I just wore Google's glasses for 2 weeks and I'm never taking them off - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/robert-scoble-i-just-wore-googles-glasses-for-2-weeks-2013-4 <comment><USER2> Think he might live to regret the claim he'll never live a day without a pair of smart glasses (is that the right term for the general device space?), but even if he does it's possible he might be the odd one out.

To me it's like someone getting the first Segway and saying they'll never live a day without it. It might be great to them as a nerd, but doesnt do anything to validate how everyone else is going to view it.

<comment><USER3> Google Glass is no Segway though, he explains why Segway is not practical most of the time while Glass is [https://plus.google.com/111091089527727420853/posts/ZGFr8eMF...](https://plus.google.com/111091089527727420853/posts/ZGFr8eMFAfH)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I still don't really get what google glass is for.

The only things he mentions using it for is directions and taking pictures, my phone works perfectly for both those things (I can't remember any time where I've missed a good picture because I couldn't get my phone in time)

Maybe its something you need to try to really understand, but I'm not excited by it.

<comment><USER5> The current version of Google Glass is a stepping stone. It's just to see what features people might unexpectedly use or find out they really want or do not want.

The future versions have unlimited possibilities such as automatically recording live events then replaying them, playing games, taking inventory, or even overlaying TV shows on top of screens at a bar so that you can effectively watch whatever you want. Infrared, night-vision, and auto-tracking of objects are also possibilities.

The military has had such a system for many years, it's called Land Warrior. It can map waypoints in a 3d environment, give directions, display messages, and display any information that the user needs. I imagine that in the near future the system will be able to identify hostiles or friendlies, detect mortars instantly and tell the user where to move, and will be integrated with the boomerang shooter detection system.

The possibilities are endless, we have to start somewhere though.

<comment><USER6> Just like Google Wave. "Unlimited possibilities (no *current applications)."

I buy a device for what it can actually do, not for the potential of what it could do in 3-100 years time.

The ironic part about you bringing up Land Warrior program is that Land Warrior was cancelled in 2007. It still lives on but has never been expanded and or been adopted by other units or branches of the US military.

<comment><USER7> The German army has received the first units of a similar system ("Gladius") and will be testing it in Afghanistan soon [0].

[0] [http://www.army-technology.com/news/newsrheinmetall- starts-g...](http://www.army-technology.com/news/newsrheinmetall-starts- gladius-soldier-system-deliveries-german-army)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> 1., This is Scoble. He hypes professionally, literally anything. Try following him on Twitter or G+ and say goodbye to your newsfeed.

2., Valid critique - wearing Google Glass is like wearing Bluetooth headset all the time. Which guys like Scoble probably did, way before anyone else. Anyone being pretentious assholes.

<comment><USER9> The very definition of persons who wear novelty devices just to have something to talk about. I wonder how quickly people move away from him at a cocktail party?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder if he's so excited about the device because it's awesome in itself, or because of all the attention and interest he gets showered with wearing it and using it to publish things online. It's a novelty; I'm sure the first people with mobile phones and later on smartphones experienced something similar, before they became a common sight. Even now, people with the newest, shiniest new phone will get some measure of attention, a confirmation for their expense.

<comment><USER11> No doubt, but that is already saying a lot about the device in itself.

If it generates such interest and attention the way the first mobile phones or the first iPhone did, then it might really be something that in a few years will be a "common sight".

I think it's really something that excites the imagination, and rightly so, it remains to be be seen if it will be a substantial improvement in terms of functionality compared to current mobile devices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I can't justify buying a Google Glass. I doubt they will be $200, I think $800 is more likely at launch.

But then I couldn't justify my iPad when I bought it. $600 for something I can check email on and browse the web? I already have a laptop for that right? Well I ended up using my iPad loads for far more than I could have imagined.

I really shouldn't have bought my MacBook Pro. It was twice the price of a Windows laptop that would have suited me fine, and I could have even installed Linux and had a great development setup right? Well yes, but I'm so much more productive on a Mac now than I ever was on Windows, and I have to fix the software a lot less than I do on my Linux computers.

Just because I can't justify buying a Google Glass doesn't mean it's not worth buying. I've got that feeling of excitement about a technology that I haven't had since I bought my first smartphone. Is it worth it right now? Maybe not. But if no one bets on it, it's not going to happen, so I'll give it a shot.

</comment><comment><USER13> I just wore Google's glasses for 2 weeks and I'm never taking them off*

*until they stop getting me attention

</comment><comment><USER14> I haven't used Glass yet, but I do know I don't want drivers of cars or motorcycles using them on the road while they're supposed to be driving:

[http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/28/living-with-glass-day- fou...](http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/28/living-with-glass-day-four)

This has the potential to be a huge safety problem.

</comment><comment><USER15> I am really interested in the whole "smart glasses" idea and Google's implementation. What I am concerned about are all those cellular/radio antennas strapped to your head and how do they affect a person's health. I have not found any discussions about this topic yet.

<comment><USER16> Radio waves are non-ionizing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> He also proclaimed RSS and Podcasts as world changing technologies back in the day. And he proclaimed Netflix dead in 2007. That's 3 huge misses right there. There are probably more, and he may have got a couple right along the way too.

<comment><USER12> RSS might not be _world-changing_ , but it is absolutely crucial to the web.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Interesting how many people have admitted to letting others use them when Google has expressly forbidden that. I think at this stage they'll be shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.

I'm not surprised Robert Scoble loves them, he's a hardware lover and an early adopter. I'm not surprised audiences at places Scoble has been too love it. I'm not sure my parents would love it. I think they'd actively avoid it for the most part, and whilst there's lots of geeks like me who'll get them to at least experiment I'm still unsure of whether it's got significant mass market appeal. Maybe v2 or v3, but it'll take time.

<comment><USER9> "I think at this stage they'll be shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted."

Naw, they love it. You have to keep a false sense of exclusivity to make a product look sexy before it becomes a commodity device.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I love technology and my gadgets as much as the next one, but I would never want to get that dependent on one type of technology. Scientists have long warned us about solar storms and there is a chance that one day all your technology could go out. I was recently asked if I was a luddite, because I didn't want to get rid of my box of printed maps, but hey, maybe one day I need them. So every once in a while, take a weekend and switch off your gadgets and see if you can cope.

</comment><comment><USER14> Previous discussion of same article: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5617165>

<comment><AUTHOR> Hadn't seen that one. :-/

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I wish I had Glass yesterday when I was stuck in traffic.

OK Glass, show me traffic to Home.

I wanted a sixth sense, to be able to see a map of London with all traffic marked out so that I could pick my rat race run through the back streets and at least be moving.

And whilst I got out of the traffic fine, I wish I had Glass and it knew to tell me before I got into it.

<comment><USER21> Do you not have a sat nav ?

<comment><USER20> Seems a bit much for London.

I have a TomTom but the map & traffic subscriptions equate to over £100 per year. And I can't even update the maps using Linux, so I basically let it expire and have abandoned it.

I do occasionally use Google Navigation on my Android for sat nav purposes, but for driving around a city that I know really well it is redundant except for traffic info (but even then I can usually work out my own route with better local knowledge of where traffic goes).

So yes, I could've fumbled around and got my phone from my bag (behind the seat), and wired it up, and viewed the traffic. But I was driving, even when I was mostly stationary I wouldn't take my attention away from the road like that.

Hence, if I had Glass, then I wouldn't need to prep in advance, nor fumble around... the tools would just be with me for when I needed to activate them.

Yesterday seemed exceptional though, something fouled up the whole of Fulham and Chelsea and the domino effect knocked out all major routes around too. That's an exception, not the rule... even if my TomTom subscription was active and up to date I wouldn't have wired it up just for a cross-town drive.

<comment><USER22> You may want to check out Sygic. I use it and it's fantastic, and it's around 30 pounds for all Europe maps and unlimited upgrades of both app and maps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Point 2:As the price got down to $200 literally every hand went up. At $500 a few hands went up.

Point 3: Nearly everyone had an emotional outburst of "wow" or "amazing" or "that's crazy" or "stunning."

Takeaway: $200 is the going rate for people willing to be "wow"ed or amazed

<comment><USER12> I think that $200 depends on the crowd, and on the device or software. I wouldn't pay $100 for a game that wow'ed me with it's graphics for example, but (if I had the money) I might pay $50,000 for a car that wow'ed me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> > "OK Glass, Take a Picture" works. "OK Glass, Take a Photo" doesn't. The > Glass is forcing your voice commands to be a certain set of commands and no > others will be considered.

This is quite a forgiving attitude; I'd expect both to work.

<comment><USER25> No, you shouldn't. Ever wonder why Palm succeeded where Newton and other failed?

It's because Palm used a standardised, single-stroke learned script, whereas its competitors used full natural handwriting recognition that sucked balls. Glass is clearly going for the same thing.

<comment><USER26> The difference is that it's 2013.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Wearing even 0-dioptries glasses for long periods can be detrimental to eye health. Glasses limit peripheral vision and restrict eye movement. This can lead to weakened muscles, worse blood flow and worse eyesight.

<comment><USER28> Citation needed.

What happens to the muscles, blood flow and eyesight of people that need to wear glasses every minute they're not asleep? Why their eyesight and general eye health doesn't deteriorate over time if it "can lead to weakened muscles, worse blood flow and worse eyesight"?

<comment><USER27> Unfortunately I have no citation to prove my statement. It is just my concern and opinion. I remember that I read something about this in books on eye exercises and health. It may or may not be true.

