Ignore the news - <AUTHOR> http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/04/psa-ignore-the-news.html

<comment><USER3> This "No news"/"News is bad for you" fad needs to end. New is not bad for you. News is good for you. Knowing what's going on your world and _the_ world is important.

What isn't good for you is getting sucked into the manufactured drama and drawn out 24 hour news cycle.

The correct attitude would be something more like "be an intelligent consumer of news" rather than "news is bad, stick your head in the sand and ignore it". If you understand that news is entertainment then that's just about all you need to know to be able to pick out the relevent information and go about your day. The news media may do a lot of terrible things but journalists themselves still exist and are still ethical. It's just that they're beholden to their bosses who turn their reporting into something other than a report of the facts.

News is not bad for you. The inability to think critically about what you see on the news is bad for you.

<comment><USER4> Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to assume that mass media news consumption can (or should) be an entirely rational process, in which a person should be able to exert enough willpower to ignore the emotional content of news stories.

It doesn't work that way.

Our cognitive threat detection systems create very real biological responses to the information we receive from the news, prompting shifts in cortisol, adrenaline, and other stress hormones. That automatic threat response has very real effects on your short and long-term health and mental/emotional well- being. [1]

The potential for sudden, dramatic, unexpected loss of life or property (called Loss Aversion) is one of the most attention-pulling things in the world. Once you start paying attention, it's extremely difficult to stop, even if you can't do anything with the information.

It's easy to be sucked in by modern news media, and spend way too much time and energy ruminating on situations you can't influence or control. You're burning the limited amount of attention, focus, and energy you have each day on something that ultimately provides zero value.

I'm all for being informed about what's happening in the world at a baseline level, provided you focus on information you're in a position to act upon - <USER2> avoiding a local threat (weather/earthquake/wildfire/etc), donating to a non- profit in the event of a disaster/tragedy, educating yourself before an impending election, etc.

Otherwise, the best way to handle most news media is not to pay attention to it at all. Treat it as a tabloid: best to be avoided if you want to preserve your focus for more important matters.

[1] See "The Science of Fear" by Dan Gardner, <http://www.amazon.com/dp/0452295467/>

<comment><USER3> I'm very much opposed to this idea of completely ignoring the news. Eating too much meat has negative effects on your health so do we suggest we all go vegan? No. Just because something has it's downsides doesn't mean the solution is to avoid it entirely. The suggestion that we should all ignore the news is such a broad, black and white solution that doesn't really solve the problem.

I don't think it's healthy for anyone to have a full on "let's not ignore news" or "let's totally ignore news" attitude. A lot of what you're saying is true and they're valid points but they're not compelling enough of a reason for anyone to stop consuming news. It's impossible to live a life where you avoid anything that would negatively affect you. You mention loss aversion. That could be considered a bad thing. But it can also be quite helpful. After the bombings in Boston yesterday we had a noticeable increase in security in Chicago where I am. Because I paid attention to the news I knew something had happened and was a little more aware of my surroundings on public transportation than I would normally be. Now, did anything happen? No, but having that awareness didn't hurt me either.

Ignoring the news means being ignorant of the world around you. I understand that no one is immune from the emotional impact of what they see on the news but it doesn't mean they also cannot pull themselves away from it or that it will necessarily lead to some kind of depression or other negative.

People like us don't need to be told to ignore the news. It's the people who watch Fox all day long and can't discern opinion from fact and are looking for someone to validate their world view that need to be told this. The rest of us I think can take it in, learn a thing or two, and see the rest for what it is. If a few of us get emotionally invested in a story for an hour or two then so be it, is there really any serious harm done?

This entire "ignore the news" idea is way too black or white to be realistic. The vast majority of things in this world, including this idea, are far more complex than a simple "do or don't do this or that" answer can provide. There are things you shouldn't do - don't eat Uranium, don't jump off tall buildings, don't stick your tongue in a light socket... this isn't one of those thing.

<comment><USER5> What's wrong with going vegan?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is why I am trying to build a non-profit news site with no adverts. I don't believe there is a real way around the corrupting influence of trying to maximize clicks when there are ads.

My site is looking to bring in the underused resources of think tanks, academics, NGOs and partisan blogs to put flesh around the bones of the core journalistic reporting on politics and economics.

As the old proverb goes "small minds discuss people, average minds discuss events and great minds discuss ideas". We can select against people (celebrity) with classifiers, and surround events (broadsheet news) with deeper discussion of ideas (policy, research, philosophy).

However, if you don't have ads you don't have money. So my project, <http://igg.me/at/jkl/> , is largely unfunded. You can see a very basic prototype here as well: <http://jkl.io>

<comment><USER7> > This is why I am trying to build a non-profit news site with no adverts.

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/>

<comment><USER8> BBC is only entirely 'non-profit' within the confines of the UK.

Flip on a VPN and you hit the BBC World version of the BBC news, complete with adverts.

Besides which, competition is healthy - so I applaud the creation of another another non-profit news site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> He's making some valid points. But it's far too black and white. And insulting for a lot of journalists who do care about their work.

<comment><AUTHOR> I speak as someone who spent several years as a freelance magazine columnist and got quite a close look at how the news is made. What makes you think I'm insulting journalists?

Moreover, a short sound bite isn't the place for nuanced analyses of how the media works. But it _is_ maybe the right place to try and help people who're feeling overloaded right now by the glut of bad news spinning up around the bombings in Boston. Not to mention the other bomb deaths of April 15th -- Iraq (55), Afghanistan (37), Somalia (30), Syria (18), and Pakistan (4).</comment></comment>


It's Not as Simple as Asking to 'Be Forgotten' by Google - <AUTHOR> http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/05/27/upshot/its-not-as-simple-as-asking-to-be-forgotten-by-google.html?referrer=

<comment><USER2> Under this "right to be forgotten" If I were a politician, would I be able to get all the articles and blog posts about my embezzlement/swindling/corruption/what-have-you conviction removed from major search engines before an election?

<comment><USER3> No, because it doesn't apply to politicians.

Also, you can't use RtbF to remove all your slippery-slope arguments from the Internet either.

<comment><USER4> Is there a link to this non-politician clause? Are all public figures covered? Only the unwashed masses should have a right to privacy.

<comment><USER5> I'm not german, so I can't easily find a link in german law for you, but in general privacy law in most of europe provides substantially weaker protections for "public persons", which includes politicians and celebrities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Can anyone explain a rational and practical way to achieve the worldview the European courts are looking to impose? Regardless of whether one thinks one should have the right to be forgotten (or whatever one thinks that means), I don't see any path here which actually accomplishes anything other than constraining businesses large enough to care about EU regulators and allowing all other players to do whatever.

<comment><USER7> While I think that endorsing the right to "be forgotten" is indeed quixotic and a dubious endeavor in general, for practical purposes enforcing these provisions against the biggest actors is probably enough for most practical purposes. Probably most of the people searching for your name are doing so on Google, Yahoo or Bing, and even then they probably aren't going to be going more than a few pages of results deep. If I had been accused of doing something horrible 10 years ago, I'd probably be pretty upset if googling my name returned news articles about that on the first page, much less so if they showed up on the 20th page, and basically unconcerned if they only showed up on a Thai clone of baidu.

<comment><USER8> If I'm searching for someone, perhaps someone I'm starting a romantic relationship with, that horrible thing you were accused of 10 years ago is exactly the type of data I'm looking for.

<comment><USER3> Then you need to dig into the "deep Web" and not just use Google. But most people do not benefit from that information so they won't see it in a Google search.

<comment><USER8> Nearly every single woman I know google searches their dates to check for domestic violence or other problematic charges.

<comment><USER9> I always wondered why my dates play with their phones, then run. I figured they had unplanned server outages to deal with. Your theory is much simpler than "every woman on the east coast is an on-call systems administrator."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Coye Cheshire, an associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley School of Information, thinks part of the solution might be for people to take responsibility for tracking public data about themselves."

The perennial solution in the new neoliberal world: general, pervasive problem that affects everyone systematically? Take responsibility for yourself and damn everyone else!

<comment><USER10> Oh, his followup is equally daft: ""I don't believe that, in many cases, people 'lost' any control over their information at all, because they never really had any real control even before the Internet existed," Mr. Cheshire said. "We often conflate privacy through obscurity with inaccessibility, control or security.""

