Soylent Bar Has Arrived - <AUTHOR> http://blog.soylent.com/post/149036849637/soylent-bar-has-arrived <comment><USER2> Uses soy protein, making it a non-starter for informed people wanting to build/maintain muscle mass. A McMaster study[1] demonstrated that 20g of soy protein (S20) was as effective at muscle protein synthesis (MPS) as 0g.

This bar contain 12g of soy protein, making it about as effective for MPS as plain water.

[1] [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22698458?dopt=Citation](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22698458?dopt=Citation)

"RESULTS: Whole-body leucine oxidation increased with protein ingestion and was significantly greater for S20 vs. W20 (P = 0.003). Rates of MPS for S20 were less than W20 (P = 0.02) and not different from 0 g (P = 0.41) in both exercised and non-exercised leg muscles. For S40, MPS was also reduced compared with W40 under both rested and post-exercise conditions (both P < 0.005); however S40 increased MPS greater than 0 g under post-exercise conditions (P = 0.04)."

<comment><USER3> Isn't that the point? It's not Muscle Milk or other mass-building replacements.

<comment><USER4> You do understand your body needs to build muscles every day right?

If a large part of your protein intake is based on soy you can quickly start to lose muscle mass which isn't great.

It looks like rapid weight loss but you are effectively gaining fat and losing strength.

<comment><USER5> You're confusing maintaining muscle with gaining muscle. You don't have any study supporting the claim that you would lose muscle by getting your protein from soy. The only study here says that thirty 70+ year old men didn't _gain_ muscle while taking soy protein isolate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Have they ever addressed concerns about endocrine/hormone disruption from using soy protein so heavily? I steer clear of the stuff with a 10 foot pole.

<comment><USER7> Do you have any sources for the disturption? I hear this from time to time, but whatever I read points to _possible_ connections relating to _very_ high consumption of soy products. But I'm cautious.

I half believe the dairy industry actively spreads the negativity.

<comment><USER8> [http://examine.com/supplements/soy- isoflavones/](http://examine.com/supplements/soy-isoflavones/) Specifically section 9. Also [http://examine.com/nutrition/is-soy-good-or-bad-for- me/](http://examine.com/nutrition/is-soy-good-or-bad-for-me/)

Based on that and other reading I've done I wouldn't be worried about occasional soy intake, but ingesting every meal of nearly pure soy product as one might if they used Soylent could be cause for concern for males.

<comment><USER5> Just to highlight what I think is a pretty important point in the source:

> Most well-conducted meta-analyses come to similar conclusions. _The evidence > is too weak or varied to come to the conclusion that 'soy reduces > testosterone'_.

They go on to say that it could be linked, maybe, but probably only for drastic over-consumption. In short, even with study there isn't enough information to come to a real conclusion so effects are probably minimal if at all.

Also, interestingly,

> The 25g of soy protein a day is consistent with the claim that "Soy protein > can reduce occurrence of cardiovascular disease" which is approved by the > FDA for products with more than 6.25g soy protein.

Which has a ton of sources and supports soy will help most people. The effect may not be huge, but it's more well documented.

Over all, it seems people are better off eating more soy.

<comment><USER8> I don't have a source off hand but I remember the heart-healthy effects of soy being quite small in magnitude. Personally I try to avoid anything that has the potential to be a strong endocrine or hormone disruptor like soy and plastic products. That is nearly impossible these days, but it makes me feel better :)

<comment><USER5> It may be small, but if you read the source far more documented and larger than any potential "hormone effect" of soy. Also larger practical effect on your life.

<comment><USER8> There's plenty of evidence in the links I posted for a large effect of _high concentrations_ of circulating soy compounds in the body. I don't doubt that it is a non-issue for most people consuming normal amounts of soy. The issues I have, and they are not well studied, is 1) what do concentrations look like over long periods of normal-to-higher consumption of soy products(like long- term usage of Soylent, nearly 100% soy protein) 2) is there an additive or synergistic effect with other, stronger hormone and endocrine disrupting compounds like those found in some plastics and plasticizers, your exposure to which is effectively impossible to eliminate in modern life. Neither of those two are well studied, and I'd personally like to try and reduce my exposure to either situation.

Most people don't care, and that's fine, but there is evidence it could be a problem.

Edit: I'll also add that to be fair to Soylent, they use Soy Protein Isolate, which has drastically reduced levels of soy isoflavones compared to straight soy protein. That alone probably reduces any potential harm to near-zero, but I personally like to reduce my exposure as much as possible, so as long as there are alternatives that are equal or better(as there are with soy) I will reduce my exposure. YPRCMV(your personal risk calculation may vary).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As a cyclist that loves to do long solo rides, I often look for nutrient dense foods that are easy to carry. Thirty grams of carbohydrates is better than most energy gels and snacks.

$2 per bar is a tad steep considering my normal costs. I might purchase a box if I hear that the flavor is decent (and my current supplies run out).

<comment><USER10> This is my planned use-case for the Soylent bars also.

My biggest concern is that it might not hold up in hot climates (see: Texas) during rides. I've already tried other bars that turn to mush in heat.

I also agree about the cost, since you can buy clif bars in bulk for less than $1.50/ea. And lately I've just been taking bananas with me on rides, which are like $0.10/ea.

I ordered a box earlier today, so we'll see how it works out. Worst case scenario, I keep them around for when I travel.

<comment><USER9> I live in SoCal, so I also have to avoid bars that might melt. Chewy granola bars do not handle well, but cereal bars do. Looking at my pantry, Trader Joe fig bars have 27 grams of carbs, but only 2g of protein. Honey Stinger waffles have the same amount of grams, but half the protein. Why are they around $1 per waffle? They do taste great and love that they pack flat.

I find Clif Bars junk, mostly sugar, but they do hold up in the heat. It might be hotter in Texas, but you are in the flats. When I am climbing Mt. Wilson on a bike, there are no stores to replenish my food supplies, except at the top. I cannot deviate from the only road just to grab something from a store. There is a ranger station halfway for water.

BTW, Clif Bars should be $1 at Whole Foods or Trader Joes, or at least they used to be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's like Calorie Mate Balanced Food Block, from Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. That's humanoid chow for Japanese salarymen. Like the Soylent product, it's in very plain packaging. It's not as soy-heavy as Soylent; it has wheat flour and wheat and soy protein. Some milk and egg powder, too. Tastes like shortbread.

This is quite successful in Japan, and often found in vending machines. The manufacturer doesn't recommend living entirely on the stuff, though.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you're curious about cost-effectiveness of their bar vs their drink:

Soylent 2.0 Bottle = 400 Calories, ~$29 for 12 bottles (via Amazon) works out to ~166 calories per dollar.

Soylent Bar = 250 calories, $24 for 12 bars (via Soylent.com) works out to ~120 calories per dollar.

<comment><USER12> Where are you seeing the bottles on Amazon for $28? I see the same price as Soylent.com ($34.00 without a subscription).

<comment><USER3> If you subscribe and save it works out to $28.90 (updating original comment)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> 40/40/20 carb/fat/protein seems to suggest they didn't really know where to go with this. No point to have the fat for endurance sports, probably too little protein for sports that care about that, no information on the glycemic index for the carbs.

<comment><USER14> Yeah, I'd really like to see more specialized options for other diets. I'd like to have a ketogenic option.

<comment><USER8> A version with whey or pea protein and less carbs would make me a convert for two out of three meals a day, if not all three during the work week.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wonder if this will make you feel as 'full' as the soylent drink? Generally liquids do a much better job of making you feel full quickly, which would reduce your desire to eat something else.

</comment><comment><USER16> Geez, why have an advertising department when the online tech community will do all the heavy lifting? /s

If you went by Ars stories and HN links, you'd think the software industry was fueled by Soylent and insect protein.

</comment><comment><USER17> How much sugar is in each bar? in grams?

<comment><USER18> 6

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The Soylent drink is silly. Easy, shelf-stable food is not hard to acquire. For a good meal mix the following into a drink. A no-bake bar recipe shouldn't be too difficult to create either.

[pea protein]([https://www.amazon.com/Now-Foods-Pea-Protein- Pound/dp/B001DB...](https://www.amazon.com/Now-Foods-Pea-Protein- Pound/dp/B001DB4MFO/ref=sr_1_2_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1471375167&sr=8-2&keywords=pea+protein))

[mct oil]([https://www.amazon.com/NOW-Foods- MCT-100%25-Oil/dp/B00KPZXER...](https://www.amazon.com/NOW-Foods- MCT-100%25-Oil/dp/B00KPZXER6/ref=sr_1_7_s_it?s=hpc&ie=UTF8&qid=1471375195&sr=1-7&keywords=mct+oil&refinements=p_85%3A2470955011))

[hemp hearts]([https://www.amazon.com/Manitoba-Harvest-Hearts-Shelled- natur...](https://www.amazon.com/Manitoba-Harvest-Hearts-Shelled- natural/dp/B00856TSCC/ref=sr_1_2_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1471375339&sr=8-2&keywords=hemp+hearts&refinements=p_85%3A2470955011))

[peanut butter]([https://www.amazon.com/Peanut-Butter-Pure-Pure-Fresh- Ground/...](https://www.amazon.com/Peanut-Butter-Pure-Pure-Fresh- Ground/dp/B00U2X0Z3W/ref=sr_1_1_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1471375422&sr=8-1&keywords=fresh+peanut+butter&refinements=p_85%3A2470955011))

[banana]([https://www.amazon.com/produce-aisle-mburring-Bananas- bunch/...](https://www.amazon.com/produce-aisle-mburring-Bananas- bunch/dp/B000NOGLY2/ref=sr_1_1_a_f_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1471375577&sr=8-1&ppw=fresh&keywords=bananas))

Take a vitamin separately:

[vitamin]([https://www.amazon.com/Rainbow-Light-Active-Multivitamin- Tab...](https://www.amazon.com/Rainbow-Light-Active-Multivitamin- Tablets/dp/B000EEBWJA/ref=sr_1_4_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1471375531&sr=8-4&keywords=Rainbow+Light+vitamins&refinements=p_85%3A2470955011))

<comment><USER20> This reminds me of the infamous Dropbox comment

(See the second comment: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863) )

<comment><USER19> Except that Dropbox is better than a series of scripts. Soylent is not. Soylent suffers from being something less than the sum of its parts. It is undesirable

<comment><USER20> You're missing my point. Yea, you could take the time to choose the right formula, find all the right ingredients, buy them, measure the right amounts, mix them, remember to buy more of each when they run out, etc. OR you could just have cases of it automatically shipped to your door each month.