<comment><USER29> Anecdotally, as someone who wears (prescription) glasses 24/7 already, I haven't noticed anything like this.

It might be worth mentioning that the authors of "health books" generally tend to be more concerned with selling more books than they do about actually improving your health. I would be very skeptical about claims made in a self- help health book that weren't backed up by actual studies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> You take them off every night, I mean seriously!</comment>


FedEx vs. UPS: opposing models in the delivery business raise questions (2004) - <AUTHOR> http://www.braunconsulting.com/bcg/newsletters/winter2004/winter20041.html <comment><USER2> This article was written in 2004. Starting In 2005 FedEx got in a bunch of misclassification lawsuits over using 1099 contractors, today they have lost over $453 Million to these settlements. [http://www.talentwave.com/fedex- worker-misclassification-cas...](http://www.talentwave.com/fedex-worker- misclassification-case-settled-for-227-million/)

<comment><USER3> I'm amazed they still get away with this after losing multiple class action lawsuits over it, but apparently losing the string of class action lawsuits over violating labor laws is cheaper than just following the labor laws or they would have started following them a long time ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Perhaps I'm reading it wrong, but the article seems to slant in favor of FedEx using contractors. And then you look at the pros and cons.

      FedEx Ground Cons:

      - No benefits, no overtime pay, no sick time, no insurance

      - Drivers pay for vehicle, gas, supplies, insurance, and everything else

      - No company retirement, seemingly less stable environment

      - No Teamsters contract or collective bargaining

      - Drivers have only one client: FedEx

That's one step above glorified pizza delivery driver for a career. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. My wife has extended family, on the other hand, that have worked 40+ years at UPS and retired with benefits. Now, I'm not saying, "UPS rules, and FedEx sucks." But I'm hesitant to throw my support behind any business model that treats people like temporary commodities instead of long- term resources.

<comment><USER5> FedEx => Uber => FedUbX Delivery

<comment><USER6> FUBAR Delivery.

If it's not f*cked it's free!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I know it's anecdata, but in my experience UPS is way better about actually delivering packages to me than FedEx is. I live in a building with a call box, to which both FedEx and UPS were given their own codes, but most of the time FedEx "attempts" a delivery they mark it as undeliverable. It's gotten to the point where I'm now preemptively requesting my FedEx-shipped packages to be held at a local FedEx ship & print center rather than even waiting for the first attempted delivery. UPS, on the other hand, delivers packages without a hitch nearly every single time.

I don't know whether this has anything to do with the contractor vs employee nature of these companies, but I do know that UPS is way better at actually doing their job.

<comment><USER8> I echo this. I receive about 5-20 packages per day froma variety of vendors and origin countries and I can say that UPS is superior to Fedex in many subtle ways. This has been my experience across the spectrum of offerings: ground, rush air, and freight.

<comment><USER9> Perhaps I'm comparing apples to oranges but my USPS guy who is the same nice man for at least the last 10 years, has been much more reliable than either the FedEx or UPS delivery staff.

He even collected the strewn around mail from our mailbox the other day and visited us to let us know that someone has likely been stealing our mail and that we should check our credit cards. I'll miss him when he retires soon.

<comment><USER10> From my experience quality of USPS varies. Some employees are doing a superb job, but some just don't seem to give a f*k. I've seen mails delivered to wrong mailboxes, sometimes I've seen mail that is even from a different street. One time they marked item as delivered, before they actually did which made me worry it was stolen (fortunately the item was delivered 2 hours later).

Other time (more an issue for Amazon in that instance) they delivered item but never scanned it so an opportunist could claim that item was never delivered and there's no way to verify that.

As I said there are also good things. I really like that USPS doesn't artificially delay packages like UPS (if item could be delivered sooner, but was paid for 2 days delivery, they will hold it). I for example had a package delivered next day because it was shipped from a close place, even though the estimate was 3-5 days.

<comment><USER11> > but some just don't seem to give a f*k. I've seen mails delivered to wrong > mailboxes

This happened to me during tax season no less. My only saving factor was that they put it into the mailbox of a relative who lived next door (and their last name is significantly different from mine) imagine a total stranger with my tax refund plus all that information. Thank you incompetent USPS employee. We definitely complained about them, not sure if they've sorted that out but I also bought a book not short after that, and you guessed it, my relative got my book instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> There's some incorrect information in the article regarding UPS driver salaries. Drivers can make more than $100k/year if they work overtime. Some drivers make more than managers for similar amounts of work due to their being hourly.

This is all hearsay from the UPS driver that worked the route while I was clerking in a warehouse. He also seemed much happier than the FedEx drivers, both of which were pretty grumpy. He was also a lot more helpful and we often asked him to delay our pickup for last minute orders, which was something the FedEx drivers would never do.

<comment><USER13> The article is a from 2005, so the salary information is probably out of date.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I always feel like this contractor vs larger employee situation is weighted for early and late game.

As a contractor style, at the start it seems fun there are potential rewards, etc.. but you need to manage yourself a lot more, and there is less of a safety net or any kind of belonging.

As an employee style you are more of a robot at the start and have to submit to the company as it were, but later on you are looked after much better and there are teams within the company that can focus on efficiency and making life better, etc.

As someone who has a fairly split career in doing both I can fully understand the merits of both but I worry about the long term trajectory of the majority of people becoming independent as it were.

<comment><USER3> FedEx's "contractors" conveniently get the worst of both worlds. They are treated exactly like employees except when it comes to pay/benefits. There have been multiple class action lawsuits over contractor misclassification and they just keep settling them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Anyone know if the employment situation with Fedex or UPS is different now, 13 years after this was written?

<comment><USER16> I'd like to know more about the back-end, not just the drivers.

What about the salaries and benefits in the offices, sorting facilities, etc?

<comment><USER17> Back in 2009 I worked part-time at the early morning shift loading UPS's brown delivery trucks. I made above minimum wage with no option of overtime yielding ~12k/year. They had an education credit of 1.5k/semester provided you were a full-time student (12+ credits/semester). I don't remember about the health insurance because I was under my parents'. At that time there was a 10 year wait queue for full-time employment because it's primarily seniority based. And the Teamsters union initiation dues suck your first month of pay.

Oh, make sure to properly pad your fragile packages because they may or may not be pushed, shoved, flipped, thrown, or dropped depending on how busy it is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Huh, so FedEx and Uber are aligned in labor policies, at least in a macro sense. Both achieve cost benefits, and the two face many of the same legal risks around job classification (and potential exploitation and tax evasion).

In theory, both are therefore one major legal decision away from a very bad set of financials. In practice, hoards of lawyers and lobbyists undoubtedly man the wall (and keep winter at bay).

</comment><comment><USER19> 2004 should probably be in the title.

</comment><comment><USER20> UPS has spent significant effort trying to put the Federal screws to FedEx in the past.[1]

[1] [http://reason.com/reasontv/2010/10/22/whiteboard](http://reason.com/reasontv/2010/10/22/whiteboard) [http://reason.com/archives/2009/09/28/using-unions-as- weapon...](http://reason.com/archives/2009/09/28/using-unions-as-weapons)

<comment><USER21> While UPS's motivation is obvious, their argument is valid. There is no good reason for FedEx Express drivers to not be covered by the NLRA.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Interesting business space. Both UPS and FedEx manage to raise rates at a clip that is higher than inflation, every single year. Even when their costs decline, like when fuel prices dropped.

I guess there is technically no collusion, but it doesn't seem like there is much competition either.

It makes it difficult for smaller companies to do well because only the biggest companies get reasonable shipping rates.

This is one space where I won't shed any tears if Amazon hands them their ass.

<comment><USER23> The only delivery company worse than Amazon's own delivery is OnTrac.

<comment><USER24> Only started seeing them when I moved to LA--they by far have the oldest delivery vehicles, some with noticeably worn out suspension parts.

<comment><USER23> OnTrac is the only company where I've had to call dispatch and request that they put a note on our address saying not to throw packages over the 10-foot gate onto hard concrete steps.

And I had to do that 3 times before they actually stopped.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> My company has had a much better experience with FedEx than UPS. FedEx employees seem happier. Our driver owns his route and treats us like his personal customer. The UPS guys are nice too but tend to have that postal worker attitude and don't seem as happy. UPS loses more packages, though that seems to have improved. UPS support sucks and their API is even worse. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to pull my hair out while in a UPS call queue being transferred around between clueless front line reps. Their automatic billing has broken on us over the years to the point where we would have to call in to pay each invoice manually or start getting collections notices. They couldn't fix it and we had to just open a new account. This happened twice! FedEx support OTOH is excellent. While I'm greatful for the support of my friends at UPS, I greatly prefer to do business with FedEx.

</comment><comment><USER26> I know most of my UPS drivers by name, and always have great service. I've never had anything wrong from Fedex, but I'd pay a bit extra to use UPS, as they seem less hurried, friendlier and never don't ring the bell (Fedex never does)

<comment><USER27> I'd be ok with a courier not ringing the dog bell, especially since they all support email delivery notification.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I have a few vendors that use FedEx Ground. Absolute worst. They almost never deliver on time. One sick driver means days of delays. You cannot pick up the package at the local FedEx depot that evening if you miss it; it goes to some central place miles away with no pick up policy. I have banned my vendors from using this, and dropped vendors who won't ship by "real" FedEx, UPS or heck even USPS.

</comment><comment><USER29> This explains why the last time I had a package delivered by "fedex" it was delivered by a guy in a Budget rental truck.

