How to sell to large customers - <AUTHOR> http://blog.filepicker.io/post/35137916087/how-to-land-a-big-fish

<comment><USER2> _"The competitor had done all this work by going around the organization, interviewing the stakeholders, putting together presentations and data dockets that addressed their needs. This was work that Richard would have had to do otherwise. Thus, the competitor had helped Richard help him!"_

This can actually backfire if it's not done very carefully and tactfully. Reaching out to multiple people in the same organization can also make it appear that you are just blindly going fishing. Those people will triangulate, and they'll talk, and they'll compare notes. You'll need to make very sure that you've actually tailored your pitch and conversations to each of the people you're approaching.

If you're just sending the same, cold-intro email to different folks in the same company, they'll find that out pretty quickly, and you're dead in the water. By the same token, if you've been cultivating a relationship with Person X, and then you reach out to Person Y, Person X might feel that you've circumvented him, or gone over his head, and then you've bred some resentment with him. Instead, try this: if you've made decent headway with X, ask him if he thinks speaking to Y or Z would be a good idea. He may say yes, and actually give you the permission. He may even broker those introductions for you, provided he really believes in your pitch. Or he may point you in a more productive direction, with different people that hadn't occurred to you.

I'm not suggesting that the author is recommending a clumsy, cold approach to multiple parties. Nonetheless, I've seen it done so many times -- both on the buy side and sell side of consulting -- that I feel it bears mentioning. The general advice in the article is sound, but putting it into practice takes a fairly deft touch.

<comment><USER3> He does suggest you ask a few questions to the person you've developed a relationship with, including: "Who are the other individuals in your organization that you suggest I meet?".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I guess that works for this guy, but as someone in a big enterprise, I'd be really annoyed with a vendor that is venue shopping. An an outsider, you have no idea what the internal politics of the organization are. Getting blindsided because some salesman took my colleague to lunch is a great way to get a project derailed. (The conversation can shift to "how do we implement product x" instead of "how do we solve problem y")

The sales teams that I've worked with for years (as opposed to the sales teams that aren't around anymore) have something in common -- they focus on building a relationship, figuring out wtf is going on, and bringing solutions to the table.

Other anti-patterns:

\- Hyper-aggressive (ie Oracle): Their mission is to be a pain in the ass and sell your CEO a bill of goods. Your relationship is by definition adversarial.

\- Mistargeted (ie Dropbox): Friendly people call every now and again. They never answer my question ("Is Dropbox on a state procurement contract?"), and don't understand why the answer they don't know is important to me.

\- Wheeler-dealers: I ask for a product demo, we get it, followed by a cold quote for $3M for an off the shelf product. I don't respond, and get an unsolicited quote that is now $2M. I usually reply with an email that says "Not gonna happen."

<comment><USER5> What is a state procurement contract?

<comment><USER6> A contract that a state budget office signs with approved vendors. The budget office vets a set of vendors for, say, copy machines. Every office in the state then has to purchase from one of those vendors for their copy machine needs.

It's a fraud protection thing. It prevents one of the many many tiny offices from funneling money through a phony vendor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is part of my job, buying from the side of large companies so I will provide some input.

This is talking from the direction of actively engaging a large business and selling to them. I work on the side of large business actively choosing which startups we want to work with.

"Lesson 1: In larger organizations there are multiple individuals with separate motivations involved in the buying process "

Without question this is important. I am sort of a gatekeeper in the process. It's my job to validate the companies that are seen by the real decision makers (not me). I am the technical grunt in front of the process allowing the C level decision makers to only make good decisions no matter what they decide to do.

With me, you can discuss tech on a geek level, and I'm most comfortable and at home.

To my C levels, you better be high level and respectful. We've lost the ability to work with several startups simply because they weren't able to discuss on a C level.

If you are a founder and can't discuss on a C level, hire someone who can. You could lose a tremendous level of money and momentum simply because you have no idea how to talk to someone who leads a large business.

<comment><AUTHOR> Andy-what are the key skills which give you confidence that a founder has the ability to discuss on a C level?

<comment><USER8> I've done those sorts of sales talks when I was a tech consultant at Accenture and continue to do some now as a technical founder. I have also heard the pitch from vendors when I was at Accenture wanting me to bring their wares to my clients.

In the end it comes down to being able to communicate and listen well. Be an active listener and find out the problems that the C-level customer has. This could mean the actual business problem (sales needs to grow 10% and it hasnt for 3 years), logistical problems(my teams don't communicate), a political problem (I can't deploy a solution without getting the Network Solutions team invovled) - all are things 1) You should know about and 2) You may be able to fix.

That sounds simple, but it's really very hard to not get too wrapped up in what you and your company are focused on, rather than what this specific customer in front of you right now cares about. The best salespeople of ANY kind are very good at getting in synch with their customers - seeing the world, and their product from their customers POV and then seeing how their product fits into that worldview.

<comment><USER7> This is great advice. There's a strange reality that the C user has some agenda you couldn't envision, and you could fix some problem they have you aren't even aware of.

Some of the worst complaints I've heard is that the startup comes in all cocky thinking they have the best technology in the world, and doesn't actively listen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is why you need a dedicated and experienced sales person. Selling to a small company is one thing, but selling to a larger customer is an entirely different skill set. And then selling to enterprise is even more different. The sales cycles differ tremendously depending on how large the organization is.

If you are targeting SMBs, you can get away with direct sales, etc. But once you get into the "bigger fish", the sales cycle lengthens incredibly, as do the requirements from the buyers.

One of my previous employers made the transition from selling from SMBs to enterprise, and it was a difficult transition. Our product was usually bought by a department head that required it, and it would spread across the organization organically. However, once we entered enterprise companies, instead of talking to the department heads, we needed to talk directly to the CIO/CTO, who would make the decision on behalf of the entire company. This required a lot more patience, and a completely different skillset from our salespeople.

So in the case of the OP, trying to land a big fish by talking with contacts like this is likely a huge timesink, because experienced salespeople will eat guys like him for breakfast. If you're going to target bigger fish rather than smaller shops, it's best to get someone who knows exactly what the process is and is actually focused on sales. The charm of working with a startup is lost on bigger customers, who have bonuses based on uptime, SLAs, etc.

</comment><comment><USER10> The first point hits close to home; I have twice been in the position of losing happy, paying customers due to other decision-makers getting involved. I work for an agency, not a start-up, but it's the same process: convince someone within an organization to pay you large sums of cash for services.

In both cases, we were providing services to a single product group within a company large enough that those product groups can act nearly autonomously. And in both cases, the corporate office came to the (quite rational) decision that having ten product groups using ten different agencies was inefficient. In one case, corp's pet agency became the agency of record; in the other case, they actually built an in-house department from scratch and stopped using agencies altogether.

If there's a moral to this story, it's to scale that ladder. If your product/service/whatever only has one customer within a large organization, your use is vulnerable to consolidation moves. But, if your one user is happy and satisfied, you can often use that to gain wider traction within a company. In addition to more customers, it's a much safer position to be in when someone from on high wants to start standardizing across the organization.

</comment><comment><USER11> Great post! An oft heard question, we get as a start-up selling to large enterprises is - How will you meet our need for these N custom features? Being constrained on the software development side, we've found it helpful to triage the client needs and lay out a phased plan for development. Also finding a champion for our product in the client organization, usually a mid-senior level executive, who can coach us through their decision making process has been helpful

</comment><comment><USER12> There is an interesting tidbit in the article about the other vendor doing a proof of concept. I work for a large enterprise and I'm working with a company that has gone to great lengths to facilitate a proof of concept. We're using ~$250K worth of their equipment and weeks of their time, not to mention travel and all the expenses that entails. As far I know, we haven't given them a dime yet.

I don't know how a smaller company would be able to do this.

</comment><comment><USER13> For complex sales, one thing I've found that really helps is to create a worksheet and use it during the sales call. It asks things like:

Who is involved in the decision? What are their primary pain points? What are some reasons they may _not_ buy? (Paradoxically, asking for objections instead of waiting for them to pop up makes you seem more trustworthy)

Etc.

</comment><comment><USER14> Nice summary. That's what makes enterprise sales challenging and time consuming and why Steve Blank spends a lot of time in his book explaining how to navigate it. What are some other common objections/challenges you've run into and how have you overcome them?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll keep the response specific to sales objections that a growth stage startups face

Scalability objections: can you scale to our volumes? Respond with suggestions for a phased roll out. Take your backend expert in to the meeting and present credibility on why you can scale.

Company objections: will you be around for long? What if you get aquihired?

Reiterate vision behind why are doing your startup (hopefully the right reasons). Talk about your investors and the expectations/commitments made.

Control objections: "We are uncomfortable giving up control over this part of our tech stack"

Try to create analogies. Understand other parts of the stack that they have given up control over and why they feel comfortable with those. Feed those expectations back as contractual commitments that you are comfortable making.

<comment><USER14> Yes, I was wondering about sales objections, thanks. Those are good ones. What about resource constraints to integrate? This is one of the most common I've run into. Even if integration is as simple as a copy/paste of some code, it still requires moving ahead of their pipeline. To help here, focus on making it as easy as possible to integrate and also help the customer see why it helps them to make it a priority by showing the benefit of adding now vs. later (ROI data). Have you heard similar objections or are you only pursuing customers that have already reached out to you and have thus, presumably, already determined file upload is highest priority?

