US ready to 'hand over' the internet's naming system - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-37114313 <comment><USER2> I'm probably the minority here, but I'd rather it just stay in the hands of the U.S. . Unless there is some sort of malice and ongoing misuse I don't really see how this improves the system.

Open to any explanation about how this will improve the system aside from "more involvement from other countries". Not that I'm discounting that as a good or bad reason, but I'd just like to see more information about why this would be good.

<comment><USER3> Note that in the past the USG abused its power to seize domains belonging to foreign companies. See for example [https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110201/10252412910/homel...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110201/10252412910/homeland- security-seizes-spanish-domain-name-that-had-already-been-declared- legal.shtml)

So they cannot be trusted.

Of course, in practice, what goes into the root zone is controlled by ICANN. The whole oversight has been mostly theoretical for many years now.

<comment><USER4> I wouldn't trust the stewardship of ICANN either. This group of muppets has been turning the top-level into a wasteland of garbage ever since they got control: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top- level_dom...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top- level_domains#ICANN-era_generic_top-level_domains)

While reasonable gTLDs like .inc, .corp and .ltd get ignored, instead we have .aerospace and .google for reasons that have never been properly explained.

They've also handed over .app to Google simply because Google was willing to pay a stupid amount of money for the rights, and Google can't even figure out how to sell these yet: [https://www.registry.google](https://www.registry.google)

<comment><USER5> Exactly!

They gave away the .book TLD to Amazon too and now no one can publish their own book using a .book domain name for their work.

<comment><USER6> They did? That sounds pretty awful, but I don't see .book listed at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top- level_dom...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top- level_domains#ICANN-era_generic_top-level_domains)

<comment><USER7> See [http://nic.book](http://nic.book)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > _Other countries, particularly China and Russia, had put pressure on the UN > to call for the DNS to be controlled by the United Nations' International > Telecommunication Union._

I'm no diplomat, but I suspect any move that's primarily advocated by Russia and China can't be good for [internet] freedom.

<comment><USER9> Might just be that China and Russia don't trust the US not to use this control to harm them, e.g. seizing domains as part of sanctions.

<comment><USER10> Don't be naive. That may be part of their motivation, but they would want control for censorship purposes even if they didn't fear harm from the US.

<comment><USER11> That's just such ridiculous bullshit. Pray tell me, what any country could have possibly imagined as the result that would have enabled them to have any sort of power for censorship?

<comment><USER10> Government controls which would enable censorship have been proposed at meetings of the International Telecommunication Union, and have gained significant support. Notably, the proposals are supported by countries known for internet censorship, and opposed by the United States.

It is a pretty obvious fact that internationalized control of internet governance will make censorship more likely, and acceptable, than US control does.

Here is just one example: [https://rsf.org/en/news/new-treaty-signed-not- all](https://rsf.org/en/news/new-treaty-signed-not-all)

> Reporters Without Borders reiterates its appeal to ITU member countries to > preserve the Internet as a place of freedom, as a place for the free > exchange of views and information. Concern also focused on article 5B of the > treaty concerning spam, which says: "Member States should endeavour to take > necessary measures to prevent the propagation of unsolicited bulk electronic > communications and minimize its impact on international telecommunication > services. Member States are encouraged to cooperate in that sense." The > problem stems from the fact that, to block this kind of content, governments > will first have to identify it and will therefore have to use Internet > control tools. Some governments do this already, but such action has never > been recognized in a UN treaty. So this article sets a precedent which > governments that have little interest in freedom of information would be > able to use to justify the deployment of filtering and blocking mechanisms.

Here is another: [https://www.publicknowledge.org/news-blog/blogs/itu-wcit- and...](https://www.publicknowledge.org/news-blog/blogs/itu-wcit-and-internet- freedom)

> A recently released ITU document summarizing various proposals to modify the > existing ITU regulations ("ITRs") confirms what folks have been saying and > leaking for some time now. The Russian Federation, various Arab states, and > others have submitted proposals that would expressly ratify the right of > member states to disrupt communication in the name of national security, and > to limit the ability of parties to route around censorship or communicate > anonymously by providing members states the authority to determine routing > paths and to prevent "misuse and misappropriation of numbering resources." > (See, for example, proposed MOD 30 & 31A – but there are numerous other > proposals that could achieve the same end).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The US is the best government to oversee DNS in a way that isn't corrupt and awful. That said, the US has seized domains in the past without proper due process - so it's really that "for the most part" we expect our freedoms to be respected. I think the situation would be far worse if left to several countries who don't share our progressive values. The Internet is only as great as it is because it became a "thing" here first. It would be fucking awful having Iran or China manage DNS - even as partners.

<comment><USER13> Pardon me to be so polemic, but what kind of progressive values do you have in mind? Political assassinations by drone strikes that kill hundreds of children and women as bystanders?

<comment><USER14> There's no relation between the two. The progressive values are things like freedom of expression and free journalism. These stand in contrast to nations like Turkey and China, and their internet policy.

<comment><USER15> What, which rights we foreigners have that the USA actually respect in practice is not important for judging how relevant American values are to the rest of the world?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > "The proposal will significantly increase the power of foreign governments > over the Internet," warned a letter signed by several Republican senators, > including former Presidential hopeful, Ted Cruz.

For those of us in foreign (to the US) countries, I don't quite see the issue here.

<comment><USER17> > I don't quite see the issue here.

Well there really is only one country in the world that has 'Freedom of Speech' codified into law.

In reality, any country can abuse it's position, but in regards the internet it doesn't really appear that it has ever happened. This is very much change for change sake without any real benefit to be seen.

<comment><USER18> >Well there really is only one country in the world that has 'Freedom of Speech' codified into law.

That statement is so absurd that this can only be Poe's law in effect. Freedom of Speech is a requirement for a functioning democracy, and consequently plenty of countries have freedom of speech codified into law.

Of course different countries limit this freedom differently. In a US cinema you can't shout "Fire" if there is no fire, or "I just got a national security letter" if there is a national security letter. In a German cinema you can't shout "The holocaust never happened" or "Kill all muslims". But within reasonable bounds both countries guarantee freedom of speech.

<comment><USER19> Yeah and in North Korea I can't call Kim Jong Un a fat piece of shit, but I guess that's just a reasonable limit to North Korea's freedom of speech.

> In a German cinema you can't shout "The holocaust never happened"

This is a legitimate example of why Germany does not have freedom of speech. Regardless of how verifiable the Holocaust is or how offensive it is to deny that it happened, disagreeing with the government's version of history should not be a crime in a free society.

> In a US cinema you can't shout "Fire" if there is no fire

A fraudulent statement designed to disrupt society. You don't get arrested because what you said is untrue, you get arrested because you're legitimately trying to hurt people by causing a stampede and desensitizing them to fire warnings.

>"Kill all muslims"

A specific incitement of violence.

> "I just got a national security letter"

I don't like that this is illegal either, but it's a far cry from making it illegal to express certain opinions. And at least there's a fair amount of disagreement within the US as to whether it should be illegal, different jurisdictions have taken either side of this issue.

<comment><USER20> How is disagreeing with history any different than disagreeing with a fact, like whether nor not a theater is on fire.

Setting aside other exceptions, like liable, the rule in AngloAmerican law concerns inciting or otherwise causing imminent harm. What constitutes imminent harm has varied widely over the course of U.S. history. Many people were sentenced by courts under the Alien & Sedition Acts, the argument being that seditious speech _might_ lead to imminent harm. The same things happened over 120 years later when people handing out anarchist and communist leaflets were regularly thrown in jail with even less pushback by society.

These days the interpretation and application of imminent harm is much narrower than it has ever been, and indisputably ahistorical. The conception of free speech that Americans enjoy today didn't exist for most of the history of the country and likely most of the history of the world.

In the context of Germany's history, it's not obvious to me (and shouldn't be obvious to anybody who gives it serious consideration) that their standard is intrinsically, objectively inferior.

I happen to disagree with it, but I don't think it's unreasonable on its face. And I'll be the first to admit that my preference for the modern, American conception is largely a function of my being an American and having internalized certain normative judgments unique to not just this country, but unique to the post-WWII political and legal context and in many respects unique to the past couple of generations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Beyond country specific TLD's which every country already has, what exactly do other countries want in terms of controlling the internet that they don't already have? (edit: spelling)

<comment><USER22> Frankly ever since the issue first showed up on a news site, i have held that legacy gTLDs should be moved under .us, and that new gTLDs should not be issued.

Then it would be up to each nation to enact rules for their part of the net, and nothing more.

Right now, if i happen to access a .com that is operated by a non-US entity, am i subject to the rules of USA, the nation of origin of said entity, or where they happen to have their servers housed?

<comment><USER23> You might not be subject to US jurisdiction, but the US asserts that entities using a TLD administered in the US, are subject to US jurisdiction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Again, I worry that the battle between nations is a mask for the real battle that is happening, and which we are losing, the ceding of power to large corporations.

