kid](https://soundcloud.com/flipbit03/ibu-kid) _

I like it! The filter sweep on the drums is <chef's kiss>. The overall
structure is really cool. So much electronic music just has nothing
interesting going on in the arrangement.

I first got into making music like, uh, 20 years ago using PlayerPro on a Mac.
I was way more productive back then. Trackers are fun. But also my music was a
lot shittier, so there's a trade-off. Have you talked yourself into getting a
Polyend Tracker yet?

Here's my stuff:

[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSMJ0iRwAhIFYSpntOEtn2g?vie...](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSMJ0iRwAhIFYSpntOEtn2g?view_as=subscriber)

I like putting it on YouTube because that feels less formal and less like a
"release" to me. Though the downside is having to make some kind of video for
each thing.

------
glassdimly
I use the Alphasmart, also. FYI, there's MacOs software for transferring the
text that works great. It needed a PR and Xcode, so I bundled it into a dmg
and am distributing it here:
[https://glassdimly.com/blog/tech/macos/alphasync-macos-
catal...](https://glassdimly.com/blog/tech/macos/alphasync-macos-catalina-
download-and-install-appdmg)

~~~
DanielleMolloy
Thanks for the pointer. Do you use yours for prose or also for more technical
(or even research) text?

------
vikingcaffiene
My partner is a novelist and owns two of these. She's been drafting with them
for a little over a year and swears by them. She says the appeal is that you
can't go back and read more than a few lines so you just kind of go and then
edit later. I also think the appeal is the keys themselves. Similar in feel to
an old Thinkpad.

~~~
mhd
I wouldn't go as far, the typing feel isn't as good as old Thinkpads and the
keys are definitely more fragile. Can't replace them, either. A device of the
same form factor, even display, with an Arduino for tinkering and mechanical
keys would be a godsend.

~~~
retzkek
I use an Atreus [1] as my daily keyboard, and Phil has been experimenting with
various forms of "cyberdeck" based on that [2,3]. Something like that, with a
minimalist emacs config like [4] would be an awesome portable writing device.

1\. [https://atreus.technomancy.us/](https://atreus.technomancy.us/)

2\.
[https://atreus.technomancy.us/decklog](https://atreus.technomancy.us/decklog)

3\.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberDeck/comments/d2rwp1/atreus_de...](https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberDeck/comments/d2rwp1/atreus_deck_mk4/)

4\. [https://github.com/rougier/elegant-
emacs](https://github.com/rougier/elegant-emacs)

------
arnado
It reminds me of the TRS-80 model 100. I seem to remember reading a story
linked here a while back regarding the 100 and how popular it was for
journalists to write stories on, and maybe be uploaded via modem to the editor
when completed? (I might be remembering this incorrectly)

~~~
fanf2
You are thinking of this
[http://wayne.lorentz.me/This_TRS-80/](http://wayne.lorentz.me/This_TRS-80/)

~~~
arnado
yes, thank you. I'll have to read over it again and refresh my memory.

------
zelos
My dad used a Tandy Dreamwriter for many years to write on while working as a
travel journalist, well into the 2000's.

Small, Z80 based, with a few lines of text on the screen and powered by AA
batteries. Other journalists used to laugh at the 'old guy with the Fisher
Price computer', but the instant-on and distraction free typing was a definite
advantage. Pretty nice not having to worry about a fragile, expensive laptop
while out in the jungle or whatever, too.

~~~
mprev
Oh cool. The Dreamwriter was based on the Amstrad NC100:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_NC100

A very cool little device, at the time. I borrowed one as a kid and it seemed
very exciting to be able to type things wherever I was.

I'm kinda nostalgic for that less connected era, where life moved at a
slightly slower pace. Like all nostalgia, I'm leaving out the bad parts.

~~~
hombre_fatal
You make the link unclickable when you format it as code.

------
geocrasher
I am not a novelist. The problem isn't the device, it's my brain. But when I
have a creative block, I take a page from the novelists that just works.

I close my eyes and start typing.

In fact, Iv'e closed my eyes just now as I write this. Touch typing obviously
helps! But it allows me to hyper-focus on my writing and not on anything else.
If I wanted to, I could turn off all notifications. or just turn my sound off
completely with "mute". No big deal. Granted, this isn't very portable, but I
could do this with my laptop. The only thing I lack is the huge battery life.

As I open my eyes now, I re-emerge into the Real World where there exists more
than my writing. I fix the typos, make an observation, and click "add
comment".

But not before I add one more thing: You don't need a device to write. You
need a process, and you need to get out of your own head.

------
fooblat
Although the author mentions using outdated and unsupported software to
transfer the text, it isn't actually required.

These also have a mode where it just "types" the text into the program of your
choice, via the usb cable. No drivers required and works with any OS that can
recognize a usb keyboard.

------
ballenf
I believe we'll see a return to more single use devices. They won't supplant
smartphones.

For one, I've thought a lot about having two separate computers: one for
writing code and a second for googling when I need help / slack / email / HN.

And then keeping the two devices in physically separate places.

I could accomplish this with software and accounts, but I know for myself it
would be less effective.

~~~
gonzo41
I have that, I have a work laptop, that i dock into a displaylink set of
screens to run my work dev environment. And then sitting on the desk next to
me is my personal laptop. Totally different uses and the seperation is really
important because i never worry about typing the wrong thing into the wrong
context because the full size keyboard is attached to the work computer.

It's worked really well for me for about 3 years now. And i hardly look at my
phone.

~~~
dividedbyzero
I do pretty much the same, but I have my phone sitting next to me with an
external bluetooth keyboard. I'd use an iPad, but there's no Whatsapp for
those currently.

------
willmacdonald
Seems similar to this:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Z88](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Z88)

The Cambridge Computer Z88 is an A4-size, lightweight, portable Z80-based
computer with a built-in combined word processing/spreadsheet/database
application called PipeDream (functionally equivalent to a 1987 BBC Micro ROM
called Acornsoft View Professional),[1] along with several other applications
and utilities, such as a Z80-version of the BBC BASIC programming language.

~~~
julesallen
I bought one of these new when they came out and it was life changing. The
BASIC was surprisingly good and I got almost as much out of the spreadsheet as
I did the word processor.

One area that was a disappointment is _really_ doesn't like x-ray machines (or
maybe the other bits in the scanning process — magnets?). I asked for hand
inspection at LHR, they refused, and putting it through the scanner corrupted
what was stored in memory. Only upside is doing something again is usually
quicker and better than the first time.

------
arexxbifs
Seems like any laptop booting a minimal Linux distro straight into a similarly
simplistic text editor should be able to provide the same experience. Could be
carried around on a USB stick, effectively turning any available computer into
an AlphaSmart.

~~~
LeoPanthera
I've always liked WordGrinder. It runs in the terminal/console!

[http://cowlark.com/wordgrinder/index.html](http://cowlark.com/wordgrinder/index.html)

~~~
arexxbifs
That's what I use! It's pretty minimal by modern standards but might still be
too full-featured for AlphaSmart simulation.

------
macspoofing
Makes sense. Single-purposes devices are kind of cool. It's why eBook readers
have a place in a world where tablets exist.

I don't know about AlphaSmart though - the screen is too cramped. I suspect
after the initial euphoria of finding another way to write wears off, the
author will get tired of the limitations and go back to writing on a tablet or
PC. Having said that, maybe there is a market for a writing-only device,
similar to a read-only eBook reader.

~~~
eropple
I've been using one for long-form writing for about a decade now. Haven't
gotten tired of it yet.

~~~
macspoofing
Cool. I'm not a writer so I don't know what works and what doesn't. If it
works for you and the author - great!

~~~
eropple
Sure.

The other device I often use is a Thinkpad A20m running Linux. The only web
browser on it is lynx (which I mostly use or Wikipedia).

------
larrywright
For people wanting something like this, there are still plenty of Apple’s
EMate devices available on EBay:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMate_300](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMate_300)

------
timurlenk
These people have a somewhat modern alternative with mechanical keyboard and
eink screen. It has wifi and that's it. From watching the reviews I understood
that a major drawback is that no editing is possible on the device itself and
it is very expensive (600$)

[https://getfreewrite.com/](https://getfreewrite.com/)

I personally use occasionally an android based ebook reader with a bluetooth
keyboard (Onyx BOOX Poke 2 with logitech k380). Distraction free writing is a
thing.

