My CEO is burning out - <AUTHOR> I'm working as a software engineer at a small 15-employee company where the atmosphere has turned really bad recently. It's not really a startup, but the structure is similar: my technical supervisor reports to the CEO and the CEO reports to the board, which is composed of stakeholders of our service. In the past couple months, the CEO has stopped listening to the opinion of the technical team (my supervisor included) which too often contradicted the opinion of the board. The CEO is under a lot of pressure from the board to release new features. A couple days ago I had a meeting with our CEO to plan a major development of our infrastructure. Basically, she wanted to cross-check what my technical supervisor had already told her. During the whole meeting her hands were shaking. My feeling is that she now distrusts the entire team. She was a great leader when I joined the company a couple years ago, and I had a lot of respect for her. Now she is asking for major technical changes that make no sense at all, neither from a technical nor a business point of view -- without referring to the technical team. I'm not a physician, but this looks like a burnout-in-progress to me. I have the possibility to quit my job, but I'd rather find another solution. Has anyone ever been in a similar situation? Should I go directly to the board? <comment><USER2> This sounds eerily similar to an experience I had. The CEO of a 10 year old company that kept growing in revenue and profits (even during the recession) went from being the most level headed and inspiring person to totally incompetent. He suddenly gave up and stopped coming to the office and and gave the employees a free reign to do what they wanted. Things actually worked but every time we needed his involvement he would show up and just fuck everything up.

After months of declining business he told me privately that the reason for his behavior was because he was burned out but felt everything could be fixed in 6 months. I didn't stay to find out and quit immediately. 6 months later those who remained ended up working 3 months without pay and found themselves out of a job while the CEO declared bankruptcy. Towards the end I heard he got more erratic and started blaming the employees, the board and everyone but himself for his situation.

It still baffles me how someone who seemed like he could turn anything to gold and had such good judgement could suddenly lose everything and become so hopeless because of burnout. Over a year later he still hasn't recovered and is being sued by several people.

Since you're an engineer - I'd say tell the board (verbally) what you think and put in a notice of resignation. If they change things for the better they might ask you to reconsider your resignation. If they take offense and side with the CEO - you're better off quitting anyway.

<comment><USER3> We like to make fun of CEO's multi-million dollar salaries, but it doesn't mean it's an easy job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Might be something in her personal life. There usually isn't much insight you can get into that domain, but keep it in mind.

Does "the board is stakeholders of our service" mean your "startup like thing" was sort of acquired? As in, are you owned/controlled by other companies that use your product/service? If so, then they might not care what the CEO's vision is. They might be thinking of y'all as just a subsidiary beholden to their bottom line, not your own. They might not even be particularly interested in seeing the value of their equity increase.

I believe there's no such thing as a team without a leader. If you lose your leader you don't have a team anymore. It isn't really possible for a committee to serve as a leader. So if you want to preserve your team you need to either get your existing leader back into the right head space or get a new leader (basically what jacquesm said). Maybe ask your team which they prefer. If consensus is to fix the current CEO then schedule an intervention. if consensus is to get a new CEO then ask them to step down or go to the board.

If y'all want to try to help your current CEO you might reach out to other CEOs who have had a hard time dealing with an overreaching board. Maybe she just needs to talk to someone who's been there before.

<comment><USER5> I would second that last few lines : reach out to some other CEOs or C level you know, check with them what they think and if they would be open to have a chat or two with your CEO. Also if you have been there for a while then you possibly have a good chance to be able to reach the CEO and talk openly. Go for a walk, coffee with her and ask how things are going for her. Stay away from work topic possibly at first but do say that you are worried about her and a possible burnout. Offer to help and to put her in contact with some other CEOs you know. It's important to get communication going again before you can regroup and build something.

It could also speed up the dissolution process though. You might get fired on the spot also but if things go as you describe there is probably tough times ahead.

Walking out is the easiest (work wise) option, not easy either (personally wise). Keep in mind that, in a way, "it's just a job" so don't let it eat you either. It doesn't cost much to keep some lines open and stay in contact with different companies and leaders...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > I have the possibility to quit my job, but I'd rather find another solution.

Jason Selk has written about a similar situation in his book, Executive Toughness. Essentially, if the CEO can control her emotions, she can control her performance-- and by extension, the effectiveness of the team.

It might be enough to pass along a copy of the book with an encouraging note > [http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13054842-executive- toughn...](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13054842-executive-toughness)

Ultimately, you may have little influence on the dysfunctional relationship dynamics between the CEO & The Board.

</comment><comment><USER7> Sounds like your board is really acting as the CEO. Recommendation: squelch the board. Let the CEO do her thing and if they disagree they should vote to replace her, but they shouldn't be micromanaging the CEO. Give the woman a mandate and sit back.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're absolutely right: the board is definitely micromanaging the CEO. But what can I do about it? I'm just a software engineer.

<comment><USER7> Maybe have her read a book or so on what it means to be a CEO?

Keep in mind that if things go pear shaped it is her head on the block, not the board, and she should act accordingly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Move on. I have already been in this situation twice in previous startups as the engineering leader. This is a situation you cannot control nor influence.

As you move on, do so by not burning bridges and leave on a good note. Don't make it your mission to point out the obvious.</comment>


Who's Going to Buy the International Space Station? - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/whos-going-to-buy-the-international-space-station <comment><USER5> It's interesting to read about such prospects, but quite a few questions here are left aside.

Why 3-4 billions upkeep a year? Good analysis would probably break this into smaller chunks, like transportation - crew and cargo, communications - <USER2> satellite links as well as ISS-Earth ones, ground control for systems - <USER3> working existing ones, add and replace what's necessary, space defense - <USER4> meteoroids, management for utilization - who when uses what how... what else?

Is splitting the station better than making specialized - perhaps free- floating - units in addition to what's already there? In this sense current ISS serves as an extendable platform to future manufacturing, assembling, experimental, tourist, refueling and other modules, but the one which is already "flight proven", the core of infrastructure. ISS itself started similarly with core modules which ensured minimum of functions allowing it to grow from that.</comment>


How to read Kafka: part I - <AUTHOR> https://www.newcriterion.com/issues/2018/10/how-to-read-kafka-part-i <comment><USER2> David Foster Wallace's talk "Laughing with Kafka" is very insightful as well. [https://harpers.org/wp- content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-1998-...](https://harpers.org/wp- content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-1998-07-0059612.pdf)

 _For me, a signal frustration in trying to read Kafka with college students is that it is next to impossible to get them to see that Kafka is funny ... Nor to appreciate the way funniness is bound up with the extraordinary power of his stories. Because, of course, great short stories and great jokes have a lot in common. Both depend on what communication-theorists sometimes call "exformation," which is a certain quantity of vital information removed from but evoked by a communication in such a way as to cause a kind of explosion of associative connections within the recipient.

This is probably why the effect of both short stories and jokes often feels sudden and percussive, like the venting of a long-stuck valve. It's not for nothing that Kafka spoke of literature as "a hatchet with which we chop at the frozen seas inside us." Nor is it an accident that the technical achievement of great short stories is often called "compression"-for both the pressure and the release are already inside the reader.

