The math's not pretty on digital advertising's future revenues? (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/s/which-half-is-wasted/googles-350-billion-haircut-fa1a0f33ace1 <comment><USER3> Another nonsensical article about adtech. This is not how the industry works.

Apple does not have a chance at buying Google because they have the same market cap. Google and Facebook have a massive advantage in scale and precision which is why 2 of the top 10 biggest companies on the planet are ad networks. The valuations come from the sheer profit they generate, not their assets, and how much Disney spends on content is utterly irrelevant. You cannot easily replicate what they do otherwise it would've already been done. Half of the world's population still isn't online so there's plenty of room for growth in the future too.

Everyone loves to talk about waste but skip over how much worse it is with TV and print ads. What matters is getting a positive return. Even if you can't measure anything else, you can see what sales were like before and after doing any advertising, and that's as simple as it gets. Advertising is a key component of marketing, and marketing is how a company grows and creates customers, so unless you change human behavior advertising is not going away.

<comment><USER4> > Half of the world's population still isn't online so there's plenty of room > for growth in the future too.

The offline half doesn't have that much money to spend, right? Making some assumptions and approximating, would it be wrong to say that potential gains from bringing new people online ≈ global GDP growth? Currently that's in the low single digits.

<comment><USER3> Low single digits is fine when you're among the biggest companies on the planet. We're talking about 10s of billions in profit. Amazon is now getting into the space and is a strong contender to become #3 biggest player.

<comment> village-idiot Size is not insurance against failure. Go ask Novell.

<comment><USER3> Nobody is claiming that it is. The point is that single-digit growth is fine when you're big because they are percentages.

The 1000% growth when you're a startup does not exist when you're worth half a trillion.

<comment> village-idiot True, it just depends how fast your next competitor is growing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wow this article is so very wrong - Google and Facebook have enormous advantages over Disney because (a) they have other people producing valuable content _for free_ ; (b) they know much more about each viewer than Disney.

Google's revenue today is six times as large as it was a decade ago. And I expect its revenue in a decade to be at least 3 times as large as it is today. The reason is that many of the causes of past growth will continue for the foreseeable future:

1\. The people who are connected to the internet will continue to become richer - in particular booming poor countries like India and Indonesia

2\. The amount of time people spend on the internet will continue to grow

3\. The amount of advertising Google can show people per hour will continue to grow. For example, Google can show many more ads on YouTube and still be less saturated than the old network TV model. Another example: The Economist app currently shows untargeted ads copied from their print magazine - but in 10 years these ads will probably come from Google.

4\. Google can continue to improve its algorithm for placing of ads. Google knows so much about me yet I'm amazed how stupidly untargeted its ads sometimes are. Eg. if my photo stream doesn't include pictures of cats, don't show me ads for cat food!

5\. Google can continue to collect more personal data. Right now it doesn't know when I last purchased toothpaste, but it might in 10 years from now.

6\. The number of people connected to the internet will continue to grow (although of course at a slower rate than in the past)

[Disclaimer: I own shares in Google and Facebook]

<comment><USER6> The content that Google and Facebook produce is garbage. It's only barely better than nothing at all. Most people would not pay for the kind of content that shows up on Facebook and YouTube by so-called "content creators".

Facebooks ads are garbage except in certain circumstances. Everyone knows this, including the big brands, but they continue to do it because it makes the board happy when they see their brand on FB.

AdWords is the only ad platform that works, works well, and is pretty universal.

Disney has a real good chance here though because Disney has actual valuable content. As in, literally valuable. You know, because people pay for Disney content with money.

<comment><USER7> I would pay to use Google. Especially if it meant they would remove the tracker from out of my ass.

<comment><USER8> Pay me and I'll lie to you about what Google will do if that's what will make you happy. No sillier than paying Google given their credibility is zero and there are so consequences to them for lying.

<comment><USER9> What are you referring to? I can't think of one incident where Google straight lied to the customer about what they do. They also remove tracking and ads from certain partner websites if you do decide to pay for it: [https://contributor.google.com/v/beta](https://contributor.google.com/v/beta)

<comment><USER8> Do you really, honestly, truly believe they don't track you if you pay them not to? Genuine question.

<comment><USER10> Um, yeah, I do, unless there's evidence to the contrary. Do _you_ really honestly truly believe Google is outright lying?

<comment><USER8> Absolutely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> But... here's the revenue and profits for Google and Facebook since 2017 (when the article appears to have been written), including analyst forecasts for the next year (* are analyst forecasts).

                                2017        2018*     2019*
      Google revenue          $110.86B    $136.47B   $162.64B
      Facebook revenue         $40.65B     $55.36B    $68.87B
      Apple revenue           $265.60B    $277.91B   $289.25B

While Apple's growth rate seems to be slowing down (due to iPhone sales slowing), both Google and Facebook are apparently predicted to be growing well (by 20% - 30% growth each year.)

Sources: Google: [https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/goog/analysis/](https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/goog/analysis/) Facebook: [https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/fb/analysis/](https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/fb/analysis/) Apple: [https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/aapl/analysis/](https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/aapl/analysis/)

<comment><USER12> The article is weird in that Google has the single greatest advantage - YouTube. Ctrl + F youtube and ... nothing.

TV ad revenue is going to start changing, but the value of video ads is massive. Google has not just YouTube, but the best video advertising platform for others to use.

If 15% of the US$70B on TV ads moves to YouTube, Google's growth should be sustainable. Multiply that by not just by the USA but Europe, Japan and Asia, and Google's growth looks fine.

If Google reaches the point they can buy the NBA TV rights for YouTube, heck, start small and buy the TV rights for a major Australian sporting league as a test run, or perhaps a single college conference like the ACC, and lets see how that article ages.

<comment><USER13> > _If 15% of the US$70B on TV ads moves to YouTube, Google 's growth should be > sustainable_

What do you base that estimate off of? The last anyone heard, there were leaks saying that YouTube was barely break-even as late as 2015 and then the "Adpocalypse" occurred in 2017 that dropped ad spending on YouToube significantly. Articles corroborating both are easily found on Google.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is an open secret among techonomists and others in the arcane space of digital campaign measurement.[0][1- preprint] Digital advertising has a lot of smoke and mirrors. There is _some_ incrementality, but it seems oversold.

[0] [https://academic.oup.com/qje/article- abstract/130/4/1941/191...](https://academic.oup.com/qje/article- abstract/130/4/1941/1914592)

[1] [https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID2498290_cod...](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID2498290_code1130222.pdf?abstractid=2367103&mirid=1)

<comment><USER15> And how much of the internet is powered by digital advertising? The web will look a lot different if that bubble bursts.

<comment><USER16> Going back to what it was 20 years ago? I'm sold!

<comment><USER3> There was basically nothing on the internet 20 years ago.

<comment><USER17> MapQuest and Amazon both started around then. People stood up personal sites at places like GeoCities. There were chat services like ICQ.

<comment><USER18> Oh boy memories.. i still remember my six digit ICQ number. It had to be circa 2000?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > But these stocks are based on a reality that no longer exists. The emperor > has no clothes.

Ok, buy deep OTM put options for tech stocks then?

They say the market can stay irrational longer than you can remain solvent. I'd say the market wasn't all that rational to begin with. At some level investing is a big game of chicken where you try to get out before everyone realizes how inflated it's become.

As Taleb says, don't tell me what you think, show me your portfolio.

<comment><USER20> "Buy options" and "don't put this in to your passive retirement fund" are two very different levels of gloom-and-dooming. The market might actually become rational over the next 50+ years; there is such a thing as true information that can't be used to make money in any reasonable term. Another example of true information that can't be used to make money is information that is already priced in. Since this author is not exactly the first tech doomsayer I would be surprised if the future where everyone goes back to highway billboards is not already contributing to the price.

<comment><USER21> The difference between "buy options" and "don't put this in your passive retirement fund" is the same difference as

"I'm confident in the advice im dispensing" and "I have no idea what I'm talking about".

<comment><USER22> _The difference between "buy options" and "don't put this in your passive retirement fund" is the same difference as "I'm confident in the advice im dispensing" and "I have no idea what I'm talking about"._

No, it's not at all. Buying options is actively betting on both price and time targets, and carries a much different risk profile compared to simply avoiding a specific investment.

<comment><USER20> Buying a stock is a "rise eventually" bet, I wonder if it is even possible to buy a "fall eventually" bet. Probably not because nobody would be willing to bet that a company will be around forever!

<comment><USER23> Short selling. But be careful with margin calls.

<comment><USER20> Shorting has a specific delivery date, which is different from holding stock because you can choose when to sell it.

<comment><USER23> I don't believe that's right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This should have 2017 in the title. In particular Facebook's P/E has dropped from 37 to 20.

<comment><USER25> It also says Facebook's market cap is $500 billion. It is now ~$383 billion.

Although it lists Google market cap at $690 billion. It's currently $728 billion and that's after a bit of a haircut recently with the overall market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This article completely missed the forest for the trees - the battle for TV is not just a battle for content, it's a battle for the delivery medium itself!

