Why the Twentieth Century Was Not a Chinese Century - <AUTHOR> http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/08/where-was-china-why-the-twentieth-century-was-not-a-chinese-century-a-deleted-scene-from-my-slouching-towards-utopia-th.html <comment><USER2> I'm not an expert, but to me it seems that every recent account of west vs. east vastly overestimates how awesome China was, just for shock value. This article seems to claim that Europe didn't surpass China until the 1800s. Why then did math, astronomy and other sciences, and natural philosophy not originate in China, but centuries earlier in Europe (with a loose definition of "originate", I know Europeans were not the first)? Most of Chinese philosophy seems to me to be mostly about society and the duty of men etc. I'm sure China excelled at organizing an efficient society with a comparatively huge population, but that doesn't mean that they were on the cusp of something bigger. Perhaps they were at a local optimum as a society. And while Europe was worse off early on, it allowed the region to discover math and science AND make USE of it. China had a big fleet, but cancelled the project. China invented printing but it did not push literacy. China invented gun powder, but they didn't use it to gain a military advantage. Traditional Chinese Medicine used penicillin indirectly, but never managed to understand or extract it. China is a sea of lost opportunities, it's not as simple as blaming it on opium and intervening western powers.

edit: it seems that further down this article gives more explanations and actually states that China was in stagnation from 1200 onwards. However, there are many other articles and books making the argument I'm trying to refute. For me, the interesting part of the article is:

Perhaps the root problem was the absence of a new world rich in resources to exploit and helpless because of technological backwardness.

Perhaps the root problem was the lesser weight attached to instrumental rationality as a mode of thought

Perhaps the root problem was the absence of dissenting hidey-holes for ideological unconformity.

Perhaps the root problem was the fact that the merchants and hand- manufacturers of China's cities were governed by landlords appointed by the central government rather than governing themselves.

Perhaps the root problem was that large-muscled animals like oxen and horses turned out to be powerful productive multipliers for temperate rain-irrigated wheat-based agricultural but not for sub-tropical paddy-irrigated rice-based agriculture

Perhaps the root problem was some combination of these.

Perhaps the root problem was one or a combination of any of a host of other possibilities over which historians will struggle inconclusively (but thoughtfully and fruitfully) for the rest of time.

<comment><USER3> Anytime nationalistic pride is stirred hard, it's hard to be not biased. So my bias is pretty pro-Chinese and anti-West, so just to start off there.

>Chinese philosophy seems to me to be mostly about society and the duty of men

You are referring to Confucius and also perhaps the highly hierarchical nature of the Chinese community party. Chinese philosophy in general is a mix of Taoism, Buddhism and Confuciusm ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinegar_tasters](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinegar_tasters)) with conflicting tenets that respectively focuses on individual conduct, moral values and social harmony. In general, Western media focuses on the governance of the Communist party; that's analogous to reduce Western philosophy down to Locke and Mills and ignoring Heidegger, Nietzsche and Rousseau that is concerned more with the individual development than the social contract/utility. Note that a lot of Westerners also attempt to find spiritual alternative in Zen Buddhism which is of Chinese origin.

>While Europe was worse off early on, it allowed the region to discover math and science and make use of it.

I'd argue that the reason for the lack of a Chinese industrial revolution is not because any inherent "thought" deficit but due to the Empire's decision to employ a Closed Door Policy and Sea Ban ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haijin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haijin)). Compare China during the Sea Ban and Japan's Meiji Restoration at the time or even more recent economic development of South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan (all of which are very Confucian) as an argument against any culture having an monopoly on innovation. Unfortunately, at the time the traditional Chinese culture is very inward looking and arrogant toward foreign thought because we thought we were the best. But anytime you become close-minded and think that you are the best in the world, you close yourself to alternative ideas beyond your borders and will inevitably decline. Thankfully, we've learned this lesson in the 20th century.

>China had a big fleet, but cancelled the project … China invented gun powder, but they didn't use it to gain a military advantage.

Colonial conquest of foreign cultures is a very Western concept. Note that China at one time had the most population and military power and built a great wall at the Northern boundary; because China is more interested in governing from the within. Even with Sinosphere neighbors at the time that were heavily influenced by Chinese culture, Emperors were happier to have tributary states than conquering the neighboring countries.

>Traditional Chinese Medicine used penicillin indirectly, but never managed to understand or extract it.

That's an implicit value judgment that Western medicine that focuses on pharmacodynamics and pharmakinetics is superior than the holistic take of Chinese medicine. Again note the Western movement to seek out holistic medicine and more importantly, major Western pharmaceutical companies push for personal genomics treatment ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_genomics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_genomics)) which takes into account the patient's individual genetic variation. This is not an attempt to conflate Chinese medicine with 23andme, but rather the perspective that modern medicine is constantly evolving - from the discrete scientific method of breaking down chemicals to their individual interactions to a systematic view of complex metabolic pathways and cascade signaling networks, which echoes the Chinese medicine's idea of feedback cycle of Qi.

<comment><USER4> _But anytime you become close-minded and think that you are the best in the world, you close yourself to alternative ideas beyond your borders and will inevitably decline._

I kind of have the feeling that's been going on here in the USA since WWII. The 40s gave us a really good reason to be arrogant about our own superiority in the 50s and into the 60s, but since the 70s things have been going downhill and no amount of "USA! USA!" chanting seems to help.

 _> Traditional Chinese Medicine used penicillin indirectly, but never managed to understand or extract it.

That's an implicit value judgment that Western medicine that focuses on pharmacodynamics and pharmakinetics is superior than the holistic take of Chinese medicine._

My take on Chinese medicine, and this goes for a lot of non-western 'science', is that it's based on very-long-term observation of cause and effect, with untestable/untested theories to explain 'why' the cause causes the effect. In contrast, western science is much more focused on breaking down causes and effects into very small pieces and doing repeatable experiments to discover 'why' in ways that can be applied more generally.

For example, acupuncture: Chinese doctors learned through observation that if you stick a bunch of needles along this line, and give them a little tweak, it'll help that organ over there to function better. "Why?" "Well, there's this energy you can't see flowing though you, and the needles make it flow better." "Oh, neat." As long as the explanation is internally consistent with the observation, the theory is sufficient. It just can't be used to accurately predict new causes and effects that haven't been observed yet.

The big drawback to the western approach is that by focusing on the details, it looses the holistic overview, and we wind up with drugs that help one particular health issue while causing a bunch of other health issues. Thankfully, as you mentioned, western medicine is moving back towards the holistic viewpoint, but now it's based on fundamental understanding of the individual biologic processes unlike traditional Chinese medicine. Best of both worlds, I think.

<comment><USER5> >But anytime you become close-minded and think that you are the best in the world, you close yourself to alternative ideas beyond your borders and will inevitably decline.

While it is easy to get up votes claiming America is like this the fact is we get the best and brightest to such an extent that other countries have to work very hard ro keep their smartest people.

<comment><USER4> It's also a fact that our country is collapsing in on itself. We're still on top in a lot of ways, but the trend is definitely downwards in too many ways. We'd hardly be the first "empire in decline", and like many we can probably last decades or centuries without becoming completely historical and overshadowed by the next great empire. So I guess it's not all bad.

Honestly, if someone else can take over the "World Police Force" job so we can stop with the insane military spending, we could probably start taking care of our debt and getting our economy into reasonable shape again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My guess: What screwed China was the Roman alphabet because China didn't use it. Then when the written word became important for the masses in the West and for progress in the West, China started falling behind.

The effect is still easy to see in Chinese culture, say, cooking: It's still strongly the case that Chinese cooking is essentially just not written down and, instead, is learned by apprenticeship. E.g., I have stacks of books on cooking -- US, French, Italian, German, and Chinese -- and far and away the worst written are the books on Chinese cooking. So, the books on American cooking I got from my family from, say, the 1930s, are very nicely done with times, temperatures, weights, and volumes, but the books on Chinese cooking have essentially no measurements at all. Then for explanations of the steps and details, again the Chinese books are far behind. Again, simply, Chinese cooking is so far nearly never actually written down in anything like what is common for thorough descriptions in countries that use the Roman alphabet.

Why the Roman alphabet? Because it's so darned easy to work with, and the Chinese little drawings severely throttle what that masses might do with reading and writing.

<comment><USER7> Not a bad guess. The literacy rate at the end of the Chinese civil war (1949) was only about 11% or so. That can't possibly have been good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's an interesting topic - but this article is wrong on so many factual counts it's probably not worth bothering with. Here's three of them:

> The British Empire acquired the then nearly barren island of Hong Kong as a > base

Which was then, and had been for some time, a major trade center

> And one's [ an upwardly mobile enterpreneur's ] children could do the most > important thing needed for upward mobility: study the Confucian classics and > do well on the examinations: first the local shengyan, then the regional > juren, and then the national jinshi.

Nope. Succeeding in the examinations meant having been brought up in them, which only aristocratic children were. Though the examination system seemed meritocratic from the outside, in reality it was anything but.

> Perhaps 10 million people, 3% of China's population, died [ during the > Taiping rebellion]

Nope, more like 50 million

It's an interesting question why China suddenly fell behind the West after 1700 and this article touches on some of them - the Qing were definitely part of the problem - but it veers off course so often it pretty much becomes worthless.

