How a deadly fall revealed CIA secrets - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/06/from-mind-control-to-murder-how-a-deadly-fall-revealed-the-cias-darkest-secrets <comment><USER2> Two other LSD targets of the CIA's program weren't mentioned in this excerpt. You've probably heard of them:

Ted Kaczynski

Charles Manson

It is possible that neither would have committed their crimes but for their involvement in the CIA's mind experimentation programs. See, O'Neill, Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA and the Secret History of the Sixties (2019).

<comment><USER3> Source?

<comment><USER4> > See, O'Neill, Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA and the Secret History of the > Sixties (2019).

<comment><USER3> That book is about the FBI's involvement, not the CIA

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting that it doesn't mention Errol Morris' Wormwood: [https://www.indiewire.com/2018/05/wormwood-errol-morris- use-...](https://www.indiewire.com/2018/05/wormwood-errol-morris-use-cinema- investigate-mystery-1201969590/)

<comment><USER6> How is it? I'm debating watching it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> They were psychiatrists from the 1950's. It was around the time the first antipsychotic was introduced and people naively believed psychiatry was this miracle. There are chemicals that make people impressionable, they're administered at hospitals and available in liquor stores.

IMO the most interesting (and impactful, powerful) stuff is just plain-old psychology, like what is read in therapy books. You can apply it in nearly any situation in so many ways.

It adds on to intuition you'd feel normally, the really complicated social behaviors we act out on into concepts and frameworks. You can choose how you interpret and use it.

If you don't believe me, google: Dialectical behavior therapy, attachment theory, schema therapy with "filetype: pdf" in the query and load em into PDF reader. Kindle has good books.

Schema Therapy: [https://www.guilford.com/excerpts/young.pdf](https://www.guilford.com/excerpts/young.pdf)

Attachment theory: [https://www.behaviorology.org/oldsite/pdf/AttachmentTheoryBe...](https://www.behaviorology.org/oldsite/pdf/AttachmentTheoryBeh.pdf)

I'm trying to spread the message far and wide so people can know and get woke. This is stuff I wish I knew 15 years ago.

</comment><comment><USER4> Interesting how the article turns a story of mass torture and killings akin to nazy mad-science into a story about one individual murder.

Makes one wonder why would a state research mind control from drugs, when mind control from history books and newspapers is already so efficient.

<comment><USER8> Maybe mind control from history books or whatever is not as efficient as you're thinking it is?

Just speculating that if I was a military commander, yeah, I'd go for saturating a place with drugs to keep the people there from planting IED's way before I would trust history books to do so. Just strikes me as way more reliable.

If history is any indication, using history books to get people to behave decently doesn't seem terribly reliable at all.

<comment><USER9> Especially unreliable if you want people to do horrible things. Drugs may help you more then than books.

<comment><USER10> I can think of two very influential books that have caused (are still causing) untold human misery.

<comment><USER8> But it's far easier to think up drugs that have caused untold human misery, and do so much more reliably. Every human who takes these drugs will suffer through the misery. No such thing as "I'm too strong to be affected by this drug." (heroin, crystal meth.) Or "I can quit whenever I want." (opium, flakka.) Or, "My neighborhood, or community, or nation won't fall into ruin because of this drug." (China with opium, black americans with crack.)

And that's just the drugs we know about, just imagine the secret ones we don't know about.

Take X drug, it will have Y effect on every human. Immediately. That's the definition of efficiency. Keeping with the original example, that's the sort of efficiency and effectiveness a military leader would want when waging a campaign against an enemy. Far more swift, efficient, and effective than using a history book.

<comment><USER11> > Every human who takes these drugs will suffer through the misery.

Blatantly false. Not everyone you uses XYZ drug ends up a hopeless addict. The vast majority of people use the drug with no long term negative effects addiction, including methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine et al

> No such thing as "I'm too strong to be affected by this drug." (heroin, > crystal meth.)

Sure they will effect you

> Or "I can quit whenever I want." (opium, flakka.)

Within addiction, sure. Non-addiction use, false. You can stop whenever you want. Getting addicted to a substance is not as easy as people think. You need to be using through the day for multiple days in a row. You can use heroin every weekend without getting addicted, so long as you stop during the week

> Take X drug, it will have Y effect on every human

To an extent, different people can vary degrees of effects from the same dose when tolerance is not an issue

<comment><USER12> This is a recklessly false statement. Please do research into current literature before relaying dangerous anecdotes that you believe to be true about you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I was honestly quite shocked whilst reading this, CIA operated facilities use to kill and test chemical weapons on volunteer soldiers? damn.

<comment><USER14> thats a good point: the fact that testing on a volunteer _soldier_ and on army and CIA researchers, seems to suggest they wanted to compare effectiveness with the general population, since random members from the population might not be psychologically representative for foreign soldiers, secret clearance'd scientists and spies. So from this perspective testing on people of similar function / caliber from your own accessible population might seem "logical" if unethical...

<comment><USER13> Something tells me keeping statistical integrity wasn't a major factor in testing on these soldiers. i think soldiers just tend to be better test subjects for these purposes as they are more obedient, willing to sacrifice their lives for a bigger cause, take instruction without asking too many questions, keep secrets and no doubt they have more mental fortitude and a higher pain threshold to withstand multiple rounds of various chemical attacks.

<comment><USER14> that only explains experimentation on the now dead soldier in Britain, not on the army and CIA scientists, researchers, agents described though.

if both occured I seek the shortest explanation that explains the most observations

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> One quibble about the title: How would we know if these are the CIA's _darkest_ secrets?

<comment><USER16> Ok, we've removed the dark superlative above.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Really makes you wonder what stuff they're doing now that will be declassified in a few decades

<comment><USER18> MKUltra was the US program that expounded on the research done by the Germans, Japanese, and Soviets (sometimes only programs we thought they were working on and started counter-programs which then spurred the creation of counter- counter-programs...)

My take is that by about the late 80's, early 90's, they had finished most of the research and transitioned into implementation at mass scale, both domestically and internationally. Extrapolate from that what you may.

<comment><USER19> "It has been verified by a source who claims she was there that then-CIA Director William Casey did in fact say the controversial and often-disputed line "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false," reportedly in 1981."