Think about it - how was TV delivered to you before? There are over the air broadcast, satellite, cable/settop, and what's been called OTT. Except, more and more settop boxes are Rokus, Android TV-based and even some Apple TVs (Verizon 5G was offering those in test markets). So now you have a convergence of what was OTT/cord-cutter audience with the settop box. And who owns these platforms? Hint, it's not the cable company.

So now the battle ground for those as dollars looks very different - <USER2> bother produce content when you can own the entire ecosystem where that content is delivered?

Amazon doing an amazing job with this - their FireTVs include ability to target based on your purchases and search/other activity within Amazon. That's insanely powerful for brands and where brand dollars will definitely be spent. Not all of the dollars, but enough to matter.

<comment><USER27> This is true.

The problem, for Google, is they lose market share in the platform market:

[https://i2.wp.com/www.cordcuttersnews.com/wp- content/uploads...](https://i2.wp.com/www.cordcuttersnews.com/wp- content/uploads/2018/05/Streaming-Player-Report.jpg?w=500&ssl=1)

And my guess is that Amazon will win this, because like you say, it's better.

But also - Since Amazon controls all the buyer's journey, it can make more money per each ad. Which equals better content.

And in any case, FireTv is a loss leader for Amazon. Hard to compete against those.

<comment><USER28> Here is a question to ponder about: is Google loosing market share or is the market expanding?

<comment><USER26> I suspect it's growing more than google losing, but this chart is almost useless as each stack is not labeled.

Sony - is this PS4 or Sony smart TV (which is android as well)?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> > "There is zero reason to think that a tech company can create content better > than anyone else — which is the only way anyone knows of to capture any > future ad growth. They have zero advantage over Disney."

I was following but til this point. Unfortunately, it is false assumption, fatally false.

I'm going to over-simplify a bit but...The tech companies know what you watched, how much you watched, at what point you stopped, what you shared (or didn't), etc. If Spotify can guess / predict what you might want to hear, the same can be done for other content.

Furthermore, the traditional media companies spent a fair amount on marketing hoping to get the message out to the appropriate target markets. FB and Google already know who is where, when, why, etc.

Correct me, but didn't Netflix use viewing data / analysis to understand which film's and even scenes "worked" and which did not in order to grow their own content.

<comment><USER30> I think you're fundamentally misinterpreting the value of creativity here. While audience data is valuable for marketing existing shows, it currently has almost no value for creating new shows.

Just take a look at YouTube creators. Some guy in Australia who ignores data and makes things with mud and plants produces content more popular than almost anything else.

Sure, Google owns the platform, but they remain reliant on the creative, anti- data processes of others.

<comment><USER31> > Some guy in Australia who ignores data and makes things with mud and plants > produces content more popular than almost anything else.

As a great screenwriter once said: In Hollywood, nobody knows anything.

But in Hollywood, they're used to that reality. Disney really _does_ know how to actually create media content that billions want to consume. They know how to play this game.

Tech companies are trying to learn too, and they've noticed something, as the article points out: it costs a shit ton of cash.

Because nobody knows anything.

<comment><USER29> As a side note the book "Creativity Inc" is excellent. Recommended.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Well, when people abandon TV they go to YouTube, and Google owns YouTube, end of story...

Video hosting is, by surprise, a very technology driven business, not as simple as upload a file then waiting for the profit. And as regulations tightens up, Google's advantage is only going to grow.

</comment><comment><USER33> The article talks about people companies and factories, and I think it is calling a tech company a people company. Lawyers and engineers are not the same in the sense that lawyers have to spend hours of time to bill clients (in theory at least). With a software company, if all the engineers walk out, the company can still go on serving the same product (in theory at least). Once software is made you can make as many copies as you want essentially for free. And there is a huge barrier to entry for something like Google or Apple, or any large software product, so it is difficult to replace these companies. So I think they deserve to be in a different multiples category.

But this isn't the only reason someone like Google can have such a large multiple. I think there is the possibility of transformation into a new market, not just dominance of its existing market. You could call Google an AI company instead of an advertising company. There might be some big economic potential for AI and that is what the large multiple can capture. The same applies for Amazon in that they could become a strong player in everything that is purchased, not just in online shopping. And they seem to have a real chance of moving in this direction. And, to underscore the fact that they are trying to do this, they are taking a very small profit right not to try to build their presence, and then they will start pulling profit later when they have a more dominant position.

</comment><comment><USER34> This guy not knowing why Amazon's P/E ratio is _intentionally_ over 200 sums up his "expertise" on the situation - he has absolutely none.

</comment><comment><USER35> Troll bait 2017 article that compares the P/E of growth stocks with heavy R&D budgets to blue chip stocks. The author and those reading would be better off spending time reading this instead: [http://www.efficientfrontier.com/t4poi/Ch1.htm](http://www.efficientfrontier.com/t4poi/Ch1.htm)

</comment><comment><USER36> In media you roughly have 3 segments:

1) High end (HBO, Disney, ...) 2) Medium end (TV, Netlix, ...) 3) Low end (Youtube, Facebook, Instagram)

The supply of (1) and (2) are limited. There's only so many shows that can be produced at the quality of Sopranos, and only so many sports people are willing to sit though commercials to watch (in the US it's NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, UFC).

The supply of (3) (mostly user generated content) is nearly infinite because the curation is low touch and automated with software.

Ultimately the big constraint for media is the amount of time people are willing to spend watching either high end content with no ads, or low end content with ads. Time is precious.

In the long term there will probably be a backlash against tech addiction and people will spend less time on low end user generated content. But even that is hard to predict.

</comment><comment><USER31> > _There is zero reason to think that a tech company can create content better > than anyone else — which is the only way anyone knows of to capture any > future ad growth. They have zero advantage over Disney. They are coming from > a position of weakness — Disney already has significant TV ad revenue, and > extensive experience in making content we love._

totally agree. and, in November, we had this crazy agreement between Google and Disney for online digital ads: [https://variety.com/2018/digital/news/disney-google- digital-...](https://variety.com/2018/digital/news/disney-google-digital- advertising-deal-1203037372/)

I gotta wonder what kind of terms Disney squeezed out of Google for this.

</comment><comment><USER37> It's important to bring up that in the last year AT&T bought Time Warner, Direct TV, and other media companies, as well as As Tech pioneer AppNexus to try and merge Digital, OTT, and linear advertising all together in an effort to make up ground on Google and Facebook

<comment><USER3> They're already failing at that with nonsensical rebrands and rotating leadership. You can't compete with the giants by buying a bunch of companies and strapping their products together. That just leads to a dysfunctional mess.

They need to build from scratch with a focused approach as seen with The Trade Desk, but their corporate politics won't let that happen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Elon musk seems to have digital advertising figured with a spend with goog/facebrick/etc of precisely $0. Why is this so seldom mentioned when digital advertising is mentioned?

He sells a crapload of stuff with fantastic advertising campaigns with no paid spots at all.

<comment><USER38> By that metric, so does Trump. Twitter doesn't send them a bill because they make money for Twitter by existing, so maybe it's really Twitter that has it figured out. The big names work for Twitter for free!

It's true that for certain kinds of people and circumstances you can sell your own brand. But generally people cannot be Musk or Trump (least of all want to take any risks) so they have to pay for eyeballs.

<comment><USER8> I'm avoiding politicians because sensible discussion points are obscured by emotion, to put it nicely.

Rather than a politician. try "Wendy's" burger joint twiter feed and it is largely the same point. Advertising works a hell of a lot better when you're not paying for the slots. I can't see a meaningful discussion of digital without addressing it. Musk hires talent from "the onion" \- we can assume it isn't to design rockets and cars, right? Flamethrowers, awesome, right. Can't make money selling them obviously. How much did that campaign cost him? Nothing in placement slots right but there it was in a better slot than can be bought from facebrick all over facebrick. In a better slot than can be bought from google in newspapers with google ads being ignored somewhere on the same page.

Remember when google were hiring engineers like they meant it and had all that nonsense about secret codes and quizzes all around the web? Remember when they hired 17 year olds in a fanfare of publicity? Remember when they placed an ad- sense ad saying they were hiring? Well that last never happened as far as I'm aware and the cost to google would have been next to nothing, so maybe it wasn't worth even that. They hired a lot of direct marketers to ring us and tell us we should apply though, right?

Pick your successful ad campaign. It doesn't involve paying google, or facebrick, or does it? Do go ahead and list any examples that have escaped my notice. I can't think of a business that got on ad-sense or facebrick early and took a huge market share out of their competition as a result, can you? Do you even have to think to come up with a list for TV early adopters?

I can't see how digital advertising discussions can be fruitful without addressing these things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Web ads is already dead, but if you have users, you can still monetize, for example by product endorsement, up-selling additional services, etc. Companies will still pay for the top spots in the search result though, and Facebook will make it harder to block ads. But for normal web sites, like news sites, they have to focus on quality instead of quantity in order to make people pay. And also we badly need micro-payments for the web.

</comment><comment><USER40> This is a bubble which will not burst because we are speaking of Google. If (theoretical) Google will be valued by it's real profits and downgraded by ads profit the WHOLE online ad industry will go bankrupt. But this is really unlikely because ads pricing is not the same as stocks on an a stock exchange.

</comment><comment><USER41> The funny thing is that Disney is now using the Google Ad platform for 100% of it's online advertising.

