Coronavirus: Hard-hit Brazil removes data amid rising death toll - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-52952686 <comment><USER2> I have been using [https://github.com/wcota/covid19br](https://github.com/wcota/covid19br) which pulls data from each brazilian state.

However, the military government will start to fudge the numbers even further. They are moving numbers from covid-19 to any other deaths. All other numbers of causes of death are spiking. All this with a brutal underreporting of covid-19 deaths.

I lost another family member yesterday. A young mother of 2 girls.

<comment><USER3> Meanwhile in Germany ppl are complaining that the government's response is too drastic and that the danger is way overblown.

There other day I was literally told that all the measures that were taken probably don't work because the infections were already getting less days before they came into effect.

I'm sometimes confused how far apart the general opinion on platforms such as hn is compared to people you encounter in real life.

<comment><USER4> The level of medical care available in Germany is drastically different than Brazil. The infant mortality rate in Brazil, for example, is five times higher than in Germany.

<comment><USER5> Even the infant mortality of the USA (6 per 1000) is double that of Germany (3 per 1000).

<comment><USER6> Your comment sounds like it's an exceptional achievement that in Germany the value is half of the USA.

When in fact it's the US that's embarrassingly low on the list: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_an...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_and_under- five_mortality_rates)

Let's skip the top countries like those in Scandinavia, Japan, Singapore, Germany and Switzerland. Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina are all above USA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> According to Worldometers data [1], Brazil is currently trending, on a global level, 1st in new cases, 1st in new deaths, 2nd in overall deaths and, within a few days from now, 2nd in total deaths. Real estimates are said to be up to 6x official numbers.

I really wish the Youtube videos [2] by Atila Iamarino, a PhD in Virology, were available in English. I couldn't recommend him enough. He's done 21 talks on the situation in Brazil and elsewhere, and often mentions how the official data lies.

1 - [https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/)

2 - [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSTlOTcyUmzvhQi6F8lFi5w/vid...](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSTlOTcyUmzvhQi6F8lFi5w/videos)

<comment><USER8> BTW Spain is using the same tactics to basically say there are no new deaths. But there are.

<comment><USER9> Do you have a source?

<comment><USER8> [https://www.ft.com/content/77eb7a13-cd26-41dd-9642-616708b43...](https://www.ft.com/content/77eb7a13-cd26-41dd-9642-616708b43673)

<comment><USER10> While I do not doubt for a minute that there has been and there _is_ a lot of number fudging (both intentional and not), that link is 1.5 months old.

I point it out just to mean that the data is not current and as such can hardly reflect the current situation. This [1] seems to have more current data about _excess deaths_.

[1] [https://momo.isciii.es/public/momo/dashboard/momo_dashboard....](https://momo.isciii.es/public/momo/dashboard/momo_dashboard.html#nacional)

<comment><USER11> > that link is 1.5 months old.

Maybe the link has changed since you wrote your comment, but:

"Flawed data casts cloud over Spain's lockdown strategy

"Erratic numbers create uncertainties for policymakers and the public

"Daniel Dombey in Madrid and John Burn-Murdoch in London JUNE 4 2020"

<comment><USER10> Yeah, that's not what the link previously pointed to, I guess. It was a report from mid-April.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Not only that, but the government has also removed data from several sources about Brazil's public health system (SUS). It's not possible, right now, to analyze the underreporting of COVID deaths since the data regarding deaths in the country [1] was zeroed.

[1] [https://opendatasus.saude.gov.br/group/dados-do- coronavirus](https://opendatasus.saude.gov.br/group/dados-do-coronavirus)

</comment><comment><USER13> It's almost hopeless to really understand Brazil from the outside.

On the one hand, response to Coronavirus has been really frakked at the top messaging level; if not a full-on denialist, Bolsonaro seems blinded by the _existence_ of a jobs-deaths tradeoff and can't seem to work with it. He's not a terribly sharp person.

On the other, there's a lot riding on making things look worse than they are. And every time you read something bemoaning how un-excellent someone like Orban is, you have to factor who's rooting for them to fall. There is always a bigger story.

——

Edit: Jesus, dang, why is a perfectly reasonable reply to this comment [dead]?

<comment><USER14> As I've simulated numerically [1] (which has been discussed elsewhere on HN [2]), there is no tradeoff between saving lives (due to COVID-19) and reducing widespread economic damage. Counterintuitively, the policy frontier (economic vs human damage) is concave and non-monotonic, and has three distinct regions, as you can see in the linked graph.

However, this is a highly technical argument designed for engineering-minded or economics-minded thinkers. If we have leaders who are "not terribly sharp" as you say, I'm not sure what we can do about it.

[1] [https://www.circuitlab.com/blog/2020/05/28/surprising- covid-...](https://www.circuitlab.com/blog/2020/05/28/surprising- covid-19-strategy-how-to-reduce-economic-damage/)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23418252](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23418252)

<comment><USER15> Great work! I think simulations/models are a great tool.

some feedback:

>there is no tradeoff between saving lives (due to COVID-19) and reducing widespread economic damage

It is easy to show that there is no tradeoff by assuming that economic damage is only dependend on the duration of the lockdown. Why not aim for R=0? This would save even more lives and reduce the duration of the lockdown to what? 3 weeks? It will just stop all economic activity for 3 weeks. More severe policies have a greater impact on economy. And my intuition is that this dependency is non-liniar. Each reduction of R by 0.1 could for example double(?) the damage to economy. I only skimmed your article [1] - so maybe you already addressed this?

>Counterintuitively, the policy frontier (economic vs human damage) is concave and non-monotonic, and has three distinct regions.

Not surprising at all. I think the right hand side negative slope region of the policy curve is the herd immunity strategy (at least I call it so). It was discussed (and rejected) months ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> For the data-driven folks I highly recommend [https://brasil.io/covid19/](https://brasil.io/covid19/) as a source for numbers on coronavirus in Brazil as official figures are completely tainted now.

</comment><comment><USER17> I Work in an OTA, when this started i thinked am really fuck, just because: I live here (São Paulo state) the company dependents roughly of the people's free going to any place, the first resolution of my bosses is stay home, perhaps because the hq is in Rio de Janeiro, the everyone in company started in home office, changes in whole organization to "new life", after this initially impact the changes, i think what's our sell, the travel or the dream ? People need assisting now around the world, and people wants the vacation for next year and for Christmas, and well all back to normality. We stays in our home at least this month maybe august. It is hard for the northern and center of Brazil because this states really need the travel now, we really work with tour supply chain to raise money for him to help the chain. But it's not common in others ota

<comment><USER18> Sorry, what is an OTA? Travel Agency?

<comment><USER17> Yes online travel agency

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This might work in the short term, but excess mortality will ultimately come out and tell the truth, unless Bolsanaro wants to claim those that died are still living (don't put it past him).

</comment><comment><USER20> Any HNers in Brazil? How are things going in your area?

<comment><USER21> Brazilian living in Brazil here.

This news is not surprising at all.

I'm going to avoid adjectives so that my comment doesn't get downvoted into oblivion by government fanboys, but let's just say that it is safe to assume that the Brazilian federal government does not believe science should be the main weapon in the fight against Covid.

Brazil is one of the few countries that denies the pandemic[1]. The others are Turkmenistan, Belarus and Nicaragua. Fun fact: neither of those are really democracies (whether Brazil still is a democracy, it is increasingly debatable).

The Brazilian president has scoffed covid as "a little flu"[2].

He is also against social distancing/lockdown measures, claiming they don't work[3]. Needless to say, he doesn't provide any scientific evidence of that -- he knows full well his supporters need nothing more than his word to believe in anything.

State governors are basically on their own since the beginning of the pandemic -- a lot of states implemented lockdowns/social distancing, but with limited effect since Bolsonaro routinely goes on national TV to downplay those measures and basically call them a hoax.

The situation now is that people are fed up with the long, ineffective (because they were always superficial, half-baked) social distancing and lockdowns, and the state governments are beginning to reopen right when the death toll is accelerating.

So basically we're screwed. Deaths will accelerate like crazy now that a lot of places are reopening and the federal government will do anything it can to hold onto its alternate reality where everything is fine.

[1] [https://www.ft.com/content/974dc9d2-77c1-4381-adcd-2f755333a...](https://www.ft.com/content/974dc9d2-77c1-4381-adcd-2f755333a36b)

[2] [https://www.euronews.com/2020/04/06/a-little-flu-brazil-s- bo...](https://www.euronews.com/2020/04/06/a-little-flu-brazil-s-bolsonaro- playing-down-coronavirus-crisis)

[3] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/05/04/while- bra...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/05/04/while-brazils- president-fights-social-distancing-its-public-health-system-is-fighting- pandemic/)

<comment><USER22> > Needless to say, he doesn't provide any scientific evidence of that -- he > knows full well his supporters need nothing more than his word to believe in > anything.

I want to live in a world where this is actually viable everywhere, where we can trust our leaders to confer with experts and change their opinion if the situation changes. (Living in Germany, I do trust Angela Merkel that much, for example. I want that for everyone.)

<comment><USER23> I take your point, but Angela Merkel is a very special case. Angela Merkel is a quantum chemist. I wish every world leader was an actual scientist too, but there aren't many who can wear two hats the way Merkel does.