"In their propaganda today's dictators rely for the most part on repetition, supression and rationalization – the repetition of catchwords which they wish to be accepted as true, the supression of facts which they wish to be ignored, the arousal and rationalization of passions which may be used in the interests of the Party or the State. As the art and science of manipulation come to be better understood, the dictators of the future will doubtless learn to combine these techniques with the non-stop distractions which, in the West, are now threatening to drown in a sea of irrelevance the rational propaganda essential to the maintenance of individual liberty and the survival of democratic institutions. -- Aldous Huxley, "Propaganda in a Democratic Society" Brave New World Revisited"

[https://www.globalresearch.ca/1975-video-cia-admits-to- congr...](https://www.globalresearch.ca/1975-video-cia-admits-to-congress-the- agency-uses-mainstream-media-to-distribute-disinformation/5424860)

<comment><USER20> Global Warming is bullshit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Look who we find in the vanguard, defending the darkest secrets of government; Dick Cheney.

<comment><USER22> If you google 'Cheney Rumsfeld MKULTRA' there's plenty enough reading to fill a rainy Sunday afternoon...

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> > "Some of our people were out of control in those days," Colby said. "They > went too far. There were problems of supervision and administration."

That was in 1975 talking about the events in the 1950s. There is this idea that, well CIA might have gone a bit too far, but it was a long time ago. Hiring Nazi scientists, feeding people drugs, murdering, overthrowing governments, conducting torture sessions. That was in those old dark and confused times. Today they just sit at their desks and type reports like nice little bored bureaucrats.

What if they are just as evil and brutal today and we just don't know about it. I have a hard time believing that as an organization, they sort found their moral one day and decided they need to start behaving.

> "Well, he's gone," the caller had said. Abramson replied: "Well, that's too > bad."

Abramson is a doctor treating Olson. Surely, after being told his patient is gone, he would be horrified and demand to know all about the tragedy. But the conversation indicates they were both expecting it to happen. Well who is Dr Harold Abramson, were there any other suspicious deaths associated with his patients. What the heck was Abramson doing that made Olson reconsider seeing his family again and instead opted to head back to New York to this doctor instead. How many Dr. Abramsons are there around today I wonder...

<comment><USER8> > _Today they just sit at their desks and type reports like nice little bored > bureaucrats.

What if they are just as evil and brutal today and we just don't know about it._

Just throwing this out here, but what if it's both. They, like every other nation in the world, are evil and brutal, and the vast majority of them are just sitting at desks somewhere doing fairly mundane jobs. That's just the nature of a modern intelligence agency I bet.

<comment><USER24> The trend has been to push the crazy research stuff into the private sector or universities and fund it through intermediaries / grants.

Not just the IC but in general.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Wow - that's a grim read. And this is what we know the CIA is up to plus I think some of the "war on terror" dark site work?

</comment><comment><USER14> >Because Olson's survivors had signed away their right to legal relief when they accepted their $750,000 compensation payment in 1975, they could not sue the CIA.

can someone clarify how this works? how does signing away a right work? isn't it just a contract?

am I correct that people in such a situation could in theory still seek legal relief, but that in doing so they "merely" violate this "contract"?

<comment><USER26> It's referred to earlier as a settlement. It's a form of pre-trial relief when both sides agree that this settles the matter and brings litigation to an end. It's not a contract per se, and to seek legal relief again, you would have to find new grounds - you have effectively used your legal relief. It's the usual end for lawsuits.

<comment><USER14> is the discovery of deception not a new ground in itself? "jump or fell". "the _suicide_ of your father upset you, go seek therapy", ... don't qualify as new grounds?

does the law explicitly regulate settlement, new grounds, etc or is it emergent behaviour or "standard operating behaviour" of which everyone assumes that is what the law says as opposed to what the law actually says?

Edit: perhaps a clearer phrasing in everyday language: is there a difference between how lawyers, judges, ... have the cookie crumble versus how the law says cookies should crumble?

<comment><USER27> Yes, I'd think that there was a breach of the settlement contract by virtue of the fact that the family was lied to. They might have done something different if the facts were known then as they are known now. It's definitely new information or new grounds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The most terrifying book I have read recently is "Men Who Stare at Goats", by Jon Ronson. He keeps it light, on the surface. If you read what it is really telling you, all these programs like MK-ULTRA were not disbanded, and are still being used against the American public.

The "staring at goats" tale is an example of PSY-OPs tested on the public, wholly successfully. Ever wonder how we got fired up to invade Iraq when the UN inspector was perfectly clear that there were no WMDs there, and we knew Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11?

The Pentagon has never been able to begin to account for the trillions of dollars it gets. Is there any possibility much of it is not piped through black programs into convenient pockets?

</comment><comment><USER14> >He was one of several special operations division scientists who were in France on 16 August 1951, when an entire French village, Pont-Saint-Esprit, was mysteriously seized by mass hysteria and violent delirium that afflicted more than 200 residents and caused several deaths; the cause was later determined to have been poisoning by ergot, the fungus from which LSD was derived.

The article insinuates this group of CIA & army scientists was responsible for the "ergot" poisoning in the french village, has any new evidence to this regard come to light besides the theory / book published in 2009?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1951_Pont-Saint- Esprit_mass_po...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1951_Pont-Saint- Esprit_mass_poisoning)

>In his 2009 book, A Terrible Mistake, writer Hank P. Albarelli Jr alleged that the Special Operations Division of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) tested the use of LSD on the population of Pont-Saint-Esprit as part of its MKNAOMI chemical behavior program in a field test dubbed Project SPAN. According to Albarelli, the ergot contamination explanation had been challenged and "ruled out".[10][13][14] Historian Stephen Kaplan dismissed Albarelli's theories and assertions as "hardly possible", and anthropologist Bernd Rieken [de] wrote that "even in the secular society of the present, substitutes for the devil and other demons may be found, in this case the CIA, which some people believe capable of every conceivable evil".[10][15]

Especially the last quote seems very naive After reading the following paragraph from the posted article!

>"In CIA safe-houses in Germany," according to one study, "Olson witnessed horrific brutal interrogations on a regular basis. Detainees who were deemed 'expendable' – SUSPECTED spies or moles, security leaks, etc – were literally interrogated to death in experimental methods combining drugs, hypnosis and torture, to attempt to master brainwashing techniques and memory erasing."

capitalization mine: _suspects_ being interrogated to death without any form of due process or trial?

So we have a story about american (and presumably also west german) agents interrogating / experimenting suspects to death in safehouses in germany, and then we have an american-born historian Stephen Kaplan and a german (psychologist?) dismissing that western powers would ever perform feats typically associated with east-german Stasi practices. Guantanamo bay also happened, and was rubberstamped by psychologists / psychiatrists...

some real class acts these CIA & army biological warfare gents!

</comment><comment><USER29> "He was one of several special operations division scientists who were in France on 16 August 1951, when an entire French village, Pont-Saint-Esprit, was mysteriously seized by mass hysteria and violent delirium"

Big if true. The book doesn't come out till October. I wonder if this is the only circumstantial evidence they have? If they can place him in the actual village, that would be something.