You used to be able to find out certain information (if for some reason it had been reported on) in records offices or, like, on microfiche at your library ... therefore pervasive data-gathering on everyone in a more or less instantly accessible way hasn't changed anything materially.

Moreover, conclusion "so you never had control anyway" is only one of several possible results here; another is "so there was a problem all along which, since it's now exacerbated, we should really fix".

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the ruling this article writes about is related to the 'right to be forgotten' law passed recently.

I happen to agree with the right to be forgotten - I should be able to have my information removed from Facebook, etc.

I also sort-of agree with this legal ruling. After you've served for your crime you should have the ability to start over. Europe more sees prison as rehabilitation while the u.s. more seems to want to punish people for life (e.g., not allowing felons to vote, buy guns, etc)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Not_Track_legislation#The_Ri...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Not_Track_legislation#The_Right_to_be_Forgotten_.28European_Union.29)

</comment><comment><USER12> If you want the actual search results use a VPN so it looks like you are in the states. It's not like it's hard to get around this kind of thing.</comment>


Six naming myths to ignore - <AUTHOR> http://www.thenameinspector.com/six-naming-myths-to-ignore/ <comment><USER2> Related to #3, make sure to check and see if Google considers your potential name a misspelling and redirects.

My first iOS app fell prey to this. It's called "Farmers MarkIt" ... and, of course, when you google the name it redirects to "farmers market"

They do give you a link to "search instead for farmers markit" but I doubt everyone will get that.

<comment><USER3> I had the same issue when I registered a domain. But if you go ahead and put content on it and use the same word on Twitter or inbound links, eventually Google drops the "did you mean ..." since it is clear this new phrase/word exists and has links.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think the length depends on the type of website. For regular companies, community sites, and Internet memes having a longer name is OK. But whenever I try to think up a domain name for an Internet startup I try to keep it down to 2-3 syllables. If you look at the most successful consumer facing start ups, they may not all have 6 characters or less, but probably 95% do have only 2 syllables, or at least only 2 stressed syllables. Character length doesn't matter as much on the Internet because most people are clicking on links or copying+pasting, but having only a few syllables makes the name easier to say in conversation or when thinking to yourself.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you have any money investing in a branding expert or even just a decent copywriter can go a long way. Keep in mind that your brand isn't just you domain name, and sometimes a tagline can become just as recognizable as the name of a company.

</comment><comment><USER6> Why not be aware of the "rules" (rather than ignoring them), but break them when you need to? By and large, they seem like good advice, as long as you take them with a grain of salt?

</comment><comment><USER7> slightly related - does anyone have any tip on buying domain names from bulk dealers (not sure what they're called)

we own the .net name, but the .com name has a bunch of ads sitting on it. Made an inquiry and was told they wanted US$1000, which we don't have at the moment.

[Edit: name's for sale here <http://www.buydomains.com/> if that helps]

<comment><USER8> Make a counteroffer. Initially, they just want to make a profit. Unfortunately, since you've expressed an interest in the domain, they'll probably renew it. If your site becomes popular, expect to pay much more later (or let it sit parked forever, you'll be in good company). FWIW, I've obtained parked domains by doing a command line whois (DON'T use a registrar or other web-based tool) to check the expiration date, then patiently waiting until they're available again. It seems risky, but it pays off sometimes.

Also, before contacting anyone about purchasing a domain, make sure you've purchased the name under any other TLDs that matter to you, or you might find them scooped up and held hostage based on your interest. To check availability, always do a DNS lookup before a whois lookup, and don't ever look it up at the registrar until you're prepared to buy it on the spot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> One more thing I dont understand is why people choose names like babyli.st, sleepyti.me etc. Is it not irritating to choose name including the extension?? Best way to type these would be to type the full name, move back and put DOT ;)</comment>


Bypass Paywalls – A Firefox extension to bypass paywalls of many news sites - <AUTHOR> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bypasspaywalls/ <comment><USER2> Correct me if I'm wrong but I think publishers are trying to have the cake and eat it too. They want their content to be discoverable in search engines. They also want readers to pay for it. Given how search engines currently work this is a self-contradictory model.

I imagine search engine could offer publishers an API to send content for indexing without having to publish it. Google and others could even charge publishers for that and then published could ask readers for subscriptions.

<comment><USER3> I absolutely support such programs. Similarly to adblockers and DRM, they show that the mechanisms used to generate money simply does not work. Technically it is impossible to expose content to a (web crawler) robot but not to a human (inverse CAPTCHA). And technically it is impossible to control pixels on a free user device.

Publishers, if you want to have people pay for your content, make honest paid subscriptions and deal with it that you vanish from the openly accessible web.

<comment><USER4> Not necessarily. I could imagine Google adding a "paid crawling" service where you tell Google how much your content costs, explicitly allow them access via some authenticated method, and then they display the price next to your content in search results.

You're imagining that it can't work because it can't work in a generic way with all search engines, including future ones that don't exist yet. But that doesn't have to be the case. Most content providers only care about Google.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I find it much easier to tell firefox to block cookies and localstorage for such websites. Usually works when they have a certain free allowance. You can do it from the address bar quite conveniently.

<comment><USER6> Self-destructing cookies (whitelist only) + firefox containers works well for me

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Or we could pay for journalism that the world badly needs.

<comment><USER8> Ah but that doesn't scale!

Do you have an example?

<comment><USER9> Blendle ([https://blendle.com](https://blendle.com)) is a news aggregator where you pay per article that you decide to read. Price ranges from ~20 cents for a fluff opinion piece to ~90 cents for quality journalism. It's just for the Netherlands and possibly Germany (?) atm but they are working towards a US launch.

This is a pretty good model I think. It's accessible and sustainable for both publishers and readers.

<comment><USER10> My problem with Blendle is that you're essentially paying for them to get a full profile of every article your read. At least Google Analytics and such can be blocked, making it more difficult to connect your profile across the sites of different publications. With Blendle, that's impossible.

I know it's adding complexity and most people don't care, but I wish they used a system of crypto vouchers (not like cryptocurrencies, more like Mozilla Persona, which allowed identity providers - in this case, Blendle - to vouch for the user without knowing to whom they were vouching).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is a double edge sword. We complain about too many adverts on sites, and we complain about paywalls. Without ads or paywalls, how do big sites pay for themselves? If you want quality reporting, then someone has to pay those reporters a fair wage for their skill set.

As much as I'd like 'information to be free' we do not yet live in a 'Star Trek' world where money no longer has any meaning, and where people produce 'stuff' purely for the benefit of themselves and others.

Until we reach that utopia (or dystopia depending on your view) you can't have your cake and eat it; It's Ads _or_ Paywalls, pick one.

<comment><USER12> Paywalls that actually work.

The existing model is to treat the Internet as a magazine rack. It doesn't work that way.

A user might read one article from the WSJ a month. Obviously they won't pay 5 USD for that, they'll either attempt to get around the paywall or not bother.

Giving users a few free articles means that they'll just rotate around sites to get what they want. You need to charge a small amount from hit 1.

Not withstanding that it's not hard to build a paywall that actually functions, just don't send the content unless you've paid. This addon relies entirely on the fact that content which has not been paid for gets sent anyway.

Realistically though, the answer is that paid journalism disappears, or the Internet as we know it disappears. Increasingly lately it's looking like both will happen.

<comment><USER13> > Realistically though, the answer is that paid journalism disappears, or the > Internet as we know it disappears. Increasingly lately it's looking like > both will happen.

Seems a touch hyperbolic. My question would be: what part of the internet depends on paid journalism and how would the disappearance of paid journalism effect e.g. buy stuff online, looking at pornography, or accessing social media?

<comment><USER12> Please re-read my comment. I have not stated that they are dependent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'd sooner just not use those sites

<comment><USER15> I'd rather just have access to the information I want.

<comment><USER16> That's implying you somehow have a right to that content - it's a similar argument that e.g. movie and music pirates use, but which they're not aware of themselves. It's feeling entitled to the content, and/or fear of missing out.

But news flash: you are not entitled to something if you don't want to pay for it.

