Ask HN: How do you find advisors? - <AUTHOR> Background: One of my advisors, an ex-coworker, just doesn't have the time to commit to me due to issues with their schedule. Yes, there is a small stock grant with vesting that I'd offer to any advisor, board or otherwise.
I am looking for a new advisor to help me with non-technical issues as I prepare to launch my MVP. I'm working alone as a solo founder right now and I would like to find someone to spend an hour or two a week with me to discuss business development, strategy, and other high-level topics. And to help keep me motivated before I launch and enter the valley of sorrow.
For someone who is interested in esports (SaaS, not a team) it might be a great opportunity. Since it's a relatively new field I wouldn't expect them to have any direct inside experience or industry contacts, but it's certainly a bonus.
I feel that the Stripe Atlas and Indiehacker forums are great for general info. Meetups are even worse than Linked-In since I don't have to leave my computer to online services. Industry events in the field aren't being attended by the type of people with the skills I'm seeking.
Where did you find your advisor? Have you been in this situation? Any suggestions from the HN crowd to avoid wasting my time trying for find someone? <comment><USER2> 1\. I wrote down what I was looking for in someone for that role, what I wanted out of the relationship, and how the relationship will benefit/excite them.

2\. I scoured through LinkedIn and made a list of potential fits and their strong suits. Then InMailed/Sent connection requests to strongest fits on my list. I found this method mostly successful...(8/10) accepted and followed through. Here's what I sent in the request:

"Hi (Redacted)! Very interested in connecting based on your background. Would love to set up a time to chat about what we're building at Flindel (www.flindel.com)"

3\. Invited them to coffee (on me) or an intro call to determine mutual fit.

4\. Took it from there.

Don't be shy about cold emailing/reaching out to people. More people are willing to help than you would think

</comment><comment><USER3> If you google esports investors, you can find plenty of people who are investing in the space, who often are also willing to be advisors. Here is a list here: [http://deepspacevc.com/who-is-investing-in-esports- startups/](http://deepspacevc.com/who-is-investing-in-esports-startups/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome, thank you. I had googled esports advisor and other terms but never 'esports' \+ 'investor'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Befriend other startup founders in your area. For non-technical issues, most new businesses share similar challenges. YC Startup School ( [https://www.startupschool.org](https://www.startupschool.org) ) is a good opportunity to meet other founders and get advice from YC mentors. No equity required.

</comment><comment><USER5> Cold contact people.

While I've never been part of a proper startup where you'd want advisors, I have reached out to folks in general including those that have successfully sold startups for large sums of money.

You'll get rejected. A lot. The vast majority just won't reply to you. Do NOT take this personally.

Some will reply and give you an excuse (real or fake), 'hey, I'm busy with this or trying to raise funding for something or my dog currently has diabetes and we're trying to dial in his diet can I get back to you in X amount of time' and chances are you can go ahead and write them off because in my experience most aren't interested and just aren't the kind of person to flat out tell you no. Again, don't take it personally.

Eventually, unless you botch the contact emails, someone is going to reply. Be cool. Read the email. Read it again. Read it again. Yeah, you read it right. They replied favorably. BE. COOL. Digest what they said, think out your reply, type it out and leave it as a draft. Come back to it a half hour later and read it again, still sound good? Send it.

Keep your initial emails brief. "Hi Mr. Smith, I'm Ryan. I noticed that we had these similar experiences/both had a passion in the same industry or field/etc. I'm doing thing and I feel lost about other-thing. I'd really appreciate if you have any time to point me in the right direction, I can make myself available at any time to have a quick call or can send you more info via email. I know you're very busy but I'd appreciate any time you can spare."

You don't have to go after a billionaire or even a multi millionaire. You can just find someone working in the industry you are trying to do something in and reach out, you'll probably get better response rates this way and will likely find just as valuable (if not more so, a lot of successful start-up founders will claim luck was most of their success). If you go for 'lower- rung' people you can target people in your city and, ideally, offer to buy them coffee or dinner if they'd talk to you in person for an hour. You can get actionable information MUCH QUICKER in person.

>Any suggestions from the HN crowd to avoid wasting my time trying for find someone?

If you spend 100 hours writing emails, LinkedIn messages and phone calls as long as one person agrees to a chat, you've not wasted time.

Just remember, these people are probably far more busy than you are. Be patient, be respectful, accept rejection and move on.</comment>


"Free" (full book) by Chris Anderson - <AUTHOR> http://www.scribd.com/doc/17135767/FREE-by-Chris-Anderson

<comment><USER2> Dupe <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=691070>

</comment><comment><USER3> Sheesh, and scribd.com too.

</comment><comment><USER4> anyone have a source of where i can find free business books and case studies online?</comment>


Steps tech companies can take to protect women and minority employees - <AUTHOR> https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/5/20/five-things-tech-companies-can-do-better <comment><USER2> > institute a zero-tolerance policy to protect both the company and its > employees from [...] inappropriate behavior

No, no no no. White males are not the only aggressors in our society (or even our industry), and zero-tolerance policies for "inappropriate behavior" swing the balance too far in the opposite direction.

More specifically, it eliminates the chance for redemption - for recovering from honest mistakes - and puts the jobs of every single person in the hands of people who haven't earned that power.

I'll agree with not tolerating illegal behavior (and harassment is already well defined enough to incorporate "inappropriate" behavior), within the bounds of the law. Anything beyond that, especially zero tolerance policies, makes it too easy for bad actors to exploit. Once you create that fear of reprisal from your colleagues for a single misspoken word or ambiguously interpreted action, you've lost any chance at having a productive environment.

<comment><USER3> This.

What needs to happen is a kind of re-education of people to learn how to act appropriately in the company of others or when they choose to associate with others (within a company). And it needs to happen from elementary school. But it needs to avoid the us-vs-them of political correctness. It has to be simple and apply to everyone. The implicit message also has to be the same as the explicit message, in this regard.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions is the first thing that comes to mind --or the cobra effect as well, or production quotas in Marxist systems. In trying to treat one issue, you create another just as problematic issue.

Interestingly, one can see high participation of women in discriminatory cultures like those in India, China, Russia, etc. There professional jobs are an avenue of escape from social domination --and I'm sure we don't want to achieve balance in employment via those means.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am a black engineer and I have experienced unfair treatment at a startup. I think most of these suggestions are good. I'm wary of zero tolerance policies though. Also I think this stuff applies to everyone and not just women and minorities. (Or is this one of those "All Lives Matter" things where that would offend people??)