I agree with the "something less than the sum of its parts" sentiment for the original Soylent, but Soylent 2.0 is vastly better, and I hear Coffiest is actually good tasting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I thought of Make Room! Make Room! / Soylent Green when I saw the title.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_Room!_Make_Room](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_Room!_Make_Room)!</comment>


GameDiscovery – A personal project to solve a personal problem - <AUTHOR> There are so many game platforms available nowadays and the list keeps growing. I feel like I get lost sometimes when trying to remember whether a game I own is on Steam, Origin, or even just DRM-free on my hard disk. As such, I've been tinkering with an idea to solve this for some time, and only recently decided to make it a reality.
The basic idea is to have one application (Windows first, as that's the system I have available to me) which aggregates together all of your games from all of your games folders/platforms, allowing you to launch them all from one interface.
https://goo.gl/forms/gSGVldfAVS54vDiI3 Here I have a short Google Forms survey I'd like to post just to get some initial feedback on the idea, and optionally some data to test with and maybe even some alpha test users. There currently is no release window defined for this project, as I'm only able to work on it during my free time, however, knowing people are interested would provide me some accountability to actually complete it.
I fully intend to keep the application free to use forever. I will never charge to use it, as I am creating this for me, and if one other person finds it useful, then awesome!
Thanks for your time to read/respond. <comment><USER2> discord does this

<comment><AUTHOR> Sort of. Discord is more like a recently played list, rather than an all- inclusive library.</comment></comment>


Facebook to ban misinformation on voting in upcoming U.S. elections - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-election-exclusive/exclusive-facebook-to-ban-misinformation-on-voting-in-upcoming-u-s-elections-idUSKCN1MP2G9 <comment><USER2> _" On the issue of fake news, Facebook has held off on a total ban, instead limiting the spread of articles marked as false by vetted fact-checkers. However, that approach can leave fact-checkers overwhelmed and able to tackle only the most viral hoaxes."_

Does anyone else find this concerning? Even the smallest bias held by fact- checkers can dramatically skew things towards one side e.g. only "fact-check" articles that favour one side.

<comment><USER3> Trying to overcompensate for bias is how we got into this mess in the first place. Rather than picking a set of biases and viewpoints and presenting that, news orgs and silicon valley have decided that $thing_i_agree_with and $the_opposite_view deserve equal reach/airtime.

<comment><USER4> >Rather than picking a set of biases and viewpoints and presenting that, news orgs and silicon valley have decided that $thing_i_agree_with and $the_opposite_view deserve equal reach/airtime

No, we do that because a marketplace of subjective ideas is a good thing.

<comment><USER5> Except a lot of the "ideas" aren't subjective.

The most obvious case would be climate change. Regularly, climate skeptics are given the same amount of airtime as climate scientists, despite the fact that the evidence and opinion is _overwhelmingly_ in support of climate change being a real problem.

A realistic panel would be 98 climate scientists on one side, and two climate skeptics on the other.

By giving someone with far less evidence equal airtime and respect, it lends credence to that point of view despite it being so poorly supported by facts.

This is most definitely not a good thing.

<comment><USER4> I had a wonderful chemistry teacher once. Someone asked him what he thought about climate change, and he gave a fantastic response.

"The atmosphere is a lot like a fish tank full of water. If you put food coloring in that fish tank, it turns slightly red. The more food coloring you put in that tank, the more red it gets. If you take a flashlight and try and shine light through one side of the fishtank and out the other side, the food coloring blocks some of the light. The more food coloring you put in, the more light it blocks... and turns to heat. Try it. You'll make the water warmer.

"That water is like our atmosphere. That food coloring is like CO2. And that flashlight is like our sun."

It's not difficult to convincingly and simply explain the evidence for man- made climate change. Evenly matched debaters would predictably win and lose if they were told to argue for or against climate change. The reason why climate scientists fail to convince TV viewers about climate change is that they are scientists: they spend more time practicing science than practicing persuading laypeople in terms that they will understand. Going up against demagogues, they have zero chance.

The game isn't bad. It works incredibly well most of the time for most of the problems we have encountered. It doesn't work so well when one side is incredibly bad at convincing common people and is not willing to change argument tactics, or when both sides are making completely subjective arguments.

<comment><USER6> I wish it was a matter of outreach, but I I fear people won't remember your wonderful analogy unless they identify as a member of your tribe. Instead, putting skeptics on TV who are a member of their tribe, and who assured them it is nothing to worry about, allows them to carry on mining coal and driving their SUVs where they need to go and not updating any of their beliefs. All those things are expensive and painful for adults, but weren't problems for you as a child.

<comment><USER4> I heard that story in college. It stuck out because it was pithy and convincing.

If you think people don't listen to new ideas or change their minds, do you think people should only be allowed to hear what you think is true, so that they don't hear wrong ideas to begin with?

<comment><USER6> Nope, I'm just disillusioned that everyone is as open as college you to new ideas and that we can simply go reach the people who don't want to be reached.

I suspect that the fact that you were taking chemistry in college means you were already in a very different state to receive new ideas compared with your average TV news viewer who is currently skeptical of climate change, and that difference is really important.

I'm not saying let's throw up our hands, but people like Gore and Billy Nye are trying outreach, and it isn't because they are bad at articulating ideas that this is still a problem.

<comment><USER7>
      people like Gore and Billy Nye are trying outreach

Which becomes part of the problem. When your role model is a guy who flies _private jets_ from conference to conference and had a $17,000+ per year utility bill for his home (and not so much as one solar panel when in office), it doesn't convey urgency very well.

<comment><USER6> No one can pass the purity test for skeptics because it isn't about that. I'm convinced it's about saving face for their tribe. I can't think of a spokesperson skeptics would believe. Maybe Donald Trump saying he was wrong and something needs to be done on National TV would work?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I really don't think you should remove information (or even be able to sue someone, except for defamation) for it being false, because it gives people the false impression that if information is printed or allowed on Facebook that it's probably accurate. We need to give everyone the impression that whatever they read might be false, because it actually might be false. Maybe that will make people think critically about what they read.

<comment><USER8> This. Assume everything is false until proven otherwise.

<comment><USER9> That is terribly inefficient.

<comment><USER10> That is very effective.

<comment><USER9> Not really. There is a whole host of information that you'd never be able to operate on, mainly because you as a person do not have the time or expertise to discern what's true and what's not on every subject that comes up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The upcoming US elections may prove to be a watershed moment for modern democracies in general. There is a widely held belief in academic cycles that mass voter manipulation through social media has managed to trump all other kinds of propaganda, causing people to become electoral zombies. This belief is based on flimsy evidence and on a mountain of bias. I hope facebook and the other media do everything by the book and according to the mandates of their favorite party politics. This will be an easy way to finally dissolve these mass delusions and make it obvious that societal change is real.

<comment><USER12> Instead of mass voter manipulation of voters through the establishment media? Nobody would be in a panic at all if Hillary had won.

<comment><USER13> America had to pick between an idiot, a criminal, and a socialist. They literally had no one to vote for. The country would be upset regardless of who won.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The ban on misinformation is only on information regarding how you can vote, which seems reasonable since it is something that can be fairly easily fact- checked - either you can vote over mail, or you can't, there isn't an in- between. However I think it would be better if they didn't try and limit the spread of false articles - instead maybe they could put some kind of disclaimer on the post, saying "Facebook fact-checkers believe this to be false" or something like that. Then the actual distribution of the content isn't up to the fact-checkers.

Obviously Facebook can do what they want, they are a private company, but I think it is best if they treat everyone's opinion/articles equally as much as possible, so long as they are not violating the content guidelines on the website.

</comment><comment><USER15> "Ban misinformation"? This is a very slippery slope... Facebook's very own Babel's Tower.

</comment><comment><USER16> It's great that FB can even try and I'm sure they will improve things somehow.

My concern is apps like WhatsApp which can't peak into conversations.

We're going through elections in Brazil and the amount of fake news I receive daily from family and friends is shocking . Some days I try to be a fact- checker to send a message that they should know better but it only creates anger (and I never take a position , simply show the facts. I'm sure they catalog me as being a member of whatever other side they hate).

People only want to read/see things that agree with their views to the point that they are happy to forward pure crap to others.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm not particularly happy that social media companies are deciding on tripling down on shady behaviour. They're always heavy-handed and go around banning, silencing and censoring even unrelated stuff. It's gotten to a point where people in my circle of friends are moving on to alternatives because they had enough of dealing with their private communications being scrutinised, dissected and used as a reason to censor them by very fallible bots. I understand the challenges and issues involved in this whole kerfuffle --- but in the end if your users are unhappy and leaving your service, you're failing on delivering on your promises.

I wish I was smart enough to think up an instant solution to this, but I'm not. All I know is that there has to be a better way out of this than just a black and white solution. Society should be able to develop a way to integrate social media into itself and use it non-destructively.

</comment><comment><USER18> Soon you'll see this linked from a Facebook post to prove that you can trust information posted on Facebook.

After all, if it was false they'd remove it!

</comment><comment><USER19> Roads have speed limits. Social media can have link limits.

Sure, you might be able to exceed your limit by posting to something that is patently or opinionatedly false. But how would you enforce it if a person can simply say "oops sorry I thought you knew it was a joke" or "I agree with its opinion"?