<comment><AUTHOR> We intentionally chose to focus on making the integration as easy as possible. The key is to get the customer to try a proof of concept as easily as possible. We still need to do a better job of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm always partial to any post in which a start up actually admits that a bigger competitor did something better, even if it's lowly sales.

</comment><comment><USER16> You _partner_ with large customers.

</comment><comment><USER17> Also as a side note:

For anyone to think that Filepicker.io is not a side project, do not use the stock themed Bootstrap.

Right now, it looks straight out of RailsRumble.</comment>


How to invent your own evaluation criteria when management is vague? - <AUTHOR> I'm a year into my first programming job. I was the one with the least experience and knowledge among a team of senior+ level developers. I was supposed to be doing game development on a mobile app, but... that's not how it turned out.
I've been shuffled around tasks, had things pulled out from under me, been taken off my team and put back on it, and had to tackle huge and multifaceted tech stacks without support or previous knowledge of them. When I ask about what I can do to earn a promotion, or what is expected from me, or what goals I can set, or what skills my leads want from me, I always- from a variety of leaders and leads- have gotten either a vague answer or no answer ("That's a question for so-and-so", "It's different for everyone so I don't want to put a time table on it", "Here's our vague job tiers outline that says 'be able to complete tasks on time with help from other devs' which is what you're doing"). This has gone on for a long time and I can't see it improving. I'm unsure how to evaluate myself in this environment.
My job feels more like a liability since most of what I do is learn the idiosyncrasies of our code base and chip away at busy work my lead gives me for lack of anything else to do. I know I'm not gaining marketable skills here but I'm having trouble finding another job. I experience imposter-syndrome big time in that regard. I've had phone interviews where they ask me about what I do and I have a hard time distilling it. I'm asked what I make, what I've contributed- but debugging legacy code and wasting a lot of time in the scrum processes we follow don't cut it.
Anyone else been in this bind? How do you tell potential employers that you hate your current company because they're stuffing you in a hole in which you can't grow or develop your skills? Are there places out there that know how to foster the novice programmers in a professional setting, or is it selfish of me to expect that? <comment><USER2> First of all "debugging legacy code" is a _great_ skill to have. Anybody can find their cubs in shitty code they wrote, being able to work with and improve crappy legacy code is a rare skill IMO. I would not be shy to highlight that.

Second, there is no shame in saying that you've reached a point at your company where you are not learning anything new, and you are looking for an environment that will help you grow further.

</comment><comment><USER3> Man, welcome to the world, this what you are going through, is called gaining experience. These people are doing what they just know, and managers don't know nothing except from brown their noses at their superior asses. First off all read the following Book: "Soft Skills: The software developer's life manual" and at the same time you will have to start your own little project using your favorite technology, hosting your code on github, running it on an service like heroku or other develop and deploy site. That is what you are going to show in front of the question of what did you make, good or bad it's going to be yours. That is going to be your job presentation card, remember they aren't asking about what are you beeing paid for, they are asking what do you love to work in, and if you can code an app for nothng in return just passion and if it works, then you will have the question answered, and you will know what it takes to code something, and most important off all, you will be able to get a better job than the one you have now. good luck man, keep the coding fun and clean

<comment><USER2> Reading "Soft Skills" is great advice. Very good book, I learnt a ton from it.

> remember they aren't asking about what are you beeing paid for, they are > asking what do you love to work in, and if you can code an app for nothng in > return just passion and if it works

I tend to disagree with this statement. All companies care about is indeed not what you are being paid for, but what you can do for them. They care about the value you can create for them if they pay you. Now, having your own projects to show is a great way to showcase that :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > I'm unsure how to evaluate myself in this environment.

Understand that your situation is sadly, very common. Leadership in your company is not truly interested in developing its people. They would prefer that you simply go about putting out fires, cheerfully insuring the machine still runs.

Still your current employer can provide an excellent laboratory in which to develop yourself. On this subject, Peter Druckers wisdom is timeless > [http://academic.udayton.edu/lawrenceulrich/LeaderArticles/Dr...](http://academic.udayton.edu/lawrenceulrich/LeaderArticles/Drucker%20Managing%20Oneself.pdf)</comment>


Show HN: Beautiful digital art on Google.com every day - <AUTHOR> http://getexhibits.co/

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN,

I've created a project over the WE, "exhibits": [http://getexhibits.co](http://getexhibits.co)

Below is a quick pitch, feedback REALLY appreciated.

\---

Exhibits is a social experiment where people vote for the artwork that will be exposed on Google.com the next day.

We favor hi-res digital art, photography or something relevant to current events. Don't forget to mention where you found the image so the creator can be mentioned and get a visibility boost.

<comment><USER2> Installed it right away. Great extension, thanks for making it!

<comment><AUTHOR> You're welcome! Any feedback you want to share ? Do you like the idea of "everybody vote for tomorrow's everybody's artwork" ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Is the source for the Chrome extension available? Otherwise installing something (and thereby giving it permission to inject code in to Google.com pages on your browser) is very, very dangerous.

<comment><AUTHOR> Here it is: [https://github.com/Exhibits/exhibits-chrome- extension](https://github.com/Exhibits/exhibits-chrome-extension)</comment></comment>


Top developers and coding charities unite for hack.summit() - <AUTHOR> https://hackhands.com/top-developers-coding-charities-unite-hack-summit/ <comment><USER2> This is too cool! And I love the "pay with a tweet/share" option. Now us broke college kids don't have to miss out on the action!

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow! Best lineup EVER!

<comment><USER2> -Tom Chi (co-creator Google Glass)

-Grady Booch (creator the Unified Modeling Language)

-David Heinemeier Hansson (inventor of Ruby on Rails)

-Brian Fox (invented the GNU Bash shell)

-Hakon Wium Lie (inventor of CSS)

-Alex Gaynor (Director, Python Software Foundation, and core committer to Django)

-Sarah Allen (Presidential Innovation Fellow, led development for many Adobe products)

-Gilad Bracha (co-author of the Java Language Specification)

-Kent Beck (creator of Extreme Programming, created Test Driven Development, co-created Agile, author of 9 books)

-Ward Cunningham (inventor of the wiki, contributed to Extreme Programming, co-author of Design Patterns)

-Hampton Catlin (creator of Sass, Haml, m.wikipedia.org, book author)

-Matei Zaharia (creator of Apache Spark)

-Melody Meckfessel (Google Director of Engineering)

-Jon Skeet (the top answerer on StackOverflow)

-Scott Hanselman (author of multiple books)

-Jeff Haynie (founder of Appcelerator)

-Ryan Bubinski (founder of Codecademy)

-Aaron Skonnard (founder of Pluralsight)

-Floyd Marinescu (founder of InfoQ)

-Steve Newcomb (founder of Famo.us)

-Orion Henry (founder of Heroku)

-Janet Wiener (Engineering at Facebook, big data expert)

-Scott Chacon (CIO, Github)

-Chad Fowler (CTO, Wunderlist, well-known programming educator and blogger)

-Salil Deshpande (open source investor titan)

-Hadi Partovi (founder of Code.org, was in charge of Internet Explorer, advisor to Dropbox and Facebook)

-Rebecca Parsons (CTO at Thoughtworks)

-Qi Lu (Executive vice president of Microsoft's Applications and Services Group)

-Chris Richardson (Java Champion, book author, founder of CloudFoundry)

-Bram Cohen (Inventor of Bittorrent)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> wow! that is a great idea:)

</comment><comment><USER5> Amazing :)</comment>


UK Councils can demolish contaminated buildings under powers to stop coronavirus - <AUTHOR> https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/08/04/councilscan-demolish-contaminated-buildings-new-powers-stop/ <comment><USER2> Literally any excuse in the UK to clear out space for tacky new build "luxury flats".</comment>


Why I Quit Microsoft To Join A 5-Person Start Up In Toronto (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://jaclynkonzelmann.tumblr.com/post/29070457063/why-i-quit-microsoft-to-join-a-5-person-start-up-in <comment><USER2> My friend just told me this made it to the front page of HN and I feel I should add a quick follow up that a year later I haven't been happier about the decision. I actually decided to start my own company a couple months ago with a friend and former classmate, and we are actually part of the current YC batch (www.amulyte.com) and I couldn't be more excited about how things have turned out :)

<comment><USER3> Out of curiosity, what city did you base the startup out of? (Couldn't find it on the website). I recently moved back to Toronto (Amazon Seattle to Amazon Toronto) and I've noticed that there really seems to be growth in the industry here. Lots of little start-ups, and lots of large companies opening and expanding offices. It's fantastic.

<comment><USER4> There's an Amazon Toronto?

<comment><USER5> It's worth noting that Amazon will pay the same employee less money to work in Toronto than Seattle, yet cost of living in Toronto is slightly higher.

<comment><USER6> You don't have to pay for healthcare is the justification I believe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Did you ever consider changing teams or org? The review process is of course standard throughout all of MS but a lot of your complaints seemed to be local to your team (e.g. status report noise) or Org ("Office needs robots"). Bug triaging might also be less of a bore now that microsoft seems to be moving to yearly release cycles.

Either way, seems like you ended up making the right decision for yourself. Congrats!