<comment><USER5> Bullying is bullying. It's all awful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Zero-tolerance policies have not served U.S. schools well, and I don't think they'll serve companies any better (c.f. Donglegate).

The rest are seriously worth getting behind and pushing.

</comment><comment><USER7> I have to say that I don't agree with all the detail, and a small number of wrong-headed disgruntled employees need to be restrained for the benefit of themselves and everyone else around them, but I do agree that actually dealing with unnecessary and nasty behaviour rather than hiding or even encouraging it is the way to go.

</comment><comment><USER8> Do not do any of these without speaking to your lawyer first especially any small business owners.

</comment><comment><USER9> This post was dead due to flagging. Is there a way to know why a post was flagged and by how many people?

<comment><USER10> We don't know exactly why users flagged this story, but it was eventually vouched for and we've now turned off the flags.</comment></comment>


Rich Californians Are Shelling Out $30k to Ease Blackout Pain - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-26/rich-californians-are-shelling-out-30-000-to-ease-blackout-pain <comment><USER2> And poor Californians are shelling out $1k for small Hondas. Our local Craigslist is full of them.

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://business.financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/rich- cal...](https://business.financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/rich-californians- are-shelling-out-30000-to-ease-blackout-pain)

</comment><comment><USER4> You can make your own for about $2k for a 1kW/hr system with 300W solar panels [1]. Definitely the way to go if you want something that just works without the fancy in-line wiring.

[1] [https://www.renogy.com/the-lycan-powerbox-with-suitcases- sol...](https://www.renogy.com/the-lycan-powerbox-with-suitcases-solar-power- generator/)

</comment><comment><USER5> And you wonder how many fires are going to be started by pervasive backup generators.

</comment><comment><USER6> I spent in Central America two years. Every middle class house in Guatemala or Honduras has a generator. Since these countries are the model for California establishment, CA residents should stock up on generators too.</comment>


GCP opening a third zone in Singapore - <AUTHOR> https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2018/05/GCP-opens-a-third-zone-in-the-Singapore-region.html <comment><USER2> I am very sad Hong Kong loses out all the datacenter project to Singapore. all due to idiotic government and regulatory.

and connection from hk to sg isn't exactly great either.

<comment><USER3> Isn't that due to geography? I suspect many customers want to have one dc for southeast Asia and Singapore is in a better location than HK, esp if you also want to serve Indian customers from there (and potentially Australians). Customers with higher East-Asian traffic are likely to also have presence in Japan. I'd suspect HK demand is very regional, i.e. for projects based in HK.

<comment><USER2> Hong Kong, being the entrance to China as it once was, and arguably still is; the perfect stop to set up DC without the Chinese Firewall. There are many multinational and even some Mainland Chinese company HQ in HK. Hong Kong Stock exchange is still one of the largest stock exchange on the planet. Not to mention there is a nearly fixed exchanged rate between HKD and USD.

And in Reply to Google and AWS coming, they have been preannoucned and later postponed or canceled. So until they are actually up I am not putting too much faith into it. AWS wanted to set up in HK long time ago and due to whatever reason never started. Google purchased land in HK 5 years ago for building DC and later ( I think ) sold it off.

OVH came to HK in hope to establish its Asia DC, and due to some insane stupidity this is now in Singapore. Cloudflare could have had the Asia HQ in HK, and now it is in Singapore again. The point is, literally every single one turn to HK first and was hoping to start and do great here. HK lets them down every single time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What's the status on Los Angeles? Been waiting a long time for that one. Anyone know where it's located?

<comment><USER5> The public ETA on the Los Angeles region remains "2018": [https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/regions- zones/#announc...](https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/regions- zones/#announced)

Your local friendly GCP sales rep can share better dates under NDA, and if you're interested in early access, please sign up here: [https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc8eJiKN4tu6CNPyFpA...](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc8eJiKN4tu6CNPyFpAHMo5xWvsPTkcx_94I-o-x0JR283DfA/viewform?c=0&w=1)

Disclaimer: I work at GCP, but am not involved with new regions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> How much latency improvement should we expect by moving from US-central (default) to Singapore?

<comment><USER7> Where are your users located? I built a tool to roughly measure latency between your browser and various GCP regions: [http://gcping.com](http://gcping.com)

<comment><USER6> Very cool! Most of my users are in South East Asia. But, I live in France. So, it would be great, if you can give an option to change my location to see the latency.

<comment><USER8> > give an option to change my location

Don't we all? It's called teleportation.

<comment><USER9> Or VPNs. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Anyone got a map of where the 3 locations are?

<comment><USER11> Google themselves have a nice one: [https://cloud.google.com/about/locations/](https://cloud.google.com/about/locations/)

<comment><USER10> I mean the 3 datacenters in Singapore

<comment><USER12> Three zones doesn't mean three datacenters.

Just means there are separate sets of power, networking etc.

<comment><USER3> Doesn't AWS still advertise that their zones are at least 10 miles or so away from each other? Does it turn out that this is just completely unnecessary or why doesn't Google follow a similar approach? Honest question, I was always wondering if there's a need for physically separate locations if you could have two completely separated zones on one lot.

<comment><USER9> It's highly unlikely that Amazon (or anyone) can reliably find or build datacenter space that is high quality _and_ within a few miles of other such space across all the regions they operate. If they had gone to to such lengths they would clearly state that zones are fully independent from each other. Instead they only say that about regions.[0] So even though I have worked at neither company I'm going to say their concept of a zone is mostly equivalent — independent in terms of power and network domains but in the same building or at most on the same property. This allows them to have the low latency that is touted between zones of a specific region.

[0] [https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/using- re...](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/using-regions- availability-zones.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Not on the topic of the article, but why would this post get over 30 votes in two hours? Is this news that exciting?

<comment><USER5> Having the third zone means you can now run some pretty important services in Singapore, including Cloud Spanner, Cloud SQL, Cloud Bigtable, and Managed Instance Groups.

Also, connectivity within APAC is generally not great, you really want to avoid those round-trips to Tokyo or the US if you can.