</comment><comment><USER30> One thing is certain. FedEx SmartPost and FedEx Ground are so slow I usually avoid buying something if those are the only options. Two weeks delivery time? Are the independent contractors driving rickshaws?

</comment><comment><USER31> The article is from 2004. Nothing has changed since then?

</comment><comment><USER24> A somewhat tangential thought...

-I feel like I used to see DHL trucks and ads much more often. Did they abandon some of the residential delivery market?

<comment><USER32> "30 January 2009: DHL ends domestic pick up and delivery service in the United States, effectively leaving UPS and FedEx as the two major express parcel delivery companies in the United States"

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> FedEx Ground "contractors" are actually employees, just misclassified.

</comment><comment><USER33> UPS: smash it to bits, hold it in the warehouse as long as possible, fake delivery attempts, all for higher prices

<comment><USER34> I work for UPS as a developer and responsible for software that manages/tracks actual deliveries and delivery window. Can you provide some information about fake delivery attempts ? I will personally make sure that if there were "fake" deliveries, you will get a refund and who ever "faked" is punished.

<comment><USER35> The typical complaint is that you're at home, waiting for a package. You check the tracking all day "on the truck". Then at one point, it says "no one home".

Uh... I've _been_ at fucking home all day.

Or worse, see the truck _drive by your house_ , followed by the tracking updated to "no one home".

That's a fake delivery attempt.

<comment><USER34> Can you email me the tracking number of the "fake" delivery to email@example.com ? I will pull GPS coordinates + other data for you, of where & when the delivery was made/attempted.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Weekly Warrior – Journey to launch one product a week - <AUTHOR> http://popflame.com/weekly-warrior-the-plan/

<comment><USER2> If your intentions are to build businesses or generate revenue with these apps, then give yourself time for marketing. If you're like me, getting apps out the door is the easy part. The hard part is getting customers. How about doubling the weekly cycle to include a week of marketing each app after launch? Or the following month do 4 weeks of marketing?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the advice. I tend to end up with apps that have the opposite problem (though I also tend to only work on complicated apps) in that I have more customer than I have app to support them. This is really meant to help me get to a place where I can really figure out what it takes to find that magical minimal viable product, and apply that to new features for my primary app. And who knows, maybe I can make a business out of one of those ideas.</comment></comment>


We Are Better Than This - <AUTHOR> http://uncrunched.com/2012/02/13/we-are-better-than-this/ <comment><USER2> Yawn. More Valley melodrama. Let's all agree that everybody's a jerk sometimes and move on.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Dan Lyons suggests that my defending Path on this issue means, because we're > an investor, that we're a paid apologist (and much worse).

Seems to me that Lyons was suggesting that Arrington was a paid apologist on the basis of the less-than-full complement of scruples and moral fiber Arrington has exhibited in the past.

</comment><comment><USER4> How could these "journalists" be impartial when they are financially involved with the companies they report on?

<comment><USER5> Well, they could try and intentionally correct their coverage in the opposite direction. I'm reminded of the elementary school teachers in my small town, who had to teach and grade their own children at one point because they were the only teacher of that grade in town. Like those teachers, the journalists won't get it perfect, and some won't even bother trying, but it _is_ possible to try and avoid favoritism.

That said, 'journalists' in the tech space have never been particularly impartial - many establish meaningful relationships with entrepreneurs in the tech industry, and those people tend quite naturally to get more and more favorable coverage.

This is one of the points Mike is making - Dave is being treated more harshly than a generic CEO in the same situation because he's disliked personally by certain journalists. I don't know if it's true in this case, but it's certainly plausible.

Honestly, it's almost preferable to have a financially-entangled tech press, because at least then the conflicts are (usually) publicly disclosed. It's far easier than figuring out who goes drinking with whom in their spare time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> They are not worth even this comment.</comment>


Can a Startup Launcher Launch Itself? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.launchrock.com/can-a-startup-launch-itself

<comment><USER2> This is actually a clever way to spread the word. I only say this because it got me excited to sign up. By hanging the carrot of "being one of the first to be invited" you tap into the human psyche. You start a pseudo competition for who gets to be invited first. This abstract promise can be a powerful motivator for some, and you only need some to start spreading the word before the snowball effect.

Is there an open source code for this? I'd like to do this for my startup. It would be ideal if we could save time from having to build it.

<comment><USER3> I'm one of the guys behind LaunchRock. While we're not planning on open sourcing it, we'll be offering this in several forms.

One option will be to redirect your DNS to our servers while your launching the form. The other, and perhaps more interesting to you is an embedabble widget.

<comment><USER4> When's it going to be ready? I've already had three people sign up using my link, lol.

Great idea, are you planning to run any sort of analytics off of the sign ups?

<comment><USER3> Hoping to have something ready for consumption this coming week.

Analytics are on the roadmap. We'll probably have some basic stuff baked in with the initial release.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Brilliant. A ponzi scheme for beta invites.

Seems pretty easy to game though.

<comment><USER3> We're doing a number of things to combat gaming including cookies, double opt- in and potentially some external email verification through a third party service. We're definitely, definitely thinking about it.</comment></comment>


Object-Oriented Programming is Bad [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QM1iUe6IofM <comment><USER2> This video seems to only focus on the negative areas of OOP. There are of course some wide benefits.

I think the truth is in the middle somewhere. As always, pick the right tool for the job.

<comment><AUTHOR> You should have watch it all. He covers all.</comment></comment>


Introducing Starkit - The World's First Private Cloud Appliance - <AUTHOR> http://www.starkitsystems.com/

<comment><USER2> No mention of encryption. And you can operate your "cloud data" from anywhere using owncloud or the bittorrent version of cloud with a private key. I'd be much more willing to trust an encrypted version or anything else.

Your basically asking people to buy your own hardware cause it does cloud stuff. It makes no sense. You can run the cloud from your regular own hardware. Why run it from some random box you got to pay extra to have?</comment>


Amazon.com: Kindle Unlimited - <AUTHOR> https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-eBooks/b/ref=ARRAY(0xaa867008)?_encoding=UTF8&ie=UTF8&node=9578129011&pfShowFeatures=&ref_=ku_lp_jf_0&ref_=ku_lp_jf_0&startPlayback=1 <comment><USER2> The leaks were right! That's a good offer at $9.99 a month.</comment>


Ask HN: How to get people to see what you're doing? - <AUTHOR> How do you get from "I have mode something that I think other people will enjoy" to actually getting it under the eyes of people? Especially when you don't already have a big social network and such. <comment><USER2> Nowadays, it seems possible to grow traffic without any external help. My simple website has grown from 0 to 9k monthly UU without a single backlink, I simply submitted it to Google.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Show HN" is what you're looking for. Try it!

<comment><USER4> Also:

Lobste.rs

Subreddits - find the most appropriate ones and check their submission rules

IndieHackers.com if it's a revenue making project

Producthunt.com

Echojs if it's js related

Medium, dev.to, hacker noon etc

Some will give you instant traffic. Some might give you traffic if lucky and people clap you (or whatever).

Also try talking at a tech meetup near where you live.

Then put the video on YouTube, dailymotion, etc.

Be a guest on a podcast.

Guest blogging.

Google about internet marketing, seo etc. there are endless things you can do.</comment></comment>


A Christian Perspective on Computing: One Person's View - <AUTHOR> https://cs.calvin.edu/documents/christian_perspective_on_computing <comment><USER2> > buggy or poorly designed applications, interfaces designed to simplify life > for the implementer instead of the end-user, programming languages that seem > to be designed with no concern for readability, and so on.

You're avoiding to ask the question of ownership here - because, well, in your eyes all is god's creation, and still you fail to distinguish that all of technology, hardware as well as software are very much human creations. And those responsible for them do not necessarily have your best interest in mind.

Yet nobody wants to hear that of course.</comment>


Run npm Enterprise on AWS with just a few clicks - <AUTHOR> http://blog.npmjs.org/post/142409778875/run-npm-enterprise-on-aws-with-just-a-few-clicks <comment><USER2> From the screenshot, it appears they're running npm in a docker container inside the EC2 instance. It's curious that they did not use Container Sevice. I would have expected node to be running directly on the VM.

<comment><USER3> Pure guess (no affiliation to npm) but they're probably running it within a container to normalize the environment. If you read the docs it says they support both RHEL and Debian based distros (specifically Debian, Ubuntu, RHEL, and CentOS). By running in a container, all you need to set up on the host VM is docker. After that, the app itself is the same within containers on each of them.

<comment><USER4> ECS does exactly that - it's a (somewhat) managed docker container service, so it would still allow them to run containers.

<comment><USER3> If you do it DIY then you can also use the same packaging for your on-premise deployment as well (i.e. no AWS). ECS etc are great but not everybody is running on AWS.

<comment><USER5> I do work at npm, and you're right, that's why we do it. The same Docker-based installer (from a company called Replicated) installs on all our customers' many operating systems, so it was easiest to do the same thing to create our AMI.

We should look at ECS though. Are you more likely to deploy if something is in ECS than if it's a straight AMI?

<comment><USER2> Personally, I would never use an AMI that contained docker. I'd be more likely to use an ECS container, OR an AMI which runs node directly.