Analogy: if a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound?

If you only violate a speed limit when you're caught and the police write a ticket, how would you get caught on social media?

<comment><USER20> In order to prevent virality on WeChat, they impose a 100 share limit before limiting new shares to invites-only and only for people who have a linked mobile number. What this effectively means is that if WeChat detects a 'viral- event', anonymity can be squashed and those responsible for causing the viral- event can be identified and I suppose questioned at a later date on whether they are anti-government or simply rabble-rousers.

Is this what you mean by wanting to have social media limits? That the government can step in and say, "Ma'am, you've shared enough, what's going on here, you're going to need a permit for this discussion" ?

<comment><USER19> > _Is this what you mean by wanting to have social media limits?_

I wasn't advocating for social media limits. Rather, I was trying to present one method of limiting and contrast with difficulties of enforcing it.

How, then, can you "ban" misinformation if the person spreading a link doesn't realize it was incorrect?

How can you prevent that same mechanism from censoring satire? How can you prevent that same mechanism from censoring honest _opinions_ rather than facts? How can you prevent that same mechanism from censoring discussions?

<comment><USER20> Ah, I apologize, I attributed semi-advocacy where there was more like devil's-advocacy, and its too late for me to edit my post.

Maybe you don't ban anything at all? Maybe above an item that meets viral criteria (or as a click-thru to the post to increase content friction), a viral-disclaimer is put front and center: "This information has not yet been verified but our algorithms have detected that many organizations and individuals have been sharing this".

Don't ban, just discourage via technical means? Like how many companies use the dark-pattern of making it unbearable, but not impossible, to go through the process of unsubscribing or cancelling an account. Whenever anomalous unsourced information appears to be spreading, just increase the consumption friction. Make viral-response a controls problem. If that sounds like a typical engineer response, yeah, sorry, not sorry.

You want the viral response to be critically damped, some arbitrary compromise between stifling information flow and having a situation like in India where some remote villagers killed traveling strangers for being in the wrong place at the wrong time during a viral WhatsApp misinformation situation about child-kidnappings. [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia- india-44856910](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-44856910)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> They really should just disallow all posting from Nov 1 until after the elections. It would be much more effective

</comment><comment><USER22> Here's the official Facebook post about it: [https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/10/voter-suppression- polic...](https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/10/voter-suppression-policies/)

</comment><comment><USER23> Facebook needs to be regulated or the US will become the next China. Once the other tech companies see that they can censor political views they disagree with, they will and the US will have what China has without even the state mandating it.

</comment><comment><USER24> Facebook and Twitter are aggressively censoring alternative media and news sites that cover police brutality, political opinion and corruption. [1]

It's very strange to see these arbitrary and heavy handed actions not receiving the same outrage as possible censorship by Google in China, when they are in effect the same thing.

Clamping down on political opinion and activism ie dissent is censorship. The chinese do it directly without apology, we are using sophistry by using nebulous ministry of truth terms like 'fakenews', conspiracy and FUD to achieve the same ends.

[1] [https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/10/tide-turning- regulat...](https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/10/tide-turning-regulating- facebook-google.html)

</comment><comment><USER25> Just in time for Zuckerberg's presidential campaign!

</comment><comment><USER26> This is such a slippery slope. Even now snopes hasn't debunked the "Trump tower server communicating to Russia"[1] story even though it was simply spam and is soundly debunked.

And when we learned that or national intelligence agencies wire tapped a duly elected president? CNN called it fake news ("we're dumber for having heard that").

If we let these "fact checkers" control the narrative we're sacrificing our own _ability_ to critically judge things for ourselves. Because we'll never see it.

I have zero doubt that "misinformation" is simply — or already — overloaded with political biases.

1\. [https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-server-tied-to- russi...](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-server-tied-to-russian- bank/)

<comment><USER27> > If we let these "fact checkers" control the narrative we're sacrificing our > own ability to critically judge things for ourselves.

Give me a break. We sacrificed our ability to critically judge things for ourselves the second we decided we're ok with algorithmic feeds and timelines. Adding fact checkers only changes some input variables - the net result is still that each social media user lives in a thought prison of their own design.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> > Months ago, senior Facebook executives briefly debated banning all political > ads, which produce less than 5 percent of the company's revenue, sources > said. The company rejected that because product managers were loath to leave > advertising dollars on the table...

Gotta remember what's most important. /s

<comment><USER29> Do you have a problem with political ads on tv? From my perspective we should have campaign finance laws that regulate political ad spending, but there's nothing inherently wrong with showing political ads on tv, facebook, or elsewhere.

<comment><USER27> > ... there's nothing inherently wrong with showing political ads on tv, > facebook, or elsewhere.

As has been pointed out elsewhere, Facebook is different than television because ads can be targeted extremely narrowly. This makes them hard to audit and possible to use ads for things like voter suppression of populations that are likely to vote a certain way.

Advocating for/against a specific policy or politician is one things. Attempting to disenfranchise a group of people through misinformation is another.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This is something that seriously needs to be clamped down on. It is outright fraud, plain and simple. And since it's being done with the intention of disenfranchising people, it is extremely evil.

<comment><USER4> Fraud requires financial gain. This is just lying. People are allowed to lie in this way, and you should not believe everything you read, particularly if it sounds very appealing, gets your emotions fired up, or seems to offer benefit without requiring any payment or responsibility.

<comment><USER31> A lot of these fake news sites don't care about the truth. They're all about generating clicks to their sites which produce revenue.

<comment><USER4> I don't see how that's relevant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> They'll most likely filter out anything conservative.

<comment><USER33> Why do you think that might be?

<comment><USER34> Are you insinuating conservatives are disproportionately creating fake news?

Silicon Valley's left wing bias is well established. There's no way companies like Facebook can censor impartially.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I really think they have better things to worry about. Maybe fixing their news feed so that I don't see the same four pieces of content day after day after day. With a few hundred contacts on Facebook that aren't unfollowed, I should be seeing _something_ , but it's not surfacing at all. Even if I turn on notifications for particular people that I really care about seeing content from, about half the time I don't see things. Really makes it pointless to bother with Facebook very much.</comment>


Ask HN: How do sites like coinbase.com or mint.com access your bank accounts? - <AUTHOR>

Does anyone know how they are able to access your bank accounts information after you provide them with your online banking credentials. I would assume there is a common library or API that these sites are using instead of implementing a parser for each bank.<p>Any thoughts will be appreciated. <comment><USER2> Mint used to use a company called Yodlee to do data aggregation. You can find more information here: <http://www.yodlee.com/developers-and-alliances/yodlee- apis/>

Since Mint's acquisition by Intuit, they have switched over to Intuit's in- house data aggregation system. Intuit is planning to release these APIs to developers some time in the next few months. You can find more information here: <http://developer.intuit.com/agg-cat/>

There are some other companies out there like CashEdge and ByAllAccounts, but they tend not to do deals with startup companies and instead focus on selling to big financial institutions like banks, etc.

You also might want to check out Wesabe's (former Mint competitor) data aggregation system which they have open-sourced: <https://github.com/wesabe/ssu>

<comment><AUTHOR> Excellent information. Checking out yodlee and wesabe's ssu.</comment></comment>


Nobody is listening to the UK's anti-surveillance campaigners - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a9bd2f9a-8152-11e5-8095-ed1a37d1e096.html <comment><AUTHOR> or if you prefer: [https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Nobody+is+listening+to+the...](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Nobody+is+listening+to+the+UK+anti- surveillance+campaigners)</comment>


You don't know Lefsetz? - <AUTHOR> http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2015/05/you-dont-know-lefsetz.html <comment><USER2> This assumes it is widely known what you "need to know" to do your job well. Many people have succeeded imemsely in disrupting an industry without knowing much about it because they knew a lot about something else that turned out to be useful. (See Apple and the belief that "computer guys are not just going to come in and make a phone")

</comment><comment><USER3> Alternative hypothesis: you can be very successful in your field without knowing about some celebrity.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm sure I don't know a whole bunch of famous programmers. But I do just fine and my employer is happy with my work.

Don't see how name dropping helps get things done.

</comment><comment><USER5> I love tons of Seth's work, but this smacks of "hurr durr these kids don't respect the O.G.'s! Why in my day..."</comment>


A new cycle-stepped 6502 CPU emulator - <AUTHOR> https://floooh.github.io/2019/12/13/cycle-stepped-6502.html <comment><USER2> This is a great introduction to emulation in general.

While I was trying to figure out how to write my first emulator I thought it would be simpler to start with a Game Boy Advance or an 8-bit processor like the 6502 or the PICO-8.

After a few false starts it turned out to be simplest to write a simple x86 emulator since I already had all the tools locally (assemblers, disassemblers, compilers, etc.) and a working reference environment (my laptop).

Here's the walkthrough I wrote for building an x86 emulator in JavaScript that you can use to run simple C programs compiled with GCC/Clang:

[http://notes.eatonphil.com/emulator-basics-a-stack-and- regis...](http://notes.eatonphil.com/emulator-basics-a-stack-and-register- machine.html)

Now that I did this though I'm still trying to get into a GBA emulator.

<comment><USER3> > I thought it would be simpler to start with a Game Boy Advance or an 8-bit > processor like the 6502

The 8-bit processor will be much more approachable. I have worked on my GBA emulator for around one year now. Before that I tried the classic GB and its 8-bit CPU was so much easier to implement. The GBA's ARM7TDMI alone took me 3 months to complete, even with extensive testing [1].

