Apple's Mistake (2009) - <AUTHOR> http://paulgraham.com/apple.html

<comment><USER2> Original discussion when this was first submitted: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1081514](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1081514)

<comment><USER3> So I guess the question now is, has this changed much since 2009?

<comment><USER4> It didn't take long for Apple to accept the app of my recent former employer, and AFAIK, they have been accepting updates. So Apple might have gotten better about turnaround times.

I feel that Apple is generally not all that friendly to developers: they make it hard to just start hacking on your device, with lots of bureaucratic hoops, app signings, developer accounts you need; you can't do any development without a Mac; they make little or no effort to ease the transition to their platform for developers new to Apple development -- there's only one programming language that's credible to develop in, and it's one that no one else in the industry uses; documentation is spotty and there don't seem to be a lot of good books out there. They obviously have a lot invested in ObjectiveC, and it goes way back to before they had a platform that stood to attract lots of new developers, so I get that it would be impractical to just drop ObjectiveC as the core language. But they could definitely do more to support standard scripting languages as viable alternatives to ObjC. I gather that they flirted with Python (or was it Ruby?) for a while, but then they dropped it. Google clearly did developers a favor by using Java and Linux as the platform. I'm not that personally fond of Java, but it's way better than some language that's totally bizarre and used by only one company (I'd make only one exception, if that company happened to be Microsoft, because MS has been big enough for long enough to create their own language, and I don't think they'd ever force something like ObjC on you anyway).

I'm reminded of something I do like about Apple development -- I like that it's fully POSIX and BSD compatible, even on the phone. And they integrate and encourage popular open source libraries. But I'm not sure if they did that to cut developers a break, or just to save themselves time by using stuff that was already available.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In hindsight, I think Apple did an impressive job with the App Store, in their usual style of building a brand-new kind of thing and actually doing a bang-up job of it. It took a few years to really get into shape, and I don't like everything about it (the 30% cut is steep, and I'd like to install a non-Store app once in a while). However, a software store is a legitimate business and not some philosophically-unsound intermediary, and there are many human factors that go into software that are relevant here.

The most impressive aspect of the App Store is that a _human_ ensures a certain level of quality of _every_ single app in the store. While a few clauses in Apple's guidelines get the most attention in the blogosphere (like ability to access adult content), the bulk if it is actually mundane stuff like: The app doesn't crash if there's no Internet connection, or if the connection drops. The app doesn't have other glaring bugs or usability issues. It's compatible with some range of OS versions and devices. And so on. It was ambitious of Apple to try to scale a curated store to hundreds of thousands of apps, but they hired lots of people and they did it.

The store is also a much better experience than any previous way of buying, or even discovering, software. You can easily pay with one click; the download begins instantly; and the installation happens invisibly. Remember filling out credit card forms online just to buy a $5 app? Imagine that process on a tiny screen. Remember installers? Uninstallers? When shopping, you can browse titles easily, and you can get an idea what you're buying. The organization and user interface, while often criticized, are better than anything comparable that I know of (game console stores; old shareware sites), and of course the selection is much larger.

One final point to note is that most hackers, as much as they love hacking around with technology, don't have the desire, experience, or attention span to produce a polished app with a decent user experience, and for those that do, it necessarily takes many many hours. So some of the hurdles Apple puts up (like registering for the developer program) should be put in perspective. On the other hand, I absolutely think the iPhone could stand to be more hacker- friendly and easy to mess around with.

In summary, I think of the App Store as an Apple innovation and a very daring one. Like many Apple innovations, many parts of it seem obvious (and maybe are/were) and yet are hard to do and weren't done previously, or weren't integrated. Apple's always trying to integrate stuff, which tends to reduce choice at a technical level but vastly improve the experience of using the product (...if only it weren't the trade-off it was). The canonical example is making both the hardware and the software for a computer, but there's an endless list of smaller ones (like deciding the sound card is part of the computer).

<comment><USER4> You sound like an Apple booster. One company providing both software and hardware is the way it works most of the time. I think the real innovation was the unusual openness of the IBM PC.</comment></comment>


Parse 1.0 is released - <AUTHOR> http://blog.parse.com/2012/03/26/parse-1.0-is-released/

<comment><USER3> Parse is my most favorite company I've never used (but I'm actively searching for an excuse to become a user). Just watching them build out their impressive platform in mere months has been enough to make me a fan.

One thing that just seems inevitable is that they will be bought, and I wonder if (how?) things will change when they do...

</comment><comment><USER4> I wonder how long it will be before someone creates an open source clone of this that you can simply run on any cloud service such as Amazon.

<comment><USER5> If you forget about the iOS SDK for a minute, Parse is essentially a modern CouchDB.

Couch got a lot of things right, and with the advent of client-side apps I'm guessing the idea of database-as-API makes a ton more sense to people now than it did five years ago.

But because CouchDB wasn't made with modern web app development in mind, it has these awkward almost-right-but-not-quite features, like the way it handles push notifications (see <http://guide.couchdb.org/draft/notifications.html>), design documents, couch apps, map/reduce and so on. All of that stuff is _great_ , but none of it works quite as smoothly as it should.

Anyway, I would love a database with these features:

* RESTful, with basic filtering operations built-in

* schemaless

* uses webhooks to provide push notifications, plugins (e.g. ACL, validation) and map-reduce -- meaning you can "program" your database using any language you want, couple events to background jobs etc.

* websocket support

* multiple engines so you can back a collection with Mongo, Redis, Neo4j, S3 (store/serve media) or anything else depending on your requirements, but still have all collections exposed to the web as JSON with a uniform querying interface

* smart view caching

The trouble with Couch is that you're supposed to be able to build apps that are backed with just your database and nothing else, but it never ends up being quite flexible enough to do exactly that.

But a database that would allow you to replace your entire back-end framework with just a couple of independent snippets of code to handle validation, authorization, sending email and what-not but with all the CRUD you need for an API-driven app out of the box... hells yeah.

<comment><USER6> We're not quite "fully launched" at this time, but you might want to check out Trestle:

<https://www.trestleapp.com/>

We don't meet all your bullet points from above, but your closing paragraph sums up what we're doing with Trestle pretty well (i.e. more than just a web connected database).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I had a close look at the iOS SDK of Parse - I read the API documentation as well as the guide. To me it seems that they got it right. The SDK can do so much for you and yet the API seems to be very simple and streamlined. Very very pragmatic and I like it. Look at the SDK Reference:

<https://parse.com/docs/ios/api/>

I see about 10 classes there. Isn't that awesome? 10 simple classes - <USER2> it. To make it more concrete - have a look at PFObject. This simple class seems to be a wrapper around NSDictionary but it gives you CRUD commands and it is using setObjectForKey: and objectForKey:. If I show this class to one of my Objective-C students they will immediately know how to use it.

Parse really knows how to make complex things easy going. I will evaluate Parse with a real app soon but I am very confident that it will be a good experience.

</comment><comment><USER8> Anyone know what they're using on their website for documentation? I love the way the pane on the is highlighted as you scroll the main window of this page:

<https://parse.com/docs/android_guide>

<comment><USER9> At a quick glance the UI looks custom. Looks like they use basic jQuery plugins like "JQuery Waypoints" for the navigation highlighting.

