Ask HN: Help, I'm a developer who can't pay rent - <AUTHOR> It feels smarmy posting to HN like this, but here goes.
I was laid off from my Software Engineering in March and instead of picking up another position I coasted for awhile to work on some personal projects, figuring I could coast for at least a year. This month I incurred a financial disaster and now I'm thoroughly broke and am slightly concerned about paying my rent next month.
I'm a fairly young guy without a college degree but about 7 years development experience total (since I was a kid) and about 2 years "professional" experience. I know Erlang/OTP like the back of my hand, lots of experience with x86 & C/C++ and contemporary information security and exploit development practice (Not just old tricks like stack overflows! I know dlmalloc and jemalloc allocator internals and have tried my hand at faking more than one vtable pointer in an use-after-free). I doubt any of you are hiring for this but I also have considerable experience with Reverse Engineering as well, mostly on Windows with IDA, but my understanding of Linux (and ELF) internals is definitely better than average. I'd like to think I have very good networking knowledge as well, ranging from TCP protocol suite to client I/O strategies to building distributed systems from  pragmatic (and academic) perspective.
I know Rails/Ruby + Python/Django/Pyramids and have passable Javascript skill as well (honestly mostly jQuery, don't really care much for JS, but can do it). I have a fairly extensive github and my Git skill is fine (maybe above average) as well.
Given how "hot" the market for developers in SF is right now, I'm a bit embarrassed to be posting for a such a shameless quick gig hence the throwaway. If you're interested, post here contact me @ firstname.lastname@example.com if you need help before the end of the month or are willing to give me some cash up front in exchange for a longer term agreement I am more than fine with that as well.
(I'm located in San Francisco BTW!) <comment> not-giving-up I've been in your situation many, many times I'm afraid. Comes from having poor money management skills, highly narrowcast career expectations, as well as an exaggerated sense of modesty bordering on The Imposter Syndrome:

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

But my story is a different topic. Some quick advice:

(1) You already know you're headed towards a brick wall. The most sensible thing you can do at the moment is to soften the blow, and buy yourself time. Really, every $50 or $100 is critical here... so if at all possible, pare down your lifestyle to the barest essentials.

An apartment lease (in SF!) is probably the easiest to dispose of, and will net you the most cash, especially if, say, you have friends in the East Bay (or practically anywhere else besides the city and its immediate suburbs) that you can talk into letting you move in without a deposit. Plus you'll get your security back. That change alone might help you coast until Dec or Jan.

(2) after that, you need to put yourself on an austerity budget, i.e. you should be able to get by on $5 a day or less on food from grocery stores, +perhaps $2.50 a day if you must use coffeeshops for wifi. If you can avoid using public transit save for special trips, that's a huge plus.

(3) -DRASTICALLY- lower your expectations for you next job. Customer support, friggen PHP dev... whatever it takes. If you don't get tech work, just work at a Trader Joes, do delivery work, ANYTHING. Bottom line is it's VERY important to get out of the idea that you have to borrow money from people unless you're truly, seriously on the edge... which it sounds like you aren't6 yet, not by a longshot.

(4) finally -- you're in yout 20s (sounds like).. you're touhgh, you can take anything. forget about what other people think and their so-called "success" stories. just concentrate on you'r own story for now. Trust me, when you pull yourself out of this (and you will) you'll have a lot to be proud of + to look back on yourself positively for.

<comment><USER2> To add to this:

(1) Get a starbucks card and use it until you earn the gold card. This gives you free refills on basic coffee or iced coffee. This means you can work all day on decent wifi with all you can drink coffee. Get a small coffee since you get refills. If you drink fast, get a medium so you don't need to get up as often. Just make sure to tip the baristas occasionally.

(2) Rice and beans. Get a 25lb bag of each. Learn how to cook them. To save time, invest in a large pressure cooker and 1-quart jars. Make beans in bulk and freeze them. When I go into rice & bean austerity mode to save money for stuff, I can get my per meal costs down to about $1. My roommates and other people who have tried them think they are some of the best beans they've tasted. Besides trying many types of beans, also try lentils. To make sure the food doesn't get boring, remember that spices are your friend. Go get cheap spices from a Mexican or Chinese market.

If you want to learn how to make a big batch of beans one day, message me. Just be ready to come over with the kinds of beans you want and about a dozen quart jars. I have a 21-quart industrial pressure cooker. We'll cook up a big batch, which you can take home with you and freeze. Each quart will give you about 4-6 meals when paired with rice. Just send me an email in my profile.

<comment><USER3> Hey malandrew

What kind of dishes do you cook up when you're just doing rice and beans? I eat a lot of beans e.g. usual baked beans in tomato sauce, kidney beans, chickpeas, garden peas; and I do like various rice dishes e.g. indian rices, thai sticky rice.

Can you give me an example of a couple of dishes that you usually eat when you do this? 1) I need to save some money (wedding, startup) and 2) I need to improve my diet.

<comment><USER2> Usually, when I am on "bean-mode" there isn't a ton of variety in the dishes. I'll employ some of the approaches you mentioned, but I'm personally not super bothered by the lack of variety when it comes to rice and beans. I'm half Brazilian, so rice and beans have always been a stable food on my dinner table so I don't get too bored of it.

Besides what you mentioned I also toss in cheese (get your cheese at Costco, best value out there), fried eggs, sometimes some fresh spices from the potted herbs I have.

Besides the beans you are buying, try cannelloni beans, black beans, great northern beans, etc. There's a lot of variety in taste among legumes. If you branch out, you'll find a lot more options.

The other great thing about the pressure cooker is that you can still enjoy meats, because you can buy really cheap "stew meats" and other cuts of meat rich in collagen and other connective tissue that will break down at high temperatures and high pressure. A lot of these cheaper meats would require 6+ hours of cooking at a simmer in a crock-pot, but with a pressure cooker, you can prepare a fully cooked meat stew in 1-2 hours.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Pay it forward: I'll hire you for a half-day of work to help you. When you get on your feet, do your best to help the next person. Also look at the Hacker News "Freelancers Wanted" postings. I'm mailing you now.

<comment><USER5> Is it OK to say that the world runs because of people like you?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If I were you, I'd delete this and start again with a different tone. You sound a little desperate, and that will push people away. Repost under your own name, asking for advice about how to find a job in SF, and mentioning your skills in brief. Don't ask for anything except advice, don't talk about being laid off or the poor state of your finances. You'll probably get a few spontaneous offers.

</comment><comment><USER7> Speak to these people:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tptacek>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=bigmac>

I believe they're both hiring compsec people at the moment.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the advice, frankly I would love to work for Matasano, they are arguably one of the premier security firms in the country. However, I have difficulty placing myself in the top-tier category they are in (plus they are not in San Francisco). I honestly don't know if I could write a network protocol fuzzer without relying on SPIKE or Scapy off the top of my head in an interview.

As far as Square goes, I feel I have 0 chance there. I would love to work there as well but no computer science/Math degree, spotty work and residence record and entirely self-taught. I get the feeling that doesn't jibe with their culture and I would just be wasting their time and mine.

<comment><USER8> You don't sound desperate for a job.

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe, my reasoning is that while I'm in the privileged position of being young, it's a greater loss for me to potentially botch the interview today and jeopardize future employment with Matasano than to just eke it out today.

Additionally, how do you convey to an employer without sounding like an asshole "Please, I need to be hired AND get paid at least 700$ before the end of this month"

<comment><USER9> _Additionally, how do you convey to an employer without sounding like an asshole "Please, I need to be hired AND get paid at least 700$ before the end of this month"_

You don't. Borrow the money from a friend or family, sell your TV (or other things you don't necessarily need right now). Talk to your land-lord about it, and try to get an extension temporarily. There are lots of things you can do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wow. That's a bit frightening. I too have been struggling on the job front, but have a less impressive background. Admittedly a huge chunk of my problem is having purchased an expensive program purporting to teach me how to get rich and find my dream job. If I didn't have a four-figure debt due to that (and another few hundred bucks due each month), I'd have a lot less stress.

One thing that I have found is that while it's a tough job market for fulltime work, companies are a lot less conservative about hiring people on a freelance basis. Non-tech companies have been an especially bet for me. Many restaurants, bars, independent realtors, are making money and haven't updated their sites in a long time. It's been a _very_ slow process but I have gradually been getting better and better referrals from it. When I bid, I generally take 20-40% up front. For someone in your situation, that could make a big difference.

<comment><USER11> The dream drop program wouldnt happen to be ramits would it?