~~~
mprev
This feels like the sort of thing people buy to kid themselves that the
problem with their writing lies outside their own brains.

Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of a dedicated writing device but, for me
as someone who writes pretty much for the entire working day, inconvenience is
the biggest bar to writing other than lack of sleep. If I can't edit on the
device, or find the text in my usual GSuite/Office 365 spaces, then maybe I'd
be better off with a $40 dictaphone and Rev.com.

~~~
tonyarkles
> This feels like the sort of thing people buy to kid themselves that the
> problem with their writing lies outside their own brains.

I posted elsewhere in this thread about this, so to summarize: I've been at a
cabin using LTE tethering, and am consciously turning my Internet connection
off and on.

I fully realize that the problem is in my brain, but putting up just _that
tiny_ of a barrier is enough of an effective "hack" to change the way I work
in a positive way. Because there's no connection most of the time I'm working,
there's no HN, there's no email popping up, there's no Slack notifications,
and there's no "falling down a rabbit hole searching for a solution". I'm
spending way more time writing down/rubber ducking the problem I'm trying to
solve and coming up with the solution myself (which generally results in a
much better understanding of the problem)

------
minikites
Sometimes I wonder how often these "productivity tips" mask a deeper feeling
of indifference or rejection of the task entirely. People spend hours finding
the right tools for a task thinking it will make them want to do it instead of
examining the task itself and their feelings around it.

~~~
reidjs
To a certain extent I agree. If you were really passionate about something
like this you would make it happen regardless of your circumstances. Think
about kids who grow up in impoverished island nations who make it to the MLB
through sheer perseverance.

The difference is unless you're already wealthy or talented, you _need_ to
write effectively to compete in the modern 'white collar' workforce.

Writing something that people want to read is very hard. People don't read for
the sake of reading, they read to learn something or feel something. It can
take years of consistent practice to evoke anger, sadness, or laughter through
writing. Think about how many books, workshops, and college courses there are
on writing itself. It is sort of like programming, it is a skill that anyone
can learn given enough time and it has very little barrier to entry. This
makes it extremely competitive, so a lot of people need to exploit whatever
edge they can get.

------
vorpalhex
I still remember as a child playing on a 1980s word processor that my mom had.
It had maybe a 4 line display, with an ugly greenish backlighting and no
battery whatsoever. It did however have a hinge mechanism so that little text
only screen would fold over the keyboard.

~~~
TedDoesntTalk
These dedicated word processor devices were quite popular and cheap. Built-in
printer and floppy drive, shaped somewhat like a typewriter.

We had two in my house, even though we also had general purpose computers. I
think they were still in use into the early 90s for school reports.

------
lewisflude
For the mechanical keyboard lovers out there, there is a Cherry MX compatible
AlphaSmart 3000 PCB:
[https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=91504.0](https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=91504.0)

------
baronblackmore
One of my writer friends accomplishes a similar workflow by just having a
writing account on his laptop, where everything is disabled except a text
editor.

------
c22
I was given a first generation Alphasmart in middle school and told to use it
for all my assignments since I had such terrible handwriting. At the time I
thought it was incredibly cool, but in retrospect I wonder if I fell prey to
some ill-thought _technology in the classroom_ program. Perhaps it would have
been better if they had just helped me fix my handwriting.

------
nanna
Alphasmart HN thread from 2017 here, with comments by co-founder Ketan Kothari
and Freewrite's founder too:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15836866](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15836866)

------
golem14
Given the amount of work going into custom DIY mechanical keyboards, it's
surprising that there aren't DIY solutions out there. All you need is a $5 MCU
(think ESP32) and a cheap display. Would make a fun side project :)

~~~
golem14
One problem is that cheap LCD displays are not easy to source. E.g., the
largest old school lcds I find are 4x20 characters, which is a bit confining.

There seem to be tons of TFT options out there on the cheap, but they're
probably not great in terms of eye strain and power consumption.

If price is no object, then e-ink displays seem a great choice, e.g. $70 for a
7.5'' display: [https://www.banggood.com/Waveshare-7_5-Inch-E-ink-Screen-
Mod...](https://www.banggood.com/Waveshare-7_5-Inch-E-ink-Screen-Module-e-
Paper-Display-SPI-Interface-For-Raspberry-Pi-p-1365278.html)

~~~
fenwick67
Many of these larger epaper displays are meant for very low refresh speeds -
I'm talking 5 seconds plus. This one takes 6 seconds.

------
ProZsolt
Outline link: [https://outline.com/PzjuRt](https://outline.com/PzjuRt)

------
DanielleMolloy
The Psion series got some legendary status for its attention to detail. The
Psion 5 had backlight, was running on batteries (25-35h battery life) and it
has a slot for Compact Flash Cards. The keyboard is foldable. If you find an
adapter for the CF cards they can still be used today for writing similarly to
what is described here with the AlphaSmart.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psion_Series_5](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psion_Series_5)

~~~
julesallen
Loved that thing! Batteries lasted forever and the LCD was perfect for the job
of being focused. My hands are almost too big to touch type on it so notes
often needed editing when transferred to a desktop. Typing on it is kind of
like writing with Graffiti on a Palm, it takes some practice and then all of a
sudden you're pretty good at it.

If you liked the Psion you might like its successor the Gemini from Planet
Computers ([https://store.planetcom.co.uk/products/gemini-
pda-1](https://store.planetcom.co.uk/products/gemini-pda-1)). Same awesome
keyboard.

~~~
DanielleMolloy
Oh, I really fancied the Gemini. A tiny Linux computer the size of a Psion 5
sounded pretty awesome to me as a former Psion lover. I'm not unhappy that I
did not buy it in the end though - battery life, and it comes with all the
smart phone distractions - the Psion 5 used to be my distraction free writer,
not a terminal access device.

If you need to frequently do admin tasks (e.g. config file and script editing)
it's still a pretty interesting choice.

------
gadders
Who's tried coding on one? Own up :-) You could bang out 500 lines of JS
without stopping and then upload it to your PC and see if it runs...

------
hugozap
To maximize focus I've used the "One system user per project" trick. It works
well because now everything in your desktop has to do with your project
(files/notes/calendar/bookmarks/etc)

I've been able to ship a few projects using this trick.

Not sure who was (Maybe Seth Godin?) who recommended using a different
computer, which may even work better.

------
hairofadog
Along these lines I've been thinking a nice device would be an e-ink reader
that _only_ loads Wikipedia. (You know, for kids!)

~~~
Jaruzel
Similar idea: [https://youtu.be/R63x2TXm0s8](https://youtu.be/R63x2TXm0s8)

It's a raspberry Pi, with an e-ink screen, and battery to provide an 'offline'
repository of information, including Wikipedia.

------
nl
[https://www.osnews.com/story/131180/the-alphasmart-dana-
in-2...](https://www.osnews.com/story/131180/the-alphasmart-dana-in-2019/) has
a few more technical details of the device for those interested.

It runs PalmOS!

~~~
zelos
> I found a free text editor specifically written for the dana’s wide screen
> (SiEd, dana version) on SourceForge in alpha, and left abandoned 4 years
> ago. That editor will sometimes crash the whole system...

Nice to know my crappy code is still causing problems all these years later.

------
paulcarroty
I use Amazon Basics keyboard ($13), super comfortable for coding. Bought it
just for fun after reading this thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20866319](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20866319)

------
falcor84
On a related note, I've been imagining this product idea, as an educational
toy that would help kids practice typing and spelling: A small physical
keyboard with a small (but larger than the AlphaSmart's) attached color
display, which does nothing but present a single picture of the thing that
you've typed, and show nothing if the current input is misspelled or otherwise
not found. I'm thinking that it would have an internal (no internet
connection) visual dictionary similar to the one that comes with the
Scribblenauts game and would be rugged enough for 3 year old kids to play
with.

Do you happen to know of any existing product like this, or the feasibility of
building one?