<comment><USER10> You're not entitled to decide what I'm entitled to.

<comment><USER8> Not as an individual no. But maybe you want to replace "entitled" with "freedom" if you're arguing from a libertarian perspective.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I don't understand the point of bypassing, the creators need to make money, if you can afford it, subscribe, if not, use another website. it's that simple

<comment><USER10> I subscribe to a couple of sites. I won't be subscribing for an extra monthly fee I can't afford just to read one or two articles linked on HN. Therefore I have two options: don't read the article, or bypass the paywall.

In both options, the outcome for the site is exactly the same. So, not being a masochist, why shouldn't I choose the outcome that benefits me without harming anyone else?

<comment><USER17> But it is harming someone else in a way, they only want you to read it if you pay for it, there will still be bandwidth costs to cover for people who bypass the paywall, some might argue that in some paywalls, the content is already sent to your browser anyway but that's a whole different story.

It's the same argument for piracy, "if I make a copy, I'm not taking away the original, so I'm not stealing", which is just a lie to tell ourselves to feel a bit better at the end of the day.

<comment><USER10> I agree it's the same as in piracy, and I do the exact same there - pay for what I can, download the rest.

Regarding the bandwidth costs, those are absolutely negligible, since the methods for bypassing the paywalls either only fetch the text (e.g. [http://outline.com](http://outline.com)) or cache it on other servers (e.g. [http://archive.is](http://archive.is)).

It is definitively not what they wish, but not complying with someone's wishes is not _harming_ them.

\--

On that last point, while I don't take my moral code from the law, I note that it agrees with me; for example, even if you have a contract with a guy to build your house, and you say your want a certain brand of pipes, but he ends up using another, you're _not_ entitled to anything. Unfulfilled wishes are not harms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Technically, the extension is clearing cookies for the site, and setting the "Referer" header to either google.com or facebook.com. Is it illegal to do that?

Source: [https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls- firefox/blob/m...](https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls- firefox/blob/master/background.js)

<comment><USER12> Illegal?

What?

Wallace and Gromit in a case of... the Wrong Bits!?

<comment><USER19> IANAL but the definition of Wire Fraud is ridiculously flexible. Manipulation of http headers to get free access to paid services is likely to get you convicted if anyone cared enough to prosecute...

Also likely to be punishable under DMCA as circumventing access controls.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Blocking ads being about privacy always seemed like hypocrisy and extensions like these only prove it.

Of course, the ads revenue model for the Internet only happened because people basically want free labor, being unwilling to pay for the content they consume, screw the publishers the world will survive.

It's sad because what we'll get is legislature and/or more DRM.

<comment><USER10> This extension proves nothing; it's perfectly sensible that someone worried about the privacy of their reading doesn't want to make it worse by tying a payment ID to their profile. Subscriptions are in that sense worse than ads.

<comment><USER20> Haha, yes, exactly my point.

And this makes me think that the existence of DRM is justified.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> How does this work? Do they reuse login credentials or something like that?

<comment><USER22> Depends on the website usually, one that I managed to "hack" is a newspaper in my country (the biggest one actually) that only hides the article text through a CSS class; You just remove that from the HTML through dev tools and have access to the whole thing. I hope in most cases it is more complicated than that

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I want quality journalism but exporsure should be payment enough.

<comment><USER16> There's an /s in there right?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> In which jurisdictions is this deliberate circumvention of access controls legal?

<comment><USER25> In Germany, this is defined in § 95a UrhG [0], as in "bypassing safeguard measures to gain access to copyright material". "Anti-Anti-Adblocks", as in Adblock filters bypassing adblock popups, were already declared illegal in the BILD case [1].

[0] [https://dejure.org/gesetze/UrhG/95a.html](https://dejure.org/gesetze/UrhG/95a.html)

[1] [https://www.wbs-law.de/it-recht/verbreitung-einer- anleitung-...](https://www.wbs-law.de/it-recht/verbreitung-einer-anleitung- zur-umgehung-einer-adblock-sperre-ist-rechtswidrig-71569/)

<comment><USER26> The first word of the law is "wirksame", which means "effective".

It's very easy to argue that this protection that is trivial to circumvent is not "wirksam".

<comment><USER25> Yes, that's why I've added the second link. Someone posted a tutorial on how to bypass the BILD Anti-Adblock. He argued that this is not an "effective" protection, but a court ruled an "Anti-Adblock" script as "effective".

<comment><USER27> It depends on the court. IIRC, that ruling came from the Landgericht Hamburg, which has become a bit of a running gag because of their copyright friendly rulings.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


SuperStride Me: Reg hack spends week working at 'treadmill desk' - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/20/superstride_me_part_two_reg_man_attempts_to_walk_off_giant_curry/

<comment><AUTHOR> Part#1 is here [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/18/treadmill_desk_test/](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/18/treadmill_desk_test/) which is where I used the title from. Part#2 (this submission) has a video with Simon Sharwood actually using the treadmill desk which is informative, however the title was probably not that HN friendly ("SuperStride Me: Reg man attempts to walk off GIANT CURRY") :)</comment>


Gigster (YC S15) Does The Dev Work To Turn Your Idea Into An App - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/22/uber-for-developers/ <comment><USER6> Just because you hide a software consulting shop behind an app doesn't mean you can change the fundamental difficulties with software consulting. I wish Gigster luck, but ultimately this approach isn't much different from what many offshore dev shops do today. I can get a quote in under an hour from a half dozen places today; but it doesn't mean it will be accurate or what I want.

<comment><USER7> This. Nothing has changed from going to upwork or freelancer or whatever, except rather than many bidders to chose from you just have one.

<comment><USER8> The thing that has potentially changed (if they can really pull it off) is the ability to get a reliable quote for any particular project in a few minutes. Any technical manager can duplicate the process of building out a project plan and lining up the cheap resources to get it done (and recruiting from schools or whatever), but being able to scope a project reliably, let alone estimate its cost, basically on the fly is a real challenge. If they've actually solved that, then this is awesome. If not, then it's probably just the same as paying someone to use ODesk (or Upwork or whatever they call it now) for you.

<comment><USER6> If they can do that, then they have found a magic bullet for one of the biggest problems in software development. I have a suspicion that's the real problem they're trying to solve, so they're "doing things that don't scale" to try to engineer a platform that solves for that problem. That's the only way VCs would throw money at a business model like this.

I wish them luck, but I just think there are too many variables that getting a large enough sample size would bankrupt them before they approach a workable solution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> First, I'll say it's a cool idea and the website interface is well done on the backend. It looks as if they have created a great means of managing a project.

Speaking with their support staff was concerning, however. I asked rudimentary questions about how projects are handled that is not covered in their documentation. The staff member I spoke with became increasingly curt and bluntly asked if I wanted to proceed with a project or not, ignoring my questions. I apologized and logged out. I won't be returning.

So take my experience as you will. Best of luck to the team.

<comment><USER10> I am one of the cofounders and I'll be emailing you right away. This is absolutely not the way we operate and I'm happy to jump on a phone call with you to answer any questions you have! Very sorry about any issues you had in our chat. Techcrunch is definitely stretching us (in a good way) and so sometimes we mess up. Very sorry once again I'll be in touch!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "If the project is behind schedule, Gigster just assigns more developers to it or fires under-performing ones so it gets done on time." \- Somebody hasn't read Mythical Man-Month.

<comment><USER10> Hi! We don't assign more people blindly. But what do you propose we do if a developer gets sick or has to travel? We are engineers ourselves and are certainly careful to not just load up a bunch of devs on a project. We've done that before and it was painful :) Thanks for the feedback!

<comment><USER12> >> But what do you propose we do if a developer gets sick or has to travel?

I think that's sort of the point. You do whatever any other engineering team does when faced with the same challenges. The question is what is Gigster doing differently that allows you to achieve consistent on-time, on-budget results? Because if you have that formula, you could probably make a lot more money just consulting with existing dev shops on how to implement it.

<comment><USER13> Their FAQ answers your question. They are planning to simply eat any project budget overrun, aiming for growth rather than profit.

        YOU SOUND TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE.
        HOW CAN YOU DO IT THIS CHEAP?