I'm not worried about ICANN, here, I'm worried about Google. Specifically, now that ICANN is expanding top-level domains to include thousands of generics, the big players are going to make lots of grabs and become first-class citizens on the Internet. It is not better for the Internet if Google controls the .dev TLD and if Amazon controls the .shop TLD.

At the end of the day a democratic system of any kind is vulnerable to corruption from the influence of power and must actively defend against this influence. If ICANN is supposed to be a more democratic means of controlling the Internet than the US government, it has to be made invulnerable to the influence of large players like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc.

</comment><comment><USER25> If they screw it up, we can always just move to an alternate system of DNS servers. We're all only on a single system by convention anyway.

</comment><comment><USER26> ICANN, despite its imperfection, is infinitely better than having control of the DNS by the UN or the ITU who are exceptionally self-serving and controlled by corporate interests.

Thought of course I'd have preferred it stay with DoC under its benevolent and almost entirely hands-off stewardship.

<comment><USER11> Then you must be glad that they are not handing ICANN to UN, ITU or any other pre-existing organization.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> > "The proposal will significantly increase the power of foreign governments > over the Internet," warned a letter signed by several Republican senators, > including former Presidential hopeful, Ted Cruz.

This article raises a rather serious political (but also philosophical) question mark over diffuse concepts like "government" and "foreign", in the context of Internet. I honestly don't know what is the current status of citizenship and territoriality nowadays in a "place" (is the Internet really a place? ) as fluid, fuzzy and multi-layered as this one we are discussing.

</comment><comment><USER28> It feels like this is a battle (maybe "battle" is too strong of a word) over "who will control the single, traffic-coordinating bean". Where as we can instead create - by convention not law/authority - a whole new set of decentralized "beans", no? For example, can a competing, decentralized equivalent to DNS be leveraged which right out of the gate leverages ipv6, allows for easier-tom-implem,ent decentralized nodes, etc.? I'm not saying this is easy...but surely it could assuage any concerns over control of conventional DNS, no?

<comment><USER29> You can already create that.

The problem is getting everyone else to configure their systems to use it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Will domains still be taken offline for various "copyright" reasons?

</comment><comment><USER31> I don't see how this changes anything since it will still be in US jurisdiction. Rules will be bent when it matters.

<comment><USER32> At least it's better than to let a KGB-run dictatorship have any say in the matter, especially considering their aggressive foreign policy.

<comment><USER31> Always a matter of perspective. I get the dictatorship part, but it's certainly not US who can berate others for 'aggressive foreign policy'.

<comment><USER33> Yeah. "Aggressive foreign policy" is probably not the right issue to be raising here for a variety of reasons.

I would think that the real pressing issue is Internet censorship. And on this issue the U.S. really does have a very good track record compared to a lot of the other countries who might want to control ICANN. [http://map.opennet.net/](http://map.opennet.net/)

<comment><USER34> That good track record is because the US is so far ahead in pervasive large- scale Internet eavesdropping and intelligence gathering. It's counter- productive to block stuff when you want more data.

<comment><USER35> As much as I dislike excessive surveillance, it's worth pointing out that defenders of free speech far outweigh proponents of gathering data for eavesdropping. Of course, the USA enjoyed free speech before the internet existed. It's one of our strongest values. I partly grew up abroad and have friends in numerous countries where people do not have the right to speak their mind, and this should not be taken lightly. Again, I am not a fan of the extensive surveillance, but the "good track record" does not have its foundation in eavesdropping.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> The wall street journal had a similar article yesterday: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12306470](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12306470)

</comment><comment><USER37> I wish the article would stop using "Icann" for ICANN. Who proof-read this article?

<comment><USER38> _Who proof-read this article?_

Someone who knows how to follow the BBC style guide.

ICANN is pronounced "I can" not "I. C. A. N. N." so they write Icann.

edit: See "Acronyms" section in [http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/journalism/article/art201307021...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/journalism/article/art20130702112133530)

<comment><USER39> They include among their exceptions to that rule "looks like a typo".

<comment><USER40> Presumably if you're used to the BBC's style (and this style is much more common generally in the UK than in the US - many of the major newspapers spell acronyms similarly) it doesn't look like a typo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> US might be becoming less and less free every passing year but is likely to remain far more freer than rest of world for years to come.

I think this is bad idea. The rest of the world consists of China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, UK, Russia. I don't want them to have any say in the naming system.

<comment><USER42> Right, lets just forget about Canada, or South America, Africa, Europe, Oceania, the rest of the Middle and Far East, the other countries on the Arabian peninsula and pretty much most of Asia. Lets just pretend the other 252 countries don't exist, are all equally terrible and for whatever reason obviously don't deserve to have a say in any of this.

<comment><USER41> "Deserve" is a pretty big word to use here. No country deserves anything. And also I am not sure why USA should give up anything because some other country feel entitled. Congo or Myanmar will not have much of a say in how internet is managed compared to China or Saudi Arabia. But it would affect all internet users.

Once USA gives up this control it can not take it back and hence I think USA should not give it up.</comment></comment></comment>


Save the Link [EU link tax law] - <AUTHOR> https://savethelink.org/ <comment><AUTHOR> It eventually links to youcan.fixcopyright.eu, which provides much better details (it is a survey/public consultation that ends on June 15 2016, with a 'Why should I care?' section)

Maybe I should've submitted that one instead: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11888978](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11888978)

</comment><comment><USER2> Terrible link, why don't you link to a page saying what's so terrible about this proposed law?

Edit: oh my bad, there actually is some content way down the page. Couldn't see it through all the scrolljacking going on. What happened to pages with plain text you could read and scroll through...

</comment><comment><USER3> I would like a simple explanation of why links are in danger and this page doesn't to that</comment>


A brief history of the German language - <AUTHOR> http://www.pangeanic.com/knowledge_center/a-brief-history-of-the-german-language/#.VmPdbokNaqo.hackernews <comment><USER2> Whoever wrote that article should have concentrated on getting to grips with the English language first, before looking further afield.</comment>


A Shark on the Network - <AUTHOR> http://blog.nodenexus.com/2014/11/28/a-shark-on-the-network/ <comment><USER2> A locksmith came to let me back into my apartment the other day. He told me that because the front lock was a 'commercial' lock, he'd have to charge me $50 extra. I asked him if he would charge the same if he used the same lock- picking technique on a residential lock (since this was a residence); he said yes. So then I asked him what was so special about a bump key for this lock versus a residential lock, since they're both just blanks cut to five-nines and this lock has no anti-bump pin. He said, nothing special. So I asked him, since the bump key works exactly the same on either lock, why was he charging me an extra $50?

He ended up dropping the extra.

Security is not a Dark Art, and there is no harm in teaching people how or why attacks work. If you can find it at a bookstore or via a Google search, it's safe to disseminate to the general public via blog.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is pretty standard wireshark stuff; showing data that was on an unencrypted network.

What I've been wondering about for a while now is, can wireshark show data on an encrypted network, assuming it has the key? Can wireshark take a known WEP/WPA2 key and use it to decrypt the packets on an encrypted network on the fly? I haven't found any CLI's or GUI's that have been able to do this out of the box. But surely someone has made this somewhere.

Wireshark is straightforward for revealing data on unencrypted wireless, but I haven't discovered how it could be used to monitor network users when someone has deciphered the key unbeknownst to the users who assume they are operating on an encrypted network such as WEP/WPA2.

Does the nature of the encrypted handshake make this impossible?

<comment><USER4> You can decrypt keys in wireshark once you have the key, you can also provide a key to wireshark to decrypt streams on the fly using said key.

[http://wiki.wireshark.org/HowToDecrypt802.11](http://wiki.wireshark.org/HowToDecrypt802.11)

<comment><USER3> Thanks, I'd been wondering this in the back of my head for a while, last time I searched for some reason I couldn't find much.

edit: Now that I see the wiki, I remember correctly that the version of Linux I was using didn't work with this feature in the GUI. Maybe I'll look for the CLI version again soon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I feel like there is a major opening for access point makers to simplify 802.1x rollout for all networks. Now it requires a whole bunch of steps only IT admins can do (RADIUS server, etc).

Maybe your new Dlink router comes with an 'app' which generates unique logins (with optional expiration times) that you can give out to users. There's a whole market of coffeeshop/restaurant wifi providers but they usually use no/shared encryption and a captive portal for managing authentication. That's great for dispensing logins and handling expirations, but is horrible for your user's security and user experience.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm always connected to a VPN that I set up on throwaway cloud servers from AWS, digitalocean, or whatever your preference is. Even on my phone.

So all you'd see from me is encrypted stuff being sent to a random IP address.

<comment><USER7> How do you do this?

<comment><USER8> [https://github.com/jlund/streisand](https://github.com/jlund/streisand) is a nice and quick way to achieve this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The author seems to be making the assumption that the "target" is an unencrypted network. They provide no information on wireless network security and its effects on the attack and the conditions that need to be met for someone to be able and perform it.