[1] [https://github.com/jsmolka/eggvance/tree/master/tests](https://github.com/jsmolka/eggvance/tree/master/tests)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been thinking of writing a 6502 emulator. My plan was to start with cycle-stepping. I'm purposefully not looking at other emulators or code :)

I do have something I've been wondering, especially since I haven't yet written any complicated code yet for this plan. To emulate a 1mhz clock on a modern CPU, do you have to do things like check time deltas to "limit" the emulator speed? (If this was address in the article, know that I stopped reading when I saw code.. see above purpose)

<comment><USER5> Most (game console) emulators don't try to limit the speed of actual CPU emulation directly, since that makes the code more complex, and makes testing slower, etc. Instead, the only time the emulated system speed is when it has to talk to humans - render a frame of video, generate audio samples, etc. So if you have a 60Hz monitor (as most people do), and your emulated CPU takes 180,000 cycles (or whatever) to render a video frame, then your emulator just runs at top speed until a video frame is available, waits for the "vertical synchronisation" signal from your graphics API, draws the frame with the graphics API, and repeats.

Because of the delay introduced by vertical sync, your emulated CPU's average speed will be correct, even though the instantaneous speed is either "way too fast" or "zero".

<comment><USER6> Adding on to this, in the context of a typical emulator, it's important that the other hardware be emulated mostly in lockstep with the CPU. Each time the 6502 reads or writes memory, the hardware registers it is talking to should be "caught up" so that things like video and audio signal timings work correctly. There are a bunch of different approaches to this depending on how accurate you want things to be, but the most straightforward is to just clock the components directly, one after the other. I have a function in RusticNES that clocks the CPU + APU, another that clocks the PPU, and since the PPU runs 3x as fast, a global clock function that looks like:

        pub fn cycle(&mut self) {
            cycle_cpu::run_one_clock(self);
            self.master_clock = self.master_clock + 12;
            // Three PPU clocks per every 1 CPU clock
            self.ppu.clock(&mut *self.mapper);
            self.ppu.clock(&mut *self.mapper);
            self.ppu.clock(&mut *self.mapper);
            self.apu.clock_apu(&mut *self.mapper);
        }

This way, all of the emulated chips remain mostly synchronized with each other, but I don't bother to synchronize with the host until either the PPU is ready to draw a frame, or the APU has filled its audio buffer.

This approach uses the CPU cycle as the boundary, but there are other approaches to consider. You could run an entire opcode and then "catch up" the rest of the hardware (maybe easier to manage CPU state), or run entire scanlines at once. (Maybe easier to manage PPU state at first? The NES's PPU is well understood, but very tricky to emulate correctly.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Retro emulators seem to be increasing in popularity lately. I've seen a few articles now covering the "how", but does anyone have pointers to something explaining the "why"?

Is it a Zachtronics-style technical challenge? Specific nostalgia for the software that ran on these ancient platforms? More general nostalgia for the days when platform stacks were still thin and comprehensible [1]? Something else?

[1] [https://ptrthomas.files.wordpress.com/2006/06/jtrac- callstac...](https://ptrthomas.files.wordpress.com/2006/06/jtrac- callstack1.png)

<comment><USER8> > Is it a Zachtronics-style technical challenge?

Actually, I did a lot of assembly coding on 6809 and 6502 back in the day, and also played a lot of the Zachtronics games. It's not really the same at all! Zachtronics games are all about challenges that are quite a bit more ridiculous than you have in real life with small machines. In a typical Zachtronics assembly programming game, you spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to do pretty trivial things using a ludicrously small amount of resources, like maybe you've got two reigsters to work with. In a real assembly project, you'll have a few kilobytes to work with, or at a bare minimum 512 bytes. The smallest system I worked with had 512 bytes of RAM and 8kb of ROM. The Zachtronics games were fun and challenging, but they were more like puzzles rather than real programming. Puzzling out how to get the assigned task done with ridiculous artificial limitations.

Contrast that to an example of a real-life non-trivial assembly thing I did on a 6502. I needed to respond to remote control commands from an infrared remote similar to what you have with a TV. For input, I'd get interrupts connected to an IO-pin that would fluctuate up and down when receiving IR input. The task involved "recording" commands from a remote, then later monitoring the input and seeing if it matched any of the pre-recorded patterns. You'd count the amount of time between successive pulses, using a real-time clock that was connected to some other IO pins. It's not rocket science, but it's fun and challenging figuring out how to get all that going with a limited amount of memory. To me that kind of thing is a lot more fun than figuring out how to do the various challenges in Zachtronics games, which mostly center around taking something that'd be trivial do if you had a couple hundred bytes of memory to work with, but they are forcing you to do it with 2 bytes of memory. So you make little side constructs that act as memory, or other side constructs that somehow use message queues as memory, or whatever.

The appeal of retro emulators I think is that it's a system that's small and limited enough that you have more of a chance of understanding it from end to end. There's a feeling of comfort or coolness in knowing that you know exactly what the system is up to on every cycle. With larger computers, the hard drive starts blinking and God only knows what it's doing, or why. There's this feeling on small embedded or emulated systems that _you_ are really in control of what's happening. On larger, more complex systems, the software I write is just one little part of the larger who-knows-what going on inside the machine.

For me another aspect of it is how much I'm getting done with so little code. There's something very satisfying about knowing the entire binary package of assembled code I've generated, and being able to point to any byte of that and understand what it is.

It's the exact opposite of what's going on in my other terminal, where as I type it's creating a new react app and downloading untold megabytes of who- knows-what with countless dependencies and abstractions. In retro systems, if the system is capable of doing something, it's probably because you personally made it able to do that thing.

<comment><USER9> Atari 2600 has 128 bytes of RAM and a crazy video system. Feels about as hard as a Zachtronics game to me.

<comment><USER8> Zachtronics games never give you 128 bytes! You get the 2 registers in your processor. They don't give you ram!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I like how it's pretty much standard to expect emulators to have a WASM port running in the browser at full performance at this point. Atwood's law is 12 years old but still going strong.

</comment><comment><USER9> I feel like with this approach and you are getting to a better place to convert the design into an HDL and running on an FPGA.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is really cool. I like the approach of exposing the pins as its API. Super flexible.</comment>


Y Combinator's latest batch of startups is too big for one Demo Day stage - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/11/y-combinators-latest-batch-of-startups-is-too-big-for-one-demo-day-stage/ <comment><USER2> Hi, I work at YC. I think this article is a bit misleading, so I wanted to take the opportunity to give you some of the data. I'm happy to answer any questions on this topic.

1) YC's acceptance rate for applications has remained basically constant since 2015 (< 2%). This batch is not bigger because we accepted a higher percentage, but because we got way more applications. The primary reason we got more applications is that over 15K companies participated in our startupschool.org program and many of them applied to YC. Our general policy at YC is to grow the batch size proportional with the number of good applications we get, and this larger batch is just a natural consequence of that policy.

2) We have been wanting to move demo day to a new larger venue for a long time now. The reason is not that there are too many startups, but that there are too many investors who want to come. We have enough demand from investors to fill the previous demo day auditorium several times over, and this new space means we can allow many more investors to come, which is better for the companies.

3) As the batch at YC has grown, we've grown the number of partners proportionally and plan to continue to do that. The ratio of companies to partners is actually lower now than it was a few years ago, and we've increased the amount of time we spend per company.

4) I think the ultimate measure founders should care about - and certainly the one we do - is the success rate of YC companies on average. If we grew the YC batch and the success rate went down, that would be bad. So this is something we track extremely carefully to make sure that does not happen. And so far, it hasn't. Based on the last 1-2 years of companies, the success rate of YC companies is the highest it's ever been.

Also for general background, I'd really recommend reading a great short statement Paul Graham wrote about why we think growing YC is better for both us and the founders: [https://www.ycombinator.com/atyc/#size](https://www.ycombinator.com/atyc/#size)

<comment><USER3> I have no opinion or interest in the size of YC batches. But just wanted to point out that this:

>The primary reason we got more applications is that over 15K companies participated in our startupschool.org program

Comes across as insincere and hurts the credibility of the rest of your response. It's just not plausible that a brief online course made a major difference in the number of YC worthy companies out there. Just go with the real reason. (Eg. We have more money and partners, we happened to get a strong application batch, etc.)

<comment><USER2> It actually did. It surprised us too!

We can track this directly so there's no uncertainty over the result. We're not entirely sure why it worked so well, though.

<comment><USER4> Brand Indoctrination. They went to your school, then applied to the next step after a few months of getting your message.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Related/meta question: despite the increase in YC cohort sizes, has anyone else noticed a sharp drop in the number of Launch HNs / YC Startup Launch Announcements on HN?

EDIT: Checked the data and yep, there's a drop: [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EBcI3Jm2I9Kj_JMGyRnN...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EBcI3Jm2I9Kj_JMGyRnNIWZ89EfFscZA5RKVQuGVVV4/edit?usp=sharing)

BigQuery:

        #standardSQL
        SELECT TIMESTAMP_TRUNC(timestamp, MONTH) as month_posted,
        COUNT(*) as num_posts_gte_5
        FROM `bigquery-public-data.hacker_news.full`
        WHERE REGEXP_CONTAINS(title, 'YC [S|W][0-9]{2}')
        AND score >= 5
        AND timestamp >= '2015-01-01'
        GROUP BY 1
        ORDER BY 1

<comment><USER6> What's more, it's also probably because companies at YC are generally later stage now.

It's not unusual now to see companies well past launch or even product market fit prior to YC.

<comment><USER7> Exactly.

It was even talked about a lot from YC about how they are seeing more and more people who reapply year after year and how that is seen as a "positive signal".

And I saw this first hand from our StartupSchool batch. The only people who made it through were ones who had already had significant numbers of customers.

<comment><USER8> That's actually untrue - almost half of the Startup School companies that we ended up funding for the W2019 batch were unlaunched.

<comment><USER7> I never said that all Startup School companies had customers.

My point was that it seems like the needle has shifted towards companies who do have some level of product market fit. Has the percentage of companies who were unlaunched changed over time ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Regarding class size, the incentives are not aligned between the incubator and the startups. For the incubator, the marginal cost of adding one more startup is almost zero, but the chance that you might miss out on the next unicorn is big. So you grow your class size.