<comment><USER10> Yep, the documentation UI is custom, on top of typical jQuery stuff. We looked at off-the-shelf solutions, but none of them were quite awesome enough, and it's really important to us to have great documentation, so we ended up rolling our own.

<comment><USER11> :offtopic:

Could you turn off the CSS for changing the highlight color? I know it is all the rage these days, but it is an accessibility issue for me (and probably others as well). I use highlighting to make it easier for me to read text (it helps by eyes track better). When you change the color (especially to something garish) it substantially reduces the usability of the site for me. Yes it is just one Firebug edit away, but really I shouldn't have to do it.

Operating systems allow people to set custom highlight colors for a reason. I don't see why website authors think they know better than their users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> You have links that point to <https://parse.com/pricing> which is a generic rails 404.

I remember a frontpage 97 feature that scanned your site for broken pages. Seems like we need a web 2.0 version of that (because I've noticed a new/small sites with dead links recently that should have been [automatically] caught).

<comment><USER13> There does seem to be an opportunity here. The free tools I've used for doing this all hit the web server and are either command-line based (wget, etc.) and/or ancient: "Xenu's Link Sleuth" for Windows. ( <http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html> )

I'd love to hear more about what other people are using, particularly if tools can find broken JavaScript/AJAX links.

<comment><USER14> It's not fancy or automated, but I Integrity for Mac every few weeks: <http://peacockmedia.co.uk/integrity/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Looking at the new pricing, by storage size vs number of objects looks like a good change. You and parse benefit by making smaller objects.

Kind of sorry to see the $49/month plan go. The jump from free to $199 seems a little steep. (I know there is pay as you go for the basic level, but I'd kind of like to know the costs before hand)

All in all I like the new pricing.

Congrats for the release.

<comment><USER12> I've been curious how they handle indexing given that they allow ad-hoc queries. In the feature list they say that they provide "smart indexing". I wonder if they simply log all queries and generate sparse-indexes (they use MongoDB) on the fly? I wonder if "file storage" counts index space?

<comment><USER10> "File storage" actually only counts large files that are stored with PFFile / ParseFile. It does not include data stored in objects or index space; those are all covered by pricing for API requests.

We do track queries and accesses to create appropriate indexes on the fly. Whenever we used databases in the past, indexes always seemed like something that should be done intelligently out of the box, so we decided to make Parse work that way.

<comment><USER16> One question I have is what is the advantage of using PFFile instead of storing in S3?

<comment><USER10> We think PFFile is a lot easier to use from mobile devices, with the iOS and Android SDKs. A lot of people are actually just using PFFile because they find it simpler than using S3. That said, you can use S3 and Parse in the same application, so they work together fine if you'd rather implement things that way.

<comment><USER16> I'm currently using Parse for data and S3 for file storage. I will give it a try to PFFile in another project to see how it works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Parse is great, I had some trouble with their iOS Facebook documentation and they were all too happy to email me the changes that recently occurred and update their documentation accordingly.

</comment><comment><USER18> Last time I looked at parse I think it used basic http auth over https to authenticate clients.

Having seen how easy it is to look at the plain traffic a mobile app sends with <http://mitmproxy.org/> I would have concerns to use this.

Or is there some per user authentication?

<comment><USER19> I use Parse on a couple of projects, I also work (separately, I hasten to add!) on apps for carriers with significant security issues.

I would say that you shouldn't really worry about 'sniffing' traffic, because whatever countermeasures you take chances are if someone cares enough they'll work around it.

Parse has an access-control model for objects: objects can have read/write permissions for users, groups, or everyone. For example, you might have an object in Parse representing a comment, which the owner could edit and everyone else read.

Obviously the Parse API itself is rather public, and it wouldn't take a _huge_ amount of skill to extract your client keys from an Android / iOS app: but as long as you've designed your ACL (access control list) correctly, it won't matter as your user will have to be logged in and authenticated to access sensitive objects.

<comment><USER20> _it wouldn't take a huge amount of skill to extract your client keys from an Android / iOS app: but as long as you've designed your ACL (access control list) correctly, it won't matter as your user will have to be logged in and authenticated to access sensitive objects._

But it's possible to edit the ACL from a client. Isn't that a potential weakness?

<https://www.parse.com/docs/ios_guide#users-acls>

<comment><USER10> Editing the ACL is subject to the same access restrictions, similar to how Unix ACLs work. So, for most cases this is sufficient. If you have more complex security needs, we're glad to discuss how individual apps can be secured. Drop us a line at feedback at parse.com.

<comment><USER20> Thanks. And I will likely do that. Before I do and if I could borrow some more of your time: would using Parse qualify an app as containing encryption, in regards to the AppStore submission/guidelines?

See this question: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2135081/does-my- applicati...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2135081/does-my-application- contain-encryption)

<comment><USER10> Parse does use <https://> connections for all data, so you should take whatever action you would normally take for an application that communicates over https. That is the only form of client-side encryption used.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I see you guys are in geolocation. I have some interesting client-side code for identification and cleaning of Postal addresses in HTML (runs in the browser or backed). If you might be interested in discussing, drop me a mail!

</comment><comment><USER22> Are you guys taking interns?</comment>


RapGenius Traffic Statistics - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantcast.com/rapgenius.com

<comment><USER2> Original link (~6 hours ago) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6966260](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6966260)

</comment><comment><USER3> I think they were too strict on this one. I don't think it's fair to bankrupt a company forever for dodgy seo. hopefully it's not permanent?

Let's be honest, their competition is probably doing the same, but since they are famous on the tech scene, and their actions get on news sites google people read, they get penalized.

<comment><USER4> 1\. its not permanent. these type of things are usually for 60 days. see ([http://readwrite.com/2012/01/03/google_forced_to_punish_itse...](http://readwrite.com/2012/01/03/google_forced_to_punish_itself_for_chromes_seo_mis)) 2\. If everyone is "doing the same", then they are all likely to be punished equally, since they are taking active movements against it.

I think people are assuming that because rapgenius is being hit, no other lyrics sites are

<comment><USER3> ah good stuff. they are making a bad thing good at their twitter [https://twitter.com/RapGenius](https://twitter.com/RapGenius)

<comment><USER4> its a terrible thing for them, but hopefully only a temporary one.

it'll be a shitty couple of months

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> yikes.</comment>


German Prototype Fund Grants Up to €30,000 for Open Source Projects in 2nd round - robert-boehnke https://prototypefund.de/2017/02/22/german-prototype-fund-grants-up-to-30-000-for-open-source-projects/ <comment><AUTHOR> There were 500 submissions and 17 projects were chosen for funding so the competition is quite strong. On the other hand, the submission process is easy and cheap.

</comment><comment><USER2> nice projects in 1st round [https://prototypefund.de/projects/](https://prototypefund.de/projects/)</comment>


Excerpts of Apple Executives' Senate Committee Testimony on Tax Policy - <AUTHOR> http://www.macrumors.com/2013/05/21/excerpts-of-apple-executives-senate-committee-testimony-on-tax-policy/ <comment><USER2> Rand Paul was flat out awesome.

