Puzzling outcomes in A/B testing - <AUTHOR> http://glinden.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/puzzling-outcomes-in-ab-testing.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+GeekingWithGreg+(Geeking+with+Greg)&utm_content=Google+Reader <comment><USER2> The attached PDF article is worth a read.

TL;DR... (Of the PDF not that article)

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>---

> Ensure that your statistic results are trustworthy. Incorrect results may > cause bad ideas to be deployed of good ideas may be incorrectly ruled out.

> You also need to make sure taht your findings align with your businesses > long term strategy so that you don't make the mistake of sacrificing long > term growth for short term financial gain. ie. One time Bing had a bug, > which served poor search results, so distinct queries went up 10% and click > throughs on advertisements went up 30%. It would be a mistake to say this > test was successful.

> Just because you see an upwards trend in a newly launched feature does not > mean that your users like the feature more. (Delayed effect/primacy effect)

> Don't run an experiment longer than you originally intended. It does not > provide you with extra statistical power. (Pick a duration and stick to it). > Also do not stop your test early. (There is an algorithm to tell you when > you have statistical confidence enough to be able to stop your test, so that > the benefit can be gained accross the entire network but I can't remember > what it's called. It's commonly used in Drug/Pharmaceuticals when test > groups clearly have a fantastic response to drugs, and it would be cruel to > restrict the drug to the placebo/control group.

> Got interesting/suprising results? Re-run your experiment again. Often there > are underlying reasons which should be investigated.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--

> Don't make changes to your application if your average customers lifetime > value will decline. ie Longterm v Shortterm.

> Quickly identify the Carryover Effect... Google/Amazon/Yahoo etc rely on > something called the "bucket system" where users are split and an experiment > from a bucket is selected for them. But a problem with this is the carryover > effect where the same users impacted on one experiment receives the second > experiment too (the effect can last weeks). Known as A/A testing. The > exerpiment was reran with a larger test group and with local randomization.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--

I just enjoyed reading it. I can't say that this will be useful for even 1% of readers here. (I certainly can't apply any of the methods described, but the underlying principles are useful to know).

</comment><comment><USER3> I've said it before and I'll say it again - if your business exists primarily to help users get a task completed and move on, then you absofrigginglutely should not be running A/B tests the way content sites run them. If you can achieve greater click per user or time on site metrics by making your product worse at its core function, then you _need_ to have analysts that know what they're doing in those situations, and they need to be able to win in fights with the business types that don't understand this stuff and assume higher traffic or CTRs are automatically a win. You're not playing the same split testing game as everyone else, and you have to have people with both the expertise and (equally important) the authority to handle this special situation properly.

</comment><comment><USER4> There are many more papers and presentations on this topic at Ron Kohavi's MS group's home page, <http://www.exp-platform.com/Pages/default.aspx>. Most of these papers are worth a read, as they dissect how and where online experimentation can really muck things up if not handled properly. Some are more statistical than others, but most all are relatively easy reads.

</comment><comment><USER5> More info: <http://icelandingpagedesign.com/#blog></comment>


HTML5 video accessibility (ironically inaccessibly illustrated) - <AUTHOR> http://wearehugh.com/public/2010/08/html5-video-accessibility/

<comment><USER2> Cool idea. Why on earth it's presented as an image, and a huge one, I'm not sure I'll ever understand.

<comment><USER3> Looks like an export from Balsamiq.

<comment><USER4> Check out the very bottom of the image.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yeah, and to kill Flash HTML5 really need to reinvent DHTML+TIME to replace the ancient setTimeout() function.

HTML5 is heading towards a hyper-bloated multimedia platform.</comment>


Bloomberg: The Hidden Technology Giant - <AUTHOR> http://blog.etanzapinsky.com/2013/08/12/bloomberg-the-hidden-technology-giant/

<comment><USER2> Glad that the OP's internship went well. Sounds like a very positive experience. I'd just add that Bloomberg is not so hidden for anyone in NYC or financial services.</comment>


Ask HN: Rules on distributing logos in open source software? - <AUTHOR> I've struggled to find anything concrete, but I'm looking to distribute some company logos in part of my open source project. Are there any laws on distributing them (showing that they use the software) that would prevent me from doing so? <comment><USER2> Curious about the compelling reasons for including potentially problematic content in the project and wondering why it's worth expending mental energy to include logos instead of images with Creative Commons or a similar license.

A concrete answer on the legal matter will require a court decision. However, an attorney will provide an informed answer relevant to the law of your jurisdiction.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER3> IANAL

I think you're OK under 'nomanitive fair use'[0] as long as you're only using the trademark to refer to the company by name and not implying that you have some kind of sponsorship or endorsement from them.

[0] - [http://trademarkapply.com/nominative-fair- use/](http://trademarkapply.com/nominative-fair-use/)</comment>


Google cans the Chromecast Audio - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/11/google-cans-the-chromecast-audio/ <comment><USER4> Google is really developing a reputation for starting and canning projects. I'd recommend not getting too invested in their products when possible.

<comment><USER5> This is the HN bubble. They only have this reputation among nerds who are still angry about losing Google Reader. Go ask any normal person if Google has a reputation for discontinuing products, and they won't know what you're talking about.

Also, i don't know who out there is heavily invested in a $35 audio dongle. I love mine, but it still works just as well today as it did yesterday and not being able to order more isn't causing me any anxiety.

<comment><USER6> I might just be a "nerd" on hacker news but I'm also the guy who just made the decision on which cloud service, email provider, and document sharing service to use at my job.

Guess which company didn't get the contract.

<comment><USER7> This is exactly the risk that Google doesn't seem to effectively mitigate.

Choosing GCP over Azure or AWS seems like such a dangerous move. Same with migrating 5k users to gmail. Outlook and others may have weaknesses, but they are predictable.

<comment><USER8> The fear is that Google might turn Gmail down? Seems implausible, no?

<comment><USER9> Gmail, Docs, Drive seem pretty safe bets. Would not put my money on anything else though.

<comment><USER10> I'm pretty sure the ads will keep working :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I love my Chromecast Audio Setup. It was amazing to create a very cheap multi room setup for our Office Opening Party, literally orchestrating all the speakers I could find into one large group was like magic. So cheap compared to alternative solutions, i'll try to pick a few up if I can, as I expect them to work for atleast a few more years.

<comment> semi-extrinsic We have a few around the house, connected to various speakers. Never had any trouble with them. I'll be buying a few more now before the price bumps, don't wanna be stuck in the Logitech Squeezebox misery again.

My only complaint is that they can't be grouped with a regular Chromecast, but AFAICT that's a hardware issue (regular Chromecast doesn't have the bits necessary for synchronising with low enough latency).

<comment><USER12> Regular Chromecast (Gen 2 and above) can now be added to groups too!

[https://chromeunboxed.com/news/chromecast-video-and-smart- di...](https://chromeunboxed.com/news/chromecast-video-and-smart-displays-can- now-join-speaker-groups/)

<comment> semi-extrinsic This just makes no sense. A feature the community has been shouting about for years and years (literally hundreds of posts on Google product forums), and then they actually launch it less than two months before discontinuing the product line??

<comment><USER13> The feature that Chromecast Audio had was added to Chromecast just before Chromecast Audio (but not Chromecast) was discontinued.

Be funny if they soon release a new Chromecast that has HDMI and AUX outs; the thing that always confused me about Chromecast Audio was why it needed to be a separate thing, especially after they went to the hockey-puck with a tail rather than stick format for the regular Chromecast.

<comment><USER14> Well if regular Chromecast would have a 3.5mm port then fine, but I wouldn't be holding my breath.

<comment> semi-extrinsic Exactly. Although I do see that you can buy a female HDMI to VGA converter with 3.5mm audio out for $4; hopefully that would work. I'm assuming the VGA end isn't detecting whether something is connected or not.

Edit: meh, no, these things are Energy Star compliant so they shut down if no VGA is connected. And they don't support HDCP.

<comment><USER11> In the olden days before the CC Audio I just crammed a wire between two pins in the vga port if the adapter and put some glue on it.

There's guides for this, works flawlessly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm really disappointed that Google has decided to do this. I've been using these all over my house for a couple of years now and, at least for Google Play Music and Tune-In Radio, they work really well. When the price dropped recently, and there was speculation they would be discontinued, I bought another four of them for my own use and for gifts.

They're not really comparable to Bluetooth receivers. The killer feature is synchronized multi-room audio without paying exorbitant prices for proprietary speakers (Sonos I'm looking at you...). I have them hooked up to powered speakers (PC 2.1 style) in the bedroom and bathroom, a mini-stereo on the deck, a ghetto blaster in my workshop and my media room AV amplifier. For parties it's fantastic to have seamless audio around the whole house.

I have to wonder why Google did this. It seems like a strategic move to push people towards their "smart" speakers. Personally I really don't want something with a microphone in it, just good quality sound at a good price. Very sad.

By the way, it's easy to cast audio only from YouTube or any other app - <USER3> go to the Google Home app and cast your phone's audio to the device or group.

<comment><USER16> As strategic as it seems, they probably just didn't sell well enough to justify continued effort.

Also purchasing a gift when it's price is slashed due to it probably being discontinued is.. risky to say the least.

<comment><USER17> I agree. It's probably because sales were trending down.

That said, nothing stops another company from stepping in and taking a license for a smart speaker without neither the microphone nor the speaker, in a tiny form factor...