Though I must admit (1) I am not one of your customers, and (2) our BAA with Amazon prevents us from using ECS. We typically run node on ebs backed m3.medium instances running Amazon Linux.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Broadcasting your attack DAB security presented at Black Hat USA 2015 - <AUTHOR> http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:rz6UF1IKBwoJ:https://www.nccgroup.trust/au/about-us/resources/black-hat-usa-2015-presentation-broadcasting-your-attack--dab-security/

<comment><AUTHOR> Andy Davis nccgroup slides:

[https://www.nccgroup.trust/globalassets/resources/uk/present...](https://www.nccgroup.trust/globalassets/resources/uk/presentations/2015/august/ncc- group-15-davis-broadcasting-your-attack-security-testing-dab-radio-in- cars.pdf)

<comment><AUTHOR> Broadcasting your attack – DAB security This presentation was presented at Black Hat USA 2015

Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) radio receivers can be found in many new cars and are often integrated into what has become known as the "infotainment system" – typically a large screen in the dashboard that the vehicle occupants interact with to control anything from what music is playing, to making phone calls, to viewing vehicle diagnostic information.

In many cases the infotainment system is connected to the same network as computers that control physical aspects of the vehicle e.g. steering and braking. This is because automated functionality is becoming more common in modern vehicles – the ability to automatically park a vehicle at the press of a button requires a computer to be able to electronically control the steering. These are known as "cyber-physical" systems as there is computer (cyber) control of what was traditionally, a manual, physical process such as steering the vehicle. Therefore, an attacker who finds a way to gain control of an infotainment system can in many cases use that platform to attack more sensitive, safety-critical vehicle functions.

DAB radio is significantly more feature-rich than its predecessor (FM). Although FM could broadcast simple textual messages such as the radio station name via the Radio Data System (RDS), DAB broadcasts can include much more text, with international langue support, images, web pages and even video.

All of this complexity increases the "attack surface" (number of avenues of attack) of a receiver.

Download the slides from Andy Davis' talk at Black Hat USA here.

Published date: 06 August 2015</comment></comment>


The 7-Inch iPad's Biggest Critic: Steve Jobs - <AUTHOR> http://allthingsd.com/20120705/the-7-inch-ipads-biggest-critic-steve-jobs/

<comment><USER2> Steve Jobs would always bait and switch: "You know the bla bla is a really dumb idea, so Apple will NEVER do it" followed by introducing the iBlaBla about two years later. In fact it's easier to to guess what they'll roll out by what Jobs "hated" rather than what he liked...

PS I really miss Jobs, without him the industry seems dull...

<comment><USER3> You make it sound as he was doing it on purpose. I doubt that. I think he genuinely believed it to be a bad idea at the time, and then 3-5 years later, he would simply change his mind, for whatever reason or new insight he would have.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Test the market using Facebook / iPhone - <AUTHOR>

I am looking to launch an application / website and was thinking if i can gain traction on Facebook or iPhone it would more likely be successful as a stand alone site<p>What are some others thoughts on testing the market and do you agree? <comment><USER2> Without knowing what your application does, it's likely you're not going to get very good advice.</comment>


Warren Buffet's Letter to Investors - <AUTHOR> http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2008ltr.pdf

<comment><USER3> Good read.

Summary:

1) 2008 sucked badly, and so will 2009

2) Even Buffett makes mistakes. Last year he made moves that lost his company billions of dollars. One bank stock he bought lost 90% of its value.

3) The Government has taken actions that will have many negative consequences, but swift action was necessary to avoid a giant collapse.

4) Even though the near future looks gloomy, America has been through worse. We've been involved in World Wars, had great recessions and depressions, and have emerged stronger.

5) 75% of the last 44 years have had positive gains in the S&P 500. He thinks the next 40 years will be similar, but we will have some rough years. Don't be an idiot and try to go all-in catching falling knives or timing the bottom, average in your investments slowly, buy things you can afford, work hard, invest in well-run businesses, and you'll be aiight.

<comment><USER4> A counter to #4:

The point that I, and so many like me, keep coming back to is... Every man, woman, child and dog has a credit card now; a large percentage of people are carrying unbearable amounts of debt. In the past, America was a creditor nation; today, Hilary Clinton goes quietly begging in China while Obama gets on TV and tries to act as though we're so much better than China - "Can you believe that they're beating us at cleantech! Impossible!" (Disclaimer: I voted for him, and attended one of his fundraisers.)

I'm not saying this because I want to be some doomsayer fuddy-duddy. I'm saying this because I like the people in this community we have here at HN, and I want to make sure people understand what we're looking at here -- years of economic contraction. You can't spend your way out of a de-leveraging economy, and it is quite dangerous to borrow money and theoretically finance "stimulus" from tax revenues dependent on future rich people who may or many not exist (see: California's economic disaster, wherein they thought the golden era of dotcom millionaires would continue ad infinitum).

Thankfully, the online software industry seems to have made some enormous gains in efficiency/automation, and you can now operate enterprise-grade services at extremely low cost. This will allow many of us here to thrive, even in this contracting environment (i.e., I may have 1/3rd the customers I would in 1999, but I'm spending 5% of the money it would have cost to service them). We are in a unique and special place; unfortunately, however, the rest of the economy is in for continual hurt.

Also, there are some very smart people questioning whether the golden era of equities is over. What this means is -- yeah, equities had a great run for 60 years, but what if that doesn't actually mean anything? What if the past and the future are completely disconnected? In a world in which young innovators such as ourselves can operate at such low cost, and when Sarbanes Oxley and friends lead most smart people who value their sanity to avoid the public markets, this could certainly be the case. Most equities these days are held by institutional investors, who I can tell you from personal experience tend to be quite moronic (i.e., I begged the top shareholders in Motorola to make some activist moves against the crony executive/board structure there, but they did absolutely nothing - even while watching their equity value dip by 50% or more). A democracy - whether involving citizens or shareholders - <USER2> works when people are smart enough to know what to do; if we can learn anything from the idiocy of the past several years, it is that the shareholder democracy is utterly broken, because they were the ones who kept voting in corrupt boards and awarding retarded salaries. Anyone staking their future/kids' futures/etc on these people is a fool whose money will be soon taken from him/her.

If I sound slightly pissed at the state of American business/political society today, well... :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Approval, though, is not the goal of investing. In fact, approval is often counter-productive because it sedates the brain and makes it less receptive to new facts or a re-examination of conclusions formed earlier. Beware the investment activity that produces applause; the great moves are usually greeted by yawns."

Also, surprising to me that this landed in his shareholder's letter:

Indeed, recent events demonstrate that certain big-name CEOs (or former CEOs) at major financial institutions were simply incapable of managing a business with a huge, complex book of derivatives. Include Charlie and me in this hapless group: When Berkshire purchased General Re in 1998, we knew we could not get our minds around its book of 23,218 derivatives contracts, made with 884 counterparties (many of which we had never heard of). So we decided to close up shop. Though we were under no pressure and were operating in benign markets as we exited, it took us five years and more than $400 million in losses to largely complete the task. Upon leaving, our feelings about the business mirrored a line in a country song: "I liked you better before I got to know you so well."

Imagine how Citibank would have worded the same sentiment in its shareholder letter.

</comment><comment><USER6> Starting on page 17, Buffet discusses the failures of Freddie and Fannie and their oversight committee, the OFHEO. It's a fascinating read.

This particular caption is my favorite on derivatives:

"Improved "transparency" – a favorite remedy of politicians, commentators and financial regulators for averting future train wrecks – won't cure the problems that derivatives pose. I know of no reporting mechanism that would come close to describing and measuring the risks in a huge and complex portfolio of derivatives. Auditors can't audit these contracts, and regulators can't regulate them. When I read the pages of "disclosure" in 10-Ks of companies that are entangled with these instruments, all I end up knowing is that I don't know what is going on in their portfolios (and then I reach for some aspirin)."

I also find it hilarious that he ends by trying to sell his shareholders auto insurance at their annual meeting next month:

"GEICO will have a booth staffed by a number of its top counselors from around the country, all of them ready to supply you with auto insurance quotes. In most cases, GEICO will be able to give you a shareholder discount (usually 8%). This special offer is permitted by 44 of the 50 jurisdictions in which we operate. (One supplemental point: The discount is not additive if you qualify for another, such as that given certain groups.) Bring the details of your existing insurance and check out whether we can save you money. For at least 50% of you, I believe we can."

<comment><USER7> The annual meeting is one huge sales event for Berkshire companies. For good reason: 25,000 mostly wealthy people (investors and their guests) are there. Borsheim's sells millions of dollars of jewelry, people sign up for NetJets, the Nebraska Furniture Mart has its best day of the year, etc. And up on the stage during the meeting, Buffett conspicuously eats See's Candies and drinks Coca-Cola.

BTW, if anyone else is going to the meeting this year, email me (in my profile). I'm considering it. I've gone for the last three years and enjoyed it a lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Though Berkshire's credit is pristine – we are one of only seven AAA corporations in the country – _our cost of borrowing is now far higher than competitors with shaky balance sheets but government backing._ At the moment, it is much better to be a financial cripple with a government guarantee than a Gibraltar without one."

Nicely stated. Interesting how the American government's dramatic intrusions into the credit market have inverted pre-existing systemic signals.

</comment><comment><USER9> I've never seen this discussed before:

Buffett thinks the Black-Scholes formula produces "absurd results" when applied to long-dated options (see page 19).

"Though historical volatility is a useful – but far from foolproof – concept in valuing short-term options, its utility diminishes rapidly as the duration of the option lengthens."

Berkshire Hathaway has sold equity put options that require payment if various stock market indexes (S&P 500, the FTSE 100, the Euro Stoxx 50, and the Nikkei 225) have gone down after 15 or 20 years from the inception of the contracts.

Buffett think that the likelihood of these indexes going down over such an extended period is extremely unlikely, due to inflation and an increase in corporate retained earnings. But, even if the indexes _do_ decline, he has already received the option premium up front and is able to invest that money for 15-20 years, before having to pay out anything.