Until Congress can stop using the tax system as a means of social engineering it will always be gamed by those who can extract the most from the rule makers.

</comment><comment><USER3> Apple as usual is a class act, the pinnacle of American ingenuity.</comment>


A Brief History of Blockchain - <AUTHOR> https://hbr.org/2017/02/a-brief-history-of-blockchain <comment><USER2> The zeroth innovation is a Proof of Work implementation: HashCash [1], invented 1997. After all we stand on shoulders of giants.

[1]: [http://www.hashcash.org/](http://www.hashcash.org/)

Edit: Added an explanation.

HashCash was an idea to thwart spam by forcing spammers to do work. It works similar to Bitcoin's Proof of Work: Use a nonce and hash the text together with a nonce. Does the hash start with some zeroes like this: 0000bbab945399d0f80395c65e2ba4c93c89ada8? You are done. Else retry with a different nonce. So if the spammer's computer has to calculate HashCash for about one or two seconds for each e-mail, he won't be able to send millions of them. That was the idea.

</comment><comment><USER3> History lesson number one: the word "blockchain" isn't a pronoun. Seriously, if you don't even know that it tells me you joined the blockchain bandwagon some time in 2015 or later which is when journalists who also didn't know shit about the technology started misusing the word (as if it were "email" or something.)

If a person starts talking to me about "blockchain" and how "blockchain" is going to change the future I just instantly lose respect for them. Maybe this is petty of me but I do find it frustrating.

<comment><USER4> This is like saying "Google" is not a verb. People always find ways to evolve usage of words in different ways, and that's the beauty of human language.

However I do agree with you on how it's annoying these people (not just journalists but startup investors and entrepreneur wannabes) who just learned about Bitcoin (probably never used them but just read it on a blog post or a book) and keep saying Bitcoin sucks but blockchain will change everything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thanks for the article man. Where do YOU see it going in the future? The article is just brushing on that question.

</comment><comment><USER6> fourth and fifth innovation are speculations about the future not history

</comment><comment><USER7> Grammar error in title?</comment>


Scala: a new language for rapid development? - <AUTHOR> http://www.scala-lang.org

<comment><USER2> Also check out the lift web framework, written in Scala

<http://liftweb.net/>

Highlights (from link):

 _Advanced Framework_

Lift has a number of great features for web developers. Many inspired from existing frameworks like Seaside, Rails, Django, TurboGears, and Wicket:

        * Comet support is easy to add and scalable
        * Mapping between databases and code is easy (Rails)
        * Content and code are well separated (Wicket, TurboGears)
        * Forms are secure by default (Seaside)
        * Convention over configuration is emphasized, no xml hell (Rails)
        * Component model makes pages elements easier to create and maintain (Wicket)
        * Prebuilt classes are provided for standard functions, e.g. User (Django)
        * Semantic information carries from model to enable smart display. e.g. postal code, social security number, email address
        * State machine support for model objects, including timeouts. e.g. after 3 days w/o confirmation, delete this new account
        * Site Map provides site wide navigation and access control support

</comment><comment><USER3> For a while, they called Scala the ocaml-killer. Because it is fully interoperable with Java, it enjoys a huge standard library, which is one of the main pitfalls when writing ocaml code. I'm not sure it ever really caught on, though. Scala is a nice functional language with a rich type system built on java byte code, and is similar in concept to Microsoft's offering on the .NET platform: F#

<comment><USER2> Scala also compiles down to CLR (.NET) bytecode, though granted the support for CLR is not nearly as good as the support for JVM.

I think the comparison to F#/ocaml is only skin-deep. Scala does have type inference, which saves a lot of typing compared to Java. For example, in Java one might write:

      IWidgetClassFactory factory = new WidgetClassFactory();

In Scala one can get away with:

      val factory = new WidgetClassFactory

The parens are optional. There as no type declaration for "factory", yet the language is still strongly typed, so the type of "factory" is inferred at compile-time. In many ways Scala code "feels" like Ruby (in the brevity and expressivity of its syntax), but strong type-checking means you avoid bugs (at compile-time) that in Ruby you'd have to catch with extensive unit tests or total system failure every now and then.

Scala also has a sophisticated Actor library based on Erlang's actors. Scala's extensible syntax means that the following is valid Scala code (and was implemented as a -library-, it's not part of the language specification).

      val response = myActor !? request

Actors are lightweight, so you can spawn hundreds of thousands of them on a single JVM, yet (unlike Ruby) they run on top of system threads, so you get real concurrency. This is unbelievably awesome for web development. Imagine keeping an actor thread alive for every logged in user to your site. Combine this with Ajax/Comet and you can "push" any updates out to the user as they become available.

Anyway, I'll stop raving, but check out Scala by Example (link elsewhere in the comments) and the lift web framework written in Scala (link elsewhere in the comments).

<comment><USER4> I think you mean statically strongly typed. I think python is strongly typed, but dynamic.

<comment><USER2> Yes, my bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Boo, that's just a link to the website. I want my vote back! :/

<comment><USER6> See how far you can get through this:

<http://www.scala-lang.org/docu/files/ScalaByExample.pdf>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> i prefer lol-code on monorails for my prototypes</comment>


Microsoft Hits Back as Google Muscles In - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303644004577525383396956086.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Essentially ...

"In a May report, Gartner said Google is winning one-third to half of new corporate users that are paying for Web-based software."</comment>


If Only Someone At Sprint Had Balls - <AUTHOR> http://techdrawl.com/Geekery-D/Press-Played/If-Only-Someone-At-Sprint-Had-Balls <comment><USER2> _what about a brand like Boost Mobile making a strong move in this space with an unlimited data plan behind their own microSIM for $15/month?_

Boost Mobile runs on Sprint's CDMA network. While the phones do have SIM cards, these were inherited from Nextel's iDen, and are likely not compatible with the GSM radios inside the iPad.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Agreed they don't have a compatible product in their back pocket. I was contending they need to make a TMobile-like move and partner up quickly to create a new product line. Huge opportunity if you have the marketing vision + manufacturing abilities.</comment>


Swarms of Octopus Are Taking Over the Oceans - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/swarms-of-octopus-are-taking-over-the-world-s-oceans-1777790453 <comment><USER2> Needs charts and pictures. Too humorous without.</comment>


CSR Violates GPL. Ignores all requests for sources - <AUTHOR> https://forum.csr.com/forum/main-category/main-forum/software/54778-gpl-sources-please?_=1440972234965

<comment><USER2> You posted this the other day, at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10136522](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10136522) , saying then "The forum [post] was the last attempt" after trying all other avenues.

I totally get that you are posting this here partially out of a sense of frustration, partially to get people to know what's going on, and I presume also to get support.

I think - and this is conjectural - you would get more public support if you include a few more details, such as:

"I purchased/downloaded a copy of xIDE from Qualcomm" (as the GPL does not apply upstream when you got it via a third party), "It contains versions of binutils and gcc which are licensed under the GPL. I verified that these are under the GPL copyright by doing XYZ. The license requires that there be a way for me to get the source code from you. Despite many attempts at asking CSR how to get the source code, I have received no answer. This appears to be copyright infringement. If I do not get a response soon, I will be contacting the copyright holders, who have a successful history of prosecuting copyright infringement cases."