</comment><comment><USER8> A very interesting article. However it is sometimes possible to overlook the basics and over-theorise about things:

1) Having ~50% of the population forcibly disabled probably did not help:

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

2) The importance of glass cannot be underestimated. Particularly when it comes to spectacles. It is something like two thirds of the population that wear glasses or contact lenses in the west. Being able to see is a prerequisite for so many things like being able to read. Being able to read is a prerequisite for so many things like being able to do science. Being able to do science is a prerequisite for an advanced civilisation.

Sure it took a while for glasses to be available to all, however, in the West it was feasibly possible to get glasses - not the case in China.

</comment><comment><USER9> "A thousand years before—-in 800, say—-the technological and civilizational cutting edges of humanity were to be found in the Caliph Haroun al-Rashid's capital of Baghdad and the Tang Dynasty Emperor Dezong's Chang'an, rather than London or Bristol of Manchester or New York or Washington or _Cleveland_." (Emphasis mine)

As a North East Ohioan, I was shocked and flattered that we were mentioned, even if ironically. Cleveland rocks, indeed.

Edit: formatting.

<comment><USER10> Where's the irony? Cleveland in 1900 was a hugely wealthy city with a rapidly growing population and innovative industries, near the forefront of technologies like electric railroading, automobiles, and aviation. It's fallen from prominence, as has Manchester, but it had a good run in its day, not unlike Silicon Valley.

<comment><USER9> I thought there was a chance the author was being mildly ironic, but don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of the Forest City, both in its history and its current iteration of commerce, culture, and identity.

I just thought it was flattering that my favorite city, being less than 250 years old with claim to no world-moving historical events, should occupy the same list as Baghdad, London, New York, and Washington in terms of historical and cultural significance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There is a fantastic book - "Why the west rules, for now" that deals with this question (the name sounds quite right-wingish, but it's actually a great history book). I highly recommend anyone interested in this topic to read it.

If I can bring some interesting observations of the author to this discussion, it's that West (including mid east+europe+later america) and East (mostly China+later japan) led at different times. West had a 2000 year head start and reached its peak during Roman empire. East finally caught up around 600 AD and was ahead till the eve of western industrial revolution. Backwardness in some period of history (whether it's in nature resource, technology, social organization), became advantages in others. So you see the power shift constantly happening.

The ultimate reason (obviously i'm doing a huge reduction here) the writer claimed that caused the last shift of power between East and West was simply that America was too far from China. China got the thoughts/technology it needed. Europe found a flood of new problems and solved them with new thoughts/technology.

While I don't completely agree with his arguments, it's nonetheless an interesting and well supported point of view and much better than many other books out there that deals with big history topic (eg. "Guns, Germs and Steel")

<comment><USER12> I just finished reading this book, and I found it extremely insightful. The overview of Western and Eastern history from paleolitic to the modern era really puts the entire question of West vs. East into a grander perspective.

However, the biggest twist and conclusion in the book comes from projecting the trends of social development into the future. Ultimately, this question will not matter as we march towards singularity or apocalypse at a frighteningly fast pace.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> LoL. There were exactly two political groups/parties to blame for the collapse of Northen Song dynasty and the following stagnation of everything in China.

They were Yuanyou(元佑党人) the reformists, and Yuanfeng(元丰党人) the conservatives.

Damn.

Now, there is a similar case in US.

I hope this time, politicians can do much better than ruin all good things.

<comment><USER9> Net Neutrality, Copyrights, Patents, sensible immigration laws, friendliness to entrepreneurship.

No. We're screwed too.

<comment><USER9> I may have not been clear that I think the US is failing badly at handling all of those things, and it will cost us in the long run.

If what I was saying was clear, and you still disagree, then by all means down-vote it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> A pertinent pair of novels (by a Westerner) are "Under Heaven" and "River of Stars" by Guy Gavriel Kay. While set in the author's usual "slightly alternate" history, they are effectively set in the Tang and Song dynasties respectively. I have no idea how the Chinese regard these novels, but the linked essay could have been written, in part, on these novels instead of actual history. The second book's central theme is the peril presented by an isolated ruling class, institutionalized military incompetence, and the lack of trust in military leaders. They're good reads if fiction is more your speed.

</comment><comment><USER15> As it often happens, when you try too hard to make your point, you get carried away.

<comment><USER16> Perhaps there are just many dimensions to observe one object/thing. And most of time, people are just not able to figure out the single point(if it does exist and can be achieved with the given conditions) that can make sense for all the dimensions.

<comment><USER15> We strive for simple explanation - as the OP says, the "root cause" \- but there can't be a simple explanation for such big phenomena, encompassing hundreds of years and hundreds of millions of people.

<comment><USER17> I think it's worth noting that there certainly _can_ be simple explanations for big phenomena, even those within human cultures (the concept of currency as a trading medium being a fairly simple idea that has spawned uncountable and unfathomably complex, ever-evolving results). I would agree that the topic here, though, is one that's unlikely to be traced to just one or two such elementary concepts.

<comment><USER15> As you wrote, even an apparently simple idea like currency is actually incredibly complicated in its historical reality, so complicated that there are thousands of books about it, very active research, and competing school of thoughts that propose completely different and incompatible theories about what are the "causes" and what are the "effects".

So, my opinion is that every simple explanation of any big phenomena regarding human history actually explains very little.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> That was a delightful article--I do wish that more information and thinking was articulated about China _during_ the 20th century.

Perhaps the thesis is that, by the mid 1800s, the race was lost.

</comment><comment><USER19> Societies seem to want to organize themselves in a few different ways -- the most common is to organize for stability. It's understandable since everything from irregular weather to power struggles in leadership often lead to untimely and unpleasant deaths.

Massive social and technological revolutions were likely to be sources of misery for everybody.

Let's not forget that massive social and technological change was not common in the West either -- despite lots of smart folks, the Classical Greeks of 430BC weren't really all that behind the Romans of 220AD in terms of technology and these are widely considered among the smartest, most vigorous and most impressive of ancient Western Civilizations. The Russ, Germanic Tribes etc. pretty much had lived the same for thousands of years.

Organizing for stability creates stagnation, but in most cases this is perfectly normal. The kinds of fast change we've seen in the West post Middle- ages is pretty bizarre -- and has in many ways conformed to the idea I mentioned above. Some of the bloodiest and deadliest times in known history have all occurred since the start of the Renaissance.

For whatever reason; lots of competing non-unified territories, guns germs and steel, the black death, whatever; the West, starting in the late 15th century has managed to make fast massive social and technical change the norm.

In China, massive upheavals like this were usually a sign the empire was falling apart, or the Mongols were invading, or a dynasty was about to crumble. So every effort was made to stop these things from happening. Like I said, this is totally normal in human history. In fact, there are arguments that one of the reasons democracy is a viable option is that it largely resolves the painful succession problems in totalitarian/authoritarian systems -- it's a kind of social stabilizer. In India it was the caste system, in China it's probably attributable to Confucianism.

When Rome was starting to have ambitions of growing from a bunch of farmers into something larger, Confucius was out teaching rigid social order. But the Confucian revival in the Tang Dynasty during the start of the Dark Ages in the West is where it was really cemented in. It's also often called one of the most stable in Chinese history.

Another thing to note is that it's also very common, after a large social collapse, to look back at a previous golden age and to try and recapture it in some way. In the West this movement was called the Renaissance. You might say the post-Ottoman world is kind of "Dark Ages" for the central Asian Muslim world (you might notice that lots of the focus of groups like Al Qaeda and Al Shabaab is to recapture the former glory of the ancient Golden Age of the caliphates). A post Dark Age Renaissance in the Muslim world would be welcomed by many.

It might be argued that China is just now emerging from a kind of "Dark Age" that could be argued to have started with the end of the Song Dynasties into a Western Style period of rapid continuous revolution.

In the West we had the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, etc. China is going through something right now that's similar, what it'll be called is anybody's guess but history will have to wait for it to play out.

</comment><comment><USER20> Sure you can have smart and advanced people, but how will you control them? Better to hire idiots you can control than to risk losing control to advancement?</comment>


Show HN: Mutagen – Simple, cross-platform, continuous, bidirectional file sync - <AUTHOR> https://havoc-io.github.io/mutagen/ <comment><USER2> How is it compared to Rsync?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's designed for a different purpose - bidirectional sync. Though it does use the rsync algorithm for efficient transfers. It also does file monitoring. Closer to Unison really, though with a slightly different and more modern approach.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Switching Jobs - <AUTHOR>

I recently received a job offer for UI work with Javascript, which I absolutely love to do. They are offering me a boatload more than what I am currently paid (almost more than half). Right now, my current job involves a lot of C#, Powershell and Bash scripting which I don't exactly love. The conflict is, at my current job, we are heavily invested in TDD and Continuous Integration. We virtualize all our testing environments, and have a CI server running continuously giving us feedback. This is part of the job that I love; we are shipping almost every week (which is impressive for the type of product we produce). On the other hand, at the new job, no one uses TDD, no one's invested in Continuous Delivery, and they use Subversion for source control. They have a team of about 20 people, all who are 'Senior UI developers' yet no one uses TDD. But they are offering a lot of money, and most likely I'd end up as a junior position, so I doubt I could take the evangelical role. I am searching for advice. <comment><USER3> My advice is that it is time to interview them. Why do they do what they do, what are their pain points, are they open to trying X to fix pain point Y, and so on. Interviewing is a two way street, and it may just be how you ended up wording your question, but I don't get the sense that you really know the answers to any of those questions. None of us can really answer that part for you.