<comment><USER24> Many in Chinese leadership have technical degrees in science. While science appears to be the enemy of some authoritarian governments, others see it as their national edge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've been tracking reported cases and deaths from the ECDC[0] data[1] for some months now. I've added Brazil to the chart ... here is the most recent plot of deaths:

[https://www.solipsys.co.uk/images/ECDC_DeathsLinear.png](https://www.solipsys.co.uk/images/ECDC_DeathsLinear.png)

The horizontal axis is in "days since reported deaths exceeded 100"

[0] European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control

[1] [https://opendata.ecdc.europa.eu/covid19/casedistribution/csv](https://opendata.ecdc.europa.eu/covid19/casedistribution/csv)

<comment><USER25> An "all Europe" variable would be an interesting addition to this plot.

<comment><AUTHOR> Plotted separately, the scales make it hard to plot in a single diagram:

[https://www.solipsys.co.uk/images/Europe_Deaths_linear.png](https://www.solipsys.co.uk/images/Europe_Deaths_linear.png)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> If the data doesn't match what you want, make it fit. In the end of course it's hard to hide dead people.

<comment><USER27> The state of the world being what it is, it's probably doable to cover up thousands or millions of dead people.

All most people will know, first hand, is the deaths of their immediate circle. The full extent of the calamity can remain a matter of debate.

If there are photos, the government can call them forgeries. If there are anecdotes from health care workers, or in the press, the government can dismiss them as left wing propaganda.

And besides, there are bogeymen on whom one can pin all of one's own mistakes. Perhaps Soros and Bill Gates developed an electricity-based bio-weapon, and unleashed it, over TCP/IP, to decimate the people of Brazil.

<comment><USER28> Darn, now after 5G, even TCP/IP is attacking us? What is next, morse code?

<comment><USER27> I hear the deep state hired an Austin-based choreographer to develop weaponized TikTok dances.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> There are a few other poor/dense countries that are headed for a bad year too sadly. Also note for every death there are many survivors that will have lifelong heart/lung problems.

[https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus- chart/?areas=bra&areas=mex&are...](https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus- chart/?areas=bra&areas=mex&areas=usa&areas=gbr&areas=can&areas=ind&areasRegional=usny&areasRegional=usnj&cumulative=0&logScale=1&perMillion=0&values=deaths)

<comment><USER30> Minor nitpick but Brazil is not a dense country. It is actually much less dense than the USA.

It isn't particularly poor either, but it is very unequal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Hard to take this article serious, they compare Brazil to other countries in number of deaths like all countries had the same number of people, they talk about the number of infections being not reliable like it's not a widespread problem in almost every nation, etc.

Discussions about COVID are already politicized, and discussions of politics and COVID are obviously even more, so readers have nowhere to run, they have only extremely polarized views and need to try to "average" them out.

<comment><USER32> Yes, Brazil is very far from being hard hit. We aren't having colapse in our health system. This death count is mostly inevitable, by the nature of the disease. It is indeed much lower than predicted by March, where some were pointing numbers as high as 500k deaths by May.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Not to disagree with the premise of the article, but in the previous pandemic at some point we just stopped counting the cases. We settled on the estimate that 10 to 15% of people in the world got it.

Now that we know the death rate of this virus is roughly 0.4% and it's widespread enough, is it time to also stop counting every single case?

</comment><comment><USER34> The data is available here:

[https://transparencia.registrocivil.org.br/especial- covid](https://transparencia.registrocivil.org.br/especial-covid)

<comment><USER35> I don't understand Portuguese, but all the charts are at 0 now. That can't be right.

<comment><USER36> I do. They basically stopped updating the database. We were getting 1000+ deaths/day. They say they're going to "recount" because they don't trust the numbers are right. Everyone here knows it's just a political move.

<comment><USER34> Sorry but this is incorrect. The numbers are being updated once a day at 10 pm.

And yes, the actual and previous numbers are under investigation by the Federal Police.

<comment><USER36> Dude, look at the graph on the given link above. Deaths literally went from 1000+ to 61 yesterday. Also, in the main panel [1] the gov. quit updating the total death count and does not let you download the .csv like they did before, but still keep the total death count for the day.

[1] [https://covid.saude.gov.br/](https://covid.saude.gov.br/)

<comment><USER34> That's a dashboard, read the about section that explains it.

Here is the CSV:

[https://mobileapps.saude.gov.br/esus- vepi/files/unAFkcaNDeXa...](https://mobileapps.saude.gov.br/esus- vepi/files/unAFkcaNDeXajurGB7LChj8SgQYS2ptm/c6949e9ad47392ef2a7307641cc014a0_HIST_PAINEL_COVIDBR_05jun2020.xlsx)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> the data is available here: [https://covid.saude.gov.br/](https://covid.saude.gov.br/)</comment>


Use of AGPL software after author deleted repository - <AUTHOR> http://opensource.stackexchange.com/q/2533/8 <comment><USER2> This is one of the reasons why one should always build from locally hosted sources, except maybe for highly trusted parts (e.g. Debian or CentOS official upstream repositories are known for providing historical versions).

<comment><AUTHOR> I wish people said this more often. I had to learn it the hard way, with much scar tissue.</comment></comment>


Biggest Diamond in More Than a Century Unearthed in Botswana - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-19/biggest-diamond-in-more-than-a-century-discovered-in-botswana <comment><USER2> Yay, this will bring so much wealth to the people of Botswana!

<comment><USER3> Right you are...

The people of Botswana don't even rate a mention in the article, they're likely not going to see a single dime of the proceeds which will be in the many tens of millions of US$.

<comment><USER4> Botswana is an upper-middle-income economy with a freer press and lower corruption than a number of European countries. Their level of corruption is slightly worse than that of France, and way better than most South or East European country (source: [https://www.transparency.org/country/#BWA](https://www.transparency.org/country/#BWA) ; [http://www.heritage.org/index/country/botswana](http://www.heritage.org/index/country/botswana)).

Also, they are one of the largest producers of rough diamonds in the world, so a single stone may be a big deal for the company extracting it, but it means hardly anything to the country.

Africa has some insane level of corruption and poverty, but there are some exceptions (namely, Botswana and Mauritius).

<comment><USER3> Thank you for that information, that totally changed my view on the situation in Botswana. Reading up on Africa from time to time and I completely missed this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We have reached levels of unfathomable wealth.

>Last week, Hong Kong billionaire Joseph Lau paid 48.6 million Swiss francs ($48.4 million) at Sotheby's in Geneva for a 12.03-carat blue diamond, the most spent on a jewel at auction. A day earlier, he paid 28.7 million francs for a 16.08-carat pink diamond. Both purchases were for his 7 year-old daughter, his office said.

<comment><USER6> That's nothing. Another guy from Hong Kong is offering more than twice that to anyone who can convince his daughter to be with a man.

<comment><USER7> Which, bigoted and misguided though it may be, offers a much better ROI than shiny rocks for a child.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Since the main difference between coal and diamonds is some expensive processing (currently it's usually done by natural processes but that detail can be changed)

So diamonds might have a fair price of, to be generous, 1000 * times the cost of coal. So diamonds cost the ballpark of $50 per kilogram.

Obviously they don't right now, but it gets you thinking about the intrinsic value of diamond and how that price might move in the future.

<comment><USER9> I wonder about the intrinsic value of dollar notes.

<comment><USER10> Same as it is for coal - how long it takes to burn it. Which is a lot quicker.

On the other hand, flags, religious symbols, and monuments don't have a ton of intrinsic value either, but humans are funny that way, with their social contrivances.

<comment><USER11> Industrial diamond use is not limited to burning (in fact burning isn't really an industrial use of diamond as far as I know, there's plenty of cheap ways to heat stuff). Diamonds (mostly synthetic) are used for cutting, piercing (drill bits), abrading[0], anvils in very high-pressure context and electronics heat sinks.

Most of the mined diamond production and the vast, vast majority of synthetic diamonds are not gemstone-grade and are used industrially.

[0] for all three mostly as diamond coating on tools, though there are monocrystalline diamond edges and blades, mostly for surgical use and microtomy: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_knife](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_knife)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: The first issue of Compelling Science Fiction - <AUTHOR> http://compellingsciencefiction.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Two months ago I posted about a new online science fiction magazine I was creating: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11151062](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11151062)

I'm happy to report that the first issue is now live! I'm looking forward to hearing your feedback. I will continue to refine the magazine as time goes on, but I believe we have a great collection of stories for you, which is what we set out to do.

<comment><USER2> I asked this on the original thread too but never got an answer, and I ask it again because I'm not familiar with how publishing works: If I submit a series of short stories, would I still retain the right to collect them into a book and have it published elsewhere, like Asimov did with Foundation?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm sorry I missed your question the last time around. Yes, you retain the copyright, I just buy 'first world electronic print rights.' This means that I'm buying exclusive rights to publish electronically for a period of time (in this case 6 months) and after that I have non-exclusive publishing rights (so you can sell or publish reprints any time after 6 months). After 3 years you have the option of terminating my non-exclusive rights altogether, although you don't need to to sell your own reprints. I've been told by authors that my contract is the most author-friendly they've seen (it's based on SFWA's model magazine contract).

<comment><USER2> That sounds good, thank you for the thorough answer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Love the concept, good sci-fi is hard to come by.