Unfortunately, that would only help improve public empathy. There is nothing you as a customer can do directly because you are not a copyright holder and have no standing to sue over copyright infringement. Abstractly speaking (since we know this isn't the case here), it could be that CSR has a special waiver to let them use binutils and gcc without having to follow the GPL. You do not know that, nor can you compel them to reveal if they have such an agreement.

At this point, your next step should be to read and follow [http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl- violation.html](http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-violation.html) .

<comment><AUTHOR> did that thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The likely reason that you are not getting any response is that you're struggling to navigate through a large organisation. That's the most likely reason - it's inertia rather and evilness.

Somebody in the CSR (or Qualcomm) legal department will know that they don't want to violate the GPL. The sales organisation and support don't know anything about the GPL, probably can't even figure out who internally knows how to deal with your issue, and it's not really their problem (from their perspective).

If you want to get this resolved you'll need to find a way through their internal process. What I would do is one or both of these:

a. Call their main head office by phone

On the contact page there is a UK phone number, phone it and ask for legal or the PR organisation. You will most likely find it hard to get to the legal department, but be polite and persist. If you get through to PR point out that it's a PR problem (to make them care about it) and explain that you want to talk to someone in the legal department. Make sure you get the name of whomever you talk to and their number - that way you can be persistent but polite to someone.

[http://www.csr.com/contact](http://www.csr.com/contact)

b. Contact Qualcomm legal

In the privacy page there is a link where you can fax or phone notice of a violation. Yeah lawyers are old-fashioned. Send them a nice note specifying that you believe they are violating the GPL and that you would like the source etc etc. Note, the downside of this is that you will be talking to Qualcomm head-office in the USA and it will most likely take them a bit to figure out what you're talking about and find someone in their subsidiary (CSR) to deal with you. [https://www.qualcomm.com/site/terms-of- use](https://www.qualcomm.com/site/terms-of-use)

IF you land-up talking to the legal department don't assume that they know anything about the GPL. There are a lot of lawyers in a corporate, and only a handful will know anything - you want to try and get to one of those ones.

You might have tried all this already - in which case apologies. Anyway, Best of luck!

</comment><comment><USER4> The first post was on Friday. The next is on Monday/Sunday depending on your TZ. I doubt they had the time to prepare any good response in that time. Sure, they're required to publish the sources, but I'd definitely give them more than one weekend to respond.</comment>


Show HN: Obscura – minimal Chrome extension for color and brightness - <AUTHOR> https://gitlab.com/hoosieree/chrome-extension-obscura/blob/master/README.md <comment><AUTHOR> I made this because Chrome's permissions model for extensions is "all or nothing".

I looked at the source code for some of the extensions I was using, and soon realized that it would be quicker to write my own than to audit someone else's.

The resulting code is 1 or 2 orders of magnitude smaller than its competition, making its source code easier to inspect, and generally resulting in better performance.

Also I wanted to try a "pay what you want" pricing model, but compromised by making it free for self-install, or paid from the Chrome Web Store.

I also gave myself an informal budget of 100 lines of JavaScript, and the current (2.0) release is about 60 non-minified/non-obfuscated lines (2158 bytes).</comment>


Even at Warp 9, Space Travel Would Take Forever - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/star-trek-warp-light-speed-reality-travel-nasa-animation-2019-1 <comment><USER2> What would be the speeds be as estimated by the whooshing by stars in the windows / viewscreen?

edit: someone says the answer is around 32e6 x c here: [https://www.quora.com/Star-trek-regularly-depicts-warp- speed...](https://www.quora.com/Star-trek-regularly-depicts-warp-speed-with- stars-zooming-by-at-a-rate-similar-to-falling-raindrops-what-velocity-would- they-need-to-accelerate-to-achieve-this) \- based on "Let's say that stars are, on average, 5 light years apart, and that a nearby star seems to go by once every 5 seconds [...]"

<comment><USER3> Once that was realized, the whooshing particles were retconned by the TNG writers to be random interstellar particles that were glowing due to warp effects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What exactly is Warp 9.9? Is there some meaningful reason why that corresponds to 2000x the speed of light?

</comment><comment><USER5> > In "Star Trek," a warp factor of 1 is light speed, and a warp factor of 9.9 > is more than 2,000 times greater than light speed.

And yet, warp 9.975 is only 1,000 times light speed, warp 4.5 is over 8,000 times light speed, and Warp 7 is 4-10 _million_ times light speed.

[https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Warp_factor](https://memory- alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Warp_factor)

Trek is many things, consistent about the relation between warp factors and speed is not among them.

<comment><USER6> The warp drive warps time/space. For it to work consistent time and space would have to be consistent in the universe. When you press your accelerator you don't expect the same reaction going uphill or downhill.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Just get to Warp 10 then you can travel everywhere instantly. It might turn you into a salamander though.

</comment><comment><USER8> As Douglas Adams said in The Hitchhiker's Guide: " Space," it says, "is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space."

</comment><comment><USER9> No mention of perceptual time inside the craft when traveling though. That would make a large difference for many cases (eg population expansion). ;)</comment>


Show HN: Firo4 – bringing an iPad music app back to life - <AUTHOR> https://makefastworkshop.com/firo4/ <comment><AUTHOR> Five years ago I worked on an app called Fiddlewax Pro (later renamed Firo); an advanced chord/drum/keyboard/looper. Unfortunately, as iOS updated, the app eventually stopped working and fell out of fashion.

Firo4 is an attempt to bring an old app (that I truly loved both making and using) back to life.

Direct link to video if you just want to see it in action: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtpXpVq30dY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtpXpVq30dY)

Since it's a continuation of an old app (that originally sold for $20, but was made Free for its final days), launching Firo4 for Free seems like the right move for now. Still deciding where to take its revenue model, but it definitely feels good to move it out of the archived box and get it running again.

Any suggestions on what kind of pricing models are best for a situation like this?</comment>


Am I unique? See your browser footprint - <AUTHOR> https://amiunique.org/fp <comment><AUTHOR> I'd never thought that I could be identifiable via the unique combination of factors.