        Agencies and development shops have a lot of overhead
        & are fundamentally lifestyle business, meaning that
        their focus is profits. Gigster is venture-backed so our
        focus is growth & customer satisfaction. We'd have a
        referral from you than your money. Profits come later
        when we are at scale.

<comment><USER12> Translation: we're burning other people's money so we can underbid anyone and build a customer book. Of course, at some point someone is going to want the business to be profitable and then, hey presto, you're a dev shop like all the other dev shops.

<comment><USER14> I'm disappointed in YC for funding this; I think it's destructive to the hacker economy/ecosystem. Excerpting a comment from a thread last year re: Marc Andressen's complaints about startup burn rates that applies:

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

I find it very hard not to get angry at these posts...

...One of the biggest problems facing my company right now is dealing with all of the venture-funded idiots coming after my customers, market and employees without so much as a hint of a viable business model. They outspend us on marketing 1000-to-1 and they offer to serve our clients essentially for free, apparently just to be able to win a logo for the "traction" slide in their deck in the hope that they will have enough proof points to get them their next hit of venture money.

I know that nearly all of them are going to vaporize eventually, but in the meantime they completely poison the well for all of us who are trying to do what Andressen, Wilson and the rest pretend they want startups to be doing - creating sustainable businesses in sustainable markets.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8369734](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8369734)

<comment><USER15> haha. Amazon requires vendors to provide 1 year of free service if they want to use Amazon's name in their bizdev.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's pretty worrisome that they say "The Gigsters come from companies like Google or Stripe that are looking for some extra projects." Google is pretty strict about side projects done by its employees; its IP release claims ownership over anything "along the lines of business of Google", which the company has in the past interpreted as "anything tech-related". There's a release process, but I really doubt they would grant approval for freelancing for Gigster on the side.

All that means that if the article is accurate, then customers of this service may find that Google owns their IP if they get big.

<comment><USER17> > Google is pretty strict about side projects done by its employees; its IP > release claims ownership over anything

IANAL nor do I play one on TV but I don't know if I actually believe that is legal - and if it is then it's a huge legal nightmare.

Take this project for example[1]. He worked on it before he was an employee of Google and after - does that mean Google automatically gets copyright over the project? What about after he leaves Google? What about if he never touched it while working at Google - does Google still get automatic copyright over it?

[1] [https://github.com/snapframework/snap- server/commit/5e4850d4...](https://github.com/snapframework/snap- server/commit/5e4850d4cb74c75e706df509b90befc95263746a)

<comment><USER15> Greg was not in CA, and snap is open source, so this example is a non-issue and the author didn't care.

<comment><USER17> > snap is open source

But Google now lays claim over its copyright which gives them the right to sell it or take it down completely. But thankfully - if you have an old version - they can't retroactively change the license. However - that won't stop Google from sending DMCA takedowns if it gets big enough.

> so this example is a non-issue

It's a huge issue - when people and companies don't even understand the terms of the GPL [1] copyright and licenses could make a huge impact. Yes - <USER2> can fork it and call it pans and make all sorts of awesome changes - <USER3> that's horrible for software development. Now there are 2 different versions with different features - I would rather one project that completely works than 2 similar projects that kind of works.

> the author didn't care

The other contributors did - and that's equally important. I would not want to piss off the people who are contributing code to my project. Once other people start contributing code - a good open source project should respect the opinions and comments of the community.

[1] [https://github.com/github/dmca/commit/85c03a289fe56c67636ed6...](https://github.com/github/dmca/commit/85c03a289fe56c67636ed6409011bc76964272a4)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Very interesting that a well-marketed agency/service biz got VC funding to the tune of $2.5m. Service businesses are notoriously hard to scale and run on thin margins, not usually of interest to SV investors chasing 10x'ers. What's the secret sauce here that makes it more scalable than the traditional agency/dev shop model?

<comment><USER19> I was wondering the exact same thing. The reality of an agency model is that to scale revenue you have to hire more worker bees. As part of that process two things happen. One, logistics become more complicated because of the additional communication overhead between people. Two, standards have to be lowered for new hires, otherwise they will quickly run out of people to hire. So even assuming that they currently have a few great product managers (and project managers) that are able to ensure projects are completed on time and to the customers satisfaction, the idea that all the skills involved could be boiled down to a simple algorithm or toolkit (to allow for massive scaling) seems all but impossible. I just don't believe that these folks have figured something out that every other agency in the world has not.

<comment><USER20> > The reality of an agency model is that to scale revenue you have to hire > more worker bees.

And the worst part is, it scales _linearly_ \ _cue groans\_. Funny how in business, that's terrible (it's literally the worst it could possibly be to have a potentially profitable business), but with algorithms, it's the holy grail.

Interesting point BTW about reduction in quality of workers over time. (Like the pretentious-but-true saying "A-players hire other A-players. B-players hire C-players, and C-players hire losers") I've noticed the same trend though in product-centered businesses where I've worked. Unfortunately, I feel like the fact that the amount of work to be done _doesn 't_ scale linearly with revenues actually _exacerbates_ the subsequent-employee-quality-decline- problem because even if the new guys are less... good, the company is still making more money so nobody except the coworkers and managers of these people (who actually have to work with them on a daily basis) even cares.

It's probably not a problem at places like Google and Facebook, but it was kinda heartbreaking to watch my super-talented and motivated dozen-person startup team become something completely different because we were growing so fast and were told to spend money and hire like crazy after taking an investment round.

<comment><USER21> > And the worst part is, it scales linearly

Assuming optimum talent and project selection, it should scale sublinearly. The _N+1_ th worker bee will be less productive than the _N_ th, and the _N+1_ th project will have a be willing to pay less than the _N_ th in terms of $/unit output.

<comment><USER22> I think it's even more bleak than that, because adding the N+1th worker bee adds N new communication paths, unless you start segmenting people into org trees, which at that point you now have to maintain managers and middle managers.

Roughly [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%E2%80%99_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%E2%80%99_law)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Can anyone related to this explain to me why Yahoo Weather is listed under their "success stories"? As the PM on the project, I can say without a doubt this was not done externally. It was built through the sweat and tears of the wonderful engineers and designers on the team.

[https://www.dropbox.com/s/fie0qrk7ecpphib/weather.jpg?dl=0](https://www.dropbox.com/s/fie0qrk7ecpphib/weather.jpg?dl=0)

This just seems like blatant lying to me.

<comment><USER10> One of the main developers of the Yahoo weather app is a gigster (developer on the platform). The statement is that it was built by "one of our gigsters" and is intended to showcase the quality of work developers on Gigster have done. Had that developer been on Odesk or TapFame they would have listed Yahoo Weather as part of their portfolio. In this case they actually do list it as part of their portfolio. Definitely do not intend to take away from your hard work and appreciate you for it. Happy to do better in making this clearer but it's a bit unfair to imply that we cant showcase the work of developers on our platform as an indicator of developer quality.

<comment><USER24> Sorry, I agree with the OP. I interpreted the "Success Stories" page, especially when it is sub-titled "Our prior work speaks for itself" as referring to the work performed through Gigstar. There is a difference between allowing somebody to claim work they performed versus assigning that claim to the body that employs them after the fact. This example, just because of the lack of clarity, presents itself as the latter which is a little unfair in itself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> First, brilliant idea.

Second, 10-minute guaranteed quote? Would you share with me this amazing estimate technology? I've been at it for 10+ years, having helped build a popular website from the ground up and can't estimate the dev time of project with that kind of conviction given 10 hours.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha thanks! Submit a sample project if you want to see how it works.

<comment><USER26> I'm pretty sure he was being sarcastic... It is pretty absurd to think you are going to get your head around the requirements for a project and come up with a good estimate in 10 minutes. It suggests naivety or dishonesty. You choose.

<comment><USER25> Half sarcastic, maybe. But, genuinely curious about how they are managing the risk around scoping/estimation. Perhaps using overly conservative estimates or else assuming that on average their estimates will be close. Or maybe those Google/MIT engineers are magical.

<comment><USER13> I'm pretty sure they're planning to throw VC money at the problem until it goes away ("it" being either the problem or the money).

<comment><USER27> I don't think estimating will be that much of a problem if the right formula is used. Is this straightforward and the team a has done stuff like this before (most cases)... apply the component formula and add the markup. Is it hairy with lots of unknowns? 1.2 million dollars.