<comment><USER12> I read that as a tongue-in-cheek reference to student loan debt. I wonder if it was meant literally, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Don't feel bad bro. It's tough out there. We all end up short at one time or another. Chin up.

</comment><comment><USER14> HN's own marcomassaro (<http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=marcomassaro>) is currently looking for some wordpress work - sounds like you would have no problem doing it: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4543562>

Any HN's who emailed Marco and get the gig and feel like making christmas in september for someone, pass it on to zettavolt.

Good luck getting back on your feet!

</comment><comment><USER15> dude, send me an email. I work for an infosec firm that would hire you in a sec, provided you aren't crazy (well, at least not crazier than the rest of us ;). email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER16> You sound like you need a holiday! Come to New Zealand and build something great with us (we're about to launch our first iteration)! I'm low on cash too but I'll cover your rent and food :)

</comment><comment><USER17> Tried getting a job?

<comment><AUTHOR> I've tried applying at three places. I've done web development "professionally" before and frankly I've always been extremely unhappy with the job environment, maybe it's characteristic of web dev or maybe just bad experience.

I would like to go into something deeper but my experience and interest in Distributed Systems, C/C++/Assembly and security is entirely self-taught and done out of a hobby so I don't have anything "professional" to show for it beyond the ability to talk for hours, a few web browser and plugin exploits I've written and the only substantial project I've done in C++ is one of the early WEP crackers for Windows which I wrote 6 years ago (and is riddled with classic C++ novice mistakes).

Plus, if I applied for a job now I would not feel comfortable asking for money up front to pay my rent, even if a company could figure out they wanted to make a hire before the end of the month.

<comment><USER18> >I've tried applying at three places.

I hope that's not since March. Pardon my bluntness, what else are you doing to find work? It sounds like you need to just get _a_ job, not necessarily your dream job. You can always work somewhere and leave after 6 months. Have you talked to any recruiters? Have you been to any networking events or joined any professional groups? What other resources have you used to get work? If you're looking for really fast cash, I agree with the other comments, you should sell something or borrow some money from friends or family to make due. There are always services like TaskRabbit or MechanicalTurk and freelance coding websites. And if you're really hard-up, though I'm loathe to suggest it, you can always use a credit card for some quick cash.

Also, care to post a resume?

<comment><USER19> jeez I applied for four jobs just last week and I already have a job, not to sound to hard on you but you always have to keep pushing forward with career networking even if things are going well and even if its just online networking</comment></comment></comment></comment>


First Haskell Facebook App - and it's a Math Quiz - <AUTHOR> http://blog.happstack.com/2009/03/18/jeremy-shaw-creates-first-facebook-app-with-happstack/

<comment><AUTHOR> Facebook App URL: <http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=73264827040>

</comment><comment><USER2> Shows up blank for me.</comment>


A man who is ageing too fast - <AUTHOR> https://mosaicscience.com/man-who-aging-fast-werner-syndrome-japan-epigenome-epigenetics <comment><USER2> Summary of pro death arguments, one of which I've seen in this thread (immortal tyrants.)

      Fairness
          Only rich people will get it. (No tech has ever done this.)
          Better to give money to the poor than science. (family, city, state, nation, has proven local investment beats foreign.)
      Bad for society
          Dead people make more room for new, other people. (consider going first.)
          Run out of resources (live people discover/extract/renew better than dead or nonexistent)
          Overpopulation (colonize the seas, solar system, or have a war.)
                Stop having kids
                Worse wars (nukes are more dangerous than having your first 220 year old person in 2136)
          Dictators never die (they die all the time and rarely of age)
          Old people are expensive (50% of your lifetime medical cost occur in your final year. Delay is profitable.)
          Old people suck.  (death is an inferior cure to robustness.)
      Bad for individual
          You'll get bored. (your memory isn't that good, or your boredom isn't age related)
          You'll have to watch your loved ones die. (so you prefer they watch you?)
          You'll live forever in a terrible state. (longevity requires robustness.)
          Against gods will (not if he disallows suicide, then it is required.)
          People will force you to live forever (They already try to do that.)

Do you think less people make progress faster? What's your target level of depriving life of existence? How do you plan to keep mankind robust from extinction events on a single planet? You might just need more people. What do you think our technology would look like if we had 10x less people for the last 100 years?

More people make more progress faster. Aren't you glad your parents didn't decide the world would be prettier or work better without you in it? If great minds like Einstein, Bell, Tesla, Da Vinci etc., were still alive and productive today, the world would be a better place. You're literally asking for others to die out of your fear. The burden should be higher. Have courage. If living longer comes with too many disadvantages, we'll know 100 years from now and decide then.

Man up, save your family, save yourself.

P.S. Curing aging isn't immortality. You die at 600 on average by accident, and if the parade of imaginary horrible things comes true, even earlier.

<comment><USER3> Often wondered why deathism is so popular and I have come to conclusion it is a protective mechanism against disappointment. People really don't want to age, but they don't think anything can be done so they come up with all sorts of reasons it is good.

<comment><USER4> > Often wondered why deathism is so popular and I have come to conclusion it > is a protective mechanism against disappointment. People really don't want > to age, but they don't think anything can be done so they come up with all > sorts of reasons it is good.

One reason—not one I necessarily endorse, but a possibility—might be a conviction that people really aren't very good, deep down. Perhaps its cousin conviction that I'm not really all that good deep down.

Put another way, it may be rooted not in a protective mechanism about disappointment as much as a persuasion about human nature.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I really like the random blocks forming around the highlights effect.

<comment><USER6> I came here to say the same thing. Not overused, but unique and a cute take on "mosaic" branding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is unbelievably sad. What a tragic existence.

      Beneath, his skin is raw, revealing red ulcers caused by his disease. "Itai," he says. It hurts. Then he smiles. "Gambatte," he says – I will endure.

</comment><comment><USER8> I hope I live to see the day when we humans can die on our own terms rather than it being forced upon us.

<comment><USER9> It would be cool, but I fear some world leaders (be it politics, economy, science, etc.) would never want to die, stagnating the status quo for centuries until they die from accidents.

<comment><USER10> "Humans should only die on their own terms... except for the most influential people, who shouldn't live longer than I say they should." Hmm.

<comment><USER11> "Dictator for life" is definitely less of an issue than "Dictator for eternity".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I hope the time is soon that we have some way of detecting and, hopefully, fixing generic abberations like this in embryos (or even among those diagnosed when they are older), anyone having to endure this is truly heartbreaking.</comment>


Cory Doctorow novel pulled from school reading for 'questioning authority' - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jun/10/cory-doctorow-novel-pulled-school-reading-questioning-authority

<comment><USER2> The book, "Little Brother," is available in multiple formats under Creative Commons licensing (free):

[http://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/](http://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/)

Also, you might enjoy Cory Doctorow's talk:

"The Coming Civil War over General-purpose Computing"

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbYXBJOFgeI](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbYXBJOFgeI)</comment>


How To Validate Product Ideas Before (And After) Building Them - <AUTHOR> https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/validating_product_ideas <comment><USER3> This is good stuff. Most people know by now that they should "solve business problems" in order to create a decently successful product/service. But most beginning entrepreneurs are struggling to find out exactly what those "business problems" are.

I think the issue for most young entrepreneurs is that we don't have much business-related domain knowledge. Most teens and young adults have domain knowledge related to recreational activities such as skateboarding or playing guitar, but no business knowledge whatsoever.

Maybe we should encourage younger people to participate in business at a younger age so that we can use their fresh creativity towards coming up with new solutions.

<comment><USER4> I'm starting to wonder if I'm completely doomed selling to consumers. Consumers seems so fickle, they won't pay for anything software related it seems, even if it helps them a lot. Like they'll put down hundreds of dollars for a language class, but they'll sweat over a $5 app that would help their learning in said class.

Here's an example of a common attitude. Some guy launching his app on reddit (not me):

"Just use this: [https://ankiweb.net](https://ankiweb.net)

It is free and is better than OP's crap app.

you want money for your crap = keep you shit. i dont need it."

<comment><USER5> The only reason selling to businesses is better, is that by buying your product, businesses will make more money - that's why they don't have a problem forking over $X, since it will help them make $X*Y, resulting in a net $ gain.

If you find a similar niche for consumers - i.e. sell something to consumers that will help them make more money they will pay for it. Alternatively, if it will help them get laid more, they will pay for it as well. If your consumer oriented software does anything else other than helping users make more money / get more/better sex, then your consumers will definitely be fickle.

<comment><USER4> Or perhaps something that can clearly save them money?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I enjoy patio11's articles immensely but I wish it would be made more clear that this is _one_ of several paths to building a successful software enterprise. Going in and automating stuff people have been using Excel for is a straightforward way to build software people will be willing to pay for, yes.