~~~
vidarh
I don't know if they have something specifically like what you want, but VTech
has a whole range of educational toys with keyboards and assorted phonics and
spelling tutorials.

If you do a search for "vtech abc" and variations you'll find a huge number of
different types of devices.

~~~
mprovost
Wow I didn't know they were still around. My first PC was a VTech XT clone!

------
rjack_
I wonder if creating a different OS account on the same day-to-day work laptop
with limited access to app, games and no internet would trigger the same
"Pavlovian response" the article talks about. Did anyone tried this approach?

------
mixmastamyk
Reminds me of the Radio Shack portable:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Model_100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Model_100)

There were also a few simple word processors by Brother I think.

------
ericol
This is a very vintage & romantic way of going at it.

If you don't have a way to acquire one of these devices, a similar solution
can be implemented with a Bluetooth keyboard (Like the Logitech K480,U$D 35 @
Amazon, and has a slot for tables or phones) and a tablet or your phone (Or
_a_ phone).

You'll need an app for that, and my current choice for writing in my tablet is
Joplin [1] that has apps for all the OSes and phones, and can be hooked with
different ways of cloud storing for your files (Like Dropbox or NextCloud)

[1] [https://joplinapp.org/](https://joplinapp.org/)

~~~
frank2
You missed the main point of the OP: the AlphaSmart lacks the distractions
(temptations to procrastinate) of a smartphone or tablet.

Do you never find yourself using your smartphone or tablet to procrastinate
after intending to use it for a productive purpose?

~~~
ericol
Yes. That's actually why my tablet (That I use mainly for reading) doesn't
have my main Gmail account linked to it, plus I always use it on airplane
model.

My take was that not that many people will have the choice to get their hand
on one of these devices (I, for one, can't).

------
i_am_proteus
I use a Hermes Rocket (typewriter) for similar reasons: similar form factor,
does not require electricity, saves your work to paper rather than electronic
storage. About $50 used.

The keyboard is mechanical, as is the rest of the device.

------
walrus01
That thing looks kind of like a TRS-80 model 100

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Model_100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Model_100)

------
nanna
Requisite HN comment but also a genuine one too: Is there any chance any of
these Freewrites, Alphasmarts or machines from Japan support, or could be
hacked to support, emacs keybindings?

~~~
numpad0
There’s a guy who reflashed Pomera DM200 to run XEmacs, though at that point
it’s just an ARM laptop with no mouse

------
afandian
I've recently bought a handful of these (the more basic Pro and 2000), with
the aim of replacing the insides with an ESP32, but otherwise do the same job.
There's a community of people, weirdly on Flickr, who provided enough
motivation to buy one.

[https://www.flickr.com/groups/alphasmart/](https://www.flickr.com/groups/alphasmart/)

------
framebit
The Alphasmart! We did typing class with that back in the early 00's. The IR
beam to the printer felt like science fiction back in the day.

------
klodolph
We had these in school when I was young. I loved them. I could carry one
around the playground and write a story. When you got back to the classroom,
you transferred it to the computer by hooking it up as a keyboard. I’ve been
dreaming about getting one for a while. The passive matrix LCD works well in
sunlight and the batteries last a long time.

------
Wistar
In the very late 80s, a co-worker of mine, a corporate-productions
scriptwriter, gave up his Mac and started using a Neo2-like device -- it
looked very similar and used AA batteries. I remember him crowing about how it
was a game-changer for him, and that it made him a much more productive, and
better, writer.

I also recall thinking he was nuts.

------
5-
tangentially related, i've been playing a bit with a brother ep-44 (see, e.g.,
[https://darrengoossens.wordpress.com/2018/08/09/serial-
termi...](https://darrengoossens.wordpress.com/2018/08/09/serial-terminal-
with-benefits-brother-ep-44/)).

i've mostly been running it as a linux tty, but in spite of being designated a
'personal electronic printer', it has some memory and editing features so
could pass as a portable word processor.

unfortunately its keyboard is quite unsatisfactory, so i'm considering
acquiring a
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_700](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_700)
also for use as a tty.

i would be interested in further suggestions along these lines.

------
brettermeier
Why use medium.com with this login-wall?

~~~
pier25
Probably because it's free and easy.

------
fortran77
This reminds me of the Tandy 100, which was widely used by news reporters even
into the early 80s.

------
grayclhn
That device looks fantastic for what the author wants. Another approach if you
need a little more flexibility in the software might be using a deliberately
limited old laptop. (I'd rather type in emacs, for example.) Battery life
would be a lot worse, obviously.

------
kinghtown
I own a neo2. They are nice for first drafts or noodling with words. There
really is something in the idea of dumbing down tech to get things done. I
have written quite a bit on it but three things have held me back from being a
power user:

1\. It uses a dated, proprietary cable to transfer your writing to a computer.
Worst part of this is that the AlphaSmart re-types your writing so if you’ve
written the 50000 word max then it will take some time to save it. The process
is just annoying enough to trigger procrastination.

2\. If the battery comes out then you’ve lost everything. This isn’t such a
dealbreaker since I want a dumber word processor to get out of my way but I
think it makes the keyboard a little too dumb.

3\. Honestly, it’s not sexy. It’s huge, too. And people with no interest in
writing just don’t get it at all. The looks people give me when I’ve used it
in the public are like “what insane Jesus cult stuff is this guy writing on
that??” Nothing crazy here, just hunting bugs on TempleOS.

I see a market for a machine like this but done better. The just write or
whatever branding they are using checks a lot of boxes but the price is
insane.

I think I’ll just rig up Atom to work a little bit more like Scrivener.

~~~
Taylor_OD
[https://getfreewrite.com/](https://getfreewrite.com/)

I remember something like this being announced a few years ago called The
Hemingway. This is what I found when I DDG'ed The Hemingway typing machine.

~~~
kinghtown
Yeah these are the guys I was referring to when I wrote Just Write. Their
prices are still insane. Plus are they ever going to release the traveller?
I’m pretty sure it’s been listed as presale for 2 years now. My neo2 was $40
CDN with shipping. Paying like 20x that for something which is just a tad bit
nicer is kind of wrong. You’ve either got to be a working novelist to justify
the cost or like someone whose been sitting on the same handful of story
premises for 20 years but never finished anything you know like I’m gonna
throw down $700 on this thing because I’m actually really very serious this
time about writing a book. No thanks. Laptop will do here.

------
tartoran
This is interesting but I wonder whether no fewer and fewer folks remembers
the pleasure of writing by hand with a nice fountain pen in a nice notebook.
Not being able to edit also forces one into a different writing mode.

~~~
goda90
I've never had good handwriting, and I find the process makes my hand tired
pretty quickly, so for me there is nothing to remember.

~~~
tartoran
I hear you but this is true of typing on a keyboard for some:RSI. Last time I
was doing a lot of hand writing was in college and my writing has gotten way
worse since because of lack of practice. But, I remember not having to think
much about writing, my hand had a brain of its own.

------
pier25
GRR Martin still writes in DOS with WordStar:
[https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27407502](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27407502)

------
ngcc_hk
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Model_100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Model_100)

------
JoeAltmaier
A very similar productivity trick, to having a separate 'office space' when
working at home. Triggers the mind to enter work mode, and minimizes
distractions.

~~~
tartoran
Of course it does but for many the problem is affordability so I'll take it as
a nice to have luxury.

------
mosselman
How safe is your text on this? What if this thing breaks or has some glitch?
Is there some form of cloud backup? I'd be terrified of losing data to this
thing.

~~~
TedDoesntTalk
If you read the article, you’ll learn the only method of getting data off the
device is via usb connection to a host computer.

~~~
mosselman
You caught me, I didn't read the whole thing.