</comment><comment><USER42> Regardless of the article's arguments regarding tech's p/e ratios, I believe that Disney stock is a screaming buy, esp since Disney is coming up with its Disney+ service next year. But that's just my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER43> A good way to get me to stop reading your article is to be sloppy or confused with basic terminology.

Calling revenues earnings is an immediate stop, do not continue flag.

</comment><comment><USER44> >>> Eight seven percent of Google's revenue comes from advertising

Is this eight or seven or eighty seven? First line and the author is already confusing.

</comment><comment><USER45> 2017

</comment><comment><USER46> _So, here we are in 2017_

Here we almost are in 2019. The authors premise seems sound, but it hasn't happened (yet).

<comment><USER47> Looking forward to seeing this posted in 2021 and 2023 with the hypothesized massive drop in google's valuation having failed to materialize.

<comment><USER12> To be fair the P/E will start to move towards 12. That's just inevitable.

If the P/E moves from the 39.37 I just Googled towards 12, the profit needs to triple to maintain share value. Heck, it was over 60 to start the year: [https://ycharts.com/companies/GOOG/pe_ratio](https://ycharts.com/companies/GOOG/pe_ratio), and that seems a little insane to me.

<comment><USER27> It depends.

Assuming that there's some special r&d, and hard to replicate in their moonshot division(IDK?), or at least the image of one, Some successful moonshots could do wonders to their P/E.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> lead sentence: "Today, its market cap — the total value of the company ..."

really? there's a single person reading this that won't know what market cap is? i stopped reading.

edit: also, TFA is dated material and could use a 2017 tag. also important because its predictions have failed to come true.

<comment><USER48> ok i just read the article. it is indeed written at the 8th grade level implied by the opening, with naive understanding of google and disney's business. nice waste of my time.

can't understand the downvotes but that's HN i guess. have to spell everything out here

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Thank you for posting this one. Saving for later.

<comment><USER50> The article was originally posted in October 2017, so your "1 year later" is already passed.

<comment><USER49> What's it to you? I was responding to a new thread for an article I hadn't seen before. My favorite internet trolls are the ones that use throwaway addresses.</comment></comment></comment>


'Toxic' League of Legends player responds to his 1-year ban - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2012/12/05/toxic-lol-player-responds/

<comment><USER2> Same tone as every sports personality when they get caught out "I'm terribly sorry I disappointed my fans, don't worry I'm going to come back and things will be great again". I suppose this means video games are becoming a legitimate sporting category though.</comment>


Awesome Dotfiles - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/webpro/awesome-dotfiles <comment><USER2> The best way I've found to organize dotfiles is to simply use a bare git repo.

> git init --bare $HOME/.dotfiles`

> alias dot="git --git-dir=$HOME/.dotfiles/ \--work-tree=$HOME"

> dot config --local status.showUntrackedFiles no

<comment><USER3> Oh my god. This is a game changer. Thanks a ton for this enlightenment.

Any gotchas I need to be aware of?

I've been using GNU Stow to manage mine and haven't yet run into issues but it did bring some fiction.

<comment><USER4> One thing to be aware of is that you need a version of git that supports —-worktree.

That may or may not be an issue but the version of git that comes with Ubuntu 16.04LTS for example doesn't support it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have a totally awesome .bash_aliases file! I've taken all the best things I've seen from all the best .bash_aliases files around the web. I bet it's like 1000 lines long.

I can remember about 10 of the things I have in there.

<comment><USER6> I'd love to see them! Uh.. I'll make an AskHN now about that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I thought it's about GraphViz dot files

</comment><comment><USER8> related recent thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18898523](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18898523)</comment>


SpaceX uses powerful rocket technology that NASA says could put lives at risk - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/elon-musks-space-x-is-using-a-powerful-rocket-technology-nasa-advisers-say-it-could-put-lives-at-risk/2018/05/05/f810b182-3cec-11e8-a7d1-e4efec6389f0_story.html <comment><USER2> The author is a known soft-skeptic regarding SpaceX and a funny Bezos groupie, I have never read any trustworthy piece about such safety risk in the past few years so I tend to believe this is a just another Old Space lobbied article. See [https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/85tf3x/crosspost_ch...](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/85tf3x/crosspost_chris_davenport_washington_post/) for a bit more on how Davenport usually lacks deep info.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not sure if this is a legitimate concern or a hit piece by Boeing. At least the nay sayers seem to get a lot of words in and the question on how safe the crew ejection system is does not get answered well.</comment>


Show HN: Wearable Device Support Tool - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Gcuyz3_wte3uqOhenr2u7i-skP4XTskUgRB8OBl5s8M/edit#gid=0 <comment><AUTHOR> My company Open mHealth designed this tool because we could not find one definitive place to help people decide on which devices to buy, which measures they support, and how they connect. Hope you guys find this useful. \- David</comment>


Recovering Atari ST ASIC Designs - <AUTHOR> http://www.chzsoft.de/asic-web/ <comment><AUTHOR> Atari's chip company Styra (from the article) got me to search a bit and its only mentioned on 3 sites according to google, and this goldmine for an Atari fan was one of them:

[http://mcurrent.name/atarihistory/tramel_technology.html](http://mcurrent.name/atarihistory/tramel_technology.html)

</comment><comment><USER2> This is amazing! Time to fire up my Atari Falcon again (anyone out there willing to sell a CT63?)

These schematics could be used to implement the entire Atari STE's or Falcon 030's in a single FPGA. In phase two, new chips could be added, or existing chips enhanced (Blitter with texel and shading support, anyone?) The best part is, as the Amiga 600 Vampire II accelerator proved, the FPGA implementation could be anywhere from ten to 50 times faster and cheaper than the original hardware![1] The possibilities are endless with these schematics...

[1] [https://youtube.com/watch?v=lEjtc6JWlsk](https://youtube.com/watch?v=lEjtc6JWlsk)

<comment><USER3> It's worth pointing out that the entire Atari ST has been already done in a single FPGA. See the MiST project: [http://harbaum.org/till/mist/index.shtml](http://harbaum.org/till/mist/index.shtml)

I'm sure there are things to be learned from the ASIC designs that could improve the GLUE/MMU/Blitter/Shifter etc. VHDL. But they already work really well.

The rest of the Atari ST is off the shelf (mostly Motorola) chips.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There's also an effort to decap the ASICs and take die photos to reverse engineer the schematics:

[http://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?t=29658](http://www.atari- forum.com/viewtopic.php?t=29658) (Shifter, display controller)

[http://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?t=30241](http://www.atari- forum.com/viewtopic.php?t=30241) (MMU, memory controller)

</comment><comment><USER5> Ah memories... and my personal progress over time:

My very first calculator: [0]

My first slide rule: [1] (for two years or so, then we switched to electronic calculators)

Before I could afford a computer I spent a a few years on computers I didn't own, ZX Spectrum, C64, C128, 8bit Atari, KC85/1,2,3, but also LC 80 [2]

My 1st (own) computer: East German 8 bit KC85/4 with the CAOS operating system (the makers had a good sense of humor, it means "Cassette-Aided OS") [3][4]. Mass-storage was ones regular stereo cassette radio recorder, a floppy disc drive was available but rare.

My 2nd computer: Atari 1040 STFM [5] - bought with my first West German money after reunification! Finally 16 bit!

Atari ST software worth mentioning: "Script 2" was a wonderful word processor for Atari [6]. When used in combination with the (for the time) excellent black/white monitor and a 24 needle printer (Epson LQ 580) I got near laser printer quality through the special drivers of that program.

Worst Atari incident: I had a capacitor (literally) blow up on me with a very loud _BANG!_.

I'll end with the Atari. The next one - for my studies - was a 486DX33 8MB RAM machine with Windows 3.1, soon RedHat Linux (1995). Thanks to the student network I could start large programs like Netscape on another student's Pentium PC (in another building) and export the display until I was able to upgrade to 16 MB RAM... and all the usual mid-1990s Unix systems, also available remotely thanks to the network.

[0] My grandfathers calculator (really!) [http://i.imgur.com/jBDUHPp.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/jBDUHPp.jpg)

[1] My slide rule: [http://ossikult.de/ossi/images/product_images/original_image...](http://ossikult.de/ossi/images/product_images/original_images/img_2552.jpg)

[2] LC 80 [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/LC80#/media/File:Lc80offen.jpg](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/LC80#/media/File:Lc80offen.jpg)

[3] KC 85/4 picture [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/KC85-4.j...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/KC85-4.jpg)

[4] KC 85/4 Wikipedia article [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KC_85](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KC_85)

[5] Atari 1040 STFM [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_ST#/media/File:Atari_ST_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_ST#/media/File:Atari_ST_1040.jpg) \- just like mine was, minus the hard drive

[6] Atari ST word processor Script 2 [http://www.stcarchiv.de/stc1990/10/script-2](http://www.stcarchiv.de/stc1990/10/script-2)

<comment><USER6> The picture of the Atari ST linked in 5 also happens to have the back of a Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument) in it, which is a piece of history itself, and dwarfs the price/rarity of the ST.

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

The ST was strong in the music industry, particularly in Europe, because of its built-in MIDI interface.

