Hacker News Reader

srinathrajaramon Arrived – a new model of home ownership

Agree that this is definitely not new. There have been few variants of this play across the US. Trio (thinktrio.com), for example have been around for quite some time. I wonder though, if the typical HN reader is a great target market for this offering.

srinathrajaramon Sangoma (FreePBX) to Acquire Digium (Asterisk) for $28M

The valuation sounds really low. Is there a reason for that?

srinathrajaramon Previewing Android P

This is available only on Android O and the adoption is not encouraging. Hopefully, P will have a much better uptake.

srinathrajaramon Freelancer.com has ruined my life

Let us not pretend that the price is driven by living costs. It is driven by desperate people who will work below cost to get a foot in the door.

srinathrajaramon DHS Plans To Gather Social Media Info

I do not think you need to be a US citizen just because you were born there. There are countries that allow a child born in the US to acquire the citizenship of its parents.

srinathrajaramon Show HN: Shelf – A better way to share knowledge across teams and organizations

I can understand having to pay (in any of the ways you mention) if you are going to use the product. The question is, should I have to pay to even learn about the product?

srinathrajaramon Right to Privacy a Fundamental Right, Says Indian Supreme Court

It says a lot about where we are headed that the Supreme Court had to say this.

srinathrajaramon Pornhub now supports interactive toys

All the talk about latency has me wondering if the work here is eventually going to push telemedicine forward. Maybe a first aid kit that contains a tele-dressing kit that can be used by a remote worker to perform minor but intricate procedures?

srinathrajaramon Hike beats WhatsApp to launching messenger app payments in India

I think that Whatsapp does not understand how the diehard users use it.

I live in India, one of whatsapp's biggest markets. I am stunned every day by the level of penetration that whatsapp has achieved here. From people in the slums to people over 65, everyone uses whatsapp. I regularly see long-form, local language content on whatsapp. I wonder who is writing all this. It reminds me of the early email days.

Whatsapp has wasted way too much time trying to cater to the snapchat demographic. But the snapchat demographic, either has not heard of Whatsapp (average US user) or thinks whatsapp is what you use to talk to grandma (the average Indian teenager).

They announced their intent to work on digital payments a full four months after demonetization was announced in India. No release yet (8 months and counting). They have probably squandered a massive opportunity here.

To my knowledge, they do not have any presence in India, their largest market. I wonder if that would have made all the difference.

srinathrajaramon Ask HN: An insurance to cover API changes?

I would. But I suspect that either your premiums will be so high for the risky sites (linkedin, facebook), that I could not afford it or I would clean up.

srinathrajaramon Show HN: Visual Bug Reports Attached to Your JIRA Issue

Hey this is really interesting. Congratulations. A few questions/observations.

1. You should really be linking to - https://usersnap.com/jira that website has a lot more clarity. 2. In your pricing page you mention '10 users'. What constitutes a user? 3. If I have three projects, how would I select a project from the screenshot?

srinathrajaramon Lessons I’ve Learned from Three Million App Downloads

"What I’ve learned (aside from sucking it up, and sending a kind, helpful response) is: design your product as if it was going to be used by people that are a software literacy step below the target user."

Completely with you on the 'sucking up and sending a kind helpful response'. Snark does not pay. It makes no sense to snap at a user.

Regarding the other point about first-time users. I have a slightly related theory.

When you design something, design it for someone who has the attention span of a two-year-old. Not because your app is going to be used by a two-year-old. But because that is how much mental bandwidth a user is going to give you. Your user is probably busy or just likes to multi-task.

Working that much harder on the UI pays off, or at least prevents a disaster.

srinathrajaramon The Most Hated Online Advertising Techniques

Speaking as a developer. You may be paid by the impressions but how much you are paid depends on the CTRs. Nothing works for CTRs like targeting. The more data you can share about users, the better it is for you. All this other stuff probably contributes to user churn as much it does to your bottom line. This is one of the reasons that a lot of apps ask you for location permissions even when they don't need it.

srinathrajaramon Ask HN: How do I write good job requirements?

Job requirements are hard because we try to write a single req for three types of audience.

1. A recruiter: Do I have a CV in my DB with these keywords? 2. A referrer: Will my friend fit this? 3. Candidate: What should I know? What should I do? How much do they pay? Is this the right move for me?