------
gohwell
Are there any OS projects that would turn a computer into a word processor
like this? Seems like a nice way to bring an old laptop back to life.

~~~
gohwell
Answering my own question:
[https://raymii.org/s/blog/Vim_as_PID_1_Boot_to_Vim.html](https://raymii.org/s/blog/Vim_as_PID_1_Boot_to_Vim.html)

------
pkamb
ThinkPad X40 is the perfect machine for this. I’d love to see a dedicated
disro with only writing + simple local and/or network backup.

------
moonbug
for similar reasons, I swear by my Remarkable tablet.

------
beamatronic
The keyboard in question is a 1993 AlphaSmart device

~~~
adamiscool8
The author is using a 2007 model from eBay, but it is cool to see the
technology from my childhood classroom almost 30 years ago persist. I
definitely wrote a few elementary essays on these in my day.

------
ceedan
My first thought when looking at this thing was neck pain.

Personally, I would be in rough shape if I used this thing for more than 15
minutes.

~~~
kinghtown
I actually don’t look at the screen when I’m typing on mine. I’m like zoning
out when I use it.

I write my first drafts on my MacBook in a similar way where I turn the screen
off and type away.

~~~
ceedan
Wow that's pretty cool insight to a writer's process. I'm not sure that ever
would have occurred to me

~~~
kinghtown
If you’re thinking of trying it, I recommend having soft targets for scenes or
chapters. Some kind of direction. Also it takes a bit of time for the engine
to start running. At first it’s kind of weird and you’ll be prompting yourself
with like “what’s next what’s next” anxiety but if you tough it out for about
15 minutes then the dream logic kicks in. All these cool things float up from
the subconscious. Lots of typos,too.

------
hamilyon2
Serious question: does anyone writing professionally or as a hobby use voice
input as main input device? Why?

------
kalium-xyz
I wonder how you could modify one of these to be more suited for writing code.

~~~
tartoran
Upgrade to a laptop, boot up into a stripped down verison of your OS

~~~
kalium-xyz
Not what Im looking for, a laptop is both too overkill and to underkill on the
battery life

------
dzuc
similar devices [https://www.are.na/laurel-schwulst/free-writing-
devices](https://www.are.na/laurel-schwulst/free-writing-devices)

------
bookmarkable
Tired of links to paid content, pay walls, Admiral anti-ad blocks.

------
brudgers
Hardware is a useful abstraction.

------
elchin
Digital minimalism!

------
depaulagu
Posting paywalled-articles in HN should be highly discouraged...

~~~
lukifer
[https://outline.com/PzjuRt](https://outline.com/PzjuRt)

------
jedimastert
I think folks here might enjoy the idea of cyberdecks

reddit.com/r/cyberdecks

~~~
dividedbyzero
Am I doing something wrong, or is that subreddit essentially empty?

Also, aren't cyberdecks the complete opposite to these devices? They strike me
as a multi-purpose device like any laptop, but in a different form factor and
maybe a bit more optimized for hardware hacking?

~~~
jedimastert
I linked to the wrong sub, there shouldn't be an s on the end

I would say that cyberdecks can be whatever you want. I've seen some single-
purpose form factors like network testing or radio telemetry before


Who got interviewed by Highland? - ginn

======
ginn
Now that we know which Y combinator members were accepted into the Y
combinator program, LightSpeed, and TechStars. Let's see who got into
Highland. Anyone get the interview call this week yet?


How to Improve Security Awareness of Software Engineers - forty
https://blog.dashlane.com/sstic-2019-improve-security-awareness-of-software-engineers/
======
yogesch
Perhaps test teams could include a security sub-team as well..

So, for example, if a tester is working on whether the file upload feature is
done right, another tester could start uploading known malicious files to see
how they get handled.


Scalable Work Queues with Beanstalk - igrigorik
http://www.igvita.com/2010/05/20/scalable-work-queues-with-beanstalk/

======
mattrepl
There are some tasks, such as asynchronously-generated web content, where a
message queue is the obvious solution. But there are a class of problems where
either a message queue or batch processing system (e.g., Hadoop) could be
used. Consider the summation of user mention counts from the Twitter streaming
API for an example; either a job is put on a queue for each tweet containing a
mention, or each of the mentioning tweets are thrown into a bucket that is
used as the source for a batch job that recurrently executes.

From what's mentioned in the article, it sounds like some of the tasks that
Beanstalk is being used for at PostRank are the same type of tasks that other
companies, such as FlightCaster, are doing with Hadoop/Cascading.

The trade-off seems to be that message queues are more flexible and can offer
lower latency of job completion but batch processing systems provide better
support for admin concerns like adding worker nodes, debugging, and reporting.

~~~
igrigorik
"From what's mentioned in the article, it sounds like some of the tasks that
Beanstalk is being used for at PostRank are the same type of tasks that other
companies, such as FlightCaster, are doing with Hadoop/Cascading."

Hmm, not at all. A message queue and a job queue are not necessarily one and
the same. What we need is real-time scheduling, with up to the second
resolution for each job. We don't run a batch "go fetch all of these pages"
jobs, rather our system is always running, always fetching content. For that,
a heap/work queue is required.

~~~
mattrepl
I've enjoyed reading your posts over the years, thanks for them.

You're correct that a message queue isn't necessarily a job queue, I was
referring to job queues.


The 3 Most Common Topics You Hear as a Lyft Driver - stervy
https://medium.com/rideshare-journal/the-3-most-common-topics-you-hear-as-a-lyft-driver-14de5ba064dc
======
swframe2
As a lyft rider, I am surprised to have had 3 lyft drivers who moved to the
bay area in the 80s, own several houses and have a net worth of several
million.

The conversations I have had with lyft drivers have been very interesting.
Besides the convenience of not having to drive myself, meeting the drivers has
been a wonderful experience. I've learned a lot.

Just today a driver told me: if you are sad, you are too focused in the past,
stressed ... too focused on the present, anxious ... too focused on the
future.

~~~
SOLAR_FIELDS
I've had a few rides with such drivers. Generally they are older and want to
continually experience the world, so they drive so they can talk to people
about their life experiences. It's one of the cooler and more positive
byproducts of this rapid change in the transport economy that has had much
media coverage of negatives.

------
jaclaz
>Liked this article? Please subscribe to the newsletter above and recommend
the article below!

Which article?

For once the title is not click-baity and it is actually true and accurate, a
list of three most common topics heard (and nothing else).


Misconceptions About Forward Secrecy - xnyhps
https://blog.thijsalkema.de/blog/2014/01/17/misconceptions-about-forward-secrecy/

======
cies
It seems that in post-2013 articles on encryption the phrase "a malicious 3rd
party" has been completely replaced by the 3-letter acronym: NSA.

~~~
MattJ100
To be fair, they're one of a small set (possibly of size 1) of organisations
that would be able to carry out most of the attacks discussed. Things that
were considered highly unlikely pre-2013 are now a real possibility, if not
probability.

~~~
ithkuil
why? is there any revelation that they have the compute power to do that? Or
it's just because now it's know that they'd really like to do it?

~~~
schmichael
The NSA is somewhat open about the massive amounts of computing power they
have available: [http://nsa.gov1.info/utah-data-
center/](http://nsa.gov1.info/utah-data-center/)

Lots of goodies on this public site like "This [compute cluster] will give us
the capability to break the AES encryption key within an actionable time
period and allow us to read and process stored encrypted domestic data as well
as foreign diplomatic and military communications."

Obviously leaked documents and other media reports contain much scarier
revelations into what the NSA is capable of, but I thought I'd post what they
acknowledge since it's safe to assume they're capable of much more.

~~~
aneisf
In case someone doesn't pick up on it, gov1.info is a parody site.

~~~
schmichael
Wow I'm gullible.