<comment><USER8> I worked in many different parts of Microsoft over 10 years and I can tell you that the culture doesn't change enough from team to team to make up for this sort of thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> When I was a young man, at my first job, I expressed my discontent. My dad (Viggo Jensen, RIP) gave me sage advice. He nodded his head, and said "it takes about 3 years to find out what's wrong with an organization. After that it's harder." (Shockingly, this from a guy who spent 35 years in Los Angeles City Schools.)

I would not suggest that Jaclyn is wrong in her choices. Not at all. But sometimes it is a choice between working within an imperfect organization, and moving on to another .. whose flaws you will discover over the next 3 years.

<comment><USER10> I lost four years in my career because I was afraid the next company would be worse. It wasn't. Pick your battles carefully and know when it is time to move on.

<comment><USER11> Seconded. Plus, I don't really buy the 3 year thing. Once you know what to look for, it isn't hard to detect serious problems. Horrible source code? Engineers that don't know how to use SCM? Politics? Cargo cult processes? I don't think it is that hard to figure out. You will have annoyances in any job, but there are broken cultures, and then cultures that continually try to do the right thing, and fix themselves when something goes wrong.

<comment><USER12> Horrible source code is a good one, it's a great indicator of very deep management problems that can not be solved. Run away after you see it.

<comment><USER13> >that can not be solved.

Would not go that far.

<comment><USER12> Depends on the size of the company I guess. At large corps, it's hopeless.

<comment><USER13> Hopeless in theory?

<comment><USER14> Ignorance is bliss.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> So nothing changed in the five years after I quit. I guess that isn't too surprising. The review process is toxic, especially stack ranking. I don't think you could pay me enough to go back.

<comment><USER16> I can't believe they still use stack ranking. I've come into contact with over 50 Microsoft people through my job and each one has been very high caliber and hard working. Granted, it's a very biased sample, but these are not the kind of folks we'd want to fire where I work.

<comment><USER17> What is stack ranking?

<comment><USER15> Background:

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2012/07/03/the- te...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2012/07/03/the-terrible- management-technique-that-cost-microsoft-its-creativity/)

[http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2012/07/microsoft- dow...](http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2012/07/microsoft-downfall- emails-steve-ballmer)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm a UW grad as well working for another behemoth of a software company.

We have the same common evils of legacy software where weeks are spent triaging bugs and shipping stable code.

But I guess what I dislike the most is the stack ranking system.

Do all large software shops have stack ranking? I ask HN this as I'll honestly skip any company now that uses stack ranking as a measure of performance.

Not sure about the rest of you but I find it to be incredibly detrimental to team work, people start hoarding techniques and skills in order to get ahead. The bus factor of the team shoots up. The work place environment just feels adversarial. Its just quite sickening, but maybe I'm just very naive.

<comment><USER19> A meta-comment:

If we are talking about Microsoft and Seattle, UW means University of Washington; if we are talking about Toronto-area, UW means...University of Waterloo, right?

<comment><USER2> Haha ya, this confused me a LOT when I first got to Seattle (when I say UW I mean Waterloo).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I currently run a technology company with VC backing. I've considered recently leaving the US and moving my business to Canada (specifically Toronto). I wonder if anyone here with experience in Canada's tech market has a short bullet list of pros and cons of Canada and Toronto specifically when it comes to that.

<comment><USER2> Just wanted to back what zmitri said about Kitchener/Waterloo being the closest to SV in Canada. I went to school at the University of Waterloo, spent 2 years in Seattle, spent a year in Toronto, and have now been in Mountain View for 2 months going through YC. My general conclusions are:

CONS: -Canada thinks smaller than SV (not as open to big ideas) -BDC is a big player when it comes to Canadian money, we've had some interactions with them and for the most part they run more like a bank/government organization than they do a VC. They are getting better, but are just not quite there yet. In the end we actually turned down money from them. -The accelerators there are trying...but they are a far way off from being of the same quality as some of the ones down here -When it comes to raising money you normally get a lower valuation and the terms aren't usually as founder friendly

PROS -There are a few bigger players popping up in the Toronto/Kitchener scene that are really helping the culture and community there grow -It's cheaper and talent is easier to find (Waterloo produces some amazing talent) -There are a lot of government grants and tax incentives

There are definitely people in the area worth meeting who are doing some exciting things, but the buzz and excitement and opportunities down here are still greater imo. I'm also partial to the West coast as a general lifestyle choice.

<comment><USER10> What specifically do you find different between the east/west life styles?

<comment><USER2> The outdoors and the mountains just breed a different culture from my experience. Living out west I would go camping, hiking, climbing and I even got into mountaineering. Toronto doesn't really offer any of those to the same degree that you will find out west. I tried going outdoor climbing once up at Rattlesnake point and it didn't even compare to places like Smith Rock or Tieton. Being able to go jogging in the morning and seeing the Olympics or the Cascades was breathtaking. People out west are just generally more active and up for adventures outdoors.

<comment><USER10> Do you generally do these activities solo?

<comment><USER2> No, I had a great group of friends in Seattle that I'd get outdoors with. Managed to find a climbing partner in Toronto but just stuck to the local climbing gym while there. Haven't had a chance to meet anyone in Mountain View yet who climbs (also haven't had a chance to do much else apart from work the past couple months). Hoping that will change soon and I'll be able to get back into some of these things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Yup, sounds like the Microsoft that I know. Microsoft is a company ruled by fear. Everyone is afraid that a decision they make is going to blow up on them, so very few people do anything beyond maintaining the status quo.

</comment><comment><USER22> If you haven't been already, the Rails Pub Night (run by the kind folks at unspace.ca) is a great way to meet people in the Toronto startup community. Very friendly, meets at The Rhino on Queen west the 3rd Monday of every month at 7pm. I think I've met some people from Shoplocket there as well, so ask them about it!

<comment><USER2> I also know the guys who run HackerNest. They have a monthly meetup too that I used to really enjoy going to. Definitely check them out if you get a chance!

<comment><USER22> I definitely will check out the August one. Thanks for the tip, this is the first I've heard of HackerNest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Valid reasons, but quick search for "option", "stock", "shares" did not find anything in that post - strange.

<comment><USER2> Honestly, stock options never crossed my mind as a valid reason to stay. They are a nice to have for sure - but they played no role in me wanting to stay. I understand for some people this is a huge incentive, but just not for me.

<comment><USER24> Why not work for a charity then? I am sure they need IT people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> In part 3 she says she was given a ranking of '3' but never gives any context. is 3 good? bad? average?

<comment><USER25> 3 is average, while top performers, very very very few get a 1. 5s probably are fired

<comment><USER5> IIRC 5 is fired, 4 is on their way out should they not improve, 3 is close to "you're not doing anything wrong, but not doing anything great".

<comment><USER25> you're right on the downside, however the 3 is seen quite positively afaik, 2s are given to low % of employees. there is more math then actual merit in these numbers, if too many people excel the evaluation becomes stricter to lower the numbers and keep the majority at 3.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The geographic insight is interesting. I agree that San Francisco is taking the Microsoft road, culturally, that spells the end of tech: project managers, high house prices, 20-minute "standup" meetings in which the bosses sit, laughably low equity slices used to justify long hours, mean-spirited performance review systems, VPs of biz dev, etc.

Silicon Valley is the best place for VC-funded technology, by far, but the culture that's sprung up in this current wave is just repulsive. People are starting to figure that out.

Lots of smart people who, five years ago, would have only gone to New York or San Francisco, are now going all kinds of cool places as a generation figures out where the next maker culture is going to start (if it's going to be limited to one or a few places at all, which I doubt). It's like a diaspora. Austin, Toronto, Boulder, all seem quite strong.

Later this month I'm moving to Baltimore, which is somewhat of a dark horse but I actually think it will win big in the longer term (5+ years). It's already come a long way from what it used to be.

Seattle and Boston are quite nice places to live, too; but they're still kinda pricey and that means the legacy of the last wave hasn't gone back into the sea yet.

Toronto's a good pick. I spent a couple months there in the late '90s and it struck me, even then, as a great place to live.

<comment><USER14> Scrum masters, jira, process. It's even infecting startups now.

<comment><USER27> What do you think is bad about using jira at a startup? I'm not trying to be obnoxious, but I've only ever worked at two startups (~120 people - I'm 21) and both used jira for bug management.

<comment><USER28> It's poorly implemented. Slow, rendering kills browsers. Takes too much space in the screen in order to be useful. It's just a shitty product and not built for decent software engineering.. Not for all types of engineering either.

That's my biggest problem. Say iOS developemtn is asset heavy and requires a decent way of sorting your assets with your stories. JIRA is complete shit for that. Trying to explain that to the agile coach or scrum master... yeah.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Yup, sounds like the Microsoft I know. (Used to work there)

</comment><comment><USER13> [http://programmers.stackexchange.com/a/45814/27304](http://programmers.stackexchange.com/a/45814/27304)</comment>


#fail: Nvidia loses 10 million GPU order due to poor Linux - <AUTHOR> http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/nvidia-loses-order-due-to-poor-linux-support-20120628/

<comment><USER2> "No matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else," attributed to Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy [called "Joy's Law"</comment>


Perl programmers – Booking.com is proof that the world is still your oyster - <AUTHOR> http://www.techworld.com/careers/perl-developers-dispel-doubts-about-codes-longevity-3599357

<comment><USER2> Even if being fluent in Perl becomes as lucrative as being able to maintain rotting COBOL code bases at some point, it doesn't make Perl a better language or something one should decide to learn when facing career choices for the next 40 years or so. It is dated and should not be used for new projects. The IT community as a whole will thank you if you learn to code in a more maintainable language, too.