<comment><USER18> > That said, nothing stops another company from stepping in and taking a > license for a smart speaker without neither the microphone nor the speaker, > in a tiny form factor

There's already a bunch of audio-only Cast-enabled products without a microphone. There's no need to license google assistant just to get cast. Speakers & receivers with cast built-in has been a thing for a few years now. The dongle was just an upgrade path while the broader ecosystem built up.

<comment><USER17> Sorry, I was being silly and I really meant Cast speaker, which is what a stripped down smart speaker is. AFAIK you still need a license or at least some help from Google to get that working, since the protocols are proprietary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I have one connected to my amplifier and speakers — it's the only thing connected, I don't need any other audio source.

I run miniDLNA[1] which shares all my music, and BubbleUPnP[2] on my phone to browse the music and cast it to the Chromecast Audio.

It's also possible with a Python library[3]; I used this for a while as an alarm clock.

About every 2-3 months I have to reboot the Chromecast, but it's otherwise fine. It doesn't do gapless playback, but I think that's partly because miniDLNA is running on an ultra-low-power ARM board, i.e. is slow.

[1] [https://sourceforge.net/projects/minidlna/](https://sourceforge.net/projects/minidlna/)

[2] [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bubblesoft...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bubblesoft.android.bubbleupnp&hl=en)

[3] [https://github.com/balloob/pychromecast](https://github.com/balloob/pychromecast)

<comment><USER20> Same miniDLNA (running off of a gen1 Raspberry Pi + NAS) and BubbleUPnP. Works great - BubbleUPnP is the only app I've actually bought for my phone.

Recently had an xmas do with the music around the house casting simultaneously via various Cast devices and it worked great.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Google really does have a habit of killing good products to make way for worse ones. Reader killed for Plus. Inbox (to be) killed for Gmail (still dreading this, I'm hanging on to Inbox till the end), and now Chromecast audio killed for Home.

Yeah, the latter products serve Google better, but they serve me worse. I think 2019 will be the year I start really trying to untangle my life from Google to the extent I can delete my account.

<comment><USER22> I'm also dreading the switch back to gmail.

Inbox is so clean, and gmail is so cluttered. When I first saw Inbox, I thought "finally, Google gives gmail the UI refresh it needs". Now it's gone, and we'll be back to the anxiety-inducing interface again.

<comment><USER21> It was great with Serif-Google, and the implicit approach of "let's make cool stuff and worry if it makes money never" (since making money is not exactly a problem). Now with Sans-serif-Google cool stuff that doesn't make money must be culled to make way for stuff that does, or at least furthers strategic goals.

Unfortunately that's just the way the game is played at that level, and the CEOs at the top are all playing by the same rules.

I miss Serif-Google.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I went wild and bought four of these, to have a high-quality multi-room audio setup on the cheap.

The trouble is, it almost never worked - I'd have two rooms working, or it would fall over after one song, or after three songs, or not work at all.

I don't know whether the product was fatally flawed, or Google just didn't put the investment into making it work, but it would have been great if it wasn't so broken.

<comment><USER24> I've used a variety of Cast items for as long as they've been available, and set them up in many homes with success. My experience is your router and/or APs (if separate) are usually the culprit. Wish I knew exactly why though; many TP-Link devices I've used struggled, particularly an Archer C1200.

<comment><USER23> Yes, I have a TP-Link router and a separate access point (so two different SSIDs in my oddly-shaped home) - no doubt this doesn't help.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Well, there are tons of third-party Chromecast target devices, including several speakers. I suppose it's possible one of those companies may step in and develop a similar product to fill the gap.

<comment><USER26> That's my hope too. Love my Chromecast Audio.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Totally gutted, these are amazing devices and great value. After 'enjoying' years of hackery with Squeezebox, I eventually plumped for Chromecast Audio as the hassle-free way to get Spotify plus BBC iPlayer radio controlled via native iOS apps. I can also verify they are capable of bit-perfect optical audio out from appropriate flac source files etc, so perfect for the big speakers. RIP.

</comment><comment><USER28> Chromecast Audio frustrates me so much. I bought one and hooked it up to my whole-house system combined with a few other fancy things so that people in the house could theoretically cast music or whatever else to whatever room in the house.

Basically, I can only use it with Google Music. I rarely can use it for other things because it will only cast a subset of things that support casting. For example, I can't cast YouTube to it, because it doesn't support video. But what if want everyone in the room to hear what I'm playing and the video is irrelevant?

I'm considering buying an HDMI->DVI/Audio adapter and just using a standard Chrome Cast.

I feel like Google had the right idea here. But just missed the mark.

<comment><USER29> > For example, I can't cast YouTube to it, because it doesn't support video. > But what if want everyone in the room to hear what I'm playing and the video > is irrelevant?

I'd imagine that's for the same reason why you can't "listen" to a video on mobile with the app in the background: it would qualify as a music stream, and YT doesn't have the rights to stream music in an ad-based model.

<comment><USER30> You actually can do that if you pay for YouTube Premium.

<comment><USER29> Exactly, they probably don't have a license for ad-based audio streaming, only subscription-based.

<comment><USER30> Could be, or they're just using it to differentiate the offerings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> One advantage Amazon's Echo Dot has over Google's Home Mini is that the Echo Dot has a 3.mm connector in addition to bluetooth, so you can easily connect it to your existing speakers or receiver.

Right now the 3rd-gen Echo Dot is $30 and the 2nd-gen is $25.

<comment><USER26> Can you stream to an Echo Dot from any/many music apps on your phone like the Chromecast? Or do you have to control everything by voice?

<comment><USER32> I use Spotify, all of my Echo devices show up as different outputs in the Spotify app, along with the groups I've set up ("Everywhere").

<comment><USER32> I just discovered that if you say "Alexa, Spotify connect" then anyone can connect their phone as long as they're on the same WiFi network as the device.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Don't really know why it's canned though. I thought it was a great iterative product. Before this, didn't think they could do something like the Chromecast again (hardware whise).

But the Chromecast Audio is just so simple and effective. I'm really curious about the sales numbers, to understand why they canned it. Otherwhise, it doesn't make business sense.

I have like 5 chromecast's laying around and dealing them to family/friends for gifts. To some, even just because i think they will love it. Even after a year, suddenly someone starts to use it (this was the normal Chromecast) and they start to love it.

It's one of the reasons i can say a lot: "told you :p"

PS. If anyone of Google would read this, would love to have a license on the Chromecast audio. I'm a small webshow owner that actually recommends quite a lot of Google products as a Software Developer.

PS2. You can't get a yes, if you don't ask it :p

</comment><comment><USER34> I've got 3 of these in my house already, and I was thinking of picking up a couple more as back-ups, but they're already sold out on the Google store. Unfortunately, I'm not aware of any other small, "cast-able" device that has a digital output. Hopefully mine last for a while.

</comment><comment><USER35> I would not buy anything from Google at this point. Definitely will not use anything else except Gmail.

<comment><AUTHOR> I, too, prefer a company whose hardware is their core product, not an offshoot developed to supplement other revenue. Learned my lesson the hard way with Apple Airport line.

Even though I probably overpaid, I have a set of Eero routers vs Google WiFi or Netgear competitor, a Roku Stick vs Chromecast or Amazon FireStick, and a Ring security setup vs Dashcam/Nestcam (although my last example is kinda diluted after Ring got acquired).

<comment><USER36> Curious to know what lessons you learned. I've had an Airport Express since they became available, and they've been about the only Apple product that I can basically forget about since it always works.

My AE/ATV combo is connected to a 2.1 setup which allows streaming of anything with or without the TV turned on. I'm bummed Apple dropped support for their Airport line, but the one I currently have will be fine for a very long time — Thanks in no small part for supporting a 3.5mm jack.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is, of course, highly anecdotal, but my extended network setup with 1 Airport Extreme (wired) and 3 Airport Express (wireless) consistently broke every few weeks or so with one Airport Express refusing to see the rest of the network it was supposed to extend. And it was always a different Express, so couldn't be pinned to a hardware issue or location in the house. Apple support on this issue is relegated to an article on the Web site or some forum threads [https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5763681](https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5763681), as debugging it in an Apple Store makes little sense, considering the network setup would run smoothly for days.

One thing that was unclear to me is how long the Airport Utility app was going to remain in the App Store and stay maintained to support the latest revisions of iOS, Android, and respective app store policies. The upgrade path for firmware in case of a security vulnerability is also unknown - something that I'd be okay on some other devices, but not the main home router.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Bummer. I own one and use it every day for listening to high quality audio on an old stereo setup. The sound quality is so great!

I routinely buy these for friends/family who want better digital audio setups and they tend to work great. I've never had any issues.

The best feature is "Ok, Google, play X." When combined with Spotify's amazing music index (really good for rare recordings/composers/etc), this is a super powerful mechanism to play any music at high quality. Best of all I can do it without needing to look at my phone and fend off the distractions there.

<comment><USER38> Just to clarify, that "Ok, Google" feature requires a Google Assistant device like a Home Mini (or your phone) as the Chromecast Audio has no microphone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I was excited to set a bunch of these up around the house a couple of years back. I set them up in every room in the house. Then I realized you could not cast just the audio from youtube videos (without YouTube Red or whatever). I could cast from youtube audio from my desktop computer to all of them through an open source app. It never worked like how I had envisioned in my mind with everything being seamless.

We also ran into the bug where having too many chromecast devices attached to the same network would spam the router, preventing some devices from connecting. It would happen randomly and it took a while to figure out that this was the problem.

There were other reliability issues and other minor annoyances that just made me give up on the idea.

Now I begrudgingly use an amazon firestick on the tv.