Another spooky js lib ([http://valve.github.io/fingerprintjs2/](http://valve.github.io/fingerprintjs2/)) generates a fingerprint using the following sources:

      * UserAgent
      * Language
      * Color Depth
      * Screen Resolution
      * Timezone
      * Has session storage or not
      * Has local storage or not
      * Has indexed DB
      * Has IE specific 'AddBehavior'
      * Has open DB
      * CPU class
      * Platform
      * DoNotTrack or not
      * Full list of installed fonts (maintaining their order, which increases the entropy), implemented with Flash.
      * A list of installed fonts, detected with JS/CSS (side-channel technique) - can detect up to 500 installed fonts without flash
      * Canvas fingerprinting
      * WebGL fingerprinting
      * Plugins (IE included)
      * Is AdBlock installed or not
      * Has the user tampered with its languages 1
      * Has the user tampered with its screen resolution 1
      * Has the user tampered with its OS 1
      * Has the user tampered with its browser 1
      * Touch screen detection and capabilities

</comment><comment><USER2> Also [https://panopticlick.eff.org/](https://panopticlick.eff.org/)</comment>


Ask HN: Finding Internal Peace? - mars-to-earth Hello HN,
What do you do to find internal peace? Lately, I haven't been able to concentrate on anything. I work for one of the super stressful job at FAANG. Politics here is 100x bad than Game of Thrones. My manager treats me differently than anyone else. On one hand, he pretends to support me while on other he does everything he could to oppose me. His behavior is not congruent at all.
I had to call off almost decided marriage last year. I tried watching spirituality videos and all, but nothing works. I just can't leave and take a year off, as I am not US citizen or PR card holder.
I am going to get checked for vitamin D deficiency. I see so many people making half-million dollars as household income, and I just feel bad I am nowhere close.
How do you find internal peace in such a situation? <comment><AUTHOR> Well, the sole realization and acceptance that money are not all, will bring you peace.

All jobs are stressful, some all the time, others at time to time. Personally for me, I found "more" peace when I started working something more satisfactory to me - for myself. But working for yourself is also stressful, even more I can say! The difference is in the level of satisfaction you get in the end of the day.

I don't listen to crap like educational videos, made for making audience and money. Many times I just prefer my own company - sitting on my comfi chair reading a nice fiction. Letting the steam off.

Reducing PC time also helps, that includes phone and all digital equipment. Working 10+ hours a day on a PC, I don't need also my free time to be on a PC.

Don't know the reason of your unsuccessful marriage, but that certainly brought a tremendous amount of stress to your system. For love related issues - time is the healer.

As a conclusion, try not to put constant pressure on yourself with too high expectations and goals. Go easy, and make small-step progress every day. Money are not important, and they will come automatically after you FIRST find the inner peace to work on your goals. Spend time alone, get out of the routine of the day. Go for a hike, take time at a quiet place, exercise!

Good luck, and cheer up! :) Life is beautiful, we just have to lift our dark glasses and look.

</comment><comment><USER2> I haven't been in the situation you describe, but in my experience there are times in life were you simply cannot find internal peace easily. Changes needs to be initiated first. But it's difficult to reason about what in your situation is(are) the exact problem(s) without more in-depth background information. That said, I doubt that vitamin D or some kind of spirituality will fix it. I would suggest meeting a therapist who offers cognitive behavioral therapy, to discuss your issues and fundamental life questions.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hit the gym...lift heavy ass weights and get jacked...

</comment><comment><USER4> Yoga</comment>


How Proactive IT Infrastructure Monitoring Can Improve Your Business - <AUTHOR> https://www.romexsoft.com/blog/proactive-it-monitoring/ <comment><USER2> Yes, monitoring an infrastructure uptime seems outdated. Teams now need performance and release monitoring.</comment>


Ask HN: Why is there no international Yelp? - <AUTHOR>

I guess this is a two-part question:
1) Why hasn't Yelp gone international?
2) Why hasn't someone started an international version of Yelp? <comment><USER2> There are international versions such as Qype which is quite popular in Europe</comment>


Stomp The Heck Out Of Your Customer's Main Objection - <AUTHOR> https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/sco_reminder

<comment><USER2> >> _Find your typical customer 's main objection. Nuke it._

Interesting post with a lot of good advice based on the philosophy described above.

I also think that this sales philosophy should have a qualifier around it.

It is important for any salesperson to seriously consider the (potential) customer's objection objectively. Nuking the objection shouldn't be the primary goal and it shouldn't come at the expense of the customer's interests.

In some cases, it is quite likely that the customer's objection isn't something that must be nuked. In fact, I'd even go further and say that (in some cases) a good salesperson should think of potential reasons why a product may be inappropriate (e.g. little value, too risky, too expensive etc.) for a certain customer. IOW in some circumstances, walking away from a sale (based on a customer's objection) might be the right thing to do.

<comment><USER3> The counterpoint to this, in the enterprise world, is to promise the customer the moon, then turn around and tell the developers to make it happen before the sale process completes.

<comment><USER4> The best is when sales low-balls to score the gig and leaves the development team holding the bag 8 months later when the scope is radically out of whack.

/me sheds a sad lonely tear of sorrow

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Basically there are two kinds of sales: high value/reasoned/important/logical sales, and impulse/low value/time limited/etc. sales.

You address fundamental objections when dealing with a "real" client, and any attempts at deflection or subterfuge will be net-harmful. The only "trick" is knowing about internal champions and the customer's multi-person purchasing process (when the user isn't the buyer and/or doesn't have ultimate purchase authority in a single person).

For random impulse shit, you can trick people. Used car dealers define the upper bound of bullshit for deal size. Generally few substantial purchasing decisions by educated (i.e. business or professional) buyers happen like that, but if you're selling a product on late night tv, you can minimize and bypass objections through trickery, "sell the sizzle", etc.

Neil Rackham's SPIN Selling and Major Account Sales Strategy are the best books I've ever found on sales.

<comment><USER6> I'll second that recommendation of SPIN Selling.

SPIN has an explicit focus on understanding the customer and their problems before selling solutions that's well aligned with the customer development / lean startup stuff that folk here will be more familiar with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > _some of the best results I 've ever had for writing sales copy... come from > repeating a simple tactic: 1) Find your typical customer's main objection. > 2) Nuke it._

I'd love to apply this... but I don't see how/where. I mean, your main tactic has to be explaining what the product simply _is_ , and what benefits it will bring you.

Overcoming potential objections seems far down on the list, not something you're going to put in your main ad copy or home-page copy.

<comment><USER8> Home page copy (probably not your H1) is an excellent place for it. Another one common in software companies is on the signup page itself. I often put it on a sidebar, along with other risk reducers.

There are many other options if you do more involved sales with sales letters, email campaigns, or in-person sales, obviously. If your product is very involved, you can sometimes answer the objection right where you can reasonably assume it will first be raised. For example, if you require the clients to install an agent to gather some information from your server, you can reaonably assume many potential customers will immediately go "WHOA! Stop! That's incredibly risky", so that would be an excellent time to pro-actively mention that your agent runs with minimal privileges, is OSSed and hence less likely to have bugs, has run on 20k machines successfully, was tested by a reputable firm, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I believe this is what Apple did brilliantly with their Christmas commercial ([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImlmVqH_5HM](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImlmVqH_5HM)).

</comment><comment><USER10> This is one of the key reasons why long copy converts so much better than short copy. A significant proportion of prospects really want to buy your product, but have one deal-killing objection; They will read pages and pages of copy until their objection is addressed and _click_ , you make the sale.

</comment><comment><USER11> >I'm an engineer, not a copywriter

Then don't think you are qualified to write copy.

You sell people by convincing them they can't live with out something. That they need it. They will do the rationalization for why they will buy it, if they feel they need it. What is the main objection to buying the latest iPhone? Cost. Often the feature differences from the previous model are not worth the price of a new phone, but people buy them by the millions. Why? they "Need" it.