(Disclaimer: I built my startup on Perl and sold it recently after 15 years. Would use something else today, learnt my lession.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Booking.com is a great site. Perl may be the implementation language but the design and process implemented could be done in any of a number of different languages. It's the design that makes the site outstanding, not that it uses a particular language.</comment>


Rat lungworm, the tropical parasite that took Hawaii by surprise - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/rat-lungworm-the-tropical-parasite-that-took-hawaii-by-surprise <comment><AUTHOR> _Between 2001 and 2016, the U.S.D.A. intercepted semislug-infested plant shipments from Hawaii to the mainland at least forty-five times. If the organism made it across the Pacific, it would have little trouble surviving in warmer parts of the United States_

The slug (which feeds on lettuce and papaya) is invasive; therefore this lungworm parasite that hosts itself on the slug becomes invasive by default... nature is sick sometimes.</comment>


What on earth is the ECB up to? - <AUTHOR> http://coppolacomment.blogspot.com/2015/02/what-on-earth-is-ecb-up-to.html

<comment><USER2> It is being stupid.

Note that in the early 1950's, there was a writedown of German debt of around 50%, it was realized that the debt was a burden to development and not realistic to collect.

The Greek regime(s) have been pretty bad but nowhere near the 1933-1945 German regime which caused so much trouble for everyone, especially the Germans.

If they are going to continue with the practices which worked so well with the pre-1933 German regime and in Africa, there is going to be a predictable result. If the Greek leaves the Euro the precedent is set and some day it will be Spain or Italy or France that has to leave. It might be 20 years down the road, but it is inevitable.

I have as low an exposure to Europe in my portfolio because Europe has not has a "financial crisis" like the US, rather it has a financial crisis every few months because it hasn't dealt with the Greece situation realistically. (The scenario is a lot like 1990s Japan which has never recovered)</comment>


Corsair One review: The best small form factor PC we've ever tested - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/03/corsair-one-review/ <comment><USER2> I know there are no absolutes in matters of taste but I think that is the ugliest small form factor machine I've seen for a while.</comment>


Documents show Homeland Security tracks anti-drill groups in Pa. - <AUTHOR> http://www.centredaily.com/2010/09/14/2206710/documents-show-homeland-security.html

<comment><USER2> Well, of course! It's much easier to track the activities of groups that have public meetings, have public screenings of movies, etc etc. It's quite hard to track the activities of groups that have private meetings, don't publicize themselves, and maybe even require some kind of initial screening of new members.

That's probably why anti-war Quaker groups always get tracked by "anti-terror" organizations, too. The Quakers actually let people in to their meetings, and invite participation!</comment>


Nerds in Mourning: A friend, father, and founder leaves us - <AUTHOR>

Today, the dev community in Minneapolis got word that the wreckage of the private plane piloted by the CEO of The Nerdery, Luke Bucklin, was found in the mountains east of Jackson Hole Wyoming. The plane had been missing for more than a week. Luke, and his three sons, were returning home from a family vacation. There were no survivors.
Most of you probably don't know of the organization called The Nerdery (http://www.nerdery.com). They're a group of 120 nerds in Minneapolis who are technological wizards - building mobile apps, web apps, legacy apps - any app you can imagine - they've probably built it. And you've probably also seen their work out there in the interwebs, too.
They're also the creators and sponsors of The Overnight Website Challenge (http://overnightwebsitechallenge.com/), where once a year 10-15 development teams of 10 people each gather together to donate 24 hours of their time to build websites for local non profits. That's well over 2500 hours of hard core hacking, donated for FREE, to groups in need, every year. This organization has done good - a lot of it.
Most of you didn't know Luke. Some of you did. Some of you might know someone who worked at or works at The Nerdery. Some of you might actually still work at The Nerdery. Either way, Luke was a guiding force that made, makes, and will continue to make The Nerdery an awesome place to work for people who love code, technology, and all things nerdy.
To quote my friend and former colleague @malbiniak: "He proved that you can build a successful business, based on passion, and maintain decency in the process. The more sincere the effort, the more genuine the return. Best. ROI. Lesson. Ever." That defines Luke, and the team at The Nerdery.
I'm a relative newbie here, and realize I run the risk of getting flamed for this post. There are other tragedies in the world, all deserving of our attention - not just this one. But the dev community in Minneapolis is mourning right now, and so are members of this (Hacker News) community, and I don't really give a shit if posting here pisses someone off.
If it's your thing, head over to http://blog.nerdery.com or http://www.lukeandginger.com/, or follow the conversation on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/#!/search/%23LukeComeHome.
Also, please take a moment to read the thank you messages for the search and rescue teams involved in this effort: http://thanks.lukeandginger.com/ <comment><USER2> I'm terribly sorry for your loss, and for the enormous shock to Luke's family and friends. My condolences.

 _I run the risk of getting flamed for this post._

This seems to me to be a perfectly appropriate place for a memorial.

Apropos of which: Is it inappropriate, in a memorial for a wonderful hacker, to point out that the web is obviously incomplete because it doesn't yet contain an obvious, recognized spot for memorializing wonderful hackers? Or, for that matter, memorializing anyone else?

Since I myself would be honored if people spent a portion of my memorial service in a design debate, preferably one fueled by high-quality pizza and beer, I'll go ahead and plant this idea here. May someone wiser than I make it work.

An online memorial site is a pretty tough challenge in social media design. It poses big moderation and privacy problems, and it would have to be monetized... delicately. Very delicately, lest the ghost of Jessica Mitford haunt everyone involved.

<http://www.mitford.org/nytimes.htm>

<comment><USER3> 1000memories (YC) is doing something like that - <http://1000memories.com/>

<comment><USER4> I'm a founder of 1000Memories, and this is precisely what we're trying to do. Please feel free to check out our site, and if we can be of personal assistance, please get in touch with me directly at brett [at] 1000memories [dot] com

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I didn't know Luke or his family, but as a private pilot and father/husband, this story saddens me for the non-zero possibility that my own wife and kids would be left in a similar situation.

Because different people grieve in different ways, and I suspect a non-zero number of "us" will want to know more about the incident, I offer the following two resources, not for macabre voyeurism, but for those who want to perhaps understand more of the technical details. I know that these sites have been helpful to me in the (fortunately very few) times in the past when I've lost pilot friends of mine.

The FAA site will likely have the basic data posted tomorrow: [http://www.faa.gov/data_research/accident_incident/prelimina...](http://www.faa.gov/data_research/accident_incident/preliminary_data/)

The NTSB will have a preliminary report in a few days, and a final report will be months in coming: [http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/AccList.asp?month=10&year=2010](http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/AccList.asp?month=10&year=2010)

If those resources are helpful to just one person close to Luke and family, it was worth the 5 minutes it took to post this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow. This is fantastic. Thank you for taking the time to post this response. I'll pass this information along to those close to the Nerdery and the Bucklin family.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here are the links from the original post since they didn't show up as clickable above:

<http://blog.nerdery.com>

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

<http://twitter.com/#!/search/%23LukeComeHome>

<http://thanks.lukeandginger.com/>

</comment><comment><USER6> Thanks for the nice memorial. I didn't know Luke, but it sounds like he's leaving behind a great example and a lot of inspiration.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for taking the time to comment, @zachster.

<comment><USER7> Remark: this isn't twitter. Because replies are automatically threaded, you don't need to include @name.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks @endgame. Err.....endgame :) Habits die hard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "The more sincere the effort, the more genuine the return. Best. ROI. Lesson. Ever" So simple yet so few are able to follow it... Terrible loss.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your response.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Anyone who would flame you for writing this would be a jerk--not worth worrying about.

I am sorry for your loss. It sounds as if the world has lost a decent person who used his gifts to give something back.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for taking the time to read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is immensely tragic, never let yourself be made to feel that pain is relative and thus unimportant. I can not imagine what those close to them are going through.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I didn't know Luke, or any of the Nerdery team, but nevertheless I likely had infinitely more in common with him than any stranger I would pass on the street.

As I am sure many here will agree, it is always a tragedy that someone so talented should pass before their time, especially under these circumstances.

My condolences are with the family and friends, for all their losses right now.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your comment, and your support. I will pass this along to the team at The Nerdery.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm an aviation enthusiast and I've been watching this situation pretty closely. Thanks for bringing this to the HN community.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're welcome. Thanks for reading and taking the time to respond.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I never met or knew Luke or the team at Nerdery, but all the same, I'm glad you posted this. It's a very sad thing to lose a member of our community, particularly one so accomplished and beloved. My thoughts are with you all.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your response. Years ago I cut my SEO teeth with Eric Ward and Lance Loveday, two of your peers in the biz. Don't chat with Eric much, but had breakfast with Lance this past summer when he was in Minneapolis.