<comment><USER30> I just wanted to point out that entire villages mysteriously being seized by mass hysteria and violent delirium happened due to at least other factors as well. Case in point: ergotism [1]

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I recall distinctly this being called a conspiracy theory years ago.

<comment><USER32> What stories were regarded as conspiracies? I had thought that a fair amount of information about MKUltra was uncovered by the end of the 70s. [1] (Assuming you are not referring to a time before then).

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/national/13inmate_Projec...](http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/national/13inmate_ProjectMKULTRA.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33>
      > In spring 1953, he visited the top-secret
      Microbiological Research Establishment at Porton Down in
      Wiltshire, where government scientists were studying
      the effects of sarin and other nerve gases. On 6 May,
      a volunteer subject, a 20-year-old soldier, was dosed
      with sarin there, began foaming at the mouth,
      collapsed into convulsions, and died an hour later.

Wow.

</comment><comment><USER34> LSD may have unearthed Olson's conscience, which doesn't mesh well will having been involved in human torture. I think LSD may be the opposite of mind control. ( I don't think it's safe though )

</comment><comment><USER35> Yes another great read, for the land of the free and brave.

<comment><USER3> If your country doesn't have an intel agency doing this or similar congratulations you are too small to matter.

<comment><USER36> Not all societies are built around a culture of paranoia, and not all societies manifest this with an autonomous intelligence agency

this dark current should be excised from society as the declassifications show they more often undermine our security from domestic and foreign sources

<comment><USER3> Right some countries are Iceland, a rich place floating in the middle of nowhere with no military intel needs.

And some countries have interests to protect.

That's the difference. It's not morality, it's whether or not you have anything to lose.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Three things that I hate about Android #fail - <AUTHOR> http://www.last100.com/2009/09/21/three-things-that-i-hate-about-android-fail/ <comment><AUTHOR> Android Market's reliance on Google Checkout makes life hard for developers who want to get paid.</comment>


Hulu - Start-Up Junkies episodes - <AUTHOR> http://www.hulu.com/watch/20487/start-up-junkies-episode-1 <comment><USER2> > Sorry, currently our video library can only be accessed from the United > States.

Righhhhht. It was nice seeing you, bye.

<comment><USER3> get a cheap vps in the US and setup a ssh tunnel. Hulu sucks anyway but you can listen to pandora.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Thanks, I saw the first episode on iTunes but didn't want to pay for the rest.</comment>


Ask HN: Reverse Bootcamp Idea - <AUTHOR> I keep thinking about this so I thought to ask HN's opinion. We all know what bootcamps do. They charge you to train you and then you hope to get a job at a good company.
As a bootstrapped SAAS founder, I am finding it very hard to try and attract experienced talent as I cannot pay the high salaries for senior folks. However, I can afford to pay 60-70K USD/Year with profit sharing options. The issue is that you have to work with us in our office at least for first few months before I am comfortable doing remote.
So I thought of an idea where I would run a web dev bootcamp as an employer. I will pay entry level folks to join the bootcamp and out of the batch, I will then hire the best candidates once bootcamp is over. So there really is no downside to the bootcampers. They get paid to learn but I get to choose who I want to hire from that batch. Win win ? <comment><USER2> speaking as someone who's interviewed a LOT of bootcamp "graduates" i'd also say it's a terrible waste of money and human resources. Let the bootcamps do it. There are way to many people who go through them who aren't up to the standards any reasonable company would want. There are definitely some gems in there BUT...

also teaching is actually really hard, and to do it right requires someone who understands how people learn, not just someone who knows how to do x.

also, teaching bootcamp cirriculim is a full time job for multiple people. You up for that?

> I will pay entry level folks to join the bootcamp and out of the batch, I > will then hire the best candidates once bootcamp is over. So there really is > no downside to the bootcampers.

as a somewhat snarky aside: The idea of taking low paid people and teach them to do a task, and then if they do it really well, you pay them more to continue doing it, is an established idea called an internship.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, there you go. I probably should hire interns and your comment gives me more clarity. Thank you for that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Speaking as someone who went through a Bay Area bootcamp (Hack Reactor) it seems to me that it would be more cost-effective to work with a local reputable bootcamp and interview candidates who will soon be graduating. You won't get the top of the class with your salary offering, but I would confidently hire any of the people who came out of my bootcamp's cohort.

You should also consider remote candidates from places where that salary is livable (not SF Bay Area or NYC).

I would say nearly 100% of my bootcamp cohort came in very rough, with little to no production experience and not ready to do any kind of productive work. The bootcamp really started with the basics which we worked on for 10 hours a day / 6 days a week in JavaScript - data structures, algorithms, and many many toy problems. After six weeks of that, we were introduced to Node, then Backbone and finally React and Angular.

I don't think you want to invest that amount of time in developing a curriculum and becoming a bootcamp just to get some cheaper junior engineers. There's a reason why bootcamps are not super-lucrative -- good instructors cost money and there's a ton of competition from other bootcamps so they have to price their product competitively.

</comment><comment><USER4> Serious question: if you are not comfortable doing remote at once, what will make it more comfortable thereafter?

What will this bootcamp, or this preliminary period in the office, change to the fact you're not comfortable with remote working?

<comment><USER5> I have never seen a bootcamp that prioritizes teaching collaborative remote workflows. This is a learned skill that many experienced software engineers still have no experience with.

I Love the idea of incorporating collaboration and remote-flow into a educational model. It makes for stronger long term engineers

[]

I taught at several bootcamps, I was discouraged from teaching with ticketing or including asynchronous communication. Rarely do they cover strategies for success across time zones.

<comment><USER6> That's because they are two very disparate skills. One is how to create software products, and the other is how to be an effective employee in a specific style of management.

The second is much more unique to the company, and honestly easier to grasp.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wouldn't you be spending the money you save on salaries on training your new "reverse bootcamp" employees? Hiring entry level people and giving them work isn't the same as teaching. The costs involved in actually training them has to be paid from your own pockets after all.

Might be possible to have them sign an employment contract beforehand and simply have them join an existing, reputable bootcamp.

</comment><comment><USER8> Attempting to hire dev resources that do not have Computer Science degrees and a SOLID grasp of CS fundamentals is a suicide mission. The FAANGs have already figured this out. As a bootstrapped founder you should strongly consider that behaving like a FAANG makes you much more likely to be successful like a FAANG.

What are you going to do with these Reverse Bootcampers when one of your paying customers demands a Web Scale API implementation of The Blue Eyed Island problem? What happens when the pager goes off in the night because the recursive palindrome finder service is stack overflowing? Personally I really don't want to be on the phone with an angry customer trying to explain how the sub-optimal time complexity of my products sorting algos is "good enough" or giving other excuses ("..results typically come back in <400ms").