Protected networks require more effort depending on the method used, WEP is utterly broken, WPA/WPA2 can be broken but require considerably more effort and processing power. More concrete methods exists (802.1x) but are almost never used outside enterprise or educational facilities.

Finally, the chances that reversing an ip address will result in a correct hostname is most likely never the case.

The author is either very ill informed on how wireless networks actually work or is trying to make people scared without explaining why these things happen and how they can protect themselves - any of which I really do not like.

<comment><USER9> There are many unencrypted networks around: hotels, cafes, hotspots at airports and train stations, inside trains and planes and even cities start to provide their own wireless networks. And I expect less than 10% of the regular users to use VPNs or to keep track of only using HTTPS (or secure connections on other protocols).

<comment> at-fates-hands Also keep in mind a lot of people have their phones/laptops set to join any available wireless networks without asking them, making a spoofing attack a lot more easier.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So I don't know anything about this stuff but looking at the XKCD example it looks really easy to see virtually everything my neighbours are doing on the web. What am I missing? Or is it really this insecure to use wireless?

<comment><USER11> >What am I missing?

Encryption. Your neighbours hopefully have protected their wifi with a password. This prevents casual snooping but of course can't really keep out a dedicated attacker. There are automated tools to break WPA encryption.

Additionally, if your neighbours are browsing using SSL/TLS then you theoretically cannot eavesdrop on those sessions.

<comment><USER12> You'd see their dns lookups.

<comment><USER10> So basically I can see if my neighbours are surfing on porn sites regardless of WPA or SSL/TLS?

<comment><USER13> If you break their WPA, then yes, you can see which servers they connect to. For your purpose that possibly would be enough to know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've been thinking about this a lot lately. The ideal solution seems to be to encrypt traffic between all hosts on the local network. Are there any good resources for how to setup IPSEC or something on a local wifi network?

<comment><USER15> The solution already exists in the form of WPA2-Enterprise auth (802.1x), but support is still fairly sparse on consumer devices like cheaper WiFi routers or media streamers. It's also difficult to configure and manage, for the average user.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> "If you're wondering why the network card has access to all messages on the network, consider that you need to see every message in order to determine which ones you are supposed to receive." Whuuut

<comment><USER17> This is how Ethernet works. Wireless is somewhat similar to a hub vs a switch. The spectrum is mostly a shared medium, just like 10baseT networks, or Ethernet hubs.

<comment><USER18> People forget this. You can make your wireless AP as secure as you want, but if we're plugged into the same node with our cable modems, you can just run a regular packet sniffer with ARP poisoning and see all the traffic to your neighbors. Not sure if that works with DSL connections or not.

<comment><USER17> Mostly not possible. DSL has multiple deployment modes PPP (over Ethernet or ATM), Bridged, and routed-bridge encapsulation (RBE).

The upstream router at the ISP is usually connected to an ATM or Frame Relay link, where they create virtual circuits to the DSLAM for each customer/modem (DSLAM is the last "network" device between your DSL modem and the telco -- it's the thing doing the Analog/Digital conversion from ATM/FR/Ethernet to electrical signals on the copper pair).

Since DSL works over a copper pair (phone lines), and you already know phone lines are not shared with your neighbors, there is no chance in intercepting your neighbors traffic over DSL, without someone physically splicing.

However, when ISP router is in plain bridge mode (i doubt anybody does this any longer, RBE so much more effective), there is possibility that the router floods packets for addresses it doesn't know, just like a switch does when it doesnt know where a certain MAC address is. This would broadcast that frame out across all the "virtual circuits". Most DSL modems would then also filter this, so unlikely you would still be able to observe it, unless you had control over the DSL modem/bridge itself.

<comment><USER19> Sadly a bunch of modems have the admin panel accesible from the WAN side, probably with the factory password or something the ISP sets to all same devices.

You still need to known your neighbors' public ip address, but the problem may be significantly reduced: "hey want to check my cool app?" Boom!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I thought the small write up on D3 was more interesting than the capture aspect.

[http://d3js.org/](http://d3js.org/)

</comment><comment><USER21> Can somebody explain all the brown on that HostShark circle gif? Looks like >90% of the requests are going to xo.net, an ISP.

[http://blog.nodenexus.com/assets/img/hostshark.gif](http://blog.nodenexus.com/assets/img/hostshark.gif)

<comment><USER22> DNS?

<comment><USER21> Maybe that's part of it, but it's <=1 DNS request per domain request so no more than half that circle should be DNS requests. In practice it's far, far less because web browsing typically has numerous requests per domain (e.g. loading images off facebook.com).

My best guess is VPN. Maybe that's how they link Princeton campuses together or something.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> What bothers me is that neither the author nor anyone here metioned that HTTPS _does_ leak metadata in the form of the SNI extension which provides the server with the requested host before the cert exchange.

<comment><USER24> And even without SNI (e.g. IE on XP), there must be only one SSL site hosted on that particular IP, so the attacker can just connect to it and see what site (s)he gets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> kismet ?

</comment><comment><USER26> "A Shark on the Network" is more appropriate than "How to listen in on wireless network traffic" for this particular post. If it's a "how to listen in...", I would expect the article to introduce better passive attacks (in monitor mode) and raw packet injection attacks that don't require you to be associated to a particular access point, and finally the different wifi chipsets that allow you to perform these types of attacks.

<comment><USER27> This.

I was hoping to read some recommendations on chipsets that are able to monitor multiple channels simultaneously.. but then it was just another misleading headline.</comment></comment>


User research - <AUTHOR>

Can someone provide me with a list (or suggestions) for companies in the UK which specialise in ethnographic research? <comment><USER2> <http://www.naked-eye-research.co.uk/>

</comment><comment><USER3> www.userresearch.co.uk</comment>


Our Startup Would Probably Die If We Were In San Francisco - <AUTHOR> http://needwant.com/p/our-startup-would-die-if-we-were-in-san-francisco/ <comment><USER2> It's probably obvious to most, but I recently came to the realization that if you're paying off debt, a high COL works in your favor, whereas if you're living off cash, it works against you.

That means that if you're fresh out of college with lots of student loans, you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't move to a big city and get a high paying job. You can effectively inflate your way out of your debt by making your salary much bigger in comparison (assuming COL and salaries roughly match up).

And if you're about to retire (without having Fuck You Money), you should move somewhere cheap, all else equal. The same could be true for many bootstrapped startups.

<comment><USER3> That only works out if the salary you can make increases in proportion with the cost of living. I haven't lived in a lot of places, but at least based on the few cities I have lived in, I don't believe the two are anywhere near that tightly correlated.

For example, consider Milwaukee vs. Chicago. Chicago's a major finance and banking center, and a huge percentage of the people living there are in some kind of profession. Milwaukee's still mostly a blue collar town. This difference shows in the very different costs of living: An apartment in Milwaukee costs about half of what an equivalent one costs in Chicago, restaurants cost less for similar quality meals, drinks are _way_ cheaper, etc.

But it does not follow that you can earn twice as much money working as a developer in Chicago. The same job in Chicago might pay a bit better, but the difference is modest. This is because the two cities are so close to each other that at least in tech they're essentially the same job market. There's even a busy commuter train connecting the two cities.

In short, it's not necessarily doing yourself a disservice if you don't move to a big city and get a high paying job. You might do yourself an even better service by moving to a small city and getting a high paying job.

<comment><USER4> There is a bit of a fallacy going on here. If your housing costs 2x of another place it does not follow that the total COL is 2x. For instance, most cost of living calculations predict that even though housing is 85% higher in Chicago, the total cost of living is more like 28%.

A 28% salary differential is just about right for the last couple of jobs I looked at and maybe a bit lower. This also doesn't count for the choice differential between Chicago and Milwaukee which is extreme.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think this all depends if you're really a "startup" or not. As per Paul Graham's definition: [http://paulgraham.com/growth.html](http://paulgraham.com/growth.html). Just because you're starting something up doesn't mean you're really swinging for the fences for a big home run. But if you are, your survival depends on deal- making and hardcore talent, so you're at a huge disadvantage by not being in a major tech hub.

But if you're focused on building a 7 or low 8-figure business, bootstrapped, and self-funded, and your goal is financial independence/freedom instead of "changing the world", totally agree, starting up outside of SF is a great way to build up and earn those first stripes.

I live in San Diego and there are lots of internet millionaires here: [http://helenchangwriter.com/2009/11/20/millionaire- internet-...](http://helenchangwriter.com/2009/11/20/millionaire-internet- marketing-entrepreneurs-thrive-in-san-diego/)

<comment><USER6> Wow, this comment really stopped and made me think. I honestly used to think "startup" was used for any new business with an unusual, efficient way of doing business.