Seeing your reply reinforces what I've observed in amazement today.....we're all connected in some way, just trying to get by, do good work, and offer a helping hand whenever we can. It's a small world, indeed. Thanks much Rand - I'll pass this along.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I didn't know Luke personally, but having certainly followed The Nerdery for a short while and having met some of its cohort, I am grateful for the legacy Luke built. May he rest in peace, even as his work continues.

<comment><AUTHOR> We all are. Thanks for taking the time to read and respond.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> My deepest sympathies to Luke's family and friends. There is no reason for you not to share the memory of him and his sons here. Again, my condolences.

</comment><comment><USER16> I didn't know of Luke or even of him but I am sorry to hear that your community has lost such a towering figure. I am particularly sorry for his wife; to lose your husband and three of your six children would be unimaginably horrifying and I cannot imagine the depth of her grief or that of the remaining kids. My thoughts are with all of you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your reply. I will pass this along to the team at The Nerdery.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I have heard of The Nerdery, but was completely unaware of this. My sincere condolences to you. The hacker community lost someone who was so accomplished.

I hope his family finds solace, and strength. My heart goes out to them.

Thank you for posting, and sharing this tragic piece of news. I know everyone at HN will appreciate it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for taking the time to read, and respond.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> thanks, g. been a rough week around here. we're all thankful for the chance to get to know him, learn from him, and carry on the legacy. more so, we're relived the family finally has closure.

to the HN community in general, please use this as an opportunity to keep things in perspective. we're all out trying to do amazing things, and those things can pull at our resources -- time with family, friends, and other things that keep us centered. luke was incredible about supporting our life work balance, and i hope you guys and gals on the front lines remember to do the same. take care of yourselves.

last, to your point about the thanks site, this one really stuck out: <http://thanks.lukeandginger.com/index/detail/id/324>

<comment><AUTHOR> NP. There's a lot of good out there from HN heading the way of the Nerdery. Let the rest of the guys know.

Thanks for the support, HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Sorry for your loss and thanks for sharing a wonderful eulogy with us.

<comment><AUTHOR> You bet. Thanks for taking the time to read and respond.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Thanks for posting and my condolences.

I had not heard of Luke or The Nerdery before but reading about both now is quite inspiring. Sounds like a fantastic company ran by a great guy.

</comment><comment><USER21> This is definitely an appropriate place to post a remembrance. His legacy he leaves will only inspire others, I can only regret I didn't know about his goodwill until now.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your reply. If you'd like to learn more about the events of the past week, as well as additional background on Luke and The Nerdery, I encourage you to visit these links:

<http://blog.nerdery.com>

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

<http://twitter.com/#!/search/%23LukeComeHome>

<http://thanks.lukeandginger.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Sorry to hear that. :( Please send our condolences to his surviving family and friends. I think that Billy Joel was right when he said, "Only the good die young."

</comment><comment><USER23> Thanks Adamgedde for posting this on HN. I'm from Minneapolis and we lost a great figure in this community.

R.I.P Luke you were an inspiration.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the 'local' comment. There has been a ton of support here in the Twin Cities, as I'm sure you've seen. I'll be passing along the groundswell of support from HN to the team at The Nerdery. Thanks again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Three sons implies a wife, or at least a mother, not present in the plane. She must be completely devastated. :(

</comment><comment><USER25> Sorry for your loss, I can't see how anyone would flame you for this post.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your comment, and for taking the time to read and reply.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm sorry to hear that brother. Thank you for posting.

</comment><comment><USER27> Rest in peace, Luke Bucklin. Minnesota will miss you.

</comment><comment><USER28> .

<comment><AUTHOR> Brief, and to the point, literally :) Thanks for reading.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> R.I.P.</comment>


David and Gooliath: How a Philly Startup took on Google and lived to tell about it. - <AUTHOR> http://www.phillypreneurs.com/2009/02/david_vs_gooliath/ <comment><USER2> I wanted to check out tapinko.com, but they block Chrome browsers. Is that what they meant by taking on Google?

<comment><USER3> It worked from me in Chrome.

<comment><USER2> Nice. Maybe they saw my comment?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Using Opera I can't access the site:

"In order to maximize your experience at TapInko, please upgrade your browser to Firefox 3 or Internet Explorer 7, Safari 3, or Chrome. If you have any questions, please email us at email@example.com."

I haven't seen a message like this for years. F A I L.

 _I'd rather see a broken layout then being sent away._

</comment><comment><USER5> the title isn't really correct, they didn't take on Google, they just sat on the sidelines while Google tried and failed.

Tapinko didn't really succeed yet, they just hope to win where Google failed.

<comment><USER6> 'they just sat on the sidelines'... is kind of not really correct either though... but if you want to keep the sports theme going, TapInko seemed to be playing for another team.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think they'll have the multi browser issues situated soon... at least I hope. I'm guessing within 1-2 months at most.

</comment><comment><USER8> Good luck TapInko!

</comment><comment><USER7> They have a good system and strong potential.

</comment><comment><USER9> Looks like Chrome is working now.

</comment><comment><USER10> Too bad they're creating a service for a declining industry :\

<comment><USER6> Declining yes... Billions of dollars still? yes. Potential to possibly help an entire industry? absolutely.</comment></comment>


Peter Thiel Is Poised to Become a National Villain - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/selectall/2016/11/peter-thiel-is-poised-to-become-a-national-villain.html <comment><USER2> This is typical journalist stuff. Sound and fury.

They don't understand Thiel because they simply have not been listening. I don't think they can wrap their heads around his ideas. They have no desire to get outside of their usual frame of reference.

I wrote this essay (from my HN comments) about Peter Thiel before Trump got into power.

[https://medium.com/@internaut_48577/peter-and-the- wolfe-b8de...](https://medium.com/@internaut_48577/peter-and-the- wolfe-b8dee6228918)

And here is the original comment:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12884413](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12884413)

Here is a teaser:

"I think what most passers-by to Thiel's Trump endorsement have wrong, is that they think this is some kind of fluke like a random personality quirk or even a midlife crisis. Hence the whole affair may be dismissed as the ramblings of a strange mad billionaire.

If you watch Thiel's presentations going back over a decade, you'll see something different. These are all public but it takes about a hundred hours or more so most people have jumped around, looking for the gist of what is going on, such as all these journalists attempting to psychoanalyze Thiel, with the obvious motives that first: something weird needs to be explained (100 journalists at the recent press conference!) and less honorably second: he has to be vilified as a prominent opposing political entity external to their tribe.

This is unfortunate because the truth is far more interesting albeit very difficult to explain in a way that would impart an understanding..."

<comment><USER3>
      "This is why the hated Trump is so beloved, notice how the
      campaign slogan isn't 'Make America Greater', it is 'Make
      American Great Again'. This admission of a failure is
      fascinating (for a politician) and utterly ignored by the
      press."

Do you really think a politician appealing to an imagined past is somehow unique or novel or goes unrecognized by the press? "Make X Great Again" is the oldest political slogan, ever. It implies your opponent is culpable for whatever ills people perceive, while simultaneously implying that he can make things better. Make what better? Things, just like they used to be! How? By restoring the past, d'uh!

And absent mental illness, few people's motivations are as specific or esoteric as you argue Thiel's motivations. It's important to realize this, because it explains why it's so easy (and usually so meaningless) to accuse people of petty contradictions. You'll always find contradictions between behavior and ideology if you assume the latter to be as specific as the former. Conversely, if you make the opposite assumption, or whitewash or fill- in the gaps of someone's ideology to make it more specific, you can rationalize their behavior however you want. That's what Trump's base does, and maybe what you're doing wrt to Thiel.

Unless they have some form of mental illness, people usually have very abstract ideologies and motivations made concrete and specific by context. However concrete you think an idea is in your head, it's not. It's a mental illusion. If you want to understand why Thiel is supporting Trump, the place to start is with the fact that Trump is now the President-elect. And that Thiel, like everybody, is fundamentally an opportunist. And that many successful people are especially good at seeking out and discovering opportunities, balancing agility with focus. One thing we can be sure of is that Thiel sees opportunity with Trump. Trying to pin-down precisely what that is, or even assuming his aims are yet concrete, makes the same error as you accuse journalists of making.

Also, the term "technology" in economics doesn't just mean inventions and science. It also means process, like democracy, bureaucracy, or management style. Or culture, like admitting women into the workplace. Technology, in the vocabulary of economics, is a word that describes an outcome--improved productivity leading to a net increase in social wealth--not necessarily anything specific or even physical. Maybe Thiel believes technological progress has plateaued in America, but getting from there to why he supports Trump is quite a leap, whatever his philosophical predilections.

<comment><USER2> > Do you really think a politician appealing to an imagined past is somehow > unique or novel or goes unrecognized by the press? "Make X Great Again" is > the oldest political slogan, ever.

Can you restate this. I cannot parse all of what you're saying.

I think I have the gist of it so I'll make this comment:

Thiel is very consistent. He is not insane.

I have been watching the guy talk, reading his essays for a decade. I don't know him personally, but I do know his ideas. They stay the same. It is a coherant worldview that does explain his actions in a concrete way.

"Opportunist" is not a good characterization of Thiel.

An opportunist is somebody who can go back and forth, a weathervane. Thiel has very concrete, fixed ideas of what is going on. He does not think reality is subjective. Just objective with many complex interwoven layers.