What Kafka seems able to do better than just about anyone else is to orchestrate the pressure's increase in such a way that it becomes intolerable at the precise instant it is released._

<comment><USER3> Good article. I've only read The Metamorphosis but I think this makes sense. Looking back on it, the 'three lodgers' in that book present a funny, absurd scenario.

I prefer reading relatively short and simple classics like The Metamorphosis - if anyone has some recommendations I'd be interested.

<comment><USER4> My very favorite _extremely_ short piece of Kafka's writing - just one magical sentence: [http://franzkafkastories.com/shortStories.php?story_id=kafka...](http://franzkafkastories.com/shortStories.php?story_id=kafka_the_wish_to_be_a_red_indian)

The other short anecdotal pieces linked in that page are also wonderful. Here's one: [http://franzkafkastories.com/shortStories.php?story_id=kafka...](http://franzkafkastories.com/shortStories.php?story_id=kafka_the_street_window)

And another, which (to me) is one of many counter-examples to the "Laughing With Kafka" notion: [http://franzkafkastories.com/shortStories.php?story_id=kafka...](http://franzkafkastories.com/shortStories.php?story_id=kafka_resolutions)

That is, the final piece above is truly despairing in a way that DFW, perhaps, could identify with.

<comment><USER5> Wow! I've never seen these works and they're brilliant. You've made my day!

And, yes, the final piece is _perfectly_ what DFW was talking about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For me, The Metamorphosis was not very illuminating.

However, I very much liked Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephine_the_Singer,_or_the_M...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephine_the_Singer,_or_the_Mouse_Folk)

which I thought had very rich and subtle layers of complexity.

I also enjoyed "The Great Wall of China" ( [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Wall_of_China_(short...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Wall_of_China_\(short_story\)) ) , even if I didn't quite understand it completely at the time that I read it, because it felt and reminded me very much like a Borges short story with it's detail and speculation.

</comment><comment><USER7> I read The Trial a few years ago and found it a true masterpiece. I can understand that everyone doesn't share my opinion, but for me Kafka's stories hit too close to home. Many of us have been socially conditioned to have a false sense of autonomy and control, but this is not a universal and timeless phenomenon. If I were to chose my all time favorite authors, they would be Kafka and Camus.

<comment><USER2> Kierkegaard is pretty great too. And much in the same vein.

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure Kierkegaard would appreciate being compared to Camus in that way. They both worked on the same issues, but Kierkegaard was at the radical opposite end of the spectrum from Camus when it came to beliefs.

<comment><USER2> yes. they serve as nice counterweights for existentialism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Probably my favorite author. The article and comments are dead-on: Kafka is humour. It's absurdist dead-pan humour. To 'get' Kafka, imagine it being read by a very stern and serious John Cleese.

<comment><USER10> Max Brod: _When Kafka read aloud himself, this humor became perfectly clear. Thus, for example, we friends of his laughed quite immoderately when he first let us hear the first chapter of The Trial. And he himself laughed so much that there were moments when he couldn't read any further. Astonishing enough, when you think of the fearful earnestness..._

[http://web2.law.buffalo.edu/faculty/westbrook/KafkaLaughter....](http://web2.law.buffalo.edu/faculty/westbrook/KafkaLaughter.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wow shows how my thinking has changed. I own a few Kafka books that are probably in a box somewhere. Was an avid reader in my teens.

Yet when i read the title I expected a technical article on Kafka the software system. I last read Kafka so long ago I had completely forgotten about him.

Thanks for the reminder :)

</comment><comment><USER12> I always think of Kafka's writing as human logic vs. inscrutable systems, usually some bureaucratic organization. When people want an answer for how to read Kafka, the lack of a simple meaning seems to be the entire point, almost like the challenge of a koan.

</comment><comment><USER13> Great article. The entanglement of The Enlightenment in everyday thinking is the source of much confusion and irony. I imagine we'll grow out of it.

I'm reminded of a 1980s BBC film of Alan Bennett's "The Insurance Man" in which a Dr Kafka struggles with a claim and eventually end up helping his client by getting him a job at his uncle's factory. The ending is stunning: we linger on the beautifully photographed dust-filled air of the factory. Feel happy for the man. And learn that the uncle is in the asbestos business.

</comment><comment><USER14> If I were wanting to start reading some of Kafka's works, what would you recommend I start with to ease into it?

<comment><USER15> "The Metamorphosis" is the usual short story appetizer (often assigned in high school). "The Trial" is typically the introductory novel, though if you want to be a rebel you could start with "Amerika" instead. "The Castle" is the best novel but probably too difficult to start with unless you're already well- read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Not the Kafka I thought...

</comment><comment><USER17> The analysis of "Castle" in this article brings to my mind most religion. Religion offers us an absolute truth what you have to do to get saved and there is no room for doubt because then it could not be the absolute truth. If you start asking religious people what we should believe their religion truly claims to be the truth you will discover that they are just individual people who base their beliefs on their shared mirage of there being a single doctrine that is the truth. That is just make-believe but many people believe it and it takes on a life of its own and their beliefs govern their lives because they believe that other people above them in the hierarchy KNOW the truth.

It is not only that religion is a set of falsehoods, the belief that religious people have that there is a single true doctrine of the religion, and that there actually are people who truly believe and "KNOW" what that truth is, is also a falsehood which they willingly want to believe in order to gain some peace of mind in this universe.

So I wouldn't say that Kafka is anti-enlightenment, rather he is part of it, just version 2.0 of it.

</comment><comment><USER18> Is it only me expecting Kafka streams instead of Franz Kafka ?

<comment><USER10> Doubtless not, but please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've read The Trial and couldn't help but think that Kafka is overrated.

<comment><USER20> Honest questions: are you an avid reader? What kind of writers do you prefer that usually fall in the Kafka-catergory. The Trial was my first Kafka and it bound me from the beginning. The scenes where he is picked up they were gripping and intense and tragi-comic at the same time. Interesting that it doesn't work for everyone. That was my first thought at the OP top: who wouldn't get Kafka? Perhaps this is a subtle cultural effect at work.

<comment><USER19> It's a toy novel that sure does put you through a cool psychological experience.

But there's no additional depth to it, I see it as a horrors-of- bureacracy/system-vs-individual-themed amusement park attraction.

<comment><USER15> >no additonal depth

I disagree. It has many different layers of meaning. Besides the plain reading on the face of it, you can also read it in the context of Kafka's own relationship with his father. Or you can read it through the Christian lens, where suddenly instead of an innocent good guy in a dystopic nightmare, the protagonist is a stubborn sinner who refuses to admit his guilt and submit for redemption. And so on and so forth. You can even read the chapters out of order, with the exception of the first and last. It's really a remarkable novel!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Georgia's New Election System Raises Old Computer Security Concerns - <AUTHOR> https://undark.org/article/georgia-voting-machines-security/ <comment><USER2> A big issue I remember from my last time reading about this system was that the printed paper ballot it prints out isn't similar to scantron; instead, it prints out your choices and then also has a barcode for the tallying machine to use.

The issue is that this barcode can't be easily deciphered by the voter. Nothing is stopping the machine from being hacked to print out a barcode that's marked [candidate 1] while the paper otherwise says they voted [candidate 2] (who the voter actually voted for).