But let's not forget the unique privilege we have of living in 2013 where we're just starting to get desktop-class CPU and GPUs with radios in everyone's pockets. Let's not forget that the things computers are capable of now were barely visible even a decade ago and a dream a decade further. I firmly believe in using computers to solve real problems. But I also think that you need to look at the problems you're solving and think about how you can truly leverage the unique capabilities we have now to build transformative things.

<comment><USER7> I don't disagree, but that's hardly a roadmap, or teachable.

Patio11 is trying to give people something actionable, I think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Aside from starting on and solving business problems, I think it's hard to tell where to start.

I think it might be worth adding that aside from the cliche "solve your own problems" that you'd typically get. One possible approach might be to look at technical problems you're interested in solving and figuring out where tech like that is used and working your way down to the business case like that. This of course applies to the programmer out there. For non technical, it might be worth mentioning starting from hobbies you enjoy and blogging about those. From that you might be able to explore and ask different kinds of questions that people might have.

Your best business idea will probably come by accident.

It may not be an optimal approach, but it definitely got me started.

</comment><comment><USER9> One thing missing from this is to run surveys. Someone posted on here before about how they used Google Consumer Surveys [1] to check the pulse of their idea. It's something I highly recommend that can be done for relatively cheap before you even get started.

[1] - [http://www.google.com/insights/consumersurveys/](http://www.google.com/insights/consumersurveys/)

</comment><comment><USER10> I have given up on worrying myself if my products are good enough or have market fit. the biggest problem / reason why customers are not paying me is not I have not got market fit wrong but I am scared - of failing or succeeding or...

so - 12 startups in 12 months - quickly learn and quickly

<comment><USER11> Wait. What? You've started 12 startups in 12 months? Basically meaning that you've done one startup project a month?

<comment><USER10> no - will do.

basically we seem to be entering a world where one person can launch a small profitable online business that takes minimal support. if so what needs to be templated / automated and what really is irreducible

it's worth a go. if I find out different I find out different.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is great advice and it is fantastic because it is specific and actionable.

I would love to see one tailored for validating consumer products rather than B2B ones.

A good amount of this is definitely applicable to validating for consumers though.

I especially like the section recommending that a product and the problem it solves be described fully in text before any code is written.

<comment><USER4> Agree, so much of the advice on HN is for B2B. I get that the success rate for B2B is higher, but some B2C advice would be very welcome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Creating products that solve problems is great but you will not be in the "blue ocean". Did twitter solve a problem? No. Apple? Nike? Coke? Nope. They created great products that turned into a problem if you didn't own them.

</comment><comment><USER14> Nice piece. I cannot over emphasise how _amazingly_ effective actually getting off your butt and finding/talking to potential customers is.

A few random additional thoughts / tips.

1) If I'd have been in Patrick's shoes I'd have gone out a little earlier and start talked to folk with more open ended questions - before even building the 2 page demo. Things like "Can you just talk me through your typical day?" or "Tell me about a bad day?".

Why? If the problem you care about _is_ important to those people - if it's problem #1 or #2 - it will come up in conversation naturally. If it _doesn 't_ then that is telling you something useful and interesting.

If you start the conversation by talking about appointments that is where it will go. Once you start talking about it with them it naturally becomes the focus of the conversation and any issues and problems will pop up and seem important - even if they would normally not care about them in the slightest.

More importantly - because the conversation is just around appointments - <USER2> won't here about the _other_ major problems in their life. Maybe the biggest issue is dealing with staff who don't show up, or managing the shift rota, or keeping track of client preferences, or whatever.

And then you can dive in with something like "Can you tell me more about that?" and discover this lovely problem that the customer actually cares about.

2) On the "talk to people in the target industry" another sneaky way to find folk is to see if you can find a $industry conference you can get to. You get a target-rich environment for $industry and they're often a bit more informal and happy to talk (or drunk - which also works ;-).

If you don't feel you can attend/crash the conference itself then find out what the conference hotel(s) is/are and hang out in the lobby. Or find out what the popular post-conference bars are and hang out there.

(This is, of course, an instance of the more general advice of "hang out where your customers hang out".)

3) If it's more than just you I'd recommend talking to folk in pairs. Most people find it really hard to both engage in a conversation and take notes at the same time. Having one person do most of the talking, and somebody else do most of the writing makes it much easier to capture the information. Having mixed-sex pairs also helps in approaching strangers too.

4) Dress _slightly_ smarter than the default for wherever you're doing the interviews. It makes a real difference in how you're treated.

If the idea of doing interviews still scares you and you'd like some concrete advise on technique I'd consider reading this really short pocket guide from Andrew Travers [http://www.fivesimplesteps.com/products/interviewing-for- res...](http://www.fivesimplesteps.com/products/interviewing-for-research). It's not written for budding startup/entrepreneur folk but much of the advice is applicable. Bonus is that it's very short.

If you you like that book and want to dive deeper Steve Portigal's "Interviewing Users" ([http://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/interviewing- users/](http://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/interviewing-users/)) is a great book that covers everything in much more detail. Again - not written for startup folk but there's a lot of great advice you can steal.

</comment><comment><USER15> Patrick,

How did you transition from that first AR client to the next? Did you simply close them on the spot?</comment>


iOS terminal emulator that can compile C code can be with clang - <AUTHOR> https://libterm.app/ <comment><USER2> While troubleshooting I came across the GitHub source code here: [https://github.com/ColdGrub1384/LibTerm](https://github.com/ColdGrub1384/LibTerm)

Attempting to compile a small program, the first barrier I came across started from running cat > hello.c, but after typing the program I found there was no way to enter ^D. There are mentions of Ctrl characters on GitHub but nothing clear in the Help options.

So then I tried a herestring with cat > hello.c <<EOF, but herestrings do not seem to work in this shell (no > prompt and does not exit after typing EOF). At this point I tried multiple echo lines: While I could put one starting line, appending to an existing file with >> seems to have no effect.

As my intent is only to test clang, I settled for a one-line C program like int main() {}. clang hello.c then gave an error: Executable "ld" didn't exist!

Well, I'm here to test the compiler not the linker, so then resorted to clang -c hello.c and it successfully generated a hello.o object. Yet I'm unable to analyze the output without the objdump or file commands.

At this point LibTerm may be rather unsuitable for using clang, but running the help command shows other handy *nix tools, including Lua and Python.

<comment><AUTHOR> There seems to be no way to input control characters yet, only through hardware keyboard.

Yeah, it's still a bit rough, but promising.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do you know of companies creating "fake" job descriptions? - <AUTHOR> Example 1: A startup/marketplace seeding freelance gigs on (niche) job boards...
Example 2: A company submitting jobs to get a link for SEO...
Example 3: A startup making applicants sign up for its service in order to apply...
Anything similar?
Would love to read any and all (similar) stories! <comment><USER2> Neutron Interactive used to seed fake medical jobs as a funnel to for-profit medical schools.

In fact, they might still be doing it. Unfortunately I don't have any more information than that.

</comment><comment><USER3> Any JD that says "full stack"</comment>


Wave-particle duality in action–big molecules surf on their own waves - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/07/wave-particle-duality-in-action-big-molecules-surf-on-their-own-waves/ <comment><USER2> The description in the press article miss the most important part of the equipment that is a laser grating.

They don't use a standard glass or mirror grating. (I guess the molecules would just get stuck against a surface.) They use a powerful ~100W laser and a retroreflector to create standing electromagnetic waves, that act like a grating.

Also, the interference is not between the waves of one molecule and the waves of another molecule. They could repeat the experiment with a very low power to ensure there is only one molecule flying around, and if they wait enough time they would get the same result. (This has been done with photons. Yes this is weird.)

> _What I found most remarkable is that the internal state of the molecule > didn't seem to matter at all. [...] They are spinning wildly and vibrating > like a kid on a sugar high._

The rotations an vibrations of the molecule are also quantized, so they are not totally arbitrary. For the calculations, they use only the ground state. I'm still not sure about the technical details, but my guess is that these produce more broad peaks instead of erasing the interference pattern.</comment>


Cameroon has slashed the fee for buying a .cm domain - <AUTHOR> https://www.iafrikan.com/2020/07/17/cameroon-cuts-fee-for-acquiring-cm-cctld/ <comment><USER2> Not mentioned: The high likelihood that .cm domains may at a glance look like .com domains, and will be used for phishing...