<comment><USER26> No disrespect meant, but no one with any real software development experience would suggest that a quick formula can be used to estimate the cost/time to develop a given project. Very experienced people spend lots of time up front trying to estimate cost/time and are usually not very close.

<comment><USER27> Agreed. Re-read my comment?

<comment><USER26> "Is this straightforward" can't be figured in 10 minutes for the vast majority of projects. And if you are outsourcing to devs, "has the team done stuff like this" is going to take some time too. 10 minutes simply isn't enough time. Would you have the same thought about 1 minute? 5 minutes? At what point do you say "no, that isn't enough time?". I'll take a few hours as enough time for some reasonably small but not trivial number of projects as a %.

<comment><USER28> I've built or managed the teams that built over 50 software projects, ranging from small up to about half a million dollars.

With all that experience, my estimate process is now extremely honed. It takes me, quite consistently, 4 to 8 hours for a typical web startup MVP. And that's assuming I can build the product completely with technologies my team has used before.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> cool-RR Not really seeing how this is anything more than a fancy outsourcing company. Yes, they can say "We're different because we have the best developers," but really, lots of outsourcing companies say that.

<comment><AUTHOR> A few other differences - you don't interface with developers, price is guaranteed, costs are lower because dev talent isn't in house (no holding cost).

<comment><USER29> Have you ever worked at an outsourcing company?

That is literally how it works at many of them, just fyi. I'd strongly, strongly recommend you hire someone who does PM for one of those companies if you are as oblivious to how they work as that statement just made it appear.

> A few other differences - you don't interface with developers,

Yeah, plenty of them just want you to talk to the PM. The only time I was ever brought into meetings was when it was a very, very large customer [e.g. Bigger than Zynga] and the contract was 7 figures.

> price is guaranteed,

Prices are often fixed in outsourcing contracts at a per-project price with a list of deliverables and features.

> costs are lower because dev talent isn't in house (no holding cost).

I've worked with outsourcing companies where they paid per-project or per-hour a specific project [usually projects under $20k] as their sole model.

I worked with 2-3 at a time and just kept the apprised of my availability, one usually was the bread and butter while the other two handed me small projects [usually 80 hours or less].

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Interesting I just tried signing up for a project. Under platforms they only have web or phone base platforms.

Am I the only one who doesn't develop for a mobile or web platform anymore:(

Just give me a couple of statisticians who can program so I can update my backtester!!!

Interesting idea, its easy to dismiss it but as someone who initially said meh to Uber and AirBnB when I first heard about them, I've learned that my initial gut reaction to most apps is pretty useless.

<comment><USER31> Keen to know why you had a "Meh" response to Uber or AirBnB...

I am assuming you don't have the same response now and if so what changed.. Did your knowledge of the product change(like, you thought AirBnB was renting Air mattresses earlier) or did the traction the product received change your thinking...

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> What's up with Techcrunch? Is this article an advertisement? It seems like an advertorial, though a lot of TC seems like that these days. Is this the writer's friends company?

<comment><USER6> Every article about every startup you read is an advertisement. I'm not even joking; you pay a PR firm to seed articles at news sites. The writer is probably friends with the PR person who feeds them stories and likely a placement fee that gets shared with TC. If you think any positive story you read about any company isn't paid for, then you haven't been involved with media in any way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> A lot of doubt here in the comments but I think this is a real problem that people pay money for every day to get a worse result from Odesk etc.

Quality, strict timescales, integrated product management for clients - <USER4> flow positive early on, maybe equity options for Gigster(s) - sounds like it could work if the execution is water tight.

Only worry I can think of is it's hard to make a clean product out of it when every job is vastly different and can get messy/out of scope.

</comment><comment><USER34> This is amazing marketing for an outsourcing shop. You don't get to meet the developers so who knows what "top 5%" really means and there's clearly not any competition. The price you get is the price you get.

</comment><comment><USER35> This would be great for porting already-done and well-defined stuff to oddball platforms that you don't have in-house experience with and are not comfortable vetting talent in that particular platform. "We're primarily an iOS company, here's our existing app, here's what it looks like, how every interface behaves, the backend services it hits, etc. Now just do exactly this, but on Windows Phone." I don't know if I'd have the guts to use it for "I've got nothing but an idea--make me an app from nothing!"

<comment><USER36> No, but I bet plenty of "ideas" people would be ecstatic about it. Maybe less thrilled that they can't pay in percentage of profit, but happy nonetheless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Its so hard to believe that the end goal is to be a curated oDesk- which essentially makes it even worse than a online labor marketplace- a services business of which there are 100,000+ in the world. What would be the differentiator?

The idea isn't new and there have been startups like GroupTalent, Crew and TopTal that have tried/are trying this and many others in various different verticals.

I'm wondering if the A list angels and VCs are privy to some deeper plan about what this intends to become long-term.

<comment><USER38>
      > What would be the differentiator?

Pitching themselves as "Uber for $X"

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> So, a consulting shop with some MIT, Google buzzword thrown around?

<comment><USER40> Well, if they get the processes right, this could be a good place to work.

I mean, the biggest problem in consulting isn't the coding, it is to work out what the customer wants.

If they give you a spec and you're just bound to that spec, it could be a good thing.

Code the stuff, get your money, don't care about the rest.

They have to meddle with the customers, if some misunderstandings happened.

<comment><USER6> Misunderstandings always happen. Meddling with the customers is the entire problem with this type of work. If you don't meddle with them then they are unhappy and refuse to pay their bills and you end up in litigation up to your eyeballs. But meddling with them is expensive and time-consuming. Pick your poison.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> How is Gigster different from the zillions of outsourcing companies?

</comment><comment><USER42> The irony is that YC would never invest in a startup that had its technical side outsourced through a service like this. But I can definitely see the market potential. Good luck guys.

</comment><comment><USER43> This is not really a platform. It's a consulting shop, with money to buy TC space

</comment><comment><USER44> From the gigster faq "Profits come later when we are at scale"

From the faq.

1\. This is dangerous if there is no clear plan on what competitive advantage scale gets you.

\- Is it network effects? \- Is there some other benefit that i am missing? Would it drive down the marginal costs of the project once you have an existing library or ways to optimize the process?

2\. I have a theory, running at a loss, free or with no bus model only makes sense in a few cases:

\- strong network effects (fb, twitter etc) \- High LTV for customer, together with low churn. \- Proxy for demand/supply. For e.g Solving a customers problem on one side. This may be low cost or even free, eventually you bring in the other side of the market \- The scale gives you access to data that no- one else can get. This allows you to be much more efficient / cross subsidise etc.

<comment><USER45> it's a marketplace

marketplaces have strong network effects

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> So it's like pivotal labs, or any other contract shop? Why would anyone fund this?

This sets off my "peak tech" sensor like nothing before it!

</comment><comment><USER45> Wow, this looks pretty awesome if they are able to uphold the talent bar.

Would be good to get more info of how much you can make as a developer and how much projects are likely to cost, though.

<comment><USER10> Hi! A good developer can expect to make $10K - $20K per month on Gigster :) The developer also can expect to do no sales or management work on the project. You just write code on interesting projects and get paid :) Much like Uber hands drivers rides and they just have to accept them.

<comment><USER47> > Much like Uber hands drivers rides and they just have to accept them.

So much like Uber, can we assume that "$10-$20k/month" is a mythical number[0] that could only be achieved by working 100+ hours per week and virtually no developers will actually make that much?

[0] [http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/10/uber...](http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/10/uber_driver_salary_the_ride_sharing_company_says_its_drivers_make_great.html)

<comment><USER42> I believe theres no bidding, so gigster only accepts gigs that can pay the dev reasonably. Correct me if i'm wrong.

<comment><USER10> This is correct. We price out the gigs ahead of time and match them with developers who like the price.

<comment><USER48> Sounds like this will have a perpetual race to the bottom as inevitably there'll be developers asking high prices and not being paired with the work, and those asking less with more pairings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Difficult to see any good developers wanting to be on the supply side of this thing. So, you end up with a bunch of bad developers for hire.