I'm sure you can get a bunch of junior folks in and train them to repeatably perform common dev tasks, bang out some functional Javascript, maybe even take some data from a form on a website and query a database with it but unless you're willing to get a crop of campers and pay them to memorize Cracking The Code Interview (6th edition) then I feel like you're probably just wasting your time.

</comment><comment><USER9> Isn't your time more valuable working than training?

I did a bootcamp full time M-F for 3 months, there was an instructor and two assistants, and there were a handful of us capable of being productive.... that's a lot of time you spend to get a few of us.</comment>


The Sail ISA specification language - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rems-project/sail <comment><USER2> I wonder whether you could use Sail to make a compiler that figures out how to compile things. Then you could re-target it just by giving it a description of the new processor instead of a description of the old one.

<comment><USER3> There's work along these lines (substantially predating Sail, but one could in principle do much the same starting from Sail specs) by Dias and Ramsey, e.g. the POPL 2010 and 2011 papers at [https://www.cs.tufts.edu/~nr/](https://www.cs.tufts.edu/~nr/)

<comment><USER4> This is how Go's assembler works.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> When I worked at a large US-Based CPU company about 10 years ago I was always wondering why we didn't have a tool like this. Instead the ISA semantics were described in multiple word docs. Everything was mostly* manually created from those docs - it was fraught with the possibility of error. I did hear from someone who had worked at the same company in the 90s that they had had a tool akin to Sail back then that was based on an ML language (Oh, and it seems Sail is written in OCaml!) - it seems like Nirvana had been achieved then, but then paradise was lost by the time I was working there.

*'mostly' because there was a research group that was working on tools that would read the word docs and do some automation, though they seemed mostly still experimental... and it also seemed like a really bad way to approach the problem, but they were working with what the designers were used to - Word Docs.

</comment><comment><USER6> Curiously, not the first with this name in the hardware description space. SAIL (all caps), the Stanford AI Language, was an Algol flavored beast from the 70s. VLSI Technology (eaten by Philips) used it for internal CAD tools like place and route, layout, etc. in the 90s. They liked it so much they had an internal tools group maintaining it, along with very heavy use of ClearCase.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAIL_(programming_language)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAIL_\(programming_language\))

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

<comment><USER5> I thought I'd heard of this before. In fact when I saw "Sail" here in the title I figured it was the one you were referring to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Can it model an ISA like the Mill?

<comment><USER8> Yeah, at it's core, Sail is an RTL. It shouldn't have a problem with the Mill, but it probably isn't the most ergonomic arch for Sail.

<comment><USER9> Sail is _not_ at the register-transfer level (RTL) [1].

Why? Because Sail does not offer abstractions for clocked digital circuits, which is what characterises the RTL. The most widely used DSL for the RTL is (System)Verilog [3]. Instead, Sail is a stand-alone DSL for the ISA (= instruction set architecture). The purpose of the ISA level is to talk about that a processor looks from the outside, to the programmer (most specifically to the compiler writer). Sail is a minimal programming language with a single purpose: writing ISA specifications, which means writing an interpreter for assembly language. Technically, Sail is a simple imperative language with first-order functions. What makes Sail suitable for specifying ISAs is its typing system. Sail supports types that are frequently used in ISA interpreters, such as dependent typing for numeric types and bitvector lengths. Sail is closely related to Arm's ASL (= architecture specification language) [2].

Since Sail is Turing-complete, any ISA can be modelled, including Mill. For the same reason any RTL can be modelled, for example by coding up an interpreter for an RTL language like Verilog, but that would be mighty inconvenient.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Register- transfer_level](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Register-transfer_level)

[2] [https://alastairreid.github.io/ARM-v8a-xml- release/](https://alastairreid.github.io/ARM-v8a-xml-release/)

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

<comment><USER8> There are RTLs that aren't HDLs.

For instance one of GCCs intermediate representations really reminds me of Sail. [https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gccint/RTL.html](https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gccint/RTL.html)

<comment><USER9> I see now where the confusion comes from: the abbreviation RTL is overloaded to (1) register-transfer _level_ (as e.g. Verilog) and (2) register-transfer _language_ (e.g. GCCs intermediate representation you cited). I think the former use is much more widespread. I agree GCC's register-transfer _language_ is close to Sail.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to have walk breaks on a tall building / sky scraper - <AUTHOR> Hello fellows, I recently moved to work in a tall building.  On the previous building I was able with 3 stores to go downstairs and have a quick walk.  but now the effort of leaving the tall building itself is like 5 minutes, so I stopped having mini walk breaks.  Walking around inside the floor in the building is not an option, while I can walk I don't get the mental effect of a few minutes outside breathing real air which refreshes me.  This is really irritating me, I got used to have fresh air for a few minutes every 30 minutes, this made my productivity and general health mood feeling higher as I work with pomodoro technique. <comment><USER2> Did you try taking the elevator 10 floors down and walking back up? Or just 5 floors down and returning at a light run?

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't consistently try that only a few times.

But maybe this is the solution indeed, so the small breaks like every 30 minutes have to be inside the building and I'll have to settle with getting air every longer periods. like every 4 hours.

At first I was fascinated by moving to such a tall building with such nice view, but then I understood that smaller buildings are much better as you can actually go out with so much less hustle!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Diverging products: fork codebase, create config file or other option? - <AUTHOR> Hello hello!
I was wondering about your experiences, since this problem is quite common.
You work at a company that has a flagship product. Suddenly they need a slightly diverging product from it (that's how it starts out). For example, the B2B version gets a B2C version, and the B2C has some extra features that the B2B version doesn't need (e.g. credit card payments, slight UI changes). Later on, the team finds out that the B2B version also has specific features that the B2C version doesn't need to know about.
The team is at the beginning of all of this.
The team could:
- Split the codebase with a fork
- Add a configuration file and have checks inside your code
- Do something else
How would you go about this? And what have you experienced before? <comment><USER2> IMO, try to avoid fork - you'll never be able to merge it back anymore, a fork splits the product into 2; think what will happen when you get +1 more "special" customer.