\---

One thing I'd really like to ask is why no big SV companies have came in to provide a "this is actually secure" solution. Is it really impossible to make an 'unhackable' physical machine? iPads (with guided access/MDM/etc) for DIY- ordering stations seem to be secure enough for PCI use, so why aren't they considered for elections?</comment>


When conductor and soloist clash, a performance can turn into a contest of wills - <AUTHOR> https://theamericanscholar.org/whos-the-boss/#.W1zDZC2ZPmF <comment><USER3> Classical music interpretation is awfully anti-intellectual sometimes.

Example:

Tchaikovsky composed a theme for the second movement of his B-flat minor piano concerto which moves along at a given tempo, then gets repeated in the piano solo where it is typically played at greater than twice the original speed.

I've never read a serious criticism of that piece on the grounds that the laws of music dictate that the same unadorned theme cannot possibly hold together at such disparate tempi. I've also never heard an audience member say, "I liked it when it was slow, but when it sped up to be twice as fast it wasn't tasteful," nor, "I liked it when it sped up but it was like molasses at the beginning of the 2nd mvt." Instead, most people take as gospel the score that Tchaikovsky wrote and make a good faith effort to make sense of what he wrote.

Why are we willing to do that for dead composers but not for live classical performers?

Are we to really believe that in the 21st century, with thousands of profession recordings of Brahms, Beethoven, etc., there is _so little_ leeway wrt tempo that a performance like Gould's could be unworthy of a good-faith listen? Especially given how contrapuntal Brahms' writing is...

Here's an even more glaring example: how fast should one play the final appearance of the main theme in Chopin's Pollonaise-Fantasie Op.61? If you take it slow you can illuminate the beautiful chorale-like Back-inspired voicing that Chopin was so fond of, at the expense of the main theme. If you take it fast enough to let the main lyrical theme ring out, you go too fast for the listener to hear those same intricate inner voicings. Both are valid interpretations, and they are mutually exclusive.

How about _one_ professional recording of Beethoven's Appasionata Sonata that transposes everything up by a minor third so those low blocky voicings don't sound so muddy on the thick metal strings of a Steinway grand _which did not exist when Beethoven wrote it_?

Hell, how about _one_ professional recording of Appassionata in F-sharp minor because, "It makes the fingering in a particularly nasty passage a little easier that way." Would an audience give it a fair hearing, or would they all spontaneously develop perfect pitch and suddenly care deeply about 19th century key associations that they vaguely remember hearing a sentence about from a music appreciation course 15 years prior?

<comment><USER4> "That was strangely specific", but rather illuminating for this layman, thank you.

<comment><USER3> I forgot that Gould had two instructive examples:

* Scriabin's _Desir_. Gould uses (I think) four mics: one inside the piano, one near it, one in the 3rd or 4th row, and one in the back of the hall. He plays the piece, then he gets his engineer to cross-fade among those mics to smoothly change the amount of reverberation for each segment of the piece.

* Mozart's Sonatina in C major. Since it was written for beginners, Gould plays it in the style of a beginner. :)

I don't think either are successful, but they are brilliant concepts. I wish more classical performers would take risks like that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There's also a third party battling for control sometimes: the leader of the orchestra - the violinist at the very front of the orchestra, closest to the conductor (they often walk on separately from the rest of the orchestra - <USER2> the conductor). You can tell how much respect the conductor _actually_ commands over the orchestra by seeing whose lead is followed. If you've ever been at a vanity performance—where someone essentially pays to conduct a famous orchestra—you'll often see the first violinist working hard to lead the orchestra (watch how big their bow gestures are, and where the other musicians are looking for their leads), and the conductor just waving along.

If you're a newbie to orchestral music (or not), just watch the dynamic between the first violinist and the conductor. Sometimes it's a battle, sometimes it's a trusting relationship. It's almost always dramatic.

</comment><comment><USER6> This reminds me of an incredible bit of satire from P.D.Q. Bach (Peter Schickele)

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f0vHpeUO5mw](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f0vHpeUO5mw)

</comment><comment><USER7> See also:

[https://youtu.be/9Nx09pigZRI](https://youtu.be/9Nx09pigZRI)

</comment><comment><USER8> The recording on Tidal [https://listen.tidal.com/album/1786058](https://listen.tidal.com/album/1786058)</comment>


Estimating Pi with the Mandelbrot Set [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0vY0CKYhPY&feature=youtu.be <comment><USER2> Slightly linkbait title, but interesting video.

[spoiler alert]

What is the exact formula? I guess

Sqrt(epsilon) * N(1/4 + epsilon) -> pi</comment>


An Environmentalist's Conversion - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/01/whats-changing-minds-on-gmos.html

<comment><USER2> I call BS. Doesn't even address genetic integrity. But dog knows mons#nto can use the PR right now ...</comment>


Would you use this service (myfi rental)? - <AUTHOR> http://rentahotspot.com/

<comment><USER2> _it would cost about $100/week. Shipping might add $20, but consider $100/week a ballpark._

Way too expensive, considering that there is wifi everywhere and easy tethering with most phones. Sprint lets you tether (usb or bluetooth) on any phone with a data plan for free, and you can get wifi hotspot apps for most smartphones for a small fee or even free.

For the unscrupulous among you, you could even buy a mifi from Sprint and return it within 30 days and only have to pay the one month of service ($59).

</comment><comment><USER3> I can't Comment, due to DISQUS (and I don't want some CSR jerk to butt in here, OK?). But this idea is way too expensive and seems not to be aware that Virgin offers prepay MiFi for much less than a whopping $100/week.

</comment><comment><USER4> <http://www.mificlub.com> if you want to research

</comment><comment><USER4> yes mificlub does that in the UK but I think the best way to test it is to offer the service and see if people get it</comment>


15$ per MB when using tmobile in germany REALLY? - <AUTHOR>

Im flying out to Germnay and wanted to make sure i can get my HN when im there.. but i guess i wont be.. since i dont have 15$/MB to spend thats ~1.5cents per KB??
_Bozenna P:  Hi Maze , welcome to T-Mobile live Chat. I'm _Bozenna and I will be happy to assist you. Please give me a moment to review your question.
Maze:  Hi
Maze:  Im going to be going to germany today, and i would like to know what the data rates are there
_Bozenna P:  I would be more than happy to assist you with this today.
Maze:  thanks
_Bozenna P:  I can understand why you would want this information.
Maze:  yes
_Bozenna P:  I am researching this now.
_Bozenna P:  It may be 2-3 minutes.
Maze:  ok take your time
_Bozenna P:  Thank you.
_Bozenna P:  It is $1.29 a minute.
Maze:  for data?
_Bozenna P:  No, that is per call. It is $15 per MB for data.
Maze:  ohh ok.. i think i will use pen and paper then
Maze:  kthnxbye <comment><USER2> Roaming charges for data are ridiculous.