Disclaimer: I work at GCP, but had nothing to do with this particular launch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> But, AWS already launched a 3rd AZ in January: [https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252433676/AWS-opens- thir...](https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252433676/AWS-opens-third- availability-zone-in-Singapore) For example, Aurora is now available in Singapore: [https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/03/amazon- au...](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/03/amazon-aurora-with- mysql-compatibility-is-available-in-the-asia-pacific-singapore-region/)

And they are launching in Hong Kong this year: [https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/in-the-works-aws-region- in-...](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/in-the-works-aws-region-in-hong- kong/)</comment>


Mozilla expands advertising experiment to many more Firefox users - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnet.com/news/mozilla-expands-advertising-experiment-to-many-more-firefox-users/

<comment><USER2> Problem is, this won't get them any new users, but it may be just enough to drive away a lot of remaining ones.</comment>


The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://jaycarlson.net/microcontrollers/ <comment><USER3> My favorite is the ATTINY 85. It's so cheap and yet, it can do almost most of the things you can do an Arduino. And yes, you can program it using the Arduino IDE as well.

Last year, I started out to digitalize my entire house with these tiny ATTINY 85 chips and with some nrF wireless chips. It has worked really well for me and I'm able to control and monitor any power port in my house as well as my mains.

The overall setup still costed less than a Nest, yet, vastly more powerful. Of course, the downside is you need to write code, have a running server to control it on the cloud. But, no problem for me as I'm a (Google Cloud) consultant and this is what I do for a living.

I use Google Cloud's IAP with AppEngine (I may switch to cloud run now, since it's cheaper tho) and I have a private REST server running that I can access from my own Android app.

The whole thing took me a year to finish, but that's because I worked on it maybe once or twice a week in the weekends and didn't focus on it much.

But, my effort has paid off and it's amazing to me that what is possible with just a dollar investment.

<comment><USER4> Are you in the United States?

I'm just curious how your homeowner's insurance feels about this? That is, will they still pay out for a claim should something happen, and they determine your modifications were at fault?

Because if the adjuster or whomever does find you have such modifications - they -will- blame those.

And probably deny your claim and coverage (and probably cancel your policy).

At least that would likely be your experience if you live in the United States.

I've often thought that having such a system would be fun, but the potential downside should anything go wrong has put a damper on it (even if whatever happened was not related to your modifications - they will blame it on them, just to get out of the claim).

The only "inexpensive" way around it is to use UL listed interfaces made by a third party, then interface with those. But there, you don't usually get everything you want.

Of course at that point, the insurance company might just shift the burden on you to "So, did you have this done by a licensed electrician? Where is your inspection report?"...

<comment><USER5> "Because if the adjuster or whomever does find you have such modifications - they -will- blame those.

And probably deny your claim and coverage (and probably cancel your policy)."

I'm skeptical that an insurance company will be able to determine exactly what part you used and if it was UL listed unless you yourself tell them

<comment><USER6> If an incident occurs and they identify additional components connected to the "trigger" you'd have to provide the whole "paper trail" for every single bit of your setup and show that it's above board: were the components certified for the use, were they installed by authorized personnel, were they operated properly, was the code you wrote for it to blame, etc. If you handled all the implementation yourself then it's hard to pass the responsibility along. While not impossible, it's still a high bar. And you wouldn't be in the best position to fight.

If it's an electrical fire and they find modifications to the electrical wiring the chances of getting the insurance money are slim. Unless those modifications are explicitly covered by the insurance.

Given the kind of exposure insurance companies have they are willing to invest a lot in fighting the payout. It's their business model.

<comment><USER7> > you'd have to provide the whole "paper trail" for every single bit of your > setup

Can you cite any firsthand account of this sort of thing happening somewhere in the US? Given the ease with which people can reach millions of people with their tale of woe/outrage the fact that such stories are not readily available on social media makes me think this is mostly urban legend.

<comment><USER6> Not sure I understand, you think it's an urban legend that an insurance company will do what it can to avoid a payout especially when the incident involves unauthorized modifications to the electrical wiring of the house, which ended up triggering a fire?

There's no need to cite firsthand accounts, you will find this in your own insurance contract. Insurance works pretty much the same everywhere, unauthorized modifications (especially to critical systems) usually invalidate any insurance claim when they can be linked to the incident. [0] Electrical wiring, plumbing, structure of the building, safety or security systems, etc. And it makes perfect sense if you think about it.

[0] [http://www.insurancequotes.org/renters/3-major-diy- mistakes-...](http://www.insurancequotes.org/renters/3-major-diy-mistakes- that-can-affect-insurance/)

<comment><USER7> I believe it is an urban legend that homeowner's insurance claims (specifically fire damage to structure or other contents) are being denied with any frequency because a 'homebrew' contraption was present in the home, adjacent to the start of the fire, or even the source of ignition.

Here is a link to a sample Homeowner's policy: [https://www.iii.org/sites/default/files/docs/pdf/HO3_sample....](https://www.iii.org/sites/default/files/docs/pdf/HO3_sample.pdf)

Exclusion B on page 12 is probably the relevant section. It excludes loss due to "Faulty, inadequate or defective:... workmanship, re- pair, construction, renovation, remodeling,..." but also contains an "ensuing loss" exception.

Here is an article about that: [https://www.irmi.com/articles/expert- commentary/ensuing-loss...](https://www.irmi.com/articles/expert- commentary/ensuing-loss-getting-around-a-property-policys-defective- construction-exclusion)

> A classic example [of an ensuing loss exception] is if faulty repair > resulted in improper wiring and the improper wiring caused a fire. _Almost > every insurer would pay for the fire damage,_ but not for the repair of the > improper wiring.

<comment><USER6> Two things to consider:

1) The insurance company will more often than not sue the party responsible for the faulty workmanship that triggered the incident to recover the money (I've seen this happen). In this case the owner _is_ that party.

2) One real example is enough to show it's not a legend and you provided it yourself:

> Some courts have upheld this rather cramped reading of the exclusion, while > others construe it properly and require insurers to pay for the water damage

Since it's upheld in court I find your statement that it's an urban legend pretty confusing. It's like showing a picture of the night sky to prove the Sun is a myth.

YMMV of course, you should read your own contract to see what's stipulated and how comprehensive it is, and case law in your jurisdiction to see if courts would rule in your favor. But better be safe and start from the assumption that the "urban legend" is real since courts support it. It's the kind of legend that might cost you money.