My other advice is that if you are early in your career, it doesn't hurt to be exposed to different practices. Even if you ultimately decide that they _should have_ used CI and such, you will see another approach which may perfectly apply to some job in the future. (Almost) No job is perfect - <USER2> will be a mix of interesting/dull work, great/bad practices, too many meetings or not enough communication, and so on. If it doesn't see like you'd be miserable there, why not go on over, build your UI/Javascript chops, and build it into your next job?

</comment><comment><USER4> You don't need to preach. Use the workflow that makes you the most productive, mention what you're doing to others, and roll with what happens.

As a personal example, I'm not sure anybody had heard of or used Jenkins when I arrived. We now have an automated build, multiple levels of testing, static analysis, etc. I installed it and did some initial configuration, but others took on the majority of the work because they bought into it.

Couple other thoughts

\- For CI, mention it to the team, have examples to back up where it helped, and offer to set it up. Shouldn't take too long and it'll pay back as soon as you catch some busted code (yours or theirs)

\- While Subversion may not be as highly regarded as Git, it works just fine. So I wouldn't consider that a negative, just a different tool.

</comment><comment><USER5> A 50% pay increase? Go for the money.

Don't hold onto your preferred practices so strongly that you forfeit your own market value.

</comment><comment><USER6> Some people -- myself included -- think TDD is not a good way to develop software. And I use SVN and TFS... I've tried git and frankly I want to solve problems, not introduce more with my source control provider. I want something that "just works" and git just isn't it (and repeated branching/merging has NEVER worked well in the long run IMO).

CI... all for it, must have IMO.

Remember, just because you think how you do your job is the "only way" you're not always right :) And I'd say a weekly release cycle sounds like a griiiiind.

(Edit, I run a team of 10-11 and have to work with developers from interns to senior with 10+ years of experience... so it's not like I'm just cowboy coding all in a vacuum... and we're reasonably successful at what we do :D)

</comment><comment><USER7> I'd go for it if the team is good. With 20 senior people, that's a lot of possible mentors and people to learn stuff from. The money is obviously good, and it's the thing you want to be working on.

You can evangelize once you're there. Or, you'll find out that what they're doing is actually best for the environment they have. I seem to remember SVN handles larger repos better.

Don't work about being "junior." I joined my employer as new college graduate, and still was able to influence some changes in my environment. However, I still use RCS for some scenarios because it works best in my environment.

</comment><comment><USER8> You need to decide if you're the sort who'd rather serve in heaven or rule in hell (the analogy works both for work environment and salary).

There's also the third option- seek out a better position with even more pay.

</comment><comment><USER9> Look at it this way: what is more likely, that you could help the new company get started with TDD and CI, or that your current company would give you a 50% raise and let you work with technology that you love?

Consider all the dimensions, including the point mchannon made that you can always look for additional companies to work for if this new one doesn't seem like the best fit, but if you think you will be happier at the new firm, consider switching.

</comment><comment><USER10> Don't forget the "if it's too good to be true..." aspect as well. Sometimes companies throw money at people to trap them in dysfunctional environments. If you got the feeling that the people at the new company will embrace good practices, then what arink says makes a lot of sense. However, if they instead actively shut you down for "wasting time with non essential activities", then you will end up being pretty unhappy.

</comment><comment><USER11> You can be evangelical in all positions -- make sure you do a respectable work wherever you are and people will respect you and your opinions. If the job looks better, go for it!

This is time to use your intuition, not to be rational. If you stay rational you will never change jobs because your brain can invent and pretend that your current job is the best and the opposite is the worse.</comment>


Amazon EC2 Instances with Websphere Portal starting at only 4600/mo - <AUTHOR> http://aws.amazon.com/ibm/#pricing

<comment><AUTHOR> IBM WebSphere Portal Server and IBM Web Content Management Server Standard Edition

Standard CPU: 4600/mo

Standard Extra CPU: 9100/mo

High CPU: 17000/mo

And yes, IBM is fucking retarded. Anyone who's planning on renting these should have their heads examined

</comment><comment><USER2> I like how the pricing per hour is more than most people make. '$24.35 per hour'

</comment><comment><USER3> _Only_ 4600/month? Those people are out of their damned minds.</comment>


More phones, few banks, instability are transforming Somalia to cashless society - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/625258/more-phones-few-banks-and-years-of-instability-are-transforming-somalia-to-a-cashless-society/ <comment><USER2> The article is light on details. It looks like EVC is acting as a bank but how do you enter money in the system? Example: I'm going there tomorrow (not really) with a 100 USD bill, then what? It seems I have to buy one of these vouchers [http://mogaguide.com/comp_catalog/index.php?ct=1&q=2&in=2&id...](http://mogaguide.com/comp_catalog/index.php?ct=1&q=2&in=2&id=290&zoom=1&kno=27.0176.003.01) I wonder if there is a way to turn what will be left back to cash.

In any case, it's not like everybody is its own bank. There is one company doing the bank for everyone.

<comment><USER3> I live in California and you are wrong. They use federal reserve notes like everybody else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The legal medical marijuana people in California have to do everything with cash because they can't get bank accounts[1]. This is a sly way for the federal government to drive industries out of business that they don't like, even if they are legal on the state level. They are doing this explicitly with Operation Chokepoint.[2]

1.[http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/16/medical- marij...](http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/16/medical-marijuana- dispensaries-california-tax-cash-only)

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

<comment><USER5> >legal medical marijuana

There is no such thing as legal medical marijuana. The repealing of a state statute doesn't make something "legal" when it is still prohibited by federal statute, as marijuana is. It's simply a federal offense that this administration chooses not to prosecute vigorously.

<comment><USER6> Some states do have laws that explicitly allow and/or regular marijuana for medicinal or recreational use. For example, I live in Colorado where a constitutional amendment was passed that required law makers to pass laws to setup regulations for the production, wholesale, and retail sale of the drug.

The part about the federal law is still true but as far as I know, law enforcement in Colorado is not required nor can be forced to enforce federal law.

<comment><USER7> > The part about the federal law is still true but as far as I know, law > enforcement in Colorado is not required nor can be forced to enforce federal > law.

But the FBI can very well decide to prosecute federal crimes in states, even if the "crime" is legal under state law.

<comment><USER8> And a jury can decide that no crime was committed.

<comment><USER7> For this there needs to be a jury trial, which is unlikely to happen if police / DA pushes for a plea bargain...

<comment><USER9> Can't you always refuse the plea bargain?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Cash is freedom. No one spies on what you do with your cash money.

Hopefully this electronic-only-money utopia won't get traction. We can see already with the encryption trojan programs that ask for Bitcoins/altcoins to decrypt your data - something like that wouldn't be reasonable and work on a large scale with cash.

<comment><USER11> "People are doing business without any fear of losing cash to militants or conmen," Aden said. "The country's telecommunications sector has undergone a rapid rise, fueled by intense competition amongst the numerous telecommunication firms that dominate the country."

Cash is freedom to be robbed, so I don't think that will convince anyone in Somalia.

I checked my bank statement this morning. I withdrew DKK 300 ($45) on 16 January, and still have 100kr left. I have no fear of being robbed though. You should argue against Scandinavia, and some other countries in Europe.

<comment><USER12> Indeed. The problem with some hardcore libertarians, among others, is that they want "freedom" to be #1 on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and become confused or angry when others disagree. If you want people to want freedom-- and you should!--you need to start by guaranteeing their basic physical safety and survival. "Live Free or Die" makes for a catchy bumper sticker, but if what you offer is the "freedom" to watch your family starve, most people would actually prefer a bit of oppression, and I can't really fault them for that.

<comment><USER13> Your analysis indicates that you're stuck on the dimension of individuality vs collectivism whereby libertarian solutions would somehow be inferior to socialist ones.

The real problems in Somalia lie along dimensions of corruption and violence. The biggest gains that they could make as a society would be to reduce the value of corruption and violence as a means to an end. Possibly that reduction comes in the form of free markets that create a vibrant economy that their people become incentivized to protect. Possibly, some more socialist democratic processes could take hold that appeals to their cultural tendencies to help one another. Probably some mixture of those forces could help to create a new Somalian society.

<comment><USER12> I'm saying that if you want people to agree with your philosophy, whatever it is, you have to make it relevant to them. Frik seemed to think that Somalians should give up day-to-day security, including financial and physical safety, in order to protect themselves from hypothetical monitoring by a government that currently can't even provide basic law enforcement. In the environment Frik lives in, government monitoring is a reality and frequent robbery is not, and he naively assumes that his priorities can be applied everywhere unchanged.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I know the minister for Telecommunications in Somalia. I asked him to do an AMA on hackernews but there was no interest.

<comment><USER15> I'm very interested in finding out how to pay people in the third world as well as others with no bank account (10% of Americans don't have one). Please see if he will answer questions. I want to know how it works, how widespread it is in Africa, if they are rolling it out in other countries etc.