In other words, his actions are _not random_. They are guided by a central narrative. That is what my essay is trying to explain. It is extremely difficult because most people simply do not really grasp what he is saying, the concepts just slide out of their brains because their frame of reference is utterly orthogonal to Thiel's one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Thiel is racist and sexist to support a racist sexist fraudster like Trump</comment>


How Chinese Food Fueled the Rise of California Punk - <AUTHOR> https://www.topic.com/how-chinese-food-fueled-the-rise-of-california-punk <comment><USER4> Great photos. It's so appropriate that they come out swinging with Alice Bag - the Bags were just the best. I must have seen 50 shows at the Hong Kong - <USER2> so many at Madame Wongs, but I did see the 1st B52's LA show there (B52's would be Wongs prototypical band - more "new wave" than punk). But EVERYBODY who was real played at the HK. You would get these fantastic lineups, like the Germs, Bags, Fear and Crowd all on the same bill. Early on, the GoGo's were more aligned with pure punk than pop, and so they played at the HK instead of MW's. Won't get into everybody I saw at the HK (which would be, you know, everybody) but I did see Lydia Lunch and James White there - both from New York.

</comment><comment><USER5> The article was great, I will be interested to see the documentary especially if they've got video footage from some of the shows.

<comment><USER6> You should check out The Decline of Western Civilization, definitely video footage of some of these shows (LA specific) in that documentary.

Edit: The full documentary [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gc4yrcdAok](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gc4yrcdAok)

Another fun fact is the director also directed Wayne's World.

<comment><USER5> Wow that looks awesome I will check that out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Punk made its way to China, where .. it did not quite survive as one might have hoped:

[https://www.huffpost.com/entry/film-review-beijing- punk_b_71...](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/film-review-beijing- punk_b_712248)

</comment><comment><USER8> Just yesterday out of nostalgia I downloaded some classic songs by X - <USER3> Angeles, Under the Big Black Sun, etc.

Fun shows!

I don't have any of my old vinyl anymore. Anybody here still holding onto your old albums?

<comment><USER9> X was my one of my dad's favorites growing up in LA, and I got to see them a couple years ago at The Fillmore with him and my brothers. Was a very good time, glad they're still out touring here and there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I want to know more about the broken toilets!

<comment><USER11> As someone who's been to plenty of punk shows and plenty of punk clubs, I promise you that you do not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Now this is the sort of news I can use.

</comment><comment><USER13> the punks were certainly the most health-toxic sub-culture in post-hippy California.. definitely early pain-killer abusers, plus glue or extreme alcohol, etc. not uncommon to hear of deaths, treachery or jail.. SF Fab-Mab ruler Dirk was later found to be sexually using adolescents pretty regularly .. lead singer of Fang on America's Most Wanted national TV for killing a girl over heroin, things like that .. freedom has a price ! and if the songs regularly invoke violence and madness, guess what, it actually results in violence and madness.. who would have guessed

<comment><USER14> I don't remember punk lyrics focusing on drugs and violence any more than mainstream rock did. (Which, admittedly, was also blamed for those things.) Which bands/songs are you thinking of? I'm assuming you have some in mind, and aren't just parroting stereotypes?

Also, are you sure you've got the cause-and-effect right way 'round? Delinquents do seem to like punk, but that doesn't mean that punk made them delinquent.

<comment><USER9> The way I read his comment, the music "invokes" the violence via live shows. If you've ever been to a punk show, there's a lot of violence going on in the audience/pit. I don't think it's a crazy leap to say that people who enjoy beating the crap out of each other in a sweaty pit might be disproportionately inclined towards beating people up outside that pit.

<comment><USER14> Huh, you think that's it? They're actually saying "mosh pits make you a violent druggie"?

That's...actually even sillier, honestly. I fuckin' loved a good mosh when I was a teen, and I was a kid who never, ever started a fight, and froze up when someone started one with me. I know the pit looks like a brawl, but at every show I went to it was more like a contact sport with no points where everyone wins. If someone fell down, everyone who saw it gathered to help them up and keep folks from tripping until they were back on their feet.

One time a flailing dude caught me in the face with an elbow so hard I staggered and saw stars. He immediately stopped, grabbed my shoulders, and yelled, "dude, are you okay?" He waited for me to nod before he smiled and went back to doing his thing. It was all good.

I know there's guys out there who jump in the pit throwing fists. I can't speak for every scene, but where I come from those guys got shoved out of the pit until they got the point. It's not about winning.

<comment><USER15> I read the post to suggest correlation, not causation.

To your other points, a close friend of mine loved to mosh as a younger man too, and at his last warped tour he tripped and fell. Unlike the shows you described, everyone who saw it kept jumping and smashing into each other for minutes while his companions struggled to get him to his feet. His head was beaten into the ground repeatedly by people's feet, fracturing his skull.

He's still physically scarred and cognitively not the same and years later it seems like that will linger forever. I wanted to share this counterpoint to your post because I think there is validity to your perspective but it is not fully reflective of reality.

<comment><USER16> Was that punk as well?

Sounds more like hardcore/hatecore etc.

Usual punk or metal mosh is full of adrenaline and sometimes too many uncoordinated drunk people, who can be dangerous, but I never experienced people intentionally hurting others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> N.B. it has some confusing passages to people that doesn't know L.A. very well. e.g. "Chinese immigrants had started moving to suburban enclaves like the San Gabriel Valley, bypassing Chinatown and its businesses completely" and then proceed to tell an anecdote from a restaurant in the very heart of downtown chinatown.

<comment><USER18> But that was the point of the passage -- downtown Chinatown restaurants started renting out to punk concerts _because_ the suburban migration was depriving them of customers.</comment></comment>


Neurophilosopher argues morality is rooted in brain science, not reason - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/neurophilosopher-argues-morality-is-rooted-in-brain-science-not-reason-1.5470360 <comment><USER2> This is just a confused article which sets up a dichotomy between reason and brain science.

First off every human question could be, at least theoretically, reduced to "brain science", because all we got is brains, this is just true by definition unless you invoke some sort of magic.

However this isn't actually a good argument for ditching higher level concepts. Reason doesn't stand in conflict to brain science, Talking about moral issues in terms of reason or even divine judgement or whatever is engaging in a higher level of abstraction, which can be vital to aid in creating meaning.

When you try to understand the meaning of a work of fiction you don't go around and count individual letters in the book and try to decipher the shape of the letter 'A', you look at emerging properties of the story and how things hang together in the broadest, not the narrowest, sense of the term. Likewise when discussing morality, it probably isn't very fruitful to try looking at chemicals in synapses for the same reason it's not very fruitful to try to argue about software programs by counting electrons in semiconductors.

<comment><USER3> Wrong. You're confused. Allow me to explain. Step by step.

>This is just a confused article which sets up a dichotomy between reason and brain science.

The article sets up an assumed dichotomy that you missed. That dichotomy is morality and reasoning. It assumes you're aware that morality and reasoning are two different and incompatible things. Then in assuming that you know this, it begins by saying that human morality is not created through reasoning but it is created as pre programmed behavior in our brain. You did not reason your way into knowing what is good or what is evil. You along with most people were born with a moral module in your head that predetermines what you consider to be "good" and "evil".

It does not set up a dichotomy between reasoning and brain science. Your brain can reason it also has preprogrammed instincts. "Brain science" encompasses the existence of both. The article is saying that morality is a preprogrammed instinct.

>However this isn't actually a good argument for ditching higher level concepts. Reason doesn't stand in conflict to brain science, Talking about moral issues in terms of reason or even divine judgement or whatever is engaging in a higher level of abstraction, which can be vital to aid in creating meaning.

Nothing is ditched. Again reasoning never did stand in conflict with brain science and the article never claimed this to be true. You are simply making an incorrect assumption that the article is doing this. The assumption you are making is that morality = logic or morality = reasoning. It's a common mistake because much of our morality feels logical but it is not, it is all instinctual pre programmed behavior similar to hunger or pain.

The issue here is that this moral module is highly integrated with our reasoning facilities so it is hard for us to see how our instinct to do "good" is similar to our instinct to avoid "pain." That being said there are certain moral paradoxes where you can bring your moral instincts into conflict with your logical brain. Meaning that these moral paradoxes can make you feel as if you should do one thing that is "moral" but when you think about it, it is actually illogical. See the link for a good example: [https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Trolley_problem#:~:text=The%20tr...](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Trolley_problem#:~:text=The%20trolley%20problem%20is%20a,to%20save%20a%20larger%20number.&text=There%20is%20a%20runaway%20trolley,up%20and%20unable%20to%20move).

The logical outcome is to save as many people as possible by pulling the lever. But what if we replace the lever with just a single track with 5 people tied up and you can stop a train by pushing an unsuspecting really fat man in front of the train killing the fat man but stopping the train and saving 5 people. You can adjust the parameters of the experiment and change your moral feelings about the whole situation. Either way, in both thought experiments the logical thing to do is to save the most people, but I can introduce variables that mess with the emotional module in your brain. By replacing the lever with the actual pushing of a fat man the logical situation has not changed but I have influenced the moral centers of your brain.