"Clearly, either my assumptions are crazy or the formula is inappropriate."

</comment><comment><USER10> Here, in one sentence fragment, is why Buffet is a better investor than any of us: "the U.S. Treasury bond bubble of late 2008"

(He is arguing that the flight-to-safety is causing assets which are riskier than T-bills to be grievously underpriced relative to their true values. Accordingly, he is buying.)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> What I found entertaining and a big lesson is how on page 8, he asks his readers to call Geico and find out how you can save money on car insurance.

</comment><comment><USER11> "Our advice: Beware of geeks bearing formulas."

<comment><AUTHOR> WB is never one for tech companies.

<comment><USER12> Thats because he never invests in anything that he doesn't understand. He wants to fully understand how they make money. That is great investment advice, too.</comment></comment></comment>


The $160 Lesson: Apps Beat Devices - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/01/the-160-lesson-apps-beat-devices.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AVc+%28A+VC%29&utm_content=Google+Reader <comment><USER2> Um, no.

Wow. This is simply an extreme over-generalization of a single use-case being applied to entire industries. The author of the article is also a VC with a vested interest in 'apps'. Shocker.

Nice press-hack Mr. Wilson, but present-day facts and digital computing history are not in your favor.

Moore's law and Gilder's law illustrate that a democratization of hardware and connectivity outpace the ability of generic software to be written to connect them.

The future is in MORE devices, not less.

Granted, the practical use-cases for "generic devices running task-specific apps" grows as interfaces become standardized and increased portable computing power allows for more near real-time workflows from non-dedicated real-time hardware. All modern TVs and Set-top boxes are really powerful computers running "video apps". We are finally arriving at dawn of the "univeral remote", but home media consumption is an extremely small sliver of computing.

Wherever safety, security, and low-attention/muscle-memory/real-time response properties dominate the workflow, a task-specific combination of hardware & software (e.g. a Device) works better. And those devices are getting cheaper and cheaper to produce every day.

For example, look at the large variety of input and monitoring Devices which come coupled with household products (stereos, garage door openers, cars, hot tubs, baby monitors, etc.).

Further from home, Internet routers used to simply be generic Unix boxes. Now routers run their own hardware platforms and dedicated operating systems. The same applies to industrial welding/manipulation robots.

Input used to come exclusively from serial line keyboard terminals. Now a whole range of dedicated input Devices (mice, trackpads, haptic probes, eye- trackers, isometric sticks) and their respective software drivers, provide the vast bulk of user input data.

People aren't going to trust the safety and security of their health, homes, cars, or children to the latest v2.1 update in the App store, but they'll (somewhat unhappily) wait on the latest firmware update while their Scientific Atlanta cable box reboots.

<comment><AUTHOR> All modern tvs and set top boxes are the farthest thing from "really powerful computers". They're actually the exact opposite of being powerful computers.

<comment><USER2> I absolutely agree. A fact which further proves my point.

The comparison was being made to previous generations of digital TVs and set top boxes, not to generic home PCs or laptops. Similarly, look at the evolution of dedicated game consoles.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm currently working on a long article about home theater pcs actually. should be on HN tonight. would love to get your feedback on it in the comments section here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Thing is - interfaces are getting standardized. Wireless is available everywhere. A lot of the small devices you have will soon be replacable with a mobile device:

\- Door openers

\- Car Keys

\- Heat control

\- Remote controls

\- Universal lamp control

\- Gas/Electricity meter

<comment><USER4> Probably credit cards as well.

<comment><USER5> > MasterCard PayPass is an EMV compatible, "contactless" payment feature based > on the ISO/IEC 14443 standard that provides cardholders with a simpler way > to pay by tapping a payment card or other payment device, such as a _PHONE_ > or key fob, on a point-of-sale terminal reader rather than swiping or > inserting a card. [Emphasis mine]

MasterCard is already ahead on the game with this. I believe there's been a trial in the US with this, on a Nokia handset I believe. There's currently a trial being launched with BlackBerry and the Bank of Montreal for a test in Montreal (although in reality it will work with all PayPass enabled machines in Canada, including all Tim Hortons, McDonalds, etc). I believe this test is slightly different in that the system auto-emails a receipt to the BlackBerry user's email.

<comment><USER6> Paypass also works with visa cards equipped with the proper RFID. If you look at the machine you'll see a small visa logo beside the mastercard one.

<comment><USER5> I knew visa had their paywave, which IIRC is being used in all the coca-cola vending machines at the Olympics. I have noticed visa's logo on some PayPass machines, however I believe, here at least, MasterCard offered incentives on the machines marked with MasterCard logo's only.

I know PayPass hit the market earlier than Visa, so I believe visa is still playing catch-up. I have read Visa's started trailing its paywave in cell phones, however its first trial was 2 years behind MC's, so I believe it's still 2 years behind MC in its usage of paywave. If paywave hits the market big in say 2012, it'll likely be 2014 until people are using it with visa's.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The trick is that the solution that works best with your environment tends to be a solution that resembles your environment. The iTouch/iPhone ARE OSX, so they obviously work very well with the Mac computers this author is using. Granted, the app may be cool, a lot of his problem was driver-related.

<comment><USER8> But even the friggin' Apple keyboard (Made by Apple! Drivers and all!) didn't work as well as a friggin' app in this story.

<comment><USER9> That part makes me wonder. It seems odd to me that a Mac would have trouble with Apple's Bluetooth keyboard. You would think Apple would have gone over that with a fine toothed comb. Is this guy doing something weird?

<comment><USER10> Using it from 20 feet away? A mac mini buried in an AV cabinet? Hard to say what's wrong when all the information given amounts to "dunno".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sometimes.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is why the iPhone/iTouch is so powerful: it's not just a device, it is a hardware platform for anybody who needs to build a small, mobile device. Not just the universal remote control: we've already seen apps that turn the iPhone into a medical device, a musical instrument, and a barcode scanner.

This is also where Android, being more open, has a potential edge -- it should be possible to make even better things given the greater freedom allowed, but at present the massive market share advantage of the iPhone means we're going to continue to see innovation primarily over there in the short term.

</comment><comment><USER13> I bought Mobile air mouse app for iPhone and it works fine when iphone and computer both are connected to same wi-fi network. As they adverties it also works with ad-hoc wifi network created from any computer. I tried this in my office, hoping to use iphone as PowerPoint remote control. But it doesnt work. As soon as I try to connect the app to the network, Server Application running on WinXP dies. Sent them few emails, they promised to fix it but then never got reply back from the.</comment>


Uber for Everything - <AUTHOR> http://diegobasch.com/uber-for-everything <comment><USER2> The abundance (of mostly idle drills) the author points to is one of the main ideas behind Kropotkin's mutualism ("anarcho-communism"). Industrialization and agricultural breakthroughs have produced such plenty that it is inexcusable that anybody wants for, well, any common need. In a mutual system, the drill belongs to nobody, and it is taken and used as needed. Idealism? Surely. But many anarchists would tell you that anarchism is an ideal, a goal, more than it is a destination to be arrived at in short order.

So, I'd much rather see a tools co-op than yet another tools rental service; perhaps I fail at capitalism in seeing this as something other than a startup opportunity. Maybe this _is_ what the author is getting at, but the article is couched in startup language.

<comment><USER3> > Idealism? Surely. But many anarchists would tell you that anarchism is an > ideal, a goal, more than it is a destination to be arrived at in short > order.

It always struck me, that so many people discard the idea of anarchism either as "a teenage rebel idealism", terrorism, or simply "not going to work". Hence they go back to capitalism or however things work today.

But in the end, what anarcho-communism is trying to achieve is what most of us would agree with: eliminate poverty and exploitation (via equal rights to access means of production), let people have control over their own lives, direct democracy and self-organization. And when people say it's not going to work, it saddens me that we are not even trying to move in that direction. Of course, it may not ever happen, but innovating in this direction surely could lead us to a better world.

Of course, don't take my word for it, as I'm obviously biased. Instead research the topic if you're interested.

<comment><USER4>
      But in the end, what anarcho-communism is trying to achieve is what most of us would agree with: eliminate poverty and exploitation (via equal rights to access means of production)

You can replace the words 'anarcho-capitalism' with every single other political system, and you'd reach the same ideal endpoint. Everything promises fairness. People don't simply dismiss anarchism as 'teenage rebel idealism' because they're unaware of your notions of endpoint, they disagree with it because of inherent flaws (namely that money tends to lead to more money, and any system devoid of oversight or regulation will inevitably lead to a power structure built around those already with power).

There is no panaceatic system -- only the continual tamping of natural power leavening. To claim that your system, above others, will achieve a system that brings about permanent fairness is to belie a shallow consideration for how power accumulates.

<comment><USER3> Note 'anarcho- _communism_ ', not - _capitalism_. In fairness, I am opposed to anarcho-capitalism for the reason you outlined above:

> namely that money tends to lead to more money

In general, yes - there is no such thing as "panaceatic system", instead I was suggesting to trying to find different methods, organization structures to lower the possibility of (or in ideal world eliminating) power accumulation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Reminds me of something Paul Graham said a few months ago:

"Will ownership turn out to be largely a hack people resorted to before they had the infrastructure to manage sharing properly?"

[https://twitter.com/paulg/status/323875236225363968](https://twitter.com/paulg/status/323875236225363968)

<comment><USER6> Communes have been sharing things properly as long as mankind has been around. The trick here is that we have redefined 'properly' as accountably, but it need not keep the beancounters happy and you can still share stuff. The taxman hates that kind of thing, they like to see receipts.