<comment><USER7> As a long term pen and paper gamer, i can't see the name Fairlight without thinking of Shadowrun. There Fairlight brand cyberdecks were the cream of the crop of preconstructed decks.</comment></comment></comment>


Hoax Article Published by Thomson SCI indexed "scientific" journal - <AUTHOR> http://www.scribd.com/doc/167706815/EVALUATION-OF-TRANSFORMATIVE-HERMENEUTIC-HEURISTICS-FOR-PROCESSING-RANDOM-DATA

<comment><AUTHOR> We published this hoax article in Metalurgia International no. 6 2013. in June 2013. The journal was indexed by Thomson-Reuters SCIe index. As a result of the hoax, the journal was dropped by TR in late August. BTW. This journal caused major problems in Serbian and Romanian scientific community by publishing thousands articles of "dubious" quality.</comment>


The magic of exponential growth: fun with Planck times - <AUTHOR> http://rdstar.wordpress.com/2014/08/05/the-magic-of-exponential-growth/

<comment><USER2> For another example, 2^64 micrometer is more than 100 astronomical units. So in a game like Kerbal Space Program you could very accurately store the position of everything with 64-bit integers in a single coordinate system. (They actually use floating point though and hacked around all the resulting problems.)

<comment><USER3> To be fair, that's because the underlying engine used by KSP uses floating- point. It actually uses _single-precision_ floating-point, which Squad hacked around, but that is another matter.

Personally, I think we should go to 128-bit registers and just treat (almost) _everything_ as integer-valued (and often unique! Don't worry about PID reuse - just increment the counter. It'll "never" overflow.), but that's another matter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The growth curve here is more than exponential 2^n, it's 2^2^n.

Unlike the parable of getting twice as many grains of rice for each subsequent square on a chess board, this pattern also progresses twice as many squares each turn.

<comment><USER5> > _The growth curve here is more than exponential 2^n, it 's 2^2^n._

I am a bit confused as to what you mean. 2^2^n is still classified as an exponential function.</comment></comment>


Agner Krarup Erlang - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agner_Krarup_Erlang <comment><USER2> Interesting, I'd always assumed that Erlang was some kind of portmanteau of 'Ericsson' \+ 'language'.

<comment><USER3> I always thought Erlang got its name from a measurement unit in telephony called Erlang[0]. Never looked into why this unit was called Erlang though.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlang_(unit)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlang_\(unit\))

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> We use the Erlang B formula at my employer (one of our services is a peer & crisis support hotline) to try to estimate how many operators we'll need in a given week over 2-hour shifts. We've got a crude implementation but it works well for us!

</comment><comment><USER5> His work is very good and important. However, I've always found it annoying that his name is attached to the "Erlang distribution" \-- it's a Gamma distribution!

</comment><comment><USER6> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXmOlCy0oBM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXmOlCy0oBM) the first seconds</comment>


Dell launches two new Ubuntu-based systems - <AUTHOR> https://insights.ubuntu.com/2015/04/09/designed-for-developers-dell-launches-two-new-ubuntu-based-systems/

<comment><USER2> Lead developer Barton Gorge's interesting commentary:

[http://bartongeorge.net/2015/04/09/4th-gen-dell- xps-13-devel...](http://bartongeorge.net/2015/04/09/4th-gen-dell- xps-13-developer-edition-available/)</comment>


Boeing slams the Falcon Heavy rocket as "too small" - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/04/boeing-slams-the-falcon-heavy-rocket-as-too-small/ <comment><USER2> Grow up, Boeing. Yes your rockets are still necessary and there's no need to force a dick measuring contest especially when you're the only one that wants it.

Boeing could try the SpaceX route in both marketing and technology, but instead they're stuck with the mentality of a leach that needs to suck as much money out of NASA and its other clients as possible. At least that's the vibe I get from them.

</comment><comment><USER3> Space exploration is engineering+economics. Every penny used for lifting things to orbit removes number of launches and shrinks the budget used to build payloads.

The Space Shuttle was a resource sink and failure while Soyuz was the biggest success in rocketry before SpaceX. SLS seems like the tail end of Space Shuttle era. It directs NASA budget to small number of expensive launces.</comment>


Navy Warship Is Still Ablaze, and Now Tilting to One Side - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/13/us/naval-ship-fire-san-diego.html <comment><USER2> I have none of the knowledge and all of the curiosity about at what point is it cheaper to just commission a new one.

A fire burning that long must be pretty hot. Does that compromise the steel? Is the wiring and electronics basically gutted by now?

Also curious. It was being refitted. Would they have removed most of the fuel (or left it low)? Was it full of hmmvws and APCs and stuff? I guess it wouldn't have a traditional ammunition battery wanting to explode, it's not a battleship or anything. Jet fuel?

<comment><USER3> _> at what point is it cheaper to just commission a new one_

I have no idea how they perform the calculus on this, but remember that the USS Cole had a hole blown in its hull large enough that it had to be transported back to the US on top of _another ship_ , and was still put back into service after refit.

<comment><USER4> Granted, this was in the 40's, but they even raised most of the sunk boats in pearl harbor and rebuilt them after the attack [0].

[0]: [https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/Decoder/2012/1207/Pea...](https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/Decoder/2012/1207/Pearl- Harbor-resurrection-the-warships-that-rose-to-fight-again)

<comment><USER5> That is so cool, each time I learn some aspect of the resourcefulness of countries involved in ww2 I always feel inspired.

Random story connection at miniature scale - While traveling around Loas a few years ago, one of the places we stayed was on a river with boats available, the other guests took the few canoes available in the evening before we had a chance... my partner was quite disappointment as we were only there for one night. I found what at first looked like an unsalvagable very green old wooden one sunk about 4ft next to the pontoon, since I had nothing else to do - within about 30mins, some perseverance, creative use of levers and sheer "manliness" I managed to surface enough of it to flip it over and scoop some air into it, drag it to shore, empty it, polish the algea off the seats and put it back in the water to test it's hull.

We had a great time in our old green boat, and ended up exploring more of the river's tributaries than all the other guests :)

There is something very satisfying about bringing stuff back to life when you have real utility for it and then enjoying it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How does a ship like this burn for so long? Is there much that can be burned? I was under the impression it's mostly steel and other non-flammable materials. I was also under the impression that a ship like this is compartmentalized in sections that can be individually shut off (to deprive it of enough oxygen to keep the fire going).

<comment><USER7> Paint, oil, tar, grease, hydraulic fluids, stores of any kind - steel won't burn, but all that stuff does and there's plenty of it. Even museum ships smell richly of volatiles. Go into an unventilated space on a hot day and it's not hard at all to imagine a fire.

Compartmentalization is much more for controlling flooding than fire, although it can help slow down (but not stop) the spread of fire throughout a ship. It sounds a bit late for that in this case, and setting watertight integrity also requires people to physically close and dog hatches which likely can't even be survivably reached at this point.

<comment><USER8> Steel can indeed burn (although it's not a fuel/combustible). Anyone who's done any blacksmithing with coal will most likely have first-hand experience of steel burning.

<comment><USER7> I guess just about anything will burn in oxygen if you can get enough heat into it to ignite it, sure. That's why I said the steel _won 't_ burn, not that it _can 't_ burn. I don't think a fire aboard a ship would be likely to manage it, although a specialist in shipboard fires may know better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One of the most unexpected parts of enlisting in the Navy was the focus on fire safety and fire fighting skills. It will be interesting to read the report on what happened.

<comment><USER10> It will be a year or more, but I'll definitely read it when it comes out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Reminds me of the time a shipyard worker set fire to a submarine, totaling it, because he wanted to go home early[0]. I imagine the Bonhomme Richard will be decommissioned too. I hope they eventually find the cause, will be interested to hear what it was.

[0] [https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/03/15/nuclea...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/03/15/nuclear- submarine-fire/1990663/)

<comment><USER12> It's always the Welder...

For some reason they tend to burn down a lot of things. My Dad was a welder, he set himself on fire daily. My Mom would always be yelling at him for all the holes in his cloths.

<comment><USER13> Welding involves lots of sparks and flames.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > The fire was first reported in a lower cargo area where seafaring tanks and > landing craft are parked. It appears to have started in a spot where > cardboard boxes, rags and other ship maintenance supplies were being stored, > Sobeck said.

I will not be surprised if this ends up being an "oily rag" fire.

[https://www.nfpa.org/-/media/Files/Public- Education/Resource...](https://www.nfpa.org/-/media/Files/Public- Education/Resources/Safety-tip-sheets/OilyRagsSafetyTips.ashx)

</comment><comment><USER15> The US has nearly half of the worlds aircraft carriers (20 out if 43). It also has the 10 or 11 largest carriers in the world, and about two thirds of world aircraft carrier tonnage.

All of these carriers cost billions, the largest group over $10B each. It is speculated that modern anti-carrier missiles make them expensive sitting ducks in any serious shooting war.

</comment><comment><USER16> Reminds me of the S.S. Normandie [https://boats.drivemag.com/features/the- golden-era-of-transa...](https://boats.drivemag.com/features/the-golden-era- of-transatlantic-voyage-ep-3-ss-normandie-the-fastest-french-liner)

</comment><comment><USER17> Paywall workaround: [https://web.archive.org/web/20200714115743/https://www.nytim...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200714115743/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/13/us/naval- ship-fire-san-diego.html)

Wikipedia article on the ship: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Bonhomme_Richard_(LHD-6)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Bonhomme_Richard_\(LHD-6\))

<comment><USER18> Interestingly, I only run into the paywall on mobile. On desktop, I can get it to show the "click here to view full article" box if I use Firefox's responsive design mode, but that's it.