For the entrepreneur, the larger class size dilutes you. Yes, the incubator can scale mentoring reasonably well, but the visibility and prestige of pitching at Demo Day is going down.

If YC is graduating 400 startups per year, it's fair to say hundreds of them will not lead to anything. I don't have a good solution for this, each actor is trying to maximize their self-interest.

<comment><USER10> This is only true to the extent that YC is a monopoly.

If other accelerators compete with YC, entrepreneurs may choose to do business with an accelerator that selects smaller classes.

<comment><USER11> Are there any other accelerators that have the same cachet as Y Combinator however? The only other one I've really heard of is TechStars.

<comment><USER12> Erik Torenberg's Village Global [1] was started fairly recently and is already extremely highly regarded in the start-up community. Much more so than Techstars or any other non-YC accelerator in my impression.

[1] [https://www.villageglobal.vc/](https://www.villageglobal.vc/) [https://www.villageglobal.vc/network- catalyst/](https://www.villageglobal.vc/network-catalyst/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As someone who has sat through a bunch of demo days: No I don't think it's too big. It's a lot more diverse now. Back in the day, everything was a software startup. Now they have a bunch of bio and hard science and bigger startups that have longer cycles.

Not every investor will invest in every space they cover, so having two stages probably won't be that big a deal. Even if a firm invests in multiple categories, they probably have partners that specialize in different areas and will go to their respective stages.

From what it looks like from the outside, they are basically running multiple parallel tracks that get the added benefit of sharing a timeline and having founders in totally different areas to talk to as well as founders in their own area.

Seems like an advantage for everyone.

</comment><comment><USER14> Maybe this is partially a personality thing, but my biggest fear with starting a VC-backed co is that you're effectively trapped as soon as you accept money even if your company goes nowhere. If your burn rate is low, you could just exist for years without accomplishing much of anything.

<comment><USER6> For most startup founders, there is an alternative cost of well over $100K salary as an employee, especially for technical founders in the Bay Area.

So lingering for many years is not so great of an option.

<comment><USER15> Liquidation preferences can dramatically change the math on how big an acquisition needs to be to be profitable for the founders.

Say you've got 3 founders who each want to make at least $2M for a startup they've been toiling away at for 5 years which has built something kinda-sorta useful but not a huge hit (that's roughly equalling what they would've made at Google/Facebook). If they took a $5M Series A at $15M post with 1x participating preferred, they need to sell for ~$17M to hit their target (the VC gets their $5M back, then $4M of the remaining $12M for their for their 33%, then 20% goes to the employees from the option pool, then the founders split the remaining $6M). If they took no funding, they need to sell for $6M. If they took just angel/seed funding for 25% of the company, $8M.

It's generally a lot easier to get acquihired for $1-2M/head than for $5M/head.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Would love to see something like a "YC ETF" where an investor could invest, say, $50k, in a portfolio of YC startups.

<comment><USER16> I actually have essentially such a thing.. I started it last class, I completely randomly select 10 YC companies and invest $50K in each at their current demo day terms. All accepted the investment last time so it should actually be a valid random sampling. If you're an accredited investor and possibly interested in joining this "lucky fund" for W19 (I'm doing it again), PM me!

<comment><USER17> I run one of the YC Demo Day funds on Angel List (not sure if it's an SEC violation to link to it) and therefore spend weeks assessing founders and startups in each batch to make about 15 investments. It'd be very very interesting to compare our returns and outcomes to see if your approach destroys mine or not. Will send you a note!

<comment><USER18> Here's a neat article you may like [https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2013/03/22/computer-s...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2013/03/22/computer- simulation-suggests-that-the-best-investment-strategy-is-a-random- one/#7af78e035136)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Series a funding is flat last 5 years... just funding more failures.

<comment><USER20> You'd need to see if there's a rise in acquhire, that your expensive capital intensive long term biotech project got acquired by a big company is usually not a failure for anyone. Not the investors, founder, or even the project itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> FWIW I remember this question being posed about our batch (Summer 2012) which had ~80 companies in it.

<comment><USER22> That was only ~3 years after the economy came out of a deep free fall caused by bad investments. It was a reasonable concern in context.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Too big for what? Without some qualification, the question doesn't make sense. Is it too big for it to be worthwhile to YC itself? YC obviously doesn't think so. Is too big for startups to feel like they are getting a good deal? You'd have to poll the startups themselves and find out. Is it too big for investors? No, investors like having a big funnel.

As an investor, having 200 startups to comb through is similar to being an employer with 200 resumes to choose from. 200 resumes is better than 100. It's your job to filter and choose the ones you're interested in.

<comment><USER24> Too big to be interesting. As the cohorts grow in size, the returns begin to mirror the returns of the entire startup market.

It's the difference between having a large index fund, and having a portfolio of 5-10 good companies.

Basically it's like they're not even trying to filter much anymore.

<comment><USER25> "Basically it's like they're not even trying to filter much anymore."

I believe their acceptance rate this batch was still <<2%. That's still a pretty fine filter IMHO.

<comment><USER26> That's not unexpected, with the popularity more companies apply - even some who would have never done it in past. So, I'd assume applications will continue to grow and acceptance rate should be going down. If the acceptance rate stays the same, I guess YC is lowering the bar. This likely happened already given the top ranking post from a YC member saying that acceptance is same still even though many more apply.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I've always been curious about what YC demo days are like but since it's been limited to VCs/investors, figured I wouldn't be able to attend.

With this change, would it be possible to get a live stream or even a post- event Youtube video for the rest of the community?

If not, would appreciate any insights into if/why this is a bad idea.

<comment><USER2> Unfortunately we can't open the video stream to the public because many of the companies share confidential information that they don't want to be publicly accessible (in particular, visible to their competitors).

If you want to see what it's like, this TC video does an excellent job of that: [https://techcrunch.com/video/behind-the-scenes-at-yc-demo- da...](https://techcrunch.com/video/behind-the-scenes-at-yc-demo-day-where- the-hottest-new-startups-pitch-their-companies/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Typo in the first sentence: that'd be _pole_ position

<comment><USER29> Yeah, that's a motorsports (NASCAR) reference that is more familiar to us HN readers from the midwest. Surprised this one was missed because track racing is big in the VC world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Just change the name to "Demo Week." Problem solved.

</comment><comment><USER31> What's the yc deal $100k for 10% or something like that?

<comment><USER32> $150K for 7%.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> What's going on with Techcrunch's format here?

      * Headline
      * Hero image
      * Sales pitch for TechCrunch premium
      * 98 words (598 characters) for this article
      * seemingly non-sequitur into next article

<comment><USER5> This particular article link is a TC weekly summary (not unusual for tech blogs).

A better URL for this submission is: [https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/11/y-combinators-latest- batch...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/11/y-combinators-latest-batch-of- startups-is-too-big-for-one-demo-day-stage/)

<comment><USER34> Changed from [https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/16/startups-weekly-is-y- combi...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/16/startups-weekly-is-y-combinators- latest-cohort-too-big/). Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I'm guessing the title was changed after many of these comments were posted? Can anyone fill me in on what it was?

Right now the title is "Y Combinator's latest batch of startups is too big for one Demo Day stage".

<comment><USER36> The original article's title was "Is Y Combinator's latest cohort too big?": [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19186238](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19186238).

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The age of prestigious incubators and accelerators is coming to an end IMO.

As we wrap up the 2010s, I feel that a lot of the entrepreneurial wave in this decade was catalyzed by the founding of mobile app stores, the network effects of expanding social medias and cloud services making software deployments easier than ever.

Incubators seemed well poised to help this flood of new entrepreneurs navigate the changing landscapes and get exposure to investors, but by now people have become more savvy and this is mostly a solved problem.

Investors are also well aware by now that incubators do not magically produce unicorns or even great companies, and are looking for better returns elsewhere. Demo Days are mostly a lazy way to sit and listen to a bunch of pitches without really giving a fuck. I know at one demo day a couple of investors spent most of their time talking in the hallway while founders pitched on. Investors know all your tricks to make your company seem more appetizing: fake appointments in your calendars, strategically chosen metrics, name dropping, paper trails, etc...

<comment><USER37> [https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/20/here-are- the-63-startups-t...](https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/20/here-are- the-63-startups-that-launched-today-at-y-combinators-s18-demo-day-1/)

if you just look at a sampling of these startups, i think you're wrong - entrepreneurship has always been about applying technologies in disruptive ways and the companies are following the trends - IoT, alternative reality and disrupting traditionally non-tech spaces like assisted living.

you may be right about the rest but then again entrepreneurship is becoming a more mature market and investors actually have more people on their team to "guide" them about what a "hot" startup looks like(hence them seeming bored at pitches that aren't going to predictively skyrocket imo)</comment></comment>


Pop culture unites us as Americans. Will streaming services change that? - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/2019/11/8/20955451/disney-plus-apple-hbo-peacock-streaming-today-explained <comment><USER2> Eh. US Pop culture was a lot more unified before Netflix (and especially before VCRs, and before the number of channels got so big). I'm told there was a time when _everyone_ watched whichever current sitcom, or the Simpsons, to a much greater degree than the article's "everybody watched the _Game of Thrones_ finale". Even if we had another manned Moon mission, or even a manned Mars mission, I doubt it would have as many people watching as the later Apollo missions (much less viewed than 11).</comment>


NVidia GF100 Fermi silicon cost analysis - <AUTHOR> http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2010/1/21/nvidia-gf100-fermi-silicon-cost-analysis.aspx

<comment><USER2> Does it really cost $5000 to create a single wafer? It's just exposure, putting it into differenth baths etc. Should be fairly inexpensive, not?</comment>


To Place Graduates, Law Schools Are Opening Firms - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/08/education/law-schools-look-to-medical-education-model.html <comment><USER3> ~~Jesus, as much of a cancer as the banks.~~

Edit:

If the law schools are needing to open firms to place their students - <USER2> Lawyers better damn well start costing a HELL of a lot less.