If you are selling to enterprise often the biggest objection is "I'll be needed less" your product is likely going to reduce the need of the person buying it. You can't reduce that objection. What you can do is convince them that they need to reduce their work load. That it is a good thing. You don't "stomp the objection" you instill a need.

<comment><USER12> > If you are selling to enterprise often the biggest objection is "I'll be > needed less"

Seriously? Do you have experience of this?

In my experience, people these days recognise that progress marches on, and the only viable response is to embrace it.

<comment><USER6> _Seriously? Do you have experience of this?_

Can't speak for the poster - but this is something I've seen a _lot_ in the enterprise. I think it's a more common reaction with larger organisations because, due to their size, they tend to silo and specialise work more. So you see this pattern:

* You find $solution to make X better

* You try and sell $solution for X into $company - who refer you to the X department that does nothing else but focus on X

* Since $solution is very disruptive for department X - it tends to get rejected.

This might not _just_ be because department X is thinking "I'll be needed less" \- but it's very often a component of it.

In these situations it's often better to approach the head of department X, or the person in charge of the head of department X. They often can see the value more easily since they're more invested in results that the way things are done currently.

<comment><USER12> Ah, I see.

As you say, to me that's not an object to overcome. That's a sign you're talking to the wrong people.

<comment><USER11> You are an idiot.

The person who "owns" the group you are going to reduce the work of is the person who makes the decision. If you don't get this, you haven't sold to Enterprise. Small Business this doesn't hold true, Medium it only partially holds true. But in Enterprise the best sales are the ones where you are going to sell someone $100k worth of stuff that will put $200k worth of people out of a job.

The only way you overcome this is when a group is in a growth stage and doing more with less means not hiring people.

When you are selling solutions to reduce people you are often selling to the guy you are going to put out of work, or at least his manager.

<comment><USER13> Your point, true or false, is completely obscured by its first line. Please don't bring that kind of vitriol into our community here. It doesn't help convince anyone, but more to the point it grossly violates community norms against being a jerk that exist for a reason.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Interview With A Blackhat (Part 1) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.whitehatsec.com/interview-with-a-blackhat-part-1/

<comment><USER2> If that's real, then they do make some serious dollars. Indeed, if their profits are really that high, then they are potentially able to match governments on 0day purchasing power.</comment>


There is no 'right' vs. 'left': it is the oligarchs against the rest - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/07/donald-trump-oligarchs-democrats-right-left <comment><USER2> And it is the job of the oligarchs to use their resources (e.g. think tanks, regulatory capture, political parties, media empires, etc) to convince the rest that it's "right vs left".

<comment><USER3> This Chomsky quote comes to mind "The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum....". The sad part is that a lot of people seem to be addicted to the right vs left thinking.

A while ago I listened to a radio interview with an author whose thesis was that modern philanthropists allow change only in a way that doesn't threaten their own wealth and power. This definitely rings true.

<comment><USER4> Was the interviewee Anand Giridharadas? I have been finding his takes particularly enlightening.

<comment><USER5> I think that Chomsky quote is decades old.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interestingly, the original definition of "left" and "right" came from the French Revolution where in the National Assembly the aristocracy sat on the right and everyone else sat on the left. That matches pretty closely to the oligarchy vs everyone else.

<comment><USER7> Older then that. When Paris was becoming the center of learning, just before the formation of the University (1115) all the students lived on the left bank of the Seine, and the wealthy lived on the right bank. Hence the left vs. the right metaphor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> See also "Moneyland" [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/07/moneyland- oliv...](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/07/moneyland-oliver- bullough-review)

Its about the ways in which the top 0.01% hide their money in networks of shell companies, tax havens etc, and the difficulty of actually taxing them.

</comment><comment><USER9> The lexicon is one dimensional, but the reality is multidimensional.

On social issues, there is a fairly clear right vs left.

On economic issues, it really is oligarchy vs ordinary people.

On war, foreign policy, the MIC is linked up with big money, and ordinary people vary, but anti war talk is often marginalized.

Go down the list, and it should become fairly clear big money does have conflict of interest issues, and politics reflects that reality.

Right now, economics is a high priority. Flat out, too many Americans (and this is true in other places too) are not getting what they need, and some modest wants fulfilled from their labor.

That is forcing a class discussion as a priority over the usual politics.

Examples:

Even the bigots need Medicare for All (or sane health care policy generally) Speaks to common class issues. Populism.

Given a choice between tolerating trans people, gays marrying, and say, feeding kids in a reasonable home and the promise of gainful employment, which has priority? Your socioeconomic status impacts this greatly. Speaks right to divide on left, as well as common class issues.

The current shift toward class issues puts social progress at risk as new and powerful wedges form at the boundaries of all this stuff.

Lefties struggle with a non trivial divide, and it is drawn right along big money lines. And the anti big money people have that as a priority. Many will not be swayed by threats or risks related to social regression.

I invite someone more aligned with the right to offer their take on all this. Would be high value.

If you ask me, all these observations, and that is all they are, add up to a basic shift in the body politic. And it has happened.

No undo. It will all just have to play out, until we reach a new more consistent state.

</comment><comment><USER10> There have been numerous articles and columns written about the dangers of rising populism in Europe, yet here is a respectable voice advocating populism as the solution for US.

So which is it, the solution or a danger?

<comment><USER11> Obviously populism is the solution, but only if it's on your side, otherwise it's this nefarious out of control thing that perverts political systems and threatens democracy.

This author makes erroneous assertions along the way in support of their thesis. So I don't think it holds much water.

Soros and the Kochs are some of the biggest political donors and influencers and while they donate massive amounts to progressive causes and libertarian values, they have very little interest in helping working class Americans.

<comment><USER12> > they have very little interest in helping working class Americans.

What you mean by "helping working class Americans"? I am definitely working (every day, many hours), does my interest count? If I would like for America to become more libertarian (or more socialist), can it be said Koch (or Soros) are helping my interests? Or only a direct ACH transfer counts? Or something in between - what? Every politician I've see has declared they'd be "helping working class Americans" \- and they all have diametrically opposed ideas of what that means. One can almost conclude it doesn't mean anything but a meaningless platitude politician has to do along with shaking hands and kissing babies.

<comment><USER13> Or you could conclude it's a complex issue that well-meaning people can come to very different views on the causes of and the solutions to. Different viewpoints existing doesn't mean they're all meaningless and/or lies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > That means creating a multi-racial, multi-ethnic coalition of working-class, > poor and middle-class Americans who will fight for democracy and oppose > oligarchy.

 _Arise, ye workers from your slumber,_

 _Arise, ye prisoners of want._

 _For reason in revolt now thunders,_

 _and at last ends the age of cant!_

There might not be right vs left, but the article definitely hits some familiar notes

</comment><comment><USER15> "It is accepted as democratic when public offices are allocated by lot; and as oligarchic when they are filled by election." Aristotle

The solution is [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition)

</comment><comment><USER16> The central question of this article:

> So why do we continue to hear and use the same old "right" and "left" > labels?