<comment> nommm-nommm What's your questions about Americans without bank accounts? I grew up poor so I knew plenty of people growing up without bank accounts. I can answer most questions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Given how AT&T acts now one can only imagine how they'd act with control of the money supply.

<comment><USER17> Well, we have another cabal in control of the money supply. Sorry, I just watched The Big Short. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The U.S. has been a cashless society for generations. Few people even know what cash is. They think federal reserve notes are cash. They are not. Alaska has cash in circulation and you can spend it at any business, though the scales are out of sight until you break out the cash. They can make change in cash or federal reserve notes. Federal reserve notes are the middle ground between digital currency and cash. I've never seen anyone spend cash in the lower 48. I'm sure that Somali currency is not cash either.

<comment><USER9> "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all."

[LEWIS CARROLL (Charles L. Dodgson), Through the Looking-Glass, chapter 6, p. 205 (1934). First published in 1872.]</comment></comment>


Google I/O Registration now open - <AUTHOR> https://events.google.com/io2015/apply

<comment><USER2> Registration is only open for two days so I figured I should post it here. I've never gone and I missed out on I/O last yeah so let's see if I can get in this time around.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've always wanted to go, but struggle to rationalise spending $900/ticket - can anyone who's attended help me justify it? :)

<comment><USER3> I've been every year. By far, the biggest value is in having the largest concentration of Googlers you'll likely ever encounter as an outsider. For instance, if you're a web developer, you can ask deep questions from people on App Engine, Chrome, and Material Design all within 50 feet of one another. The ability to ask in-person about the internals of an App Engine Pipeline, or get a Chromie to pull up a secret profiling screen to help kill some jank on your Chrome Experiment is why you pay $900 to show up.

(It used to be a lot more affordable, but when people started presuming that they'd seed expensive hardware every year, demand went through the roof.)

If you can get your company to pay for it, go. If you can't, but you are heavily reliant on Google APIs (Android, Chrome, AppEngine, Geo, etc.), you should probably still go. If you work with primarily open tech and are just curious about attending (or if you just want random free shit), it probably isn't worth it.

<comment><USER4> Did you get a pre-registration offer this year? I've been every year too, but it seems like they've given up completely with their I/ON program now :-(

<comment><USER3> I think the writing was on the wall last year when they dropped the I/ON brand and just invited us as "trusted partners".</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why Paul Romer Won the Nobel Prize in Economics - <AUTHOR> https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/10/paul-romer-won-nobel-prize-economics.html <comment><USER2> Romer has made some comments about open source with the specific example of Jupyter and Mathematica.

" At a time when trust and truth are in retreat, the social dimension is the one that matters. Jupyter rewards transparency; Mathematica rationalizes secrecy. Jupyter encourages individual integrity; Mathematica lets individuals hide behind corporate evasion. Jupyter exemplifies the social systems that emerged from the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, systems that make it possible for people to cooperate by committing to objective truth; Mathematica exemplifies the horde of new Vandals whose pursuit of private gain threatens a far greater pubic loss–the collapse of social systems that took centuries to build."

<comment><USER3> An earlier discussion on Jupyter, Mathematica here on HN, [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16840692](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16840692)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Its surprising to see one of the most prominent critics of modern macroeconomics getting a nobel. [1]

Till now egalitarian Sweden has made no secret of their love affair with libertarian economists with 8 winning the prize. [2]

One would think the tide is finally turning after the banking crisis with macro economists in deep introspection on dubious models, data and narratives but just last week they were out in force demonizing Bernie Sanders amazon bill.

1\. [https://ccl.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/The%20Trouble...](https://ccl.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/The%20Trouble%20with%20Macroeconomics.pdf)

2\. [https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/10/nobel-f...](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/10/nobel- factor-offer-soderberg/503186/)

<comment><USER5> The funny thing about macroeconomics is that everybody is a critic of it for different reasons. Non-economists might hate it because it tells them things that they find paradoxical or hard to swallow. Microeconomists might criticize it because it lacks empirical rigor and the economy as a whole is intractably complex to model simplistically.

Even macroeconomists criticize it. Why? Because it's a field that is legitimately hard to research and understand due to its complex nature and chaotic feedback loops. It gets manipulated by politicians seeking authority for their half-baked ideas. And people discredit the entire profession because they focus way too much on controversial political hotbuttons like business cycle theory, and subsequently use that criticism as a justification for ignoring research that is sound and has broad consensus even among academics of wildly differing ideologies. Their job sucks, and they know it.

<comment><USER6> My two points are.

1\. A lot of soft hard to quantify schools of thought went totally off the rails after WWII in a head long rush to impose 'scientific rigor' by aping physics. And to curry favor with the suddenly terrifying political theories of the day.

2\. Martin Gardner has line that when supporting evidence in a field is weak and opaque theory mimics the cultural biases of the scientists. "evidence in a field is weak and opaque" fits economics perfectly.

Put those two together is the conclusion is economics is mostly a huge pile of stinking garbage. At best it's mostly irrelevant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Have seen very little discussion or interest in this year's economics prize compared to previous years'. Wonder why that is.

<comment><USER8> >"Most importantly, Romer won the Prize for seeing how the non-rival nature of ideas can boost ongoing and indeed "endogenous" economic growth. Romer also showed mathematically that this process of growth is bounded, namely that it does not explode without limit"

Is it common to assume economic growth can proceed at an infinite rate?

<comment><USER5> Just to point out the misconception most people have here, that quote does not imply that growth is not infinite. Take, for example, compound growth that grows at a rate that declines over time asymptotically approaching 0%. That is infinite growth even if returns decline over time.

It isn't just a hypothetical exercise. This sort of relationship with returns over time is common in both economics and finance. I, for example, experience it as a futures trader. It's not uncommon for successful day traders _who intentionally limit their trading capital_ to get returns averaging 1% per day. Those returns, however, are completely infeasible when talking about trading capital even on the small end of mutual funds. When your trading capital increases, it becomes much harder to grow at the same rate, and returns rates diminish greatly. But they still may have positive returns.

No economist I know of would ever presume that growth can happen without limit or diminishing returns. Reasonable economists will inevitably disagree on parameterization of their models though, which is entirely to be expected.

<comment><USER8> The quote refers to the "process of growth", which I took to refer to the rate of growth rather than growth for an infinite amount of time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> And he is a python programmer. Thomas Sargant another Nobel economist at NYU is a rabid Julia fanbou.

</comment><comment><USER10> The economics prize in honor of Alfred P. Nobel...

</comment><comment><USER11> He did not win the Nobel Prize in Economics because there is no such prize.

It's The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

[http://exiledonline.com/the-nobel-prize-in-economics- there-i...](http://exiledonline.com/the-nobel-prize-in-economics-there-is-no- nobel-prize-in-economics/)

Just imagine the ridicule if instead of the Turing or Shannon awards we'd have the ACM Prize in Computer Science in Memory of Alfred Nobel, or the IEEE Prize in Electrical Engineering in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

BTW, here's a great paper by George Akerlof and Paul Romer who both won the prize: [http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~promer/Looting.pdf](http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~promer/Looting.pdf)

<comment><USER12> Is that a picture of Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek with the word "fraud" plastered over it? And what is the word "libertards" in the headline supposed to mean?

> It's The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred > Nobel.

Also known as the Nobel Prize in Economics, selected by the same institution as the other prizes (the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences), announced at the same time as the other prizes, awarded at the same ceremony as the other prizes, and selected "in accordance with the rules governing the award of the Nobel Prizes instituted through [Alfred Nobel's] will."

> Just imagine the ridicule if instead of the Turing or Shannon awards we'd > have the ACM Prize in Computer Science in Memory of Alfred Nobel, or the > IEEE Prize in Electrical Engineering in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

Why would that be ridiculous?

<comment><USER13> fact check :

 _Also known as the Nobel Prize in Economics, selected by the same institution as the other prizes (the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences) ..._

"Nobel Peace Prize" is selected by Norwegian government. ( see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Peace_Prize](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Peace_Prize) )

<comment><USER14> _" Nobel Peace Prize" is selected by Norwegian government._

Technically by an independent committee appointed by the Norwegian government.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Introducing Google Compare for U.S. car insurance - <AUTHOR> http://adwords.blogspot.com/2015/03/introducing-google-compare-for-us-car.html <comment><USER2> Have any of the major players (Geico?) signed on? Do they feel threatened by Goog Compare?

<comment><USER3> Car insurance for the major players in the U.S. has historically been about capturing users in the funnel, and making pricing information extremely opaque. This is very different from how the UK operates (see [https://www.google.co.uk/compare/](https://www.google.co.uk/compare/)).

Price transparency like this is the death knell for the likes of geico, state farm...etc.</comment></comment>


Why Some Startups Say the Cloud Is a Waste of Money - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2013/08/memsql-and-amazon/

<comment><USER2> The cloud is almost always a good investment for early-early stage startups. It's only when a company hits massive scale that it might be a good idea to have built their own infrastructure.