The idea was awesome, it's just that Google did not provide a reliable product and pointlessly limited its own hardware's capabilities to sell their monthly service.

<comment><USER40> Reposting again - earlier in the thread someone posted a solution:

"By the way, it's easy to cast audio only from YouTube or any other app - <USER3> go to the Google Home app and cast your phone's audio to the device or group."

Edit: Would whoever is downvoting me for providing assistance, please explain your reasoning?

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> The Chromecast audio does one thing and does it (pretty) well. You can connect it to any dumb thing you have lying around.

I am not going to buy an eavesdropping microphone setup for my house, so if that's all Google will sell, I guess I'll find another path for music.

</comment><comment><USER5> Hopefully this means an updated Google Home Mini with a line-out jack is around the corner.

</comment><comment><USER42> As an alternative: Google Home Mini can pair with bluetooth aux receivers ( [https://www.amazon.com/s?k=bluetooth+receiver+aux](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=bluetooth+receiver+aux) ) which can be connected to dumb speakers. End result is similar to chromecast audio (but not audiophile grade).

Maybe a future version of Google Home Mini will add an audio out.

</comment><comment><USER43> Probably doomed to die anyway since there already was a better and much more open competitor:

[https://www.cnx-software.com/2016/01/11/audiocast-m5-is-a- ch...](https://www.cnx-software.com/2016/01/11/audiocast-m5-is-a-chromecast- audio-alternative-with-local-audio-files-and-multi-room-support/)

<comment><USER44> That page says Chromecast doesn't do multiroom synchronized streaming but it absolutely does.

<comment><USER45> It didn't do multiroom at the time of writing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> may be now is the time we stop discussing about google canning different projects

google has already developed a reputation for abruptly stopping services

google reader google plus allo google talk hangouts

here is a list of projects google abandoned [https://gcemetery.co/](https://gcemetery.co/)

it's a shame they do build products half-heartedly

</comment><comment><USER47> Unfortunately, I didn't really know I wanted one for myself and also for family until right now, especially at the $15 price point.

It seems like these are selling out in a lot of stores, but I wonder if it's smart to buy one when they'll probably no longer receive updates.

<comment><USER48> It's not that it won't receive updates. It's that when Google turns off some support servers somewhere, they will all stop working.

<comment><USER49> Chromecast Audio is the same as Chromecast built-in. There are tons of devices, this ecosystem is not gonna die anytime soon. Doesn't matter if Google ships their own hardware or not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> This is a real shame. And shameless... I want to keep using Google smart things but I don't want to give up my high quality analog gear.

Being able to Chromecast to a channel on my band's mixing board is super handy for practice. I hope the handful I have don't die.

</comment><comment><USER51> I would love an AirPlay 2 receiver equivalent of the Chromecast Audio. I know the ancient Airport Express can do it, but it's wireless capabilities are lacking (802.11n or g might be the best it can do.) Anyone know of one?

<comment><USER52> I use the Express in wired only mode and it's the best solution that I have found so far for an easy $25 (aggressive negotiation on Craigslist :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Maybe it means that they are coming up with something else new? It's their right to stop producing something or kill ("sunset") whatever product, but it doesn't make it any less crappy.

</comment><comment><USER54> I hope Google enables the possibility of third party firmware before eventually bricking them.

Streaming (even locally) is impossible without Google blessing the connection initialisation.

</comment><comment><USER55> I've just adopted Google Wifi (love it) but I'm afraid that they will get bored and discontinue it.

</comment><comment><USER56> sad: I had a really good thing going with these to a miniDigi/miniDSP/miniAmp stack for power-efficient portable speakers.

was gonna build more using beocreate; not quite sure now which way to jump... anyone know of a similar device that includes TOSlink out?

</comment><comment><USER57> I had planned on building out a home audio system using Chromecast Audios w/ small amplifiers distributed around the house. I even did a test run with my patio speakers and it worked out great. Now I'm going to have to rethink things.

</comment><comment><USER58> Dammit, just bought one of these with their holiday 75% off sale.

<comment><USER5> Did the one you bought suddenly stop working?

<comment><USER59> Support did ...

<comment><USER5> from the article: " Google says it'll continue to support Chromecast Audio users"...

<comment><USER59> Support for Google's current products like Android is already abysmal, so I can't even imagine what support for a discontinued product looks like ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> if two adjacent rooms playing chromecast or dlna client, is there any synchronization of played sound, so you don't hear delay of music between of the two rooms

<comment><USER61> Yes, I have 3 Chromecast audios and 2 Google Homes and they all play in sync throughout the house.

<comment><USER20> Same sort of set up here. You can even adjust a delay (e.g. +/\- 10ms etc) if the timing is slightly out as well as individual volumes for each speaker individually from the home app.

The multiroom audio really is superb. Shame it is going away - hopefully it will be replaced by something else decent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> A lot of amplifiers are integrating Chromecast these days.

</comment><comment><USER63> Bummer -- sold out already...

</comment><comment><USER64> So I had one of these. I couldn't give it away when I was getting rid of stuff.

The problem with chromecast audio is that pretty much nothing supported chromecast audio. Anything you would potentially use with audio you'd be better off running through a regular chromecast (including spotify which only worked on audio with a premium account, free accounts work on regular chromecast normally and you could always push the web player from chrome).

I don't understand who this was supposed to be marketed to. Chromecast users probably already have a good sound setup on their TV. Audiophiles aren't going to buy it since it only had a 3.5mm jack on it. Anyone else is just going to use bluetooth whatever.

I get why they made it. I also get why it failed.

<comment><USER65> _> Audiophiles aren't going to buy it since it only had a 3.5mm jack on it_

Apparently the Chromecast Audio supports optical digital output, but Google never seemed very good at publicizing that feature. They had some instructions hidden under "Compatible cables and plugs" here:

[https://support.google.com/chromecast/answer/6280276](https://support.google.com/chromecast/answer/6280276)

(That said, I just double-checked my studio monitors & they only have analog XLR & 1/4" inputs anyway.)

<comment><USER64> I do vaguely remember seeing that in some documentation but yeah, if no one knows it exists and all you see is a generic 3.5mm it essentially doesn't exist.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Good, that was the dumbest thing Google ever produced, and I'm writing this comment from a Pixel 3.

</comment><comment> laurynas-s Google is getting worse and worse with each new news headline.

They have completely lost my trust of using their non-primary services.

However, the monopoly is so high that's it's difficult for other companies to compete.

<comment><USER24> This is one product in a large line, not an entire service.

There are also tons of competitors in this space.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> The only Chromecast Audio I've owned was a mistake. I thought I was buying a real Chromecast at a very good price. I was so disappointed that I just dropped it in the trash immediately.

</comment><comment><USER68> This is disappointing. This device would have allowed millions of old stereo systems to enter into the modern age. Now? They will be thrown out, can't compete with the Google Home!

<comment><USER69> How of those old stereo systems still exist?

<comment><USER70> My stereo is from 1979. For the last 30 years mainstream audio equipment has been in a race to the bottom on BOM cost and build quality. A well made stereo receiver from 1975-1985 will, when paired with the right speakers, greatly outperform the majority of modern listening devices.

<comment><USER71> A friend of mine is still using a ~1976 Pioneer receiver I "loaned" her ages ago when I got a receiver I could use in a home theater setup. My supposedly high-end Sony receiver died and then died again 30 days post-repair. And I'm on my second receiver after that.

(She's also using speakers of mine of the same vintage that I didn't need after I upgraded.)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Streaming Deer Cam - <AUTHOR> http://www.sanandreasanimalcams.com/ <comment><USER2> I just watched a tank shoot at the deer point blank to knock it down and then run over it. The deer promptly got back up and started running away.

The deer currently has a 4-star rating, and I don't know how it's going to remove those stars since it doesn't look like it's programmed to try and hide from the police. Looks like it's a fugitive for life.

EDIT: Okay the stars went away, not sure how that happened. It's been a while since I've played.

EDIT2: I think I know what happened. The deer was in the airport, and that gets you automatic police attention. As soon as the deer was chased out of the airport by the tanks, the stars went away.

<comment><USER3> It's likely the mod that is being used for the stream that just cleared it (periodically maybe, like the teleportation?)

In GTA, you'd have to die or get away from the police long enough to lose the stars, and obviously the deer did neither...

<comment><USER2> I just watched the deer teleport to a new random location, so it's definitely that.

It was probably teleported into the airport, then shot at by the police and army for a while until it was teleported out.

<comment><USER4> I've never played this game so I'm trying to imagine it based on parent comments. It is trippy and dark with sci fi elements.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Read a paper few years ago that Slow TV[^1] will become popular in the digital era. I couldn't believe it at the time. And here we are. I guess it's a logical step to fight speed of current era.

It did a sudden takeoff even in my country - Prague tram-cam is the best[^2].

[^1]: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_television](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_television) [^2]: [http://slowtv.playtvak.cz/prave-ted-mazaci-tramvaj-jede- prah...](http://slowtv.playtvak.cz/prave-ted-mazaci-tramvaj-jede- prahou-d73-/mazaci-tramvaj.aspx?c=A150908_111659_mazaci-tramvaj_plap)

<comment><USER6> When coding I typically have Shibuya live stream on my small monitor in HD - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q36pnzcw70](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q36pnzcw70).

Nice mix of nostalgia (been there), wanderlust (want to go back) and just awe at watching a slice of humanity scrambling across an intersection 8 hours 'in the future' and 6,000 miles away.