[http://www.gsmarena.com/eu_parliament_slashes_roaming_charge...](http://www.gsmarena.com/eu_parliament_slashes_roaming_charges__starting_this_july- news-886.php)

What you could do is simply buy a pre-paid card that allows data transfers. You'll have a different number for a while but at least you won't have to mortgage your house for a bit of connectivity.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm yea that is usually what i do, esp since i never used any data, but since i got my n900 im always connected. Thing is im only there for 4 days, so it wont be worth it. Maybe next time</comment></comment>


Blots: A simple paper-based storage format - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/lf94/blots <comment><USER2> w/r/g/b/c/m/y/k is 2^3 and would allow 1byte→3dot with little parity, or 4dot with a bunch of extra parity.

</comment><comment> tony-allan What is the storage density?</comment>


Blade Runner 2049 first reactions: sci-fi masterpiece, better than the original - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/2017/09/27/blade-runner-2049-first-reactions-critics-call-film-sci-fi-masterpiece/ <comment><USER2> Every big production that is a step above Transformers is hailed as a masterpiece these days. I don't know how the movie majors can convince critics to write what they do, but I'm sure it's marketing. I'll go to watch this movie anyway (the director is an interesting one) but I'm quite confident it's just formulaic commercial crap (you could see it from the trailers, really).

<comment><USER3> id imagine denis villeneuve's direction doesnt excite you? it doesnt particularly sound like you're a fan of the medium anyway

<comment><USER4> Sounds like he is just saying movies today are held to a much lower standard.

The biggest successes of the last decade or more have been superhero movies that are basically just special effects extravaganzas.

There's nothing wrong with enjoying mindless action movies (I enjoy them myself) but let's not pretend that the current glut of original productions in favour of endless comic book adaptation sequels and bad remakes of foreign movies represents anything more than a lowering of standards and a lack of originality and creativity in Hollywood.

He would be right.</comment></comment></comment>


How We Got 10,000 Visitors from Hacker News Within 3 Days and Screwed It Up - <AUTHOR> http://kraftblick.com/blog/hacker-news-front-page/ <comment><USER2> Getting visitors from Hacker News doesn't seem like a high value business metric.

</comment><comment><USER3> Or maybe because the article handled a old topic is it were something new and the account that posted it also heavily spammed around reddit.

IMO you lost your whole credibility by the reddit spam.</comment>


Where Is It Safest To Register A Domain Name? - <AUTHOR> https://gun.io/blog/secure-your-domain-where-is-safe-to-register-a-domain-name/

<comment><USER2> Ironically this sites security certificate is not trusted, according to my browser.

</comment><comment><USER3> Where does '.io' fall on this list?</comment>


Loot boxes a matter of "life or death," says researcher - <AUTHOR> https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-08-08-loot-boxes-a-matter-of-life-or-death <comment><USER2> > _It 's not something we should trivialize or laugh at or compare to baseball > cards._

This seems like a strange comparison to reject. Baseball cards were originally 'prizes' packaged with other products, and they were randomized to create excitement and keep people brand-loyal while they hoped to find the prize they wanted. They're the precursor to CCG booster packs, and from there to MMO loot systems, so of course we should compare loot boxes to baseball cards!

And it's even darker than that. The major originators of baseball cards were _tobacco companies_ , so you'd go out and buy ATC cigarettes in hopes of getting Honus Wagner. The causal chain from baseball cards to smoking to cancer was far tighter than the chain from loot boxes to problem gambling to suicide, and yet we're told that loot boxes are a _real_ problem, not like baseball cards. Exploiting people, and targeting kids, with randomized prizes is way older than B.F. Skinner's work.

It's a minor side note of course, not the core of the discussion, but it's a bit concerning to see a researcher specializing in loot boxes botch his history so badly.

<comment><USER3> At least there's something physical and tangible with sports cards...I can't say the same for Overwatch packs etc.

<comment><USER4> Similar intrinsic worth though (c. zero).

<comment><USER5> But there was still exchange value.

Furthermore, the scale and ease of purchase of lootboxes vs. baseball cards are incomparable.

<comment><USER6> People do sell loot box items in a lot of games... that often just makes the gambling problem worse, because people buy the loot boxes thinking they will make real world money.

<comment><USER2> Good timing for this - the Team Fortress 2 hat market just collapsed over a change in drop rates.

It's probably worth differentiating tradeable loot boxes, which end up used like stock speculation, from untradeable ones, which seem to be used more like slot machines.

<comment><USER7> Indeed, letting players try to scam each other seems slightly less evil than scamming the players directly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It feels to me that the issue is game studios are too large. Indie's don't engage in this behavior and still produce very excellent games without going bankrupt (Factorio, Stardew Valley, Stormworks). Even smaller developers that choose a Free-to-play model with transactional elements (Path of Exile) can do it in a very player friendly way that aligns with game value.

On the other side are companies like Activision and EA that will sell you a $60 game and expect you to spend another $60 in micro-transactions, screaming "more profit" the whole time.

My advice is choose who you support with your money carefully.

<comment><USER9> Path of Exile does have (cosmetic) loot boxes though. They didn't always, but they do now.

Not a problem for me because I just don't buy them, but just not buying them isn't really a solution for people with a gambling problem.

Games like Factorio do show indeed that it's possible to just sell an excellent game for $20-30 and be profitable.

Now, I don't have a source for this, but I heard valve for example stopped making single player-pay upfront games because the a one time profit of $200 million simply isn't worth it compared to, let's just call them 'modern monetization' techniques.

<comment><USER8> Path of Exile doesn't have just cosmetic loot boxes, you can actually buy game upgrades! You can unlock inventory tabs and get better sorting.

And that's what I mean. Those features are a few dollars, you almost always know exactly what you're getting, and they're generally only useful after you've put a few hours into the game. For a free to play game, that's a totally valid use in my book.

> but just not buying them isn't really a solution for people with a gambling > problem

Someone having a pre-existing gambling problem isn't the fault of the developers, nor is that what the researcher in the original article is claiming. The researcher claims that allowing kids to engage in buying loot boxes fosters a gambling addiction later in life.

<comment><USER9> Yeah I'm aware of how their monetization works and I think it's great as they at least never force you to buy them and everything eventually becomes available for a flat price in the shop at some point.

> Someone having a pre-existing gambling problem isn't the fault of the > developers, nor is that what the researcher in the original article is > claiming. The researcher claims that allowing kids to engage in buying loot > boxes fosters a gambling addiction later in life.

Kids can also buy lootboxes in PoE. Ok sure, _technically_ kids shouldn't be playing PoE, but that's just not reality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This caught my eye

"It turns out if the seller publishes some list of probabilities and lies about them, the seller can make significantly more money," Elmachtoub said. "There is a benefit for lying. Since there's a benefit for lying, there must be regulation around this."

Elmachtoub said games need to be monitored to ensure publishers are actually following the probabilities they post, and it needs to be tracked not just in aggregate but on the individual consumer level because it's otherwise possible to gain more money by extorting specific individuals.

....

"Another unique thing about loot boxes versus baseball cards is that companies can see your inventory. That's a fundamental difference. Being able to take advantage of that would obviously be beneficial to the seller and allow them to exploit more.

</comment><comment><USER11> They raise a valid point with a needlessly sensationalist title - but it does feel like a natural (d)evolution of the gaming industry. This is what happens when a studio becomes successful, hires a lot of people, then tries its hardest to maximize profits.