------
wbl
This article is dead wrong on multiple points. First off, the impact of
multiple keys is different for the parallel Rho method: the time to the first
key to be cracked is the same. Secondly ECDH is commonly used to avoid the
problem mentioned in the second point. The worst part is people will make
decisions based on this wrong information.

~~~
xnyhps
My claim is: FS does not imply, by definition, that every attack scales
linearly in the amount of keys. Having a counter-example of an attack that
_does_ scale linearly does not disprove that point.

I indeed only cover DH at #2, as index-calculus does not apply to ECDH.

------
sp332
Looks like the page is dead?

Edit: oh it's back. In any case here's a better archive if it goes down again
[https://archive.is/2rQfr](https://archive.is/2rQfr)


Ask HN: What do you do when an homeless ask you money? - Buetol

Simple question. I meet a lot of homeless people here in Paris. My rule is to never give money but food and friendlyness. But I feel like there have to be a better way to deal with it.
======
jason_slack
I made friends with one particular homeless man a few years ago. His name was
Raymond, he had previously in life worked manual labor jobs, had a wife and
kid. A proud husband and father. His wife left for someone who could provide
greener pastures. He never recovered from that.

I would see him when I was out running errands in my neighborhood. He never
had shoes on. I stopped one day and asked him if he needed shoes and what
size. I bought them for him. I gave him some food. He refused it. I thought
that was odd.

I saw him about a week later and offered him food and he said no again. I
asked him why and he said it is because I didn't offer it to him in a bag to
carry it. Then it made sense. If he couldn't carry it, he couldn't keep it
long term. It was to much to carry around all day everyday.

Over the years I gave him clothes, food, books, an old laptop (which, yes, he
was using months later, so he did not sell it), inviting him to holiday
dinners and my friendship. We would chat for hours sometimes about whatever
was going on. He was very in tune with current affairs.

Then I stopped seeing him. I drove around looking for him. I asked some others
where he might be and nobody knew. I never saw him again.

~~~
sandebert
That story read like something from Adrian Tomine. Check out his graphic
novels if you are into that kind of thing. I recommend Sleepwalk and Summer
Blonde, I enjoyed them a lot.

~~~
jason_slack
I haven't heard of this author before, thank you for mentioning him.

------
lsiunsuex
I never carry cash and I very rarely see homeless people though I'm sure they
exist here.

A past job I held, we were a very large call center (I was in IT) we had
hundreds of call center employees - every christmas, we would get in touch
with local shelters and hospitals and do a "needy family fund" where employees
would donate canned food, toys for kids, blankets, etc... anything you could
imagine. We gathered so much we filled 2 21 foot vans and supported 30+
families.

It always infuriated me that we did this. Not that I hated giving - I gave as
much as I could, but that we ran a call center. Onsite training for the call
center was just 1 week and every week we'd have 10-20 new hires (badge access
was a nightmare) - we'd train anyone that could pass a drug test and pass a
basic math quiz and pay started at $16 / hour with monthly bonus.

I often said - "Why don't we give these people jobs? We hire almost anyone off
the street. The toys and food are great, but if you want to see someone smile,
give them a job and let them provide a real life for their family"

I never got a strait answer.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
A very large portion of chronically homeless people have mental illnesses or
substance abuse problems that prevent them from keeping a job long term.

~~~
mcv
But there are also a lot of people who simply slipped through the cracks of
the system and would appreciate any help to get back on their feet. A job
could really help them out. It can't hurt to try.

------
throwaw4y
Throw away account.

I live in South Africa where we have homeless people on almost every street
corner. Because of this it is quite easy to be desensitized about the divide
in wealth. It is also difficult knowing who to give money to as a lot of
homeless people don't want help and will buy cheap alcohol and drugs so giving
money can often enable something you really do not want. I also find it
difficult to build any sort of relationship with someone homeless because they
move around a lot, I've also spent a lot of time and money cleaning some
people up, buying new clothes and organising job interviews for car guarding
at shopping centres only to find out that I've been taken advantage of.
Instead now days I give 5% of my salary to charities and NGO's who specialize
in helping the needy.

~~~
Buetol
Funding free shelters with free food and computers would be ideal for me. So I
would redirect the homeless to these places.

------
jane_is_here
I give them money if I have spare cash on me. They need it more than I do.

As to what they use it for, they are adults and can make their own choices,
whether it be using it to pay for a EduX course ( unlikely ) or buying heroin
( unlikely ).

If you or I became homeless ( admittedly unlikely ) and begged for money (
hopefully unlikely ), surely you would want to be given money rather than fake
friendliness or food.

~~~
mgrassotti
totally agreed

------
jseeff
I generally avoid giving money as I don't know where it ends up and don't want
to support substance abuse in any way. I tend to give to charities helping the
homeless. When I used to live in London and worked for a huge organisation, I
also organised a "buy a lunch" campaign once every few months whereby anyone
buying in the staff canteen could either add a set amount of money or
duplicate the cost of their meal and all the funds (matched by my
organisation) then went towards providing meals and shelter for the
homeless....

------
Totoradio
I almost never give money, but I usually give cigarettes or meal vouchers and
chat a little. When I finish a book I give it too, it's often much appreciated
because as one guy said "you have no idea how boring it is to be on the
street".

------
rocky1138
Nothing. Charity is injurious unless it helps the recipient to become
independent of it.

Instead, I donate time and money to worthy causes which the homeless can take
advantage of.

I think this is an effect of living in Canada, where we have a very good
social system for homeless people. If someone is on the streets here, it's
likely because they have a mental illness which causes them to be unable to or
simply refuse help.

I am not sure what to do for people like that since "you can bring a horse to
water but you can't make it drink." How can you force someone to go get help?
I don't know the correct answer, but I know enabling them by giving them money
is not the correct answer.

------
jrochkind1
I give them $1, pretty much every time. I make enough money that this practice
isn't really noticeable to my budget, so why not? It's not my business what
they use it for, I drink and do other things myself too.

The one guy who is always there on my usual daily lunch walking route, and is
kind of creepy too, I now only give him $1 once a week instead of every day,
because it was starting to annoy me and be noticeable in my wallet. The other
older guy who is always there on my usual daily lunch walking route, and who
is clearly mentally ill but very friendly and I like him a lot -- he doesn't
ask me every day (but does say "hey, how's it going?" every day), so I still
give him $1 every time he asks.

------
smt88
In the US, our system for elevating the homeless out of poverty is awful, but
our system for taking care of their basic needs is good.

One of the results is that most homeless people who actually resort to begging
on the street are some combination of mentally ill and addicted to something.
The addiction is often self-medication for the illness.

What can you do for those people? They need psychiatric care that's tailored
to each of them.

I think the most you can do as a non-wealthy individual is to support
politicians who understand that most homeless people are sick, that they're
not trash to be swept into a landfill, and that they can be lifted out of
homelessness with the right help.

~~~
DanBC
> The result is that most homeless people on the street are some combination
> of mentally ill and addicted to something. The addiction is often self-
> medication for the illness.

You need to be a bit careful with this. You use the word "most", and you imply
there's a causal reaction: people have mental illness and addiction problems,
which cause homelessness.

[http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/Mental_Illness.pd...](http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/Mental_Illness.pdf)

> According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration,
> 20 to 25% of the homeless population in the United States suffers from some
> form of severe mental illness. In comparison, only 6% of Americans are
> severely mentally ill (National Institute of Mental Health, 2009). In a 2008
> survey performed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, 25 cities were asked for
> the three largest causes of homelessness in their communities. Mental
> illness was the third largest cause of homelessness for single adults
> (mentioned by 48% of cities). For homeless families, mental illness was
> mentioned by 12% of cities as one of the top 3 causes of homelessness.

My worry is that people think better drug and alcohol treatment, and metter
mental health treatment, would cure almost all homelessness. It would get rid
of a lot of it, but not most of it.

It also doesn't recognise that being homeless probably causes some mental
health and addiction problems.

~~~
smt88
Sorry, I edited my comment after you had already copied it, so they don't
match up.

I meant to say that most of the people _begging for money_ are mentally ill,
addicted, or both. I got that info from a psych professor in college who was
researching homelessness with the CDC (they do that apparently).