Even the company in the profile admits that it still uses AWS for certain tasks - so the headline is misleading.</comment>


Moves Importer by Gyroscope - <AUTHOR> http://movesimporter.com/ <comment><USER2> This was built for Moves users who want to continue tracking their journey and import years of their data into Gyroscope</comment>


7 Most Evil Websites on Earth - <AUTHOR> http://startupearth.com/2007/11/11/7-most-evil-websites-on-earth/ <comment><USER2> This is just silly, their top 5 (Yahoo, Facebook, MySpace, Google, and YouTube), just _happen_ to be 5 of THE most trafficked websites on the Web (all in the top 7, according to Alexa). This smells like linkbait.

Though I do agree that MySpace is pure evil.

</comment><comment><USER3> Was this written by a PayPerPost customer? Write what you know, I suppose.

Quote about PayPerPost: "Also, customer support (which they call `Customer Love') should be renamed to `Customer Whatever - ticket closed'."</comment>


Glibc Enables a Per-Thread Cache for Malloc – Big Performance Win - <AUTHOR> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=glibc-malloc-thread-cache <comment><AUTHOR> More details: [https://sourceware.org/ml/libc- alpha/2017-01/msg00452.html](https://sourceware.org/ml/libc- alpha/2017-01/msg00452.html)

</comment><comment><USER2> All I can say is finally. Such a shame that the default malloc on most Linux systems was so far behind in terms of performance (jemalloc/tcmalloc) for more then a decade now.

I wonder how long it'll take for this implementation to shake out the many bugs (fragmentation issues / worse case behavior) the early version of jemalloc/tcmalloc suffered from.

</comment><comment><USER3> Well, big performance win for applications whose developers let malloc be the major bottleneck.

<comment><USER4> Systems should make malloc fast so I don't have to write my own wrapper. Sure, in some cases I know a lot more, but why confuse the heck out of valgrind when I don't have to.

<comment><USER3> No malloc optimization can eliminate the waste of re-initializing an object from scratch. The fastest caching will be caching of almost-ready-to-go objects that don't require allocation and initialization from scratch. No malloc can provide that while sticking with malloc semantics.</comment></comment></comment>


Casio Smart Outdoor Watch - <AUTHOR> http://wsd.casio.com/us/en/ <comment><USER2> Looking at the picture, the fact that the top of the watch doesn't connect to the strap makes it useless for me.</comment>


Uzbl – Web Interface Tools Which Adhere to the Unix Philosophy - <AUTHOR> https://www.uzbl.org/ <comment><USER2> This is awesome and I used it for digital signage on the original Raspberry Pi hardware for a long time ([https://github.com/rcarmo/digital-signage- client](https://github.com/rcarmo/digital-signage-client)), but the WebKit version became somewhat outdated.

Might be worth revisiting if your content renders on it...

</comment><comment><USER3> I miss examples on the website, both code samples and examples of what this looks like. And since it is GUI related, i kinda expects at least some screenshots.

<comment> Funes- It's mind-boggling how many applications don't include screenshots, especially considering how easy it is to take and upload them. Even if the given application is CLI-based, I want to know how it looks like to quickly make sense of how it operates!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> While I'm fond of uzbl, why is this posted now? The project is abandoned since 2018.

<comment><USER5> I think people just find moderately interesting things online and post them on HN to maybe revitalise them and give them some exposure, or, pessimistically speaking, just in hopes to get some upvotes.

<comment><USER6> I tend to hope for some discussion about the thing I'm posting that will be like -

1\. as an expert on this subject this thing you posted is a waste of time or not for these reasons

2\. X is nice but check out Y!

also as a LOCKSS principle I figure if I have a hard time finding it in my bookmarks in the future maybe I can find it in my submissions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you are looking for something that's still maintained, there is a list minimal browsers in the qutebrowser README [1], which is another keyboard- based browser.

[1]: [https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser#similar- projects](https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser#similar-projects)

</comment><comment><USER8> test</comment>


An Oil Town Where Men Are Many, and Women Are Hounded - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/16/us/16women.html

<comment><USER2> I did a cross country bicycle trip, and rode through this town. Ten years ago it was poverty stricken. Now shale oil drilling has attracted tons of work and money. However, infrastructure has not caught up, partly because of cyclicality of oil markets makes it risky to invest too much in infrastructure. Interesting part of the US. Apparently strippers move there from lucrative places like Las Vegas because you can make thousands per night... a result of the problems discussed in the article.</comment>


How are we going to design iPad views on MacBooks? - <AUTHOR>

1440x900 resolution on the common 15" macbook pros was a pain while designing the non-retina ipad views. Now the "resolutionary" retina iPads with 2048x1536 displays make it even worse.
Here are a few of options:
1) Apple has to allow us to use the iPad screen as an external monitor; or at least an extension to the Xcode, so we can design directly on the iPad.
2) Isn't there a business opportunity here? Wink wink, ycombinator.
3) We will all need 30" monitors! Who's got the 13 hundred lying around? <comment><USER2> Wait for the new MBPs?

<comment><AUTHOR> It would be awesome if they doubled the resolution on the new generation macbooks. But, given the fact that the new iPads are just eating up all the hi-res panels made, it is very unlikely that there will be a largely available macbook that has the new panel. The gen after the coming one is more likely to get the resolution doubling.

Anyway, meet me here if the MBPs do get the double resolution. I will happily eat my words :-)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How many side-startups do you own?  - <AUTHOR>

How many side-startups (with actual users) do you own? Especially asking folk who have a main startup they run. In your practical experience how much of a distraction is adding one more web app (be it side hack) to your arsenal of internet properties.<p>The startup bug brings me down really hard and so far my best defense is giving a good idea away soon as I get it. <comment><USER2> I run either three or four businesses depending on how you count them, comprising 7ish things which are separate products. I have friends who have 7 distinct businesses. At a high level of detail, the big takeaways are a) automate the #%(# out of everything, b) have procedures in place such that a large portion of the day-to-day work can be done by people other than you, and c) to the maximum extent possible, only work on one thing at a time rather than slicing your attention on a minute-to-minute basis throughout the day.

For example, my illustrious virtual assistant firewalls me from about 90% of the support load for Bingo Card Creator, which is good, because after doing it for 7 years I was starting to lose sanity points with every passing email. This frees me up to be 90%+ devoted on any given week to whatever my current priority is.

I would emphasize that when my friends and I do this sort of thing its for businesses not fun little hacky projects. Businesses pay taxes, have payrolls, etc, and don't tolerate options like "I have a simple solution for decreasing our support load. It is /dev/null all support email." all that well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for that. I have about 3 running. 1 for over a year with growing revenue and big customers (relative to small me), another enterprise one which is going extremely well for a 2 month old startup revenue-wise and last one is 6 months in with growing traffic but no revenue model yet. So yesterday after being bit hard by the startup bug I was working on a quick prototype of an idea I've had floating around for two years and decided to stop and ask before going further if this was a smart thing to do at this point. As you've seen it's only been a year running a profitable startup so I'm by no means experienced, and I wondered if at this point there was still room to tinker and toy with ideas.

Automate all the things, have someone handle those you can't. Gotcha, thanks again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I run five side projects/startups with revenue. First there is this appointment scheduling Saas that I hope will become full time some day.

Then there is a website with a couple of small website tools like formmail, tell a friend, news, blog, and guestbook that can be downloaded. It doesn't do too badly but could do better with some effort from my side. But after 12 years, motivation is pretty low.

I also run a couple of disposable email and short URL websites that generate decent revenue via AdSense. Doesn't require much attention apart from disabling the odd spam or malware URL.

Right now I do mostly programming work, either creating web applications from scratch or adding features to existing ones. It's pretty lucrative but doesn't scale well. My time is pretty much split between programming for clients and doing work for the appointment scheduling Saas.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, five. Yeah it's a strain juggling client work and a startup, I decided a few months ago to die of kwashiorkor if that was what it would take for my startup to show me some (revenue) respect - because juggling that with client work was going to kill me anyway

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm just getting started, but I currently have 3 side-startups (more like side projects) I'm working on. I found that I needed focused, full-time work in the initial stages. Once the website reaches MVP, and has a user base building up, I am able to improve it on the side.

Using the 80/20 rule, 20% of the time you spend building the project will achieve 80% of the use case. The rest of the 80% time is spent on closing the 20% use case gap.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you live off of them full time?

Great gem there. I've noticed the same but hadn't had it stuck in my mind that the building stage is the most involving but after that (for most products) there is usually little to do.

<comment><USER4> Not yet. They're profitable but not enough to support me.

Once I have the third project up and running, I plan to focus on freelancing or a full-time job, and grow these on the side.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sounds like a plan. Well best of luck with Flickseeker, Fitloop & Wanderdash :)

<comment><USER4> Thanks! You as well with your plans.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I run only one startup: www.postjobfree.com

I think it's better to focus on one thing that do many things at the same time.

But even with one web site there is problem with focus: there are so many features that I'd like to incorporate and so few hours in a day to actually implement them.

PostJobFree generates $20K+/month revenue (gross, not net) and allows me to work full time on it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Focus is key definitely, but isn't there elbow room a bit if you build (usually) SaaS products where it addresses some nichey problem so much there isn't much to be done feature-wise save for a few ad campaigns?