<comment><USER7> Are you saying you know of an instance where an insurance company sued their own customer for accidentally burning down their own house? I'd like to know more about the particulars because that sounds like another urban legend.

<comment><USER6> > that sounds like _another_ urban legend

Another? Didn't we clear this one already above when your link showed courts upheld the "legend"? Are you contradicting me or the courts? Feels like you're no longer looking for any evidence, just grasping at straws.

Plenty of resources that tell you that it's perfectly possible to get no payout (depends on your contract of course)[0][1]. Or they will pay out but capped to a low figure [3]. Again, read your contract and decide what applies to you, pray there's no fineprint to screw you over.

[0] [https://www.boss.info/us/consumer_warning/](https://www.boss.info/us/consumer_warning/)

> unauthorized modification of electrical wiring may void your homeowners fire > insurance policy

[1] [https://www.quora.com/Is-it-illegal-to-do-electrical- tasks-w...](https://www.quora.com/Is-it-illegal-to-do-electrical-tasks- without-a-license-or-is-it-just-preferred-by-companies-and-the-buyers-market)

> Most jurisdictions require a permit to be pulled for most electrical work

[3] [https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeImprovement/comments/7vwe23/doe...](https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeImprovement/comments/7vwe23/does_anyone_have_hard_evidence_that_homeowners/)

P.S. No, I do not know any cases where the owner was sued but I do know many cases where the insurance company payed out and then sued the company that did the faulty repairs to recover the entire payout. I also know one case where a faulty repair done by the owner caused a fire that injured the tenant - <USER2> owner was found guilty of recklessness/gross negligence (no idea about the insurance in that case).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I feel obligated to mention in every one of these threads the wemos D1.

I actually have a tough time explaining just how incredible this board is. You can program it in the Arduino environment, meaning if you are doing any hobby electronics, you're probably already really familiar with the programming modalities.

It comes with a programmer, and power regulator. No fussing with anything like you might have to with a bare ESP8266.

It also has WiFi. It is _the_ magic internet of things that I swear everybody was dreaming about 5 years ago. Go buy 10 of them. They're my favorite favorite favorite general purpose dev board right now, and actually they're so cheap that I have no problem putting them into "finished products"[1].

Here they are for about $3: ([https://www.aliexpress.com/item/ESP8266-ESP-12F-CH340-CH340G...](https://www.aliexpress.com/item/ESP8266-ESP-12F-CH340-CH340G-V2-1-0-WIFI- Expansion-Board-Module-Based-ESP8266-Micro- USB/32963411851.html?spm=2114.search022.214.171.124f11cc81cPtk&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_6_10065_10130_10068_10890_10547_319_10546_317_10548_10545_10696_453_10084_454_10083_10618_10307_537_536_10059_10884_10887_321_322_10103,searchweb201603_52,ppcSwitch_0&algo_expid=a10ec08c-7bb2-4299-a8eb-79e1f5bc42ad-0&algo_pvid=a10ec08c-7bb2-4299-a8eb-79e1f5bc42ad))

[1]: I build custom/one-off large scale installation pieces and hardware prototypes. Almost every single one of them has an arduino-ish device in it somewhere.

<comment><USER9> I actually prefer the Wemos D1 Mini. The D1 you linked has the same header layout as the Arduino, which might confuse a lot of people that you can use Arduino shields. Some of them might work, but probably not without modifying the libraries for them.

The D1 Mini actually has it's own shield format, and several shields are available. Even experienced people will find value in the ability to just plug in a display, or other device and use already available libraries. Maybe not great for production work, but great for prototyping and learning.

I think the big downfall with any ESP8266 board compared to others is going to be power consumption, even with WiFi off. So anyone not plugging theirs into a wall should do some research in that area.

<comment><USER10> I just got into the micro controller world a few days ago and it's overwhelming how many options there are! Between the pi, the Arduino, the ESP8266, Wemos ans so so many more which all come in so many flavors it's really tricky to the "ideal" one for a beginner like myself. The project I have in mind would require to work on batteries as opposed to plugin it into a well. It sounds like you're suggesting that anything ESP8266-based would not be ideal not plugged into a wall. Could you share some pointers to what alternative might be better for very low consumption but still has wifi capabilities? Thanks a lot! I'll keep digging in the meantime, this is a fascinating world I'me happy to explore!

<comment><USER11> Depends on what you mean by "very low consumption". For one project I used a SparkFun SAMD21 Mini Breakout[0], and with the RTCZero[1] library was pretty easily able to get it down to 0.3mA when sleeping and averaging 1.3mA overall. (OK, I had to desolder the power LED which was eating 3mA.) I've since switched over to using Adafruit Feather M0 boards for most stuff, which is basically the same thing.

[0] [https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13664](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13664) [1] [https://www.arduino.cc/en/Reference/RTC](https://www.arduino.cc/en/Reference/RTC)

edit: Oh sorry I missed the "with wifi" in your post. One nice thing about the ESP8266 is that lots of people use it -- hopefully that means you can find details on how to run it in low power modes.

<comment><USER10> Nice, thanks a lot for the info that's going to be helpful. I'll look into these!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> my takes from my +10 years on this sector:

\- Unless you are building something with high volumes (or something trivially easy), development costs are going to be your biggest expense by far, specially firmware/software.

\- Using cheap parts is nice, and if you come from the DIY world you will know many such parts. If you are going to build something commercially, _avoid_ those things like the plague, because they will become the biggest sinkhole of technological debt.

\- Software/Apps behave like high-risk investments (natural monopolies, zero- or-nothing situations, low initial costs), electronics behaves more like long term investments (high initial costs, high development path dependency). It's way more profitable to have a product you barely have to touch (but sells well), than several that need constant modifications.

Which leads me to some tips:

\- There's not much sense in 8 bit / 16 bit microcontrollers for most projects nowadays. Don't fear going to 32 bit.

\- MIPS/AVR are nice, but if you are building something that is not a one-off (or you plan to build on the product), go with ARM (for now).

\- Build your PoC and prototypes on manufacturer libraries, but once you have the resources for it, well-thought and tailored libraries will make your life easier.

\- When working on libraries, don't write them directly from the datasheet. Go for the family references, target the whole family instead of a single chip.