It was only one city, but my assumption was that her research was a model for
many American cities. I could certainly be wrong about that.

I did imply that it was a causal relationship, and I certainly meant it. Part
of the definition of mental illness is that someone doesn't function in the
society in a prescribed way. That's also how people become homeless.

The point that people may also become mentally ill after becoming homeless is
well-taken, though, and I'd add that to my own comment if I could.

~~~
DanBC
I think we mostly agree! :-)

------
Dorian-Marie
I usually give all my little coins (< 1€).

Sometimes it's a lot, sometimes not. It's a lot to them but to me the coins
are annoying, I have to waste time sorting them and carrying them around. They
are difficult to spend for me.

------
MattBearman
Maybe it's a UK/US thing, as I know card payments are much more ubiquitous
over here, but I very rarely have any cash on me. I never need it, and I know
its the same for a lot of other people in the UK.

~~~
cphoover
In baltimore I've had homeless people come up to me with card readers. :) so
that excuse is going out the window. Here random guy let me give you my CC#

------
mgrassotti
I give $1 pretty much every time, which is a few times/day living in nyc.
Didn't used to but a few years back I read a book that changed my mind. Author
made the point that the best way to turn $1 into happiness is by giving away
in this situation. No matter what they use it for, the $1 clearly means more
to them than it does to me. I'd blow it at starbucks or whatever and not think
twice. More I think about it the more that seems true.

Only exception is if someone asks comes into restaurant and goes to each table
asking for money. That just drives me nuts.

~~~
Buetol
Only problem with this is that when you give to one, the others around are
gonna ask you too and I don't like feeling forced to do things.

~~~
smeyer
I haven't seen this problem before. In my city, panhandlers tend not to be
immediately next to each other (because it's worse for panhandling) and if you
walk by one and give a dollar, you can still walk by the next and not give
anything.

~~~
Buetol
Yep, in fact it's another kind of people. They want you to sign petition or
they want you to believe they are blind (they are looking for "gullible"
people)

------
mcv
I rarely have cash on me any more, but when I meet one near a supermarket, I
sometimes offer to buy something for them.

Years ago, I used to buy street newspapers regularly. The sellers are drug
free and actively trying to get their life back on track. But I never got
around to reading them, and it seemed like a waste of paper. I'd like to give
money, but the organization behind the paper warns against that, because the
entire point is that they earn their money, rather than begging for it. That
puts me in a complicated bind.

------
jtfairbank
I give him/her a cig and a smile. Its nice to be friendly. I also leave
bottles in an easily accessible cardboard box on days when I put the recycling
out.

I only give cash if they are contributing to the public space (playing music,
etc). For security reasons I avoid giving change or cash to someone who is
engaging me directly.

If someone seems interesting I'll def buy them a meal (and eat with them) to
help them out and continue the conversation.

------
lexandstuff
Always give money if I have it. If even a fraction of it goes toward food or
shelter, then it's money well spent.

------
blueflow
Similar to you, i never give money because of the abuse potantial, and money
itself is just a placeholder for what they actually need. Food does better.
I've made experience that alot of poor people are ashamed of their situation
and will even refuse when you offer something.

In German cities there is a trend to leave returnable bottles after
picknicking or just place them next to trash cans, a lot of poor people
collect them and are able to feed themselves on the bottles return value. This
seems to be the primary tactic here to keep those folks from starving, beside
from governmental support.

------
faithfone
I don't judge. I don't even think about it. I just give whatever I can afford
when asked. Sometimes it's $20+. Other times it is nothing.

------
brickmort
living near NYC has taught me to ignore beggars. At a certain point, you lose
sympathy because you can't distinguish who genuinely needs it and who's just
looking to make an easy buck.

------
airframeng
If one earns enough to the point that pocket change (coins) has become a
burden to carry around and one has the "opportunity" to give it to the
homeless, then it's a win-win.

------
tmaly
I use to not give money and just give food. However now, if I see the same
person out there in subzero temps, I usually give them a $20. I just think,
hey maybe someday that will be me.

------
fleshshelf
I don't want to give money to anyone unless I think it can really help to
solve a root cause of their poverty. I prefer redistribution of wealth to
individual contributions.

~~~
fwn
Individual contributions cause redistribution. Did you think charitable
organisations or just government?

------
danvesma
I give a small amount of money – its more dignified and trustful than trying
to buy them food.

~~~
jseeff
I think offering to buy someone a meal is pretty dignified, especially (but
not only) if you have time to eat with them.

------
radoslawc
bum: sir you maybe got some spare change? me:funny I was just about to ask you
the same question

As a rule I never give anything to homeless, they are homeless because they
like to live like that. There are plenty places where they can seek help, many
of them founded from my tax money. Only requirement is to be sober. Giving
them money, food, clothes etc it only makes worse since they can spend all day
to get hammered.

~~~
jseeff
I agree that it is not always the best solution to give money (rather than say
food etc) but "because they like to live like that" is (as far as I am able to
ascertain) a huge over-simplification and in many cases probably an outright
falacy. It is well documented that (as with the prison population) there is a
high occurrence of mental disorder in homeless people.

~~~
radoslawc
Right, that was oversimplification from my side, and cost me 4 precious carma
points so far. Sure. But I live in city with loads of tourists, and most so
called "homeless" people here are not people struggling to live trough another
day, but rather making good living out of scared tourists.

~~~
jseeff
I'm still quite new around here so don't fully understand how all this Karma
thing works - sorry if I somehow caused you to lose something! (Incidentally,
I would love to understand it better, know how to search and track replies to
comments etc without having to re-read the whole thread, but I digress...)

I think the point you make is different to "choosing".... and is the main
reason I prefer to give something that a truly needy person will definitely
appreciate (e.g. food, shelter) rather than something that could be spent on
alcohol, drugs or be taken by someone who isn't really needy.

In sum though, I think as long as someone is trying to help, each can choose
his or her own preferred way to do that :)


Who Really Benefits From Interest Deductions - 001sky
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/realestate/mortgages-who-really-benefits-from-interest-deductions.html

======
mooism2
It's only talking about mortgage interest.

That's a pity. I'd like to read a well-written piece about how interest
deduction for business works out. It seems designed to make it easier for
businesses to invest, but I wonder how the costs of leveraged buyouts etc
compare.

~~~
001sky
The analysis is the same. The tax-deduction is a subsidy to the <equity>
holders, of whatever asset class. So, for homes, the subsidy accrues to the
equity holder. For business, the same thing. Policywise, housing is
consumption (luxury, in particular) and business capital structure is
investment. Subsidizing the latter has a far stronger policy rationale per-se
but the capture technique (components of cost or net profit) is arbitrary.
Analytically, see:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modigliani%E2%80%93Miller_theor...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modigliani%E2%80%93Miller_theorem#With_taxes).


CommanderSong: Song videos with hidden commands your phone recognizes - ColinWright
https://twitter.com/dragosr/status/1192246019926315009
======
qnsi
He was so focused on whether he could, that he didn't ask himself if he should


Are symbols, myths and metaphors sort of like file compression for culture? - eli_oat
http://elioat.tumblr.com/post/86402521425/are-symbols-myths-and-metaphors-sort-of-like-file

======
coldtea
Well, symbols, myth etc are a summary of complex events and notions.

In that sense, they are sort of file compression.

But in other senses the metaphor breaks, because it cannot convey the
similarities.

One can enjoy a myth or symbol in itself -- but a compressed file is useless
unless it can be opened.

Second, the uncompressed file can be comprehended at once (e.g a movie can be
viewed, a compressed doc can be read, etc). The cultural notions that are
"compressed" into myths, though, cannot be understood by anyone in their
entirety -- so the "compression" of the myth is somehow necessary.

Third, a compressed file is usually the work of a single person. Whereas
culture (and myths, symbols etc) are a shared work of a people.

~~~
eli_oat
Noting that a myth can be enjoyed in and of itself, while a compressed file is
really rather boring until it is uncompressed, I think you've hit on something
I didn't think of at all. Thank you.