Edit 2:

Ok - RTFA - this seems actually GOOD!

However, let me ask this: we already have "public defenders" who ___are_ __cheap/free -- yet the quality of results from them is very low (for the defendants).

What will be the comparison quality of service these noob lawyers provide as compared to the public defenders? Will it be mid-grade rather than poor?</comment>


Nazi forums closed as Reddit purges 'violent content' - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41760968 <comment><USER2> Well, I disagree. Reddit is not "purging violent content", it's simply targeting right-wing subreddits.

They're not removing r/fullcommunism or r/latestagecapitalism, for example - which are just as promoting violence as the banned sites. "Violence" is actually just an excuse.

(see also [https://www.buzzfeed.com/briannasacks/reddit-is-banning- nazi...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/briannasacks/reddit-is-banning-nazi-and-alt- right-groups-as-part-of-a?utm_term=.wuzkzzeqYw#.yy8gwwzr01))

<comment><USER3> When's the last time a communist drove a car into protestors, or shot a gun into a crowd, or shot up a church, or any of the other acts of violence carried out by far right extremists all the fucking time in the US?

<comment><USER2> Yet I don't see them purging Islamic subreddits.

<comment><USER3> And that's the point: being a right wing extremist is a better predictor of violent behaviour than being Muslim.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Raspberry Pi's Cheapest Computer Could Ease Ventilator Shortage - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/raspberry-pis-cheapest-computer-could-ease-ventilator-s-1842846902 <comment><USER2> these things are the gift that keeps on giving</comment>


750GB Solid State Drive for $145 - <AUTHOR> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148837&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL041012&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL041012-_-EMC-041012-Index-_-LaptopHardDrives-_-22148837-L0A

<comment><USER2> Doesn't actually appear to be a Solid State Drive. It appears to be a HDD with a solid state cache. [http://www.anandtech.com/show/3734/seagates-momentus-xt- revi...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/3734/seagates-momentus-xt-review- finally-a-good-hybrid-hdd) : Simply put a Hybrid HDD is a mechanical drive with some NAND flash on it that is automatically used by the drive to store data for quicker access. A hybrid drive really just attempts to do what my setup of two drives (SSD + HDD) does manually: put small, frequently used data on NAND flash and put larger, less frequently used data on platters.</comment>


Star Trek's LCARS could become your virtual assistant - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnet.com/news/star-treks-lcars-could-become-your-virtual-assistant/ <comment><USER2> I first heard about a project, at Microsoft, I think, about twenty years ago that used recordings of a specific person's voice as the basis for a synthetic voice. In that work, the person had to record a set of utterances that covered all necessary phonemes. I believe they also got reasonable results from recordings of historic figures, but it's more work. At the time, I speculated that if we ever had AIs on space ships they would sound like Majel Barrett because all of the Star Trek fans would expect that! I'm glad to see that they are actually trying to do this now. I think Mrs. Roddenberry would be amused.</comment>


Elon Musk Had a Deal from the SEC. It Unraveled in a Morning - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/business/elon-musk-tesla-sec-deal.html <comment><USER2> This is bad, but I also understand why Musk turned it down. Adding board members and replacing CEO would mean that Musk lets someone else to control his destiny. It's hard decision. He was once pushed out from PayPal and he has structured all his business so that it won't happen again.

Musk is very bold with leverage and financial engineering. Just as bold as he is with rockets and technology. CEO working only for Tesla is not working for the whole interconnected Musk business. SolarCity type maneuvers are out.

At the beginning of 2018 Musk had loans against 40% his Tesla stock and TSLA is down 17%. He has probably leveraged his SpaceX stocks too. SpaceX the company is funding Boring Company just like it provided loans to Tesla once.

If Musk receives margin calls for his loans against Tesla stock, it can start a snowball effect where Musk loses the control of other companies as well.</comment>


Ask HN: How much money did you make from a mobile game you developed alone? - <AUTHOR> How much of it was from ads, and how much from in-app purchases ? Did the game cost money to download ? And how much time did it take you to develop ? <comment><USER2> Neither of mine are in the app store any more, but apps with similar names are.

Santa's Last Stand - 3-4 mos - $250 since 4 years ago, free + 2.99 paid

Bank Defense - 3-4 months, - $100 since 4 years ago, free + 1.99 paid (approx --I don't remember)

mobile game market is _hard_ unless you're flight control/angry birds/candy crush. The market is saturated and Zynga (for example) has entire teams of people to make sure consumer dollars flow to them and not us (indies).

You might get lucky though! :-]

<comment><USER3> >mobile game market is _hard_ unless you're flight control/angry birds/candy crush.

Is there _any_ angle to get around this, for even modest sales? Most people here seem to be saying that they barely cover cost, if that. Very discouraging :-( There has to be something that small guys can do that big guys can't.

<comment><USER4> Check out my post. I was definitely able to cover costs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Made about £15 with dino sprint. It was never really about the money tbh, I just wanted people to enjoy something that I had created. It has 10,000+ downloads which im extremely happy with. [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wockawocka...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wockawocka.nether)

<comment><USER6> I'm in same ballpark, I have ads from which I made about $20 with 26k downloads (and 1.4k current installs), and I have in-game purchases from which I made 0. It seems some people really enjoy it, and give a good review, others post something like 'garbage' and give it a 1 star review [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mildspring...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mildspring.maze)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I thought I put together a decent game, but I didn't have any knowledge of how to market, and no real desire to put the time in on that aspect. It made a sale a week for the first 2 years and is tapering off to a few sales per year. I think I will just drop it to free and eliminate the free version some time soon. Perhaps I should even release the source.

If you want to make money selling games you need to be prepared to put a lot of work in. Otherwise you should consider it to be buying lottery tickets which rarely works well.

[http://tactitionprogramming.com/oceancommotion.html](http://tactitionprogramming.com/oceancommotion.html) iPad only

</comment><comment><USER8> I launched a turn taking two player real-time board game in HN 4 years ago, with zero returns so far. It took 3 months to build the web app, another 3 months for android app. But, lots of PR for the stunt. It is still up. 30K game instances so far and 3K players.

Recently I am having thoughts like should I relaunch this ? But won't want to do it without someone to look it as a business. This game feels like Chess but it is quick to learn, setup and finish.

Play with AI here: [http://obaghchal.com/computer](http://obaghchal.com/computer)

<comment><USER9> For discoverability you should make the rules accessible front and center on the game page.

I just clicked through and spent a few minutes clicking around ... I couldn't find the rules anywhere without clicking through to Wikipedia.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Interestingly, I do collect about 10% of my visitors from mobile on my sudoku webapp, which was NOT designed for mobile. A mobile version would be possible but since it doesn't make much I haven't bothered. Still, it's better than the zero some report for their mobile game :)

[http://sudokuisland.com](http://sudokuisland.com)

App discovery was one of the main reasons I decided to learn webapp first. Unless you make a graphic heavy game, eventually HTML5 apps will perform on mobile :)

</comment><comment><USER11> Made about $5000 from in-app purchases and about $4000 from ads across 3 games. All free games at [http://mugalon.com/](http://mugalon.com/) .

I am doing this on the side while freelancing (or having a day job before) as income. Most games did not have any monetization for most of their life and I am sure I could get this up one order of magnitude if I put in some work.

</comment><comment><USER12> My free game (with ads) hasn't made enough to cover the dev license.. I think mobile games are one of those things where you either make the top 10 or languish in purgatory.

Made it in about a week: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.smashcorp....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.smashcorp.smashmash)

<comment><USER4> Great job with the quotes in your promo video! :)

<comment><USER12> just checked, $5 since it launched a year ago :]

going to buy myself an ice cream.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Tried this as an hobby for a while, modded some with Corona and Unity, barely profitable, discontinued. Trailers still here: [https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCUv8iB1TUHHulj0OdWVS3Rw](https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCUv8iB1TUHHulj0OdWVS3Rw)

</comment><comment><USER4> Here are some stats from the first couple months for my last game.

Highest Positions in US App Store.

All Games US #54

Adventure (Games) #7

Arcade (Games) #23

Board (Games) #4

Music (Games) #2

Revenue

$18,430 Interstitials - Static & Video

$5,180 Banner Ads

$1,515 IAP to Remove Ads

</comment><comment></comment><comment>=

TOTAL $25,125

<comment><USER3> What year was this? Recent?

<comment><USER4> June 2015 - July 2015

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> at a tangent: one thing I miss is "Under the Radar" from this Indonesian website. Here's a sample page. Google Translate works well enough. There's a bunch of good games scattered through those pages and most of them don't use horrible freemium models.

[https://id.techinasia.com/game-radar-zeen-tiny-acrobats- dan-...](https://id.techinasia.com/game-radar-zeen-tiny-acrobats-dan-volcano- attack/)

Does anyone know anything similar?

</comment><comment><USER15> All 4 of my games/apps have netted me zero. Oh well.

<comment><USER14> ...here you are with an opportunity to link to them, and you don't. You don't link to them here in this thread, or in your profile.

I would have taken a look at them (if they're on iOS).

<comment><USER15> Well, they're deleted/not acually games/terrible. Here's the least embarassing thing I have there: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.got.game.a...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.got.game.android)</comment></comment></comment>


Tell HN: Atlassian now offers $10 licenses for most products. (for small teams) - <AUTHOR> http://www.atlassian.com/starter/?10dollarseach

<comment><USER2> Wow, this reads less like freemium and more that they're using enterprise customers to bludgeon innovation out of the market. This new pricing is a pretty big step function, $10 for 10 users, $1,200 for 11 users.

While I like JIRA and have recommended it to many clients, this move is not just to feed the future sales funnel, but attempt to raze competition. Makes me sad for the cool startups (i.e. not Atlassian or Fog Creek) in this area.

<comment><USER3> Out of curiosity, which startups?