In any case, another workaround is simply disabling/blocking javascript. I did this with uBlock Origin on Firefox for Android.

<comment><USER19> I think it's to do with how many articles you've viewed from each browser in the last month or something. Sounds like you've visited more NY Times articles on mobile recently.

<comment><USER18> Perhaps, but I don't think so: [https://i.imgur.com/vnn3qlB.png](https://i.imgur.com/vnn3qlB.png)

Perhaps my desktop browser does a poorer job of protecting my anonymity. That's an annoying thought, given I go to moderate lengths to make myself less track-able.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > Military officers are held accountable in ways that politicians and > bureaucrats (almost) never are.

"On Monday, President Trump pardoned the convicted war criminal Michael Behenna, who had murdered Ali Mansur, an unarmed, naked Iraqi, by shooting him in the head and chest."

Kindly only sip the cool-aid.

<comment><USER21> Trump's an anomaly and I've heard a lot of military members are very upset by his intervention with Gallagher.

<comment><USER20> Sure, then how about these paragons of military justice:

1\. In 1998, a US maring navigator flew - against US regulations - his fighter aircraft at low altitude over the Cavalese ski resort in Italy.

The muppets managed to cut the wires of crowded cable car - killing 20 allied civilians. Captain Ashby and Captain Schweitzer were put on trial … and found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter and negligent homicide.

2\. In 2001 the Navy Los Angeles-class submarine USS Greeneville (SSN-772) submarine deliberately breached the surface to impress some politicians onboard. The muppets managed to sink a Japanese teaching ship - killing 9 allied civilians, including 4 children.

After Commander Waddle had faced the Naval Board of Inquiry, it was decided that a full court-martial would be unnecessary and he was given an honorable discharge.

I can go on, but I doubt I have the karma :)

<comment><USER22> 1\. The pilot (Ashby) and NFO (Schweitzer) were subsequently convicted of conduct unbecoming for destroying evidence; each was dismissed from the Marine Corps (the officer equivalent of a dishonorable discharge, which in turn is the equivalent of a felony conviction, which stays with you for life), and Ashby was imprisoned for six months. [0]

2\. The USS _Greeneville_ incident was a career-ender for pretty much everyone who was even remotely involved; that's small comfort to the families of the people who died, but the problem seems to have been one of failing do one last precautionary check after doing others, and Murphy's Law worked its magic. I wasn't a sub sailor so I can't really opine as to whether or not that was grossly negligent or simply one of those stupid mistakes that humans sometimes make. [1]

[0] [https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Cavalese_cable_car_disaster_(199...](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Cavalese_cable_car_disaster_\(1998\))

[1] [https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Ehime_Maru_and_USS_Greeneville_c...](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Ehime_Maru_and_USS_Greeneville_collision#/Findings_of_the_court)

<comment><USER23> So the civilian contractor who set on fire a submarine with no casualties (linked elsewhere in this thread) got 17 years of jail, but the military pilot who killed 20 innocent civilians (in an allied country, while not even being at war) got 6 months. Not a blazing example of military accountability.

<comment><USER22> Well, let's see: On the one hand, the Marine pilot did something that _in different circumstances_ he would have been _required_ to do (low-level flight, e.g., in combat and/or in training for combat). Moreover, there was considerable doubt whether they had been provided with up-to-date maps showing what areas were off-limits. They were acquitted of the manslaughter charges — but they were later cashiered for destroying evidence, i.e., a videotape of the accident [2], because for military officers, integrity is supposed to be at the top of the list of required personal qualities.

Oh, and let's not forget that the pilot and NFO had previously had good records (AFAIK) _and_ for many years had been putting their asses on the line for their country every single time they took off in a plane. (There's an old joke that when you join the U.S. military, you sign a blank check made out to the People of the United States of America, payable in any amount up to and including your life.)

On the other hand, we have the civilian "yardbird" who, wanting to go home, intentionally started a fire that led to the essentially-total loss [3] of a major national military asset. "Rear Adm. Richard Breckenridge, a submarine group commander, said the ship's extensive damage had ripple effects around the Navy, delaying repairs on other vessels and leading to longer deployments for thousands of sailors." [4]

If you don't see why that might lead to very-different sentences for the two cases, I'm afraid we don't have much else to discuss on that point.

[2] [https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Cavalese_cable_car_disaster_(199...](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Cavalese_cable_car_disaster_\(1998\))

[3] [https://www.wikiwand.com/en/USS_Miami_(SSN-755)#/2012_fire](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/USS_Miami_\(SSN-755\)#/2012_fire)

[4] [https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/03/15/nuclea...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/03/15/nuclear- submarine-fire/1990663/)

<comment><USER23> They destroyed the evidence that would have proved if they were intentionally trying to sneak below the cable car or not... and they got away with a grand total of 6 months of detention. This is beyond ridiculous, no civilian would have had it so easy.

But I agree, I don't think we have much else to discuss, indeed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> They should scuttle it and let the sea put it out.

<comment><USER25> Probably not enough draft under the keel for the ship to actually submerge. Also, expensive for having to replace a bunch of equipment that is now dunked in seawater. Let alone raising the ship afterward.

<comment><USER26> Not to mention the sheer embarrassment. It's one thing to choose to junk a ship.

Another to do so in public after an accidental fire at port on a 1.5B mini aircraft carrier.

<comment><USER27> The entire county smelling the burning ship for the 3rd day today, and they estimate a week total, seems more of an embarrassment to me. The military blows through 1.5B and the public wouldn't bat an eye. Leaving a flaming ship less than a mile from a major downtown for a week, and everyone will (is) complaining at the wastefulness of the Navy. I live 6 miles away and going outside is unbearable, people are smelling it 20+ miles away in Alpine and North County. I have been trying to imagine what it is like in the neighborhoods adjacent to the base right now, it was a hot week, and many don't have AC, keeping the windows closed is a nightmare.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Criticize Donald Trump, get your site smashed offline from Russia - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/30/criticizing_donald_trump_will_get_you_ddosed_off_the_internet/?mt=1475544481666 <comment><USER2> All of this Russia talk is very suspicious to me. I saw an article last week that Russians were somehow already hacking US voting machines. Voting (besides absentee) hasn't even started yet, so it doesn't make any sense.

This seems like some careful planting of information so if Trump does win, Russia will be blamed for 'hacking the vote'.

When the DNC was hacked, there were calls to go after the people that did it. When Trump's tax returns were illegally obtained, nobody cares about who illegally retrieved this information.

I just wish this double standard would stop. It's pretty sick that illegal activity is justified by any means to justify the ends.

Voting for Trump probably won't stop this, but it sure will be a large slap to all of the mainstream media that is clearly biased against the enemies of the DNC, including Bernie Sanders.</comment>


Crashplan bans particular filetypes and removes them from customer accounts - <AUTHOR> https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/05/21/crashplan_changes_file_exclusions_to_anger_of_customers/ <comment><USER2> If they really deleted lots of user files from all their user's backups I would think the company is suicidal. Users will sue, and even if (seems highly unlikely to me) Crashplan wins every case brought against them, it will cost them too much in money and attention.

<comment><USER3> As a user you've probably agreed to Ts&Cs that mandate arbitration and Crashplan reserves the right to "downsize" your backups at any time based on their sole judgment.

<comment><USER2> T&C are at [https://support.code42.com/Terms_and_conditions/Legal_terms_...](https://support.code42.com/Terms_and_conditions/Legal_terms_and_conditions).

I didn't read all of them, but could not find an arbitration clause. I did find

 _"9.1 Exclusion of Damages. Neither Code42 nor you are liable for any lost profits or business opportunities, loss of use, business interruption, or any indirect, punitive, special, incidental or consequential damages under any theory of liability. This exclusion applies regardless of whether Code42 or you have been advised of the possibility of those damages and regardless of whether any remedy in this Agreement fails of its essential purpose.

9.2 Cap on Monetary Liability. The maximum aggregate liability for Code42 or you for claims under this Agreement will not exceed an amount equal to the total fees paid or payable to Code42 for your use of the Offerings in the 12 months prior to the event giving rise to the claim."_

I'm not sure that will hold up in court. I'm fairly sure it won't in European courts, given the advertising text on [https://www.crashplan.com/en- us/](https://www.crashplan.com/en-us/):

 _"CrashPlan® for Small Business makes protecting all your files on your devices, including external hard drives, fast and easy.

[…]

Customize File Retention

You control how long we keep your deleted files."_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Client side encryption is critical. CrashPlan has no business having the ability to inspect file contents.

<comment><USER5> Perhaps they're just looking at the file extensions, looks like they also check the source folder paths as well:

[https://support.code42.com/CrashPlan/6/Troubleshooting/What_...](https://support.code42.com/CrashPlan/6/Troubleshooting/What_is_not_backing_up?#Admin_excludes)

And the thing is it's not practical to encrypt _every_ file such as VM images every time your backup is scheduled to run.