The reason why your brain is built this way is because morality was evolved to help you behave in ways that would allow you to survive in communities of humans. It was not designed to help you reason about the fine grained logical behind it all... as long as your community passed the filter of natural selection nature thought it was good enough. Your moral brain did not need fine grained internal logical consistency in order to help you survive and form communities and societies therefore nature allowed the module to evolve and form in an imperfect and semi-illogical way.

The existence of a dichotomy between how we reason about this situation and how we morally feel about the situation should help you identify the fact that there are two separate modules in your brain where one module is logical and the other module is emotionally moral.

>When you try to understand the meaning of a work of fiction you don't go around and count individual letters in the book and try to decipher the shape of the letter 'A', you look at emerging properties of the story and how things hang together in the broadest, not the narrowest, sense of the term. Likewise when discussing morality, it probably isn't very fruitful to try looking at chemicals in synapses for the same reason it's not very fruitful to try to argue about software programs by counting electrons in semiconductors.

They are doing exactly as you say. The brain is too complex for a low level analysis. If we had the ability to do a low level analysis we would be able to build emulators or run the brain on a computer similar to how we can emulate entire computers on a computer. However because this is outside of our capabilities we come to the conclusion that morality is an instinctual phenomenon based off of high level analysis.

For example: In clinical psychology and you can actually physically identify people who lack all sense of morality and also identify the physical brain damage associated with it. The term for the condition is called "anti-social disorder" better known as "psychopathy." People who are psychopathic retain extremely high reasoning abilities with almost zero moral consciousness. See: [https://www.damninteresting.com/the-unburdened- mind/](https://www.damninteresting.com/the-unburdened-mind/) for more information.

Since we have identified people with specific regions of their brain with brain damage who exhibit behavior and lack understanding of morality and empathy we can know from this high level analysis that morality is an instinctual in inborn phenomenon and not a logical one. Your logical brain knows 1 + 1 = 2 but this part of your brain is not the part of your brain that determines how you know good from evil. Again we know this from observing people who have lost the ability to know good from evil.

<comment><USER2> >Since we have identified people with specific regions of their brain with brain damage who exhibit behavior and lack understanding of morality and empathy we can know from this high level analysis that morality is an instinctual in born phenomenon and not a logical one.

How does that even make any sense? You can turn the exact experiment around, there are people who have brain damage to the areas of their brain that let's them reason logically, but they still have intact moral behaviour.

By that logic, logic itself is not logical because there's an area in the brain that can be turned off? Then nothing is logical because practically every function of the brain can be missing.

You haven't shown that morality is instinctual, you have shown that morality happens in the brain, which big surprise as I said is true by definition.

Why is it supposed to follow from the fact that psychopaths exist that morality is "instinctual", or "born"? Rather than that they've lost their ability to reason about moral subjects?

<comment><USER3> >How does that even make any sense? You can turn the exact experiment around, there are people who have brain damage to the areas of their brain that let's them reason logically, but they still have intact moral behaviour.

I didn't point you to a source that talks about the physical aspect of psychopathy just the qualitative aspect. You're going to have to find that yourself on google it's easy to find.

Suffice to say that people who have psychopathy have either damage to the exact same area of the brain or a lack of nerve connections in the exact same area of the brain. Researchers have identified the exact physical location for this in the brain. If I recall correctly it's actually at the front of your brain above your eyes. Look it up.

>By that logic, logic itself is not logical because there's an area in the brain that can be turned off? Then nothing is logical because practically every function of the brain can be missing.

All areas of the brain can be turned off and on and damaged. There are tons of experiments and recorded cases in psychology about this. Literally tons, in fact it makes up a huge portion of the field of psychology. Psychologists understand the brain through people who have suffered damage from it. Here's one case of a woman who cannot feel fear: [https://www.wikiwand.com/en/S.M._(patient)#:~:text=S.M.%2C%2...](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/S.M._\(patient\)#:~:text=S.M.%2C%20also%20sometimes%20referred%20to,consequence%20of%20Urbach%E2%80%93Wiethe%20disease).

Additionally we can even turn "on" parts of the brain. One of the treatments of depression involve "turning on" or stimulating a specific part of your brain with varying amounts of electricity. See: [https://www.nami.org/About- Mental-Illness/Treatments/ECT,-TM...](https://www.nami.org/About-Mental- Illness/Treatments/ECT,-TMS-and-Other-Brain-Stimulation-Therapies)

It's not an off or on switch... more of a volume control but even that is a blunt description of what's going on.

>You haven't shown that morality is instinctual, you have shown that morality happens in the brain, which big surprise as I said is true by definition.

I have shown it's instinctual. Let me walk you through the reasoning. If the moral part of the brain suffers damage you are no longer moral, but you can still reason.

If you can still reason then if morality wasn't instinctual you can still be moral by your reasoning alone. However we have shown that by killing a part of the brain that doesn't affect your reasoning and creating psychopaths who can reason but cannot be moral we have shown that morality isn't part of reasoning.

>Why is it supposed to follow from the fact that psychopaths exist that morality is "instinctual", or "born"? Rather than that they've lost their ability to reason about moral subjects?

Wrong. Psychopaths can reason about moral subjects. Boolean logic and logic itself is universal and they can still reason that way. They just don't care to follow that reasoning, because morality itself is not logical. A psychopath can identify the behaviors we classify as "good" and the behaviors we classify as "evil" but he does not have an emotional response when plunging a knife into someones face. In short when the opportunity is advantageous to him, the psychopath will not hesitate to kill. Usually though, such actions are never advantageous, so the psychopath remaining logical to the core, will often not kill throughout his entire lifetime.

The words "Good" and "evil" at it's most logical essence are just words that classify certain behaviors and actions... there is no true logical existence of either word beyond its usage as categorization. To a true Neutral intelligence of pure logic and reasoning "good" and "evil" are just arbitrary categories that are made up by human culture and behavior. A psychopath is just closer to a neutral intelligence than a regular human being.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > "Telling right from wrong, or deciding how to feel about other people's > behaviour, is a job for our consciences."

Well the moral and good men in WW2 would never even thought of killing.

But then they were ordered to, and because everyone said "it's ok to kill" this taboo of killing was suspended for the few years of the war.

So our morals are obviously complete relative to what most people around us are doing.

Kill a random guy in 2010? Murder. Kill a random guy in a way in 1945? A pat on the back and the medal.

From a biological survival standpoint "beeing good" matters only "within the tribe" because that is how you stay alive and thrive.

But if the tribe would trive better as a whole if you murder the opposing tribe then that is also "being good".

If morality is rooted in brain science it merely means that it's not absolute, but relative since brain changes if evolution happens.

Today's goods are tomorrow's evils.

And then there are doctors and academics who say we should dump chemicals in water to artificaly increase "altruism".

<comment><USER5> To kick off a morality discussion on HN with a Godwin shows you have good amount of confidence. I have changed my mind a lot on this stance when I read that in Protestants churches for 400 years was preached that the Jews killed Jesus. Antisemitism was baked in such that even the King of England is seen on pictures with Hitler himself.

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

<comment><USER6> This is a really lazy criticism considering they never specified which side they were talking about. WW2 is a good example because most Americans have some general knowledge of the subject to help them understand the topic compared to other possible examples.

Their point holds because there are numerous societies where killing is viewed as immoral but which make an exception for their soldiers performing their duties. Do you have an actual counter-argument or are we just using reddit memes as dismissals now?

<comment><USER5> > Do you have an actual counter-argument or are we just using reddit memes as > dismissals now?

Your first comment under a throwaway account framing the argument at the level of reddit, are you kidding me?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I would be more surprised if morality wasn't rooted in the brain!

The biggest issue I have with this article is the vague notion of morality discussed. There's a deeper problem revolving around what morality _is_ in human life, ie, what it means to be moral, something philosophers have been debating for centuries and indeed still debating to this day. This article actually implicitly assumes that morality is traceable to evolutionary forces in our past that supported the species' survival, but it's important to understand that due to the faculty of reason in our species, biological forces no longer have ultimate control of us, and morality in this sense could re- defined in ways that accord with our perception of the world we live in, freeing us from of the shackles of our instincts.

</comment><comment><USER8> Somehow I knew this was Patricia before opening the article (cbc.ca, neurophilosophy, and morality only have so many names associated with them). I had a number of discussions with her about this about two or three years ago, and my key take home from those is that you have to let go of what you personally think the term morality means when you enter into a scientific context. Moral behavior is not 'moral' in the absolute sense that is being rejected here, it is 'moral behavior' in the sense that it is what the average human being thinks society thinks the 'moral' behavior is in the given situation. The fact that, on average, there seems to be some agreement on this is fascinating. How such a thing evolves, and the reasons for its persistence are vital questions that we have to grapple with.

Another observation that I have had on this is that trying to convince philosophers that morality can be reduced to a decision problem and thus that Kant is not wrong, rather that he is just an asshole who didn't know that Turing complete systems exist, is a very hard thing to do. Their reaction against the dangers of belief in the categorical imperative is extremely well founded, and instructive for those who think that things like smart contracts might be a good idea.

One great advantage of defining traditional morality as being closely equivalent to the evolutionary imperatives of our biological substrate is that we can stop playing the stupid post-hoc rationalization game where we try to come up with rational explanations for what is fundamentally contingent behavior. This in turn provides us with an entirely clear space to start to imagine what post-moral society might look like, and envision what algorithmic morality might look like if we were actually able to feed Bentham's machine with all the factors instead of the stupidly limited number of measurements and dimensions that are usually imagined and that remain centuries out of date with the current state of the art in logic and computation.