I'm not sure this changes anyone's chances though -- bug tracking was already a bit crowded. They're probably going after the trac users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> We are using Confluence Wiki, Jira Issue Tracking, and Greenhopper for release planning and love it but I can attest even with only a few users Confluence requires more memory than a small 256meg slice can offer. We are on a 512meg slice with Chunkhost and are planning to upgrade to a 1gig slice due to performance issues.

Still, $10 each for 10 users is a great offer.

</comment><comment><USER5> Honest question: how are these products better than, for example redmine and MediaWiki, if using them for personal/small team purposes?

<comment><USER6> I (and a few others) posted a reply to this question in a similar thread from a few days ago. Here's the link.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=867439>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Except for Clover...the one I care about.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The counterpart is that they killed the personal licenses, but $10 for that kind of software is very cheap anyway.

</comment><comment><USER8> About half a year ago they sold JIRA licenses for 5 users for $5, for some kind of charity.

</comment><comment><USER9> Sadly, they require a host with J2EE, since it is written using JSP.

It doesn't matter if you have a company, but for a hobby project that kind of kills it.

<comment><USER10> Why ? Tomcat costs just as much as apache/php/python/perl costs.

<comment><USER9> Well yes, but I have been unable to find a host for tomcat the way you could find a host for, say php.

Quite understandable for the market they operate in, but a bit unfortunate for the hobby projects that might benefit from them.

<comment><USER10> slicehost:

<http://www.slicehost.com/>

$20 / month, full root access. Install tomcat and off you go.

That's cheaper than most bad habits ;)

<comment><USER11> a tomcat web app with database will choke and die on 256megs of ram

<comment><USER10> Depends on the number of users. If it is a hobbysite then I'm expecting that you have very little traffic (on the order of a few hundred uniques per day). If you go above that slap some google ads on it, reinvest what you make with those in your server and you'll be doing just fine. By the time you reach $80 / month (and that's only $2.75 / day) you can afford to lease a dedicated server, with as much ram as you care to buy, that's a one time expense.

And you'll still be out only what little bit there is between whatever you make and whatever it costs to get a dedicated server even if you decide to get one from day one.

Hobbies cost money.

edit: hey downmodders, how is _your_ tomcat instance running ? Mine is doing ok:

21747 ? Sl 94:33 /usr/java/default/bin/java -Djava.util.logging.manager=org.apache.juli.ClassLoaderLogManager -Djava.util.logging.config.file=/usr/local/tomcat/conf/logging.properties -Djava.endorsed.dirs=/usr/local/tomcat/endorsed -classpath :/usr/local/tomcat/bin/bootstrap.jar -Dcatalina.base=/usr/local/tomcat -Dcatalina.home=/usr/local/tomcat -Djava.io.tmpdir=/usr/local/tomcat/temp org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap start</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Self-hosted family photo managers? - <AUTHOR> Hello HN, my wife and I just had a newborn daughter, and we're trying to figure out how to manage our photos of her. Right now we're keeping our photo libraries in Google Photos, and manually sharing via SMS, Facebook, and WeChat. Keeping everybody on the right conversations is getting tedious already. I'd love to be able to centralize this in a self-hosted app, if possible. Does anyone have suggestions?
Top priorities:
* Open source & self-hosted
* Easy upload from Android & iOS devices
* Easy sign-on / viewing from web, Android, and iOS devices
Nice-to-haves:
* Easy sharing to social media
* Authenticated RSS feeds or some sort of notifications for registered users
* Allows sharded installs or advanced permissions management (in case I can convince the rest of the family to use this for their photos as well)
I've looked a bit at Pixelfed, but it looks like it fails on the mobile device front.
As a follow-on question, does anyone know how likely a self-hosted app like this would be to work across the Great Firewall? My in-laws are in China (hence sharing through WeChat). <comment><USER2> I would love to figure out howto implement something like this: [https://visjs.github.io/vis- timeline/examples/timeline/](https://visjs.github.io/vis- timeline/examples/timeline/)

into a blog/photo story of sorts to show my son's development.

Also want to see if something using this as a base platform into a social media.

So instead of horizontal scrolling, the obvious direction would me vertical to suit more mobile/tablet browsing which I believe is more "conventional."

As I commented below, I'm trying to accomplish the exact same thing you're after.

-Self hosted or some very very trusting src/platform

-Super easy to use (ie it must be grandma tested)

-All platforms for sure.

Adding to you Nice-to-haves: -Jitsi or brie.fi/ng webrtc video conf so can vid conf while viewing pics

-realtime whiteboarding with typing

of course trying to shoot for MVP for now...

</comment><comment><USER3> PhotoStructure is a self-hosted DAM that runs on macOS, Windows, Linux, or Docker and exposes a fun, novel web UI to browse extremely large libraries quickly.

I've focused first on fixing my own disorganized mess of many hard drives from n failed cloud photo services and cancelled photo apps that left me with not- quite-duplicate variants and missing tags scattered over many drives.

The current beta solves this robustly. I'm adding secure sharing and additional tagging and browsing next.

As it's self-hosted, it's up to you (at least with the current beta version) to set up an https reverse proxy with auth. Several of my beta testers are doing this.

[https://blog.photostructure.com/introducing- photostructure/](https://blog.photostructure.com/introducing-photostructure/)

</comment><comment><USER4> You should try [https://nextcloud.com](https://nextcloud.com)

It is pretty much open source clone of google's offerings.

</comment><comment><USER5> I was chatting with a few friends about the concept of a dedicated device to host your family media. I'll probably end up building this for myself at some point. And if the project lives up to its vision I'll share.

After searching a bit it seems many stitch together their own solution at home. And others use cloud exclusively. Seems like a nice big problem to solve.

<comment><USER3> Many companies have tried this in the past: make sure you make _different_ mistakes from those predecessors.

<comment><USER5> That's interesting - could you share some of the more notable companies? Why do you suspect they failed?

Sounds like a fun project more than anything, I'll explore it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Start an email for her and send pictures and letters to it throughout her life. Then on her 18th birthday give her the email with all the memories.

<comment><USER2> I too did the same! Before my son was born, I was sending him emails with snapshots of him kicking mommy's tummy :) ultrasounds.

I also sent many articles about personality development etc which I started to realize some info is too advanced and wish somehow they could be viewed at the "right" times in his life. Like he doesn't really need to know nor understand neuropsychological advances in research :) So little pondering on how to "feed" him the right info at the right time. Also extremely timely, since its email, if I miss a particularly important day sending it out, I'm late :(.

Nevertheless, if gmail holds out for the next 18yrs, it would be a killer present to have his entire life online w/ pics and at the time memories handed to him. and like other commenter suggested, may need to do a regular "takeout" for him.

Furthermore, in addition to that, I'm also trying to address the needs of our immediate family sharing his day to day fun but don't want to use the currently available privacy fiasco social media.

So I'm also in this dilemma like others howto share w/o going to FB/Twit/Insta and alike. Want something very private but easily available. And like the other commenter, I came to the conclusion of creating my own. So I'm on my way of wireframing, prototyping a PWA based service where everything is private and is fee based. Kinda like the antithesis of all social media as we currently know it. Time seems ripe to address the need for privacy....

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Give Gallery a look: [http://galleryproject.org/](http://galleryproject.org/)

<comment><USER8> unmaintained since 2014?

<comment><USER9> from the link:

Good news!

Brad Dutton has been leading a community that is continuing Gallery development. He and his team have made progress over the past year and have a stable version of Gallery 3 that is PHP 7+ compatible, contains a replacement for the old Flash-based image uploader, an updated jQuery Library and other features. They've been testing it for a year now with no problems and have released it as Gallery 3.1.0.

You can download it from galleryrevival.com

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Piwigo or Lychee may be what you are looking for.

<comment><USER2> Very kool. didn't know I needed them! thx. Not having had time to look indepth, wonder if either platform will allow embedded videos, particularly from youtube? currently have a bunch uploaded as private links since it was the easiest to share. It would be awesome if they allowed it or may be could be mod...

[EDIT] wow..you have given me some motivation to look. Didn't realize how many there are. however, still want/need to find one where I can embed youtube videos but thx for the push to look!</comment></comment>


How Android knows it's on an expensive connection - <AUTHOR> http://www.lorier.net/docs/android-metered <comment><USER2> Why should my phone send out strange flags (that disable sync features) just because it's used as a hotspot?

At least for me, phone traffic is free, and if some device needs to sync some photos the software shouldn't disturb it because somewhere (USA?) has nonfunctioning competition in mobile connectivity.

For example, for my Android tablet the usual network connection is my phone hotspot - how would I even know if some feature is waiting for "nonexpensive connection" that is not going to come any time soon?

<comment><USER3> > At least for me, phone traffic is free

What magical land do you live in that has truly unlimited cell data? And how much does it cost?

> how would I even know if some feature is waiting for "nonexpensive > connection" that is not going to come any time soon?

The feature is typical used for things like when you enable "only do this on WiFi" type options, it knows that although it is connected to a wifi hotspot, that hotspot itself is using cell data so don't do that expensive thing that you said to only do on wifi.

Typically the worst thing that'll happen is you will get a few "are you sure?" style dialogs when you go to install a large game or similar.

<comment><USER4> T-Mobile (US) has never gotten rid of their unlimited data option. Up until recently, they had a 5GB cap whereafter they would throttle the connection to EDGE speeds; they have since replaced this with a generic "don't abuse the network" policy, which I have yet to trigger (some months I have gone over 10GB of usage).

<comment><USER5> This unlimited LTE and HSPDA+ 4G plan by T-Mobile is $30/month, for those interested. But only if you buy the start up kit from Walmart. The plan is $70/month otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I love it how simple the tethering works. I thought it would be some kind of rocket science, but in fact Android is simply enabling IP forwarding by writing a 1 into _/ proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward_ and running a dhcp server. Sometimes it's the simple solution that works best.