Great job you're doing with PostJobFree. From my experience you're right, one startup is more than handful if you need more features to stay competitive. Two? They've been breaking me to little pieces although one is about to reach feature-completeness.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm working on 3 side projects that I hope will all work together. Most folks will tell you to focus on one, but in my case I felt I had to build the smaller ideas first to validate the main project idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting. I guess like patio11 said it's key to build up one then automate as much as possible and then move to the next. Thanks for the answer</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are your favorite management books? - <AUTHOR> I am curious about how companies scale from a start-up stage into sustainable multi-million dollar businesses. So far I've found Richard Branson's autobiography to be very informational in learning about scaling and expanding a business. What other books are there that provide good stories OR methods of growing a business? <comment><USER2> Three books that really show the good, bad and ugly about building businesses from scratch and scaling them to significance:

1\. How to Get Rich (<http://bit.ly/xGdV8>)

2\. Small Giants (<http://bit.ly/WpvGa>)

3\. The Knack (<http://bit.ly/OcKa9>)

[no affiliate links]

A warning though - many 'start-up to success' books are, in my view, hampered by what I consider exceptional circumstances in the story. So you'll find a sentence/paragraph/page that basically says "so then I managed to raise $350,000 from XYZ to get me started", or "then I got stuck in a lift with Jeff Bezos for 72 hours and managed to convince him to invest". Which is great for their story, but it may or may not reflect your story.

So if you are going to try to learn lessons from the stories of others, and just to be clear let me say I believe this is a good way of learning, make sure you understand the differences between their story and yours and how those differences change the dynamics of starting and scaling a business.

<comment><USER3> Thank you for this list - I liked reading The Knack so will explore the others.

I disagree with you about your examples of exceptional circumstances. Anyone can raise 350k or be stuck in a lift with Jeff Bezos if they do the hard around it. Focus on building something amazing and you can build your own luck around. For example, 18 months ago I did speak to Bezos - I did not have anything to talk tom about (apart from asking him sign my Kindle!) so nothing happened. But this year I really do so I will find another way to talk to him (and everyone else).

That is not to say that are not exceptional circumstances. For example, only a handful of people around the world in the 1970s had the priviliges of Bill Gates, ie a childhood growing up in a school with a mainframe. But it is not worth worrying about such things - each of us has to look for the unusual advantages we have and work with those. In my case I have a genetic illness which meant most of my childhood was spent ill or in hospital. I survived long enough to train as a physician and a programmer so this year I founded a company that builds software to help patients work online with their clinicians.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I really like the books from the personal mba reading list

<http://personalmba.com/best-business-books/>

Joel Spolsky's reading list is pretty good too. But the titles are old. Its not been updated with newer publications

[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FogCreekMBACurriculum...](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FogCreekMBACurriculum.html)

<comment><USER5> I blogged some additions to Joel's list a few years ago: <http://nothing.tmtm.com/archives/2511>

I should really get around to updating that...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> My favorite is Michael Gerber's "E-Myth Revisited". It lays down the foundation of a good business in a way most entrepreneurs connect with. Very well-written, simple, gets points across concisely, very valuable.

[http://www.amazon.com/E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses- Abou...](http://www.amazon.com/E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses- About/dp/0887307280)

(no affiliate link there)

Great book - my most highly recommended and most frequently gifted business book.

</comment><comment><USER7> "Founders at Work" by Jessica Livingston. Full of good stories.

"My years with General Motors" by Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. How he built the organization is quite an interesting read.

</comment><comment><USER8> Let my people go surfing -- Yvon Chouinard

<http://amzn.com/1594200726>

The seven day weekend -- Ricardo Semler

<http://amzn.com/1591840260>

Getting Real

<http://gettingreal.37signals.com/>

\--

Also, help flesh out the list of books for startups I just created for HN on my site:

<http://www.stormweight.com/lists/books-for-startups?p=OyAXcZ>

</comment><comment><USER9> I'll throw this one out there, it's a little less well known, but I found it fascinating. "One From From Many, VISA and the Rise of Chaordic Organization" by Dee Hock. I can't recommend it more highly.

[http://www.amazon.com/One-Many-VISA-Chaordic- Organization/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/One-Many-VISA-Chaordic- Organization/dp/1576753328/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245043220&sr=8-1)

<comment><USER5> I don't suppose you've also read "Birth of the Chaordic Age"? The Amazon blurb makes it sound like they're remarkably similar - so much so that I wondered if "One from Many" was just an updated version of the same book.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, it's the same book. I don't know what the differences are between them; it may just be a name change.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I still have to come across better book than Tom Peters - "ReImagine". It's amazing look at markets that are under-served, problems that need to be solved in B2C and B2B environments, managing talents, creativity and innovation..

Trust me, besides that the book is colorful and everything but a typical business book, it is an insight in what will happen. These are all opinions of Tom, and a book doesn't get more personal than this. A load of startup ideas as you turn pages.

[http://www.amazon.com/Re-Imagine-Business-Excellence- Disrupt...](http://www.amazon.com/Re-Imagine-Business-Excellence-Disruptive- Age/dp/078949647X)

<comment><USER5> Seconded. From his earlier books, I've also always been a big fan of "The Pursuit of Wow" and "The Pursuit of Innovation". Not quite as colourful, but still fairly non-typical as business books go.

<http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0679755551> <http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0340717211>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Images of Organizations by Gareth Morgan. ([http://www.amazon.com/Images- Organization-Gareth-Morgan/dp/1...](http://www.amazon.com/Images-Organization- Gareth-Morgan/dp/1412939798/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245049030&sr=8-2))

It looks at organizations with the help of different perspectives. Definitely an enlightening experience to read it and very helpful later on.

</comment><comment><USER12> _The Mythical Man Month_ is an IT management classic that's worth its time, though I can't say that I've read a dearth of management books.

</comment><comment><USER13> "Winning" by Jack Welch <http://budurl.com/vsz3> One of the best books I've ever read about business. The ideas presented work well in startups or larger corporations. The section about "candor" fantastic.

</comment><comment><USER14> "How the guys screw up things" by Monk Elvis Adam

</comment><comment><USER15> Wealth of Nations, although it won't teach you anything directly about management it is good introduction to economics which is essential in any management role. Best of all it is free!</comment>


The Art of Failure (2000) - <AUTHOR> http://www.gladwell.com/2000/2000_08_21_a_choking.htm

<comment><USER2> A very enjoyable read thank you. I wonder how does it look when a programmer panics or chokes

<comment><USER3> From what I've seen (and felt!) one might be facing a really nasty bug which has caused a sudden crash in a production environment which is holding up many hundreds of very angry customers. Some yelling may have occurred.

You know you should sit back and reason out what the problem might be (it worked before -- what's gone wrong?) but the rookie reflex is to start coding right away and to slap something -- ANYTHING! -- in that might make things right. That should make the yelling stop!

When that doesn't work, another patch is put in. Then another, and another, corrupting data and making things even worse!

...and so the cascade of 'Hail Mary' programming fixes is put in place until someone finally pulls the plug and yanks the poor, choking programmer aside for a breather.

It's rare for programmers to have a 'do or die' moment and few are prepared for or recognize it when it comes. If you ever feel the urge to rush: Don't.

<comment><USER4> > If you ever feel the urge to rush: Don't.

That ought to be printed out in 122 point font and pasted on every wall behind every monitor. Take your time to do it right, that way you don't have to do it 'n' times but only once. A quick fix usually only leads to more trouble down the road.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _She was leading 4-1 and serving at 40-30, meaning that she was one point from winning the game_

Eh, what?

<comment><USER6> Tennis has very strange scoring. It's complicated to explain, but here goes:

The first person to get 6 games wins the set.*

The first person to win 4 rallies in a game wins that game.*

During a game, if you have one point your score is "15," two points is "30" and three points is "40." When you get four points or win by two, then you win the game.

*One must win by two.

<comment><USER5> Oh, what a debacle! Even after being such a devout tennis buff, I have confused "game" with "match". Or maybe I just can't read :(.

<comment><USER6> If you win 2 out of 3 of the sets then you win the match! (assuming you're playing a regular match)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Grouper Co-Founder's New Gig: LiveKick, A Concert Ticket Search Engine... REALLY? - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/10/grouper-co-founders-new-gig-livekick-a-concert-ticket-search-engine-invites/ <comment><USER2> With any successful venture (re: Ticketstumbler) there come a host of imitators. If you're making money, someone will copy (and possibly improve upon) your idea. It'll be interesting to see if Ticketstumbler responds to this, and how.

<comment><USER3> The write-up, IMHO was a little bit off. Presently, they appear to be more of a band recommendation engine/site/notifier (monetized with ticket sales) than an actual ticket comparison site. While they're certainly an indirect competitor, I think they're more of a direct competitor with Songkick.

I wonder where they got their name from...</comment></comment>


Printable terrestrial globe - <AUTHOR> https://a1455a.wordpress.com/2019/01/11/printable-globe/ <comment><USER2> Last year I tried to do something similar w/ just printing out a dymaxion map into a single sheet of paper, as an art/STEM project for the kids.

It turned out that cutting flaps needed some planning - we ended up with several edges that had overlapping flaps, and flaps of irregular sizes (due to the edges of the paper sheet).

Another problem was that it was very flimsy and it was hard to fix the assembled globe if it got dented (because we were gluing the globe together, and because small kids).