Whether we want to live in a society where we have agreed that everything can be decided upon must be reducible to a decision problem, or whether we want to allow ourselves the get out of jail free card that is denying that we know enough to make the decision at all is another question. However, before we can even get there we need to be freed from the misbegotten idea that morality is in any way universal, or derived from natural law, or that natural law even exists. Out of an incredible body of work I will always thank Patricia for taking this head on.

I should also note that the argument that morality is rooted in biology is in no way mean to belittle what evolution has discovered. Patricia has argued that many of the positions taken by modern defenders of enlightenment ideals wildly undervalue so called traditional or local knowledge as "unenlightened" because that knowledge was not arrived at from first principles, but from long, hard experience accumulated and passed down over generations, and that westerns in particular have an abysmal track record when it comes to thinking they know better and thus not listening to the people who know that the reason why the crops are not planted by the river is because the hippos will come out and try to kill you if you do.

</comment><comment><USER9> Morality is rooted in authority.

<comment><USER10> If that were the case, morals would always be aligned with authority, and protests or dissent wouldn't exist.

<comment><USER9> They are always aligned with authority, that is what I was implying. Protests anf dissent exist over disagreemnts about authority.

<comment><USER10> Protests and dissent exist over disagreements about morality.

Authority is a mechanism by which certain moral positions are enforced, but morality is not "rooted in" authority. If it were rooted in authority, it wouldn't make sense for it to be in opposition to that authority.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apple is developing its own graphics chips for the iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2017/4/3/15158982/apple-iphone-gpu-imagination-powervr <comment><USER2> Current discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14021299](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14021299)

<comment><USER3> Thanks! We've moved the comments there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't understand. Apple sits on about 250 billion in cash, invests a fraction of it in GPU's for mobile, while Desktop and Laptop users are chained to last generation's CPUs and Graphics Cards. Apple product team is becoming more Ballmerian with each passing day.</comment>


Modern modules: re-thinking the node.js ecosystem for modern JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@mikeal/modern-modules-d99b6867b8f1 <comment><AUTHOR> Not author, but thought this was worth submitting.

I experienced what Mikeal talks about here when needing to do URL parsing: node has it's own URL parser which has been around for ages, but there's now a WHATWG URL standard that's also implemented in node, and by using that my module can work everywhere without needing extra code in browsers, and be familiar to more developers.

Oh and re the other point in the article: obviously `await` indeed changes everything. `util.promosify()` is great but having `omit callback and I'll return a promise` in stdlib would be even better.</comment>


Ask HN: What did software engineers use before source control existed? - <AUTHOR>

I may be showing my young age here, but before Mercurial/Git there was SVN, and before that SourceSafe and the like.
What did software devs at IBM in the time of thick rimmed glasses and cheesy porn moustaches use? Did they just keep a backlog of their entire code base copied and timestamped?
I've always been curious. <comment><USER2> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concurrent_Versions_System>

Before that:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revision_Control_System>

Before that:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_Code_Control_System>

<comment><USER3> and before that:

cp -a project project.$TODAY

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> MKS

</comment><comment><USER5> In the beginning there was sccs.

<comment><USER6> Not to forget RCS as well.

<comment><USER7> My work still uses RCS (in addition to SVN and git and probably 14 other version control programs). It's great for adding individual files like conf files. Mess something up and want to reset? Just check the file out again and overwrite the existing file.</comment></comment></comment>


Resetting Your GE Smart Light Bulb - <AUTHOR> https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/07/resetting_your_.html <comment><USER2> 1\. Unscrew bulb. 2\. Toss in trash. 3\. Replace with 'dumb' bulb.</comment>


Show HN: Prototypr.io V2 – The Swiss army knife for designers - <AUTHOR> https://prototypr.io/home <comment><USER2> Lot of resources, useful not only to designers. How did you use the AI to categorize?

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for asking! I researched a number of AI services to find something effective and affordable. The one I chose was [http://aylien.com/](http://aylien.com/) \- you can make calls to their API with a URL, and it can extract concepts and tags, which I use on the articles. From there, I can handpick the most relevant categories that arise and show those to the audience</comment></comment>


The implications of silent transmission for the control of Covid-19 outbreaks - <AUTHOR> https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/07/02/2008373117 <comment><USER2> Yet another epidemiological model. These can be useful, but it's hard to apply them when the actual biology is unknown. And currently, the actual weight of asymptomatic infections is unknown (what is also the definition of "asymptomatic"?)

At this point in the pandemic, I think we can ask for some hard data, instead.</comment>


Mailinator and the Recent Google Docs Phishing Attack - <AUTHOR> http://mailinator.blogspot.com/2017/05/mailinator-and-recent-google-docs.html <comment><USER2> "In effect, they were relying on Mailinator's proven ability to receive lots of email."

No, they weren't. Mailinator's ability to receive email had nothing to do with it.

This blog post even admits this itself two paragraphs down: "We noticed the activity early on, and shut down the inbound stream of emails to the hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh inbox. Unfortunately, this did nothing to stop the attack. That's because nothing about the attack was happening via Mailinator."

</comment><comment><USER3> Why did the phishing email need a To address at all? I've seen "undisclosed- recipients;" used very frequently as the To address of an email BCC'd to a group of people, so why not just do something like that?

<comment><USER4> The emails where sent from compromised accounts and Gmail requires a "to" address, I think.

<comment><USER3> I just tested. It doesn't. If you leave "To" blank and just provide a BCC the email it sends is addressed to

      To: undisclosed-recipients:;

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So basically mailinator had a list of compromised accounts (the sender of these emails) and decided to /dev/null this information instead of contacting google=

<comment><USER6> I'm pretty sure Google has the same list from their records of sent emails.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you handle cancellations? - <AUTHOR> If you own a Saas company or similar product, how do you currently handle cancellations by users?
Do they have to contact you? By email? Phone? Chat? Do you offer a Cancel button?
What best practices have you seen? <comment><USER2> Fwiw, law in California requires allowing users to cancel subscriptions via the same medium they used to sign up.</comment>


Ask HN: Does anyone buy domains? - <AUTHOR> I used to pay for several domains (80+) but now I pay for less than half of that. I know of platforms like Flippa but I was wondering what people do with the domains they buy.
Do you park them? If so, where? Do you build websites for them? If so, do you use a service like Wix or Squarespace? Do you sell them? If so, where? What are some favorite domains using the new extensions that you've seen or obtained?
I have been really interested in the new domain extensions and love to see the creative possibilities that others have obtained.
My favorite snag so far has been a domain hack of my last name so that I can have an email address and eventually a website/portfolio that is literally my name. B) <comment><USER2> I used to own over 100 domains, but I've let a lot of the registrations expire. Most of them were just random ideas I had that were, at best, in the category of "I might use this for something one day". But the nebulous "one day" kept not coming and I got tired of spending money on them year after year.

Now I probably own about 40-50 domains and most of them are ones for which I have a specific use in mind. I might not ever get around to actually using all of them, but I've gotten rid of most of the ones that were really "out there" or crazy speculative.

I have only ever sold one domain. Somebody contacted about an idle domain once, said they wanted to use it for a consulting business and asked if I'd sell it. I sold it to them for some token price... probably less than I'd spent keeping the domain registered in the first place. Usually when I decide I'm done with a domain I just let it expire and go back into the pool.

Of the "newer" tld's, the only ones I've used are .io and .ai. I have zuse.ai which I thought of using for an AI news / forums / QA site, but I haven't really had time to mess with it.

<comment><USER3> Like you I used to register domains for every cool idea I had. Over time I learnt that unless I used them for gain, it was just a waste of money to keep them registered. I have tried to sell some of them, but as good as I thought the names were, the money being offered was not worth putting up with the tyre kicking and chiselling.

These days I focus on making what I already have generate more income. Painful lesson is that ideas and registered domains are worthless unless you deliver a product or service for which people will pay.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've registered hundreds of domains over the years, and still have a few hundred. Most were brought with a specific idea for a site in mind, but I ended up focusing on the few sites that made serious money, and the rest ended up just sitting there.

Parking websites was a thing around the turn of the century but hasn't made any real money for many years now, there just isn't the type-in traffic. Same for quick template sites to throw ads on, getting traffic to the domain isn't worth the effort for the tiny returns.

I've sold domains in the past, mainly on Sedo and more recently Flippa. Some have sold for five figures, many for four figures, so overall I've made a profit. But it's hard to get offers over 3 figures nowadays (unless it's a super-premium name).

Only my .coms have ever received offers, there's no real resale market in the new extensions (or even .net, .org), again with the exception of really, really good names.

Those new extensions are cutting the resale demand for even .coms, and making the offers smaller. It's got to the point where I'm letting names expire rather than mess around with the selling process for a hundred or two dollars (more buyers fail to pay now as well, wasting even more time).

In short: unless the name is a really exceptional .com, there's no longer much of a business in buying domain names to hold and resell. Only buy the names you need.

</comment><comment><USER5> I buy a few of them for side projects I'm interested in doing. Sometimes they materialize, sometimes they don't. The ones I like I hold on to and the ones I don't.. let go.</comment>