I'm wondering now if a more apt word would have been "encoding," rather than
compression?

~~~
coldtea
Yes, encoding sounds more apt on this regard. Perhaps "lossy crowd-sourced
encoding" would convey all aspects!


Do Not use namecheap.com for any large site or important domain - highclass
Namecheap.com seems popular for a lot of tech companies. However, they seem to be not only cheap in price but in management.
I run a forum site with MILLIONS of visitors and about 5,000 TB of traffic per month.
Namecheap.com suddenly sent me a link warning that they will suspend my domain completely within 24 hours, if I did not delete two problem images (which were inappropriate/troublesome images but in the context of the forum posts, "a very poor attempt at humor").
I deleted the images and avoided being suspended, but the way they threatened to suspend my domain due to two images was ridiculous. If I missed the warning email or checked my email after 24 hours they would have completely suspended my domain.
I'm talking about a site with MILLIONS of visitors per month and ten thousands of posts per day, not some small blog.
They may be suitable for some blog, but I can now say to NEVER use them for any enterprise site.
======
LorenzoLlamas
Maybe I missed it, but did someone point to the actual site with "millions of
visitors and 5 PETABYTES of traffic per month"? Is that right?

Don't want to seem harsh, but I don't care for unqualified rants against a
named entity, when the "accuser" doesn't name his own source.

And using vague words like "inappropriate/troublesome" seems a bit mysterious.
Were they ISIS propaganda posters, nudity of celebs, or penguins making out?
Might make a difference.

And as others have already stated, it's pretty SOP for hosting and domain
companies to have this standard in place. Hate to say it, but it's in the User
Agreement. Else, run your own servers and domain name registrar (oh, and also
be liable for those same posts possibly).

Why we insist on not understanding that DNRs and hosts are, basically,
publishers, who have some rights, is beyond me.

Let me guess... this guy is upset because he might have not gotten the email
within 24 hours (in 2017... yeah, right). Is he off-the-grid hunting sea lions
in the north sea? And if his site is so big, he has no one to help him and no
backup staff except... only him?

This same crowd will balk that FB didn't remove that last murder video in 12.3
seconds, but demand that THEIR host or registrar give them 30 days.

Sheesh... internet shenanigans never stop, do they?

~~~
highclass
I have actually run a domain registration/reseller business in the past, with
20,000 domains registered (which is a lot).

I did not "police" a single one of those domains.

Like I said below, I was NOT using namecheap DNS or hosting.

> And using vague words like "inappropriate/troublesome" seems a bit
> mysterious. Were they ISIS propaganda posters, nudity of celebs, or penguins
> making out? Might make a difference.

I don't care how much problematic the images were. 24 hours warning for
threatening to suspend a domain is ridiculous.

> Let me guess... this guy is upset because he might have not gotten the email
> within 24 hours (in 2017... yeah, right).

Yes that is reasonable reason to be upset. I thought the email was
spam/phishing at first. The email also could have easily have been deleted by
spam filters.

------
ploggingdev
Send them an email asking for an explanation and also let them know why this
is not a good way of dealing with inappropriate content. Also reach out to
their customer support asking for an explanation. Let us know when you hear
back from their support team.

~~~
highclass
I agree the two images were problematic, but they were mixed into millions of
forum posts...

Anyways, if your domain sites contents break the AUP at
[https://www.namecheap.com/legal/universal/universal-
tos.aspx](https://www.namecheap.com/legal/universal/universal-tos.aspx) , it
seems they will suspend your domain that fast...

Again ridiculous. They even replied "Yes, we have checked the content of the
web-site and based on its not deliberate nature we have provided a reasonable
time-frame for removing the illicit content."

Reasonable time-frame being 24 hours. More ridiculous.

------
coreyp_1
Were they hosting the site, or are they just the domain registrar (and your
site is on servers from another company)?

~~~
highclass
I was using a third party DNS AND my own hosting/network. They threatened me
on a Registrar level, which is nearly unheard of.

~~~
coreyp_1
Indeed. I would suggest that you leave them immediately.

------
Slaul
Interesting, I hadn't heard of any problems like this when I decided to use
them for my last few domain name purchases. Maybe I should look into
switching. Do you have any recommendations by any chance?

~~~
highclass
I'm looking around right now. The registrar for reddit.com and ycombinator.com
both are [https://www.gandi.net/](https://www.gandi.net/)

I am considering them and a few foreign registrars right now.

I still am in shock how namecheap might have suspended my domain.

~~~
finid
I think they were just been paranoid about potential legal penalties, so take
it easy.

~~~
highclass
That is ridiculous. They threatened to suspend my domain within 24 hours if I
did not delete two images.

I don't even use their nameservers... They threatened to yank my domain in a
registrar level which is so amateurish it shocked me.

------
idoh
Where are you planning on moving your domain to?

~~~
tinalumfoil
I've heard good things about Gandi. Since they host reddit I'm sure it would
take a lot for them to shut down a site.

------
tarikozket
Amazon has the same procedure with hosting.

~~~
highclass
I don't have anything hosted on namecheap. Not even the sites DNS uses
namecheap.

b.t.w. hosting and DNS registration are totally different, legally and
technically.

------
magma17
4chan

~~~
gt2
I would think a site like 4chan would get these kinds of issues daily.

------
andrewmcwatters
> They may be suitable for some blog, but I can now say to NEVER use them for
> any enterprise site.

If this is action they take at scale with millions of visitors I wouldn't even
risk it with something so intimate as a blog.


Bloom Filter (Python recipe) - jcsalterego
http://code.activestate.com/recipes/577684-bloom-filter/

======
haberman
One thing that takes a minute to sink with Bloom Filters is that the size
requirements are independent of the size of the individual elements! Storing N
elements with a given false positive probability has a fixed cost, whether
you're storing integers or 100MB strings.

If you are concerned with speed, a bloom filter is exactly the kind of thing
I'd never implement in Python. Twiddling bits is orders of magnitude more
expensive than in C.

~~~
raymondh
Python is written in C and the time consuming parts of this algorithm are
delegated to C modules (random, sha256, long int bitshifts, etc). Also, the
space efficiency (which directly related to effective use of high-speed cache)
is language independent.

If you care about the cost of the Python glue code, the PyPy project nicely
optimizes that away. Unless you're writing for a Google production server, the
programmer time writing this in C will likely never be paid back in saved CPU
cycles.

~~~
haberman
What you have said is theory. Here is practice.

I wrote a simple bloom filter in C. It took about an hour, including
debugging. Here is my bloom filter vs. CPython and PyPy doing 1M lookups:

        $ time ./bloom
        real    0m0.027s
        user    0m0.022s
        sys     0m0.002s
        $ time python bloom.py
        real    0m32.876s
        user    0m32.693s
        sys     0m0.119s
        $ time pypy bloom.py
        real    0m42.280s
        user    0m42.054s
        sys     0m0.178s

In other words, C was 1216x (or 121,600%) faster than CPython, and 1564x (or
156,400%) faster than PyPy. If it took 1 second in C, it would take 20 minutes
in Python. Put another way, Python runs this algorithm about as fast as a the
C algorithm would run on an 8086 from 1978.

Here is my C implementation: <http://pastebin.com/TexbJjbB>

Here is the Python program I compared against (using code from the article):
<http://pastebin.com/gqw7C68e>

~~~
raymondh
Not an apples-to-apples comparison. The Python version is fully general, using
Random() to create probes (as many as needed). Instead use the optimized, 4Kb
fixed size version shown later in the recipe. Also, improve your timing by
making the loop in a function and using something other than range(1000000) to
fill-up memory (like timeit does). The C version should also use sha224 for
comparability (otherwise, you're basically comparing two different hash
functions in two different languages meaning that some of the difference can
be ascribed to the choice of hash algorithm).