Design thought: the reading experience would be vastly improved by a larger font size and shorter line length. See [https://edwardtufte.github.io/tufte- css/](https://edwardtufte.github.io/tufte-css/) or similar for inspiration.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestion, I will certainly review the link you sent! I don't have any volunteers who have front-end design experience, so there is a lot of room for improvement.

<comment><USER4> In Firefox, you can click the little book icon to turn on better readability. (Reader View)

It definitely improves the layout, you can copy that design basically. Smaller content width, bigger fonts.

Also, thanks for putting this together!!!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! It's an expensive hobby :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Glad to see all the positive feedback here. I volunteered as a reader/advisor for this first edition and wanted to take this chance to say the experience was great. Joe is very respectful of volunteers time, even those of us who occasionally fall off the grid for a few days ( I still owe you a pic and bio Joe :) ). I'd encourage anyone on the fence to pick up this edition, there are some absolutely outstanding stories in there. And I'd also encourage anyone thinking about volunteering to jump in, it's a great project/maintainer to work on/with. Here's too many more issues Joe!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the kind words! I appreciate your help evaluating stories.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a very interesting project. Are you self financing the entire operation? The "about us" page has some info on your review process. It seems those are volunteers or are you also paying them? I love the free+payment optional model and not relying on ads. What's your bigger fear, lack of quality entries or lack of subscribers?

6c/words seems pretty solid so that's nice. SFWA rights is a good choice as well, seems like you are pretty author friendly :) How are you handling authors payments btw. (not an author but curious)?

Sustaining >550 paying customers to break even seems like no small task.

I have looked for similar online magazines with good rights in another domain (horror) before and your site seems to be ahead of the curve with regards to seeming professional and transparent, kudos.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I'm currently self financing everything. All the individuals on the 'about' page are volunteers. You can see a little bit of a finance breakdown on the 'subscribe' tab ([http://compellingsciencefiction.com/subscribe.html](http://compellingsciencefiction.com/subscribe.html)).

I'm paying authors the old-fashioned way, with checks! Since it's only 5 checks/month, this doesn't seem like something I need to optimize right away.

I appreciate your kind words -- it will be tough to get enough paying supporters, but hopefully people find the content worthwhile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Just read Gaia's Children (~35min) - a great piece. I actually listened to it in the car on the way to work using iOS's text-to-speech, which was very good quality.

<comment><USER7> My opinions so far:

Gaia's Children - 5 stars

Reflection - 4 stars

Mean and Clean - 2 stars

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback!

Mean and Clean was very controversial before publication -- two advisors disliked it and two really loved it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Finding hard scifi is so hard. Most of science fiction is purely the realm of science fantasy.

<comment><USER2> I think it's a difficult line to draw, typically (except in the case of high fantasy, like magic). We might find that our understanding of science to be "wrong" at any point, because science is not as "rigorous" as mathematics. At one point modern computing with semi-conductors would've been impossible (classical mechanics), but then we discovered that on microscopic levels quantum mechanics applies instead, and this allowed computers to the extent that we have today.[0]

[0] [https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/112615/why-is- it...](https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/112615/why-is-it-said-that- without-quantum-mechanics-we-would-not-have-modern-computers)

<comment><USER9> True in some senses, but take 'Interstellar' for instance. I would personally categorize it as hard science pushing the fringe into fantasy/speculation. 'The Martian' I would consider more hard science fiction overlooking some technical issues for dramatic effect. In any case, I enjoy SF that is mainly in the realm of hard SF. I read John Cramer's 'Twistor' years ago, and although some have panned it for some stereotypes, I loved reading it at the time. I'll have to revisit it. Professor Cramer is a physics professor at Univ. of Washington in Seattle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Would you consider publishing an epub format version (either of the individual stories or altogether for each issue)?

<comment><AUTHOR> We definitely have an epub version, it can be downloaded right now by patrons of Compelling Science Fiction on Patreon: [https://www.patreon.com/compelling](https://www.patreon.com/compelling)

We're currently discussing additional methods of distribution of e-reader formats. We would like to set up an automated system that emails subscribers .epub/.mobi versions to their address of choice, but we need to put together an in-house subscription system first.

<comment><USER11> Would you consider distributing the magazine (including subscriptions) via Weightless Books [1]? They are also handing lots of other magazines like Clarkesworld, Locus, NYRSF, etc.

[1] [https://weightlessbooks.com/](https://weightlessbooks.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I would certainly consider it, I'll check out their terms. Thanks for pointing them out! We want to get our stories out to as many readers as possible, so we're looking at many different channels.

<comment><USER12> Please consider adopting some of the emerging trends in sharing, such as IPFS.io, too. It would be amazing to know your works are always available through such a system ..

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Interesting stories. Better copy editing would make them easier to read.

"Ed had shouted on them like this"

"No real kidnapper hauls around a struggling, scream-seeking captive"

"I see I need to show the adolescent asshole affecting to be me "

Broken sentences like these make the stories a bit of a chore to read.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! We hired a professional copy editor, but we will work harder in this area going forward.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> For some reason I've always preferred my Science Fiction in short-story form, and my Fantasy in novel form, so this is nice. I do regret that in all of my moving around during college years, I got rid of my print magazines.

</comment><comment><USER15> hey, why not allow people to supply a Kindle email address so you can push straight to them? they need to whitelist you as a sender of course..

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a great idea, and we're currently working on a system that will accomplish this.

<comment><USER16> Consider becoming a kindle magazine. I subscribe to F+SF and would surely subscribe. Its mainly a convenience feature, magically new issues appear on my tablet as they're released and magically you get a predictable monthly cash flow.

I subscribe to 2600 on my kindle; its clearly not a "giant publishers only need apply".

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately Amazon has discontinued "Kindle Publishing for Newspapers & Magazines Beta". A lot of the small magazines that signed up through that program were grandfathered in. I've sent a query about other ways to get periodicals published, but haven't yet heard back.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Congratulations on your first issue! I'm curious if you have considered suggesting people put their experiences working with your magazine on the Submissions Grinder or Duotrope. I know at least the Submissions Grinder posts the latest updates on its homepage and it might attract you to more writers. Also how much have you considered social media in talking to both fans and authors to keep updates on your magazine, upcoming contests, perhaps a yearly anthology of 'best hits', etc?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I had not considered encouraging authors to post their experiences, I will look into it.

We are also working on our social media presence. We have a Twitter account (@CompellingSF) but no Facebook presence yet. We're mostly relying on email currently, however, and that will continue to be our primary communication mechanism.

<comment><USER17> I will note that the Grinder and Duotrope are writer-contributed anyways so someone will eventually list your magazine there. I only suggest this because both those sites cater to writers looking for markets to submit work. The more writers contribute the stronger your magazine looks in terms of writer's perspective.

Good luck and I hope to look forward to many future releases to come!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Quick nitpick: Could you add a RSS feed? I think it would be a nice alternative to the mailing list.

<comment><AUTHOR> I will certainly look in to this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I thought the default look of the site was a bit hard to read, so I made two themes for Stylebot. If you have Stylebot installed you can go to the site, click the Stylebot icon and load either of them from "Stylebot Social".

Stylebot is only available for Chrome though; does anyone know an alternative to Stylebot which is as user-friendly as Stylebot but also available on a broad range of browsers?

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice! I appreciate the effort. Based on feedback here I'll be changing styles tonight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Thanks! I'll be bookmarking this and coming back periodically. FWIW, I used chrome dev tools to add some page styles, in order to make the stories easier for me to read.

        body {
          font-family: georgia;
          font-size: 17px;
          line-height: 2;
          background-color: #F8F9E4;
        }
        p {
          margin: .5em 0;
          text-indent: 1em;
        }

<comment><AUTHOR> I appreciate the suggestion! I'll be changing the styles this evening.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Some more sci-fi:

[https://escapepod.org/](https://escapepod.org/)

<comment><USER22> More hard sci-fi:

[http://rationalfiction.io](http://rationalfiction.io)

<comment><USER23> You may want to consider turning off the debug flag in Django as advised here: [https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/settings/#debug](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/settings/#debug)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I always love to get some fresh Science Fiction stories and just pledged my support on Patreon.

I sincerely hope your stories won't be bland (Haven't read the first issue yet).

As a longtime Escapepod listener and supported I love how diverse and creative the stories can get, once you move away from the classical Spaceship & Lasergun stuff.

<comment><AUTHOR> feel free to email me with your thoughts at firstname.lastname@example.com!

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Awesome stuff and I plan on submitting some stories in future. I am more than pleased to see you creating a further avenue for writers, and sci-fi in particular, to get their work into as many eyeballs as possible.

Definitely another thumbs up for paying six cents per word even when you're just getting your feet off the ground.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm passionate about supporting content like this, so I'll be paying for it as long as I can!

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Any chance I could buy an epub? I'm not sure whether I want to subscribe yet, but I can't read fiction on a computer screen.

(I'll just download and convert if necessary, but it'd be nicer to pay you for it.)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll email you one this evening, no charge, just send me your email address (firstname.lastname@example.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Something I noticed when I bookmarked the site: none of the pages have a <title> tag.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing this out! There are a lot of small issues we need to address (favicons, title tags, better typography, etc).

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> The PNG is pretty large. I compressed it with tinypng to a quarter the size.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing that out -- there are many optimizations that we need to do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Can we get it in print?