The real solution here is that parents need to educate themselves on how to lock down permissions on game purchases and manage their children's playtime/addiction levels. Government regulation is not a good substitute for parenting.

Remember, as a consumer, you can still support games that don't employ these tactics! Personally, I have way more fun playing Rimworld, Factorio, etc.

<comment><USER12> Are you saying the same thing about casinos? That children should be able to go to casinos? And the parents should just make sure their children don't actually go to the casino?

That sounds wholly crazy to me. Loot box mechanics should automatically result in a mature rating for the game.

<comment><USER11> It's not that I don't think it's a problem, it's that I think regulation isn't a good solution. Game companies would just find a way to circumvent the system. What if loot boxes could be bought with in-game credits? What if you could buy short term in-game credit boosters for real money? The regulation route, if continuously followed to address the problem, would end up with all games being rated 'M', or being subject to high regulations/restrictions which would affect anyone who wants to enjoy them. After all, games themselves are designed to short circuit your brains reward system to give you hits of dopamine. The root of the problem is that kids aren't always capable of understanding these complex issues, and it should be up to their parents to inform and constrain how their kids enjoy games.

<comment><USER12> I don't have a problem with all games containing even the hint of loot boxes getting the mature rating. The regulations should be just as strict as for casinos. If a game company wants to run a casino along with their game then it's their right but then don't expect to be treated differently.

<comment><USER11> In that case - any game that has purchasable content would be rated 'M' and it isn't a far leap to just say that every game should be rated 'M' because of the potential for addiction. What about candy and soda? Sugar is also addictive

<comment><USER12> Loot boxes and in game purchases aren't the same thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think that loot boxes should be subject to the same laws as slot machines in the US (since they are online slot machines, right?).

If your state doesn't allow slot machines and online gambling then no loot boxes for you. If it does, you must also be 18 / 21 to purchase a loot box; depending on state law.

What's the loophole currently being exploited that prevents loot boxes from being classified as online slot machines?

<comment><USER14> This is also a deep hint to a potential worst case outcome of loot boxes. Pinball machines experienced a prohibition because of their similarity to slot machines. States that do not allow slot machines stopped allowing pinball machines. _Eventually_ those states started to relax the prohibition based on whether or not pinball machine scoring systems could be determined by player skill and whether or not pinball machines produced payouts/rewards/prizes. But they started by banning all pinball machines, and bankrupted a number of companies in the industry.

Videogames should have been a lot more careful to avoid this situation in the first place. It's not like the pinball prohibition was that long ago (New York was the last state to stop prohibiting pinball machines in 1976), nor that it was that far from home because it impacted laws on early arcades where videogames got their start (literally right next to pinball machines, and sometimes by the same manufacturers).

It probably is a stretch for states to simply ban all videogames in 2019, but that sort of reaction is certainly possible in the right climate, and it has happened before.

<comment><USER13> Interesting... I can see video games getting banned on the basis of addiction, but not specifically because of the loot box mechanic; since it can be removed. Pinball on the other hand would have had to become free?

I just hope that once someone starts enforcing our existing laws that video game companies will abandon this idea since the access and implementation to the boxes would be different based on the user's physical location.

<comment><USER14> That was the argument for pinball prohibition starting by just outright banning all pinball machines rather than sort them into categories: they were hugely addictive. The loot box mechanic draws the public scrutiny of the comparison to slot machines, but that worst case is that the scrutiny continues on to find the entire category too addictive. (Which is exactly the progression pinball prohibition took: at the time there were an increasing number of pinball machines which we might call today more "pachinko-like" / "plinko-like" that initially grew the ire of politicians and family groups, but after evaluation they started to feel all versions of pinball were addicting and needed to be managed.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've never understood this, all economic transactions are voluntary, who am I (or in this case, you) to tell people they can't make that decision?

People who make bad decisions shouldn't be protected from the consequences of their actions. I do agree that loot boxes and gambling mechanics are pretty bad methods of monetizing a game, that's why I don't buy them, but I don't presume to tell other people what they should think of them or the business owners whether or not they can add them in.

<comment><USER16> This assumes the lack of negative externalities from such a system.

</comment></comment><comment> dynamite-ready When my nephew was 7 years old, he ran up a £200 bill for nonsensical digital objects on Xbox Live during the 360 era. Microsoft reimbursed my brother after we described the problem to them.

This was a little while before the media even knew there was a story. Given the early success of Xbox Live, I suspect they probably saw the issue coming long before the recent witch hunt, and did the right thing.

I think as a burgeoning social problem, it can definitely be likened to what the fast food chains are now penalised for. And as it's a burgeoning problem, there are probably no (edit - meaningful long-term) research projects to explore the link between free to play marketing and gambling problems later in life, but I'd be surprised if there's no link there.

I think it would be remiss of any organisation to call for a total ban, just as it would be for any group to call for a ban on cake... But I do think laws prohibiting the offering of in-game products to certain age groups, for cash should be considered.

Beyond that though, I think loot boxes and in-game economic structures are fair... ummm... game...

<comment><USER4> Cake at least has a natural limit, you'll be physically sick. Loot boxes the physical limit is probably going to make everyone who isn't Bezos poor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I agree wholeheartedly with the concerns about gambling.

I have another concern to toss on the pile while I'm at it though. This what- if was presented by Bellular a few days back: (TL;DR: The profit ratio for microtransactions is orders of magnitude larger than expansions)

Assuming a new WoW mount:

\- Takes about 1 man-year of effort to create, costing the company $200,000

\- 10% of the player population will purchase the mount at $25

\- WoW has approximately 4M active players

That mount just made Blizzard/Activision $10M, at a cost of 200,000. That's a profit/cost ratio of 50:1.

It gets even worse when you factor in loot boxes. New mount has a 1% chance (which is very high) and loot boxes are $1 each? That's going to net (a very approximate) $40M in profit for that one new mount, raising the ratio to around 200:1.

Let's compare that to releasing a new expansion:

\- 100 man years of development effort (a team of 50 for two years, probably on the low side)

\- $10M in marketing budget and other overhead

\- 4m players purchase it at $40 each

That's $160M in revenue, but with $30m in costs. Profit to cost ratio of 5:1.

Given the orders of magnitude between the two, there's a strong incentive to only cater to the 10% of players, at the expense of the other players. How will that impact our games going forward?

<comment><USER18> > _That 's $160M in revenue, but with $30m in costs. Profit to cost ratio of > 5:1._

This doesn't consider the immense second order effects of releasing an expansion. Releasing a new expansion maintains and increases player engagement - i.e. monthly subscription fees. Without new expansions to keep the player base engaged, players won't purchase cosmetic additions like mounts.

<comment><USER17> You're right. But it doesn't change that the focus of the studio changes from "how do I keep these 4M players playing my game" to "how do I keep these specific 400,000 players purchasing my microtransactions".

And given some of the monetization industry talks, the strategy doesn't necessarily include "make a good game".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > "It turns out if the seller publishes some list of probabilities and lies > about them, the seller can make significantly more money," Elmachtoub said.

Perhaps contrary to the author's point, the ability to reap rewards by defrauding players regarding probabilities of payouts seems to imply some rationality in purchasing the loot boxes.