<comment><USER7> There are some beautiful videos showing 9+ hour plus train journeys across the Norwegian countryside, which also make for great background visuals while coding:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY1sbKvjNcY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY1sbKvjNcY) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIdnzamYDmQ&feature=iv&src_v...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIdnzamYDmQ&feature=iv&src_vid=TY1sbKvjNcY&annotation_id=annotation_703701)

<comment><USER8> Honest question: do you have these running on a second (3rd?) monitor when coding? Or in a small window? Or where?

<comment><USER9> I don't keep "slow tv" up, but I tend to have Netflix running on my left monitor, my requirements on my right monitor and my IDE or text editor in the center. If I get too busy, then Netflix goes away. The motion to the side helps keep me from getting bored.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Sad to say that it's better viewing than almost all free-to-air TV in Australia.

Someone should extend this to script a series of characters in various games and automate Twitch production to make a living.

<comment><USER11> Honestly, why not though? Write a sufficient enough AI, get your camera angles right, and slow down the decision tree with some dialogue, and you've essentially got a movie. Not saying it'll be grand, but it certainly won't be the worst thing produced in a given year; probably guaranteed to be the best for a given cost.

<comment><USER10> Further on that, you could probably create a batshit-insane zoo of some sort which combined a variety of animals in a fixed environment. Make it an Apple TV app/channel.

In a physical zoo experience, the animals are caged and often just hide out the day. In the batshit-insane zoo, they'd be entertaining everyone all the time without any animal welfare issues.

In can foresee a time where the majority of people (e.g., not purists or those with money to travel) are more regularly entertained by virtual animals than the real thing.

Take GTA V, add Godzilla and let the public watch what happens.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> One Halloween I logged into Ultima Online, and found I had been transformed into a deer.

I could walk around and do deer stuff, but no weapons or magic or talking.

Then some hippie bastard came along and tamed me! [1]

I had to follow him all around and do what he told me to from then on, on that terrible day.

[1] [http://uo2.stratics.com/skill-guides/skills-and- professions/...](http://uo2.stratics.com/skill-guides/skills-and- professions/tamer-essay/)

<comment><USER13> > I had to follow him all around and do what he told me to from then on, on > that terrible day.

I'm curious, how did that mechanic work? What stopped you from just refusing to follow orders?

<comment><USER14> Deer honor

<comment><USER12> Godzilla!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-wUdetAAlY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-wUdetAAlY)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> _Modification of GTA V that creates and follows a deer wandering through the fictional state of San Andreas. The deer character is autonomous and will wander and respond to it 's surroundings, interacting with the existing GTA V artifical intelligence._

More information from its creator here: [http://bwatanabe.com/GTA_V_WanderingDeer.html](http://bwatanabe.com/GTA_V_WanderingDeer.html)

</comment><comment><USER16> How has nobody linked to the actual stream yet?

Here it is:

[https://www.twitch.tv/bwatanabe](https://www.twitch.tv/bwatanabe)

</comment><comment><USER17> Title makes it seem like this is from GTA: San Andreas when it's actually from GTA V.

<comment><USER18> It's GTA IV, which is set in San Andreas

<comment><USER17> > San Andreas Deer Cam is a live video stream from a computer running a hacked > version of Grand Theft Auto V

It's from GTA V, GTA IV was set in Liberty City

It's just odd that the title has "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" which is the exact name of an existing game but not the game being used.

<comment><USER15> Los Santos is in the state of San Andreas. I agree the title is a bit confusing through.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Some moments are art. The silence, the randomness, and the lack of purpose.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm legitimately looking forward to a "bird cam". If I can run it locally, I'm setting it up for Ultra-High with HighDef textures and leaving it streaming in the office. I love the GTA V cityscape.

<comment><USER21> The world in GTAV is seriously an achievement. I can say that there were points playing through it that I legitimately had to stop just to marvel at the view.

For a video game, that is pretty impressive.

<comment><USER22> This is basically why I'm really excited about VR. I had the same experience with Just Cause 2, and I think that would also be amazing with VR.

Edit: if you have a Google Cardboard-type device and a iOS or Android device to go with it, [https://www.vg247.com/2015/09/24/just-cause-3-vr-app-ios- and...](https://www.vg247.com/2015/09/24/just-cause-3-vr-app-ios-android/)

Edit 2: I've also found that these Cardboard-style VR things work with the "cross view" technique: [https://m.reddit.com/r/CrossView/about](https://m.reddit.com/r/CrossView/about) if you don't have anything aside from a screen but still wish to play along :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> In case the site isnt working properly for the stream - heres the twitch channel/link - [https://www.twitch.tv/bwatanabe](https://www.twitch.tv/bwatanabe)

</comment><comment><USER24> Seems that this deer is enjoying beach a lot.

Edit: now got caught in a glitch in some mine

<comment><AUTHOR> Hah, that's the first (serious) glitch I've seen in about an hour of watching. It periodically respawns in a random part of the world, and looks like it had the bad luck to respawn in a mineshaft this time.

I'm actually surprised it doesn't get stuck more often in other situations. Its controller seems pretty good at avoiding it.

<comment><USER24> Too bad he can't use his antlers...

<comment><USER25> It looks like it can or is maybe learning to. Two guys were standing on the sidewalk and it just murdered one with its antlers or possibly a head-butt. It was about to go for the second but suddenly re-spawned in the airport for some reason.

<comment><USER26> I saw it clip a pedestrian with it's antlers. I don't think it was deliberate. Still, there was blood.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> > Note 3-20-16 10:00pm PST: The Deer Cam computer will likely crash in the > next 5 hours, and the admin is away. If the Deer Cam is offline, it should > return 3-21-16 by 3:00pm PST __*

I guess wrong time now!

</comment><comment><USER28> Its currently being shot by a tank. Cant it die?

<comment><USER29> And then the Batman vs Superman advertisement showed up. I thought that was rather fitting... :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Yesterday, I stopped during my run and watched 5 deer grazing in the woods. It was great to be outside and in nature.

<comment><USER31> I see deer on a fairly regular basis when commuting to and from work. They usually get spooked by the train and run away, though (I mean, I would, too, if I was a deer).

But from my office I see a fairly large field surrounded by meadows, and sometimes deer will come there to graze. Having grown up in the city, I never cease to enjoy this deeply.

(Sometimes, grey herons will walk around on the field. I have no clue what they are looking for, though. Probably mice, snails or toads, I guess.)

<comment><USER32> One of my favorite memories growing up was riding a bike down a nature path while camping and suddenly realizing a large buck was about twenty feet away bounding along keeping pace with me.

It's a nice memory to offset the sheer terror of driving down a highway at night with heavy woods on either side waiting for a deer to stupidly jump out in front of you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Guessing they've just replaced the player skin with that of the deer. Would make sense, since a program could read the players position from memory and pick random targets or directions for it to head towards. Also makes sense why it would be shot at...

<comment><USER34> IIRC, In GTAV you can play as an animals; deer, pegion, cat, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Kinda reminds me of this game No Man's Sky. It's worlds are procedurally generated by algorithms and dictated by rules. Their test suite is basically robots that fly around the world and continually check to make sure things are okay. [http://www.polygon.com/2015/3/3/8140343/no-mans-sky-space- pr...](http://www.polygon.com/2015/3/3/8140343/no-mans-sky-space-probes-gdc- quintillion-worlds)

</comment><comment><USER36> "The San Andreas Deer Cam is currently experiencing technical difficulties and will be back soon. Above is footage recorded on 2/29/16." I think we crashed it..

<comment><USER37> Pretty sure Twitch can handle the HN effect so it's probably something else.

<comment><AUTHOR> The mod is apparently unstable and crashes periodically, so the author has to restart it now and then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Surely they took textures of the Deer from a Zoo! The Deer is fat! There is no way to find such a fat deer in the wild nature!

<comment><USER39> Especially since it just seems to wander and never stop to eat. Surely it should be programmed to graze for a while when it sees grass or tasty foliage?

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I love that the deer has figured out teleportation and the humans haven't figured out how to notice a deer.

</comment><comment><USER41> Check out the comments, which require a Facebook account. A young marketing executive has made an innocuous comment on this somewhat elaborate joke. Suppose his/her boss thought that video games were a waste of time and saw that comment on his Facebook feed. "What are you doing watching this stupid video game recording?"

What this brings up is that the surveillance inherent in social media is different from traditional surveillance. As more-and-more websites encourage you to log into your social media account to use their website, so the degree to which other people can see what websites you are browsing. Its a gradual increase in sousveillance of one's own browsing habits for your online social network to see.

I am not criticizing anyone, but merely remarking at the growth of, for instance, Facebook beyond Facebook.com.

Edit: I just noticed the check box. It is actually optional, in this case, whether to make your comment appear on Facebook.com. Nevertheless, people's real names are appearing thereon.

</comment><comment><USER42> Attaching a GPS device to a deer and then moving the deer in-game would be even weirder.

</comment><comment><USER43> I was going to say; now it's stuck in the water, but it just started moving again.

<comment><USER44> Without risk of death of the main player, it's not as interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I'm curious how much work this is. Was the deer an existing character in the game that they repurposed via a simple hack, or did they have to model and animate the deer, write a bunch of AI for it, etc.

<comment><USER46> There are deer in the game.

<comment><USER32> There's the option to hunt them, with a mission to explain the mechanics and rewards as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> It's not a deer cam. It's a drone following behind the deer cam.

<comment><USER48> Maybe it's another deer behind though. You opened my mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> There was some glitch. Now the deer is trapped in a mine shaft...

Edit: Didn't know it respawns to a new location pretty often.

</comment><comment><USER50> Why is the Deer taking rest now. I am so bored, I really want it to start moving again. I miss the deer.