And also Crashplan's client already encrypts your data client side before squirting up to its cloud. I don't know if they store your encryption key(s) cloudside or not, would be pertinent for them not to.

That all said, I doubt I'd be inclined to use them, preferring Tarsnap instead I think.

<comment><USER6> End-to-end encryption of metadata and data costs almost nothing these days. In terms of liability, knowing anything about clients' data or metadata present unreasonable risks. SpiderOak, Tarsnap, BackBlaze... I still have to due- diligence Rsync.net, iCloud and Box. Dropbox, Microsoft, Google Drive, Mozy, iDrive and now Crashplan are no-go's.

<comment><USER5> > End-to-end encryption of metadata and data costs almost nothing these days.

Oh sure. But from what I can discern from Crashplan's website, the encryption _appears_ to be end-to-end, i.e. their client side app does the encryption (and hopefully the keys are only stored locally, so once the data is in their cloud no-one can peek at your data - ala Tarsnap). Realistically you cannot pre-encrypt every file on the machine you're backing up as the parent commenter suggested (show me an encryption app that can properly handle locked/in-use files - especially on Windows), you need to have some trust that the backup provider you're using _can be trusted_ and be trusted not to communicate your encryption key to their cloud as well.

But I agree, Dropbox etc...I wouldn't dream of using them "as-intended" with their client apps because I can't trust they're not looking at stuff they're not supposed to be. The only time I work with these products is via my web browser.

<comment><USER7> I guess that's why you'd want to use tarsnap, borg or restic. All of their source code is available and ready for inspection and no trust is required if you have the time and capability to verify their claims.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Backup company doesn't allow backup files or VMs for their official "business tier" plans?

Someone didn't think this through. I'd ditch the service immediately if I used it personally. There are so many decent backup options nowadays.

<comment><USER9> It's the "small business" tier which they migrated some of their users to, after shutting down the "consumer" version of Crashplan.

I'm pretty sure they ran the numbers and figured that a small number of jokers backing up images of _live_ VMs were using up an enormous amount of disk space. That's likely thousands of dollars of cost for a couple of dollars in revenue per month. I can see how they need to get rid of these people.

Having said that, not notifying their customers beforehand is beyond negligent.

<comment><USER10> FWIW, I got an email from them months ago warning about this.

After a decade of using CrashPlan, I'm on the verge of jumping ship. Just thought I'd check and apparently it has silently been failing to backup for nearly two days. Also, I can't access the restore function at the moment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Deleting customer data without warning is probably the #1 way to sink the reputation of your backup company.

<comment><USER12> My guess is they did this because storing these file types made their business unprofitable. This might be a last ditch move to try to get into profitability.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Business suicide is fun to watch.

</comment><comment><USER6> Tarsnap and/or BackBlaze are saner alternatives.

</comment><comment><USER14> Deleting VMs on business accounts?

What joker thought that's a good idea

<comment><USER9> It's _small_ business accounts. Now even smaller!</comment></comment>


Trello celebrates One Million Users - <AUTHOR> https://trello.com/1m <comment><USER3> I have, in the past 3 months, been forced to work in a location where the only internet access is on machines with IE8 on them (and no ability to install Chrome Frame). The loss of Trello has absolutely FUCKING sucked. I'm sorry for the profanity, but it is an abysmally awful process to have to STOP using Trello and go back to emailing spreadsheets back and forth or _shudder_ MS Project.

I think this huge drop in my productivity is a testament to just how awesome Trello is.

<comment><USER4> Have you considered the Trello apps for smartphones and tablets as an alternative?

<comment><USER3> Less than 2 years ago, I bought a "cutting edge" Android smartpone, called the Samsung Infuse. Almost two years later, Samsung has yet to release a single update to Gingerbread (from Froyo) over the cell network. A few months ago, they were nice enough to put out a buggy Gingerbreak update to the device, but it was hosted on their website, required me to install software on my computer just to load it, and it then failed (repeatedly) to install on my phone. The Trello app won't work on Froyo, so, no, thanks to the fact that Samsung doesn't give a shit about its customers, I don't have Trello on my phone. I just want to add that the Samsung Infuse, at the time of purchase, was a top of the line phone in the store. Same (subsidized) price as an iPhone. Within 6 months of purchase, it was completely abandoned by Samsung. HTC will be getting my business for the next purchase.

<comment><USER5> Heh, I have the same problem with my Galaxy S1... Count yourself lucky, I'm still stuck on Eclair!

<comment><USER6> Samsung is frequently referred to as "the only android carrier that makes any money". One wonders whether such Apple-sque upgrade forcing has contributed to their financial success.

<comment><USER7> Apple doesn't 'force' upgrades anything like what every Android vendor does. The iPhone 4 is now 2.5 years old and still happily runs iOS6 - I can't find anyone with a 2.5 year old android phone that's running current software that hasn't modded it.

<comment><USER8> even the 3gs runs ios6 and it's from 2009!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> These sort of product celebrations (with users providing feedback on what the product means to them) are fantastic. As a user it's great to be able to see what a product means to others too and how they're using it. We had a similar page for a website we run and reading user feedback is so much fun, companies should do this sort of thing more often.

Trello only reached 500,000 users in July of this year, that's some spectacular growth: <http://blog.trello.com/trello-is-now-500000-strong/>

<comment><USER10> I think you mean, July of _last_ year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wonder how much, it at all, has Trello's success impacted sales of 37 Signals' Basecamp. We cancelled our Basecamp account and switched to Trello after we realized Trello was ideal for our project management needs.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm impressed Trello has managed to succeed in what many had written off as overcrowded space. I think the key to its success is the insight that Joel Spolsky explains in his post here: <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2012/01/06.html> \- that successful apps often provide a new kind of data structure, that makes them suitable for many purposes. (For Trello, that's a "list of lists".)

Fog Creek Employees: can anyone comment on who had this original insight? Was it Joel himself or another employee?

<comment><USER12> _that successful apps often provide a new kind of data structure, that makes them suitable for many purposes_

And I'd argue that that is also a major reason when apps fail: they force people to change their existing ways of thinking and aren't able to "recruit" enough users/customers.

Frankly I wasn't that big on trello and still have major issues with it. For example, when juggling multiple boards, I still don't really know where to begin my workflow. I still don't really know how to see casually what all has been going on across my boards...a lot like a facebook feed. These are critical features that keep me from really engaging with it.

<comment><USER13> Try connecting to Trello through Hojoki.com , it provides a chronological stream-like interface that might be more to your liking. You can filter by Project etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> That announcement page was buggy for men on Ubuntu Chrome. The page loaded and I saw the text letter but the smaller "title" card was overlayed on top of the letter but was mirrored left to right so you couldn't read it. Looks good on OSX chrome though!

<comment><USER15> > That announcement page was buggy for men on Ubuntu Chrome.

What about women, did it work fine for them? :)

<comment><USER16> Yes, didn't you know - the XX Chrome works fine, but the XY Chrome is a bit buggy.

;-)

edit - <USER2>

<comment><USER17> Missed opportunity for "Chrome-o-some". Disappointing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> My biggest problem with Trello is that they don't support multiple identities. I use it for work and have also created a personal account. What I would expect is a nice dropdown to switch identities (eg like you get with Google or Github). The mobile apps also only have one identity.

A work around is in theory to keep logging out and back in again as the different users, but this is extremely tedious and in my case completely impractical as I don't know my passwords (stored in a password manager).

On one of Joel's posts it was clear he used Trello for work and for personal activity, but didn't state how that was achieved.

<comment><USER19> I've created multiple boards. Right now I'm at three: one for my personal life, one for my public work life (i.e. shared with colleagues), and one for my private work life that has my own to-dos, lists, etc. Then you use the board dropdown similar to what you wanted for users.

<comment><USER18> Those are all personal, although your last one includes work information. My work has a separate identity from me, has a separate email address, and has confidential information that needs to be bounded by that work. Intermingling it with boards associated with my personal identity is wrong, and in violation of several work NDAs with partners.

It should also be the case that my work can disable/cancel my work account and be confident of no further work related access by me.

<comment><USER20> This is what Trello organizations are designed for. An org is a collection of boards and a group of people, with permission control.

This is Fog Creek's org: <https://trello.com/fogcreek>

You'll just see our public boards, but we also have boards that are visible only to org members. Granting or restricting access to all of them is as simple as adding or removing a user. You can create and be a member of as many orgs as you want.

<comment><USER21> But that's not the issue. The problem is the inability to switch between identities without logging out and back in. Which is significantly harder on iOS than the desktop.

Not really a surprise. I'm having the same problem with a pile of services. The only thing I'm using that lets me switch easily is Gmail.

There was a post on here a month or so ago about a guy who lost his personal drop box because they do a bad job of understanding people have multiple personas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Ha! It's funny since I literally just finally signed up this past week.

I saw it when it first came out and was blown away but didn't have time to fit it into my routine until recently. Really wonderful elegant software, I've gotten a few other people to convert to it too just in the past couple days.

I have boards for misc tasks, various engineering tasks, shopping, development, sales pipelines etc. It's _fantastic_.

</comment><comment><USER23> How many active ones?