</comment><comment><USER3> Waiting for Eritrea to open up the .er tld. I have first dibs on hack.er!</comment>


Google to buy cloud software company Apigee for $625M - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/uk-apigee-m-a-alphabet-idUSKCN11E1SG <comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, I never understood what that company was doing, and still it's a complete mystery when I read their website.</comment>


Afghanistan's All-Girl Robotics Team Can't Get Visas to the US - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/hilarybrueck/2017/06/29/denied-afghanistans-all-girl-robotics-team-cant-get-visas-to-the-u-s/#6901a058367f <comment><USER2> This is certainly disappointing to see, but it's not new and it's not surprising. It is incredibly difficult to get a travel visa from Afghanistan to the US, last year's refusal rate was 74%.

</comment><comment><USER3> If Canada wants to jump on situations like this (attendees can't get in), they should simply stop the grilling of U.S. professionals traveling to Canada for conferences and meetings.

Determine and tell Border Patrol that this is _not_ work or a form of work they need to hinder.

Make this clear to the public, including the U.S. public.

Market the amenities and relative affordability of Canadian venues. And the coincident "tourism" appeal for many U.S. attendees.

Profit.

I don't know. I don't participate in these things, for many years. But, it seems attractive to me...

</comment><comment><USER4> Why do organizations still organize international events in the US? I've heard of to many events hangstrung because their attendees were denied entry into the US these past couple of months. Move these events to Canada, Mexico or Europe until US border policy becomes a bit saner again.

</comment><comment><USER5> There's a picture of the 6 girls in this link:

[http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&obje...](http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11885450)

</comment><comment><USER6> previously [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14673603](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14673603)

</comment><comment><USER7> Why in the world should we care, especially when the overwhelming majority of their countrymen don't believe they should be engaged in the activity at all?

<comment><USER8> What an ugly thought. I don't know where to begin addressing you.

First, why must we help the oppressed when their local oppressors aren't concerned? Is this what you're asking? You can't possibly be serious.

Second, just because a majority of Afghani men believe something doesn't mean they all do. Those girls presumably had some support in pursuing robotics. It's more than likely the men in their family are supportive.

If there's one thing I would expect everyone to agree on, it's that helping those girls is a noble goal. They are competing on an international level despite living in an environment that stifles their creativity and freedom.

<comment><USER7> I _definitely_ can be asking why the US apparently has an interest in spending vast amounts of money and lives, mostly from flyover country or Afghanistan itself, in the interest of changing Afghan society in a direction most Afghans aren't down with. It's extremely non obvious to me.

I'm guessing you have some moral premise about it being virtuous to spend other people's lives and money to help "the oppressed", by some construction, but I'm not sure how explicit you're willing to be about that premise, and I'm fairly sure I and many others don't agree with any plausible formulation along those lines.

<comment><USER8> You can ask and claim whatever you want. That was never in question. What I do question is whether you're serious or just trying to bait a response.

As for the moral premise you're presuming I hold, please spare me your intellectual gymnastics.

Explain to me how Afghan society would be changed by allowing a small group of girls into the United States for a few days -- so they can participate in a robotics competition.

This veneer of non-interventionism and pragmatism is no more than a facade you hide behind.

<comment><USER7> I am in dead seriousness not interested in playing just-the-tip with social engineering in central Asia; nor am I interested in wielding one segment of their population as a weapon against another in an attempt to "reform" their society, which is _exactly_ what PR exercises like the story in question are aiming to support.

You owe me an explanation as far as why we should be messing around with their society in any respect, not the opposite.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A Russian Spy Ship Might Have Tapped Syria's Internet - <AUTHOR> https://warisboring.com/a-russian-spy-ship-might-have-tapped-syrias-internet-a8bb91b5cd8b#.9q8kvuwnt <comment><USER2> This article is a repackaging of a Vice article:

[https://motherboard.vice.com/read/this-theory-about-a- russia...](https://motherboard.vice.com/read/this-theory-about-a-russian-ship- tapping-syrian-internet-is-weird)

The Vice article is low on actual maps and photos.

Someone posted to HN a link to a similar article with a lot more visual data

[http://www.hisutton.com/Yantar.html](http://www.hisutton.com/Yantar.html) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12696753](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12696753)

</comment><comment><USER3> It's strange that the experts think this is so difficult when there's been so much reporting on this capability in the past.

I mean, I think it's extraordinarily difficult, but governments have thrown a ton of money at the problem. :-(</comment>


Success of a Marriage in 15 Minutes? - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/id/2246732/

<comment><USER2> Slate and Rolling Stone continue to be some of my favorite websites strictly because of this level of reporting. When I first heard of Gottam's claim in a separate article on another site my immediate thought was "anyone can. They'll just say everyone stays together and get 80% accuracy." This is the problem with non-scientific researchers. They don't _want_ to learn about statistics. They want easy, simple claims that everyone can understand. The corresponding problem with the media is that they do not understand science well enough to be critical of researchers' claims.

<comment><USER3> I love anything that points out Gladwell's pseudo-intellectual bullshit too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> He fitted a curve to the _training data_ and called it a _prediction_. How is this not fraud?

<comment><USER5> I'd say it would only be fraud if he misreported his methods in his papers. I think the Slate author just says that _she assumed_ his methods to have been different than they were, after reading Gladwell's story about them.

Also, it seems to me that if you make a model that fits the data, that doesn't at all mean that it doesn't have predictive power. You could fit it with one data-set, and test it on another one. It just means that you now have a purely empirical model, with no built-in assumptions on why it is so.

<comment><USER6> Not testing the model on a validation set doesn't mean it doesn't have predictive power... but if you don't test it, there's no way you can say it _does_ have predictive power. And saying it predicts the data 87% of the time when you're using the training set is in fact fraudulent.

I can't believe that no one called him on this before, or that he got away with this! Anyone who has take a college statistics course knows that you have to have separate sets for training and for validation. There are even a ton of statistical methods to deal with this problem with a small data set, i.e. bootstrapping your training set. There's no excuse.

In fact, I remember reading some Feynman lecture in which he specifically mentions how bad this is... anyone got a citation for me?

<comment><USER7> > In fact, I remember reading some Feynman lecture in which he specifically > mentions how bad this is... anyone got a citation for me?

It's interesting that we still long for citations of some authority figure --- even when we all agree. (And I, too, would like to see what Feynman said.)

<comment><USER6> It's more of a longing to figure out what the heck I'm remembering. This happens to me all the time with people, too... someone will look _really familiar_ but I can't place them at all, and it drives me crazy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I agree with the several commenters who have commented that statistically speaking, the cited researcher has not yet achieved "prediction." He has done some interesting curve-fitting on a smallish data set, but has not tested his curves on fresh data sets--something that every responsible scientist must do sooner rather than later, if the scientist wishes to speak of "prediction." I indicated my agreement with other comments by a bunch of upvotes, and also posted the citation for Feynman's "Cargo Cult Science" lecture.

That said, my wife and I have been using a couple of Gottman's recent books to reexamine aspects of our twenty-six-year-plus marriage, and there is some good advice for couples in Gottman's writings. It may not all be rigorous science, but clinical experience based on close observation of many couples can be helpful to any one couple who want to enjoy their marriage more and to pass on advice to their children (four, in our case) about how to have happier marriages in the next generation. So once we all agree that proper science involves TESTING models developed through analysis of one data set on other data sets, we can start some application of the clinical observations on ourselves and see what we think after trying this out at home. My wife and I have been pleased to become acquainted with these writings and to discuss them together.

<comment><USER9> i realise this might be too personal, but i'd be interested in knowing what you thought was useful after all that time (i've been in a relationship for around 15 years).

<comment><USER8> Styles of talking while discussing problems. EVERY marriage has problems, for sure, but how a couple deals with problems can make problems part of what enriches the relationship, or part of what drags it down. We encountered some new kinds of problems in the last few years (from the outside), and thus had this interest recently.

<comment><USER9> thanks. sounds interesting, i'll look out for a copy...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Scribd link to original paper: <http://www.scribd.com/doc/28394063/353438>

JSTOR link to original paper: <http://www.jstor.org/stable/353438>

<comment><USER8> The title of the paper being "Predicting Marital Happiness and Stability from Newlywed Interactions" is quite meaningful in light of what is being discussed in this thread.

Full citation is

John M. Gottman, James Coan, Sybil Carrere and Catherine Swanson, Predicting Marital Happiness and Stability from Newlywed Interactions, Journal of Marriage and Family, Vol. 60, No. 1 (Feb., 1998), pp. 5-22

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> tl;dr Researcher coded fairly short conversations between about 60 married couples, then six years later he fed their marital status and self rated happiness into the computer. He used modeling software to create an optimal equation for prediction of marriage and happiness based on the variables he had coded for originally.