<comment><AUTHOR> Gigster was actually designed from the freelancer's perspective first - <USER5> bidding, no interfacing with customers all specs are in a standard format, reliable/regular payments, etc. I don't know of a better place to freelance.

<comment><USER26> I'm really struggling to believe "elite" people from MIT or google are going to be working at a rate where they can make 10-20k per month. It just doesn't really make sense given their other options.

<comment><USER49> Exactly. Given the choice between inventing the future and writing the next myface-for-hamsters, which would you do?

<comment><USER50> "Phone it in" so you don't feel bad about spending time with family/hobbies?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> What about "small" projects? Or projects that are "changes" to an existing solution/project/deployment? Finishing touches to existing project?

UX-design as a service would be great, at least from a developer's perspective. This is something I've never been able to do, and pretty much forces me to go elsewhere if I want a project completed.

<comment><AUTHOR> These are ok provided the budget is $1k+. Otherwise it's probably not worth it for you given that we have to get in & learn the code. We do UX design too!

<comment><USER51> Thanks for the info!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> 2 years ago, I was in NY trying to create a platform to match great open source devs and startups in need who also love good software (github/crowdfunding/great search engine).

I'm impressed you guys are doing it...

What does it take to actually work as a freelancer for Gigster ?

<comment><AUTHOR> You can apply here - [https://app.trygigster.com/gigster](https://app.trygigster.com/gigster)

<comment><USER53> This page is totally broken after you apply - nothing shows up under the Dashboard

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> `Your Skills` section needs review:

Rails but no Ruby

MySQL but no Postgres

Docker but no chef nor puppet

etc.

Might be good to sort by either type of technology or alphabetical etc.

<comment><USER10> Thanks for the Feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> As a consultant/freelance engineer, this might be useful. It always takes way too much of my time trying to wrangle the non-product details from clients. My solution so far is to have a partner deal with that so I can focus on the software.

</comment><comment><USER56> It would tough for someone to make $10,000 coding something that's worth a few million, and not receive any equity. I'm not saying there aren't people willing to do that, I'm just saying it must suck to find that out.

<comment><USER10> We actually plan to give _all_ Gigster developers equity or options on projects!

<comment><USER57> So you ask clients to give Gigster equity?

Also, would love to hear more about your pricing generally.

<comment><USER10> Hi! Not all clients, just a select few. We collect data on all the projects we do and infer prices automatically :) Generally you can expect a Gigster project to be way cheaper (we've seen 10X in some cases) than what an agency would charge and often times cheaper or on par with similarly curated services like toptal but with the added convenience you get from having a product manager like an agency would provide.

<comment><USER21> If only a select few clients, not all clients, provide equity, how can you give " _all_ Gigster developers equity or options on projects!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> What I really want to see is Gigster's _contract_. What terms do they make their clients sign?

To do any kind of fixed-price work, you need absolutely ironclad protection against scope creep. Said protection against scope creep usually must start with an extremely detailed specification - the kind of thing that takes weeks to develop, not a 10-minute phone call.

I would imagine Gigster's terms looks something like: • Client gets no input beyond the 10-minute phone call • Interpretation of the specifications given in that phone call is 100% up to Gigster • Any revision of specifications whatsoever results in a change order

</comment><comment><USER58> I tried to create an account (to look for work), but the submit button didn't work.

It scrolled me back to the top of the screen and didn't send any data to the server, but didn't display any errors.

</comment><comment><USER59> No Scala, PostgreSQL on Gigster. :(

<comment><USER42> Relax, they literally only just started this endeavour :P.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> No bad. Now I just need a company to do the same for growth hacking / full stack marketing. This is only half the puzzle, and the easier half.

<comment><USER61> We do this at CloudPeeps! It's like Crew or a Gigster but for marketing, content and community talent - [https://cloudpeeps.com](https://cloudpeeps.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> So going to [https://app.trygigster.com/new](https://app.trygigster.com/new)

Gives me Heroku's application error message. I guess they should have used their own Gigsters:

Application Error An error occurred in the application and your page could not be served. Please try again in a few moments.

If you are the application owner, check your logs for details.

</comment><comment><USER63> The actual development is a minor part of a product's success. A good consulting firm has the experience to craft your idea into a product that highlights its most compelling features and minimize its usage friction. A experienced firm can also reduce time to market by eliminating features that are not necessary or finding alternative ways to develop them.

</comment><comment><USER64> Who owns the project source after initial development? Who actually manage deployment in production (and ultimately pays for the vms)?

</comment><comment><USER65> Am I the only one that reduced the article's credibility the moment I saw the poster from Hackers used as the lead-in image?

</comment><comment><USER66> How does Gigster differ from a typical software house that hires its workforce to others?

</comment><comment><USER67> So is this platform part-time work-friendly? Or just for devs who are wholly freelance?

<comment><AUTHOR> Absolutely. Most developers are part time :)

<comment><USER67> Part-time remote work that pays decently^? Ok, now you got my attention. Good luck!

^ I hope?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> This is pretty cool. So far Codementor is the best but maybe I should look at this.

</comment><comment><USER69> I'm very interested! I was just about to start the slog of navigating ODesk/Elance to get something built but already feel more trusting towards your approach. We shall see...

BTW, portfolio doesn't seem to work: trygigster.com/portfolio errors out

</comment><comment><USER70> I keep reading Gangster.

</comment><comment><USER71> I lol'ed at "a silicon valley product manager on every project"

<comment><AUTHOR> It's true! SV has a great brand for PM's. Customers love knowing they are working with great talent, especially with all the noise out there.

<comment><USER47> Maybe you should hire a sarcasm-identifier on TaskRabbit?

<comment><USER20> I don't understand either, do you (or someone) mind explaining? Are SV Product Managers considered to be bad?

<comment><USER72> I am going to assume that the sarcasm refers to the absurd arrogance in implying that only and all product managers in silicon valley, california, usa are good.

Overall, I really like the idea, but the language of the site and of the people answering on this thread is really ringing alarm bells in my head.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> Yawn.

</comment><comment><USER74> >Dickey runs me through the process. "Say you want to build an Uber for pizza delivery. You get [a Gigster sales engineer] who'll ask about the details. 'How do you want to handle delivery?' 'Are you going to use your own fleet or a fleet service?' Does it have to show exactly how long until the delivery?' They figure out figure the budget and work schedule, and you pay with Stripe. On the backend we assemble a team for you , algorithms and people. 1 PM< 1 or more eng, and a uX UI designer. Team get started and you get weekly updates. PM is the single pout 0iof onset they take full responsibility. after 4-8 milestones and then it's finsih and we handle maitnaencae for life. – bug fie. fi people want upgrades or additions, we price those out al a caret. IF you want to add a pizao f the day feature we say we can do that for 1k, how does that sound. All on-demand.

Did the writer have a stroke? How did this even happen?

<comment><USER75> I saw someone on Twitter mentioned that it was a draft version. Once updated, that's in a quote section and doesn't sound the same. I thought I was going crazy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> > "Just go to Gigster's site, instant message with a _sales engineer_ , tell > them what you want built, and in 10 minutes you get a guaranteed quote "

My BS detector is off the charts. This has clearly worked well for lot of startups that went bust because the sales sold something that didn't exist and couldn't be delivered. First you are talking with the wrong person if they are not intimately involved with your vision. They will gladly sell you the moon and earth if it means a commission check.

I build MVPs but it takes a good week or two just to wrap head around their vision and develop a plan to turn it into reality. 10 minutes isn't enough time and guaranteeing the cost means cutting corners, A LOT of them. _You can 't do this in 10 minutes if you are looking for quality._ In fact I'd argue that without taking the time to chat and do some careful mine sweeping to look for potential pitfalls or scope creeps, you are most likely talking to a snake oils salesman, and this excerpt from that article shows this.

If they did poach the top talent in SV, why in the hell are these people working for a fixed cost? Guaranteed quote means guaranteed overtime, there's no way someone talented would put up with unpaid overtime, or is there a major "disruption" going on here.