\- Before chosing any component, specially the ones that are hard to replace, price is secondary at best. Availability is _way_ more important.

\- If you are willing to take some risk, look at Rust for embedded. The language is still 'young' and there's a lot of stuff that needs to settle down, but man, does it look good.

<comment><USER13> And for PoC pick one with more memory - e.g. you can find chip (like stm32f0x1) with same pinout, peripherals - you can optimize that later, and don't worry about it while using fat libraries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's missing the below 5 cents microcontrollers:

[https://lcsc.com/product-detail/PADAUK_PADAUK-Tech- PMS150C_C...](https://lcsc.com/product-detail/PADAUK_PADAUK-Tech- PMS150C_C129127.html)

<comment><USER15> I looked through the datasheet, but couldn't figure out what "1KW" of program memory meant.

<comment><USER16> It's supposed to be 1kW, ie 1024 words.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Having used half the IDE's this person outlined, I really really really really wish every single one had a "write Makefile" option. Maybe 1/4 or the IDEs I use do that successfully. I always end up using GDB for debugging, and then the IDE for asm-level tweaking (well, I don't do the tweaking, someone smarter than me does :), but I can do 90% of my work in GDB).

In the "real world" IAR Embedded Workshop is the hands-down winner (licenses are $$$$$$), which is unfortunate because despite being so mature it is awfully clunky.

<comment><USER18> You actually can use make instead of the Arduino IDE many times. For the ESP, check out [https://github.com/plerup/makeEspArduino](https://github.com/plerup/makeEspArduino). It works reasonably well.

<comment><USER17> Yeah, I didn't know that existed but I created my own make environment a while back. My arduinos have been gathering dust for about 5 years, ever since I discovered the ST nucleo64 line ... 80MHz, 1M flash, 256K sram, 4 UARTs, 4 SPI, 4 I2C, 20+ GPIO, 4 ADCs for under US$15 ... I pretty much stopped using Arduino everything.

<comment><USER19> Me, too. But now that I've found the Teensy 3.6, it's my new goto. It's too expensive, but it has all the power. Also, I've been doing embedded for over 20 years and I'm starting to appreciate the simplicity of Arduino. It does get most of the job done. And when I had to modify the drivres, I was able to write completely low-level code. Only walls I've run into are tweaking the linker file. I haven't been able to locate that :(

[https://www.pjrc.com/store/teensy36.html](https://www.pjrc.com/store/teensy36.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This was well done.

As I have mentioned in the past, my discussions with people at Microchip and Motorola have conceded that with modern process technology the cost of the silicon is insignificant compared to the cost of packaging and testing. As a result you get to about $1/chip in singles as the low price cut-off but you can put an 8 bit, 16 bit, or 32 bit processor in there and it doesn't change the cost. It can cost more if you add a _lot_ more FLASH or RAM. That takes up silicon real estate and is longer to test so it can reach the point where the dice is once again a meaningful contributor to the cost.

<comment><USER21> I guess that makes sense, and it's not a particularly new phenomenon. The MOS 6507 (used in the Atari 2600) was mostly the same silicon as the 6502 (as used in Apple II and many other places), but cheaper because it was in a smaller package.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The writer was on an episode of Embedded.fm podcast awhile back, one of the rare ones where they really get into embedded in detail. Good episode, I recommend it.

Two take-aways were that he just loved the Silicon Labs EFM series, which is a modern set of peripherals wrapped around an absolutely outdated 8051. For the most part micros are just moving things from one peripheral to another and that can work out just fine. It's nice SI used SWD/JTAG as the debug peripheral so you can program it along side all the ARM parts you're actually going to use.

And two... Having used almost everything on this list. I'm going to chose the ARM M0/M0+ 10 times out of 10 anymore. Maybe I prefer STM's peripherals to Atmel's event-eccentric, or whatever. I just can't honestly see starting a new project today on 8051, PIC16/24, AVR etc. Maybe it's what you're used to. Or maybe for someone making landfill-ready toys with razor thin margins, but I'm glad that's not me.

<comment><USER23> >8051

TI is still pumping out Zigbee boards based on it. I had to dig through documentation and tick a box saying I wasn't going to make missiles just to figure out what I needed to program it.

I'm kinda curious about 8051 chips. They're absolutely everywhere, although maybe now the Espressif chips are taking over.

<comment><USER22> 8051 is OLD, Espressif is far newer.

I like the amount of support that ESP gets but would personally never use it because I told trust Chinese networking chips.

The 8051 makes absolutely no sense to anyone - except when you consider the extreme low cost.

In the example of the SiLabs parts, they took the modern peripherals from their ARM chips and plopped them down to a 8051 core. Some times that will work great, but if you are doing any "real work" (preocessing) on chip just go with ARM. But, he, sometimes you need to toggle some LEDs and write something out over SPI.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Oh, I _really_ like his analysis on "Parametric Reach" for the various architectures:

> If you want to commit to a single architecture, it's important to know which > one gives you the most headroom to move up. I created a fictious "times > better" score by comparing the the part tested with the best part available > in the same ecosystem — this usually means fairly comparable peripheral > programming, along with identical development tools. I multiplied the core > speed, package size, flash, and RAM capacities together, ratioed the two > parts, and then took the quartic root. Essentially, if every parameter is > double, it is considered "2.0 x" as powerful.

<comment><USER17> He should have used the geometric mean, that's exactly what it is designed for.

<comment><USER25> Multiplying four values together and taking their fourth root _is_ the geometric mean.

<comment><USER17> Aaaand its too late for me to delete my post.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I would love to see a comparison of instruction sets for assembly programming. Sure, only a few people are going to program in asm, but a microcontroller is the best way to play with it.

The MSP430 instruction set is somewhat friendly, but I long for the days of the Motorola MC68hc11. That was a beautiful instruction set, especially for teaching.

Does anybody know how these chips fare for raw assembly programming?

<comment><USER27> I'd guess that 8051 is the easiest. I suspect that a huge percent of 8051 is still hand-coded assembly. It has an accumulator architecture and the instructions were made with hand-coding in mind (plus, there's not very many of them). I remember it being pretty easy to learn, but that was a long time ago. To me, RISC assembly tends to be quite a bit more complicated to write by hand.