It's a good first step, but it's not strictly predictive. It's like an older financial model.

</comment><comment><USER12> Sweet, delicious over-fitting. What a way to start the day d;D.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm surprised to that the discussion here is only about how Gottam came to his results, although that's fair game and I agree with you.

But there is learning here, too. My mother is a psychologist and she says that the most destructive thing she sees in marriages is the level of toxicity. Couples can have lots of fights, but if they never lose respect for each other, they're usually ok. It's when this respect devolves that trouble begins.

</comment><comment><USER14> There's a journal article criticizing that exact assumption: "The Hazards of Predicting Divorce Without Crossvalidation"

[http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118971429/abstrac...](http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118971429/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0)

</comment><comment><USER15> Is about whether metrics gathered from a 15 minute session, in which a man and woman argue a contentious issue, can accurately predict divorce rates. The metrics are primarily measured using facial recognition software it seems. John Gottman, who claims to predict divorce with a 91% accuracy, is the main subject. QI.

</comment><comment><USER16> If he now interviews a new set of couples, does his predictions according to the developed model, and it _still_ gives high accuracy, then we can call it science.

The power of a good model lies not in how good it predicts what you know, but how it can be used to model unknown/new phenomena.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm surprised he didn't use other resampling (e.g. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resampling_%28statistics%29>) techniques to validate the models. Not that resampling is a perfect answer, but...

</comment><comment><USER18> Makes you wonder how many of the other studies in Gladwell's books are equally flawed</comment>


Remote control house and appliances with Android or Iphone - <AUTHOR> http://www.handlewithlinux.com/linux-home-automation

<comment><USER2> I've been looking for this sort of functionality for a while. Has anybody seen any other comparable free/open projects?</comment>


Rust 0.9 Released - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mozilla/rust/blob/79def2ca698db18da81288c31486f25bfa860a83/RELEASES.txt

<comment><USER2> Dear moderators: Can you update this link to [https://github.com/mozilla/rust/blob/79def2ca698db18da81288c...](https://github.com/mozilla/rust/blob/79def2ca698db18da81288c31486f25bfa860a83/RELEASES.txt)? It's pointing at master/RELEASES.txt, which is obviously not a good permalink for this content.

<comment><USER3> I've also submitted a link ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7033234](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7033234)) to the actual release announcement: [https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/rust- dev/2014-January/007...](https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/rust- dev/2014-January/007753.html)

Let's see which one the karma gods will favor!</comment></comment>


Police: Armed robbers used Pokemon Go app to target victims – WTOP - <AUTHOR> http://wtop.com/national/2016/07/police-armed-robbers-used-pokemon-go-app-to-target-victims/ <comment><USER2> Previous submissions of this story:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12070151](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12070151)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12070093](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12070093)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12068921](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12068921)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12068073](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12068073)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12067774](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12067774)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12067526](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12067526)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12067422](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12067422)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12067200](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12067200)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12066749](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12066749)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12066134](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12066134)</comment>


Tesla reports net loss of $50 million in Q1 [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2014/05/07/tesla-first-quarter-earnings-2014/8814725/

<comment><USER2> Tesla is just like any other startup, the fact they made a loss is irrelevant because the overall vision is much bigger and eventually Tesla will be at the forefront of electric vehicles, a household name like Ford or General Motors. The fact they've made leaps and bounds in battery tech and the drivetrain component puts Tesla at the forefront (not to mention shaking up how cars are sold), the losses can be written off as collateral damage. You have to spend money to make money and Tesla are arguably competing in an industry that even almost killed the players that were there from the beginning.

Starting out in any kind of industry that relies on manufacturing and continual research is going to very expensive, but the good thing is your costs are destined to continually come down. Until they can drive down their production costs and adoption increases, I have a feeling we'll see many more quarterly losses before they start to become profitable.

I think the future of Tesla's revenue model will be split 50/50 between sales and licensing. The deal Tesla signed with Toyota in 2010 to develop an electric Rav4 was just the beginning. The technology and advancements Tesla have made put them in a fantastic position to licence it out to other car companies as more and more of them move into the electric car market, they'll most likely come crawling to Tesla.

I'm excited to hopefully own a Tesla vehicle one day, in Australia it's not really a viable option to own one just yet (that I am aware of anyway), but I know that will change soon enough. Don't be concerned with the loss, there are lot of companies out there not turning a profit just like Tesla.

<comment><USER3> > _they 'll most likely come crawling to Tesla._

What specific technologies or patents do they own that will cause other companies to "crawl" to them? Sure, they're leading the way right now, but competition is heating up. Almost every major player in the market has developed or is developing EV technologies.

Are we that enamoured with the aura of Elon Musk that we really believe the major automobile manufacturers, with their hundreds of billions of dollars and reams of engineering experience, won't be able to match or surpass what Tesla is doing? That's a bold bet. The automobile world is an _incredibly_ competitive space. Look how much competition is in every single market segment.

<comment><USER4> >Are we that enamoured with the aura of Elon Musk that we really believe the major automobile manufacturers, with their hundreds of billions of dollars and reams of engineering experience, won't be able to match or surpass what Tesla is doing?

YES, A THOUSAND TIMES YES because Tesla seems to be in the process of _gettting it._

For the same reason Google was able to exist when Apple, Yahoo, and Microsoft when, by your thinking, "with their hundreds of billions of dollars and reams of engineering experience," should have crushed them. Because Google _got it_

It is similar to when Woz was asked how many computers they could sell and his immediate answer was "a million" Surly against IBM and their "their hundreds of billions of dollars and reams of engineering experience" Apple would fail, right? But Woz knew better and when asked how he knew he could sell a million "because there are at least a million ham radio operators" Because _he got it!_

For the same reason that on Slashdot, when the iPod was revealed, the editor's comment was "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame." Slasdot didn't get it, Apple _got it_

Similarly, Tesla's cars are the first cars I've ever wanted. _wanted_ wanted. I have a car, I use it, it isn't sexy or special to me. I _want_ a Tesla. They aren't there yet, but they're on the path and will "get it."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The fact that they had a net loss of $50m is pretty remarkable, given their steep, uphill battle against the deeply entrenched auto industry [1], the costs of scaling up production [2], and the large expenses of building a suitable infrastructure in multiple massive markets for vehicle charging [3]. I would've expected a much higher loss as they continue to plow money in development.

It seems like people often tend to ignore the fact that Tesla makes really solid cars [4].

Is the stock market overreacting? Good time to buy?

[1] [http://www.businessinsider.com/how-tesla-got-outspent-and- ou...](http://www.businessinsider.com/how-tesla-got-outspent-and-outgunned-in- jersey-2014-3) [2] [http://articles.latimes.com/2014/feb/26/business/la-fi- tesla...](http://articles.latimes.com/2014/feb/26/business/la-fi-tesla- battery-factory-20140227) [3] [http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/22/us- autoshow-china-...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/22/us-autoshow- china-tesla-motors-idUSBREA3L0TN20140422) [4] [http://www.teslamotors.com/about/press/releases/tesla- model-...](http://www.teslamotors.com/about/press/releases/tesla-model-s- achieves-best-safety-rating-any-car-ever-tested)

<comment><USER3> > _It seems like people often tend to ignore the fact that Tesla makes really > solid cars_

Most Tesla fans tend to ignore the fact that building a solid car doesn't mean the company should be valued at a bajillion dollars.

Stern's Prof. Damodaran (of online valuation course fame) believes "the value per share estimate... [of] Tesla is between $110 and $115 per share." He might not be right, but at least his model is based on real-world projections and shows the magnitude of optimism/hype behind Tesla's share price.

There's a lot of talk about about Tesla being a startup or a tech company. In reality, they're a car company (albeit one that's doing a few things better/differently), and need to be looked at in that context.

<comment><USER6> Plenty of DCF models predict a Tesla share price which is higher than today's closing price. The problem is that they necessarily must rely to a heavy degree on assumptions about the future. Given that any realistic DCF model of Tesla needs to be probabilistic to some degree (measure different scenarios against each other) and that a company's true market value is still the unknown present-value adjusted sum of all its future earnings, we are still going to see massive disagreement about Tesla's correct valuation in the years ahead. Contemptuous comments about bajillion-dollar valuations and hype don't provide any value to this discussion.

If you're arguing from authority, it's also worth pointing out that Damodaran was uncertain about his valuation in the comment thread after his latest valuation of Tesla.