<comment><USER30> Maybe they could add an option to order an on-demand print from a service like Lulu.com

<comment><USER29> Good idea. I'd pay for that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This looks awesome - I'm so excited to read this!

</comment><comment><USER32> stop with the greek name bullshit already. pick another culture's mythology there are so many out there (hindu, african, persian, etc.) it will help you be a fresher writer</comment>


Jeff Bezos Is Playing Chess - <AUTHOR> http://m.techcrunch.com/2013/08/05/bezos-not-bozos/ <comment><USER2> > Occasionally, you'll have to show those cards and win a hand to prove that > you can. But the rest of the time you call and fold, as you await the > monster to take the entire pot.

Wait, just which game are we talking about here? I thought it was chess and checkers but now we're on to cards. I'm only sort of kidding -- Bezos certainly does seem like a genius to me, no argument there. But this is just the author going "No, you don't get it, he's so smart!"

(Also, as it happens, the above would tend to be a terrible poker strategy.)

<comment><USER3> _But this is just the author going "No, you don't get it, he's so smart!"_

I'm a little curious what TC thinks the purpose of insulting their readers in the title of their piece is. The hopelessly mixed metaphor is just icing on the cake, but you do have to break a few eggs to throw the baby out before it's hatched.

<comment><USER4> _but you do have to break a few eggs to throw the baby out before it 's hatched._

"If we hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate!"

\- Zapp Brannigan

<comment><USER5> Still laughing! Thank you :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> When I saw the headline I said, "Ugh. That sounds like something MG Siegler would write." Then I saw that he had wrote it and I said, "I bet half of it is really about Apple..."

I guess if nothing else you know what you are going to get from Siegler...

<comment><USER7> This. But Siegler does have a point sometimes.

<comment><USER3> Noise in the system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A consistent problem I've seen with e-books and streaming video is lack of live content, in particular breaking & current news. Apple provides some live sports, and just added SkyNews, but that's all third-party encapsulated content limited to AppleTV. Google scrapes the Web for news, but just gives pointers to content instead of packaging it. Bezos isn't buying a newspaper, he's buying a content-gathering service - it might not be big, but the core infrastructure is in place to get the content and curate it without negotiating with a fiercely protective third party.

We've been observing the demise of news outlets. The demise continues so long as the owners fight to retain total control of their distribution to eyeballs; having given up, WP has finally given total control to someone who _does_ control distribution of content to a whole lotta readers & viewers. Expect the rebranding of WP as Amazon News, and watch it explode onto the news scene giving CNN, Fox, etc a desperate run for their money.

<comment><USER9> I think if the ultimate goal was to integrate the WaPo with Prime, he may have made the purchase as Amazon, instead of as a personal purchase.

There's something else going on here.

<comment><USER8> Amazon per se may not be interested in WaPo per se under current conditions, but repackaged into a suitable form it may be. Bezos could make a tidy sum selling an Internet-future-ready news service to Amazon.

<comment><USER10> That's a potential nightmare of self-dealing that I don't think is Bezos (or Amazon's) style. You'd have to get some third party to come in and validate the transaction price as fair, etc. Amazon's done a number of transactions where it chose to maintain or transform the target as a separate entity (think Zappos, IMDb), so if he thought there was long term interest he would have just had Amazon buy it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I thought that was a pretty poor article - no real argument and essentially a mixed metaphor between the title (chess) and the body of the article (cards/poker). The bit about "negative cash cycles" seems hopelessly outdated - comparing Amazon to bricks and mortar companies seems appropriate to 2002, not 2013.

<comment><USER12> I wouldn't agree that a negative cash cycle is outdated. However I would disagree with the author's inference that a low profit business with negative working capital is as good a high profit business.

As evidence, I'd point to a great negative working capital businesses. Dell. No one's arguing that Dell is a super business thanks to the cash it generates because of its negative working capital cycle.

Bezos is obviously brilliant. It's possible that he made the decision to stick to low margin businesses because he knows that won't attract competition. That would be counter-intuitive and pretty brilliant if you're certain you can out- execute your competitors in the low margin space.

<comment><USER11> I just meant that the comparison to bricks and mortars companies who have to pay for their inventory up front, then collect cash 15, 30, 45 days down the road is outdated. Amazon isn't competing against mall bookstores anymore, it's competing against other online companies - eBay, Apple, B&N (online), etc.

<comment><USER13> Large brick and mortar retailers also usually have negative working capital, it's nothing to do with being an online company, rather it's about bargaining power vs suppliers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Or we can KISS (keep it simple stupid):

1\. Next time a law surfaces Amazon tax they will have much bigger mallet with which to hit the gong. WaPo has amazing team and journalists.

2\. Right now content is king - Amazon lacks much original content. Newspapers are dying, but the market for quality journalism will always be there. And he learned a lesson from Apple books.

3\. He could just be Citizen Kane - just for the fun of it and the challenge to bring it to the digital world.

<comment><USER15> > Next time a law surfaces Amazon tax they will have much bigger mallet with > which to hit the gong. WaPo has amazing team and journalists.

No need to wait until next time, Amazon labor conditions have been making headlines recently and even Obama is making gestures to do something.

Since Amazon is such a low margin business raising wages could be crippling so there is an immediate and critical need for Amazon to start doing public relations and lobbying.

An important media analysis would be to compare WaPo coverage of Amazon, especially the labor conditions issue, before and after the acquisition. It would also be interesting to know how much Amazon has increased lobbying funding and political contributions recently.

[http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-07-24/politics/40860...](http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-07-24/politics/40860559_1_president- barack-obama-amazon-high-wage-jobs)

<comment><USER3> _Since Amazon is such a low margin business_

Even as a public company, I wouldn't be surprised if they're playing some accounting tricks in order to maintain this as a facade.

<comment><USER15> The argument doesn't really depend on the business being low margin only that Amazon is strongly motivate to control labor costs for whatever reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm not sure i buy into the whole idea that they are spending so much money on infrastructure and then they will "turn on a switch" to be profitable. Google is building, but they are still profitable. Here's an interesting dissection of amazon's earnings (complete opposite perspective from the article): [http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=3190940](http://market- ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=3190940).

</comment><comment><USER17> He said the same thing in all the paragraphs as in the headline - Bezos is playing a smart game that the rest of us don't get. So what exactly is that game?

<comment><USER18> Did you read the article? The theory seems clear to me...

<comment><USER17> I did. What is the theory?

<comment><USER19> Apparently that you want to manage your business so as to avoid being the target of the press and the stock traders, as opposed to, say, executing your business plan to realize the goals of the company owners.

The entire theory seems to rest on accepting that Apple has made some mistake, not in any rational business sense; as it admits they've been wildly successful at making products people love and tens of billions of dollars from those products, but because analysts and journalists are writing ridiculous articles about their being in flux.

What it seems it ignore, is any consideration that, absent Apple, the press would just descend on the next big target with mass-market cachet, regardless of their fundamentals, or business model. [1] [2]

So the theory _assumes_ the press is irrational (e.g. writing nonsense articles about Apple that are completely divorced from business reality) but then supposes you can avoid their gaze, by relying on them to act rationally according to rules you perceive. (e.g. they will not chatter about you, if you don't make too much profit too quickly)

Lost in any of this, is any measure of _whether it actually matters_ one whit whether traders, analysts or journalists use emotional manipulation of the larger public to create business opportunities for themselves.

[1] Traders exist to trade. Mismatch between perceived value and price creates profit. If there is no mismatch, they create some. See: Jim Cramer

[2] The press exists to sell newspapers. Controversy creates profit. If there is no controversy, they create some. See: Every article written about Apple that has no basis in reality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > . The "problem"? Apple was too successful, too quickly. Because the iPhone > was such a good business

"too quickly"? Apple? Are we talking the same Apple that was founded in 1976?

<comment><USER21> I think the "quick" does not refer to time since foundation, but the fact the success was a spike instead.

<comment><USER22> Elaborating on this, Apple giving consumers a glimpse into some very impressive technology for 2007 and then again with the price drop with the 3G gave consumers an expectation of Apple to consistently push boundaries every year with new, groundbreaking technology. Technological developments simply don't evolve as drastically as the introduction of the iPhone in 2007 made it seem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> More like, while everyone thinks he is playing Chess, Bezos is playing Go.

Edit: Amazon and WaPo looks like this huge moyo play.

</comment><comment><USER24> Bezos has been playing chess far longer than we even knew a game was going on. He just castled.

<comment><USER25> Psh. Castling is a trick play, like the forward pass. Back in the old days, we moved one piece at a time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Jeff Bezos could turn it into a micropayment based newspaper. He could easily have Amazon Prime be a gateway to WaPo articles.

Alternatively, he could send out a Kindle to every WaPo subscriber and kill the print version tomorrow.

</comment><comment><USER27> Alonzo Harris: This shit's chess, it ain't checkers</comment>


Automated WiFi client deauth: mass attack on default routers & IoT - <AUTHOR> https://deadcode.me/blog/2016/11/05/Active-Deauth-Kismet-Wardriving.html <comment><AUTHOR> Useful for automated unattended wardriving on a large area. Makes hunt for default configured routers and IoT devices easier.</comment>


Robots can replace any profession with existing technologies - <AUTHOR> https://email@example.com/humans-are-sophisticated-robots-40c57ddb97a6 <comment><AUTHOR> Rationale is given in the article</comment>


CamelCamelCamel Is Not Tracking Amazon Pricing Anymore - <AUTHOR> https://camelcamelcamel.com/blog/amazon-eu-covid-19 <comment><USER2> Camel creator here. This is, for now, only in the EU. We are still tracking prices in US/CA/AU.