</comment><comment><USER77> This sounds kind of like ZipTask, which also (used to?) assigns a project manager who then pulls from a pool of freelancers. [https://www.ziptask.com/](https://www.ziptask.com/)

</comment><comment><USER78> Hey! Can you describe your project in greater detail or link me to a spec? I'll be in touch soon. We're running behind due to the Techcrunch launch :) 2 minutes ago

YLXAWJHC i want a youporn clone 2 minutes ago

YLXAWJHC hello? a minute ago

YLXAWJHC I need this done ASAP a minute ago

YLXAWJHC can you agree to equity share? a minute ago

YLXAWJHC once I market it it will be HUGE a minute ago

DEBO we take equity on some projects :) However we dont really discount the projects that much a few seconds ago

DEBO for them what's your budget here? a few seconds ago

YLXAWJHC well 1k to start a few seconds ago</comment>


Thinking about Danny Devito - <AUTHOR> http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/05/thinking-about.html <comment><USER2> not that i know the actual equation that seth is using, nor do i have knowledge of the values of the variables he's using...

i'm pretty sure that betting on being successful as a "devito" is much like betting on a long shot at a horse race.

i'd rather bet on the field. lower payout, but way better odds...

peace

<comment><USER3> It's the parimutuel system at work - your expected payout depends not just on how fit your choice is, but how fit it is relative to everyone else's expectations.

Godin's point - and this is echoed in Nassim Taleb's books, along with the research that spawned _Blink_ \- is that there's a built-in cognitive bias towards putting your money on the "expected" winner, and that most people don't realize that the odds already take the favorite's fitness into account. So your expected payoffs are often bigger with long shots, because most of the people betting follow the same mental heuristics.

Even better is to do as Warren Buffett does (or appears to do), and calculate the actual odds. Then you bet only if the posted odds are significantly in your favor vs. the actual odds.</comment></comment>


Growing a SaaS: Avoid Confusing Dual Offers - <AUTHOR> https://www.whalepages.com/growing-a-saas-means-avoiding-confusing-dual-offers/ <comment><USER2> Hi, our company ([https://fanout.io](https://fanout.io)) was the one that was interviewed here. The formatting of the article seems a little messed up. Hopefully they fix that.

For those curious about the technical specifics of our two offerings, we had (and still have) both a hybrid proxy/broker system and a basic JSON messaging system. The proxy system is the reason we started the company. However, we built the JSON system so we could compete directly with companies like Pusher and PubNub.

In old versions of our websites, we tended to highlight the JSON system over the other. For example, in 2014, the "Simple" category was promoted first: [https://web.archive.org/web/20140207193606/https://fanout.io...](https://web.archive.org/web/20140207193606/https://fanout.io/)

In 2015, we changed it use a left/right flow. However, the proxy system was still branded as advanced: [https://web.archive.org/web/20150315032351/https://fanout.io...](https://web.archive.org/web/20150315032351/https://fanout.io/)

Today, the proxy system is the only one we promote on the site. In order to reach that point, we had to figure out how to make the proxy system more usable. We've succeeded at this by creating very fancy integration libraries, such as our Django library: [https://docs.fanout.io/docs/django- quickstart](https://docs.fanout.io/docs/django-quickstart)

<comment><USER3> Following on from your links, if I understand it correctly, Pushpin: [https://pushpin.org/docs/about/](https://pushpin.org/docs/about/) is essentially an open source version of your service that you support (I presume you alluded to this in the interview as "OSS is a good driver of traffic for us").

I believe that is a great model for smaller SaaS companies to follow, as it reduces a lot of the risks ("use our service to reduce your time to market. If you don't like it later on, here's your out."). Great stuff!

<comment><USER2> "here's your out" is a good way of putting it. :)

When I'm on the buyer side, often one of my top concerns is understanding how I could potentially stop using a thing. Usually this comes down to selecting tools based on open technology.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Kind of disappointing they didn't go more into detail about the dual offers touted in the title.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's actually a really good point. I'm actually going to ask the team at Fanout to provide more detail and I'll get it added to the site ASAP.

<comment><AUTHOR> A beefed up response to the "dual offering" was just added to the interview.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The low contrast text on this site is impossible for me to read comfortably. Gave up trying to read it.

</comment><comment><USER6> In-your-face ads are so annoying. How on earth someone upvoted this?

<comment><USER7> I assume the upvoters managed to overcome the massive obstacle of clicking once to hide the advert, went on to read the article anyway, and decided it was worth even the major inconvenience of that extra click to other readers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The technology behind it is really old, but it was new to me, worth checking out.

Basically you can implement websocket like functionality, without using websockets. Super simple and robust realtime messaging from your php server code to your JS frontend, without dependencies.

Search for: text/event-stream

<comment><USER9> Oh god, this reminds me of ... what was it? 2004? with CGI and streaming HTML with multipart?

Glad to see that what was a horrible hack back then is now at least a proper standard. Thanks!</comment></comment>


Dell Mini Inspiron, Their First Mini Laptop - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/393815/exclusive-dell-mini-inspiron-their-first-mini-laptop <comment><USER2> If you look carefully, you'll see that the photos (and the design of the laptop) is intended to visually hide how THICK it is.

In the past 3 years Dell has been producing _junk_ laptops.

I will not buy one again and I caution anyone who thinks of buying one to see it in person first, lift it, and check if it's constructed well before purchasing it. Lately they have cheap keyboards, awful trackpads and buttons, and they are ridiculously thick.

<comment><USER3> This is basically flamebait, but I disagree. Dell are the biggest low-end computer manufacturer which are, for the most part, significantly cheaper than their competitors. You sacrifice build quality and design to get that.

I actually think their build quality has improved recently too after a dark period - their newer laptops feel better built for the cost - and the M1330 is well-designed well-built at a very competitive price and is among the best products Dell have ever come out with.

There's too few details to make any opinion on this product, but writing Dell off is foolish.

<comment><USER2> I haven't seen the M1330, but I have been burned twice by buying Dell laptops. This is after a run of about 3 great ones. The problem started when they went to the thick unrounded two-tone cases with silver on top (at least in the Inspiron line). A friend ordered one of their newer ones (with the led backlight, core 2 duo, etc.) and in spite of its > $2K pricetag it has terrible build quality and flexes and groans when picked up. It feels like a toy.

I am not totally writing off Dell, but it's going to take a lot to win me back as a customer. To make matters worse, a few years ago I ordered a bunch of servers from their small business division and the way they do sales is totally annoying. The only person you can talk to is your own rep and if he's on the phone or out of the office you get voicemail. Also, if you don't negotiate hard (or buy small business stuff online) you get ripped by about 20% -- why can't they just publish a good price on the web and let people order it w/o having to talk to someone 3 times just so they take off that 20% markup?

Back to laptops -- I got a high end Toshiba and it's been great.... surprisingly, far better (battery life, heat dissipation, build quality) than any of the Dells I've had.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why even mention this junk on HN?

<comment><USER5> the eepc looks like junk to me, too

<comment><USER6> Do you mean the Eee PC?

<comment><USER5> yes, sorry - guess the brand did not really infiltrate my mind...</comment></comment></comment></comment>


If Google Maps Were Real: An Artist's Vision [PICS] - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2010/09/12/google-maps-art/

<comment><USER2> It pains me to see a Mashable story on the front page. This post (like most Mashable pieces) is of little use to the HN community.

Let's keep this sort of "lowest common denominator" stuff on Reddit and Digg.

<comment><USER3> I agree, why not link to the source? It's in the article.

[http://www.flickr.com/photos/alejomalia/sets/721576249213036...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/alejomalia/sets/72157624921303688/detail/)</comment></comment>


LogMeIn to discontinue free remote access product - <AUTHOR> http://blog.logmein.com/it-management/logmein-changes <comment><USER2> Whilst I completely respect their decision to withdraw the LogMeIn Free product offering I found the notification period way too short and badly communicated. I received an email this morning saying there would no longer be a LogMeIn Free offering from today and a subscription would be required to continue using the service. Digging further it appears there's a 7 day grace period for existing users - although there's no mention of that in the email. It's a stellar product for sure so I now find myself asking if I want to do business with a company that communicates this badly with it's users.

</comment><comment><USER3> TL:DR: LogMeIn decided to screw up the customers who once paid $99 to get their premium Ignition iOS app and wants them to pay monthly/yearly.

<comment><USER4> I think Ignition was always $29.99 or less. I don't remember seeing $99 any time. Is that what you payed?