Now that I know how HN people define it, I guess my inclinations are way more towards small business than startup.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Counterfactuals are very hard to know. At CircleCI, being in SF gave numerous advantages early on. We had multiple paying customers in the first two office buildings. We had multiple customers within walking distance, and many more within cycling distance. Being able to talk to real customers using the app was extremely valuable.

Customers aside, there are tons of people willing to help, either through advice or introductions. There's an entire ecosystem who understand startups, and have been there.

My failed started before that was in Austin, Tx, and the startup density just wasn't there at the time (2009).

Not every developer in SF is as mercenary as you make it sound. For your first employee hire, you might find a single person living in an apartment in SF vs. a family man in St. Louis who has to pay for day care and save for college. Their salary requirements might be comparable. [Edit: my point here is not to say that SF people are only single, and STL people only have kids, but that salaries are a distribution, and that there are places where the SF and STL distributions overlap, based on the individual's experience, desires and stage in their life.]

<comment><USER8> "Not every developer in SF is as mercenary as you make it sound. For your first employee hire, you might find a single person living in an apartment in SF vs. a family man in St. Louis who has to pay for day care and save for college. Their salary requirements might be comparable."

This is based on a ridiculous premise:

1) That a highly paid professional in a city BRIMMING with recruiters and cool new companies throwing themselves at them isn't going to respond to market pressures and/or "the shiny new company" effect when you reach a certain growth point

2) That a "family man in St. Louis" will cost something comparable due to this odd concept unique to flyover country of having a family.... oh wait, people in the Bay Area have kids too.

I'm sorry, but there is a huge amount of delusion in San Fran about the advantages of physical proximity. I'm not idiotic enough to believe there aren't huge advantages, but it seems as if there is absolutely no point (that HN folks are willing to acknowledge) where the cost of being in San Fran and having to pay your talent at grossly inflated rates actually MORE THAN CANCELS OUT the benefits.

<comment><USER9> There is some quantitative truth to what he said, actually. San Francisco does have more single people than other cities, and in fact has almost 12% more single people than St. Louis does. So probabilistically speaking, there is a higher chance that someone you hire in SF will be single (and therefore more likely to put in looong hours) than someone you hire in St. Louis (who may be strict in going home at 5pm to be with family).

Source: SF has 44.7% single people, St. Louis has 32.9% single people

[http://www.bestplaces.net/docs/studies/solocities_list1.asp](http://www.bestplaces.net/docs/studies/solocities_list1.asp)

<comment><USER8> Good point, but I think we all know that long hours aren't sustainable day after day after day.

As a guy who has worked 13 hour days while having a kid when it was required (as well as 2 night binges on the weekends prior to a Monday launch), I do get sick of the "less likely to work late when its needed" stigma against married people. I'll work late when its needed, in bursts. What I won't do is work 80 hours a week for 3 months so my boss can continue on with the delusion that I'm being as productive as 2 people working 40. We all know that's bullshit, and science says so.

Its funny, because the 20 something single guys I work with (anecdotal of course) don't seem to be willing to sacrifice personal time. They'll work late on a Tuesday, but getting them to work late on a Friday or come in on a Saturday? Not happening.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've thought a lot about this and I feel like it makes sense pre-seed to do this. Save the cash, invest it in the business, and then when you raise money move to San Francisco/Bay Area. It's really tough to grow outside of SF, I feel like. But if you're bootstrapping yourself... Then I can't see many reasons to come to SF.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed, San Francisco is probably the worst place to be if you want to bootstrap.

<comment><USER11> I don't think so. There are so many early adopter, visionary customers here you can sign up on spec to pay you to develop your product.

<comment><USER12> Assuming your product appeals to the type of consumers or businesses that inhabit San Francisco.

<comment><USER11> What kind of businesses aren't in the Bay Area that you'd want to target?

<comment><USER4> Off the top of my head: large banks, insurance companies, automotive, military contracting, commodity agriculture & energy.

[Edit] Actually, this made me think, what precisely is in the bay area that I'd want to target. The obvious answer is companies whose major priorities are VC and/or other acquisition events and the ecosystem they create.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Staying somewhere cheap gives you a tangible advantage but also puts you at several intangible disadvantages. At my first startup in the UK, we decided to base out of Birmingham instead of London, which reduced our living expenses by 70% and allowed us to really stretch our seed funding. But we ended up having to commute to London frequently for important meetings. Also, one could argue that we might have accomplished more in less time had we had continuous access to expertise and contacts at scale. Eager to hear other thoughts and experiences.

<comment><USER14> It all depends on the type of business you are in and at what stage your company is at. I'm a freelancer but I have staff. My office is based outside the city, but all my work comes from clients in Manchester and London, UK. The major cities are where the opportunities, networking and money comes from. My sacrifice for cheaper living means higher travel costs, longer work hours and in some cases less credibility. For myself, the offset of living in a low crime area with better schools works for me. But, I can understand why startups decide to work in expensive areas. Wealth breeds wealth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've often wondered why startups locate in the SF/Bay area instead of elsewhere.

Right now outside of truly hot tech areas like SF the hiring scene is stacked heavily in employers' favor: there are fewer job opportunities with fewer companies. That's true even in places like St. Louis (or Austin, or any of a number of other supposedly "hot startup" areas). I get some recruiter-spam from St. Louis and Austin based recruiters looking for candidates for "hot" startups and established businesses in the areas, but these opportunities are all with hospital/medical companies (STL) or corporate-y .NET type stuff (Austin). It's a bit baffling, actually, since my resume pretty clearly puts me far outside of those boxes.

It seems to me there's an opportunity there for would-be startups to exploit. On the other hand, the very same phenomenon leads to a kind of resistance: the density of "talent" to draw from reduces substantially outside of the SF/Bay area because a lot of it has already been drawn here to the very same job imbalance.

<comment><USER16> "I've often wondered why startups locate in the SF/Bay area instead of elsewhere."

For a non-trivial number of startups, the founders were already working at a big tech company in the Bay Area before they started their own company.

For others it's access to investors or really critical employees. If you want someone who can build Amazon/Facebook/Google-scale datacenters, you're not going to have much luck in St. Louis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The problem is that the massively funded SF/SV start-ups will create the "scorched earth" regime for the bootstrapped ones: try moving to St. Louis and compete with a AirBnB from there? If you get traction, you will have to get VC money, which means moving back to SF or NY.

<comment><USER8> Why do VCs require companies to be in the city they are in? Can someone please explain this? We are talking about an industry whose product is supposed to transcend physical space, but we have to be located in an ultra expensive city to get funded? Where is the logic?

<comment><USER18> Everything we do as human beings (pretty much) is all about people. So think in people terms, not purely resource or financial terms.

People like proximity, they like being able to pop in and see other people. Distance is friction from a business point of view. Just as we see friction in applications as bad, so do business people see friction in business as bad. Distance is friction.

I'm bootstrapping in the UK, I love SF and would love to be there (at least part of the year!), there are a lot of advantages to having that much contact with other startups.

However, interestingly I notice that people who do what suits them best often seem to overcome geographic and financial obstacles. So I certainly wouldn't want to recommend or even suggest one way as better than the other.

You've got to balance what's right for you with what is right for others.

On a completely different note it would be great if we could swap the word 'funded' with debt everywhere it's used :-) The two words have very different connotations but mean the same thing (unless someone is just willing to GIVE you money :)) I think the word debt helps people to make more sober judgements.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> You should have moved to Oakland. There's plenty of cheap real estate there, and it's on BART.

<comment><USER20> Is there actually "plenty of cheap real estate" in Oakland?

<comment><USER21> Depends on what you call "cheap" hahahaha

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I've known a few businesses who "HQ" out of a big city, but usually just with a small sales office. Then they hire almost all of the rest of their staff in very cheap, but talent filled areas.

One mistake I've seen over and over again, don't hire your customer facing staff in those cheaper areas. You really want sales staff/etc. To be in the same area as your customer base

<comment><USER23> What areas do you consider to be very cheap and talent filled? I always assumed that the expensive areas are expensive because well paid talent is driving up the cost of living (though city attitude towards construction plays a large role as well).

<comment><USER22> Well, depends on what you consider cheap and talented I suppose. For example, there are loads of people in Portland and the surrounding area that are employable for far less than you'd get in the Bay Area (by about 35%). You have to work at it though, it's not as bad as offshoring, but you can't half- ass it. The talent won't go as high as the Bay Area, but you'll probably be able to find folks good enough to make the kind of CRUD apps most of us are making anyways.

Here's a list and the cost of living delta vs. San Francisco (which translates into direct salary costs for your business).