The return of EU tracking is currently uncertain. After the crisis is over, we don't know if Amazon will just tell us we're done. And even if they don't, their recent mandatory API upgrade -- which appears to have made API quotas global, rather than per-region -- may have made it impossible for us to continue service in that region. More on this will be posted on our blog if it becomes important.

<comment><USER3> Can I just thank you for your incredible product and service! I generally hate hate hate affiliate marking software and programs because they can often so quickly devolve into splatter-paint spam campaigns that do no value to (potential) customers (in the end). Your site, however, should be a shining example of how to do it _right_. You provide substantial value to customers, and I use the site (and Chrome extension) very regularly! I also tell pretty much anyone that will listen about it and it almost always goes over well. Aside from that one time you had a longish outage, it's always been reliable for me.

Whatever the present situation, thank you for being a great example of what positive/ethical affiliate programs can be like!

<comment><USER2> Thanks for your support.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Will they be tracking Amazon after this is all over? The blog post is ambiguous about if this is a temporary or permanent change.

<comment><USER5> Seems temporary:

> Amazon Europe has requested we temporarily shut down operations in order to > lighten their burden while they try to get necessary products into peoples > hands.

> So, as of now, and likely until the end of the COVID-19 crisis, we will not > have a working website in Europe.

[https://twitter.com/camelcamelcamel/status/12421791057154539...](https://twitter.com/camelcamelcamel/status/1242179105715453952)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This headline is weird. It appears this is temporary, and in the EU. But good for CamelCamelCamel, seems like the right call.

<comment><USER7> It's not even the original headline, which is "Amazon EU + COVID-19 "

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I had been using CamelCamelCamel for personal use to avoid price gouging, just giving a quick go/no-go to friends and family ordering things we don't buy enough to have learned what the normal unit costs are. Managed to avoid a handful 2-3x $ purchases over the last couple weeks. I know I'm not their target user, but I will miss it. I wonder if Keepa will follow suit.

</comment><comment><USER9> s/Anymore/Temporarily

</comment><comment><USER10> Inaccurate title.

"CamelCamelCamel Is Temporarily Not Tracking EU Amazon Pricing due to COVID-19" might be better.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm getting an error 1020 following that URL.

"This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks."

<comment><USER12> I had to disconnect from my VPN to be able to view the page.

<comment><USER11> Thank you!

That worked for me too. I had my VPN on. Turned it off and I could view the page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > It turns out that everything was simply out of stock

I don't think that everything is out of stock in Spain or Italy

<comment><USER14> Prove it :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It is unfortunate that they won't be tracking the goods that they do still stock.

</comment><comment><USER16> Seems to only be Amazon EU.</comment>


Show HN: Socket.im  - Share Your Sh*ts Immediately - <AUTHOR> http://socket.im/

<comment><AUTHOR> This was started as a weekend project. And ended up here. Socket,im is a tool for sharing stuff between parties without hassle. You just type socket.im/something then system creates something what we call a socket. You can send links, messages, images etc via socket.im and anyone who is already connected that socket (by also typing the socket name or if you sent him a link by clicking the link) would receive what you have sent. It's anonymous. Nothing is stored on the server persistently.

Soon we will add file sharing and ssl support.

 __socket.im is still in its early days so it's something like an alpha version. __

EDIT: We will be available at<http://socket.im/dev>

<comment><USER2> Looks good and works as advertised! Waiting for SSL.</comment></comment>


The New York Times ($NYT) saved itself with subscriptions not ads - <AUTHOR> https://www.recode.net/2017/5/4/15550052/new-york-times-subscription-advertising-revenue-chart <comment><USER2> That's really great to see, and a positive for the industry as well. I've posted it before and will post it again. The only way to support quality content creation is for customers to pay for content. As long as content is advertising supported it will continue to down the path to 'fast food' content.

This holds for newspapers, buzzfeed, ESPN, reality TV vs. HBO/Netflix. And likely the web as a whole. The only way to survive off advertising content is cheap to produce, high volume content.

This means to have quality content either users pay per consumption (or use a flat fee monthly model), or other users produce it for you for cheap (ala YouTube).

</comment><comment><USER3> The Times has been running lots of promos. Stuff like "subsribe for $1 per week". Currently it's 50% off for 1 year.

It will be interesting to see what the subscriber numbers are once (if ever) people need to pay 2x or 3x what their initial teaser rate is.</comment>


Database Security: DB2 vs MySQL - <AUTHOR> http://freedb2.com/2009/07/10/database-security-db2-vs-mysql-and-how-to-make-a-million/ <comment><USER2> As someone that knows very little about DB2 I found this article to be very illuminating. I can see his points about the power of using system authentication for controlling logins. However, as someone that runs quite a few MySQL and PostgreSQL servers the 'downsides' he presents of keeping login info in the DB is not an issue. I have a script that just replicates that info to all the machines-I remove them from the master DB and within a few minutes they've lost access to all the DB's.</comment>


Breaking down FRP - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.janestreet.com/breaking-down-frp/

<comment><USER2> Since it's not mentioned in the article, FRP stands for Functional Reactive Programming</comment>


Ask HN: Submit Questions for Office Hours with YC - <AUTHOR> When we announced that we'd be restarting the podcast [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12969562], many HN users requested Office Hours as a recurring segment. We're kicking that off next week on YouTube.
Sam's generously offered to go first. So, if you have a question, please post a few sentences of context and the question here. We'll do our best to answer as many questions as possible.
You can subscribe to our channel https://www.youtube.com/ycombinator to get the video when it's posted.
Looking forward to this! <comment><AUTHOR> Thanks to everyone that submitted questions. We'll keep track of what wasn't answered for future episodes.

Here's the video - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45BvnJgwYjk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45BvnJgwYjk)

</comment><comment><USER2> As a b2b company, how do you get sales outside of your network? What resources can you recommend to setup a process that will get you to your first 20ish customers?

<comment><USER3> Another way to pose this question might be: among the successful YC B2B companies, how did they acquire their first few customers? I am sure that personal networks play a role, but then what fraction of initial B2B sales did they acquire from outside of personal networks?

This is the hardest problem, I think. Some "out-of-network" routes to market I can think of are cold calling, cold emailing, cold snail mail (FedEx, USPS, etc), cold LinkedIn "inmailing," participating in conferences (getting speaker spots and/or setting up booth), blogging, "ShowHN" style posts on online forums, advertising on search engines, advertising in industry publications, getting referrals from your investors (if you have investors) ... am I missing any? For every one one of these "hacks," you can find people saying that it doesn't work, that it's waste of time/money, that you should spend resourcing on building product instead, etc. Have YC companies succeeded in the earliest stage through these kinds of efforts? Are some more effective than others, for particular markets?

If it really is all just about personal network in the earliest stages, then that's equally puzzling to me because the numbers seem so low - how many prospective buyers could anyone possibly have in their personal network? Isn't it supposed to be a numbers game ("dial and smile")? It would take just a day or two to contact everyone you know who might be a buyer, what do you do after that?

The investor referrals idea seems like a plausible source of B2B startup success (especially if you are selling to other startups), since investors tend to be highly connected. I've heard YC partners say they can be very helpful in sourcing of your early customers. But another philosophy is that the only way to get into YC is to not _need_ YC ... In other words, this leads to a chicken & egg problem because typically you need to get sales off the ground before any investor (often including YC) will invest in your company. It's the same as saying that you should get sales leads through customer referrals - that might not be super useful advice if you're pounding pavement to find your first handful of customers.

<comment><USER4> Thank you for the post that was very helpful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> When founding a startup, is being a college student an advantage or a disadvantage. Does it matter at all?

<comment><USER6> From previous comments by PG and others I think the gist of it is that college is a great place to work on interesting projects and meet potential co- founders (other students).

Startups tend to be all consuming, so it's hard to say that another full-time commitment like school could be an advantage. Unless you have a business that is taking off like a rocket ship, I would wait til after graduation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hi Sam. Big fan of the yCombinator team, philosophy, and all the great work you all do!

I'm working in a B2B startup as the sole founder where I'm developing software to help agile software engineering companies capture and document their R&D work for government R&D Tax Credit purposes.

I've been iterating through various prototypes using the MEAN stack attempting to make the product that my B2B clients can't live without. I'm currently focusing on Canadian companies (who claim SR&ED) and am constantly juggling sales and engineering, which makes things go slower than ideal. I'm having a little trouble finding a technical cofounder because this startup is so niche and focused (for now) and the product is still in the experimental phase.

My question: I'm the sole founder and dream of having cofounders to help drive this forward with me. So, right now I'm not sure if my primary focus should be on building the cofounding team, or if I should remain completely focused on proving this out on a smaller-scale by building a scrappy prototype that proves this concept is viable before building the cofounding team?