This one looks much sturdier and it seems like it might be able to hold itself together without gluing the entire thing shut. Pretty nice!</comment>


MIT Mood Meter - <AUTHOR> http://moodmeter.media.mit.edu/

<comment><USER2> MIT has def. been doing some fantastic things in the affective domain.</comment>


Gephi 0.9 released: Graph visualization software for networks - <AUTHOR> https://gephi.wordpress.com/2015/12/21/gephi-0-9-released-play-with-network-data-again/ <comment><USER2> Thanks to the Gephi team for this long-awaited update - for me, Gephi an essential tool in many aspects of my scientific work, as it allows to express visually very complex datasets of almost any type (interactions between proteins, binding of certain genomic elements, etc) as well as overlay by color or size additional parameters (expression of genes, conservation, mutation rate in the population) - endless possibilities!

From my initial impressions the performance is A LOT better for large networks, which can mean only one thing - I can now play with even LARGER networks :)

<comment><USER3> Roughly what size networks can you actually get useful information for? Every time I play with Gephi using any network of reasonable size (in my field), it's always a giant useless hairball.

<comment> alok-g I have tested a few layout algorithms in Gephi for networks with ~200K nodes. It becomes slow but does work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Since the last release in 2013, users were facing compatibility issues with Java, which have been resolved with this release."

Finally, I've struggled with this for months on a few different computers.

<comment><USER5> Thank you for this comment, I may give it another try.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Gephi was a must-have tool when I worked with huge graphs a few years ago. It loaded everything without lagging even a bit, and its auto-layout tools were great! Thanks Gephi team, glad to see you're still doing awesome work!

</comment><comment><USER7> Hurrah - Gephi is amazing</comment>


GNU hello 2.10 - <AUTHOR> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-gnu/2014-11/msg00005.html <comment><USER2> For those who are wondering what "GNU hello" is:

[https://www.gnu.org/software/hello/](https://www.gnu.org/software/hello/)</comment>


Questions of a prospective MS student - <AUTHOR> Does it make sense to do a MS in Computer Science after 7 years of work experience as a Linux System Administrator? What are the chances that someone may lose seniority in the job after MS? <comment><USER2> You may find that there is a huge difference in the knowledge you have acquired as a SysAdmin and that required to complete a MS. If you do decide to pursue the studies, I would expect that you will be looking for a very different role based upon your additional (although green) level of CS knowledge.

You didn't say what sort of organisation you work for. Maybe you should discuss the idea with HR, there might be a career development path open to you that will allow you to better integrate your newly acquired skills. Maybe, doing the studies part-time would be better than full-time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much for your response. I have worked for both MNCs like Yahoo and Juniper and startups like iXiGO. I have served as the Senior Engineer and Information Systems Architect for these positions.

I have mostly seen that the work culture in India is not what I like to work in. I have recently tried working for Facebook in Ireland. Apparently that did not work out very well either primarily because of the kind of work they gave me was mostly NOC sort of job. My take on why I was given such a job was because probably I did not have a MS and they did not take me seriously enough.

I have demonstrated taking companies from scratch through a PCI-DSS certification, so I am capable of doing better than NOC jobs. Also, I would like to work for or setup my company in the US.

Unfortunately, I do not know any HR or forum where I can ask this question.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Do you mean that you are thinking of not working while completing your MS? If so, the lost income is worse than losing seniority. Just do night school if you can. it can be tough but we are talking about two years of income here.

It does make sense to do a MS, but have a job in mind like network engineer, developer, or technical manager that you want. A MS will be frowned upon by your bosses and your competitors, which is all the more reason to go for it. Nevertheless many corporations with strict pay scales will pay much more for a MS.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was considering going for GRE and then taking a break for 2 years to complete MS. I have not thought of night school and that does serve to be a very good option. Nevertheless, I would prefer to work in the US and study.

The last I went to work for Facebook in Ireland, I found that they gave me a much less salary and designation than that I would have got if I worked in India. This may not be correct since FB never told me that the reason was my lack of MS.

I have worked for MNCs like Yahoo and Juniper and also startups like iXiGO and iViZ. My position with Juniper as well as iXiGO was Senior System Administrator and Information Systems Architect respectively.

I am essentially looking at a Technical Manager or Architect position. I do develop for pleasure, but I am more into designing things and coding stubs rather than coding end to end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "that someone may lose seniority in the job after MS"

In the US, there is no such thing is seniority in the job (barring some exceptions in govt. jobs etc). You are senior based on your experience and not just because you are a fresh MS graduate but with 7+ years of experience. Hzaving said that, the answer to your question depends on what you really want to do going forward. MS in CS is a lot more than System Administration. Are you interested in software development jobs ? Web development ? I would say think twice before going for an MS which will take 2 years of your time. Based on your post, you are in/from India and I can tell you that just getting an MS will not automatically get you in a higher salary range or designation as you call it at least here in the US. Indian working culture is different than the US in that sense.</comment>


(James) Murdoch attack on 'dominant' BBC - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8227915.stm <comment><USER2> it's hard to take James Murdoch serious when he talks about free makets... considering the fact that his career is the result of who his father is and not own achievements.

</comment><comment><USER3> I watched through the video. And the man in the end of the clip correctly pointed out - Murdoch is a free market believer, which renders most of his words nonsensical. "The only guarantee of freedom is profit"... I'd say opposite - "the only guarantee of profit (for society in long run) is freedom",</comment>


Tilton's Law - solve the first problem first - <AUTHOR> http://smuglispweeny.blogspot.com/2008/03/tiltons-law-solve-first-problem.html

<comment><USER2> Quite right.

A client (back when I was a teenage "computer hacker", fixing people's computers for pizza money) had the problem that her computer was unstable. It would shut down at random times. Printing stuff _at night only_ would do it; shortly after printing, the computer would shut down. Also, it would shut down when it was cold, and only restart when the house was warm. And while things would be fine if she was using it, it would turn off if she went off to do other things (e.g. iron her clothes).

Hard to diagnose, but a wild guess: power issue. Lets try swapping out the power supply.

The __real __first problem: unplugging it. There was a single outlet, with a red/black tree of power strips/extension cords plugged into it. Not just computer equipment, it was also plugged into a space heater, air conditioner, alarm clock, coffee maker, etc.

After plugging all the crap into a different outlet, I unplugged the computer and opened it up. Didn't have a power supply with enough watts. Promised to get back to her in a day or two.

When I called her back, everything was fine. The "teenage hacker" solved her computer problem, stopped her lights from flickering, and made her alarm clock stop turning off whenever she vacuumed.

The problem: 1 socket, about 3000 watts. When it got cold, she turned the space heater on. Computer drained of power, switches off. Print something at night, switch on a 500 watt halogen lamp, computer shuts off.

</comment><comment><USER3> An interesting counterpoint -- or at least, a tempering perspective -- is the story that made the rounds recently about a consultant who was called in to fix an unstable Linux kernel driver:

The company programmer was slavishly fixing each symptom as it popped up during boot -- that is, each "first problem" he saw. The consultant instead took a look at the code from a holistic perspective, and was able to fix the root cause.

So while sometimes the temporally-first problem is the root cause, sometimes it's just a symptom. Look for the _logically_ first problem which precipitates the symptoms.</comment>


Change Columbus Day to Exploration Day - <AUTHOR> http://kottke.org/12/10/change-columbus-day-to-exploration-day

<comment><USER2> Early explorers did things that wouldn't fit into our view of acceptable behavior. You are hoping to replace Columbus with multiple Columbuses each with the same track record as the one you hope to replace.

Personally, I like Columbus day, I like the discussion, and the critical thinking it brings.

Its important to note that many celebrated foundations of our civilization would be despicable in modern standards. For example, the Romans were the original fascists despite the cultural hegemony they imposed upon Europe.

<comment><USER3> He was despicable by the standards of the day, too. It's not like morality is a modern invention, as apologists claim. ("Oh, thou shalt NOT kill?")

Columbus was such a terrorist, he and his brothers were chained, shipped back to Spain and imprisoned for his crimes as governor. Even after the monarchy overruled the Court of Spain, he was stripped of his governorship. ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus#Governorsh...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus#Governorship_and_arrest))

Las Casas wrote, _"Yet into this sheepfold, into this land of meek outcasts there came some Spaniards who immediately behaved like ravening wild beasts, wolves, tigers, or lions that had been starved for many days. And Spaniards have behaved in no other way during the past forty years, down to the present time, for they are still acting like ravening beasts, killing, terrorizing, afflicting, torturing, and destroying the native peoples, doing all this with the strangest and most varied new methods of cruelty, never seen or heard of before, and to such a degree that this Island of Hispaniola once so populous (having a population that I estimated to be more than three million), has now a population of barely two hundred persons."_

Of course, none of this made for great propaganda. So in Adam Smith's _Wealth of Nations_, the story of Columbus changed to, _"and in all the other parts of the new world which he ever visited, nothing but a country quite covered with wood, uncultivated, and inhabited only by some tribes of naked and miserable savages."_

If there's anything for us to do in the modern day, it's to be more aware of the atrocities we commit, which we glibly accept as the "standard of the day", even though many fight against them. (For example, against war, massive imprisonment and wage slavery).