<comment><USER3> > _Contemptuous comments about bajillion-dollar valuations and hype don 't > provide any value to this discussion._

The OP asked why the stock was down, and whether this was a buying opportunity. I offered perspective that it might not be, based on the analysis of someone respected in the field. I understand that DCF models can produce any numbers you wish (as does Prof. Damordaran; says so right in the article). But there's his model and there's his numbers, based mainly off assumptions that Tesla builds cars.

Tell me, what value did _your_ comment add to the discussion?

If I sound "contemptuous", it's because the hype and fandom is tiring. Read the comments in this thread ("Tesla <3") or on Prof. Damodaran's article ("You can't vaue Tesla unless you've driven one!").

<comment><USER6> Morgan Stanley's latest DCF arrived at $320/share, Goldman Sachs's arrived at $200, for instance. If your goal was to contribute by providing a contrarian view, that is fair enough and I might have misread the tone of your comment. I am merely pointing out that it is not just noveau riche kids and hype train riders who figure that Tesla is a good investment even at the current price - I figure that this is an interesting point, since my impression is that the financial press says the opposite.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like everything about Tesla.

Except they don't make an auto that is affordable for most people. Hopefully their battles eventually produce this, whether it is them that brings it to market or someone else.

<comment><USER8> It's been their plan all along to make cars that are more and more affordable.

<comment><USER9> Indeed, and the next one has gullwing doors, following in the footsteps of esteemed car makers DMC and Bricklin.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Tesla <3

</comment><comment><USER11> _Tesla also said that using non-GAAP information that excludes some items... it earned $17 million,_

Which means the article is like a proof-piece on how unreliable these financial analyses are.

They got 12 cents when analysts expected 6. That is a %50 error.

</comment><comment><USER12> I fail to see a reason why this article is on the front page. Tesla Q1 report does not disclose any new information that we didn't already know: Planning of a Gigafactory, battery supply constraints, rapid movement into China, etc.</comment>


Ask HN: Survivor Bias. Why don't we focus more on startups that fail? - <AUTHOR> I think this comes from a book somewhere or other but it was paraphrased to me:
During WWII planes that made it back from combat missions were analyzed to be reinforced.  They found that these planes were shot in the wings and tail so they reinforced those areas.  Really though, planes shot in the fuselage were much less likely to make it back so they should have reinforced that area.  They were biased by trying to avoid the problems the survivors faced.
So my question is: why don't we try to learn more from startups that fail instead of focusing so much on the successes? <comment><USER2> The National WWII Museum implies that your WWII anecdote is the inverse of what actually happened. That is, that returning planes were shot in the fuselage, and a WWII statistician recognized survivorship bias in proposed reinforcement and concluded that the areas not hit on survivors should be reinforced.

See: [http://www.nww2m.com/2012/11/scitech-tuesday-abraham-wald- se...](http://www.nww2m.com/2012/11/scitech-tuesday-abraham-wald-seeing-the- unseen/)

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

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah. Smart statistician. Thanks for that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> We pay a lot of attention to the causes of failure. Much of what I've written about startups is about pitfalls and mistakes. I don't name names, but I don't think you need to.

<comment><USER4> hi pg.

i don't know you, this website, or anything about anything, but i felt a duty to inform a fellow internet user that someone has commissioned others to compile your comments for this site. here's the link: [https://www.elance.com/j/scrape-gather-all-comments- person-o...](https://www.elance.com/j/scrape-gather-all-comments-person-on- discussion- board/35373787/?backurl=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZWxhbmNlLmNvbS9yL2pvYnMvY2F0LWFkbWluLXN1cHBvcnQ=)

it could be totally fine, or creepy, or it could just be you wanting your stuff compiled, but i felt it my duty to tell a fellow internet user that someone wanted their stuff compiled.

if i'm breaking any sort of rules, again, sorry, i don't know anything about this site or how to navigate it; i also obviously don't know how to pm.

cheers.

<comment><USER3> [http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/comments&q=by%3Ap...](http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/comments&q=by%3Apg&sortby=create_ts+desc)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There are an infinite number of ways to fail and only a few ways to succeed. If you learn from failure, you have learned one way that doesn't work out of an infinite number. If you learn from success, you have learned one way that does work out of a small finite number.

Obviously there are some ways to fail that are much more common than others, but those tend to be based on lack of action, e.g. failure to actually ask users if they want to use your product before building it. There is plenty of material on those common sorts of failures, it's just usually phrased constructively, i.e. "how to do SEO" rather than "we died because we posted duplicate content on every page of our site."

<comment><USER6> The hard part is pinning down the _cause_ of a successful startup. Most people just point at highly visible things, and make a claim like "StartupX is successful because the founders worked extremely hard, the office culture was well-developed, and there were lots of team building activities." The problem is that this ignores the 5,000 other startups that did all those same things, but failed. Perhaps it turns out that StartupX really succeeded because they had a sales guy with lots of good connections, etc.

<comment><USER7> You have a good point here.

More prevalent in the financial industry, you have a lot of successful retirees who hold talks and write books what kind of tea they drank. Statistically nobody beats the market, so these people had very likely just luck.

Causation is not relation, everybody knows that. But it is damn hard to figure out what and often the people themselves are biased. I would say a big percentage of tips you get this way are totally useless, but to figure out which one of them depends on your judgement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wrote up my failed YC startup here: [http://blog.paulbiggar.com/archive/why- we-shut-newstilt-down...](http://blog.paulbiggar.com/archive/why-we-shut- newstilt-down/)

It was definitely a good move. More people read that blog post than heard about my startup in the first place, it got covered in loads of tech press, and people still ask me about it 2 years later. I get an email every few months thanking me for writing it, and I'm asked to do the occasional interview about it too.

It also allowed me to introspect a lot of what went wrong, and what I could have done better. One of the major reasons my current startup (<https://circleci.com>) is doing well is what I learned from the deconstruction.

<comment><USER9> Just wanted to echo common sentiments that your blog post was a very well- written and yet personal treatise on how and why startups fail.

Another good pair of posts comes from Chad Etzel (previously Notifo): <http://blog.jazzychad.net/2011/05/02/startups-are-hard.html>

[http://blog.jazzychad.net/2011/09/08/fouling-out-moving- on.h...](http://blog.jazzychad.net/2011/09/08/fouling-out-moving-on.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> When I joined the startup scene 3 years ago, I mostly saw success stories. Now that I've been through my own failed startup, I see many failure stories.

I believe that two things have changed:

1\. The field is maturing, so more people are talking about failures, the downsides of entrepreneurship, etc.

2\. I'm growing as a business person, so I'm reading a larger variety of things, not just stories that reinforce my beliefs.

So it's possible that, like me, you're so focused on reading positive startup- reinforcing articles, that you're missing out on some of the articles which focus more on the failures and things to avoid.

Oh, and definitely read pg's articles - they have a lot of truth in them, compiled from one smart person who's seen many startups both fail and succeed, and who is specifically looking for the reasons and patterns behind it all.

</comment><comment><USER11> I think there's two major components to this:

1) Writing about your failures sucks. My first startup got to 6 figure revenue within 18 months, but we really struggled to grow past that. I could write a full debrief on why we failed, but it's pretty low on my "things I want to do" list. I'd imagine quite a few founders with failed startups would have a similar viewpoint.

2) A lot of failures just aren't that exciting. I'd venture a guess that most startups fail because they gradually lose their passion for the problem. When you aren't growing for an extended time, it wears on you. A lot. The only way you survive is if you're obsessed with the problem you're solving. Those that aren't would just slowly fade out.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'd note that this bias extends beyond startups; see [http://jeps.efpsa.org/blog/2012/06/01/falsification-of- previ...](http://jeps.efpsa.org/blog/2012/06/01/falsification-of-previous- results/)

studies of failures don't just reveal things that increase failure rates, they prevent false positives.

Imagine X is some innovation that is being talked up because recently several companies had or used X to succeed.

If 19 out of 20 times X makes a startup more likely to fail or if X has no meaningful effect on failure rates at all, or if X only helps in situation Y, but you only hear about the times that people succeeded with X, you might try to use X, to no benefit or to actual harm to your business.

If startup success is rare, then trying to generalize only from instances of it may lead to errors. We have more instances of failures, therefore we can learn a great deal about commonalities in startups that fail. Of course the smart thing to do is to make a hypothesis about X, and compare startups with X that failed and succeeded to startups without X that failed and succeeded to see if there is a significant effect on the rate.

I'd note that errors of judgment about what causes startups to do well or fail get fed into the investor system. If X is useless or harmful, but your investors think it's a good idea, you will have problems.