</comment><comment><USER8> What's your advise For a grad student at a top-level university who is working on a cool scientific project in a great lab while having a few great startup idea falling under your call for startup and he has a constant battle between either continuing his research or putting a stop on it and submit application for your next batch?

It might be helpful to know that I will submit application wither now or at the end of my phd but that would be three years from now. On one side if I wait I will have support of my supervisor and my committee members as advisors who are big in their fields and probably catch your eyes, on the other side a few years from now might be too late!

</comment><comment><USER9> 1-I am looking to apply to YC and the project fits 2 categories of among the "Request for StartUps" categories [AI and Mass Media], Is this ok if the product touches on these areas but is not defined by them specifically?

There is no exact category for product ( it detects forms of hate speech and allows users to "talk back" through various specific tools, using "ai"/ linguistics & intelligence,and elements of gaming and interactive storytelling on the interface.

2-Also, the "diversity" "Request for StartUps" category, does the YC mean the founder is "diverse" or the product is aimed at a "diverse" market? I am "diverse" but the product isn't particularly aimed at a "diverse" audience.

3-Also, (I think the answer is "no":) do you ever let founders take less money (say 60k for 3.5% instead of 120k for 7%)?

4-if the company/person does not have $$ and is not incorporated yet, how long does it take to get a minimum amount (just so you can deal with the expenses of getting there and being there initially) from YC once you arrive in SV?

5-Do you consider someone who is self-taught and built the prototype herself but does not have a "real" CS background or has ever worked as an "engineer", a "technical founder"?

Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER10> Hi Sam,we are a platform for moms to connect,facilitate and empower themselves in their journey of motherhood.Unlike the software startups,we need a infrastructural platform first and thats the biggest issue we r facing while trying to generate the fund.Most people are appreciative of the idea ,but we are not aware how do we provide the churn rates or the data asked for in most incubators,we are in prelaunch stage and hav target customer support?

Also as PG always says if what you are making satisfies your target customers,to keep working in the project without much paying heed to other stuffs.We feel though we have the customer support we r lagging behind in networking and being new in the valley its a big task in itself.No mails r replied,people ask for money etc.How to be in touch with people who will be helpful to guide in my project?

</comment><comment><USER11> How to you determine pricing SaaS products for private/enterprise when you are establishing the credibility of such a product in a particular area (research and development in biotechnology is my focus) and validating a market (in the public sector, my focus is on some academic research institutions) before setting up pricing point for private/enterprise prices? What's the best approach??

I know many enterprises being with a freemium model to test on a market, then figure out the pricing for private/enterprise. I am starting off with a few public academic research institutions, but have interest in private ones as well and private companies right now so wanted to hear from best practices and those who have tried, failed, or succeeded.

</comment><comment><USER12> Second-time founder who's raised a lot of VC money in the past (many millions). I'm interested in building a new business that makes it to $5M-$10M ARR and exits at $10M-$40M, not $100M/year or $1B.

$20M is a slam dunk for me personally but a loss in VC terms. Should I still think about taking this to Y Combinator?

</comment><comment><USER13> Hi Sam, How did you initially get your first batch of customers at Loopt and what did you do to increase retention?

</comment><comment><USER14> Sam, How do you see the future of the "Sign Up with Email and Password" field across the World Wide Web? Do you think that this method is associated with inconvenience and seems outdated at all?

In short -- By your vision, what is the future of "Sign Up" in the digital world?

Thank you very much for the response!

</comment><comment><USER15> What are your thoughts on having a closed group of people/friends supporting each other, helping each other succeed, investing in each-others ideas, using warm referrals and sharing early product adopters as the best marketing strategy?

In other words - is networking more important than innovation nowadays?

</comment><comment><USER16> I recently read a blog post from Paul Graham titled, "Change Your Name." He suggests that "if you have a US startup called X and you don't have x.com, you should probably change your name." Taking this in to consideration, I decided to change the name of my side project. However, I soon discovered that its nearly impossible to acquire a good ".com" due to domain squatting by companies like Uniregistry Corp. It seems like domain squatting / speculating is the driving force behind goofy startup names, and maybe its time to just start using other TLDs. Anyway: What do you think about domain squatting and startup names Sam?

</comment><comment><USER17> Given the rapid evolution of human-computer interaction in the past decades, what factors in the shifting tech landscape do you think will be decisive in accelerating the process of current tech titans losing their market dominance to new entrants?

</comment><comment><USER18> When a founder have passion to be expertise in specific industry but with no business background and work experiences.

Should a founder need to get work experiences first or execute the way he compel for his idea and learn from mistakes along startup journey?

<comment><USER19> This was a frequently asked question, answered by Adora Cheung in a Q&A with all partners of YC. According to her, domain expertise is not something that should hold you back. You should, however, become an expert within 1-2 years.

But I have to wonder, if she had proper domain knowledge of the cleaning industry, maybe she would've known that her idea will not work at all. Same would be applicable to all the founders jumping into the food industry. If they were aware of the terrifying economics, maybe they'd be able to avoid burning VC dollars on poor ideas.

<comment><AUTHOR> Here's the video - [https://youtu.be/bpJQN2WyD8g?t=50](https://youtu.be/bpJQN2WyD8g?t=50)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Sam - How can a student with no technical background go start a startup ? For e.g. - Evan Spiegel from Snap didn't have a programming background neither did Brian Chesky from AirBnB.

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m46Wzb1Wejo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m46Wzb1Wejo)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Sam - In your experience, how much time does it take for founders to get rid of a co-founder who isn't performing up to par?

Is it a decision by consensus? Or does the CEO take the call?

How do they evaluate each other when everyone is an expert in his/her own domain?

I would love to know how successful startups have dealt with these situations, and if you can share any experiences, that would be very helpful, since fights between co-founders are a major reason startups fail.

</comment><comment><USER21> Hi Sam.

1\. As a student, how do you find good early employees in fields that you are not familiar with? Say marketing, sales, HR, ..

2\. Given that the majority of people spends their time on their phone on very few apps. Do you think there it is still potential for social consumer apps to reach wide acceptance?

3\. Concerning our YC application. How much are you interested in the strategy say the next 1-3 years, rather than keeping the application brief and easy to read?

</comment><comment><USER22> As a founder of company in the early stages, how should you identify a target customer base and how do you recommend developing a plan to market and sell to them?

</comment><comment><USER23> What legal risks am I taking? If any. Solo founder on H1B. Working on a side project from couple of years. Recently incorporated, B2C platform pre revenue.

</comment><comment><USER24> Hi Sam,

I'm the CEO of an on-demand app that is getting a lot of traction and partnerships with brick and motor stores.

1) Right now we are doing a simple 60-40 split of profits between us and our delivery drivers. Do you see any downside to this?

2) Should we enlist the help of an MBA grad to help scale for when shit hits the fan since we're growing so quickly?

3) How can we stand out when applying for YC or any other VC? I don't want to be seen as just another Uber for X.

</comment><comment><USER25> Why do you think crowdfunding for startups hasn't kicked off as well as hoped? What sort pitfalls have startups in the space encountered that you know about?

Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxkpj00UONU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxkpj00UONU)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Hello Sam, you mentionned in one of your blog that non tech founders should learn technical skills. As a founder of a mobile app using cutting edge technology (mostly AI) and working with PHDs in Com.Science , how much time should I really invest in learning basic coding? In other words, what is the best resource you can point to to help me learn the necessary basics? Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER27> Sam, if you were an important (but non founder) employee at a startup and you were to be acquired, how would you approach the process of integrating and insuring success between the companies? and how would you evaluate the acquiring company and decide if its worth staying at for the long-haul, just until some stay-period is over, or even staying at all?

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQbQROfFntg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQbQROfFntg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Structural engineering. I have a startup in the field and I have spoken with a European team in the same field that got an interview to YC as well. However, YC and others seem to have an aversion to this field as it can be slow moving to adopt new technologies. Is this true? Most of us in the field feel that it is ripe for the picking.

</comment><comment><USER29> Hi Sam. Do you think it is better to build a full-proof product and then look at investment to fuel expansion (takes longer) or should one first get the money and use it to build a full-proof product (faster but riskier)?

</comment><comment><USER30> If you're making a marketplace app, what are the most common methods for overcoming the chicken-and-egg problem in the very beginning? For example, I think Airbnb did door-to-door in the early days.

</comment><comment><USER31> Hi Sam, I need to take my startup to next level and that requires me to work with established companies. However now everything I have is a not so fancy looking site and user traction is low. Should I start engaging potential partners and pitch my idea first or focus on getting user traction up before anything else? Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER32> What do you think is the best way to create impact/maximise potential impact on the world for a high school student developer? Elon Musk named a few things he thinks would be world changing in 10-20 years from now? What do you think high school students should be working on right now?

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iObfJKQVvO8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iObfJKQVvO8)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> AI and Machine learning, while important technologies, are at a high risk of becoming a buzzword (if they haven't already). To what extent do you agree with the fact that the end output or experience matters more than the tools (like AI, etc) used to create them?

</comment><comment><USER34> How would you suggest regional office leaders can foster entrepreneurship in developing countries? Context: I want to start an incubator/accelerator in Ecuador for local founders with global scope.

</comment><comment><USER4> Hi Sam, I am currently working on a online b2b database software with the manufacturing industry. Do you have any tips on working with firms that lack technical knowledge? How should I go about approaching them? I am currently cold calling them.