> I suspect it's because the emerging oligarchy feels safer if Americans are > split along the old political battle lines. That way, Americans won't notice > they're being shafted.

Wouldn't this imply the oligarchs control the media? Or at least the public discourse? But that's not the impression I get from the media. CNN, MSNBC, and other networks make it perfectly clear they are anti-Trump, in fact most of the media seems to be in agreement with that. Same with the most popular reddit channels, popular outlets like Guardian, Vox, Huffington Post, and Twitter. I mean almost everybody seems to agree that Trump is bad. YouTube and Fox seem to be the exception.

I wrestle with understanding why most media are anti-Trump and anti-oligarchy, and the oligarchs are still able to control those media's use of 'left' and 'right'. How does this work?

<comment><USER17> >CNN, MSNBC, and other networks make it perfectly clear they are anti-Trump, in fact most of the media seems to be in agreement with that.

By focusing on how much they hate Trump, what are they not focusing on? What have they all decided has been solved off-screen that you shouldn't worry your head about?

>I mean almost everybody seems to agree that Trump is bad. YouTube and Fox seem to be the exception.

Why are those the positions? And if judging the president was about good governance, how did this split happen across brand lines? And you're saying this as a point _against_ the idea of oligarchs controlling the public discourse?

<comment><USER16> > By focusing on how much they hate Trump, what are they not focusing on? What > have they all decided has been solved off-screen that you shouldn't worry > your head about?

I dunno, this almost sounds like an Alex-Jones style conspiracy theory.

<comment><USER17> What did you think of William Arkin's resignation letter from NBC News?

The idea of deliberate, clear, top-down oligarch manipulation of media is nonsense, I just thought the argument against that hypothetical to be empty. I do not find the lack of editorial consistency across outlets to preclude it. I could just as easily say the strong division around a low number of media sanctioned positions could even suggest the existence of warring factions of oligarchs. But I don't think that either.

I do think lots of small, deliberate and conscious editorial decisions are an evolutionary process that creates giant editorial shifts where none (or few) participants can see the forest for the trees while they're in the middle of it. Only after it's effects are seen does the change come into focus.

<comment><USER16> > What did you think of William Arkin's resignation letter from NBC News?

Did not see that until now, but I do get bored by the unlimited barrage of anti-Trump articles that some outlets put out. Sometimes I feel like they are just in meetings all day mulling what they can write to put Trump down.

Still don't think lots of small, deliberate and conscious edits are happening. I know various people in the news business, and they would notice if this would be happening.

EDIT: funny tweet that shows how I feel: [https://twitter.com/tabytchi/status/1146513236398944256?s=21](https://twitter.com/tabytchi/status/1146513236398944256?s=21)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think this article gives Donald Trump a bit too much credit for his abilities.

</comment><comment><USER19> Ugh. What's this doing on Hacker News? Flagged.

<comment><USER20> "On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."

-

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER19> That rule can be used to justify a lot of content that doesn't belong here. Reading the discussion here is like reading a forum for political scientists discussing the tradeoffs between strong and weak typing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> So the gist of it is that there's no us against them black and white thinking there's just us and against them black and white thinking

</comment><comment><USER22> Not completely true. Some of the wealthiest people in the US are very progressive.

<comment><USER23> It really, extremely depends on how you define "progressive" and then you get to the left Vs right narrative which inspired this article.

To oversimplify greatly to the point of banality, if rich person A says "I'll be on the left" and rich person B says "I'll be on the right", and both actively pump money into their respective campaigns, what do they have in common?

<comment><USER24> No true Scotsman right?

<comment><USER23> It's more like it's closer to the baser parts of human nature to put self- interest first. We might talk "left or right" till the cows come home but I'm fairly certain that when push comes to shove, we'll find more important things to discuss.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Rich vs poor is even less meaningful divide than right vs left. For instance i am not rich but my goals are much better aligned with goals of rich people like Elon Musk and Aubrey de Grey, than with any of poor people.

The solution is not to take money from the rich, but to make the government more transparent and more inclusive. Now we only can vote for unknown bundles of policies in the form of people, and rich people can pay to change the bundle after it is voted in. The solution to that is to use e-voting to be able to change your vote for separate issues when you do not agree with the vote of your representative.

<comment><USER26> > Rich vs poor is even less meaningful divide than right vs left.

Which is why the author is careful to not use those words to describe the situation. Someone like Aubrey de Grey (who isn't even "rich" in this context) is as far from the oligarchy as can be.

<comment><USER27> If you look at the author's other writings, Aubrey de Grey is precisely the kind of wealthy person he thinks is looting the country at the expense of everyone else by not paying _much_ higher taxes, though. Framing the discussion in terms of "the oligarchy" and "puppet masters" just makes for better rhetoric than telling us that he wants to turn the rest of the populace against the top few percent whilst leaving the handful of ultra-wealthy people relatively untouched (which is what his actual policies seem to do).</comment></comment></comment>


Entrepreneurs: Ideas are Worthless, Execution is Gold - <AUTHOR> http://blog.elegantbanners.com/2010/12/entrepreneurs-ideas-are-worthless-execution-is-gold/

<comment><USER2> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flogging_a_dead_horse>

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)>

I see it everyday still to this day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This seems to be one of the most prominent debates between entrepreneurs: ideas vs. execution. I'm sure that a lot of us would agree that the solution isn't black-and-white, but it would still be beneficial to know how much influence ideas and execution each had in the end product and its success.

Unfortunately, the title of this post falsely suggests that it is black-and- white. And the article itself uses the same arguments I've heard everyone else with the same stance use. That seems to be the problem: we keep using the same arguments over and over again. People on either side have failed to make a convincing argument, as their arguments are getting old and repetitive.

What we need is a logical explanation to be written or even an experiment to be done on the subject. Perhaps Paul Graham might consider taking up the issue in his next essay, as I know we all enjoy reading them and I'm sure he could introduce some new arguments in the piece.

My "fresh perspective" on the subject is that ideas and execution don't occur in the ways most people expect they would. It's not as if an entrepreneur spends two weeks coming up with an idea and then six weeks executing. The ideas phase and the execution phases are intertwined, in a way where the entrepreneur will spend a portion of each day coming up with ideas as well as well as another portion executing them. Even if you believe you have the solid idea down, executing it will bring up new questions that need to be answered and thus more ideas have to be made.

However, there are usually a few days in the beginning in which the entrepreneur has to come up with the core idea, the framework for everything to come, or the initial innovation. And while the core idea is important to some extent, I actually believe the ideas that are made closer to the end of development cycle have more importance. This may sound counterintuitive since these ideas often result in small details that the user may hardly notice. But these details are like the details Steve Jobs puts in his products. These are the details that affect the user the most. They can bring the core idea to a whole new level by building on it. But without them, there is essentially nothing special about the product.

Try taking a new perspective on the old debate of ideas vs. execution. Don't forget that ideas are made at the same time as the execution process, and not just at the beginning. The core idea is important and it determines the _potential_ success of the product, but the ideas and execution that follow determine the _actual_ success of the product. Unless the core idea is worthless and has little potential, the ideas and execution are more important in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER4> MailChimp launched in 2001. It is a little late in the game to call them a start-up.