</comment><comment><USER51> The indestructable deer was having an Akira-like engagement with tanks for a while.

</comment><comment><USER52> It needs to learn to jump over walls and fences and things like a real deer.

</comment><comment><USER53> Deer god.

<comment><USER54> That's who needs to come save it from the Mine right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> The deer currently has it's head stuck in some red scaffolding.

</comment><comment><USER55> Someone please add deep neural network for this poor deer...

</comment><comment><USER56> I am surprise there is no mention of machine learning...

</comment><comment><USER57> It has been moved. No longer stuck in the mine.

</comment><comment><USER58> Helicopter chasing it now.

</comment><comment><USER59> Could not find the information who has programmed that deer. The author or Rockstar?

</comment><comment><USER60> is this the next step after "Twitch plays..."?

<comment><USER61> "Game plays itself; Twitch watches."

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> It's just stuck on a rail track :(

</comment><comment><USER62> That's getting bookmarked!

</comment><comment><USER63> it was roaming about underwater in some kelp for a while there

</comment><comment><USER64> Jesus, Twitch is still using Flash? What year is it anyway?

<comment><USER65> Yeah, right? That said, you can avoid the Flash by streaming the video to a native video player with ttp://docs.livestreamer.io/

<comment><USER64> Interesting. I tried livestreamer first and got an error about it not recognizing the URL pattern, but then I just upgraded and it seems to be working</comment></comment></comment>


Older Americans who live in RVs and drive from one low-wage job to another - <AUTHOR> https://www.marketwatch.com/story/many-older-americans-are-living-a-desperate-nomadic-life-2017-11-06 <comment><USER3> "We saw in the 1980s a shift from pensions to 401(k)s; that was a raw deal for workers. These retirement plans were marketed as an instrument of financial freedom, but they were really transferring risk from the shoulder of the employers to the backs of the workers."

This is misleading. 401k's are considerably lower risk since they allow you to be diversified instead of putting all your eggs into one basket (ie a company retirement pension).

The problem is the amount of money going into a standard 401k is nowhere near the amount that went into a pension. You had pensions paying out amounts that would require a 401k account with $1MM+ in it. The standard company 401k match these days isn't even peanuts compared to that, and that's if the company even matches at all.

<comment><USER4> The other problem is that 401ks let you do dumb stuff pensions don't. Dumb stuff like pulling most of your funds in the 2008 crisis and holding it in cash to miss out on the rebound. Or investing in borderline scam products like variable annuities.

401ks are great if you're savvy. They are massively inefficient for society in that they require all the people who use them to understand investing.

This is really bad policy at a society level. People need real, unbiased investing guidance.

<comment><USER5> At what point does personal responsibility kick in? Every 401(k) I've been on has given the option of investing in funds that ramp down risk exposure as the fund's target retirement date comes closer.

Literally all you need to do is put your $1400/month in to a retirement account and not touch it. If you're upper middle class this is not hard to do (again I'm not talking about poor people here, but those with money who aren't saving).

Whenever our 401(k) report comes out at work I can tell that most people are not putting nearly the amount of money they should be into savings -- and this is a tech company so most everyone aside from interns are being generously compensated.

<comment><USER6> I think education is an important factor. I'm nearing 40, make a lot of money, but have no idea how to optimize my 401k. When I ask co-workers, they are more ignorant than me. I changed companies a few times and have tranches of cash in each of their 401ks.

<comment><USER5> Well if you don't mind me asking, what kind of annual returns are you generating? If you're in the 7-8% range you're probably about as "optimized" as you can be, assuming your 401(k) is only giving access to large index funds.

Another trick you can use is switch to a Roth 401(k). It means you'll be taxed on your savings today, but when you retire they'll be tax free. Now this is total speculation here, but I'm kind of assuming taxes will be pretty high in the coming decades as we try to keep social security going and pay down deficit spending, not too mention dealing with climate change fallout.

Also good for you on keeping all your money in the 401(k) accounts, some people cash them out when they change jobs which triggers penalities and taxes. If you can however, I would roll all your accounts in to one giant 401(k) so you can better keep track of what's going on.

<comment><USER6> I have like 20K in a 401K when I worked at Microsoft a long time ago. This is around the 2008 fiasco. I just converted everything to cash. I didn't do a rollover when I changed employers (I think there is some time limit which I have likely exceeded). I've been trying to figure out if I can make use of that cash. The confusion is that the plan I was in was for Microsoft employees. Can I still use their plan's investment options?? I also don't want to incur any tax implication ... literally the cash has been sitting there for years because I am too stupid to figure out all the details. It is just sad :(

<comment><USER7> This is at Fidelity, right? You can still use the exact same investment options as when you were a Microsoft employee, you just can't add to the account. The Microsoft 401k has some of the lowest fee investment options out there, so when I left MS and analyzed my options, I decided to leave my money in there instead of rolling it over. Do you have a NetBenefits account for the website? If not, you'll have to call Fidelity, but they should be able to sort you out pretty easily.

<comment><USER6> Thanks ... this is useful info. I was thinking I'll park the cash in a low- cost market tracking fund. I think markets are overvalued now but better to do this now than waste another decade :/

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I have an aunt and uncle who do this, but they aren't desperate, they're retired. They travel around the country, visiting places they'd like to see, and taking seasonal jobs as something to do and to help defray expenses. They still own their own house, but they choose not to live there, renting it out to their kids / their kid's friends. They've worked as lighthouse keepers, Amazon warehouse pickers, and as bookkeeping/maintenance for a sugar-beet picking operation (they're a little old for field work). Currently they're wintering over at the Grand Canyon while working at the general store in an rv park.

The point is not all of these nomads are forced into it by desperation or financial necessity; some of them just want to spend their retirement traveling and don't mind a little work along the way.

My aunt and uncle have a blog detailing their travels if anyone is interested: [https://whatsnewell.blogspot.com/](https://whatsnewell.blogspot.com/)

<comment><USER9> I hear you, but care must be taken not to dismiss the plight of these people simply because there are those who seek a similar situation by choice. Doing something because you want to versus doing it because you have to can make the same thing a pleasure or torture. Both perspectives are legitimate.

I'm currently looking for a suitable property to live off the grid, and move to more of a subsistence lifestyle (the usual stuff, veggies, few animals). But I realized that the exact same end state is pretty bleak if it's something you were born into.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> There is a steady stream of these articles describing this as a problem of older people. It isn't. This is about poor people. There are plenty of non-old people living our of RVs, or worse, chasing seasonal work wherever they can find it. An RV is a huge step up from a tent. This is one slightly more pathetic version of an increasingly common story: our modern economy isn't addressing poverty. Poor people of all ages are falling off the cliff. They need help. They don't need classes on writing resumes. They don't need tax breaks. They need cash and a place to live near a reasonable job.

</comment><comment><USER11> I drove by a closed Amazon.com warehouse in Kansas a few weeks ago. Next to it is a RV campground that is still operating. If you look around on RV websites you can find quite a few reviews from people who went there and other Amazon.com locations to work like this. Those reviews mostly paint a very different picture than what is described in the article.

For many of the Amazon.com camper/workers it was a way to do a lot of work in a few months to help support their retirement travel and the people who were actually doing it seemed to think the pay was pretty good--especially with the overtime.

</comment><comment><USER12> > "For one thing, Amazon should pay its workers more and give them better > working conditions. It's laughable that the workers get a 15-minute break > when they have to spend it walking to the break room. It's completely > insane."

Perhaps the rest of society should be more aware of the darkside(s) of the business models they are supporting?

Plenty of multi-nationals - Nike comes to mind - have been pressured into making changes to practices that were not socially acceptable.

Why isn't Amazon being held to the same measuring stick?

Editorial: Why is the public still so naive about the "hidden costs" of cheaper? Certainly, Walmart (for example) and its darkside would be fresh in the minds of the American public. Instead, it seems, the perception is Amazon is the saviour (from Walmart), when the new boss is really the same as the old boss (sans the glossy high tech paint job).

<comment><USER13> Because structural problems can not be solved on the individual level.

We will not end world hunger by eating less. We will not stop climate change by turning off the light more often. And we will not fix exploitative employment practices by voting with our wallet.

The cynic in my thinks that the "vote with your wallet" slogan has been coined by those who want to prevent better regulation.

All these things CAN be solved by passing laws and regulation and by building a society that supports and enforces those.

<comment><USER14> _The cynic in my thinks that the "vote with your wallet" slogan has been coined by those who want to prevent better regulation._

Upvoted for that sentence alone. We have government because I can't build a road by myself. I also can't individually smack a company upside the head and tell them "cut it out, this isn't the society I want to live in".

<comment><USER15> "I don't want to live in a society where people have to $thing, so let's ban $thing and punish the companies involved in it" is approximately the most destructive fallacy of our time. Making upper-middle-class the minimum allowable lifestyle doesn't give everyone an upper-middle-class standard of living. It just punishes those who don't already have it.

We're going to keep ratcheting up the minimum allowable job, housing, food, etc. until a tiny minority of liberal elites are congratulating each other for having eradicated exploitation and all the liberated victims of exploitation are unemployed, homeless, and starving.

I don't want to live in a society where people have to live in RVs and work in Amazon warehouses. But banning Amazon warehouses (or RVs) isn't going to help.

We need redistribution, retraining, a real social safety net, healthcare, etc. so that _people actually have better options_ than exploitative employment situations. Then it isn't even necessary to ban them, because no one would want them anyway.