<comment><USER7> It should also have to add some iptables rules no? At least one for the natting and one for the filtering.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Couldn't Android just ask for the DHCP option? It sounds to me as if this is a case of Android as a DHCP client talking to Android as a DHCP host, so making Android ask as a client seems feasible.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, it could. It doesn't tho. So you have to remember to force it if you want android to listen to you setting the attribute.

<comment><USER8> Ah, is the article written for other platforms who want to emulate Android in automatically limiting Hotspots on mobile plans? Then it makes sense.

<comment><USER9> That was why I wrote it yes. I wanted to know how I could ask android phones politely to avoid slamming the bandwidth on an AP that really didn't have the backhaul for everyone's photos and kept these notes in case I needed to do it again (or someone asked me how to do it.) I wasn't expecting it to be read by more than about 3 people who were trying to figure this out :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'd love to see this sort of thing standardized -- a "how much does this connection cost?" function. I get twitchy whenever I hook up my laptop to any sort of metered hotspot. And when using a gateway with wifi-over-wan there is no way to communicate the metered connection status to the client (well, I guess you could reverse DNS lookup your IP and guess based on the name)

Alternatively, I'd just like unmetered bandwidth everywhere...

<comment><USER9> Well, this scheme at least lets you announce "This is an (relatively) expensive connection, please avoid doing things you don't need to.".</comment></comment>


Startups: your web site sucks - <AUTHOR> http://scobleizer.com/2008/09/06/startups-your-web-site-sucks/ <comment><USER2> Well, FWIW, I am presenting at DEMO this year. We do actually have a video link right on the front page of our web site, and yet he claims that only one did, and the one he linked to wasn't us. <http://paragent.com>

I was tempted to post a comment, but I would rather avoid directing his vitriol directly at our company at this point. DEMO is a HUGE commitment for us. 18K is nothing to sneeze at, and a substantial part of our budget. However, living in the midwest, it is very difficult to form the kind of relationships that occur naturally on the east and west coasts. DEMO is an opportunity for us to meet face to face with many people we otherwise we never get to meet, and have some chance of attracting attention. Who knows if DEMO will have been worth it - I'll let you know after it is over. Undoubtedly, it will either end up in a best-of or worst-of compilation.

<comment><USER3> Well, I'm no Scoble, but my opinion is that your site looks great. Best of luck at DEMO!

<comment><USER4> I second that. I can only hope we have some of the design sense your startup has.

And good luck at DEMO, I look forward to watching your video once it's posted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Aren't most of these sites using 'Demo' as the launch platform? Therefore, why would they be expected to have more than this up before they launched. Maybe the policy of releasing the list of Demo presenters on the weekend before the conference is more the problem than the presenting sites websites.

Would Scoble have been pissed if he showed up at the Olympics in June and there was no sports going on? Patience young grasshopper.

</comment><comment><USER6> Man, how is this guy so famous? This is poorly organized and poorly written. It's one step above stream of conscious.

<comment><USER7> As others have noted in his blog comments - up until a few months ago his site was absolutely terrible and now he's already on his high horse.

Glass houses.

Don't worry he's not actually famous he's just tech scene famous, which is similar to winning the special olympics. Ask your Mom, non CS college professor, Grandpa or neighbor who he is. They won't know.

<comment><USER8> Well, except there is actual money to be made in being "tech scene famous." He owns a house in Half Moon Bay, probably earns a nice six figure salary to do whatever the hell it is he does, gets lots of freebies (he was at frigging Davos), and probably speaking fees. Of course, I don't know, there might be actual money in winning the special olympics.

And I'd bet any CS college professor (that's any good) doesn't know who he is, either.

<comment><USER7> True, but eventually most talentless hacks are filtered out and even if Scoble isn't, he's still an epic joke. There's money & free goodies to be obtained winning the special olympics as well.

Also from my understanding, he used to be largely sponsored by Seagate right? I don't get what value he brings to sponsors - seriously. When Arrington or Fred Wislon recommend something I at least check it out.

When I think of Robert Scoble I think: "too many cheeseburgers, annoying perpetual laugh and bad writing" NOT "I better buy whatever he recommends."

What does he actually _do_? I still don't understand. As far as I can tell Robert Scoble is the Washington DC or Paris Hilton of the tech scene.

<comment><USER8> My experience is that in the Bay Area, there's a critical mass of "talentless hacks" that basically support each other and create barriers to entry for actual talented people. Scoble is their king. Sarah Lacy is queen.

That being said, there's a ton of really talented people in the same area, just that most of them have either cashed out, work for Google or Apple, or are so busy building stuff that they don't have time to blog crap.

<comment><USER7> I'm going to quote you one day - that's a phenomenal line.

<comment><USER8> I'm blushing ;-) Though seriously I was in the center of it all for 2 years so I think my impression is, at the very least, an honest opinion. Which is something that seems exceedingly rare in the Bay Area.

<comment><USER7> Maybe TicketStumbler should stay in Boston longer than previously anticipated (we're already staying another year); I don't do well with bullshit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> He is just trying to market himself by trashing newcomers. His # 1 reason for the sucketivity of these startups is "Almost no company on this list is using video". This comes from a guy whose job title is "video blogger". His entire career revolves around camera and camera related stuff. Has this guy done any real tech stuff other than 'assemble computers' ?

<comment><USER10> I would be very surprised if Robert Scoble has ever assembled a computer.

<comment><USER11> His nickname comes from how he would configure machines with vigor, or something -- he would "Scobleize" machines. He did plenty of putting together machines, but he's certainly not a developer.

<comment><USER10> Interesting. I am surprised. His website's about section is, ironically (considering the subject of this thread), almost 50% a disclaimer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What a twit. Most of those sites seem fine and the one that's not in English is actually a company and there's an English version of the page (should be highlighted, but still accessible).

<comment><USER13> I agree that the guy is being way harsh, but after looking through some of the sites I wasn't too impressed.

If I were an investor I'd want to see a little something more than what I saw today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> 2 years ago he wrote the exact opposite: [http://scobleizer.com/2006/03/04/the-role-of-anti- marketing-...](http://scobleizer.com/2006/03/04/the-role-of-anti-marketing- design)

<comment><USER15> His point (a good one) is more about positioning and less about design. i.e. How startups you describe what they do. I think he's right-- most startups (most companies, really) are woefully bad at communicating in a way that their customers understand. The closer you are to a topic, the less likely you are to be able to put yourself in the shoes of someone who isn't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I went through all the company webpages as well... and I didn't think they were all as bad as Scoble makes out. I have to agree with some of his gripes, but on average, the sites were pretty good.

Some of these companies are genuinely cool too, mainly the hardware startups like Adapx, microstaq, fusion-io. I also liked TravelMuse, GreenSherpa, Quantivo and Telnic.

Side note - I noticed that quite a few of these companies are based on the fuzzy social networking premise of "share this with your friends" (or "unified collaboration environments" as QTask so eloquently puts it) plus a twist (such as more security, creating lists, increased productivity or some revolutionary algorithm to share important info). The way I see it, this is a tough space to compete in. The twists usually aren't compelling enough for people to not only migrate over from the big players (facebook, myspace et al), but also convince all their mates to do so as well. One day a company may come up with something that is, but I suspect it'll have to be a big innovative step change, a game changer, not just small incremental baby steps.

</comment><comment><USER17> Scoble's article might seem arrogant, but when I visited the sites that he critiqued, I found them to be under par as well - they dont communicate what they do and many are just plain ugly, IMHO.

</comment><comment><USER18> What is the point of this article? It reads as "here's a minor nitpick about everything." I can't think of anything else to say.

The article conjures up a mental image of a high school student at a party who takes a shit in the punch bowl and expects everyone to be proud of him. Instead, everyone ignores him. (Let's be that "everyone", eh?)

</comment><comment><USER19> I disagree about video. You don't need video to explain what you do on the front page of your site.

Video can be a bit 'spammish' IMHO Sure, have some video tutorial or something linked off the front page.

</comment><comment><USER20> My website sucks, too. And you know what? I really don't care.

I'm building a secure backup service. I'm not building a website. After signing up and downloading the client code, there's no need for people to visit the website.

Yes, a website says something about a company. I'd rather have a website which says "I'm too busy writing code to make this look good" than a website which says "I care more about looking good than about the service I'm providing".

<comment><USER21> You're selling a service- if the design of the website fails to relate that service in a way that draws people in and makes them want to purchase, you fail. If the design of the site does draw people in and make them want to purchase, you succeed.

It's a question of effectiveness, of if you'd be able to sell more effectively via a good website.

<comment><USER22> That's probably only true if your customers are individual consumers. When we were selling to enterprise customers, we realized most of them didn't even look at our great website. Most of the selling were just done with good old fashioned salespeople that contacted the Marketing VP and chatted with him.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I suppose he has a point if you're a regular Scoble reader. I hardly know him (I know of him though), so I'm exactly sure what his complaints are targeting.

Websites that aren't catchy enough, because they don't have videos? Or they're not in English?

I would have taken to the article better had their been a bit of constructive suggestions to correspond with the general whining. But perhaps the rest of his articles always go over that kind of thing?

</comment><comment><USER23> seems like for most of them his main concern is that the site isn't launched before he got there. He seems to have dismissed them even before they launched.

<comment><USER8> I think his main concern is that they're not TechCrunch50 sites (he's a judge or something, though he seems to have forgotten the disclaimer he used in one of his first Demo-trashing posts).

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I think all these sites should put a picture of scoble in the header. Just like he has.

</comment><comment><USER25> People should just be like Gordon Ramsay with his attitude toward food critiques; he kicks them all out of his restaurants.

</comment><comment><USER26> Scoble fan here.

I don't know how much pageviews these startups would get without Scoble telling that they suck.

Scoble started conversation. Many agreed the thesis, many don't, everybady CHECKED. It is like mini DEMO for these companies. How this could be bad for them?</comment>