Thanks

</comment><comment><USER35> Sam,

What path should I be taking to become a successful startup CEO?

Right now I'm deciding between doing software engineering at a top company vs front end development at an ad tech Unicorn.

I want to get some industry experience after I graduate next year.

</comment><comment><USER36> Hello Sam,

With VR/AR on the rise in the last couple of years, how do you think it is going to impact the startup community and in your opinion, what industry is going to get impacted the most in the next 10-20 years?

Jamal

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMwUlxw5nU8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMwUlxw5nU8)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Sam, for the software engineers out there that want to become entrepreneurs. How important is it for them to learn about the business aspects to make connections and learn about business problems?

Thank you!

</comment><comment><USER38> How should I choose between for-profit and non-profit? Most people think non- profit companies don't ever work. Why does YC disagree?

</comment><comment><USER39> I applied for Upcoming YC batch as a startup from India. I've been into startup ecosystem since last 2 years and typically a hardware based. My startup application was unfortunately not selected and we totally acknowledge your team's decision. But we have a query here, I have already gone through the FAQs section and i totally understand "Why don't you invite groups for the personal Interview". But this one is slightly different and is more of a general question. I thoroughly walked your FAQ sections and somewhere in between the FAQs, i found a section that said "Request For startups/Hardware". Now though i'm running a hardware based startup in India, i read the section and i found a line that said, "We help hardware companies quickly create prototypes, test with potential customers, iterate their product, launch in a way that maximizes the likelihood of success, and scale production in response to demand." I even walked through the alumini section and found that most of the startups are directly/indirectly related to mobile applications/web based/IT based. Even though the startups are categorized as Hardware startups, more or less i can see a mobile application/any other web based stuff involvement in them. Moreover, when a user browse through your webpage, the homepage clearly shows couple of startups (whom YC funded and supported) and 90% (or more) are the ones who are developing Mobile applications or are into web based applications (Ex - Payment services, Cloud services, Foodtech, etc). It's a clear thing that a user like me perceives this as the very first thing when i open up your webpage. Being a hardware guy, i need to exclusively search for options in order to find out some Hardware startups to whom i could relate myself. And the very first thing that motivated me to apply for YC are the following points: Versatility Pool of talented people Clear support for a startup like mine (Hardware based) and most importantly, the statement, "We help hardware companies quickly create prototypes, test with potential customers, iterate their product, launch in a way that maximizes the likelihood of success, and scale production in response to demand." This actually excited me about the fact that we already have a MVP ready with us and YC can help us reach greater heights with the help of their pool of talented people.

<comment><USER6> Friendly advice, it would help to work on communicating more clearly and succinctly. I've read your comment twice and am still having trouble discerning a question.

All the best.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Hi, Sam

Is 4 days a week for 11hr or, 5 days a week for 9hr Which timings are productive especially if you're work is more likely be a freelancer ?

</comment><comment><USER41> Is consciousness research on your radar?

What would make you say, "Wow, that's some consciousness research I want to fund!"?

</comment><comment><USER42> How do you know if you're technical enough to build great products?

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZQZSe5hCOs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZQZSe5hCOs)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> What would you focus on if you were among the initial Mars colony?

</comment><comment><USER44> My company has paying customers, good unit economics, a mature technology platform and customer retention is good. The reality is that we have not found a way to gain net new customers in a scalable way so we are doomed to grow at a very slow pace in the current market. We are obviously working on gaining customers faster but the channels that convert well have no scalability. Suffice for the sake of the question that we will not find a reasonable growth channel the coming year.

We believe that pursuing an M&A transaction with other players that can offer our product to their existing customer base is the best way to realize its full potential.

We also believe that additional fundraising is useless as the value of the company will not increase significantly for a potential acquirer.

Luckily, We are in a space that's acquisition-heavy and we have MANY potential acquirers. Overall there are 5 types of acquirers that could find strategic value in buying us.

I have digged up what I could find online about preparing for M&A and selling a company. However, the advice is pretty generic with statements like "companies are bought not sold". This is obviously the best case and will probably be the most lucrative type of acquisition as well. The reality is that we want to run a competitive auction in a relative short (6m) time-window before we have to pursue additional funding.

Given this opportunity, it would be amazing to clarify the following questions:

1/ How direct should we be about wanting to sell the business when talking to potential acquirers.

2/ Have you seen companies successfully soliciting M&A and running a competitive deal process? If yes, what tactics have you seen that worked and what tactics killed deals?

3/ What drivers do you see most often for corporates to close the deal? For example, from our experience raising VC it is pretty clear that for VC's the main drivers to close are fear of missing out or greed and absent those the "deal" keeps getting delayed forever.

4/ When corporates buy startups, what's the typical timeline they need to see ROI on their investment.

5/ I understand that founders are often locked-in for some period of time and the money is escrowed until certain milestones are reached. What are common milestones corporates set?

6/ How do VC's perceive companies that want to sell? Assuming our VC will be supportive, what can we expect a VC to help with? Obviously they will introduce us to firms they have relationships with but can we also ask them to spread the word to PE firms that own potential acquirers or build a connection to potential acquirers board. How much engagement can we realistically expect here?

7/ Any terms we should be watchful of to avoid getting screwed post- acquisition?</comment>


80000 hours: If you want to help the world tackle Covid-19, what should you do? - <AUTHOR> https://80000hours.org/articles/covid-19-what-should-you-do/ <comment><USER2> You should let people who've trained 10 years and have 20 years of experience deal with this issue.

Focus on other problems that will become issues in 10 years.

I'm tired of this idea that nerds can jump into any crisis, build some stupid app and pretend they save the world so they get likes on whatever social media. People die of tons of diseases all the time. There is slavery in many countries. There are many regions to de-pollute after intensive industrial abuse. There is no shortage of issues to work on.</comment>


Jsonstore.io / Store your data just by sending us HTTP Requests - <AUTHOR> https://www.jsonstore.io/ <comment><USER2> How much data is one limited to?</comment>


Twitter Thread: Facebook and Apple's Inclusion of Breitbart in Their News Apps - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1188223913718927360 <comment><AUTHOR> Interesting thread with participation from :

\- the writer of the NYT article which triggered this debate: Charlie Warzel

\- Boz

\- Alex Stamos

\- Nate Silver

\- Adam Mosseri</comment>


Either your interest in coding starts at a young age or not at all - <AUTHOR> http://www.stackprinter.com/export?service=meta.stackoverflow&question=33970&printer=false&linktohome=true <comment><USER2> What am I looking at? It appears to be a collection of comments from StackOverflow back in 2008.

Nothing in there says "Either your interest in coding starts at a young age or not at all". There is a plot of "distribution of ages when starte programming", but that's self-selected from the population of people who answer questions on Stack Overflow.

If so, a better interpretation (IMO) is "Early Stack Overflow contributors started programming as teenagers."

</comment><comment><USER3> This is 100% false. Can confirm.</comment>


There are around ~700 programming languages in the world - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programming_languages <comment><USER2> More specifically, these are "notable programming languages".

There are any number of specialty programming languages which aren't on the list.

For example, the language "Seq" was recently posted here, at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22107510](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22107510) , and is not on the list.

For more examples, the esoteric languages at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoteric_programming_language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoteric_programming_language) are not included.

That said, it's pretty complete.

<comment><USER2> Whilst reading last year's postings, I came across [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19091967](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19091967) which mentioned Microsoft's Dafny language, which includes a program verifier.

[https://github.com/dafny-lang/dafny](https://github.com/dafny-lang/dafny)

Dafny is not on the list of notable programming languages.</comment></comment>


The Writer Who Destroyed an Empire - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/11/opinion/solzhenitsyn-soviet-union-putin.html <comment><USER3> Solzhenitsyn's writings gave hope to people, to their minds and souls. Like Voice of America and other channels of information from outside the curtain. But saying that they destroyed an empire is an overclaim.

In my opinion, no single factor destroyed the empire. However, if I were to pick the most important one I'd say Gorbachev.

<comment><USER4> It was Reagan. The arms race bankrupted the Soviets. Gorbachev deserves credit for acting rational in the face of Reagan's pressure, pressure, to be historically honest, was begun by Jimmy Carter (and dramatically expanded under Reagan.)

The Americans destroyed the Soviet Empire, that's just a fact. Gorbachev was reacting, not acting. "Tear down this wall" — and that's exactly what happened.

<comment><USER5> Carl Sagan was highly skeptical against the arms race theory. According to him: The Star Wars plan was nothing more than a boondoggle based on questionable technology, and the Soviet at that time correctly concluded that if it ever worked they just needed to have more missiles. The whole story is basically a retcon to explain why America wasted so much money on SDI that never went anywhere.

<comment><USER6> Soviet Union was trying very hard to keep up with the US military advances - <USER2> know it for sure, because as an engineer my father was involved in such efforts. And, by the way, "just" producing more missiles wasn't easy thing to do also. So, Reagan's policy probably added a lot to Soviet troubles. I suppose Sagan simply needed to be publicly skeptical, because he was in different ideological trenches.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Worth noting that his "Alexandr Solzhenitsyn: Harvard Commencement Address" will get him trump supporter and far-right labels easily. A couple of my friends joked that this is a deplatforming material in 2018.