<comment><USER16> More destructive than, "oil companies can spill oil anywhere" (Nigeria) or "let's kill everyone from the 'wrong' ethnic group" (Rwanda) or "let's exploit orphans" (Ireland)?

<comment><USER15> Those things are clearly evil and clearly demand a response.

The "let's ban symptoms and coping mechanisms" bandwagon, on the other hand, gives citizens who are concerned about a situation the feeling that they're helping, disarming and distracting them from actually constructing a better world. The collective loss to society of the solutions that could be built but aren't is quite large.

Imagine if we had single-payer health care instead of more regulation on employer-employee relationships. Imagine if we had public housing instead of regulation stonewalling private development. Imagine if we actually built world-class public transportation systems instead of just starving out the parking. Etc, etc.

<comment><USER17> Agree with you.

I think the whole ObamaCare fiasco is one of those things that the typical millennial liberals on HN have gotten entirely wrong.

For years, the mantra here has been that all those red state deplorables who were wary about government health care were voting against their own interests, and ignorant for not wanting it.

 _Trust us. We know better than you._

Well now we've seen what's happening. Premiums have skyrocketed for average workers and everyone has been moved to high deductible plans that pay for nothing.

My own insurance had gone from decent to worthless, and it costs twice as much. As a single guy who makes a high income, it's no big deal. For many of my coworkers who have a spouse and 3 kids, it has been devastating. And it's getting worse as more states drop plans.

<comment><USER18> The problem with the ACA isn't that everyone can get coverage, the problem is that insurance companies are still involved. The idea of designing a solution where private companies are free to profit from the basic operations of a public service is bonkers. They add nothing of value, and will only push prices up. I could've told you from the start that the ACA was doomed to failure, and I come from a country that has socialised healthcare and has benefited from such a system.

Take health insurance companies out of the picture, and address price gouging by pharmaceutical companies, and you'll almost certainly see costs come down. I'm pleased to see there has been some momentum for single payer, so the US can scrap the ACA.

On a side note, ACA was similar to a plan proposed by Republicans back in the 90s:

[http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2013/nov/15/...](http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2013/nov/15/ellen- qualls/aca-gop-health-care-plan-1993/)

<comment><USER12> Yes. But they also charge more because they can. Healthcare is not special. It's like any other limited resources. That is, increase demand and the price goes up.

On the other hand, lower demand and prices will fall.

As it is we're getting older and intentionally living a more unhealthy lifestyle, but expecting prices to fall?

No doubt there are vast disfunction in the current system. However, the biggest - literally - component of that system are the humam seeking / needing care. What's more unhealthy, those people or the insurance companies? I can't see the line between the diabetes dot or the smoking dot and the insurance companies.

<comment><USER18> > "Yes. But they also charge more because they can. Healthcare is not special. > It's like any other limited resources. That is, increase demand and the > price goes up."

If you're talking about pharmaceutical prices, there are ways around that. For example, drugs that are FDA approved and available elsewhere in the world for a lower price should be able to be legally imported and sold at that lower price. To give an example of how this could be implemented, there was a bill that was proposed to allow drugs from Canada to be imported and sold:

[https://www.pharmamanufacturing.com/articles/2017/senators-p...](https://www.pharmamanufacturing.com/articles/2017/senators- propose-bill-for-canadian-drug-import/)

This bill was for the same drugs that legally available in the US, but sold at a cheaper price in Canada.

[https://twitter.com/sensanders/status/819404681806016513?lan...](https://twitter.com/sensanders/status/819404681806016513?lang=en)

By increasing competition from imports, drug prices can come down. Also, allowing generics to come to market faster for the most commonly used drugs (i.e. cutting down the time for which a single pharmaceutical company has a monopoly on producing a drug) is another approach that can stop pharmaceutical companies from over-inflating drug prices in the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Articles like these frighten me. In my thirties, I am deeply worried about retirement, if that ever comes, and surviving in my old age. So much can go wrong. Ever since I read David Raether's story[0] of going from half-a-million a year as a TV writer, to homeless living in a van, I've focused considerable effort to make sure I am never homeless.

I invest in a Roth IRA, I own a home that I rent out, I joined a church to build more ties in the community, and I spend a lot of time staying out of debt, and building savings.

If you are in debt from credit cards, the single greatest thing you can do for your future is to get the hell out of that debt!

[0]. [https://priceonomics.com/what-its-like-to- fail/](https://priceonomics.com/what-its-like-to-fail/)

</comment><comment><USER20> It's interesting reading this because I also feel like I've been living a desperate, nomadic life.

There was a period of time in the past 2 years when I didn't have a home and stayed at various places on AirBnb while working remotely. The worst part was when I ran out of money because opportunities dried up on the work platform I was using. At the time I was in Russia with a dependent partner; we had gone there because of the low cost of living brought on by US sanctions. So I can relate to the feeling of being constantly forced to follow the money wherever it takes you. It's stressful and disorientating.

I don't understand how anyone in their 50s can sustain this lifestyle without going insane.

</comment><comment><USER21> I always think of the remake of _Little House on the Prairie_ series where Pa had to walk for 6 days to the nearest city to find work when the farm wasn't making it.

Not the same thing but sometimes you have to go where the work is.

</comment><comment><USER22> From a Wired article [0] about one of the couples she talks about:

"Objects they couldn't bear to part with—including Chuck's letter from Ray Kroc, framed and hanging on the wall—went to one of Barb's daughters for safekeeping. (Barb and Chuck each have three kids.)"

They have SIX adult children.

They should be living with family instead of trying to survive hand-to-mouth out of an RV.

[0] [https://www.wired.com/story/meet-camperforce-amazons- nomadic...](https://www.wired.com/story/meet-camperforce-amazons-nomadic- retiree-army/)

<comment><USER23> What makes you think their children are any better off?

The tech industry is engineering these kind of labor conditions for their own profit. Try blaming them instead of the families of poor people.

<comment><USER22> I don't think anyone should have to live like this, and I'm not blaming anyone for being poor.

But I don't believe that purchasing, repairing, and fueling an RV so you can live paycheck to paycheck is easier or more affordable than sleeping on your (yes, possibly also poor) child's couch.

I get that there are people who are truly alone and have no other option - <USER2> the people with adult children seem to be indulging a stubborn desire to live independently, when what they should be doing is pooling resources.

I'm not saying it's right that there are people so poor that they have to live in multi-generational homes just to survive, but I also won't be shocked into sympathy for people trying to live like this when it's not their best available option.

I've seen plenty of older people refuse to move in with family when its time to, it always ends in disaster, and it's infuriating.

It wouldn't surprise me if a significant portion of these poor boomer nomads didn't actually _have_ to live like this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This seems like an extension of the sharing economy where people expect less and less from a job.

<comment><USER25> its seems a general extrapolation of a purely free market economy where if you cant bootstrap yourself into the bottom of the investor class by the time you get old for whatever reason, you're essentially human trash

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Our generation of people born in late eighties and later, will not see the same comfortable retirement that a better off part of boomer generation.

You effectively have to run your own pension fund to expect any much significant passive income after you retire.

</comment><comment><USER27> I wonder if there is some hidden law driving down the price of unskilled labor?

<comment><USER28> I think it's just a commodity. The price of unskilled labor rises and falls with the vagaries of the market, and anyone who relies on it too much gets burned like Alberta got burned when oil crashed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> People not saving for retirement is a huge problem. Average 401k balance is about 1/5 of where it needs to be.

[https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.financialfixation.com/singl...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.financialfixation.com/single- post/2017/02/09/Average-401k-Balances-by-Age-and-State%3f_amp_=true)

<comment><USER30> Some of you are very out of touch. They're not saving for retirement because _they can 't_. First, most of them were not even working jobs with 401k's available. Second, how the hell are you supposed to save when you don't even have enough money to pay your current rent, food, gas, medical expenses? I think some of you imagine _everyone_ is making $80,000-$200,000 a year and they're just being irresponsible and not saving up money because they live beyond their means.

In fact, the number of people who don't have enough for retirement because of this reason is quite small. Most people are there because they or their family had a catastrophic medical event, job loss, and/or some massive loss of value in their home due to the depression (from which they've never recovered).

<comment><USER29> No, people are too lazy. Making $25k a year, and saving 15% ($3,750) over 45 years at 7% return is $1M.

You also don't need a 401k. You can do a traditional or Roth IRA.

<comment><USER30> What happens when you come down with an illness that leaves you with a $15,000 medical bill and a month out of work (so you probably lose your job)? Happens to people all the time.

Have you tried raising a family on $21,000 a year, even in a low-cost area? (not to mention an urban area, where such earnings are quite common)

Lazy? Wow.

<comment><USER29> Sure it happens to people all the time, but in average it does not.

No I have not. No one should even start a family on $21k. Again, poor choices if they do. I'm tired of the mentality of victim hood.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Sounds like this book has an unfortunate bias of victim hood.

Lost your mortgage? Not your fault.

Didn't save for retirement? Not your fault.

Only job prospect, after working and training and networking for your entire adult life, is moving boxes in an AMZN warehouse? Not your fault.

I prefer a more objective view, like Studs Terkel's classic book, Working.

Finally, don't get me wrong — I have neighbors in the described situation. I care about them. I'm just saying I'd enjoy reading an objective narrative about their hard, and unfortunate situation — something not clouded with the tone of victimization.

<comment><USER32> People who lost their retirement investments in the 2008 crash aren't suffering from an artificial feeling of victimhood. They're victims.

<comment><USER11> How did people lose their retirement investments in 2008? Most of the stories I've heard where people lost all of their retirement around 2008 involved doing things were considered fairly risky before 2008 hit. Were there people who lost all their retirement who were following typical retirement investment strategies?