That being said, you've done a great job showing that it doesn't take long to
correctly implement this algorithm in C. That is a nice win.

~~~
haberman
> Not an apples-to-apples comparison.

These kinds of arguments make sense if you're 20% different, or 2x different,
or even 10x different. When you're 1000x different, no amount of minor
tweaking is going to bridge the gap.

Using the 4k version and using timeit() instead of range(), the speed is 21
seconds instead of 32 seconds, so it did speed up, but it's still 800x slower.
I'm pretty sure that only a tiny fraction of Python's time is calculating
sha224, so I don't think that making them use the same hash function is
necessary.

Look, Python is cool and has it's place. But it's annoying to get downvoted
for stating the obvious: algorithms like this will be much, much faster in C.
It's annoying to hear people insist that dropping to C is a waste of time when
my personal experience shows time and time again that it can lead to drastic
improvements.


How to Be a Better Entrepreneur in the Next 30 Minutes - jasonlbaptiste
http://www.quicksprout.com/2009/05/25/how-to-be-a-better-entrepreneur-in-the-next-30-minutes/
======
mjnaus
Here is how to Be a Better Entrepreneur RIGHT NOW... don't read link bait
fluff like this and get to WORK!

~~~
webtickle
When I think of link bait, I think of sites that go after Digg and not really
Hacker News. Hacker News is an awesome resource (better than digg imho), but
if you get to the top I don't think you get too many links out of it.

------
fuzzmeister
"putting up motivational posters"

Seriously?

~~~
dcurtis
As stupid and cliche as this sounds, it's kind of right. I have this quote up,
and every time I look at it, I get a boost:

"Get action. Do things; be sane, don't fritter away your time; create, act,
take a place wherever you are and be somebody; get action."

-theodore roosevelt

~~~
Dobbs
I have:

"Around here, however, we don't look backwards for very long. We _keep moving
forward_ , opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and
curiosity keeps leading us down new paths."

-Walt Disney

~~~
dcurtis
I have a Disney quote too:

"I can never stand still. I must explore and experiment. I am never satisfied
with my work. I resent the limitations of my own imagination."

WALT DISNEY

------
nreece
_It doesn’t have to be an innovative business that solves a pain in the market
place; it just has to be a business that can turn a healthy profit every
year._

On the contrary, a business must solve a pain the market place, to become
profitable and healthy.

~~~
ispivey
But his example, a plumbing business, both solves a pain in the marketplace
(people need their pipes fixed and plumbing installed) and is not at all
innovative.

------
zackattack
Smart guy and he gets to the point - great article and thanks for posting.

~~~
zackattack
Okay, so I decided my short term goal is to be making $35/day.

Explained: $500/mo apt + $350/mo food + $200/mo entertainment = $12,600/yr =
$35/day

I also have a long term goal to be making $835/day. :)

I want to come up with an idea for a business that could be making $35/day
reasonably quickly, but also have the potential to eventually scale up to
$835/day.

I order to make $35/day, I need to create something that can do 7 sales of a
$5/(month)/profit product every day.


Facebook accused of gagging debate - chris_wot
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/technology/facebook-accused-of-gagging-samesex-debate/news-story/d6278508f67d8cfc5ee5efe5147ff378
======
chris_wot
My main concern here is that someone was monitoring John Dickson's wall. It
may have been accidentally deleted, but did it get flagged? How did it come to
the attention of Facebook admins?


Why It’s a Good Thing People Are Shallow (and 13 Ways to Exploit It) - epi0Bauqu
http://blog.kissmetrics.com/shallow-people/
======
quanticle
I disagree with a lot of the points made in the article. For example, the
"raise your rates", and "put yourself out of reach" suggestions would be
suicide for anyone targeting the mobile application space. There, the majority
of users are only willing to pay a nominal cost to get their app. Raise your
price above a dollar or two, and you're sunk.


Birds found using human musical scales for the first time - mhb
http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2014/11/birds-found-using-human-musical-scales-first-time?utm_content=bufferc81d2&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

======
bradleysmith
very cool!

original source doc:
[http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/10/29/1406023111](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/10/29/1406023111)


Show HN: Fotōko – Your perfectly-ish organized photo library  - maham_tayyab
http://www.fotoko.com/

======
maham_tayyab
Hi, I am one of the members of Fotōko's development team. I would love to hear
feedback from you on our product.

Fotōko automatically organises and safeguards your entire photo and video
library in the cloud making it easy to search, browse, and share from any
device. Fotōko uses your Google Drive (One Drive and Dropbox coming soon) for
cloud storage so you have ownership of your photos.

Moving forward we wish to integrate more cloud storage options such as One
Drive and Drop Box so that users can fully exploit the free storage tier on
various storage platforms while being able to browse, share or search their
photos from any device irrespective of where they are stored. We are also
working on OCR and face recognition features to allow better organisation and
search. We would love to hear what you think about the product and what you
would like to see in a product like this.

------
rohaan
How Fotōko is different from Picasa?

------
babarRehman
How many devices I can sync at once?

~~~
maham_tayyab
You can sync as many devices as you like. Simply connect your Google Drive
with Fotōko app on your iPhone. All the photos in your Camera Roll will be
uploaded to your Google Drive. The photos that are present in your Google
Drive will be synced with the photo library as well. Moreover, you can also
upload large folders of photos and videos in your Mac book with our OS X app.

------
rohaan
comment from rohaan ishfaq


Ask HN: For help: Gmail is filtering our URLs - e79

The gmail.com client normally renders the hyperlinks in our outgoing email just fine. Yesterday morning, this suddenly stopped happening and users were sent links that could not be clicked in their transactional emails from us. I was able to reproduce it by simply including our domain name in an e-mail, which leads me to believe e-mails are being filtered for our domain name specifically. I've reproduced this across multiple Gmail accounts of ours, and all hyperlinking is always fine right  until I include our domain name anywhere in an e-mail. Viewing page source shows that gmail.com is employing some HTML to break our URL up so it doesn't turn into a valid hyperlink.<p>I suspect this is some sort of anti-spam measure. Has anybody else experienced this? I am asking Hacker News for help because there doesn't appear to be any way to get in contact with Google regarding gmail problems. We've already employed everything in their FAQs about avoiding their spam filters. We use DKIM and have a healthy standing with all email blacklists. I'm really not sure what other options we have left.
======
therealmarv
I've found out what is reason for this! It only affects text mails: Gmail is
analyzing the links in text mails and when it is adult content it refuses to
make them clickable! For me this is censorship. I'm an adult and I can decide
myself what I want to see and what not. I do not want Google to filter out
adult links (categorize them!) and make them not clickable!

Solution: Make HTML Emails

~~~
e79
From something I posted on our site:

From my experience, unless a change in a Google product degrades functionality
for a large portion of end users they aren't going to publicly acknowledge it.
They don't seem to have the same policies regarding transparency that other
companies like FetLife do (we acknowledge when we mess up and break stuff!).

When ReCAPTCHA went down last year I looked and could not find any
acknowledgement of the issue from a Google employee. This was while FetLife
and other large websites tweeted about it and posted in Google's product
forum. All we had to go with was speculation and helping each other out with
recommendations for temporary solutions.

Likewise, this change in Gmail may never be officially acknowledged. It may be
related to the arrival of Google's new Inbox product or it may be related to
some sort of spam filtering they deployed into production. It doesn't appear
to be specific to adult websites. Other large community websites are affected
too. The result is that affected websites using plain text emails are now
forced to switch over to HTML-based email. I could see a conspiracy theory in
there about Google pushing HTML-based email for a nicer looking Gmail/Inbox
experience. No matter what, I think it's very unlikely we'll ever know what
change caused this or why.

------
e79
Someone e-mailed me to let me know that a discussion forum they post on has
run into the same issue. Seems like we are not the only one...

------
dangrossman
Use a link shortener (perhaps buy a domain of your own for it) to avoid
linking to your domain?

~~~
Someone1234
Link shorteners are pretty heavily penalised in email since spammers use the
same trick to bypass the same filters.

------
ChristianBundy
Is your domain name fetlife.com?

~~~
e79
Yes. (Site is NSFW, by the way)