</comment><comment><USER13> I think the answer is pretty simple: failed startps are insular. Founders who are able to discuss them won't, either because they've moved on, or because it's painful, embarrassing etc. Discussing failures would be more useful, I imagine, than reading about successes. If such a startup graveyard existed, I'd probably visit quite often.

</comment><comment><USER14> \- The failure may be a sore-spot for those involved, so they might not want to do a postmortem.

\- Unless insiders are willing to speak up, there may not be too much to be said from the outside.

\- A lot of start-ups that fail are uninteresting. What can be said about the tons of TODO web apps that have probably been created and failed.

\- Those involved may be reluctant to speak out because they view the lessons- learned as their leg up on the competition when they get into their next start-up.

I agree that there are a lot of interesting things to discuss regarding failed start-ups, though.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think on a person-to-person basis there's a lot of talk about startups and companies that have failed. People who have worked with startups that ended up going under have no discomfort talking about the causes and errors, which subsequent companies learn from. I think the experiences and lessons are passed on fairly well, it's just that this exchange happens out of the public spotlight.

</comment><comment><USER16> For those interested in a scholarly study of common failure modes for various fashionable Grand Business Strategies of the 80s and 90s, read _Billion Dollar Lessons_ by Carroll and Mui: [http://www.amazon.com/Billion-Dollar-Lessons- Inexcusable-Bus...](http://www.amazon.com/Billion-Dollar-Lessons-Inexcusable- Business/dp/1591842891)

</comment><comment><USER17> Good point. I was thinking that a lot of the characteristics of great entrepreneurs are really just things that make them more volatile. So for a % of the people they will be more successful, but for another percentage of the people with the same characteristics they will be a lot less successful.

I have no evidence to back this up, just food for thought.

</comment><comment> shawn-butler I think another reason is that no one likes to acknowledge the uncomfortable truth that a significant factor in the success or failure of tech startups is pure chance. It's the same reason so much of recorded history is false. It seems to be hardwired into human experience to prefer a good narrative over truth.

</comment><comment><USER18> Once you've failed (and maybe, given your post-mortem), what else is there to do? You move on to working on something else.

To extend your analogy: during WW2, they didn't study the _same_ plane every time a plane was shot down. They studied a the one that was hit, and moved on to the next one after that.

<comment><USER19> Your missing the point of the analogy. The planes that should have been studied were the same planes that never RTB'ed so they could not be studied.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> There is a notable exception: <http://thefailcon.com/> "FailCon is a one-day conference for technology entrepreneurs, investors, developers and designers to study their own and others' failures and prepare for success."

</comment><comment><USER21> Availability heuristic? Successful startups survive, do well and people hear about them more (news coverage, PR, using their products etc.) It is hard to discuss a company when you've never even heard of them.

</comment><comment><USER22> In my case, NDAs, mostly. Plus, as a savvy recruiter once told me, the Bay Area is big, but the Valley is small.

</comment><comment><USER23> Agreed. Probably an equal number of lessons to learn from the failures as from those still slogging it out.

</comment><comment><USER24> Failure is bad for SEO. Unless the failure is massive.

Many startups fail for uninteresting reasons.

<comment><USER25> Well it is my opinion that failure stories are far better than successful stories because success is difficult to replicate but failures can be easily avoided.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> same reason we like heroes so much, even though most heroes didn't do things on their own.

</comment><comment><USER27> I agree. It makes for a lot more interesting story too.</comment>


Bing Admits Using Customer Search Data - <AUTHOR> http://searchengineland.com/bing-admits-using-customer-search-data-says-google-pulled-spy-novelesque-stunt-63162

<comment><USER2> What part of search engines (and everyone else) using their customer's data to improve their service is news?

We get articles on HN most days on A/B testing and other things you can do to improve your performance, and I'm quite sure Google doesn't route my search results like this for nothing:

http :// www .google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBIQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.miniclip.com%2F&ei=KnRITbyhPIzQgAejqfmOBg&usg=AFQjCNHqQo9TrXtXXM5lDpiCmNQO9xwkhw</comment>


Highlights from Facebook's Libra Senate hearing - lil-scamp https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/16/libra-in-messenger-whatsapp/ <comment><AUTHOR> This all comes down to Facebook and friends holding on to your money, making interest on it, while everybody passes their tokens around. Many other companies have been doing this for a very long time, just not in such a widespread way and opening their currencies up to whoever wants to use it.

Take xbox live's original currency (still in use) where you pay $X for Y coin. They had your money in the bank, while you had some coins in your account, just sitting there, doing nothing for you. They had a bit more control and you could only buy amounts of coin that were not equal to the amount of coin you had to spend to buy anything, so you always had some left in your account.

In Facebook's case, just the time it takes to convert money to Libra and then back into actual money will net them some interest on it. On such a large scale, that's a constant income.

They're trying to be a non-profit because they don't actually charge for the service, but the investors still make money by way of holding on to your cash while it's in Libra form.

<comment><USER2> > They're trying to be a non-profit because they don't actually charge for the > service, but the investors still make money by way of holding on to your > cash while it's in Libra form.

A not-for-profit _can_ charge for service, and _cannot_ return a profit to investors. Maybe they've ways to wiggle around the latter, but not charging for the service is simply irrelevant.

<comment><USER3> The non-profit could sell your financial transaction data to a for profit corp. for basically nothing. The for-profit then makes all the money selling the data to other corporate partners. Just one of the many ways I can see this being abused.

<comment><USER4> Thats illegal. Highly highly doubt Facebook or any company in the media spotlight will ever do anything clearly, and obviously illegal.

<comment><USER2> I have no idea whether this is serious or parody.

<comment><USER5> Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from genuinely felt beliefs...

<comment><USER2> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Any new system will necessarily have better oversight than the one that has co-evolved in a murky organic soup with cash and foreign exchange. Even bitcoin has more transparency than the majority of transactions today.

Watching some of those Senate hearings is like a trial organized by superstitious villagers. Libra is just a company scrip, like poker chips, which happens to be facilitated by a distributed ledger. I don't use Facebook because it is an abomination, but given the trend toward de-dollarization, the return of currency baskets and reserves made of special drawing rights, and effective negative interest rate policies, Libra may be the last best hope of the US to maintain its current level of influence in the international currency market. Only thing I recommend is that the company should just change it's name to Statebook.

<comment><USER7> > Libra may be the last best hope of the US to maintain its current level of > influence in the international currency market

Sorry- what's the connection here? Libra will apparently be a basket of different major currencies, how does this benefit the US specifically? I say this as someone who would like to preserve dollar hegemony, I just don't see the connection

<comment><USER3> If the US doesn't take a lead in the fintech race China will take over the world. Imagine everyone in Africa, S.E. Asia, etc using Alipay. This takes away power from the US in control and de-dollarization.

<comment><USER8> You raised an interesting point about Alipay. But I've had equally fast transactions with Apple Pay/Android Pay. Why not double down on NFC payment options coupled with desktop devices instead of building an Alipay alternative?

If you're using a credit card as source payment, you get a bank to protect your purchase and presumably some points or rebate?

I understand cryptocurrency as potential replacement to wire transfers and cash payments. But as a consumer friendly choice, why would somebody choose to pay with crypto over NFC pay (with banks promising purchase protection when coupled with credit card)?

<comment><USER9> You can't use Apple Pay on top of a bank account that doesn't exist. 1.7b of the people in emerging markets don't have access to banking services. 500m+ of them have internet/cells and many have Facebook/WhatsApp. Hence Facebook's interest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > It is "not the intention at all" for Calibra to sell or directly monetize > user data directly, though if it offered additional financial services in > partnership with other financial organizations it would ask consent to use > their data specifically for those purposes.

And of course, they'll get consent with a small EULA update to their existing users, knowing they won't read it.

</comment><comment><USER11> What is the difference between 'Calibra' and 'Libra'?

This article uses them interchangably, and does not seem to distinct between the two.

Edit: Looking more closely --

"That means that even though Facebook might not know how much money is in someone's Calibra wallet or their other transactions [...]"

It seems that Calibra is the name of the 'wallet', and Libra is the name of the 'coin' itself.

<comment><USER12> There's also this site: [https://calibra.com/](https://calibra.com/)

<comment><USER13> LGTM [https://gc.gy/31025051.png](https://gc.gy/31025051.png)

<comment><USER14> I think Firefox's Facebook container causes this

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Isn't this currency play just a way for Facebook to get more data? Data about social interactions and how they influence purchase decisions would be very marketable, especially to e-commerce businesses that want to take on Amazon.