Edit: And to be clear, I know the value of almost everyone's investments went down, but unless your money was all in a single company it seems that most diversified portfolios bounced back.

<comment><USER33> "How did people lose their retirement investments in 2008..following typical investment strategies?" Well, you can follow those strategies until fear takes over. I know of a graduate scholar that got scared, got her money out when you saw how her investment accounts went downwards. You keep the cash, fearing that if you invest again you will loose all. You see how the market goes up, but you do not believe on it again. Or the sunk cost fallacy...or risk aversion with an overestimation of risk.

The more financial AND emotional intelligence you have the less likely you are to fall into such life.

But let's have empathy because the majority of people have less financial intelligence and cold blod as the average hn reader. Let alone the chance of earning a very good salary for a few decades.

<comment><USER11> I'm not trying to downplay the plight of people who lost a lot of money in 2008 and I'm not trying to say "well it is their own fault" to trying to justify not feeling bad for them.

However, I think it is entirely reasonable to assume we will someday experience another similar event. If there was something about this event that caused some people who were following sound retirement investment strategies to lose all of their savings, I wanted to know about it. That is why I was asking.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to Avoid Overflowing Text with Antioverflowfontresizer.js - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/swlh/avoid-overflowing-text-with-antioverflowfontresizer-js-b06b4a8433 <comment><AUTHOR> A simple JS tool to prevent long words from breaking free of its container, overflowing it, and damaging the overall experience of the site. Especially useful when working with multilanguage sites!</comment>


Ethical Code – Let's Clean Up GitHub - <AUTHOR> http://ethicalco.de/events/cleanupgh/

<comment><USER2> I personally don't care if some repos with one watcher are full of idiocy, but I think opening pull requests is the wrong way to go about this. The old advice is, "Praise in public, criticize in private." If someone doesn't understand that they're offending others, a short e-mail will probably solve the problem. Pull requests and public "discussion" will just feed trolls.

</comment><comment><USER3> Let's not pander to the radical "politically correct" folk.

"people publicly posting code with comments that could make so many people feel awful, unwanted, and excluded"

Really? REALLY?

Let's call this for what it really is shall we?

A group of vigilantes being dicks to people who they feel are being dicks, because of something as intangible as "hurt feelings".

Oh please, are they feeling privileged enough? In my day bullies left bruises and broke bones, not offended and hurt feelings.

I'm offended at your offence to being offended by the word "fuck" in a comment someone else wrote. If you really want to do something, write some code. Make some art. Build something. Don't bully some other guy/girl/furry/etc into sanitising their code for the newspeak of the day.

Will Wheatons law applies here - "DON'T BE A DICK"

<comment><USER4> > I'm offended at your offence to being offended by the word "fuck" in a > comment someone else wrote.

I think you missed the entire point of this article. While I agree with you that it shouldn't be up to a group of people to decide what should and shouldn't be allowed, the entire idea of this campaign isn't to rid github of swearwords.

What they're wanting to achieve is to clean up the blatant/pointless derogatory terms. I mean why does someone think a commit message "What kind of massive faggot tries to use gayQuery with node" is acceptable.

<comment><USER5> The problem with iniciatives like these is that they make it hard for me to know that someone is the kind of person who would write "faggot" and "gayQuery" unironically.

When toxic or just obnoxious people are instructed to hide behind crisp language, you only find out about their toxicity or obnoxiousness in person.

<comment><USER3> That's a very good point. +1

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What's the book where one character is dating an artist and she decides that binary - the phalic 1 and the yonic 0 - is symbolic of the patriarchy and so she has a team re-write software to invert the digits?

I think it was Neal Stephenson?

Because while I am in favour of carefuy chosing your language when picking names for stuff and leaving messages I worry that this kind of thing in the wrong hands can go too far.

I'm not sure what the research says about effective methods of asking people to make a change. I'm going to need something substantial to persuade me that this is a good method.

</comment><comment><USER7> > Okay, that's great and all, but who decides what is right and what is wrong?

> We the people.

No, it's the brigade that decides.

So, a GitHub Ethical Brigade who will harass repos because an individual in the brigade decided to take offense?

<comment><USER8> Doesn't the repo owner still have to accept the change? And what if the owner ignores it?

<comment><USER7> It's harassment, regardless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's good that people will use their freedom of speech to voice their dissatisfaction with what other people wrote.

I just hope those who join this project don't eventually make it a them vs. us thing: "look at these disgusting dudebros who refuse to change these words!"

</comment><comment><USER9> I think this is a good thing - searching for the n-word on Github reveals a lot of static swear-word lists for filters (which are OK) [1] but also lots of rather strange choices for tests (what's up with weboob's test.py?). We as a community of open source developers have to stop and think about how the outside world perceives us.

There's already lots and lots of negative flak in regards to sexism about Silicon Valley and IT-culture, which doesn't help when the "normal" non-IT population already sees IT-people as a bunch of hateful nerds with absolutely zero social skills.

This is a good action in that it's an open signal to change things - it might not achieve much, but it's a signal.

[1] [https://github.com/search?l=python&p=1&q=nigger&ref=searchre...](https://github.com/search?l=python&p=1&q=nigger&ref=searchresults&type=Code) link from [http://tommorris.org/posts/8053](http://tommorris.org/posts/8053)

</comment><comment><USER10> Imagine all of this energy directed to actually fixing bugs in popular libs, huh.

</comment><comment><USER11> Given whats been happening what github needs is a major clear-out at the top and some proper adult supervision.

<comment><USER12> Only one side speaking. I would wait for both parties to speak before drawing my conclusions.

<comment><USER11> Really I have a lot of experience in hr/ir it's a complete CF

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Somebody, give that scrollbar a sandwich.

</comment><comment><USER14> Ok, you win. You're holier than me. I must confess, I never thought of searching people's repos for crimethink comments and variable names. Take me to the inquisitor. I'd take it as a mark of pride to be assaulted by this group of idiots.

<comment><USER15> Just for clarification, are you stating that you're proud to be a bigot?

Because your comment kinda comes off like that.

<comment><USER3> No, I think it comes off as sarcasm.</comment></comment></comment>


AI could help construction industry work faster, keep workforce accident-free - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611141/ai-could-help-the-construction-industry-work-faster-and-keep-its-workforce-accident-free/ <comment><USER2> AI making the workforce accident-free... by learning how the workers do their jobs to the point that robots can be instructed to do what the humans have been doing?</comment>


Does Education "Kill" Creativity? - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/does-education-kill-creativity-f3178540f5e3 <comment><USER2> A great article, but the author is downplaying the severity of the issue. The way we approve of education institutions is through accreditation reviews. The explicit purpose of this review is that the institution being evaluated functions like those of its peers. It is the reason that the job market has gone through several systemic changes in the last fifty years and the education system has not. Having had the privilege of knowing some of the executives at very powerful institutions who have tried to change this, I can tell you that decades of concerted effort have made microscopic dents. The accreditation process is the enemy of innovation in education.</comment>


I.G.Y. (What a Beautiful World) - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW4Tr89eMBg

<comment><USER2> I'm not the OP but I'll try to bolster its HN relevance - it mentions programmers. :-)

At 3:44 "A just machine to make big decisions. Programmed by fellows with compassion and vision."

<comment><AUTHOR> They always complain about lack of optimistic outlook on the future, so I gave it a shot.

Spandex suits for everyone!</comment></comment>


Worn Out EMMC Chips Are Crippling Older Teslas - <AUTHOR> https://hackaday.com/2019/10/17/worn-out-emmc-chips-are-crippling-older-teslas/ <comment><USER2> That's clearly a manufacturing defect, warranty expired or not. You should be able to expect a car to function for many years beyond the warranty, to have a time-bomb like this on board is reason for a manufacturers recall and free fix, no way that owners of the cars should foot the bill for this.</comment>


Ask YC: Best solution for offline access to a webapp? - <AUTHOR>

Our company is developing a rewrite of our flagship app, which has historically been a Windows product, as a web app written in Ruby on Rails. So far it's gone moderately well; our complaints lie mostly with ActiveRecord (so bloody limited) and the lack of documentation of how to write good tests for complex models.
However, it turns out that our webapp also needs to be usable when the customer has no internet access. (Perhaps this should have been taken into account when the CEO decided to do the webapp idea, but we're pretty well invested into this approach now.) About 25% of our potential customer base would require this; another 25% would like to use it but do not require it. We sell access to our app as  software-as-a-service to health-care agencies, so if they need to have offline functionality, they need to have it; it's not just a preference.
These are the alternatives I and a few others have come up with, but I'm hoping some YCers might have some advice.
* Google Gears: Seems to require substantial rewrites to our app.
* iPhone version of our webapp: our customers don't have much money to buy iPhones and service plans. also, some of our customers need to do work with the app in places where there is no cell phone service, let alone wi-fi.
* Joyent Slingshot: The basic architecture (local install of Rails, with some extra code to transfer data between the local install and the webapp) seems sound, but Joyent seems to have abandoned Slingshot halfway through rewriting it. If we go with this approach, we'd probably implement our own version rather than struggle with Joyent's unsupported code.
* Slingshot-esque with eee: Provide a custom install for the ASUS eeePC that launches the user directly into our app, with Slingshot-like methods for transferring data between the eee and the webapp.
* Slingshot-esque with VMWare: Same as above, only we provide a vmware image instead of an eee install. <comment><USER2> Sorry, I don't have an answer; but I do have a question :) Why rewrite the thing in the first place? It's not too late to trash the Ruby on Rails project and focus your effort on improving your current asset (the Windows app).