[https://www.slideshare.net/Andriblovers/8051-instruction- set...](https://www.slideshare.net/Andriblovers/8051-instruction-set-12522439)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm playing with the PIC10F320 at the moment. Minimalism is fun. $0.50 in 1 off quantities. 6-pin SOT-23 package. 16MHz. 0.5K of program space. 64 bytes of RAM. Waveform generator. ADC. Timers. PWM and the coolest thing a configurable logic cell which works while the CPU is asleep.

I've got a semi-working morse iambic keyer in that and it uses 40uA of current running flat out. I'm working on sleeps now. I reckon I can get it down to 100nA average based on the wake time and 20nA sleep current. I can't actually measure down that low even with my 5.5 digit HP 3478A

<comment><USER29> Eight bit micros are the most fun.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> For those who needs something more beefy, check out [https://www.nxp.com/support/developer- resources/evaluation-a...](https://www.nxp.com/support/developer- resources/evaluation-and-development-boards/freedom-development-boards/mcu- boards/freedom-development-platform-for- kinetis-k66-k65-and-k26-mcus:FRDM-K66F) They are about 60 USD per board, though if you want only the chip for a final product, it will become much cheaper.

We use these development boards in combination with freeRTOS (bare C based) for lots of projects in our lab that require high sampling rates (e.g. 8 analog sensor readings at 1 kHz) motor control loops etc.

There is a very good blog on these chips at mcuoneclipse.com

</comment><comment><USER31> One Dollar? Pah! I present to you the Padauk PMS150C three cent MCU. Its just one-time programmable, so better get it right the first time.

[https://hackaday.com/2019/04/26/making-a-three-cent- microcon...](https://hackaday.com/2019/04/26/making-a-three-cent- microcontroller-useful/)

</comment><comment><USER32> I like MSP430 a lot but the tooling leaves a bit to be desired. Maybe that's been improved upon recently by TI but a few years back you were left with few choices other than installing some kind of IDE on Windows.

<comment><USER33> TI distributes a pre-compiled version of GCC [0] for the MSP430 along with a command line MSP-flasher [1] utility for flashing code to the device. It all works really well on Linux. I haven't had to touch any of their windows tools. It can be slightly confusing getting started because there are 101 different ways to develop and compilers you could use so you have to wade though examples that may not be applicable to your chosen development environment. Once you get past that it isn't hard. I really like the tutorial series on simplyembeded [2] they to a great job of covering the MSP430 basics.

[0] [http://software- dl.ti.com/msp430/msp430_public_sw/mcu/msp430...](http://software- dl.ti.com/msp430/msp430_public_sw/mcu/msp430/MSPGCC/latest/index_FDS.html) [1] [http://www.ti.com/tool/MSP430-FLASHER](http://www.ti.com/tool/MSP430-FLASHER) [2] [http://www.simplyembedded.org/tutorials/](http://www.simplyembedded.org/tutorials/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Amazing article! (I was utterly unaware that this amount of choice and selection of microcontrollers exist, much less at this price point(!) -- before having read this article... you put a lot of work into this article and it shows.)

This will be my new, first, go-to article, if I begin any new projects involving microcontrollers in the future...

</comment><comment><USER35> I very recently started getting into microcontroller programming, and have subsequently purchased a plethora of different ESP chips on Banggood for roughly $3-8 a pop (though all of them have WiFi built in, and a few even came with cameras).

I would actually be curious how these controllers compare to a $1 chip.

</comment><comment><USER36> This is great but it should be noted that it dates from 2017.

<comment><USER37> OK, added. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> It is really mind-bogging how fast processors are these days. A few days ago I read the marketing copy for the iPad Pro on the Apple website, where they said that their neural processor can perform more than five trillion operations per second. Initially I thought they translated it wrong from English to German (one trillion is "eine Billion" in German), but I rechecked it and it seems correct and actually makes sense for a highly parallel architecture that runs at a few GHz per second. Granted it costs more than $1 (though the production cost without factoring in R&D might actually be in that range) but it's still amazing that you can just carry such a thing around in your pocket.

</comment><comment><USER39> The title is misleading because only the chip by itself costs $1. If you buy the microcontroller( chip + peripherals), it costs more than $1. For example MSP430: [https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Texas- Instruments/MSP-E...](https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Texas- Instruments/MSP-EXP430G2?qs=CLImetaeaXWH2pYG%252BA%252B4Vw%3D%3D)

<comment><USER21> "Microcontroller" refers to everything on the chip (usually, we would talk about it having a "core" roughly akin to memory + ALU + such, and "peripherals" which are on-chip dedicated hardware that migh be eg. I2C or USB communications, timers, ADCs, etc). What you're linking to we would call a "development board" (dev board), "demo board", "eval(uation) kit".

I don't consider the title misleading, as the article is aimed at the people who are designing their own (hobbyist probably, but not exclusively) boards, and will be integrating the chip, not a dev board, into their project.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Those Infineon chips are incredible for how inexpensive they are. I've worked with an XMC1400 at work (another one of their M0-based offerings) and it was insane how sophisticated the peripherals on those things are, despite being a dirt cheap part.

That said, their IDE sucks (well, every manufacturer-provided IDE sucks, but whatever). Life is way easier with a couple makefiles and Ozone.

</comment><comment><USER41> This is a great round up of cheap microcontrollers - I would love to take that approach of "scoring" peripherals to be able to compare various vendor's offerings up and down the lineups!

As of right now it is hard to compare families at the start of a project, most of the time we just go with what we are comfortable with (and haven't been burned by in the last project!)

</comment><comment><USER42> What I really would like to see is some more competition and price drops in displays. These microcontrollers are awesome and I love building small hardware projects. But the output systems are usually pricey. If color (ideally touch) displays can be made available for $5-$7. That would open up a flood gate of opportunities.

<comment><USER43> Color displays _are_ available for $5-7, although they are usually only 2-4" diagonally with up to 240x320 pixels at 16-18 bits of color per pixel.

But it definitely did open up a flood gate of opportunity. You see ILI9341 and ST7735 TFT displays all over the place, even if they're a little too small for large pieces of equipment.