       Portland, OR - 35% cheaper
       Nashville, TN - 80% cheaper
       Atlanta, GA - 70%
       Miami, FL - 50%
       Tampa, FL - 70%
       Huntsville, AL - 70%
       Northern, VA - 20%
       Blacksburg, VA - 60%
       Charlottesville, VA - 50%
       Virginia Beach, VA - 60%
       Fredericksburg - 40%
       Richmond - 60%
       Williamsburg - 50%
       Phoenix, AZ - 70%
       Columbus, OH - 80%
       Tri-cities area, WA - 70%
       Boston, MA - 20%
       Newark, NJ - 25%
       Austin, TX - 70%
       San Antonio, TX - 80%
       Ft Meade, MD - 30%
       Chicago, IL - 40%
       Minneapolis, MN - 50%
       Las Vegas, NV - 60%

Off the top of my head, if you can't hire people in Austin, Nashville, or Las Vegas, you're doing it wrong. All of those have large tech industries and/or are near large cities with big populations. Nashville is near both a big city and a major national lab. They're also cheap enough that you can basically hire two people for the price of one in San Francisco.

<comment><USER15> Well, I've lived/worked in a couple of the locations on your list. I'll just say this: I think we have very different notions of what "large tech industry" means. I don't consider Tampa, FL or just about any of the VA listings to have "large" tech industries. Tampa's is especially slim, driven mainly by a couple of hospitals, the university, and a few defense/government contractors. VA's are driven mainly by defense/government contractors (having been there once, I'd not choose it again except as a last resort, and then only reluctantly) and some finance.

<comment><USER22> If you don't think Northern VA or South East VA are large tech industries, then we have very different dictionaries. NoVA/D.C. is only the home to the second largest tech center in the country, larger than NYCs. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a tech company of any size along the Dulles tech corridor. With a 5% unemployment rate, there are literally thousands of job openings there, the demand is unbelievably high. If that doesn't qualify as a large tech industry, then nothing does.

Blacksburg and Charlottesville have all the advantages of a place like MIT or Stanford. Nice STEM focused college towns full of ready to work STEM students who'd love to stay in those towns and low costs of living. If you want to open a remote office, those are good places to do it.

Tampa has a sizable tech industry as well. If you didn't notice it, it's because you, like most people, aren't paying attention or you've dismissed every possible company you could have worked for because it wasn't in with the cool crowd. I wonder how many folks in Tampa wouldn't mind working for Tampa pay but get equity in an SV startup?

Here's 5 minutes of looking for Tampa tech companies. If there's companies, there's tech employees you can hire for your company. Tech companies can't exist where there aren't people they can hire. ( _all_ of these had open tech positions and I didn't even look for non-tech companies with open tech positions)

       - http://www.actsoft.com/
       - http://www.connectwise.com/
       - http://www.e-ins.net/
       - http://www.fairwarning.com/
       - http://www.syniverse.com/home
       - ...

you know what...screw the list, here's 7 _thousand_ developer position near Tampa [http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=software+developer&l=Tam...](http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=software+developer&l=Tampa%2C+FL)

I bet most of these are for some boring insurance company, healthcare or real estate company. How many people do you think you can find who want to work for a SV company and get SV startup perks?

Here's Nashville with almost 7,000 more open positions.

[http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=software+developer&l=Nas...](http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=software+developer&l=Nashville%2C+TN)

 _Portland_ , a tech friendly city, only has twice as many openings.

[http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=software+developer&l=Por...](http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=software+developer&l=Portland%2C+OR)

Guess who has more open positions on this board? San Francisco or Washington D.C.?

[http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=software+developer&l=san...](http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=software+developer&l=san+francisco)

[http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=software+developer&l=Was...](http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=software+developer&l=Washington%2C+DC)

The point is that there is plenty of tech industry all over the place, and people in those areas can be hired at fractions of San Francisco's going rates.

People also don't like working in boring shitty jobs and the allure of working for a startup, with high payout equity can be a good alternative, if it's offered to them.

But Silicon Valley Myopia makes it impossible to see this. It's easier to sell hiring in Hyderabad than in Austin sometimes, and that's a shame.

While I see posts on San Francisco's labor shortage and the desire to get more H-1B visas, I can't help think of the hundreds of thousands of qualified tech employees all over the rest of the country. It's not expensive to set up a remote office and not hard to manage one either. If a SV startup can spin a photo sharing site as "changing the world" they can spin opening a remote office in Alabama as a an actual world changer.

Here's a very relevant example [https://gaganpreet.github.io/hn-hiring- mapped/src/web/](https://gaganpreet.github.io/hn-hiring-mapped/src/web/)

<comment><USER15> First, I'm not in the "cool crowd" here in the Valley, nor am I particularly interested in it. I actually _enjoy_ writing C++ code, and developing in C++ code bases. It excites me to see compiler errors that break my terminal's scroll history almost as much as to see a successful build, I get a bit giddy whenever I have the opportunity to fire up gdb, and I enjoy the prospect of trying to design a system with a multithreaded or parallel execution model (although I wouldn't rate myself as being highly skilled at the latter). I think we share similar views with respect to SV's myopia regarding hiring practices.

That said, suffice to say that I view quality as mattering at least as much as quantity when it comes to making these comparisons.

The kinds of jobs you describe, with some exceptions of course, are analogous to Wal-Marts or Target jobs in retail. Sure, one might say that _technically_ there is a "large retail industry" in an area filled with Targets and Wal- Marts, but one wouldn't say it's a very good industry that attracts the best retail talent, and admittedly I suppose that's something I implicitly include when I determine what constitutes "large" or not.

<comment><USER22> Yeah, I think we can definitely agree on that point. The offerings available for the average tech worker in a Nashville obviously aren't going to be as good as for SV.

But it wouldn't take too many companies hiring in these places either to create a reasonable ecosystem of high quality jobs. Airbnb, Getaround, Aerohive, Prosper and Palantir are all trying to fill hundreds of positions.

A "startup park" in Nashville and Austin, offering low rent or favorable taxes to SV and local startups would allow these companies to setup 10-50 person dev shops very quickly. People get to stay where they want to, companies fill their positions and local economies get to attract/retain high-end tech workers. Repeat for growth and eventually you'll hit a self-sustaining critical mass and now you have "the SV of Texas" or "the SV of Cumberland River" or whatever.

My point is not that there _are_ sexy cool jobs in these areas, but there is a sufficiently trained labor pool that it's not hard for your sexy cool company to setup an office and hire a group of 10 developers and a manager and offload some of your CRUD work to be developed at 60-70% the original cost.

The problem is that SV startups keep acting like this is some kind of intractable problem, but it's honestly not all that hard (source: I've set up 3 remote offices in the past for just this kind of work).

<comment><USER15> It is something of a feedback loop.

I think my last comment may have implied a bit of disdain for the quality of talent in non-SV places. That isn't the case. I agree with you, I think, that the number and quality of talent outside of SV is sufficient to sustain almost any startup in theory. In practice, purely for artificial reasons, it doesn't hold.

There are two barriers to reaching the "critical mass" you note outside of the valley:

1\. The "critical mass" in SV of "interesting," "good" (or whatever favorite positive adjective might apply) is just huge. Even the least interesting corporate-y jobs are strongly influenced by the culture here, and that is a big draw for talent from bottom to top. That's all I really meant, earlier: the density of "good" jobs here is very large.

2\. SV is (over-?)run with people who--and this is another of my unpopular opinions around here--have huge egos. I mean spectacularly huge egos. I come from a background of academic research (very mathematical in nature). Yet I never saw such egos as I've seen in this industry. The barrier here is something of a self-imposed psychological one, I think: the fact is that the vast majority of startups don't need even a single person who has an advanced, in-depth, and broad understanding of mathematics, data structures, algorithms, or basically anything else in academic CS, but they seem to treat it as the minimum necessary element to hire. The armchair psychologist in me opines that the interview process in this industry is more about certain people trying to impress themselves or prop their own egos up instead of just accepting that working on some shopping cart, ad analytics platform, or generic-social-media- app-X just isn't that complicated (speaking academically/intellectually here). They don't want to think they're working on something that is _academically_ trivial, and so they engage in employee selection processes that reinforce the view that everything they do is super intellectual and requires only the best minds from the CS world to succeed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It'd be interesting to see the OP's thoughts on how things would be different if he hadn't started in San Francisco? It may be expensive to live there, but it may be easier to network enough to get the contacts/experience/buzz you need to get seen, compared to starting in St. Louis.

</comment><comment><USER25> There's also the fact that California is regularly at the bottom of rankings of "business friendly" states. I'd rather locate my business in a state that wants me there.

<comment><USER26> I've never understood these "business friendly" rankings. If CA is so terrible to businesses, then why are there so many successful businesses in CA?

<comment><USER27> "Positive network externalities":

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

The bay area has 1) a large, talented workforce, 2) great universities, 3) lots of venture capital, as well as people who have "already done it" to give advice. Plus it's a nice place to live if you don't mind the traffic. Granted, opening an LLC costs X compared to a much cheaper Y in Nevada, but that's ultimately kind of small potatoes compared to all the things in California's favor.