Personally, I think it should be "Genocide Day". Not every holiday should be upbeat. A time of reflection and introspection.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This will never happen for a variety of reasons -- but I have always lobbied to remove Columbus Day as a holiday and replace it with Election Day, hopefully encouraging a larger number of people to vote.

<comment><USER5> Is this really a big problem in the States? It just seems a little strange that you appear to take your elections very seriously, and have these huge campaigns etc, but then voter turnout is still considered low?

One solution that occurs to me, simply because this is what used to happen in New Zealand and seemed to work okay, is to hold the election on a Saturday.

<comment><USER6> We have vote-by-mail all over the place now, so there's not much excuse beyond laziness.

In my opinion, if you can't be bothered to put in the minimal effort required now, I'd prefer you didn't vote anyway. I find it difficult to believe you'd be making anything resembling an informed decision.

<comment><USER4> The irony always being that voting for president has arguably less _DIRECT_ impact on our lives than voting for local government, but people get far more worked up over the big stuff

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> But Columbus is an legend precisely because he didn't just explore, he created a beachhead which is more important historically than plain exploration.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think it's a fantastic idea for a variety of reasons: 1) It's a great political compromise. 2) It makes the day a celebration of the best part of our past. 3) It makes the day aspirational by encouraging exploration in the future.

</comment><comment><USER9> Sure. If you apply our standards, though, you might want to decry many of your founding fathers as well: Washington, Madison, Jefferson ("All men are created equal"), John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin - they all held slaves at some point.

So, should you rename the capital, the state, and all the avenues and parks that are named after these people?

<comment><USER10> Did Washington cut off the noses and ears of those natives that tried to stop him raping their wives as punishment. Did Jefferson cut off the hands of those natives who did not mine enough gold that month in forced labour camps while also creating the encomienda system? Did Franklin reduce the population of Haiti from ~3m to 12,000 in just 20 years? Does John Hancock hold the record for transporting more slaves into slavery than any other person in history?

I think Columbus set himself well apart from the founding fathers on any number of scores and even in his own time and with his own supporters (Queen Isabella of Spain for instance) they thought he had gone too far

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't really care about the actual issue, but the objections raised to Columbus Day are absurd to me.

Why is euro-centrism bad? I am not of European descent, but historically speaking, contributions made by Europeans are undeniably tremendous. I don't think there's anything controversial about acknowledging that Europeans had a pretty remarkable run in recent centuries. Does euro-centrism have a bad name because of colonialism?

<comment><USER12> Anything-centrism is "bad" in that it clouds one's ability to be objective. It also impedes empathy.

It's sort of tied to identity. If you do not cling to a specific identity, then it frees you to empathize with a wide range of people. If you say "I am white/asian/tall/rich", then it forms an in-group vs out-group mentality, and obstructs empathy.

For example, does it strike you odd that any land should be deemed "discovered" when there are already inhabiting humans there?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> He was a brave Italian explorer. And on this website, Christopher Columbus is a hero. End of story.

<comment><USER14> He was a lucky and murderous idiot who thought he had landed in India.

<comment><USER13> I guess there are no Soprano's fans on HN.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOn8DXb0inM></comment></comment></comment>


Abducted woman called family from trunk - <AUTHOR> http://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/crime/2016/09/07/abducted-montana-woman-found-dead-spokane/89960296/ <comment><AUTHOR> Though the times given in the article doesn't seem all correct, it seems there were several hours between her phone call and locating the vehicle. The police also "ping her phone" to locate it. My questions are:

1\. Why couldn't the police locate her in time, given the her cell phone usage?

2\. When will we see a standard for something like digital GPS coordinate data overlaid onto voice 911 calls?</comment>


Ask HN: Do I need to incorporate? - <AUTHOR> In order to validate my startup idea, I want to see if people are willing to pay for the product/service (thus, I want to accept payments). At this stage, does it make sense to incorporate? Or rather, do I need to incorporate?<p>I've read some blogs/articles about why and when one should incorporate, and while all that makes sense, my question is based on the aspect of accepting revenue (albeit limited) alone. <comment><USER2> Disclaimer: I am not a Lawyer. This is not legal advice.

I've done this and wasted about 2K (Lawyer's fee, LLC Yearly fee, Bank account, credit card for purchases) only to spend 2 years on my startup idea and realize I couldn't properly monetize it. It was - and still is - a tech blog like TechCrunch and I'd built traffic all the way to 100K visitors a month, inbound links from BGR, MacRumors, TechCrunch etc and yet was making only about 100$ / month on ads and sponsors (circa 2010 - 2012). I could've explored other avenues, but I moved on to building Web apps and APIs.

Don't do it, especially if you are a 1-man startup. Waste of money. Build and validate your MVP and once you start generating revenues, then think about it. Even then, if you are a 1-man show, you can use a DBA (Doing Business As) for your Tax returns. If you are worried about getting "sued", get a Professional Liability Insurance for a lot less than incorporation fees and taxes. I found out that it's a bit challenging to get Professional Liability insurance for software devs, since most such insurance has traditionally been for old professions like Tax Consultant, Accountants and other such service providers.

Still not convinced? When Dennis Crowley created FourSquare and got crazy traction, he still hadn't incorporated. See: [https://techcrunch.com/2011/03/02/founder-stories-crowley- fo...](https://techcrunch.com/2011/03/02/founder-stories-crowley-foursquare- origins/)

> The company incorporated just so that it could get into iTunes. And when he > raised his first $1.35 million angel round in 2009, Foursquare didn't even > have a bank account. He remembers (at the very end of this clip, around 6 > minutes in) having to run to a Chase branch office in Manhattan, and telling > the bank officer, "We need to set up a business account and we are going to > wire in, like, a million dollars. Is that okay?"

<comment><USER3> > Don't do it, especially if you are a 1-man startup. Waste of money. > Especially in California. If you incorporate a single-member LLC, you don't > really get an of the LLC protections, and on the other hand, you pay 800$ / > year in LLC fees.

The minimum franchise tax for a corporation is the same as an LLC, and a single-shareholder corporation absolutely does get the protections (including limited liability) of the corporate form (provided the behavioral rules are followed), so if you are going to incorporate, you may want to _actually_ incorporate, rather than do a single-member LLC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If your question is limited to the topic of receiving revenue, then it is perfectly acceptable to do business yourself as a sole proprietorship. Your state may require you to do a DBA (Doing Business As) registration, so you can legally operate under a name other than your own, but that's probably the only structure you need at this point.

Once you get the DBA you should open a separate bank account and get a separate credit card to use solely for business. The IRS might get cross with you if you can't clearly identify and justify business revenues and expenses. Plus it will make things much easier when doing your taxes.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'd flip things around. What if the idea is a flop and you spend ~1k talking to a lawyer, setting up all these accounts, and spending a month of effort on this work. Are you okay with that? Like, if you are okay with only getting $15 bucks for this then do it. But, I'd probably wager not, if you don't have some sense the idea is going to take off. On the other side, what if there is demand and then you cannot accept revenue ASAP. I've had that, and it really sucks, you need to pretty much drop everything and implement a cash register, and this takes time (set up company, get bank account, get stripe working, figure out pricing, plans, etc). So, I guess it really depends on if you think there will be demand, it's probably worth spending the time and money to get it done. This is a gamble though. Sorry, there isn't really a one size fits all here, it is highly dependant on your confidence that this will work. If you think it will, then invest the time.

You haven't really said if this is an on-line product or something you can go out and ask people about. Patio11 had a pretty good comment (cannot find it now) about mocking things up on an iPad and then going and asking people. Like have screenshots, flip through it with them, and ask if they would pay for something like that. It sounds like you are firmly in this area of wanting to know if it's a good idea people will pay something for. So, you probably don't want to create a company yet. Again, just guessing here. Providing more info will greatly help in giving advice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! That makes a lot of sense.

This is intended to be an online service geared towards a humanitarian cause. Your reference about mocking things up and asking people is a really good one. I've been validating the idea by asking people questions through interviews and surveys and so far I have a good feeling about it. I'd be doing mockup validations too but as this is a service and not a product I may defer it for a bit (or not).

I'm with you on not wanting to create a company yet, but I wanted to know how practical is it to accept money into one's personal account? I obviously don't want to risk my personal assets but I also realize creating a company could be unnecessary hassle/expense. I'm trying to sort that confusion.

<comment><USER5> I'd be extremely careful about mixing your personal accounts with any potential company funds. It will become a nightmare to keep things straight. Save yourself and just create a dedicated account. As, I think you'd be opening yourself up to all kinds of hurt if you attempt something like that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! That's what I fear.

When you say dedicated account, do you mean just another personal account? Or a business account (hence setup company)?

<comment><USER6> You do not need to incorporate or form an LLC to establish a business account. A sole proprietorship is just doing business as yourself. It's particularly easy if you have your own name in the business name. No paperwork/DBA publishing required for the bank.

(For that matter, you don't even need a business account... Just an account that is dedicated to your business transactions.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> IANAL

y, I agree with others.

Sign up for an EIN number so you don't have to use your SSN.

Use stripe for payments.

You can operate as a sole proprietorship initially once your startup has legs then you can form an LLC or inc.</comment>