> "There is a benefit for lying. Since there's a benefit for lying, there must > be regulation around this."

In all things there is often a short-term benefit to be derived from lying. It doesn't necessarily then follow that "there must be regulation around" all things.

<comment><USER20> Obtaining money by deception is already regulated: it's fraud. People publishing deliberately inaccurate lootbox odds should be prosecuted and given, at the very least, a criminal record and large fine.

<comment><USER17> Here's a question - if you have 1 in 1,000, or 1 in 1M odds of getting a specific item, is it acceptable to list those odds as "<1%"? That's what occurs today when companies are forced to reveal rates. It's misleading at best.

<comment><USER21> If "<1%" is so successful in misleading people and increasing sales, why wouldn't they just do it without the regulation requiring it?

<comment><USER17> > why wouldn't they just do it without the regulation requiring it

Likely because it has a negligable effect, and it's harder to do than not to do. Does a gambler stop gambling despite knowing their odds of beating the house are less than 1%?

<comment><USER21> If it is a negligible effect, then it shouldn't matter much if regulation requires notice and it has negligible effect either. Seems like a non-issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Life itself is also life or death

</comment><comment><USER23> Its also life-or-death for much of the game industry. The same way most restaurants and fast food chains wouldn't be able to exist without "cheap tricks" targeting primitive brain circuity (e.g. MSG, sweeteners, frying), most game studios would not be able to survive based on box sales alone. They need a skinner-box to extract more money out of people. Creating a game that is compelling enough to extract ever-increasing value out of people based on content, quality, and narrative alone is extremely difficult. Making a "random loot box" system is extremely easy and pays far more, even though its the "easy way out". Of course, like fast food and cigarettes / drugs, the consumers also bear responsibility. Rather than supporting "clean" games with something noble to offer, the games that exploited these tricks virtually printed money, while the "old timey" approach of spending years making a quality title gave way to the more casino-like interactions we see today. The truth is fast food, drugs, and gambling are just more fun than home-cooked nutritious meals, healthy habits, and deep/challenging engagement.

Pretty much everything fits these patterns of reduction to the basic animalistic appeal: movies, music, clothing/attire, dating apps, even our politics. Its just easier and more effective to appeal to the limbic system than to figure out something new and profound.

<comment><USER24> In 1999, I could go into a game shop and pay £40 for a finished game with a story.

In 2019, it costs £60 (or more for a "gold edition" or whatever). It isn't finished, has colossal bugs that require 50 GB patches just after launch, barely has a story (because listening to 13-year-olds shout ethnic slurs at one another is the new having a well-written story—and every developer thinks stories are passé and we all want "Live Services") and then tries to use psychological tricks to try and induce a gambling addiction.

I opt out and play the old games from the 90s and early 2000s that don't do all this BS.

<comment><USER25> Ultima retailed for $80 in the 80s. Prices have been fairly flat, ignoring inflation, for decades.</comment></comment></comment>


Man reportedly outsources his own job to China, watches cat videos - <AUTHOR> http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jan/17/business/la-fi-mo-man-outsourced-job-to-china-20130117 <comment><USER2> Good story but a while ago. I wonder how he's doing these days.</comment>


These goofy $1 glasses could make you invisible to facial recognition Technology - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/01/18/isao_echizen_and_seiichi_gohshi_s_privacy_visor_shields_you_from_facial.html

<comment><USER2> A possible "solution": Make a database with all the relative position and luminosity of the lights in the glasses. I guess it is easier to identify the glasses than the faces.</comment>


Replacing Loops in Swift - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wilshipley.com/2015/08/pimp-my-code-book-2-eliminating-loops.html <comment><USER2> Over the past few years there's been a tendency towards a more functional style of programming, like what's demonstrated in this blog post. I think there are a lot of benefits to this, but the functional style doesn't hold a monopoly on good code.

One of the advantages of the "slightly better", more imperative, method of finding a 3D piece under the mouse over the "beautiful", more functional, one is that it is extremely clear what the code is doing, while the functional case needs some thought to understand; even for someone who knows what map, filter, etc. do!

This isn't to say that functional is bad and imperative is good, or really to choose a style at all. But sometimes the cleanest idea mathematically isn't the best way to write code.

<comment><USER3> One pitfall I often fall into with map, filter, etc. is that I chain them together, forgetting each of them takes another pass through the sequence. With an explicit loop, it's often easier to reduce multiple passes into a single pass.

<comment><USER4> > One pitfall I often fall into with map, filter, etc. is that I chain them > together, forgetting each of them takes another pass through the sequence.

Lazy maps, filters, etc. that do not do this are available in many languages (and the default in some.)

Transducers provide a similar benefit, from a somewhat opposite direction (composing reduction functions rather than chaining lazy iterating functions).

Other than familiarity for some people, I don't see a real edge to imperative iteration over functional operations here.

<comment><USER3> I guess I should have been more clear.

I'm aware that they do not add extra passes in some languages.

But in Swift, C++, Common Lisp, OCaml, Python, Ruby, Perl, Java, Scheme, and many others, adding another map/filter/etc. will add another pass through the sequence unless you're going out of the way to avoid it.

<comment><USER5> how much of a performance drop have you measured in real world? compare

        my @judges = ();
        for my $sport (@sports) {
          if (is_watersport $sport) {
            push @judges, get_judges $sport;
          }
        }

to

        my @judges = map get_judges, grep is_watersport, @sports;

is it worth fretting over an added pass? how many sports are we dealing with anyway? and IME, nested loops induce errors in the form of _accidental_ `O(N*M)`.

<comment><USER3> Your example is a straw man.

IRL, I've seen this crop up while processing database results and large datasets. On several occasions I've shaved up to several minutes off of execution times by replacing chained map, filter, and zip calls that were iterating through the data multiple times with more complicated expressions that only performed the iteration once.

I've also written a graphics applications where converting several chained map/filters into a single pass made interacting with the application noticeably less laggy.

I'm actually surprised so many people have challenged this as a potential pitfall. I didn't pull it out of the air or from trivial examples. I've seen it happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Some comments on this article: first of all it's not about the amount of lines of code that attribute to the complexity of the code, but the amount of things that actually happen and can fail in your code that can make it fragile. A godegolfed line of code is not more reliable than everything neatly expanded and tabbed in lines.

Frequently in C# LINQ-queries turn out to be very long indiscernible chains of things happening that aren't completely obvious in what they're doing. Same goes for filter / map / forEach. I use them a lot but I put them often in several variables ('let' in this case of course) just to have the "one thing happening in one line" kind of code that's so much nicer to the eyes.

I never benchmarked it, but I never had to. I assume modern compilers that see a constant that is only being used once understand that it comes down to the same as chaining directly.

The best takeaway from this story is that filter / map / etcetera better show the _intent_ of the code. That's why I love the `guard` statement so much. It doesn't do anything I couldn't do before but it simply tells the other programmer "unless this passes nothing else below this should happen".

<comment><USER7> LINQ queries are horrible. I tend to rewrite them using the extension methods instead, it usually makes them a lot clearer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's nice to note when you think about for loops, while, etc. versus map/each/reduce that the latter offer a convenience that is not discussed enough: the ability to reason about a single element of a collection without having ever to think about the collection itself (no thinking about bounds, indices or things like that).