<comment><USER3> I hate to mod this up, but, darn it, I have to mod this up.

Web apps have pros and cons. Desktop apps have pros and cons. Desktop apps written with web-app technologies have... cons. The interface is limited to what the browser can support. There are more moving parts. You have to worry about synchronizing the data. You have to worry about pushing out upgrades. You have the same support costs as any Windows desktop app, and _worse_ , because you're supporting a system that nobody else has ever seen because you wrote it yourself. Etc. Etc.

Of all your ideas, the Asus-eee one seems the best -- just make the customers buy hardware with the software preinstalled. If they screw it up, have them mail it in for a new one. If the eee gets discontinued, find another small OEM Linux PC and port the software over. If you go the vmware route you might as well be selling and supporting an installable Windows app, which _you already are_.

But the idea is still crazy. Customers are not stupid. They know the difference between a full-featured Windows app and a web app that has been crippled by cutting off the Web part. You're going to throw away all the advantages of moving to webapps in the first place, and invest mighty engineering effort, all to replace a Windows program with a program that (from the non-networked customer's perspective) does _the same thing_ but with a different, feature-poor browser-based interface. That non-networked 25% of your user base is likely to respond by either (a) demanding that you continue to support the Windows version; (b) switching to a competitor's Windows- or Mac- or Linux-based product; or (c) buying some networking, and joining the other 75% of the customers. Once that process has shaken down, you'll be left holding an expensive, tricky Slingshot-esque technology that has almost no users.

<comment><AUTHOR> "Buying some networking"? I admit I wasn't exactly clear with what the app does, but in the iPhone section I did say the app has to be used in places where there's no cell phone service, let alone wifi.

It's an app used by public health agencies, who _have_ to be able to visit clients in their homes and chart their progress. And plenty of homes in the rural US have no dial-up internet, no broadband, no wi-fi, and no cell-phone coverage, and no sign of that changing soon.

That said, I agree with you. The decision-maker at this company doesn't, and as I mentioned below, I've got little leverage to change things.</comment></comment></comment>


BitcoinMonitor.today – Real-Time Monitoring of Bitcoin Prices - <AUTHOR> https://www.bitcoinmonitor.today <comment><AUTHOR> Monitoring of Bitcoin prices with real-time updates and: Visualisation with price comparison, lowest price detection, Change History, Volatility Monitor, Arbitrage potential calculation, Benchmarking with other currencies as well as Ethereum.

Supported exchanges are currently: Kraken, GDAX, Bitfinex, Bitstamp and Coinfinity.

You can easily choose between the following pairs:

BTC/EUR BTC/USD BTC/GBP BTC/ETH ETH/EUR ETH/USD.

Switching to another pair allows you to grow your understanding of the overall market situation. It also allows you to check the performance of Bitcoin against different currencies as well as other cryptocurrencies (like Ethereum).

Change & Volatility Monitor: The Change & Volatility Monitor describes, how and how strong the price has changed. If Bitcoin did perform positively within the given time span, it's colored in green. Otherwise it's colored in red. Further intervals allow you to examine the price action more closely. The displayed price for an interval is the average price of all exchanges for that moment. Furthermore, its relative change compared to the price 24 hours ago gives you an understanding of the trend and volatility of the market.

The arbitrage potential is a hypothetical profit based on a theoretical calculation.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Do you have a suggestion or would you like to contribute to this project? Then please hit reply or send an e-mail to firstname.lastname@example.com</comment>


China uproots 9,000 people for huge telescope in search for aliens - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/16/china-relocates-9000-people-fast-telescope-search-for-aliens <comment><USER2> Of'course the chinese govt is not very good.

But govts have done far more worse things for counter-productive reasons ( Iraq cough ).

I would hate to be one of the 9000 people ( even though the modern economical reality makes me move every couple of years ). But for the chinese govt 9000 people is not many, given that in the past they killed millions for no apparent reason.

The aliens must feel really special if we are ready to sacrifice 9000's people's lifestyle just to see them. Hope they are not doing something similar.</comment>


Applying to AngelPad - <AUTHOR> http://blog.imranghory.org/applying-to-angelpad

<comment><USER2> Thanks for posting this information. We just applied this week and it would have been useful to know all this stuff.

My experience: The application process was very painful due to bugs in the application. After spending hours filling out the application and getting our video recorded correctly, there was a PHP error on the last page of the application, which effectively deleted all of our application answers. I hit the back button, and _poof_ , all fields empty. I should have known that there was a reason for the message on the previous pages that said something to the effect of "If you get errors, email email@example.com". So we emailed AngelPad.

A few days later, we still hadn't received a response. Luckily, we had most of our answers in text files and chat logs, so we didn't have to completely rewrite everything, but it was nevertheless very frustrating. Again, the application failed on the last page, with some PHP crap printed at the top.

A couple days later, I saw a tweet from AngelPad, reminding people to apply, so I responded immediately and asked if the errors had been fixed, mentioning that I also emailed. No response. Nothing.

So yeah, a day or two later, I re-pasted all our answers into the form and it worked. Finally.

I realize that AngelPad is probably receiving a ton of emails and tweets directed at them, and they obviously cannot respond to everyone. However, it's really discouraging as a pre-launch, unfunded startup to have such a bad experience after spending a day of your time answering questions, knowing that there's already only a tiny chance that you'll ever even hear back. Honestly, my co-founder and I actually had a long discussion about submitting this application – we actually kind of fought about whether we should be spending our time doing such a thing, rather than working on our product. When I eventually convinced him that we should apply, everything went wrong.

Sorry for the rant, I just had to get that off my chest. If you're applying, save your answers frequently.</comment>


From Homeless World Traveling Programmer to Funded Startup Owner - <AUTHOR> http://blog.streamified.com/post/19586439710/what-i-learned-from-world-traveling-programmer-to

<comment><USER2> Not directly related to this post, but since when is getting funded the goal, or even a milestone? Businesses have always required some startup capital, which they would find from family, friends, loans, what have you, but people never talk about their loans so fondly as they do about their startup investros.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think that funding opens up doors to a next-phase of development for a lot of tech people who have previously been bootstrapping. In this light, it is a very logical "milestone" to be funded. The additional resources let us take development to the next level, from a product born out of passion to one which has the capacity to effect wider change. In traditional brick & mortar businesses, funding was a sort of "of-course" step... but now, in the software startup world, there are a lot of shades of gray. Being able to say that you're funded demonstrates a layer of "we're seriously striving for (and can reach) the next level of development."

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is a naive question but if you've got a funded startup, you're not the owner are you?

<comment><AUTHOR> When you take funding, you may (or may not) give away part of your ownership stake (aka equity). As long as you maintain more than 50% ownership, you're still the owner... because you have the ability to make a "majority" decision by yourself. So, I'm still the owner, but that may not always be the case (eg. if we take more funding).

<comment><USER4> > * As long as you maintain more than 50% ownership, you're still the owner*

Maybe pedantic, but here goes: If you have given away so much as a single share, the usual phraseology is that you are "part-owner", because you own only a part. Saying "The owner" implies there is only one, which is false.

If you declare to the other shareholder that you are the owner, you might find an interesting reaction.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good point, I suppose. Though, a convertible note structure prevents any dilution at all until subsequent funding happens... but that's getting even more pedantic of me ;)

<comment><USER4> LOL, fair enough. If we're talking about where the term "owner" fits in the capital structure, then we're well into the realm of pedantic.

Good luck.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why Tesla is overhyped – and overvalued - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/6/26/15872468/tesla-gm-ford-valuation-justifying-disruption <comment><AUTHOR> I tend to agree with the title of the piece, but many of the author's points are embarrassingly off the mark, it seems to me, and I find myself forced to defend Tesla despite thinking they're a serious long shot.

First, he measures software advantages (though it's difficult, he at least admits) by measuring the number of processors!?! Beyond laughable, well into "I stopped taking you seriously" territory.

As someone who just bought a Bolt, I am deeply, deeply disappointed with the software. I've never owned a Tesla, but I'm pretty confident it can manage the task of continuing playing the audio source I last selected, not blasting the radio at me four times per driving session, despite my desire to never hear the radio.

Similarly, he acknowledges "maybe" the valuation is justifiable if Tesla can manage 25% margins, then scoffs at the possibility of doing any such thing.

It seems to me the main near term (pre-autonomous vehicle time frame) bet on Tesla is that they can be better at robotics for achieving greater and greater manufacturing automation than their competitors. This strikes me as very difficult, but it doesn't help the author's argument much when he to blithely breezes past the entire substance of the argument.

All in all, it comes off as a dismissive ill informed hit piece.

<comment><USER2> There's an ill-informed article complaining about Tesla's stock price about once a week. There are good reasons to think that Tesla's valuation is awfully high, but these articles seem to repeat every wild accusation or reason that they can find.

Good to hear from a Bolt owner on HN!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Even Elon Musk has argued at times the market over values TSLA, but that's not how the market works...

<comment><USER4> Claims to that effect are usually misquotes\misinterpretation. Elon says they'll achieve Apple like market caps. He isn't simultaneously saying the opposite.</comment></comment>


Poor Microsoft Doesn't Understand What Tablets Are For - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/09/23/microsoft_surface_2_surface_pro_2_tablets_for_people_who_hate_fun.html

<comment><USER2> It should be:

Microsoft Surface 2, Surface Pro 2 Tablets for People Who Know What They Are Doing - All Others Need to Get an iPad</comment>