<comment><USER7> I'd say communes are small scale, and the dynamics of efficiently sharing among a larger number of people are fundamentally different.

<comment><USER6> Some Ashrams are huge, and that's only one form of commune. A quick bit of googling turned up Auroville, 2000 inhabitants.

<comment><USER8> That's cool. Can this scale to 2,000,000,000?

<comment><USER9> Does setting up 100,000 communes count?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The drill example is a good one. I'm currently building a pergola. It's nearly complete, but I need to cut a few more pieces from 4x4s at a 45 degree angle. Somehow I did a decent job of this already on a few pieces with my handheld circular saw, but it's just not the right tool for the job. I screwed up a few times trying last night. What I really need is a chopsaw that will cut @ 45 degrees perfectly well.

I could go buy a chopsaw. I will probably keep using it on occasion. But it's another $200 or so and - I'd rather just borrow one from a friend. But I don't really know who of my friends has a chopsaw I can borrow, I don't want to invest the time to figure that out and then go and get it, and tool rental is ridiculously expensive, and it doesn't generally deliver without even more ridiculous expense.

I also need a nail gun, and the good ones are all air powered, which means I need a compressor, too. Again, I could go rent this stuff, but I want it delivered, and I don't want to pay a price that is pretty close to what it would cost to just buy the tool!

I have several power tools I rarely use. If I could sign up for a service that would let me loan my tools out and borrow tools from others that also join the service, and if the tool sharing service delivered and picked up tools from my home and I requested what I want and made known what I have via an app, I'd sign up right away.

I think it could be done with little cost to the end user.

So - Uber for everything - yes - and Uber for powertools - give it to me now!

<comment><USER11> > "and I don't want to pay a price that is pretty close to what it would cost > to just buy the tool!"

Why not pay the full price for the tool + delivery (handled by some monthly membership fee, maybe) to keep it as long as you like, and then push a button on your phone and someone shows up from the service to "buy it back" and return it to the cloud. You'd essentially be paying a deposit to cover the item, and then get the money back when the service got it back.

I'd liken this more to the original "netflix-for-everything", with a dash of exec/uber-for-everything.

<comment><USER12> You could do this p2p without having to have a central storage of all the tools. Assuming the scale is large enough, there should always be things available that you want. That also covers deprecation in value. The central service could charge a small amount and handle disputes, etc, and come with ratings of how reliable someone is.

You could call it something like eBay.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> These are problems and solutions created by a very weak American social fabric that no longer has any meaningful element larger than the nuclear family. See Robert Putnam's "Bowling Alone."

When I stay with my cousins in India, they can borrow anything they need on pretty short notice. We wanted to play chess -- my cousin went a few doors down to borrow their chess board. He saw that the cardboard chess board was falling apart -- he spent about half an hour fixing it up with tape.

The closest that you see in America, since the days of Elks Lodges and bowling leagues are behind us, are religious communities. Mormons, for example, have a very tight-knit community of friends that they see frequently. Forget a power drill -- if your house burns down, your fellow Mormons will be there in an hour to get you housed/clothed/fed/taken care of.

<comment><USER14> I would argue that at scale and density, Airbnb has the chance to create a community like this.

<comment><USER15> AirBNB is all about transience, though - I'm not going to join a community by staying at someone's house for two days. At best, if there's a strong mutual enjoyment, I'd end up making an acquaintance I might grab a drink with if I'm passing through that city again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think this line of thinking, while interesting, is backwards-looking.

One of the major advancements of mankind was precisely being able to manufacture goods at a minimal marginal cost. Set up a billion dollar stamping machine and now you can produce widgets for a marginal cost of a few cents.

Compare that to centuries past where manufacturing goods of any kind- metal, clothing, or food took enormous amounts of resources compared to today and therefore goods were either too expensive to purchase, or had to be shared. Ironically, computers are probably the single best example of this. Previously they were complex and expensive to make, so the fortunate few who had access to one had to share it. Nowadays you can go to Best Buy and buy your own for a few hundred bucks. That is a huge leap in progress. Why would you want to move the other way?

<comment><USER17> That's a different use case. Computer owners usually use their computers every single day for multiple hours, while drill owners, unless they are professionals or hobbyists in construction, use them very rarely, maybe once or twice a year.

<comment><USER16> But the cost is vastly different as well. You can get a drill at Wal-Mart for under $40 and it barely takes up any room. People's time is a lot more expensive than the drill so there will never be a time that it will be economical to pay somebody to do just that for you instead of buying a drill and doing it yourself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think the author hasn't researched the topic very well - there are a ton of startups who have tried this "stuff-sharing/selling model" and it hasn't really worked out.

I wrote a blog post about why a drill is a bad example for the sharing economy: [https://www.credport.org/blog/12-Why-a-Drill-is-a-Bad- Exampl...](https://www.credport.org/blog/12-Why-a-Drill-is-a-Bad-Example-for- the-Sharing-Economy)

<comment><USER14> Your post and outlook on this problem is the result of your definition of "sharing economy" being too narrowly focused.

To me it seems most people interested in the sharing economy only care about to talk about sharing if both sides of the transaction are individuals. If you're open to the idea that the sharing economy could be a transaction between a business and individual, then the market for temporary product rentals suddenly becomes a $40B space. This is nothing new, either. Small businesses have been renting out to other businesses and individuals since the 1950s. And, it's an existing $40B+ industry.

So while sure, peer to peer rentals for small items might never work, that's not to say that an "Uber for rentals" model wouldn't work. Uber started by bringing _existing_ limo drivers online... not by trying to create a new supply side.

Edit: I also find the conclusion and only looking at drills to also be too narrow of a conclusion. Seems like most people when they look at tools only think about power drills. Totally agree that there isn't a $2B market for power drill rentals. However, there is a massive market for all other types of tool rentals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The Uber for Everything is called Craigslist.

It's a fairly efficient market which means you can generally buy a used drill for the same price that you can sell it for.

<comment><USER20> Who want to deal with spending, at minimum, two hours of time to buy and then sell a $40 item, when you can just buy the $40 item and keep it on a shelf.

<comment><USER21> This is, I think, the most important point. The fact is when considered as a single transaction: the $22 drill vs. the $22 guy that comes out drills holes may seem like a wash. But given a usage interval of 6 months and a likely life span for the tool of 5-10 years, you are looking a $220-$440 cost for the service. If your goal is not to profit off people who don't own tools, but rather maximize use of existing tools, and somehow you can make the whole thing work without charging anyone a dime, you are still converting a 5 minute job (pull the drill out of your storage box, and drill 5 holes) into hour or so job (fire up the app, request a drill, it tells you where the nearest one it, you go there and get it, go home, drill your holes, then store it, then some time later you get notified by the app that someone needs the drill so you stay home while that person comes by to pick it up.) Ok, so maybe you could simplify that process, but most of the simplifications still impose time penalties, or costs. The point is, for me, after two jaunts through the process I'd start seeing $22 for my own drill as a bargain.

The whole approach would be more likely to work the more expensive the tool (or other object) and the less frequent your need. Thats why car share services work in cities with 1M+ population, but not in the town of 2000 I live in.

The other thing is informal stuff like this happens all the time. I don't own a MIG welder, but my brother does. He doesn't own a plasma cutter but he has a friend that does. Neither of them own a tubing bender, but I do. So tool sharing is common among existing social peer groups, and it works without an "uber" because there is existing trust within the group that if I borrow and break the welder, I'll pay to repair it. When you lend to strangers, you would need a group to guarantee that your $1200 welder will come back in one piece.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This has been tried so many times, and failed. I suspect that the reason is that it's just not a big deal to buy and have tools you use rarely. Compare that to the cost of owning a car, which includes insurance, maintenance, parking, and not to mention the actual purchase price. That makes car sharing much more valuable, like orders of magnitude more valuable.

<comment><USER11> It won't work in areas of low density - the convenience and per-transaction cost would be lost. But in dense cities with an ability to deliver in an hour/day to/from your door, it could be very nice. I would get rid of quite a bit of my stuff that I never use, but I keep around in case I buy a desk, or move, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> To me, the drill example misses a crucial point about cars. Cars are a pain in the ass to own. First you need a license. Then you need insurance. You need to get it checked up once a year. You need to park it every day and night. You need to refuel it every so often. So Uber doesn't only solves the transportation problem. It relieves you of all these (super) annoying chores and is much more convenient for a lot of people. But uber for drills? Brings more problems than it solves at an individual level imo.

</comment><comment><USER24> How is this different from what craigslist does?

Searching for "drill rent" in the NYC page reveals [http://newhaven.craigslist.org/tls/3961251107.html](http://newhaven.craigslist.org/tls/3961251107.html)

<comment><USER9> It'd have a beautiful flat-design iOS app, delighting users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Don't hackerspaces[0] solve this issue? I mean, with hackerspaces, the emphasis is more on building stuff in the space, instead of taking the tools home. But the idea is the same, and it's been around for a while.

[0]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackerspace](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackerspace)

</comment><comment><USER26> The car service he describes actually sort of exists. It's car2go and it's around in Amsterdam and London as well.

You rent little electric smarts per minute and get free minutes for putting it back at a charging location. The cars can be put back anywhere in the city though and you can find them using the app which shows you all the locations.

<comment><USER9> It's not in SF or NYC or Boston, which means hardly anyone on HN or in VCland knows about it.