This in turn, makes it easier to think in terms of :

I have a thing, I put it in the box and a new different thing comes out of that box. That in turn can more easily lead to thinking about series of connected boxes.

<comment><USER9> And after that, you can start thinking about other kinds of boxes: Maybe/Optional, Either/Try, futures, infinite collections, lazy collections, I/O streams, message passing systems... all of which can be manipulated with the same set of primitives. And at some point you realize there's a name for this fancy abstraction and it starts with an "m" and ends with a "d" and Haskellers like it very much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> One downside of this approach is that you don't have as much discrete control over your access patterns.

In his intersection case he's having to hit at least some items twice, depending his cache locality that could be pretty painful.

That said I do map/filter is great for areas that aren't performance critical.

</comment><comment><USER11> Even though he does not like LISP, welcome to the 1960s with map, remove, ...

Those who learned SICP in school or university will have no problem to recognize the concepts.

</comment><comment><USER12> "What first struck me when learning Swift was how much play the "map()" and "filter()" functions got on the web [also "flatmap()" but I'm not as excited about that one yet because I don't love LISP and it's not 1970]."

Cute. But this article demonstrates Eric Raymond's point:

"LISP is worth learning for a different reason — the profound enlightenment experience you will have when you finally get it."

Much of the history of main stream programming languages is simply a slow progression of adopting the features of Lisp. So in this case, someone who already knew Lisp would not have to learn how to use the functional constructs in Swift fluently and idiomatically, because they would already have experience doing so.

(Yes, I know this does not apply to all programming languages and programming language features, but it's surprising how often it's true! Paul's Graham take on this idea here: [http://www.paulgraham.com/diff.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/diff.html))

</comment><comment><USER13> When you're standing here you're in for a real treat once flatmap starts making sense and making its way into your hear^H^H^H^H code.

<comment><USER3> I don't understand why so many people are so enthusiastic about flatmap. It's never seemed particularly difficult to understand, and in my experience is less useful than map.

The Scala community in particular seems to have a comical number of articles praising it and explaining how to use it. I just don't get it.

<comment><USER14> Flatmap is "bind" from Haskell - a part of the interface called "Monad", about which many people are excited for both good reasons and poor reasons.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Wow.. didn't know Objective C has been around for that long (32 Years), this guy has been programming in it for 26 yrs..</comment>


Psychologists Welcome Analysis Casting Doubt on Studies - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/29/science/psychologists-welcome-analysis-casting-doubt-on-their-work.html

<comment><USER2> How much of this is the result of outright fraud? I know Hanlon's razor and all, but I find it extremely difficult to believe that virtually everybody in this field is incompetent.

It seems like the majority of these highly intelligent people, despite spending a decade in training, were essentially statistically illiterate, even though statistics are absolutely central to their field. That's not a catastrophe in itself, you can always hit up the "real" statistician two floors down...but it seems like they didn't want to bother with that. Did they overestimate their ability or did they know they were serving up shitty research?

The papers that do replicate are tightly clustered a small number of researchers (Kahneman & Tversky)...I'm not sure how to interpret this. Did they get lucky and stumble upon the one area of psychological research that had a "high yield"? Did they implement a superior research methodology that nobody could/wanted to imitate?

<comment><USER3> Have a look at this what this Harvard neuroscientist says about failed replication. It's pretty scary.

[http://web.archive.org/web/20150115080542/http://wjh.harvard...](http://web.archive.org/web/20150115080542/http://wjh.harvard.edu/~jmitchel/writing/failed_science.htm)

<comment><USER2> Well that makes me think the fraud angle is fairly likely...

<comment><USER3> It made me think of incompetence, but I guess fraud fits too.

The rejection of scientific method was what scared me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> "One piece of evidence that preregistration can act as a strong corrective comes from clinicaltrials.gov, a registry of publicly and privately funded clinical studies involving human subjects. Before 2000, when the site was established, 57 percent of large clinical trials funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute showed a significant benefit of drugs or other intervention, according to a recent analysis published in the journal PLOS One. After the registry was put in place, only 2 percent of such trials found a clear benefit."

<comment><USER4> I think it's healthy to suspect that the entire pharmacopoeia-industrial- complex has a similar rate of veracity.

<comment><USER5> I'm absolutely sure about that. As a student I was working (as a technician) on many medical science conferences, so I had an opportunity to see the "bleeding edge" research presentations. I was shocked by the level of confidence demonstrated by "scientists" who promoted results of their N=5 experiments (without a comparison group) as "convincing". If all therapies are based on such research, we have to be happy that our bodies are impressively self-repairing machines.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> At the risk of sounding really stupid, What is the crowning achievement of psychology ? What gives this field the legitimacy that it enjoys ?

<comment><USER7> Well, we we now understand a lot more about how people think than before. We're finally past that id-ego-superego and black box theory bullshit (although some people still ascribe to freudian ideas). There is real treatment for people with mental illnesses other than hospitalization and drugs (e.g. people with personality disorders, dissociation disorders, etc. can now receive structured talk therapies)

The crowning achievement would probably be the ability for people who are mentally ill to receive help and understanding from trained professionals rather than be considered possessed, needing drugs, shoved into insane asylums, or eugenics'd.</comment></comment>


37 Signals Valuation Tops 100 Billion Dollars - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1941

<comment><USER2> [2009]

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=841806>

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, I thought it was fitting to revisit the issue considering that Zuckerberg is 'worth' more than Steve Jobs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> yeah it's old, but still hilarious. I'd argue it's 37signal's best work to date.

</comment><comment><USER4> LOL: Enough said.</comment>


Ask HN: When to choose a VPS over shared hosting? - <AUTHOR>

Does anyone have any advice about how to choose whether to go with shared hosting or a VPS? I don't have any experience using a VPS - I'm happy to learn, but I'm concerned I won't be able to ensure the security of the thing. On the other hand, I've had good experiences with shared hosting, but I'm concerned that what I'm designing (effectively a niche social network, with 'following'-type performance requirements) may stretch the limits of a shared hosting account - although, what are those limits? At what point does it start to make sense to go for a VPS? I'm not concerned about being in control of everything - in fact, I'm sure someone else would be better at running it! - but I don't want to go with shared hosting if it means I'll run into serious performance problems later. Likewise I don't want to go with a VPS if I can never be confident about security. How to proceed? Thanks for your help. <comment><USER2> speaking as someone who's only income is selling VPSs, if your application works under shared hosting, and you can find competent shared hosting providers for a reasonable cost, you are probably better off with shared hosting.

Now, personally, I consider hiroku and google app engine to be shared hosting. very expensive, high end shared hosting. (in fact, carefully consider the expense... if you have low revenue per compute cycle, or if you plan on scaling up your usage before scaling up your revenue, they may not be suitable just on cost.)

Now, the advantage to shared hosting is that it actually has all the upsides the cloud promises. You actually eliminate your SysAdmin. VPS hosts (or "cloud" hosts that just give you an *NIX box) only eliminate the need for a hardware guy, which is the cheapest sysadmin role you can have.