That said, I'm more interested in bootstrapping something: what people like patio11, Rob Walling and company have achieved doesn't look like science fiction, and they're doing it in places that are not Silicon Valley.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This comparison is impossible to do in any quantifiable sense. The cost savings for leaving SF are quantitative (low rent. lower taxes. etc). The perks for staying in SF are much more abstract (better networking. increased visibility). I don't mean to imply the SF perks aren't worth it, but they will only be quantifiable in hindsight at best.

</comment><comment><USER29> SF vs Austin, COL vs salary difference - deciding between the two in the next few weeks - please help me choose!

<comment><USER11> If you want to be an entrepreneur, there's no choice at all. You have to move to the bay area.

<comment><USER4> Correction, if you want to be a bay area VC backed entrepreneur. Oddly there are businesses started in other parts of the world.

<comment><USER11> Sure - thats my impression of him.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Er, to be a startup you have to be in a hot, happening city. Otherwise you're just a new business.</comment>


Inc Magazine: "Lucky things happen to entrepreneurs who start fundamentally innovative, morally compelling, and philosophically positive companies." - <AUTHOR> http://www.inc.com/magazine/20050101/lucky-or-smart.html <comment><AUTHOR> I just realized he also has a 58 page book called Lucky or Smart [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/140006290X/104-7347251-5666331?v=glance&s;=books&n;=507846](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/140006290X/104-7347251-5666331?v=glance&s=books&n=507846)

Contents: Chapter 1: Start a company that is innovative, morally compelling and philosophically positive; this will attract smart, motivated people that will do great things because they are smart and motivated (Enron aside)

Chapter 2: you are born an entrepreneur or a manager - accept who you are because you cannot change

Chapter 3: entrepreneurs are B students, managers are A students - unfortunately I was a B student in high school and an A student in college, something the author does not address

Chapter 4: strive to be good enough to survive; if you do you will be bought by a company that can make you great; but don't be great on your own or you will not survive

Chapter 5: have faith

Chapter 6: don't take no for an answer

Chapter 7: entrepreneurs don't have power - "get used to it"

Chapter 8: stay calm and be gracious in difficult situations

Chapter 9: read the WSJ daily, the NY times on Sunday and pick one other reputable weekly or monthly business magazine - and don't read any other form of press

Chapter 10: always sell

Chapter 11: know what you don't know

Here are excerpts from Amazon reviews:

Review 1:

"This small book from the founder of Tripod is worth the hour it will take you to read it. Peabody was a `B' student and suggests that successful entrepreneurs are almost always `B' students: good at lots of things, experts at none. To compensate, `B' student entrepreneurs need to hire `A' student managers (and coders and VPs), who are excellent a one or two things, to successfully take a startup to maturity. This revelation is not rocket science, and not an entirely new concept either, but it is very interesting to hear how this strategy played out for Peabody and Tripod.

Even though he made millions, Peabody does not boast or make the silly claim-- like many Internet millionaires--to have known all along that he was destined for greatness. In fact he is quite humble: he readily admits he was making a lot of his business strategy up as he went along, and that with Tripod, it could have just as easily gone the other way and ended in failure.

The three salient lessons from this very short memoir of an entrepreneur: work very hard, hire the right people, and be smart enough to know when you are getting lucky."

Review 2:

"The advice he gives is mainly for Type-A personality entrepreneurs; Risk- taking, project-starting individuals whose main focus is getting product out the door so their effort can be called a success.

For anyone who does not fit that mold, this book is not necessarily speaking to you. However, even if its not directed at you, you'll still gain some insight into why people like Peabody behave and think the way they do.

What I liked most:

\-- Always sell. As the person at the top of the organization, always sell.

\-- Recognize which role is naturally in you: Entrepreneur, or Manager, and then excel in that role.

\-- Know what you don't know. Don't try to buffalo your way through things. To me this is part of being intellectually honest."

</comment><comment><USER2> One thing I dislike about the phrase "lucky or smart" is that it excludes a third quality more important than either of those two: energy.

All the successful startup founders I know are lucky, smart, and driven-- but above all, driven.

<comment><AUTHOR> It does indeed say "Lucky or Smart" in the title of the article, but that's not what the article is about. The entire piece is actually about what one should do after they experience luck--mainly, admit it, ride it, and keep their ego in check.

I'm used to ignoring article titles in most publications, as they are always sensationalized (as they should be). A big indicator of whether the title was likely written by an editor instead of the author themselves, or not, is how generic or cliche the title is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> "In 1991, as a college freshman, I had an idea for an online service offering "real life" education to college students: practical advice about jobs, personal finance, and health. I made the simple observations that no one was teaching us these subjects in the classroom, and that computers -- rather than books or TVs -- had become the primary medium of communication and entertainment."

That in itself is extraordinary for a college freshman in 1991.

<comment><AUTHOR> This article is insanely good. It's not a three paragraph blog post, it's a four page article from somebody who was there. Keep reading! :)

<comment><USER3> This guy's behind Village Ventures. Would've never known.

Small world:)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Tripod's Accidental Business Plan:

1\. Hire Smart People

2\. Employees Create Idea + Company

3\. Sell Zero-Value, 1 million user startup for 60M$

4\. New stock goes up 10x further

5\. Sell half a billion in stock 3 months before the crash

6\. Invest it all in real estate

And the author says, it's all luck. He doesn't have an ego.

</comment><comment><USER4> It reminds me of something I once read on a job posting:

"Cornell University is a bold, innovative, inclusive and dynamic teaching and research university where staff, faculty, and students alike are challenged to make an enduring contribution to the betterment of humanity."

<comment><USER2> As an alum, makes me wince. One of those "mission statements" where they have to get too much into one sentence, and it's all generic anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thanks for the article. Bo Peabody is the newest addition to my list of awesome people.

One thing I find contradictory though, is that he says that amazing things happen when smart/inspired people get together, yet Village Ventures funds programs away from VC-filled cities, so companies can work from their local towns. While the argument for the "home setting" is there, this is the direct opposite of YC's mode of operation, and I cannot help but agree with YC more on this one.

Nevertheless, great guy, much respect. He'd make a great speaker not only for entrepreneurship but also life in general.

<comment><USER6> YC is already changing a couple of variables in the funding function, so it probably makes sense to try and not modify the others, if they can help it. Also, 20 somethings are going to be pretty happy in places like Boston or SF. They're fun places to be at that age.

Once you start getting older, though, you either have a _lot_ of money, or those cities are just too expensive. And even with a lot of money, they're a rat race - a millionaire stuck in traffic is just as stuck in traffic as the minimum wage worker in the next car over.

So I'm happy to see someone giving that kind of model a go and wish him the best of luck.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Unfortunately the tech industry is full of ego maniacs who can't work well with others. It's something about working with computers that makes people think they're smarter than everyone else.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's a good article, and he sounds like a smart/decent chap. Funny thing is, from the earliest days, I've learned Pavlovian-like to respond to the word "Tripod" on any webpages by clicking the red "X" as fast as possible. Oh, well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm blown away this article, it is contrarian yet so logical. He comes across as extremly humble yet super smart, driven, and clearly a big winner despite his "good luck." I also love the concept of "knowing what you don't know", as entrepreneurs we must always be aware that we don't have to have the right answers just know how to get to that answer through others. I'm jazzed!

<comment><USER10> I agree with you!

Socrates: "knows more the one that knows that dosen´t know anything, that the one that thinks that knows"

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Great post! I am also buying this guys book! There is a very good book about "luck" but it´s in spanish ("la buena suerte") and I don´t find any english version. Luck only passes through one door, but only we have the key to open it!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Glad you liked it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Did he lose anyone else when he said "Ego is also the culprit when entrepreneurs cling to their role as founder rather than turning their companies over to more capable managers."?

</comment><comment><USER12> Great Article with an unbelievable line- "Thank god they invented the word muffin, or I'd be eating a cupcake for breakfast"

I'm buying this guys book.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Glad you liked it!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Anyone looking for some help writing Python code? - <AUTHOR>

I have about a years experience messing around with Python (built a Django based facebook app, and a few hobby apps), but am relatively new to software engineering. I'm looking to contribute to open source software, and I know the best way is to pick a project of interest on github and contribute to that, but I was really hoping to help out someone who's building something from scratch. Basically looking for a mentor, who I can learn from :) (and I promise to put in the hours and be productive!).<p>Here's hoping I don't get killed for asking this on HN :) <comment><USER2> These guys could always use some help. <https://github.com/django/django> <https://github.com/reddit/reddit> <https://github.com/ipython/ipython> <https://github.com/kemayo/sublime-text-2-git> In all honesty though go find one yourself;consider what interests you or what you would like to learn find a codebase that does it and contribute.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your reply!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Contact me (address in profile) - there are two projects right now that could benefit from fresh eyes - and I will be happy to share some lessons from 15 years in the trenches.

And no, no one on HN will kill for saying you are willing to work hard, have already tried and just want help.