In the 2nd company where I encountered this challenge, I introduced a single global cross-cutting interface, giving de facto hook points in the code. Implementations were specialized per customer; the default behaviors went by "vanilla" (90% were empty implementations). This still led to a mess and complex indirections, but at least we were getting some isolation and encapsulation (a.k.a. decoupling). In particular, in case we lost one customer, we could quickly scrap all the specialized cruft with a single clean cut. And let me tell you, they wanted crazy customizations sometimes, and we were not in power to resist. _edit:_ Also, when analyzing, you could at least keep in mind only the common core + single customer's tweaks; other customers were completely off your mind. And you could try and see how this customer's tweaks interact between them in one place. _edit 2:_ Note that some behaviors were still kept in the main codebase if they looked reasonably useful for future, and just the choice would be in the customizer then. Sorry if what I wrote is too chaotic :/ _edit 3:_ Still, remember the "[refactoring] rule of three" \- as applied here, first just hack your new behavior into a personal fork as if it was the only codebase, and only when it works look where to introduce decoupling points. You will 99% always see them _much_ better from position of hindsight than when trying to predict them initially.

That said, I'm not yet aware if there's a way to reasonably mitigate a huge increase in complexity when supporting multiple customers.

<comment><AUTHOR> > That said, I'm not yet aware if there's a way to reasonably mitigate a huge > increase in complexity when supporting multiple customers.

This is what I'm thinking with every scenario that I'm thinking about. But at least your experience shows what option was worse (forking).

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> So based on the comments, I found out about the following approaches:

\- Feature flags

\- Configuration options / software product lines

(see a recently published article w.r.t. the difference [1])

\- One HN comment was about plugins, but when I Google *"feature flags" vs "plugins" I'm not finding much. I have the feeling that hooks/plugin systems are part of the feature flags idea (not sure about this).

[1] [https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~ckaestne/pdf/icseseip20.pdf](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~ckaestne/pdf/icseseip20.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> what you do, is stablish a kernel of libraries, that are common to both systems.

this is called a "software product line" it has been studied for decades.

here are some studies from Carnegie Mellon on the topic.

[https://resources.sei.cmu.edu/library/asset- view.cfm?assetid...](https://resources.sei.cmu.edu/library/asset- view.cfm?assetid=513819#:~:text=A%20software%20product%20line%20is,assets%20in%20a%20prescribed%20way).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the tip! It looks like a fascinating rabbit hole and I want to read all of it :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In addition to the other comments about not forking, I will add this disadvantage of forking:

I have thought in the past that if your forking technology is a branch in git, you can still merge changes (or cherry-pick, etc.), so all is not lost in terms of creating features or fixing bugs which should affect both platforms. However...

The problem there becomes refactoring. If you're e.g. using Java, with e.g. IntelliJ, you can e.g. rename methods and all usages will also get renamed. That's good, and that feature doesn't just speed you up, it also encourages you to do the refactoring at all, leading to better code long-term.

However, if you have n branches, IntelliJ is only going to refactor the branch you're on. After you've merged the change into the other branch, all the features custom-developed for that branch will still use the old e.g. method name, you'll have to update those usages by hand, which is a lot of work.

If you keep the code in one codebase (e.g. feature flags, config file, whatever), if you refactor something, all the usages (even in code hidden behind the feature flags) will also get renamed.

</comment><comment><USER5> Definitely feature flags.

Forking the codebase will lead to much regret further down the line as the two forks continue to diverge and you spend most of your time trying to update them simultaneously or building features twice.

Feature flags mean you can keep all of your functionality on your main branch with the least amount of additional work.

This is a great guide to them: [https://martinfowler.com/articles/feature- toggles.html](https://martinfowler.com/articles/feature-toggles.html)

<comment><USER5> The other technique that may be worth investing in is plugins.

These could work if the following are true:

\- Many customers get their own independently deployed build of the software

\- Many future customers will want (and pay for) custom features that don't make sense for everyone else

With plugins you can keep your core codebase from being slowly messed up by all of those custom one-off features, which is enormously valuable.

My current principle project Datasette is the first time I've implemented plugin hooks and it's been working out really well for me: [https://datasette.readthedocs.io/en/stable/plugins.html](https://datasette.readthedocs.io/en/stable/plugins.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> On the config options side can I recommend a decent Dependency Injection framework will make your life a lot easier, as you can have everything configured at startup without having lots of 'if's in the code checking the flag state. Combined with good abstraction this can make the whole thing much easier to manage and the whole config for a given client can be checked in one place.

</comment><comment><USER7> Feature flags?

about, [https://www.martinfowler.com/articles/feature- toggles.html](https://www.martinfowler.com/articles/feature-toggles.html)

a product (I have not used), [https://www.optimizely.com/developers/](https://www.optimizely.com/developers/)

</comment><comment><USER8> Depends on your codebase. JetBrains use a fork and rebase model.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm Googling for this everywhere, but I can't find a good blog post on what they actually do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hard to say without more detail, but this seems like a good use case for feature flagging.</comment>


SuperCook - enter a few ingredients, it will tell you what recipes you can make - <AUTHOR> http://www.supercook.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Only have a can of chickpeas and an old lemon? Supercook will tell you to make hummus.

EDIT: After playing with this for a few minutes I decided I don't like how entering ingredients works. Why can't I enter more than one at a time? If I enter "garbanzo lemon", supercook thinks there's some kind of ingredient called "garbanzo lemon".

Also, what would make this really shine is if supercook had the ability to differentiate between a main ingredient and an accent ingredient. If I say all I have is bacon, supercook shouldn't suggest that I make bacon-wrapped scallops...

EDIT again: (I'm getting carried away): supercook should differentiate between main ingredients, accent ingredients and things that most people have. So, if I say that I all I have is bacon, supercook should suggest carbonara as a strong possiblity. Most people have some form of spaghetti/linguini and milk or cream. Anyone up for launching a competitor?

</comment><comment><USER2> This is, strangely enough, one of the most common ideas people propose to YC. We get several every cycle.

<comment><AUTHOR> You haven't funded any of them because the idea sucks or because none of the teams were the right fit?

<comment><USER2> It doesn't seem like a great idea, but that wouldn't disqualify a group if they were open to changing their plan and seemed strong in other respects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> For me, this concept seems sort of at odds with the way I cook and grocery shop. I don't often find myself with a wide array of ingredients that I don't know what to do with, but I do find myself spending too much at the grocery store because I can't easily plan a week's worth of meals using some base set of ingredients. I would love a site that gave me 5 meals based around approximately the same ingredients, told me how much of each to buy, and provided information about how to store leftover ingredients and how long they will last. Of course, I know very little about cooking, so maybe I'm the one who's backwards... just my 2 cents.

I can see this idea applied to drink recipes, though. I often have 3 or 4 half-empty bottles of different types of liquor- it would be great to get a list of 10 different drinks I could make with friends. On second thought, $10 says there's already a Facebook App that does exactly that...