<comment><USER8> Having trouble understanding -- can you explain?

<comment><USER7> Well, you can read it here in full -- [https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/alexandersolzhenit...](https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/alexandersolzhenitsynharvard.htm)

It's not that long actually. For example, here is Solzhenitsin about western press (keep in mind, this is 1978):

Hastiness and superficiality are the psychic disease of the 20th century and more than anywhere else this disease is reflected in the press. Such as it is, however, the press has become the greatest power within the Western countries, more powerful than the legislative power, the executive, and the judiciary. And one would then like to ask: By what law has it been elected and to whom is it responsible? In the communist East a journalist is frankly appointed as a state official. But who has granted Western journalists their power, for how long a time, and with what prerogatives?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > and the satisfaction of being proved right in his predictions of disaster.

Any brief accounts of what his predictions were? I don't want to read The Gulag Archipelago. Something I could read, watch or listen to in 30 minutes would be ideal.

I have come across a few accounts of how the USSR collapsed. Some of them mentioned Solzhenitsyn briefly. As I recall, the major factors were political scheming and manipulation, followed by opposition of dissent, followed by opening up of the press, which finally showed the citizens how bad they really had it there. Gorbachev tried various measures to handle the situation, but they all proved ineffective. That's the version I know.

Solzhenitsyn may have been a great writer. But as far as I know, his role in the collapse of the USSR was minor. The end result would have followed pretty much the same timeline.

This is the best short explanation I have come across: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pqt3U48MFcY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pqt3U48MFcY)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> There's a great long form essay on Solzhenitsyn available on the Times Literary Supplement website. It was the subject of an earlier discussion on Hacker News [0].

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18622644](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18622644)

</comment><comment><USER10> Amusingly enough, The Gulag Archipelago was already the next book on my list of books to read. Interesting coincidence that it's his 100th birthday. Or maybe not. Maybe I've been running across his name this year for that exact reason.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm listening to the Gulag Archipelago vol. 2. It's read by Frederick Davidson, who is perfect for the role. Definitely check it out the audiobook from your local library if they carry it.

</comment><comment><USER12> I posted this in another thread recently, but highly recommend the article _A Tiny Village in Vermont Was the Perfect Spot to Hide Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn_ [0] to learn more about his life in Vermont.

[0]: [https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2018/summer/statement/tiny- vi...](https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2018/summer/statement/tiny-village-in- vermont-was-the-perfect-spot-hide-aleksandr-solzhenitsyn)

</comment><comment><USER13> I've recently read Solzhenitsyn's "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich".

IMHO, this novel does a very good job at capturing one key aspect of gulag; It was not just all about "oppressor vs oppressed", but was a complex society with a particular set of rules.

If you likes the works of Primo Levi, I'd highly recommend you to take a copy.

</comment><comment><USER14> If you are currently ideologically flirting with Marxism I can heartly recommend reading his masterpiece the Gulag Archipelago to know how Marxism will work out in practice.

I can also guarantee that after reading you are done believing Marxism will bring any good to civilization forever.

And also don't be surprised when you get some very heavy emotional responses while reading. Yes -- what he went through was _that_ bad.

</comment><comment><USER15> I never knew this timeline. Fascinating and horrific.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm currently halfway through Volume 1 of the Gulag Archipelago. I find most criticism of it-- the ones that say it is too literary-- clearly have not actually read it, because many of his assertions reference specific names, events and documents that can be verified.

In any case, I very much recommend it to anyone flirting with socialism or communism, because it is a very sobering account of things that can go wrong, most of which most of us cannot begin to imagine.

</comment><comment><USER17> Posting Gulag Archipelago to /r/communism when people ask for suggested readings on communism is a great way to get banned from that subreddit.

<comment><USER18> No community likes trolls.

<comment><USER17> I'd argue that the Gulag Archipelago is an excellent reflection of applied Communism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> From the title I though it ought to be about Karl Marx.

</comment><comment><USER20> He probably captured best the malaise and hypocrisy of the USSR.

My hypothesis is that the conditions imposed in the name of communism, and not communism itself, destroyed the USSR.

In particular, success - especially political or military success, became more dangerous to achieve than failure.

Not even Georgy Zhukov was spared a certain level of wrath, which was probably more of a warning to potential coup plotters than anything to do with Zhukov himself.

<comment><USER21> "My hypothesis is that the conditions imposed in the name of communism, and not communism itself, destroyed the USSR."

There's a sense in which that is true. The problem is, "the conditions imposed in the name of communism" are intrinsic to communism itself, because it is not a political system that works for human beings as they are. So the imposition of massive amount of force, and the subsequent second- and third- and so-on- order effects that come with that might as well be accounted as part of Communism, because otherwise people don't conform to Communism.

I can imagine hypothetical intelligent species for which Communism might work fairly well, based on looking at social structures seen on Earth and extrapolating to what they may look like if the species in question were human-level intelligent. But it would be something like bees or ants, writ large. Trying to impose a bee or ant system on humans is utterly doomed to failure. That's not a value judgment. Maybe it's a terrible thing. It's just a true statement; humans, fundamentally, aren't bees or ants. You need that aspect of direct relationship for this to be stable.

Fundamentally, a political system based on "you'll do this work happily, and you'll voluntarily send all these resources to people you are not particularly related to, and hopefully they'll be good enough to supply you in return" is just doomed, evolutionarily. It's pretty easy to see why it would fail if you try to imagine some animal species working that way; even if you somehow imposed that system onto a population of bacteria or something, I absolutely guarantee it would evolve away in a handful of generations. It's beyond unstable into the actively self-sabotaging. Adding lots of human intelligence doesn't really change that characteristic of communism.

(Now, when it gets _really_ scary is when people start deciding they just need to remake people then. Getting people to conform to political systems rather than getting political systems to conform to people is one of the greatest evils of our time.)

<comment><USER22> You make all these sweeping claims, yet in Norway 37% of the population works in the public sector (compare with around 50% in Belarus and China), taxes are very high, and inequality is very low according to most measures.

Another point a Trotskyst might make is that Communism can only succeed if adopted all over the world. I don't think that a country like Cuba makes for a good data point on anything except embargoes.

<comment><USER23> "I don't think that a country like Cuba makes for a good data point on anything except embargoes."

Neither is Norway a good data point from which we can extrapolate the viability of Communism. Norway has a population of 5.5 million - smaller than the San Francisco Bay Area. It's also swimming in oil money.

It's probably easier to motivate people to work for the benefit of the whole community if the community is defined as a small number of people with whom you share a culture and background and live close to you.

Maybe that's why communism works occasionally on communes, but anything more expansive requires the brutal application of force to keep people in line.

<comment><USER24> The voluntary ones implode within a year or two as the participants get fed up and leave.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Welcome screens are an anti-pattern - <AUTHOR> https://grumpy.website/post/0T7Bxy9nU <comment><USER2> I thought that I was the only one who felt this way. I'm pleased to see that there is at least one other.</comment>


The "Gut Wrenching" Setbacks Before Webmail.us Triumphed And Sold To Rackspace - <AUTHOR> http://mixergy.com/webmail-us-pat-matthews/ <comment><USER2> Hmm. Pat says that their run rate was $8MM at the time of the merger. They were acquired for 941,000 shares (plus a few hundred thousand dollars). Rackspace went public at about $12.50/share so this was about $12MM.

Ten million bucks for $8m in annual subscription revenue is ridiculously cheap. Either I'm misisng something significant here, or they got ripped off.

Source: Rackspace S1A filing</comment>


Founders at work - who would you like to have seen? - <AUTHOR> http://journal.dedasys.com/articles/2007/04/25/founders-at-work-whos-missing <comment><USER2> Brad Fitzpatrick of LiveJournal

Bob Metcalfe of 3Com

Jamie Zawinski of Lucid and Netscape

One of the Sun founders. Probably Bill Joy, but it might be neat to see Vinod Khosla's POV too.

An early employee of Microsoft. Doesn't have to be Bill Gates, but someone who was there before the IBM deal.

Some founders whose startups failed - both in the early stages, before we've ever heard of them, and those who crashed spectactularly.

<comment><USER3> Zawinki's covered his Netscape time pretty extensively on his site.

One of the better sources for financial train wrecks is "When Giants Stumble" (<http://www.amazon.com/When-Giants-Stumble-Business-Blunders/dp/0788199439> ), which is a bit dated (lots of retail/manufacturing/finance, not much technology) but thorough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Skype founders. Someone from India (Reliance or Infosys). Just a couple to see the experience outside of the US as well.

</comment><comment><USER5> Muhammad Yunus of Grameen Bank would be great. He started a microfinance bank and recently won a Nobel Peace prize for his work! That's not something many startups can claim. Possibly Iqbal Quadir of Grameen Phone too.

Also some European startups such as skype, last.fm, moo etc

</comment><comment><USER6> Someone from the communications world. Chips, systems, etc.

Maybe the founders of cisco, qualcomm, juniper... The value and impact of these companies is significant, revolutionary.

</comment><comment><USER7> Google, of course. I might also have been interested in Microsoft, just out of morbidity. Intel. Akamai.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think in some ways, I'm more interested in the "mere mortals" in that they seem more realistic, more attainable somehow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Trip Hawkins (EA, digital chocolate)

Tellme founders

Alex Welch (photobucket)</comment>