<comment><USER27> It will likely be in some of those places soon; they've been expanding quite quickly. A motorcycle is the only vehicle I own, and it was the perfect complement for things like groceries, moving small things, vet appointments, etc. I used it in Austin, and I miss it dearly in LA.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I've thought of putting together a "Netflix for tools" where you order a tool, it gets sent to you with a returnable box and label and you send it back when you're done. A drill is a bad example though. I wouldn't stock commodity tools like drills and saws, it'd be things you're going to have to order online anyway, like tools made specifically for one car.

A good example that I could use right now is a BMW airbag reset tool. I stupidly disconnected an airbag when replacing my window regulator. Now I need a very basic, $20 on eBay, electronic tool to reset the system and get rid of the warning light. I'd pay $10 to have it by the weekend when I'll do the work, and it could be used many, many times over. Every German car I've ever owned had similar electrical and mechanical specialty tools I've had to buy and can't use when I get a new car.

</comment><comment><USER29> The article addresses a very common problem. Drills are not the best example of tools to rent, since they relatively cheap and you use them quite often. I personally have gone through this thought process every time I worked on my car and needed new expensive tools that are used once. When I moved to a house, I always needed equipment (not only tools) on a short term basis. This is why I started [https://www.1000tools.com](https://www.1000tools.com) I wanted to be able to rent tools [specifically tools] from people around me and couldn't find a good enough solution. So, we built our solution.

It's live and open in select cities, 8 weeks old startup.

</comment><comment><USER30> Not to be overly philosophical, but this problem was more or less created by the urbanization of human culture. I live in a small town in Maine and telecommute to my job. If I need a tool, before I ever even think of hitting up Amazon or Home Depot, I ask around.

Problem solved. Live in communities where your peer group is varied enough that you're likely to be friends with someone with what you don't have and this is a non-issue.

Of course, that's not realistic for the vast majority of the U.S. So I suppose, good luck. I'm gonna go chat with my neighbor about something and see if needs any help.

</comment><comment><USER31> There are a _lot_ of people trying to do this. Namenotrequired mentioned [https://peerby.com/](https://peerby.com/) but there are others:

[http://snapgoods.com/](http://snapgoods.com/) [http://us.zilok.com/](http://us.zilok.com/) [http://www.openshed.com.au/](http://www.openshed.com.au/) [http://irent2u.com/](http://irent2u.com/) [http://www.hirethings.co.nz/](http://www.hirethings.co.nz/) [http://rentalic.com/](http://rentalic.com/) [http://www.rentstuff.com/](http://www.rentstuff.com/) [http://www.loanables.com/](http://www.loanables.com/) [http://www.rentoid.com/](http://www.rentoid.com/)

And that's just the ones who are still trying. Many domains are dead.

And honestly, I suspect that they'll all fail. "Rent anything" is too big of a problem for a startup to solve in one fell swoop. I think someone could succeed at it if they picked a market that is _really_ underserved by other existing options and focus on just a small set of goods, in a specific geographic area, and really work the kinks out before slowly expanding.

Becoming the go-to place for tool rentals in San Francisco before your team burns out is doable. Becoming the "rent anything from anyone" company is not.

<comment><USER32> I wonder if it is too much for Amazon to take on though. The OP mentioned buying a drill with Amazon Prime which is almost on demand use of the tool.

What if Amazon had a "Rent for 4 hours for $5" option on their site (right below the buy button).

<comment><USER33> How do you imagine them picking the item up when you're done? You wait for the UPS guy? 1 hour pick up time slots? You go to their drop-off location?

<comment><USER34> Put it back in the box and back outside the door where it was dropped off, and the next delivery guy to come by picks it up. My apartment building already gets multiple deliveries from Amazon each day, so partial-day rentals are theoretically possible without any more visits.

It'd be a logistics nightmare, but Amazon seems to be really good at solving those.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Hm, diminishing the importance of exclusive ownership? Sharing and optimization of utilization? Doesn't sound very American or capitalistic to me. What's next, long term sustainability and planning? Sounds like socialism, if not communism!

It is kind of ironic that now there is a for-profit, commercial product based on the concept that has been so stigmatized during the Cold War. Perhaps rebranding is what it will take for a less consumerist, less wasteful and more efficient society that can survive global warming and overpopulation.

<comment><USER36> Capitalism has always been about maximizing utility. It's just that as transaction costs are falling thanks to the internet and other tech, more effective sharing becomes possible. Note that it would still rely on ownership of the capital good itself as well as the sharing marketplace, to avoid the tragedy of the commons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Markets like "Airbnb for drilling holes in my wall" will take off once we have self-driving cars. Right now to order a "hole in my wall" you need to pay:

1) A human's time to come to you 2) A human's time to drill the hole 3) Capex for the drilling machine

Self driving car tech can solve point 1, which would leave a huge incentive to solve point 2. Even a low cost worker can easily cost $50K all-in (including overhead), so if self driving car tech is commonplace that would mean a "robot that drills holes and knows how to drive itself to the customer's wall" can cost up to $50K / risk adjusted interest rate.

Take interest rate at 10%, that means the market will pay upto $500K per such robot, multiply by a few of those in a few hundred cities and you now have a market oppotunity for 1000 hole drilling robots i.e. 500 million USD. It now becomes interesting for VCs.

Now redo this scenario for every little thing people do in life. Of course eventually someone who will invent the "iPhone for robots", a base robot that does the self driving and developers can make apps on top of it to do different tasks. The robot can go back to base to retool when needed.

This is why I am convinced self-driving cars will take automation to a whole new level. I think PG is right when he says ownership could turn out to be a temporary hack for efficient crowd sharing. (I am saying this as a 100% capitalist.)

</comment><comment><USER37> NeighBorrow was trying to do this, but it looks like they've gone from "share the things you don't need with your neighbors" to "pay us a montly price and when you need something you'll get it."

They're over at [http://beta.neighborrow.com/](http://beta.neighborrow.com/)

Disclosure: I used to be contracted as a developer by the guy running it. I wasn't the best developer then, but I was a lot younger too.

</comment><comment><USER38> Honestly, wishing to absolve yourself of common tools? Shame on you.

I've driven back and forth across the country twice with everything in the trunk of a Honda Civic and still brought a drill with me both times. $13 will get you a corded drill (no battery to wear out) at Harbor Fright. While you're there, get a few more simple hand tools you may need someday.

People should strive to own more tools and learn to do at least some things for themselves. It sounds like this guy's actual problem is that he needs to pick up that drill and start using it more without too much planning. Imagine how good of a coder you'd be if you had to schedule an hour ahead and pay $10 every time you saved a file!

Spend some time in LA if you'd like to see the broken society that develops from outsourcing everything to services performed by cheap labor. Utterly disempowered people floating through life afraid of doing anything besides what they're told, because they have no clue how anything actually functions. And it's not like they save time either, dealing with administrative overhead for every little task and invariably supervising the worker from the shade.

<comment><USER39> Sounds like you missed the point of the article. It's not about not being able to use the tools, just letting them collect dust in your shed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> A lot of this stuff is already in place, perhaps without a spiffy iOS app. You can rent all kinds of tools from Home Depot, and there are lots of places which rent dinnerware.

For example, my wife and I have dinner service for 9 in our house, so when we threw a sandwich luncheon for 30, we rented three dozen plates and punch glasses for 24 hours. I think it was about $40, and it was way nicer than using disposables.

</comment><comment><USER41> One aspect of Uber that I think is missed as key, is not necessarily sharing, they are offering an existing service, a taxi service. It was there before, you share a taxi, you don't own it. What they did here is to take a very old industry and, well, disrupt it. They make it look elegant (home page looks like a fashion site), easy to use, rating of drivers makes sure quality is high, and no need to tip is a big thing, I hate when taxi drivers complain that I only left 15% and not 20% as if it's mandatory.

Uber make the Taxi service better, more modern, that's all, and it's good enough.

The next Uber IMHO will do the same for another service, any other service, that things like getting your service provider's photo in advance, following their arrival on GPS, no need for cash or credit cards due to a one click payment, known and final quote and pricing, and ability to rate them without the need to answer a recorded phone call with 10 questions, will have value to customers.

Any service that follows this, sharing drills or not, will have a good chance of making it big IMHO.

</comment><comment><USER42> Sounds like you could just sell your drill!

It all comes down to how much money/headaches are you saving. Let's say the temporary drill/hole making service costs half as much as getting a drill itself ($11 for the service instead of $22 for the drill). If you need to put another shelf in, the service would cost as much as getting the drill in the first place! Also, is it more convenient as a service? Are you sure you want to deal with getting a person to go to your place to put a hole in? Sometimes, I don't want to deal with people and I don't want to wait. Is it worth the effort of ordering on your phone and waiting a hour every time you want to use a drill? Are you saving money in the long run?

I don't think everything can be put in the fancy schmancy "sharing economy." It comes to one simple principle - is something more convenient as a service?

Maybe it is convenient at scale. Maybe renting all the power tools you need or all the equipment you need is more convenient.

<comment><USER43> I believe that the author is implying, in the first two paragraphs, that they would rather spend more money in the long run than have the drill sitting around unused.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I wonder if a variation of this would work for home-grown produce.

Our house has a 1/4 acre yard, huge garden beds, and a drip system. Even with a household of 6 we've got zucchinis, tomatoes, and lemons coming out the wazoo[1]. Every block in our neighborhood has a few giant avocado trees and more and more people seem to be setting up chicken coops.

On the weekends, my kids will pull their wagon around the neighborhood and sell lemons[2]. On a good day, they'll make $25.