<comment><USER4> Wow, this sounds awesome... my problem is exactly the same, so I usually just buy frozen food...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> www.RecipeMatcher.com has gotten lots of press (techcrunch, lifehacker, bbc, local media) from the same idea.

<comment><USER6> I've seen one of these websites in the media. It must be a PR hit because there is nothing new about storing recipes on a computer. It was a common vision of the future since the 1970s to have a computer in the kitchen which would retreive recipes. The Commodore VIC20 manual, circa 1982, had an example recipe program.

Also, this something that search engines could do for 10 years. I worked in a Internet cafe and I explained to a old woman that a search engine allowed you to search by content. She reponded "Does that mean if I search for a list of ingredients, I get a recipe?"

This was an absolutely geniusly insightful response. Indeed, I distinctly remember trying this technique with AltaVista at least 10 years ago. Of course, then, the number of webpages was sparse compared to nowadays. So, AltaVista allowed partial matches. Nowadays, you'd only get an exact match.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I see lemons, Supercook sees lemonade...

Pretty cool app.

</comment><comment><USER8> Passes my test of usefulness: Camel ~ [http://www.supercook.com/show_dish.asp?l=http://www.recipeza...](http://www.supercook.com/show_dish.asp?l=http://www.recipezaar.com/67495)

</comment><comment><USER9> Your Kitchen:

> Tortillas, yogurt

You can make:

> Dog Food

You will also need:

> Dog Food

...? Excellent.

</comment><comment><USER10> Nice, this is pretty cool! I think this is a pretty unique idea, although I haven't seen much else in this domain. Seems to me like it's genuinely useful also.

</comment><comment><USER11> Now we just need Internet access standard on all refrigerators and editable microscopic RF ID in all our food.

</comment><comment><USER12> the your kitchen box can use some text to explain what it's for, especially to new users. better utility of your screen real estate is always good. the pinstripes can stand be toned down just a pinch in opacity, those kind of patterns might be hip but they're an eye sore and an eye strain.

</comment><comment><USER13> reminds me of <http://snacksby.com> \- which I think is better since it's been around longer and it has more data/recipes -though someone can prove me wrong

<comment><USER14> being around longer makes it better? you crazy? I tried snacksby and it didnt tell me what extra ingredients i needed to complete a recipe, a deal breaker for me.

<comment><USER15> RecipeMatcher works the same way as Super Cook, but additionally tells you what you need and you can add these to a grocery list to take to the grocery store.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's Webtender for food... :)</comment>


American wins $1 million math prize - <AUTHOR> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36023457/ns/technology_and_science-science <comment><USER2> It's nice to see an older mathematician earn some recognition. The Fields Medal (the most prestigious prize in mathematics) is only given to people younger than 40, a cutoff which always seemed rather silly to me.

<comment><USER3> The cutoff is not so silly. Take the Nobel Prize in Physics, for instance. The award usually makes some already-famous professor more famous. It has no further impact on their career. I believe the cutoff is to make it more likely that the Fields Medal will have an tangible impact on the career of the receiver.

<comment><USER4> They are already famous because the research they did to earn a Nobel Prize made them famous.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, but that makes the award itself somewhat superfluous: giving recognition to research that's already widely recognized.

<comment><USER6> Well, one of the original goals of the Fields medal was to help entice young mathematicians to stay in academia and do research, in an attempt to counteract the lure of high-paying jobs in the outside world.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is there a video conferencing tool with positional audio support? - <AUTHOR> I'm envisioning something where people can have different positions in a virtual meeting room. The positional/spatial audio could help distinguish simultaneous speakers. Also you could "look" at people by directing the audio at them. <comment><USER2> Mumble?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumble_(software)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumble_\(software\))

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestion! Mumble looks awesome, but unfortunately seems to lack video.</comment></comment>


Do I Need a Co-Founder: The 90/50 Rule of Startup Founders - <AUTHOR> http://blog.fairsoftware.net/2010/02/01/do-i-need-a-co-founder-the-9050-rule-of-startup-founders/

<comment><USER2> "When two men in business always agree, one of them is unnecessary." William Wrigley Jr.

I think you need to distinguish between values conflicts, where you should have very high agreement, and disagreements over strategies or tactics to implement or sell your product.

If your co-founder can't make suggestions to improve what you are working on at least half the time I don't think you have a lot of synergy.

Michael Schrage studied a number of collaborative teams for his books "Shared Minds" and "Serious Play." He concluded that it was a shared focus on a problem that was larger than they could solve individually that encouraged collaboration. That does not mean that team members agree most of the time.

<comment><USER3> I think co-founders are most useful when you have a similar vision but bring different expertise to the issue. I agree with what you are saying though, that you should have similar values and vision, but then want to discuss the implementation from different perspectives. It's kind of like having a mini focus group or think tank. Those different understandings of the issue are important to come to the BEST implementation and to avoid groupthink.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _Remember: you need vision alignment, a co-founder who watches your back and who you completely trust._

And even if you do trust them completely, make sure you have legal documents in place which protect your interests. Just because you completely trust them today doesn't mean that they won't wake up one day several years down the road and decide to screw you. Trust me on this...

<comment><USER5> > Trust me on this...

It sounds like there's a story behind this advice. Care to share?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This article doesn't really answer the question "Do I Need a Co-Founder." More accurately, it answered "Should This Person Be My Co-Founder?"

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess the full algorithm is:

      while(potential cofounders available) {
        evaluate using 90/50 rule
      }

The article only focuses on the inner loop, it sort of assumed that you knew how to code the rest on your own :-)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is partly a rebuttal to the thread <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=77246> which basically says never to have a co-founder!</comment>


Virtual Incubator to All - <AUTHOR> http://pandodaily.com/2012/07/27/virtual-incubator-to-all-nreduce-adds-mentors-and-demo-days-is-it-the-pre-angellist/

<comment><USER2> I really wanted to like nreduce, but the whole experience just came off as buggy for me. They said we'd get info about the meet ups but it never came which resulted in me blowing off a few appointments on tuesday nights twice to be there ready for the details, only to twiddle my thumbs. Sent tweet to prompt even but no reply at all. Finally the system for choosing other startups to group with arrived and I'm thinking there we go now we're in business, except clicked the invite button did nothing at all.

A bit later my account went into some strange mode that I can only guess is being locked out. I figured they were moving back into physical space and left them to it, which is why I was surprised to read about the online focus in the article.

Maybe after it's had some time to iron out the bugs I'll give it another shot, but the lack of communication overall was pretty frustrating

<comment><USER3> There were certainly teething problems but every week it got better and tighter. The nReduce guys have been a participant in the program as well as guides. If you were willing to put up with some rough areas in week one you were rewarded as they improved and refined the system in later weeks.