Not to mention the explosion in cheap individually-addressable color LEDs and drone-driven advances in small DC motors. It's fantastic, you can pretty much just plug electronics together like Lego bricks at this point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I started learning embedded programming on ATMELs and to this day they are still my favorite. Solid documentation and pretty good command line tools when you don't want to use an IDE. Also you can find them sometimes in a dip package which is handy for prototyping.

</comment><comment><USER45> The Renesas RX200 family would be a nice addition to the list. I'm curious how it fares against the ARM competition.

The most amazing ESP8266 also reached $1 in volume, but isn't really comparable to other MCU's, with very few pins and a crippled ADC.

<comment><USER22> >The Renesas RX200 family would be a nice addition to the list.

Can you show where you're finding RX200s for under a dollar?

Because... I was interested having never seen almost anything from Renesas near what I would consider a good deal. I can't seem to find anything even close [0] this being the cheapest RX200 chip I could find at $1.70 @ 5k [1]

[0] [https://www.digikey.com/products/en?dc=49904](https://www.digikey.com/products/en?dc=49904) [1] [https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/renesas- electronic...](https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/renesas-electronics- america/R5F523T5ADFL-30/R5F523T5ADFL-30-ND/5719859)

<comment><USER45> FYI we buy the RX231 with USB below $1 (in volumes well above 5k). You're right that Renesas doesn't compete in online stores, they don't even try.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Anybody know any awesome cheap Raspberry Pi Zero W alternatives? Primarily looking for something ultra cheap, tiny form factor, not especially power- hungry, able to run not-too-weird flavors of linux, and preferably with (wireless) networking.

<comment><USER47> Have you seen the VoCore2? Ameridroid has them in stock.

[https://vocore.io/v2.html](https://vocore.io/v2.html)

<comment><USER48> VoCore store at ameriDroid.com:

[https://ameridroid.com/search?q=vocore*&type=article,page,pr...](https://ameridroid.com/search?q=vocore*&type=article,page,product)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I love my D1 Minis/ESP8266 that include wifi... got them for about $2 each and they can be programmed using USB (or even wirelessly).

</comment><comment><USER50> Stupid question, would it have some sense to use a big array of these microcontrollers to create an actual chip neural network?

<comment><USER51> Would only make sense as an art project, imo. If you want to run neural networks on micro-controllers, one ARM Cortex M4F (or M7/H7) will get you pretty far. Audio Classification with tens of classes, as well as low- resolution image classification.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Excellent work. The next time I am doing a project where I get to choose which MCU to use I have this write up book marked.

</comment><comment><USER53> I like the Pic16 because you need very little external circuitry other than the chip to get a computer running.

</comment><comment><USER54> If you work with multiple kinds of Microcontrollers I think you'd appreciate the Platformio.org project.

</comment><comment><USER55> Obligatory mention of ESP32. It might not be $1 but it's definitely worth being aware of.

<comment><USER56> And the ESP8266. Not as fancy but it's half the price. I love both the ESP8266 and the ESP32 a ton. They really made wifi projects "cheap" for entry- hobbyists instead of some 70USD wifi shield.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Excellent article! Thank you.

One of the few i will be consulting regularly.

</comment><comment><USER58> Anyone know a good microcontroller with at least 3 DACs ?

<comment><USER59> Did you look in the STM32 line?

The first I found was the STM32F3x4 line [1], they have up to 3 DACs with 12-bit precsion it sounds like.

Not sure about pricing, a quick Digikey search shows the STM32F334C4T6 listing at $3.72 in singles. ST has development boards too, didn't price those.

<comment><USER58> I think you may have forgotten the actual link.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Ah yes, the tape-over-LED April Fools Joke

</comment><comment><USER61> This is really missing the ESP8266 imho

</comment><comment><USER62> is it possible to somehow buy this off-line in person in mass quantities? seems like it takes ages to ship from alibaba, _also I 'm afraid of the Chinese government tapping my phone (as I suspect happened on WeChat I foolishly installed, literally seduced by this Chinese chick who claims she's in Vancouver but then doesn't know where Surrey is???? red flags) potentially_, so I want to tinker with these interesting DIY projects and get started with soldering and PCB etc., but I always can't be at complete comfort (I am well aware and conscious of the fact that my privacy standards are in the extremes), knowing what I read on HN all the time, maybe it's a good time to take a break.

So I would really love it if somebody could sell me large bulk of various stuff like this that you could literally get from Alibaba in some vain hope that some wholesale buyer/middle man can make a premium off this paranoia, I'd gladly pay $3~$4 for this if it meant that somebody bought like a million of these for $10,000, and then sold me a chunk of that (at a markup of course which I'm more than happy to pay for the same reason people use VPN and Incognito or Tor), why not for electronics?

tl;dr: Looking for somebody to start a wholesale brick and mortar business based on DIY electronic parts like this so I can pay with cash to escape suspected foreign state surveillance.

 _Imagine a younger, ambitious, slightly politically sensitive you from the past, expressed a common consensus held by a specific group of like minded peers who believed that a certain country Brad Pitt made famous in the 90s should be free to exercise their political, religious and cultural will against an aggressor state, those things suddenly attract the wrath of peers from that said aggressor state, who think very differently from us, things escalated and I 'm still to this day freaked out and feel tense when I hear people speaking the official language of said aggressor state. Call me disturbed, paranoid, I don't care, you weren't there man, you weren't there when the Charlies flanked us and got embassy involved. What is this...People's Republic of Vancouver?_

<comment><USER21> Pretty near all of this stuff is available from North American distributors, Adafruit/Sparkfun for more hobbyist-minded stuff, Digikey/Mouser/Newark for industry. Adafruit takes bitcoin if you're that paranoid.

You're going to have a hard time getting along in the current world, especially in electronics, if anything Chinese sets you on edge though. I'm trying to be gentle, and I know you didn't ask for advice, but consider some counseling if you're "freaked out and feel tense when [you] hear Chinese people talking in Mandarin". Sounds like you're dealing with some history that you could afford to talk to somebody about.

<comment><USER62> I am considering laying off the ganja for a while. but I need it to meet deadlines, to do the work the market demands at the best possible time to the best possible consumer, I am the invisible hand that keeps pushing me, in this struggling and character building times. thanks for the advice 친구!

<comment><USER63> I know unsolicited advise is often not appreciated (for good reason sometimes), but perhaps you need to work on a better work-life balance. If you need weed to get through the day and meet tight deadlines, perhaps you need a less stressful role. Personally, I've cut back on the hours I work for this reason. Sure, I earn a lot less, but I'm much less stressed, happier and am starting to get my life (physical, mental and social health) in order.