Cheers

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks so much for your reply! Just sent you an email.</comment></comment>


Hacker News comments I'm tired of seeing (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.righto.com/2013/09/9-hacker-news-comments-im-tired-of.html <comment><USER2> My standards are probably different, but I don't feel like I see very much those those kind of comments. Our conversations are really pretty decent in contrast to much of the web.

The overattribution of notable effects and fallacies gets a bit tiring, though. As the article mentions, we love to bring up things like the Dunning- Kruger effect, the Peter Principle, the confirmation bias, etc. Sometimes I don't think people actually know what they're talking about when they say that someone has "confirmation bias"; it's just become a 115 IQ way of saying that the other person is stupid.

When it comes to comments, I see downvote abuse happen a little more frequently than I'd hope. I'm not just complaining about my own comments, but just about every day I see a comment that got downvoted for saying nothing objectively wrong or controversial. It's only a few people abusing the system, really, but it'd still be nice if I noticed such things less often.

<comment><USER3> Tbh, you can blame pg for that. He famously said downvoting to disagree is fine and people have let that reasoning turn into downvoting for almost everything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> When someone cites the Dunning-Kruger Effect I like to counter with the Dunning-Kruger Effect Effect.[1] This also illustrates my own pet-peeve of starting references with index [0].

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12918362](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12918362)

<comment><USER5> As I recall, either Dunning or Kruger also pointed out a long time ago that the effect they were observing shouldn't be seen so much as an indictment of stupid people, but as a warning to anyone who thought they were smart.

<comment><USER4> They had to make that comment because that is _exactly_ how it was and is used, e.g. see ConceptJunkie's reply.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I feel like a lot of 'platitudes' are worth repeating. Again and again, ad nauseum, long past where people are tired of hearing it. Because they're true, but they're very easy to forget.

If platitudes can be used to dismiss most articles out of hand, well, maybe things that look like "interesting news" at first glance are often... not.

My personal list:

\- From the article: Correlation IS NOT causation. This should be written in giant flaming letters above every study. It dismisses almost all of them out of hand.

\- Nearly every judgment you make about somebody is fundamental attribution error. For example, every technical interview ever is nearly fatally flawed. (No, I don't currently have better alternatives.) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error)

\- Goodhart's law. Also known as the tragedy of the OKR. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law)

<comment><USER7> Alas, if we were to stop using these phrases solely because they have been "overused" despite their value, then we risk denying the lucky 10,000 of tomorrow.

[https://xkcd.com/1053/](https://xkcd.com/1053/)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I haven't seen a couple of these recently. Especially the +1 seems to be less popular (personal observation, not backed up by any data).

My addition would be "Oh [based on the title] I thought the article was about [something totally different]" which adds no value to other readers.

<comment><USER8> I check the comments to see if the article is worth reading. That type of comment can be helpful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I agree with most of the list, except this one.

> Comments starting with "No." "Wrong." or "False."

What's wrong with that? If the post you're replying to is wrong and you go on to provide evidence of why it's wrong, then isn't this just clear, unambiguous communication?

I've noticed exchanges here where it's very difficult to tell if a particular comment is intended to agree, disagree or is completely irrelevent to what is being discussed. This is because a lot of comments here are not communicated well due to the programmer's tendency to abstract and ambiguate.

<comment><USER10> For me, it's just being (or seems?) more courteous by changing a common 'No/Wrong. Your idea...' to 'I actually disagree. The reasons being...'

Text makes it difficult to parse tone and intent and we need to adapt accordingly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> As a foreigner getting tech news here, I have learned a lot about the culture from the comments here. If once a kind of comment is said it couldn't be said again, then people would need to dig deep back to learn about those! Overuse is not good of course, but stopping them would be as bad IMHO.

I feel most of those are trying to bring an important point though. "If you are not..." => "What is the monetization strategy?". "Early optimization..." => "Beware, this probably doesn't make sense in your small co", etc.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm tired of blogs and deep analyses, like these, of something as useless as tiresome comments.

How can we keep meaning less, uninteresting content, such as this, off HN? Maybe a blog or deep dive how-to can help?

</comment><comment><USER13> All these are good (to avoid).

I'd add to the comments to that start a certain way: 'nope' I don't know exactly why but I find this phrasing both dismissive and insulting. Also, all those starting with adverbs, like 'Interestingly,...'. Just say what you got to, I say. It hurts the message if what follows isn't interesting at all. Edit: I'm not trying to insult anyone, I just think this kind of formality where one has to justify, verbally, the existence of ones comment is distracting.

I'd also add the gross over- and misuse of italics for emphasis. I'd almost say it was a phenomenon. Like the amount of emphasis italics is inversely proportional to to commenters knowledge of the subject.

</comment><comment><USER14> "If you're not paying for it, you're the product"

Yes. Thank you!

</comment><comment><USER15> Appropriate as ever.

</comment><comment><USER16> I do not think x means what you think it means.

</comment><comment><USER17> From the comments:

 _> I baked a cake in go._

</comment><comment><USER17> The fact that there are some comments that are tiresome doesn't mean that the readership is like that.

Correlation is not causation.

</comment><comment><USER18> No. Who cares?

</comment><comment><USER19> I'd add arguing by using inline quotes. Example:

 _some snippet of text from parent comment_

I disagree because x, y, z.

 _another snippet_

This is wrong because a, b, c.

(End example)

Doing so obliterates context from a position, especially long form comments (which is the main reason I'm here) in two main ways. First, the technique rarely reproduces the parent in its entirety, picking out black and white statements that are easier to argue against from a sea of nuance. Second, it cuts up the narrative in such a way that downplays the rationale of a position by either leaving out reasoning, or placing arguments between the reasoning and the conclusion.

Sure, the readers can go back and reread the parent. But when the structure of an argument _depends_ on those snippets (and it almost always does) it becomes very difficult to grok.

Generally I just see it as a big warning sign that the quoter is more interested in winning than learning or getting to the truth of the matter and thus is best ignored.

<comment><USER20> Maybe it's my age and having come up via years of Usenet where inline quoting was absolutely standard, but I find inline quoting of a discussion helps me keep the flow of discussion. I find it's easier to follow than trying to retain a lengthy parent that a commenter is replying to, also at length.

If it's a long comment it's also likely some commenters are only able to address parts of it - again an inline quote clarifies.

I've never had cause to see it as a warning sign or more likely to be someone scoring points, that's going to happen sometimes with or without inline snippets.

<comment><USER19> I can see that, and perhaps my experience has just been unlucky. I missed usenet by a few years.

<comment><USER20> Hmm, actually something just came to mind where quoting may hinder, though I've seen it with and without. Quoting may help focus on misdirection. Where someone wants to have a good argument rather than have a discussion. More a reddit game than HN but it does sometimes happen here, e.g.

Someone making point with a couple of paragraphs.

Commenter takes one sentence or point to shred, maybe it was a weak example or poorly phrased, to invalidate the whole.

repeat. After a few rounds it's becoming clear they're intentionally avoiding the main point.

Have I just committed the cardinal sin of being wrong on the internet? ;)

<comment><USER19> Well you comitted the blessing of helping me feel heard so hopefully that balances out the sin. :) Exactly my point.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


C++ Language Quick Guide - <AUTHOR> http://viptechworld.blogspot.com/2017/05/cpp-quick-guide-by-vtw.html <comment><USER2> I just want to point out that Stroustrup's A Tour Of C++ is an excellent quick guide and it does include C++11 features.

<comment><USER3> I've found the C++ Standard Library 2nd Edition to be an excellent companion to Stroustrup's Tour of C++. It does a good job of preventing you from reinventing wheels that others have already built for you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Please update the section on storage classes. Auto is no longer a storage class, but a keyword for automatic type deduction. Also, register has recently been deprecated as well, if I remember correctly.

<comment><USER4> This appears to be a C++03 guide, as it doesn't mention any C++11 features (no range based for). To be fair it is definitely a "quick" guide, and doesn't cover enough to actually be productive in C++ (pointers\memory allocation and references are missing...), but you're right that auto and register are the only things that appear to be explicitly wrong, instead of wrong by omission.

<comment><USER5> _doesn 't cover enough to actually be productive_

Well probably it would be sufficient to write simple programs. But maybe this guide is just _too_ quick in that it just covers some basic syntax but leaves out a lot of goodies which actual programs use (no containers/algorithms at all, indeed no C++11 and beyond which is imo a shame for any recent C++ guide - there's not even any mentioning of it), doesn't adhere to current best practices (take 'double getVolume(void)': void argument has no place in C++ and should arguably be const, no error checking on stream methods) and seems too lack crucial information (no mention of heder files, no mention of how to get the samples compiled).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Another cool resource:

[https://github.com/rigtorp/awesome-modern- cpp](https://github.com/rigtorp/awesome-modern-cpp)

</comment><comment><USER7> Does this guide have anything about references? Didn't find anything about that, but maybe I missed it, I think its a pretty important topic to cover. Also didn't see anything about the different types of constructors.

</comment><comment><USER8> This guide is so primitive that it cannot be called useful. It can possibly be harmful, though, to those who don't know the language well and use this guide as a sole source of information.