<comment><USER24> I don't feel comfortable providing that number, but I can talk a bit about how the Trello team would answer it.

The concept of "active" isn't really a cut-and-dried thing. Do you count people who merely look at Trello, or do they have to do something? If they have to do something, then what is "something"? If I do one "something," is that enough, or do I have to do a couple? What if someone does that on my behalf (i.e., assigning me to or removing me from a board or card)? Are they active, am I active, or both?

It turns out the Trello team several different concepts of "active" they chart, but two they pay a lot of attention to are the number of users who have been active on Trello in the last 28 days (i.e., your pip has gone green), and the number of users who have performed at least four actions in the last 28 days (e.g., create a card, move a card, join a board, etc.). The awesome thing is that those numbers, while obviously less than the total member count, are nothing to sneeze at, and have been moving in proportion to the total member count throughout the time they've been measured. In other words, we have roughly twice as many active users today, by the above metrics, as we did at 500,000.

Sorry for the fuzziness, but I hope that at least gives you enough information to know it's not an empty statistic.

<comment><USER25> what's wrong with providing that number? I think number of sign-ups is pretty much useless metric. even dead MySpace keeps increasing their sign-ups. It doesn't mean they are doing well.

To be honest, I would be really really interested how many active users Trello has. It would be great service to startup community to see what is conversion rate out there for bigger services like Trello.

Evernote is very public with their numbers, for example they claim 1/3 of total sign-ups being active users (users who logged into service in last month).

<comment><USER24> I work on Kiln, not Trello, and I don't feel comfortable ripping numbers off their dashboard and posting them onto HN. Simple as that. For all I know, they plan on announcing those numbers themselves soon, and I don't want to get in their way.

<comment><USER26> I'd just like to chime in and say: thank you for being sensitive to the desires of the Trello team!

Also, we hope that Trello can make an official statement about this soon, and we look forward to their data!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> . . . and is still super, super fun to work on.

<comment><USER28> I could never adapt. I didn't like the way one deals with older items.

Care to tell us how you use it?

<comment><USER29> I think he is saying he's a Trello developer.

<comment><USER27> Yes, I was trying to say that developing Trello is still really fun, even as it's getting bigger - we are starting to see some minor scaling challenges, but it's still a great time.

But we do use Trello to manage Trello, with a public dev board (<https://trello.com/dev>) and also internal boards to track things that are not yet public or that are too granular to expose externally.

Uservoice has a neat and somewhat complex setup: [http://www.uservoice.com/blog/founders/trello-google-docs- pr...](http://www.uservoice.com/blog/founders/trello-google-docs-product- management/)

And there are a bunch of good articles about how people are using Trello; searching for 'How I use Trello' turns up a lot of ideas. That being said, it's not going to fit everybody every time.

<comment><USER30> Would love to see what kind of dev platform/technology you use to build trello, specifically the scaling challenges.

<comment><USER20> The team wrote a blog post describing their tech stack last year: <http://blog.fogcreek.com/the-trello-tech-stack/>

The biggest change since then is that Trello now runs on AWS, rather than colocated servers in NYC. But the software is the same.

<comment><USER27> . . . and here's an example of an issue with scaling it up: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13770826/poorly- balanced-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13770826/poorly-balanced- socket-accepts-with-linux-3-2-kernel-vs-2-6-kernel)

<comment><USER31> Shared file descriptors are bad mojo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> found in the comments:

"I manage my relationship with my girlfriend using Trello. I stack potential gifts for her in one list, briefs on arguments we have in another, etc. My friends share the board and help me resolve the arguments in real time. I use the labels to convey my emotions at a certain point in time for a specific card. I really love her. Fingers crossed she doesn't find out!"

</comment><comment><USER33> I started using Trello about 2.5 months ago and its really impacted the way I do almost everything for the better. It has made organizing a plan of action for my to-do's and side projects so much easier that I feel like a blow through my tasks now.

Congratulations and good luck on your way to 2 million users!

</comment><comment><USER34> Interesting tool. This is something I normally do in a notebook (or a text file) so it wasn't like I was out looking for anything to replace that, but if this can add value to that process I'm all for it.

One of the things I don't have in my home grown process but wish I did was a way to surface important but not urgent things periodically. Sort of along the memoize theme you need to keep the important things in your head even if you're not currently working on them, and having them surface periodically would assist that. I've had stuff get pushed so far down in the stack that it basically submerges until it becomes an urgent issue.

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm curious if an app like this could have gotten traction if it wasn't put out by a shop like Fog Creek. In other words, if some guy built this in his basement, would anybody have noticed, no matter how great?

<comment><USER36> I imagine fame would give you an initial boost, but it would be only temporary without a really good product. The growth curve might look similar to a non- famous developer, but just start at an earlier point on the curve.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I really like trello. Something about it feels so natural. I like it a heap better than jira + agile plugin. I do like pivitol tracker too, but trello can do more.

<comment><USER38> At my last place we used Trello from the day it came out (and had used fogbugz for years). At my current place we use jira + agile. I do prefer Trello for high level stuff, but I think jira does a good job of handling both high level and low level tracking in the same app. Their agile stuff seems to be getting better too.

I'm glad to see Trello is going so well. It's a great product and a great example of not having to build something that covers every possible use case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I still wish for the deeper Fogbugz integration with Trello that has been coming up for a while.

I reasonably use it, would love to use it more, it's Wonderful. :)

</comment><comment><USER40> I've looked at Trello several times, and it's always seemed like a _great_ app to work with... but I never got around to actually using it.

So, open question time: How do all you HN'ers use Trello? What kind of things do you manage with it? Bonus for telling us what you used before, and how Trello makes it easier. Super-duper bonus for anything to do with running software projects, and running businesses.

Thanks!

<comment><USER41> I used Mingle before in a very large project. It was good enough, but soon I moved to a smaller project (4-7 people at any one time) and switching to Trello has proved to be a real asset.

We create cards (story cards, basically) for each user experience and move them to different columns (Backlog, In Progress, Done) and then archive columns at the end of each Iteration.

We also have Known Issues columns and we maintain a large amount of our discussions about implementation on cards.

Also as the developer on the project, I find it useful to put the individual tasks of each user experience on the corresponding cards, which I can split into lists (such as 'API Tasks' and 'UI Tasks').

It's very flexible, and I've found it to work very well with the way I intuitively do things.

I also use it on a small side project that I do with a colleague of mine. We love it.

Everyone with whom I work on Trello loves it and we avidly follow its development.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I used Trello for a little while, I thought the software was good, but didn't really match my taste. Just didn't like the cards =/

</comment><comment><USER43> There's a great description about the tech stack at <http://blog.fogcreek.com/the-trello-tech-stack/>

Does anyone know how many servers it runs on? I'd like to see a physical tech stack description (is it already out there somewhere? If so, my Google-fu failed me)

EDIT: discussion -> description

<comment><USER44> As of October 2012, it's on EC2. [http://status.fogcreek.com/2012/10/fogbugz- kiln-and-copilot-...](http://status.fogcreek.com/2012/10/fogbugz-kiln-and- copilot-continue-to-run-on-backup-power-trello-moving-to-amazon-aws.html)

I don't know how many instances, or what size.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> This looks like a great service that i didn't know about before. Definitely going to be getting one more user. I wish we could use something like this at work.

Since most of this is rather new to me, are there any other great organizational/ basic life services out there? I would be curious to see what other people are using.

</comment><comment><USER46> My company has developed a similar product. The philosophy is to combine productivity with fun-factor.

Instead of lists-in-lists it is based on a customizable grid (spreadsheet) with sticky notes.

<https://www.symphonical.com/all-you-need-to-know/>

</comment><comment><USER47> I've just started using it but now that it has 1M users I'm a little apprehensive for the usual reasons: no easy way to export or access offline, and no idea of whether there are any monetization plans on the horizon. It could be another way to get lost in the cloud.

<comment><USER48> You can export your data: see "Portability" at <https://trello.com/privacy>

I don't know what I can say to ease your worries about monetization. Its definitely something we're working on. That said, Fog Creek is an established company with steady cash flow, so we're not just going to disappear.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Great Service. Recently, however, we moved to basecamp because of the calendaring features.

<comment><USER50> If you need more vertical stuff then check out Breeze (<http://letsbreeze.com>), it's Basecamp and Trello mashup. Plus it adds calendar, time tracking, budgeting and reporting.

<comment><USER51> And is hilariously expensive, with no free plan. More even than Basecamp.

<comment><USER50> Pricing is based on the value it's providing. It is not a horizontal tool but deeply vertical. We are not competing with price and also not directly with Basecamp or Trello.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> If you're looking for an alternative to Trello take a look at <http://www.kanbanpad.com> we've been working on it for quite a while and it fits a niche that many like.

</comment><comment><USER53> Trello is one of those things that I would have said nobody needed, until the first time I touched it and realized the pure joy of moving cards around lists.

That's the power of making something that's fun to use.

</comment><comment><USER54> Great service. I hope they start charging for the service soon.

<comment><USER55> From your perspective, why? AFAIK, it's not like it's a social network where you get an increase in value with the filtering charging brings.

<comment><USER56> I love Trello, but cannot commit to using it more for business until I have an expectation of service, which comes from paying for it. They're awesome, but they owe me nothing, and that's just too risky.