It's by no means perfect. There are startups at all levels so sometimes you feel like other groups are slacking when really they are just in a different place (or are actually slacking).

There is no penalty for failure. (penalty is the wrong word but you wouldn't want to wash out of YC--pg has anyone?) groups would just fall off.

I tweeted the other day that the monthly demo day was too frequent and I think that is true. I think they should have 2-3 a year. In the end, inclusion into 'physical' incubators/funding/press will be the measure of nReduce's success and TOO much exposure may be a bad thing.

The ui is crude but improving. Angel list was a mailing list at first wasn't it? Hard to criticize nReduce for the ui when their model is still being flushed out.

Anyway, it's been helpful for loads of groups and I see a place for it in a: nReduce -> physical incubator / angel list sort of place. HN is the same thing --a community of like minded folks who tend to help each other. nReduce is just trying to organize the process a bit...

<comment><USER4> I know of one company that "did not complete" the YC program, but that was a while ago. One of the co-founders had a family situation that was a factor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Right now the biggest value nReduce has provided my startup has been motivation--7 weeks in a row I've shipped new features or improvements to my startup (<http://Thetaboard.com>).

Coming up fast (and soon to eclipse) in importance is the virtual feedback/community the program provides. The weekly advice on specific items and general conversations about direction/business model/strategy is awesome.

I'm in Ireland but booking a ticket tomorrow to visit the nReduce team and my nReduce group members in Manchester next month. Anyway, the program is evolving and I think may end up being a real bonus for young/aspiring startups.

<comment><USER5> Hey! Your product looks really cool! (Playing around with the demo.)

A bit of unsolicited feedback -- the very first thing I did when I landed on your homepage was groan at the Lobster typeface.

(<http://www.mishes.com/articles/lobster-font-abuse>)

Don't get me wrong - Lobster's a great font, but because it is so overused I don't think it's a great choice for any real branding.

<comment><USER3> Haha. Yeah, I actually had never heard of the font til I read that article but liked it so went with it! (my gf says its cliched and I should change so I may).

Glad you are liking ThetaBoard. It's gonna be good. Email me at email@example.com and I'll upgrade you to a premium account for free.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> nReduce is remarkable. I've participated every week for the last seven weeks, out of curiosity mostly. Several things have surprised me:

* The sheer number of teams who joined up (300+ worldwide and 100+ in SF): There are a lot of people who are eager to participate in a startup incubator.

* The motivation, ability, and intelligence of the people I've met: These are the smartest and hardest-working people I've encountered in years.

* The power of self-inflicted group pressure to drive productivity: I consider myself highly self-motivated and productive but I stepped up my game knowing my peers were reviewing my performance via the nReduce weekly video check-in tool.

nReduce is a work-in-progress and I think we all realize Joe Mellin and Josh Schwartzman are making it up as they go along. I heard someone grumble that they didn't get pizza and beer at every weekly meeting. They missed the big picture. nReduce is a social experiment that is taking flight because there's a need and desire for startup aspirants to join together for mutual aid. It styles itself an incubator, it's a big meetup, it's an online social network. I see it as something more, though, as a unique form of social organization for smart people who are helping each other create businesses that deliver value.

</comment><comment><USER7> Love the idea behind nReduce. We (Fogbeam Labs) will probably look to participate in the future. The initial opening was really bad timing for us, but down the road should be an option.

No, it's not the same thing as YC, but that's OK. Support is support and everything counts in it's own way. The one thing I realize more and more with every passing day is that this is _hard_. After the 10th time that somebody declines to return your email, or answer your phone call, after someone blows off a planned appointment with you for the 4th time (after 3 previous reschedules), when you get off work at the $DAYJOB and trudge home on sore feet to crawl upstairs and hack for another 4, 5, 6 hours, when you wake up on < 8 hours of sleep day after day after day, and when you fly from Chicago to RDU for the 4th time in a month so you can be home to meet your cofounders to hack a few hours.... you realize that this is no joke. Making a startup go takes some fucking serious hard work and sacrifice.

So yeah, if a group of people from a virtual incubator (or even something like Startup Guild, or the local Hackers & Founders meetup) do nothing but provide support, encouragement and the occasional "attaboy", that can be huge.

and now to go listen to _'Til I Collapse_ for the umpteenth time... :-)

 _'Cause sometimes you just feel tired,_

 _Feel weak, and when you feel weak, you feel like you wanna just give up._

 _But you gotta search within you, you gotta find that inner strength_

 _And just pull that shit out of you and get that motivation to not give up_

 _And not be a quitter, no matter how bad you wanna just fall flat on your face and collapse._

</comment><comment><USER8> Super excited to be an nReduce mentor. The "cloud accelerator" idea is awesome, and the ability to get on-demand mentorship for any field is really compelling. Cheers to Joe for working his butt off to put this together.

<comment><USER9> Thanks Tyler! This has really been a team effort! Josh and Team Lizi all make this possible. Looking forward to meeting up in NY.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Congratulations to the nReduce team and kudos to an exponentially growing service that's aimed to help people get their startups off the ground. We could all use a little help and these guys make it interesting. Looking forward to demo day Joe/Josh. Also kudos to the Lizi team for kicking it off.

<comment><USER9> Word! Bit ups to Team Lizi!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I just learned about nReduce the other day - very interesting model. Two questions for Joemellen:

\- How are you guys going to make money? I realize the virtual model is very, very lean...but I imagine you'll have to pay the bills eventually. What's the business model?

\- How does nReduce feel about smaller side-projects, lifestyle or micropreneurial projects? Is it only for teams and startups that are looking to get big?

<comment><USER9> \- We are going to make money in the future providing services to investors / service providers. That is all being prototyped and will be shaped in the next few months. But the main thing is that we will never charge startups / take equity.

\- We are not a gate keeper. Meaning we don't say which projects get in.

The real filter is whether other teams will want to collaborate with you. If you have a small project and are not engaged you may have difficulty connecting with great teams. Or you could also just connect (build a group of other startups) with other part time people.

So in summary, any project can join. And for the most part if you are working consistently and help out the other teams in your group, you should have a great experience.

<comment><USER11> Great, thanks for the responses. I'll definitely take a look. I've been wanting to put together a mastermind of other micropreneurial people for a while...this might fill the role perfectly.

Best of luck!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why doesn't the article talk to any of the startups in nReduce, let alone mention them by name? Lazy tech journalism?

<comment><AUTHOR> Too many? Too soon? Part of the agreement that came with joining was that you wouldn't "expose" other startups as participants, though I have no problem with talking openly about my experience. If anyone has questions, feel free to ping me.