Would be cool if people could request some lemons or eggs and a text could be sent to the closest people who might have them.

1 [http://instagram.com/p/dDishZi9tI/](http://instagram.com/p/dDishZi9tI/)

2 [http://instagram.com/p/WFiKiEi9u-/](http://instagram.com/p/WFiKiEi9u-/)

</comment><comment><USER45> Wow! We're Silicon Valley-based startup and have been working on this idea for several months already! Feel free to join our closed testing that we've recently started: [http://yoneibs.com/](http://yoneibs.com/) or just shoot an email at email@example.com (email@example.com)

<comment><USER46> This is actually pretty interesting

<comment><USER45> Thanks! Looking forward to have you as one of our beta-testers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> How is a Tragedy of the Commons ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons)) avoided?

There will be enough people who use the drill and leave it in a degraded condition (dirty, broken in some way) that a replacement would soon be needed. Is the answer to this accountability? Or are people better-mannered than I give them credit for? How much of an investment in tracking borrowers would be required?

</comment><comment><USER9> This can and has been done, non-commercially. [http://vancouvertoollibrary.com/](http://vancouvertoollibrary.com/) is just one example.

<comment><USER48> Berkeley and Oakland have some pretty amazing tool-lending libraries as well. SF had one too, but I'm not sure what happened to it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I think a true peer-to-peer sharing network would be a nightmare. However, I love the idea a centralized service that I could rent all kinds of things from. It's like Lowe's tool rental service on steroids. There's been hundreds of times that I wanted to rent something smaller, like an impact drill, or something else that they don't have. A full commodity rental service would be neat.

<comment><USER14> I'm a founder at Rentabilities and this is exactly what we're working on.

Would love your feedback: [http://www.rentabilities.com](http://www.rentabilities.com) [http://www.rentabilities.com/26135/1-5-rotary-hammer- drill/](http://www.rentabilities.com/26135/1-5-rotary-hammer-drill/)

As a first step to solving the problem, we've aggregated much of the data on what's available for rent locally.

As a second step, we're currently experimenting with an online booking flow in event categories and it's going well.

For equipment, most people want immediacy and prefer to just book on the phone. So right now, we're just giving consumers that option. However, I would love to give you the ability to book the impact drill instantly.

<comment><USER49> Wow, that's cool. I live in Richmond, VA, and it looks like all of the rentals come from just a few places: lowes and home depot are obvious. I found United Rentals through your site though. It would be nice to book immediately from your site, because otherwise I'll probably just skip your site and call the company directly after I use your site once to discover the rental companies.

Also, I expected a bunch of tools to be listed on this page: [https://www.rentabilities.com/united-rentals-richmond- va/](https://www.rentabilities.com/united-rentals-richmond-va/). It took me a little bit to figure out to click a category on the left.

I noticed your site is responsive, too. A random technical point is that you would probably benefit from concatenating all of your js/css into 2 js/css files, since on mobile latency is critical.

It's a cool idea though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I like [https://peerby.com/](https://peerby.com/) for this. You can borrow anything from people close to you.

</comment><comment><USER51> I think the major issue with this concept is that people are going to want a discount. "Why would I rent when I could just buy for that price", even if we won't get any more (or heck even less) utility by buying, we think that is a better option, just in case.

Given how cheap a lot of this stuff is, it isn't surprising a proper sharing system hasn't shown up yet.

</comment><comment><USER52> The car sharing service already exists in Finland. It's not very popular because it's expensive to rent a car for use, and renting one's own car to someone else is not very profitable (so most people won't do it). Besides, it means that the car owner can't use his own car any time he pleases (which is a key selling point of owning a car in the first place).

</comment><comment><USER53> Stuff has become so cheap that using it rarely is not that much of a problem in practice. I'm not sure where the author concluded that it would cost $22 to get his holes drilled - I'm guessing in SF it would be more. That's not too far off from cordless drill prices ... especially if you're only looking for a drill that doesn't last very much.

</comment><comment><USER54> What we need is efficiency in the second-hand goods marketplace. One partial enabling change would be to eliminate sales tax on second hand goods (or only charge it on the markup).

I don't want to worry about how long I need to possess something at the time I order it. I want to buy it and a repurchase agreement and then sell it back to some marketplace.

</comment><comment><USER55> I was thinking about the "sharing economy" yesterday and started wondering if you could approach its underlying infrastructure as a software problem. It's easy, in our heads, to generalize the aspirations of the many companies that get lumped in to that category — but could it be accomplished in practice by building tools?

</comment><comment><USER56> In all honesty i feel like this is an issue of a breakdown in community. If you are a part of a community with a level of trust, it isn't that much to ask a friend to borrow a saw, or a cup of flour, etc. I'm not sure any sort of app or website can replace that level of trust and sharing.

<comment><USER57> I think you're close -- its a critical mass issue in communities. There are countless networks to handle borrowing (some already mentioned) neighborrow, neighborgoods, peerby, nextdoor...the list goes on. There are also tool libraries in communities across the country and don't forget timebanks whose forums/email lists often turn to I'll borrow x for a time dollar.

Effectiveness is constrained by network adoption/critical mass -- Lyft isn't useful unless there are enough people to have someone available to pick you up when you need them.

>I'm not sure any sort of app or website can replace that level of trust and sharing. Apps/websites don't replace the trust and sharing, they increase the effectiveness of your local relationships. In a lot of cases, living in the same area carries an amount of trust and sharing. Trusting relationships are actually built upon a certain level of risk that is taken at some point -- you trust your neighbor a lot more after you ask them to keep your key and an eye on your home while you're away for a weekend. So its sort of a chicken and egg question. Is there a lack in trust in local communities because neighbors/community members don't interact, therefore peer-to-peer tools will increase trust? Or will these types of networks not succeed because there isn't enough trust?

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Maybe like an eBay for rentals. Reputation is everything. Also some kind of micro-insurance to protect against loss or theft. Rapid distribution centers w/ pre- and post- checkout inspection, optional door to door service (aggregate inbound and outbound deliveries to lower cost).

</comment><comment><USER59> The specialness of Uber isn't the car, it's the driver that is summoned seemlingly magically from your phone and paid just as easily.

The drill analogy only works if you're quickly hiring a handyman to drill the hole, not a delivery person to drop off a drill.

<comment><USER60> Erm, that's exactly what TFA said.

 _What if for $22 I could have had a reliable person show up at my place within an hour, drill the holes, and go away?_

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Don't forget the marketing issue here. Someone wants a drill, you want them to think of you at the same level as Amazon. That will take marketing dollars. Big marketing dollars.

My guess is weak marketing is why every startup in this space will flop.

</comment><comment><USER62> This is a great idea that I would use all the time, but I don't understand this trend of posting long blog posts of company ideas. If it's a good idea, why don't you just start working on it?

<comment><USER17> Perhaps because ideas are a dime-a-dozen, but not every idea-haver has the time, energy, desire, or capital necessary for execution. Perhaps someone else will come along and run with this idea. I think sharing startup ideas aloud in blog posts is wonderful for this reason.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> This already exists (as many have mentioned). Here's one in the DC / Baltimore area: [http://www.toolspinner.com/](http://www.toolspinner.com/)

</comment><comment><USER64> I think the idea gets taken a bit too far here. The solution to all cited examples has already been invented: it's called borrowing from friends, family and neighbours.

</comment><comment><USER65> I think things like this will become far more workable when something like electric delivery air drones become commercially viable.

</comment><comment><USER66> "Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff." \- Frank Zappa

Uber, Groupon, and the other spoilage / sharing successes are amazing, world changing businesses.

But we're not going to live in a binary future.

Some downsides that are immediately apparent in the drill analogy:

(a) Convenience - You wait for the drill (b) Exclusivity - Everybody can own the drill (you're not special) (c) Privacy - Using the drill winds up in somebody's database.

Consumerism will chug along and the sharing-economy will grow along side it, because people will want a choice, and many will continue to want to OWN.

<comment><USER9> > Uber, Groupon, and the other spoilage / sharing successes are amazing, world > changing businesses.

So are Modo, City Carshare, and numerous bikeshare implementations. Except not businesses.

> Exclusivity - Everybody can own the drill (you're not special)

This is different from the current case when you buy a drill for <$100 how? It's a largely-non-consumable commodity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> tool libraries like [http://neptl.org/](http://neptl.org/) ?</comment>


Show HN: An Android app to watch video highlights of World Cup games - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=haku.io.wc_goals

<comment><USER2> If you are in Switzerland download the FIFA SRF App ([https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fwc2014.sr...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fwc2014.srf.and)). It lets you watch all the games live the replays and around 10 different camera angles.

The app may be available to other countries under another name as well. I believe the app was created for FIFA and provided as a branded product to the different television networks that paid for access.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! But I can not install this in my country. By the way, I don't know what they put in 28mb.

<comment><USER3> yeah - the official FIFA app is 32mb! and the local one in my country is 24mb and it loads all the data from the web _everytime_ you open a screen. I just uninstalled it and used a laptop. Nice transitions though. ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> exactly! I like FIFA's app but it's so complicated. Too many views are making me feel lost in the app. Plus there is no video highlight as far as I understand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> ESPN Sport Center?

<comment><AUTHOR> I use [http://football-highlight.com/en/](http://football-highlight.com/en/). As far as I know ESPN causes issues in different countries. Now, I'm working on covering more leagues. I'd like to keep the app as "football fan", not world cup specific.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've always wanted an app where I could watch grown men rolling around on the ground pretending to be in agony.</comment>