<comment><USER5> The app has been as high as $149 on the AppStore.

[http://appshopper.com/productivity/logmein- ignition](http://appshopper.com/productivity/logmein-ignition)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Anyone have suggestions for an alternative? I haven't ever found a product that works as consistently and seamlessly (without having to fight firewall issues).

Edit: I should add that I'm willing to pay for a service, but most of the options I've seen are for enterprise customers, not individuals with a few clients.

<comment><USER7> Copilot.com - It's free on the weekends!

 _source: I am a founder of Fog Creek Software, makers of Copilot.com_

<comment><USER8> Joel Spolsky . . . Do nerd celebs really just wander around HN?

<comment><USER7> I'm not Joel Spolsky, but yes, nerd celebs do wander around HN.

<comment><USER9> Joel is on here. Still pops up, occasionally (that I've noticed).

Many presences have seemingly declined, in the last few years. Interests and competing demands change for everyone; there's also some ongoing speculation that as HN has grown and, for lack of a better term, the signal/noise ratio has declined, those more interested in a focused and concentrated "signal" have lost interest, or patience with the noise.

Also, any individual's participation, even if held at a steady level, is likely to decline in prominence at least somewhat amidst the vastly increased HN traffic.

I can't speak for Joel on this (I don't know him, even remotely). But since the grandparent was speaking about presences more generally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Been using LogMeIn's products since RemotelyAnywhere, which was cut up into many smaller products. Their software has generally been the most updated and worked. The few times a month I have to remote login it was worth the free, in exchange I put more active clients onto their own Pro plan.

The LogMeIn product I happily pay for is join.me, it's head and shoulders above anything out there. Having to pay for two that I use once in a while isn't too appetizing.

It would have been nice to decide within 30 days but I suspect LogMeIn has calculated how long it took customers to switch when they limited the plans down to 10 free computers and that 7 days is enough of a squeeze to get the payers paying.

I had been reviewing TeamViewer and a few others, this will likely hasten my review of paid offerings. LogMeIn's pricing seems more reasonable than GoToMyPC which is $10/machine/month. If there's any other options worth exploring please share :)

<comment><USER11> NoMachine.com is worth checking out. The client is kinda heavy, and uses a fair chunk of ram, but it's free and workable.

<comment><USER10> Great, I'll check it out, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been using logmein for over 5 years and although at times I was tempted to go Pro, I stayed with Free simply because there was no need for it. The free did wonderful job. I was able to login to my computers from iPhone, Mac or PC without firewall or dynamic IP problems (stuff that use to matter back then). I always wondered why they did not charge this awesome product. I do not mind paying for the service now but I wonder how will this impact less frequent users who wants to fix their mom's computer once a year or so? They say join.me remains free but is it as good as logmein Free? I had mixed results with it. Disclaimer: I own logmein stocks.

</comment><comment><USER12> Why would I believe that any of LogMein's other services like join.me or Cubby will remain free. Join.me is no problem because there is no switching cost. However I would never entrust my files to Cubby because of the risk they pull a fast one like they are doing with LogMein remote access.

They really should have thought this through and figured a way to allow low intensity users (I use it maybe once a quarter) to continue for free.

If you do want to depend on free services be ready to switch easily, or check to make sure that the vendor offers free-for-life.

<comment><USER13> While I am really frustrated with this 7 day notice, I do feel the need to plug the Cubby paid service. I keep 0 bits in the cloud, but the accompanying Direct Sync service that comes with Pro is very useful...in fact, anyone know of any other direct sync services, sans cloud storage, that work well?

<comment><USER14> BittorentSync is very handy. [http://www.bittorrent.com/sync](http://www.bittorrent.com/sync)

<comment><USER13> Even better. Thanks for the tip.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Whats a good pay alternative that isn't LogMeIn? I find this 7 day notice disgusting and simply a tactic to make the existing user pay without giving them much time to find an alternative.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is the best news I have heard all day. I HATE LOGMEIN, though one of my clients uses this in preference to a VPN into their network. I don't know if this is a free client limitation, but the remote window is stuck to the resolution that the pc is set to. They built a bargain basement PC and stuck a 1024X768 monitor on it. It ends up looking horrible on my 1440x900 display and is barely usable. Im hoping this spurs the client into providing a reasonable way to access their SQL server...

</comment><comment><USER17> I once wrote a pretty cool batch script that would use a minimal vmc executable which then tunneled a reverse vnc session using putty's plink . I used to package it and sent it to people that needed tech support, they would click on the icon and it would then route their session over ssh to my computer at the office. Then we moved to free logmein but i guess now i have to search for that script again.

<comment><USER7> Here's a PDF spec that we wrote for copilot.com back in 2005, which basically did _exactly_ what you are saying (except in a cleaned up, hands free way): [http://www.joelonsoftware.com/RandomStuff/copilot_spec.pdf](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/RandomStuff/copilot_spec.pdf)

<comment><USER17> I am the guy on this thread on the Old Joel on Software on this threat trying to sell my remote support script :)

this was on 2005 too

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I just installed Teamviewer. It is free for personal use. The installation procedure is a wiz. Looking forward to a great remote access experience.

</comment><comment><USER18> And now I stop using your product. I already paid - I won't be paying again.

</comment><comment><USER19> Damn, I used this a ton back in the day, and still use it occasionally now.

<comment><USER20> Wanted to say the same thing. Except that I totally don't use it anymore. Wanted to try it again last month but couldn't find the free remote controlling anywhere. Figured they stopped offering it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Is there a FOSS alternative that I'm missing? I've just been doing RDP/NX/VNC with NAT (aka port forwarding).

<comment><USER22> I mostly use sshuttle for this sort of thing now. It works well and is fairly customizable but you're out of luck if you are on an OS that doesn't use iptables.

<comment><USER21> You mean nftables, right ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> There is curiously no way to delete your account (at least that I can find). Some Google searching led to a forum post where they said you can contact support, but as a free user I don't even see a link to support.

<comment><USER24> [http://www.accountkiller.com/en/delete-logmein- account](http://www.accountkiller.com/en/delete-logmein-account)

Looks like you're right. In my opinion this is one of the worst things that a website can do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Shit. I use it often to fix my Mom's computer. Gonna have to find a decent alternative.

<comment><USER26> Windows Vista, 7 and 8 come with "Remote assistance" which I find to be quite useful, get your mum to run it and (the gods willing) you will be able to access her desktop via it, without the need for extra software. I use it to fix my dads computer often.

<comment><USER27> This won't work for me - my parents login as restricted user, and LogMeIn allows me to switch users when I need to.

I guess that £29/year is a small price to pay for that kind of feature.

<comment><USER28> You could try an old trick that I used during my tech support days.

You can kill Windows explorer with task manager and then use the File/New Task option to restart explorer with a higher level user. You can then do whatever you need to as that user (e.g. control panel, delete files, add hardware, etc). When you're done, you can just repeat the process and start explorer again as the original users.

I haven't tested 100% in Windows 8 (killing and starting explorer as another user does work), but it should work in Windows 7 and below.

I used this any time right clicking an exe and selecting "run as" wasn't enough

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Chrome Remote Desktop for family - gonna finish setting up VNC for the personal stuff (already have it running locally on my Win box, just didn't finish the setup and boot LogMeIn cause it was so easy).

</comment><comment><USER30> Aeroadmin is free. Check it out. Looks quite simple and pretty fast. [http://www.aeroadmin.com](http://www.aeroadmin.com)

</comment><comment><USER31> Doesnt Skype have screen sharing these days? most moms are sure to have skype too.

<comment><USER32> It does. But screen sharing and remote access aren't the same thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Sooo.. how much will it cost, and why is the price so difficult to find?

<comment><USER34> Looks like $50/year for existing free users. No idea what it will raise to after the first year.

<comment><USER35> I talked them down to fourty, but had to turn them down because it only allows access to two computers. I've had free access to ten computers for years, now they want 130 bucks to keep that same level of service? Screw that!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> What about join.me?

<comment><USER10> It only solves part of the experience, when someone is on both sides of the remote session. Quite often folks want to remote access another computer when no one is there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Meh. On to Teamviewer.</comment>