</comment><comment><USER9> > C++ is a superset of C, and that virtually any legal C program is a legal > C++ program.

This is not true. One example, void* pointers are not automatically converted to "narrower" types in C++ as they are in C.

<comment><USER10> Syntactically, C++ is a superset of C though, right? I can't think of any C syntax that's not valid C++, but I'm not exactly am expert in either

<comment><USER9> > I can't think of any C syntax that's not valid C++,

enum toto { a = 1 }; enum toto b = 1;

Fixing versions of both standards could bring in more examples (like trailing comma in enums and use of the names reserved in C++, by the C code).

Overall, ironically, as typing is stronger in C++ (which I agree is a non- syntactic change), poor C code (using lots of unjustified casts), will require less modifications to be compiled as C++.

<comment><USER10> Thanks for the example!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This looks more like an exam review study guide than an attempt to teach the language.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is kind of ... crappy. Sorry. It might have been semi-useful in 2004 or so, but now...woefully outdated and inadequate to get anyone up-to-speed. I'd say it's actually harmful.

</comment><comment><USER13> Call me nitpicky, but you lost me at `Box Box1;`

Instance names should be lowercase, for God's sake.</comment>


Show HN: Copy-proof text in CSS and HTML - <AUTHOR> http://nbush.github.io/headache/index.html

<comment><USER2> This is pretty simple to bypass, e.g. type this in the url:

javascript:d=document.createElement("div");d.innerHTML="<style>span:nth- child(odd) {display:none;}</style>";document.body.appendChild(d);

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice! That's probably the easiest way. I guess you could scatter the spans a bit more randomly, but I couldn't find a way around JS completely.

<comment><USER2> Scattering the spans more wouldn't do much... it's still pretty straightforward to gather the list of css classes used in the page and just piece together the innerText of their elements until you see a dictionary word (or even easier, a space).

In any case, there's always the impossible-to-defend-against attack: just hit PrintScreen on the keyboard, paste to MS-Paint and run the image through one of the many OCR websites that you can find via Google. Maybe even run it through MS-Word's autocorrect after that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> "Tired of people stealing your content? Looking to make copying HTML text a huge pain for your users? Sick and tired of useful, well-made Python scripts?"

I can imply your message, but without saying it, it's not a message! You just offered a tool that some ass-hats can use to obfuscate their blog. However I don't fear this, because people know to avoid shit and avoided DRM too. Not because people care about privacy (see Facebook), but because people hate getting limited in their abilities on a free and living medium

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree. Therefore, the need for obscurity begets user frustration begets obscurity. A closed karmic circle.</comment></comment>


ASK YC: Startups hiring in Vancouver, Canada - <AUTHOR>

Asking all Canadian YC readers - How is the job market for someone looking to join a startup in B.C, Canada and how does one go about looking for these jobs? <p>Muchos Gracias. <comment><USER2> I think the best idea is to go to all the meetups that happen in Vancouver and talk to the people.

<comment><USER3> Do you happen to know of any that have a good reputation?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> We're VC funded startup with a strong team looking to add a capable developer. RoR, C++, and math skills a plus. Contact jobs { AT } somethingsimpler { DOT } com.

</comment><comment><USER5> Are you looking to join a startup (as an employee) or are you looking to do a startup (partner)?

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd be very interested in this information as well if you happen to come upon it.

Cheers.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> lanej01 - good Q. I am looking to join a VC funded to somewhat established startup.

<comment><USER5> Too bad. I'm in the Southern Gulf Islands in the really early stages (planning and prototype development) and I'm looking for a partner (or two).

<comment><AUTHOR> lets talk by email > [k s j h a l l a] gmail ... :)

<comment><USER5> Message sent. Hopefully Google doesn't spam filter other @gmail accounts :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Start Something: The Power of Side Projects - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/busy-building-things/648223f673af

<comment><USER2> My side project is a Course Scheduling application ([http://sourceforge.net/projects/coursescheduler/](http://sourceforge.net/projects/coursescheduler/) & [https://github.com/CourseScheduler/coursescheduler](https://github.com/CourseScheduler/coursescheduler)) that allows students to retrieve course information from their university and then build a schedule of classes based off of that information. It currently only works for Kettering University (Flint, MI), but I'm currently working on abstracting the application to work for other universities.

</comment><comment><USER3> Activist & Civic Engagement filterable event calendar & Org list: ActivateHub We are live in Portland and Detroit. External calendars are set up for auto aggregation. Main purpose is to support existing organizations and movements, get people offline & actively involved in their community. Check out [http://portland.activatehub.org](http://portland.activatehub.org)

</comment><comment><USER4> We've started up [http://hostghost.io](http://hostghost.io) that provides a simple hosting solution for the new ghost blogging platform.

I also built [http://ami.responsivedesign.is](http://ami.responsivedesign.is) over a weekend and it won net magazine side project of the year. Hooray!!!

</comment><comment><USER3> Past side projects include: organizing arts festivals, and "The Canada Effect" \- YouTube videos I produced after interviewing a few hundred Canadians about their healthcare - which spawned a full feature documentary "The Healthcare Movie" \- narrated by Kiefer Sutherland. I then traveled to screenings and spoke on panels about healthcare.

</comment><comment><USER5> My side project is an app to help solve world hunger. People play trivia and earn real rice for world vision. Cool, right? I just completed the app after finishing my MBA and you can check it out here: [http://www.pocketrice.com.au/](http://www.pocketrice.com.au/)

</comment><comment><USER6> My current side project is a hashtags dedicated, social media search engine. It currently pulls from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, Tumblr, Vimeo and Tumblr. Check it out at [http://hshtags.com/](http://hshtags.com/)

</comment><comment><USER7> My side project is dedication app which allows user to browse youtube videos and dedicate to Facebook friends. [http://young- forest-8019.herokuapp.com/dedicates](http://young- forest-8019.herokuapp.com/dedicates)

</comment><comment><USER8> My most recent side project is called The First Fund. A scholarship for first- grade students and the teachers, parents, and guardians who love them. [http://www.thefirstfund.org/](http://www.thefirstfund.org/)

</comment><comment><USER9> My side project is a book aimed at helping website owners perform the essential tasks to manage, promote and advance their website: [http://forwebsiteowners.com](http://forwebsiteowners.com)

</comment><comment><USER10> I just launched [http://www.maxxable.com/](http://www.maxxable.com/) which is a phone clip for secure one-handed use. Ne need to have case, keeps your phone securely in your hand.

</comment><comment><USER11> My side project is a topic map-based personal learning environment (PLE) with extensive semantic web integration: [http://www.perfectlearn.com/](http://www.perfectlearn.com/).

</comment><comment><USER12> I started www.loveisall.com.br which is a blog to gather examples of manifestations of love from all over the world, from random acts of kindness to developing a more fulfilling relationship to your work.

</comment><comment><USER13> My side project is Salsa By The Bay, a guide to salsa dancing in the SF Bay Area - [http://www.salsabythebay.com/](http://www.salsabythebay.com/)

</comment><comment><USER14> We're busy building [http://www.Zulimwatersports.com](http://www.Zulimwatersports.com) an online ecommerce solution for surfers and paddlers.

</comment><comment><USER15> My side project is Visioneer, an app for making apps.

[http://visioneer.joftware.com](http://visioneer.joftware.com)

</comment><comment><USER16> Submit your sideprojects here

[http://sideprojects.web3canvas.com](http://sideprojects.web3canvas.com)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey, We'd love to see and hear about your side projects. Share them here.

</comment><comment><USER17> A great read!! What an article!</comment>


Federal websites will shut down with the government - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/09/30/a-bunch-of-federal-web-sites-will-shut-down-with-the-government/

<comment><USER2> Well, of course they will. Cost has no relevance, here. It's all about cutting off our noses to spite our faces. "Fine, you're going to shut us down? We're going to chop the most publicly noticeable and sympathetic things we can and make a big deal about it!"

You know, for all couple of weeks that it's shut down, before we go back to business as usual blowing the taxpayers money and using our positions to benefit from lobbyists, like the last time.</comment>


Ubisoft 'Pirates' Assassin's Creed Brotherhood Music From Demonoid - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/ubisoft-pirates-assassins-creed-brotherhood-music-from-demonoid-110316/

<comment><USER2> i find it disturbing. ubisoft abuses people who actually pay for the games with their terrible DRM, as they try to fight 'piracy' while using pirated content for their deluxe edition.</comment>


React vs. Angular vs. Vue: Who Wins in 2019? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/zerotomastery/react-vs-angular-vs-vue-who-wins-in-2019-5d9acd0843e8 <comment><USER2> Let me just paste the conclusion from the article here:

> React vs Angular vs Vue? Which one should you pick in 2019?

> It doesn't matter. Keep learning, and don't forget about the tried and > tested computer science topics that underlie everything.</comment>