In some forums you just cannot split them up (LinkedIn). In some other, you can (emails). Try splitting them up. It will be a lot easier.

srinathrajaramon Ask HN: How did open source work before GitHub?

Can confirm sourceforge was huge

srinathrajaramon Oculus Research to Present Focal Surface Display Discovery at SIGGRAPH

Curious to know why you say it is a 'solved' problem. The paper linked in the article claims to have a better solution.

srinathrajaramon Oculus Research to Present Focal Surface Display Discovery at SIGGRAPH

The intention was not to mislead. The linked paper in the article makes a reference to Vergence Accommodation Conflict.So, in a sense, it is mentioned in the article.

Link to Paper: https://scontent.oculuscdn.com/v/t64.5771-25/11162698_189852...

srinathrajaramon A startup’s Firebase bill suddenly increased from $25 to $1750 per month

http://www.emaildiscussions.com/showthread.php?p=599512

No angels anywhere.

srinathrajaramon IBM says remote working is great after forcing employees to work from office

That really sucks!

The level of dissonance in this is overwhelming.

In March - You need to work shoulder to shoulder "https://qz.com/924167/ibm-remote-work-pioneer-is-calling-tho...

In May - we have a survey and a study and a panel that proves remote working is great!

I don't envy the guy in IBM who has to sell Kenexa (https://www.ibm.com/blogs/smarter-workforce/2017/05/making-t...).

srinathrajaramon Places to Post Your Startup or Product

Totally agree. I have an app and I tried doing this in Quora a couple of times. I have stopped doing this. The only way you can win in quora is to answer questions that are related to your product with a simple bio against your name.

srinathrajaramon Granary.pro – Beyond Bookmarks and Read-It-Later

How is this different from using google keep with tags?

srinathrajaramon Preinstalled Malware Targeting Mobile Users

This presents a completely new kind of threat. I wonder how the industry would respond to this. When you do a fresh install, perform some kind of checksumming to verify the integrity of the OS with all its installed software. This cannot possibly be implemented by Google because each manufacturer has its own bloatware that it needs to pre-install. I wonder if Samsung and LG will wake up to this and create a security module?

srinathrajaramon Welcoming Fabric to Google

They used to be called crashlytics. Best crash reporting tool . Just works. I guess they probably are a lot more interested in ranking for stuff like crash reporting than people chancing upon their website and trying to figure out who they are.

srinathrajaramon No tipping means better business

You can start there and stay there. This does not escalate like you assume. The rest of the world works just fine with this system.

I suspect that the escalation in the US has something to do with employers getting greedy and trying to reduce wages to factor in tips. I don't have any evidence to back this up.

srinathrajaramon No tipping means better business

I can and have walked out without tipping when the service was bad.

When I go out to eat, I do so to unwind. The implicit pressure to tip detracts from that experience and I dislike it. It is not a question of what I am capable of doing. It is about not having to deal with the unfairness of an average or a poor waiter demanding to be compensated.

srinathrajaramon No tipping means better business

You are probably missing the point. Most people would not mind tipping for good service. It is when the tip is thrust upon you that it becomes a problem. When people start saying stuff like 'oh! you are robbing the waiter of his income', it becomes downright offensive. Tipping should be contingent on good service. It needs to be earned, not demanded to make up for an employer skimping on wage.

srinathrajaramon No tipping means better business

>The worker's salary is a employer's responsibility. If the the worker become underpaid without the tipping, then the worker is underpaid by the employer.

This! Tipping is nothing but the employer passing the buck and guilting the customer.

srinathrajaramon These phone apps have got your number

This really gets my goat. Just having my number is one problem. Handing out willy-nilly to anyone who asks for it is unethical. Unfortunately, no one seems to really care in India. Everyone wants the comfort of knowing who is calling them. Blocking telemarketers seems to be high on the priority list.

This is frustrating for someone who is developing an address book app. I cannot believe that people keep asking us to provide 'truecaller' functionality! I even have a one-star review on the app store because I don't hand out numbers like these apps do. I have seen some other apps gradually given in and add this functionality because of user pressure.

In short, the apps are probably doing it because they are afraid of losing users and hence money.

srinathrajaramon Looking ahead for WhatsApp

India is one of the largest markets for Whatsapp.

srinathrajaramon Looking ahead for WhatsApp

If you use an app that displays ads from Facebook, then most probably yes.