<comment><USER13> Did I miss that rule? I had no idea I can't expose other startups as participants. Not that I did it, but still I wonder if it's true.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I am currently an nreduce participant.

I see incubators providing three main benefits: 1. Community feel. Startups can get lonely, frustrating, etc. 2. Easier access to advisors/mentors/funders get to the next stage. 3. Credibility in the same way graduating from Stanford makes you seem more credible.

NReduce helps with #1, but #2 and #3 are unknown. It felt really rough initially, and has improved every week. We'll see what really happens in the next couple months. When people start getting access to their mentors and investors, we'll know if there are benefits outside of building a startup community.

</comment><comment><USER15> As a member of an nReduce company (<http://QONQR.com>) I can say that we've been very happy with the helpful and constructive feedback we receive from the other entrepreneurs in our group, and the weekly accountability of demoing progress to our peers has helped to keep us delivering regularly. nReduce itself is reporting their own weekly progress (as other commenters have mentioned) and Joe and Josh are really killing it.

</comment><comment><USER16> nReduce is great virtual incubator. Joe and Josh have been working really hard, day after day, to integrate the suggestions of the users. It is still in progress and there are a few bugs, but the site is fantastic and the level of energy very high.

I have participated every week since the beginning. Virtually - using the site - as well as attending the SF Tuesday Beer+Pizza meetings. Both bring a lot in terms of motivation and feedback.

Kudos to Joe and Josh!

</comment><comment><USER17> _Playing off the fact that the "Y" clearly didn't stand for "yes," ..._

Uhh, no. Y-Combinator is a nod to the fixed point combinator: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed- point_combinator#Y_combin...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed- point_combinator#Y_combinator)

<comment><USER18> Sure, of course, and the "n" is a nReduce isn't really an n. Stands for "Eta Reduction". <http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Eta_conversion>

But names are just names. We tried to have a bit of fun with ours.

<comment><USER19> Argh! An η (eta) isn't an "n" at all. It's a vowel, with an "ee" sound. Your thing is pronounced "ee reduce".

<comment><USER18> hehe, yeah. it's a bit forced. but who cares right? :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Do you guys find that some of the investors you are talking to are interested in companies outside of the US?

For instance, there are some famous VCs (A16Z come to mind) that only want action in US-based companies.

How are you guys tackling this issue?

<comment><USER9> Great question. We have a variety of investors committed to demo day, most of which are in the US. It seems to be based on investor preference / education about how to invest overseas, etc. Our role in this is building the network and then letting investors select what types of companies they are interested in funding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> My experience in nReduce has been totally positive. I like that nReduce, itself, is a startup in its own incubator. It is accountable to its own system.

</comment><comment><USER20> I don't have a 'LinkedIn' URL and have no desire to create a profile.

Why are you guys insisting on having a LinkedIn URL?

That's very annoying.

<comment><USER18> You can also sign up by email on the login page. We just put the linkedin icon on the homepage to make things easy on people. It's a work in progress still :)

Definitely appreciate the feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Let me know if people have questions!

</comment><comment><USER22> Wouldn't it be awesome if nreduce become a ycombinator company? Too meta for me...

<comment><USER9> Love it! If only YC had open enrollment.... :)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Free lead finder - <AUTHOR> https://www.leadfinder.pro <comment><USER2> This is probably against Clearbit's ToS.</comment>


Zenter founders and YC grads share their Google acquisition story (audio interview) - <AUTHOR> http://www.grid7.com/archives/178_podcast-24-founders-of-zenter.html

<comment><USER2> One nitpick: They talked about the "zone-out" button, which students are supposed to press when they've zoned out of a presentation. There are two show-stopper problems with that.

One, having zoned out reasonably much in my undergrad career, I can tell you that zoning out is not something that hits a threshold, and then you realize "I've zoned out." That is, unless you're consciously zoning out, in which case you consciously aren't interested in the material, in which case you would never press the button, since you don't want the professor to get mad.

Two, that assumes that everybody has a laptop (generally, only 20-50% do), AND, even less plausibly, that they're all looking at the professor's presentation with their browsers. (probably 1% of all undergrads would ever do that)

</comment><comment><USER3> Just finished listening... this clip is worth the time, a lot of good stuff in here. I just wish they touched more on how the Google acquisition unfolded, rather than the "we met some people, yadda yadda" approach. But I'm guessing they're not at liberty to discuss all the details :)

<comment><USER4> They said the important part: Joe Kraus. You get that guy rooting for you inside Google and you're probably 90% of the way there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like the one point these guys made about putting emphasis on finding co- founders who have previously worked on their own side-projects, before people wanted to pay them to do something.

</comment><comment><USER6> There's an interesting bit at about 28 minutes about working with PG.

<comment><USER7> I went and listened to it, and it was quite surprising. I had no idea the Zenters used to leave our meetings disagreeing with all my suggestions, and that they only implemented them to prove me wrong.

I remember them saying at the end of the winter that I always "turned out" to be right about design questions. I should have realized that "turned out" implies they didn't believe me at first.

<comment><USER8> Of course we always thought that what we did was right solution. When someone criticized it, it was a natural instinct to defend it.

You have to remember the environment we were in. When you are building a product, everyone wants to give you advice on how to do it. It is often very difficult to tell a good suggestion from bad one when you are in the thick of it. The most effective way we found to filter out good from bad was to mock up the suggestion (no more than 1 hour). We then looked at the before and after and tried to make a decision based on what we observed. The hard part for me was keeping my emotions and ego out of it and allowing myself to think clearly about what is the "right" solution.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: To clone or not to clone a startup? - <AUTHOR>

Is it a good idea to clone startup idea in local markets? <comment><USER2> For a start, you can't clone a startup idea. The idea is the founder's vision. You don't know what that is. All you know about is the product that they've put on there. You don't know where they're going, what they're planning, or how well actually they're doing. So, to that end, you can't clone the idea, just the product as it stands today.

Secondly, markets are different. What works in one won't necessarily work in another. The founder of Dinnr did great write up about their demise having 'copied' a Scandinavian idea believing it'd work in the UK[1]. You still need to make it work for your market. So a _clone_ won't work.

I don't see anything at all wrong with taking a broadly similar idea to an existing business and building a new startup based on it, with your own vision and making it work for another market. The idea is generally the easy bit. Executing is where things get hard.

[1] [https://medium.com/@michalbohanes/seven-lessons-i-learned- fr...](https://medium.com/@michalbohanes/seven-lessons-i-learned-from-the- failure-of-my-first-startup-dinnr-c166d1cfb8b8)

</comment><comment><USER3> What does "in local markets" even mean?</comment>