It's also a potential moat for FB to protect its ad business against encroachment by Amazon's own ad business.

<comment><USER9> No, it's about increasing revenue per user for their fastest growing market (emerging market) by giving access to the 500m+ unbanked people that have internet/cells/FB/WhatsApp in these markets a way to access the digital economy, so they can actually buy things people advertise on Facebook, driving up the price for those ads.

They can make a killing on this without needing to touch anyone's data.

<comment><USER15> Why not both?

Besides, the lions share of FB's current revenue still comes from US Ad spending. Amazon's dominance of e-commerce threatens this because people who want to buy something increasingly just go to Amazon.com. Amazon's ads offer the opportunity to influence consumers at the end of the conversion funnel.

But this means that Amazon will get a bigger slice of both the ad spend and the purchase data which FB doesn't yet have. Their ad business already makes almost $3B a quarter - that's almost 1/5th of FB's revenue. This is money that likely would otherwise have gone to FB/Google, but isn't anymore.

This is big threat to FB's core business in what is their most lucrative market right now. Would they leverage this data to try to keep their ad business competitive? I certainly think so. Just imagine how much stuff an AI that knows your purchases and your social life can get you to buy.

<comment><USER9> > Besides, the lions share of FB's current revenue still comes from US Ad > spending

But the largest opportunity for growth is in the emerging world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think a lot of the confusion around Facebook's motivations with Libra lie around the fact that Americans think they're the main target customer. It becomes more clear when you realize (by literally reading the copy on the front page of the Libra website, mind you) that the emerging markets (FB's fastest growing sector) are the real target.

We'd just be a nice to have.

<comment><USER16> But it looks like Facebook doesn't know much about emerging markets either. Internet.org didn't go over well in some places. Letting Americans set moderation policy for Myanmar. Now they're talking about supporting unbanked people in the developing world... with KYC. Many unbanked people do not have "proper" ID and Facebook probably doesn't know how to parse such IDs anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> There are some very interesting posts being flagged and killed in this thread that I feel raise some very valid points. My chief contention with allowing Facebook and ilk the ability to expand their influence and authority is that the motivations of such entities are, at best, amoral. There seems to be a troublingly significant movement of people who seem to think that Facebook, Google et al are doing god's work when it comes to their political involvement. But these companies ultimately will only serve their own interests. Democracy has its obvious pitfalls. You may often feel like you as an individual are not well served by the democratic process, as I often do not, but the democratic process _is_ there. It provides a mechanism that is fundamentally egalitarian for society to steer the direction of its governing bodies by voting. FAANG is not bound to such a restrictive system, their motivations concede no moral imperative. There is no incentive for them to suffer the inconveniences of egalitarian principles any further than it serves their agenda.

<comment><USER18> What posts are being flagged and killed in this thread? I don't see any.

If you a [dead] post that shouldn't be dead, you should vouch for it by clicking on its timestamp, then clicking 'vouch' at the top of its page. This is precisely why we added that feature.

<comment><USER17> There was one in particular post I was referring to, it looks like someone has vouched for it since my noting it. Thanks for pointing that out, I was unaware. I'm not sure I have the rep necessary however.

<comment><USER18> If by rep you mean karma, the threshold is 30, so you're fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> in other words: "let us create Libra otherwise Bitcoin wins. We have the technical capabilities, you write the laws. Let's fight it together."

Put like this it will start making sense to the institutions. Just give them some time to digest it.

</comment><comment><USER20> Moving social networks into banking seems to be an excellent business opportunity for social networks!

Suddenly they can make money from their users directly, rather than from selling their users to advertising customers.

I think Apple should investigate doing the same; make it so you can have an iBankAccount, and use phones to transfer money and pay etc using Apple as a bank. Apple could beat Facebook at this. And with Tim Cook at the helm, we might actually trust them more than Facebook and the current crop of actual banks.

The thing I don't get is the 'crypto' part of the currency; why that? Why not just become FaceBank and do it the old fashioned way?

<comment><USER21> I want to note that KakaoTalk [0], which is the de-facto messenger service of Korea, is exactly going this route. Although having a straightforward monopoly on messenger services in the country, it has failed to find a sustainable business model in the past. However, five years ago they launched a service called KakaoPay [1], which lets you send money across KakaoTalk friends right in the app. And quite recently it launched its own bank called KakaoBank [2], and is nowadays even issuing debit cards. I expect many social network companies to move in similar directions; once you have a monopoly on communications, network effects are too strong to ignore.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KakaoTalk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KakaoTalk)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KakaoPay](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KakaoPay)

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I can't believe no one's mentioned that Mr. Robot scene yet: [http://youtube.com/watch?v=1ee-cHbCI0s](http://youtube.com/watch?v=1ee- cHbCI0s)

</comment><comment><USER23> Is it unusual or unheard of for a senate hearing to be held into an unreleased product?

</comment><comment><USER24> > _Facebook's core revenue model around Libra is that more online commerce > will lead businesses to spend more on Facebook ads_

That's not believable, but I think it was meant as a believable motivation that could be told to people to make them feel like they understood Facebook's motivation.

<comment><USER25> Agreed, its not believable at all.

It feels like when FB told everyone that they would never data mine whatsapp, and then started mining like 18 months after acquisition.

<comment><USER12> Funnily enough it was claimed that whatsapp is encrypted and thus not mineable in the senate hearing when a senator explicitly brought this up!

<comment><USER26> Message _content_ is encrypted and thus not mineable; metadata is a separate issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> How do we ensure that they don't politically discriminate against people? What happen if they block you on facebook? At least if the government is doing something I don't like I can vote for a different one, how can I influence facebook decisions? I'd rather have someone who must uphold the first amendment managing my money than someone who don't or even worst, will take the interest and demands of countries like China into consideration.

<comment><USER28> Mastercard and Paypal have already done this, so getting any different payment provider would be a success already.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> The most important quote might be from Mnuchin yesterday:

"Treasury takes very seriously the role of the US Dollar as the world's reserve currency, and will continue our efforts to protect our country". [1]

Are you supposed to say that out loud?

[1] [https://youtu.be/zAICzg8ir50?t=370](https://youtu.be/zAICzg8ir50?t=370)

<comment><USER30> Huh? Why not?

The US gains strategic advantage from the power of the USD, and signalling their intention to protect that advantage will only help reinforce it.

<comment><USER29> Well there's this whole thing about fighting terrorism and money laundering, and individual rights and small government, etc. In this context it's odd for the government to be picking winners. We are also the leaders in crypto. Many US citizens are involved in crypto. It's _almost_ as if the government had a stake in GM and so started making rules against Ford under the guise of public safety. Doesn't it seem like this should have zero effect on policy decision? If not, shouldn't the rest of the world then also be looking out for their own interests and make sure that the dollar reserve status is undermined? The latter isn't beneficial to the US, so framing it that way seems like a bit of a slip.

<comment><USER31> > If not, shouldn't the rest of the world then also be looking out for their > own interests and make sure that the dollar reserve status is undermined?

I'm confused by most of what you wrote. The rest of the world is looking after their own interests, that's why nearly every country has its own currency. It's why the Euro exists. It's why the Federal Reserve isn't literally the global central bank controlling a single currency that everyone on earth must use. The Eurozone - for one example - is and always has been interested in promoting the Euro as a dollar-competing global currency.

Russia and China, as the primary military competitors to the US (and China as the sole economic superpower competitor to the US), are persistently attempting to either compete with or undermine the US dollar hegemony. Russia hasn't been subtle about wanting to see the dollar's prominence reduced for most of Putin's time in office.

<comment><USER32> _every country has its own currency. It 's why the Euro exists_

These two statements are contradictory. Ask the ordinary Greeks or Italians if they feel the Euro supports their national interests. The Italians are even talking about rebooting the Lira now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I genuinely hope this takes off. The idea of breaking the government money monopoly is very appealing to me.

<comment><USER34> You prefer government by Facebook shareholders instead of democracy?

<comment><USER35> Having more than one option is worth infinitely more to me than just one option I can vote on. It's not like the US dollar is going away. You present a simple example of false dichotomy rhetoric which hurts discussion and is uncharitable to the reasons someone could see the upsides of having Libra around.

<comment><USER34> Libra becoming a significant amount of trade takes soverenty away from governments. Giving it to Facebook is not giving it to the people, it's transferring it to a corporation.

There's no dichotomy there, but straightforward transfer of soverenty to a corporation.

<comment><USER36> You could also argue that some competition in the currency space could lead to start governments to innovate again in that space

<comment><USER37> If we want governments to innovate in the currency space then let's pay more in taxes to let them do that.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>