Also, there are some performance and reliability advantages to having one large box dedicated to, say, running php, etc... vs setting your tiny private stack up on some 256MiB box. It's extremely difficult and expensive to give you a live 'hot failover' VPS without your help. It's pretty simple to have hot failover with a shared hosting setup, hot failover that the customer need not notice.

Now, the downside of shared hosting is control. While /in theory/ shared hosting should kick the shit out of a vps for anything shared hosting can do, here in reality, that's not always or even usually how it works. when you outsource your sysadmin duties, you are dependent on the people you are outsourcing to being both competent /and/ caring about your problem.

The thing of it is, if your provider doesn't care about you, then you are /much/ better off with a xen vps. with a xen vps, the other hosts on the box aren't going to mess you up nearly as much as on an OpenVZ or a shared hosting system.

This is why I sell Xen VPSs rather than OpenVZ, FreeBSD jails, or shared hosting. Yes, running a xen host takes more hardware, but it takes a lot less sysadmin time from your provider.

The only real solid "do this no matter what" advice I can give you is to have off site backups, and practice bringing your system up on a new provider every now and then. All providers, shared and vps, make mistakes. Sometimes those mistakes wipe out both live data and backups- see the hypervm disaster.

Always be ready to switch providers, and you will always be with a provider you are satisfied with.

<comment><USER3> I agree with most of what you said, except for the Google App Engine part. The App Engine free quotas are great (Python support and free quotas are basically the main reasons why I chose App Engine).

The App Engine free quotas allow you to operate at _zero_ cost while still getting (on an app that accesses the datastore a couple times every page) about 1-2 million pageviews a month (not as much as the 5 million Google advertises, but it's still pretty darn good).

Now I don't know how long the free quotas will last, but with the amount of traffic that support, revenue isn't an issue when starting out.

<comment><USER2> eh, I know at least one small, revenue free startup that is in to app engine for a grand a month hosting fees. (If you own your own equipment, a grand a month supports maybe 100Mbps and around 10 sockets. 20 if you find someone who doesn't rip you on the bandwidth, but that's hard.)

/if/ you could buy app engine compatible service from more than one company, it would be great; it's just that googles current model with app engine /can/ result in some rather high costs (either re-writing your code to run off of google, or paying through the nose) once you reach a certain threshold.

Now, for some things, that's fine. It would be perfectly acceptable for my business model, for instance, for me to do the signup page and account management stuff on app engine. everyone who sees that stuff is paying me. but there are many business models for which it's current price structure is not very good, namely if you plan on being both big and free, it is not suitable.

the real problem, I think, is how difficult it is to move off app engine. If you are doing something in your own VPS, it's fairly trivial to move to another provider, or to your own hardware if you need to scale and save some money. this, I'm given to understand, is /much harder/ if you built for the app engine platform.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have yet to find a shared host that (eventually) doesn't oversell their facilities. I've found a few gems, only to be let down a year or two down the road. You don't want to be in this position.

When I started using VPS hosting, I had zero sysadmin experience outside the Windows world. In choosing a VPS host, my biggest concern was accessibility to support that actually knew how to do the things I was doing. In other words, access to actual sysadmins.

I chose Rimuhosting as my provider almost 5 years ago, and I haven't been unhappy yet. I can't stress this enough. As a new sysadmin, you're going to need help. You have two choices:

* You can rely on community, which is great, but you'll have to wait on answers, and you'll likely be told to RTFM on many occasions.

* You can go with a host that offers support, and (very important) also offers sysadmin help at reasonable rates for tasks that are over your head.

This has been the greatest thing about Rimuhosting. Their support is awesome, and they go the extra mile, but they offer something a lot of other hosts simply will not do. They offer sysadmin services at a rate of $45/hr, which is very reasonable. In addition to completing tasks, they'll send you a quick run down of what they did. Teach a man to fish style! I've learned as much from them as I have any website.

I cannot say enough good things about Rimuhosting.

<comment><USER5> I second your Rimuhosting vote: their support is personal, ridiculously timely (I've had several support emails get responses in minutes) and just outright awesome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> First off I have a VPS from both prgmr and linode, and recommend both of them, though linode is probably the more user friendly of the two.

When choosing between shared and vps you really need to figure out how much control you really need, and then weigh that control with your ability to run a server (or even learning to run a server as you say someone else would be better running it).

From what I have heard <http://mediatemple.net/> is pretty good for less advanced server users, but don't necessarily take my word for it try and find some comparisons.

As for security on a VPS you'll be better than a good amount of shared hosting if all you do is be sure to keep everything up to date, use good passwords, change your ssh port to a high number (disable root access), and use iptables to restrict your ports. To do those things there are plenty of guides to be found, and of course remember to backup configuration and all essential files for your web app/page.

</comment><comment><USER7> I chose a VPS b/c I wanted to run Python web apps, which traditionally don't work with shared hosting environments. Most shared hosts have daemons that kill long running processes. If you have a python script running for a long time (even if it is running your site) it would be killed. This seems to be the biggest reason in my mind for running a VPS over a shared host.

In terms of cost, a VPS usually will cost more as memory usage is something you'll have manage. For example, I would have liked to run MongoDB on my VPS but just didn't have anywhere close to enough memory. Not a big deal, but if you're using it for a business then it is important to understand what you're getting into in terms of memory usage and what services will need to run. You have to allocate resources for not only the web server, but any databases, scripts, etc.

</comment><comment><USER8> In general if you follow the guides available from people like slicehost/linode etc in how to get your VPS secure it is likely to be more secure than some shared hosts seem to be.

You do need to keep on top of keeping the VPS up to date but that isn't much work.

</comment><comment><USER9> I have a virtual server since about one week. It is not that hard to use. Maybe you need a few hours, but that's it.

On the other hand you can install whatever you want, no problems with new software that is not installed on you shared hosting.

</comment><comment><USER10> Several VPS providers also offer managed VPS accounts. They secure the distro for you and just give you root to install a few additional items. Most of the initial setup is done for you already.

</comment><comment><USER11> depends on what type of site/app you have and what type of traffic you expect. your shared hosting acct is on a server with 100 other sites. you can't rely on dedicated resources or bandwidth. shared accts are good for more static brochure sites or low traffic blogs.

</comment><comment><USER12> when you start doing anything more than wordpress sites or learning php, then its pretty definitely time for a vps</comment>


Show HN: Lambdaspeech - <AUTHOR> Dear friends,
Welcome in http://lambdaway.free.fr/lambdaspeech/
This is the latest version of the '{lambda way} project, called '{lambda speech} with an improved state of the wiki, '{lambda tank}, and the language, '{lambda talk}. Everything has been cleaned up, on the solid theoretical foundation of '{lambda calculus}, the clever Lisp-like prefixed syntax, the powerful set of tools coming with the web browsers. The {b require} special form looks good now, allowing to transparently share code distributed in several pages, maybe working as awaited, but still to be improved (I need help…). This is the end of a first exploring step, the beginning of a new consolidating one.
I hope you will like to walk along this way. Your opinion is welcome.
Best regards Alain Marty <comment><AUTHOR> Is there anybody out there?</comment>