<comment><USER24> You know, I've had a fair number of services that I'm paying for just vanish out from under me, too (e.g., eWorld, iTools, Grove.io, the original Siri). Sometimes the wind-down is longer, sometime it isn't. And, conversely, some things I don't pay for have been around for a very, very long time (Freenode, Gmail, my old Fidonet BBS, etc.). Maybe paid sticks around longer on average, but I think paid-v.-free is a bad litmus test.

I think there's a much better one: how easy it is to take your data and go home. With Trello, the answer is "exceedingly easy." On any board, just go to "Options" -> "Share, Print, Export..." and dump the entire board to JSON. From there, it should be easy to move your data onto Remember the Milk, Pinterest, org-mode, or whatever's appropriate for you. You can even automate grabbing that JSON on a daily basis via the API, if you're so inclined.

So while I understand your argument, your actual risk here is very, very low.

As another Creeker pointed out elsewhere in this thread, the Trello team has some stuff coming out in the future that you may find appealing, if you would feel better contractually paying for stuff. But in terms of risk, I think that it can be very low, today, whether you pay or not.

<comment><USER55> On the other hand, you have a better argument when the service goes down temporarily. They're more likely to respond quickly if they have paying customers.

<comment><USER24> That may be fair. In this particular case, I can tell you we respond to Trello outages the same we'd respond to FogBugz or Kiln outages, so your concern should be minimal.

<comment><USER55> Ah, didn't realize you were a Fog Creek employee yourself :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> i love trello.. i use it for everything and really love what fogcreek has done with it. i do have one suggestion: please make you mobile app faster. the UI, in terms of moving cards to different list is really hard to use and lags a lot. i suggest finding a better solution for that feature, instead of trying to replicate the desktop experience. i rarely use the mobile app for this reason.

keep up the good work

</comment><comment><USER58> Can Trello become for node what twitter was for rails?

</comment><comment><USER59> This is awesome! So happy for these guys! GREAT solution. 1 million is just the tip of the iceberg. I'm sure they will have millions more.

</comment><comment><USER60> I've been pushing for trello over the much slower, less intuitive sprint.ly.

the main hangup is the lack of a daily digest report. anyone have a solution?

<comment><USER61> Sorry you feel this way, pswenson. Are you still experiencing the slowness on Sprint.ly? Please email me at firstname.lastname@example.com and I'm happy to help as I can.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> Too many project management platforms nowadays. I'd rather let them compete for a few years and see what comes out on top.

</comment><comment><USER63> They don't check for uniqueness of email address when registering via google, so perhaps this claim is dubious :)

<comment><USER64> All user number claims from anyone are dubious. Just compare them all with a grain of salt. :)

</comment></comment><comment> james-singh Congrats to Trello! It's one service/solution I love dearly.

</comment><comment><USER65> mad props to spolsky-spolsky, but pivotal is better.

</comment><comment><USER66> So what does the 1000000th user win? Nothing? I'm disappointed. ;-)</comment>


Let's Build dispatch_queue - <AUTHOR> https://www.mikeash.com/pyblog/friday-qa-2015-09-04-lets-build-dispatch_queue.html <comment><USER2> One of the occasionally annoying things about developer communities is their tendency to present certain technologies as unqualified 'magic' and one should be thankful for developing for platform x because only it has technology y. GCD is sometimes presented this way, when it's mostly just a thread pool with a nice API.

Which is why articles like this are so great. When I was first dipping my toes into development, Mike Ash's articles were a great help in cutting through the marketing hype and realising that these are mostly things you could have implemented yourself given the time and inclination.

<comment><USER3> While I quite agree with your general point I think GCD is often under appreciated. Characterizing GCD as "mostly just a thread pool with a nice API" glosses over the key feature which Mike Ash specifically points out is not in this implementation: "the number of threads in the global pool scales up and down with the amount of work to be done and the CPU utilization of the system." Making the pool aware of the utilization of the whole system as a whole is the key feature of GCD. This also cuts to why something like this is best if it is created and promoted by the system vendor: the more GCD is utilized by the system software and third party applications the better the system will perform as a whole.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4>
                if([_blocks count] < idleThreads && _threadCount < _threadCountLimit) {

Shouldn't that be > idleThreads?

<comment><USER5> Yes indeed! Oddly in the code on GitHub it's correct. I'm not sure how the mismatch happened. I corrected it in the article as well. Thanks for pointing that out.

<comment><USER6> Perhaps a problem with substituting the correct HTML entities :)

<comment><USER5> I used to have a lot of problems with that, due to my crappy home-grown blog software, but it's pretty solid now. I think what may have happened is I had it backwards in the code originally, noticed the problem when pasting the code into the article, then fixed the code but forgot to fix the article. Maybe. It was late and beer was involved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Nice! dispatch is a lovely API. Concurrent queues are nice to have, but the real magic is in serial queues.

For example, we can wrap a hash table in a dispatch queue: get() uses dispatch_sync, set() uses dispatch_async, and boom: our hash table rehashes in the background, instead of forcing set() to wait.

What are some other APIs that enable you to build a hash table like that?

</comment><comment><USER8> For others not knowing the details of Cocoa API and wondering about it, [NSCondition wait] unlocks the condition's locks and blocks the thread until the condition variable is signaled, at which point is reacquires the lock and resumes.</comment>


A venture fund's experiment in human-free investing - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-05-01/white-male-vcs-tend-to-fund-white-male-entrepreneurs-could-robots-do-better <comment><USER2> "if the algorithms liked what they saw, the venture fund would back them...Similar tactics have brought promising results in other competitive fields. The most famous example comes from the 1970s, when five major orchestras began requiring musicians to stand behind a screen while auditioning."

These things are in no way similar.

The article seems to pre-suppose that an algorithm can not be biased. The truth is, if the algorithm is trained on past deals then it could easily encode bias. More than this, it can give plausible deniability to biases/prejudiced behavior because "the algorithm did it".

<comment><USER3> You have missed most of the context of the article there: "Carroll laughs as she recalls the thread, without seeming particularly amused. "I was just like, 'Says no one about a male entrepreneur, ever.' "

<comment><USER4> And this actually almost makes me dismiss her outright. _Everybody_ raising money has heard those.

 _I_ have personally heard: "Not enthusiastic enough/Too enthusiastic" (Irony: two different people sitting at the _same_ presentation) "Too little/too much experience" "Not enough/too many generalists." It goes on and on ...

You learn to ignore the excuse and move on--the excuse is irrelevant.

"No" is "no". Move on.

"Maybe" is "no". Move on.

"Yes" is no until you cash the check and it clears.

<comment><USER3> That's not the point. Or maybe it's exactly the point.

The point is that doing the equivalent of blind auditions might solve it for everyone. It is similar enough to the blind auditions example anyway to make the "it is no way similar" argument clearly wrong.

<comment><USER2> If you want to make it like a blind audition, then do that. Either just review anonymized decks, or do the pitches over anonymized email.

This is not a blind audition... it's something quite different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's interesting how they've already spotted a number of possible problems with using an algo to do VC, but there isn't really a compelling solution yet.

There are a number of parallels with the time when I was trading fixed income at a hedge fund. We had a senior guy looking at the output of various opportunity scanners, and deciding what to do.

There's several problems with this approach.

\- The human is always out to prove himself. If you don't override the system now and again, what's the point of you? This means the humans are always on the looking for some special one-off condition they can claim.

\- The algo dev stops short of where he could go with it. You ought to be fully automating it, but you don't because you need to leave something on the table. There's a number of data problems that you just don't get around to solving because it's tedious and you aren't going to use it.

\- The VC guys have a much worse data problem, by the looks of it. Not every startup will fill out the form. If they don't need your money, no form. If they crash early, no form. After they fill out the form, how do you track what happened to them? Seems like a big problem. Also if you're going to use ML you need a fairly large number of rows. Not just filled out forms, but also labels for how things turned out. And the more features you collect, the more labelled rows you'll want.

So there's a real risk of falling into the pseudo-systematic hole here. You take the data that you have and make conclusions that are very close to your initial priors. Basically you end up with stylized "facts" that aren't necessarily true, just believed.

Seems like a they've thought about these things though, will be interesting to see what happens.

<comment><USER6> In the end this is still an investment, and the stock purchase agreement will probably include terms that would require companies to upload their P/L each quarter. They could easily track progress based on that.

<comment><USER5> That doesn't tell you how firms you didn't invest in are doing. Presumably you want to know how well your selection algo is doing, and you can't without having an idea of how your non investments are going.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What I find most interesting here is that for a relatively small amount of money (compared with their fund size), Social Capital is creating an amazing dataset about founders and startups. It will be really useful for them a few years from now to be able to go back and see what was most predictive of successful startups.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's really easy to overfit and create biased algorithms, especially with how small their 'startup' training set is likely to be. That is, of course, if they're doing ML and not just encoding their own investor 'intuition' into software.

Still, I agree the weight of personal relationships and human-powered- decision-making guiding the 'tech' industry is a bit ironic.

</comment><comment><USER9> Why would it be a problem that white males get funded? Besides, I'm willing to bet that they'll find out that the algorithm also picks white males, for objective reasons.</comment>