PS: I buy most of my electronics from mouser or if its a hobbyist pre- assembled item, sparkfun/adafruit. I am just a hobbyist, though.

In any case, good luck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> How to use this

<comment><USER65> What do you mean?

It's a comparison of a load of cheap micro controllers. How do you expect to use it?</comment></comment>


Google+ Games Stream confirmed - <AUTHOR> http://www.slashgear.com/google-games-stream-confirmed-22166802/ <comment><USER2> This is not an official confirmation. This is an accidental leak of information whose significance is not perfectly clear.

<comment><USER3> Testing the waters?

Right now the G+ team is doing a lot of listening to the users and modifying the app in accordance as they go along, but make no mistake that the true purpose of the app is to copy all of Fb's functionality, clean it up and serve it to the user in the broader context of Google's ecosystem. I wouldn't be surprised if they launched a 140-character service next week.

<comment><USER4> Isn't Buzz their twitter-like product? Now Buzz has hardly been a success, but it would be interesting to see how they can integrate it with Google+ since it has such a different model for communication.

I am not using Buzz, so if I am wrong please correct me, but isn't it like this: Google+ -> You opt in your followers to hear your broadcast. Google Buzz/Twitter -> Your followers opt in to hear your broadcast.

(And then there is FB with mutual opting)

<comment><USER3> I promptly forgot Buzz as soon as I heard about it, so I cannot speak intelligently about it. But I've been using G+ quiet frequently now for the past three weeks and it's in desperate need of Twitter-like functionality, and in its current incarnation it's simply not set up like that as you can only search for people and not content. Discovery vs. Cataloguing.

I'll cite as an example the POTUS appearance on the telly last night. As a live even it was all over Twitter, nary a mention on G+. And Facebook carried very little for me aside from announcing the event.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Alert HN: X.org suddenly isn't resolving - <AUTHOR> First of all, I'm not experienced in identifying transient network glitches. If I'm freaking out about a temporary issue then I request the moderators to hide or delete this post.
I've verified my claim in the title via digwebinterface using every resolver.
Since it takes forever to load, here's a screenshot (1002x2394, 291KB): http://i.imgur.com/iqaGKt8.png
Text description: this screenshot shows every resolver that works (two couldn't be reached) saying SERVFAIL; the only one that still replies is OpenDNS, which returns an A record of 22.214.171.124. This uses a Location: redirect to send me to https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/fontconfig/.
Here are the settings I used - it takes a couple minutes to fully load, and DNS is usually fast, right? :S - http://www.digwebinterface.com/?hostnames=x.org&type=&showcommand=on&colorize=on&stats=on&sort=on&useresolver=22.214.171.124&ns=all&nameservers=
The domain seems to be registered until 2025, according to pir.org (754x882, 108KB): http://i.imgur.com/hsPqvaS.png (you have to go to https://pir.org/products/org-domain/#domain_form, input x.org and go past the captcha to reload this info)
I have no idea what's going on - I was looking up X11 documentation and thought it was my own internet when X.org persistently wasn't resolving.
All I know is that right now http://x.org, https://x.org, http://www.x.org and https://www.x.org don't seem to work.
I'm posting this in light of the recent Phoronix article outlining some ownership handover issues (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10867202, https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=X.Org-Domain-Woes). I'm not sure if this is related to that.
Once again if I've posted this due to misinterpretation or ignorance about networking then I apologize. (For example, I noticed that x.org uses two in-house nameservers, ns1.x.org and ns2.x.org, and perhaps those are down - but this would have had to have been for a while since 18.104.22.168 is answering SERVFAIL.)
[This has been crossposted to https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/468c78/xorg_suddenly_isnt_resolving/.] <comment><USER2> The latest archive.org snapshot is of 8th February, at which point the site was working fine - this was after the handover problems had been resolved. I am assuming some problems arose during the handovers, and as a result some bills went unpaid. The issue will likely resolve soon.

[https://web.archive.org/web/20160208192924/http://www.x.org/...](https://web.archive.org/web/20160208192924/http://www.x.org/wiki/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> For convenience, the links in the OP:

Digwebinterface screenshot (1002x2394, 291KB): [http://i.imgur.com/iqaGKt8.png](http://i.imgur.com/iqaGKt8.png)

IP OpenDNS responds with: [https://184.108.40.206/](https://220.127.116.11/)

That IP sends me to: [https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/fontconfig/](https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/fontconfig/)

Digwebinterface settings: [http://www.digwebinterface.com/?hostnames=x.org&type=&showco...](http://www.digwebinterface.com/?hostnames=x.org&type=&showcommand=on&colorize=on&stats=on&sort=on&useresolver=188.8.131.52&ns=all&nameservers=)

pir.org screenshot (754x882, 108KB): [http://i.imgur.com/hsPqvaS.png](http://i.imgur.com/hsPqvaS.png)

PIR domain lookup form: [https://pir.org/products/org- domain/#domain_form](https://pir.org/products/org-domain/#domain_form)

URLs: [http://x.org](http://x.org), [https://x.org](https://x.org), [http://www.x.org](http://www.x.org) and [https://www.x.org](https://www.x.org) don't seem to work.

Handover issue Phoronix article: [https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=X.Org- Do...](https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=X.Org-Domain-Woes)

Handover issue HN discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10867202](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10867202)

/r/linux crosspost: [https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/468c78/xorg_suddenly...](https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/468c78/xorg_suddenly_isnt_resolving/)

</comment><comment><USER3> The problem with the X.org domain is that it was set to expire some time ago and the current X.org owners, X.Org Foundation, are not technically the same as X.Org Foundation LLC (now defunct) whom the domain is currently registered to.

[https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=X.Org- Do...](https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=X.Org-Domain-Woes)

<comment><AUTHOR> I just ninja-edited in some info I forgot to originally include (out of freaked-out-ness): PIR (who appear to be the canonical .org registry (?)) show the domain expires in _2025_.

You have to go through a captcha to run a lookup, so I included a screenshot in the OP: [http://i.imgur.com/hsPqvaS.png](http://i.imgur.com/hsPqvaS.png)</comment></comment>