<http://venturebeatprofiles.com/company/profile/mailchimp>

</comment><comment><USER5> sorry i have to disagree abit.without a great idea there is nothing to build a business around, in my opinion a good entrepreneur is a great manager of people and can creates system that allow them to be better at what they do

</comment><comment><USER6> Title: "Ideas are Worthless" Content: "Yes, ideas are important."</comment>


Interview with Julian Assange - <AUTHOR> http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/spiegel-interview-with-wikileaks-head-julian-assange-a-1044399.html

<comment><USER2> Wikileaks has done some good work, but I just don't buy that the accusations Assange faces in Sweden are part of some sort of global conspiracy.

It looks like he assaulted two women, and feels justified in dodging prosecution for, what he sees as, the greater good.

<comment><USER3> I would encourage you to look into it a little more (or perhaps I need to).

I certainly don't think being a transparency activist precludes you from also being a sexual predator. However there seems to be a lot of evidence that the charges are political.</comment></comment>


Thoughts on RDRAND in Linux - <AUTHOR> http://blog.lvh.io/blog/2013/10/19/thoughts-on-rdrand-in-linux/

<comment><USER2> FYI, if you don't want RDRAND to be used on your machine then disable it when you build a kernel (CONFIG_ARCH_RANDOM to n) or pass "nordrand" as a kernel boot parameter. Linus does not need to remove anything from the kernel for you to switch this off on your own.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> For what it's worth, Zooko thinks I'm right:

[https://twitter.com/zooko/status/392334674690723840](https://twitter.com/zooko/status/392334674690723840)</comment>


Massively distributed Ajax profiling - <AUTHOR> http://glinden.blogspot.com/2008/03/massively-distributed-ajax-profiling.html

<comment><USER2> Interesting stuff.

We do some really basic distributed error reporting: any uncaught exceptions are caught and reported back to our server. Multiple errors are batched together to limit the network requests.

While we try to test extensively on all the major browsers we can't test everything, so this has helped us a lot.

</comment><comment><USER3> [edit] Part of Microsoft's AjaxView project:

<http://research.microsoft.com/projects/ajaxview/>

I don't recall being able to get the prototype working, but I didn't spend much time fiddling with it.

<comment><USER4> It probably reminds you of that because its linked from that page, and is part of the same research project. It was published in October of last year.

<comment><USER3> D'oh. Thanks, I'm not firing on all cylinders today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd be interested in knowing how inaccuracies in JavaScript's Date facility affect results.</comment>


What benefits can you offer that help recruit good talent? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jabbik.com/2008/08/benefits.html

<comment><USER2> One of the perks that more companies should start providing are incentives to workout. Providing a gym or subsidizing a gym membership for an employee will not only benefit the employee's health, but with a healthier employee there is less of a need for sick days. The employee can concentrate their paid time off on vacation. When the employee is feeling good about themselves, the quality of work and their attitude might improve as well.

<comment><USER3> One of the best companies I worked for was just around the corner from a Holmes Place (upmarket chain of gyms), they got us all memberships and we could literally hold meetings in the sauna or jacuzzi.

Only place I've ever worked where everyone had seen everyone else naked...

<comment><USER4> I'm guessing that was an all-male company?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> After you've met a salary/benefit baseline, the most important thing to recruiting _good_ talent is the work. Often, a good employee will take a fair salary for really interesting work over a great salary for boring work. I've talked with people willing to even take a pay cut to get out of a boring job.

IMO an employer should (a) pay employees fairly and (b) treat them well, give them enjoyable work, etc. And then (c) share the company's profits, if there are any (or when they come). I think this is more important than having an impressive slate of benefits.

</comment><comment><USER6> First, great pay, and a good amount of stock options, interesting work, and good work enviroment.

After that.

4 weeks of vacation --- minimum.

Good health care

Real dental coverage

Gym subsidy

Comuting help (shuttles, or public transport subsidies)

<comment><USER7> I'd agree with all this, to the letter, and I'd add one, because aside from a signing bonus, it's relatively cheap:

Moving assistance, both in the financial sense, and in terms of connecting people with necessary services and utilities. This is especially salient in a place like New York where life is not as "convenient" as one might expect it to be.

<comment><AUTHOR> We're based in New York, so this interests me. What sort of extra help do you think we should give to people relocating here?

<comment><USER8> Maybe help finding a place? I've heard horror stories, and mainly its due to ignorance of the market. So perhaps have a friendly real estate agent available?

<comment><USER7> New York real estate agents are utterly terrible. Once you have them show you more than 8-10 apartments, they stop returning your calls, because they'd prefer not having to work for their absurd commissions.

Last time I used one in a move, I ended up spending $2600 for an introduction. This was to one person, for an hour and a half of work at most.

The movers, of whom there were 4, charged me $320 for three hours of backbreaking, difficult labor. They did excellent work. They were thrilled when I added an extra $60.

The comparison just makes me want to vomit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Free Lunch? It can be productivity booster too, since your staff don't have to spend an ~hour walking, hunting for a good restaurant, waiting for food, eating said food, and walking back when the food is just right there.

This can be more of a personal preference type of thing.

<comment> a-priori Also, it would encourage employees to eat together and therefore socialize.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Ability to work from home - telecommute.

Judge work by result and not by time spent.

</comment><comment><USER11> In priority order for me:

1\. interesting work (not sure if this is considered a perq by most, but it is for me.)

2\. time off, both via flexible work schedules and generous vacation

3\. located within a short commute of desirable and reasonably affordable housing. alternatively offering telecommuting

Other benefits like health/life/disability insurance are nice, but they won't make or break a deal for me any longer.

</comment><comment><USER12> As I posted on the blog:

I often cook the troops quality, gourmet food, give them cool trips and the chance to put up crazy installation art, and throw many person dinner parties (with outsiders, too).

I also am getting graph paper placemats:

[http://einfall.wordpress.com/2008/08/20/engineers-a-paper- ta...](http://einfall.wordpress.com/2008/08/20/engineers-a-paper-tablecloth/)

</comment><comment><USER13> A four day work week.

</comment><comment><USER14> You also need friendly atmosphere, make people want to come to work, instead of having it be a chore

</comment><comment><USER15> nearby, quality childcare

<comment><USER13> This is an excellent idea. Do you know how much decent child care for school age children costs? ~$20/hr, fully loaded.

<comment><USER15> I'm painfully aware how much it costs.

The bigger question to me, as with charities, is how much goes to the people that matter. In this case, the ones that care for my kid.

<comment><USER13> If I had several team members with kids, I'd probably look in to just contracting someone directly off Craigslist, in which case 100% of the money goes to the person caring for your kids.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


What If We Never Run Out of Oil? - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/05/what-if-we-never-run-out-of-oil/309294/ <comment><USER2> For more on the history of oil, The Prize by Daniel Yergin is an excellent read. While long, it's quite captivating and interesting.

[http://www.amazon.com/Prize-Epic-Quest-Money- Power/dp/143911...](http://www.amazon.com/Prize-Epic-Quest-Money- Power/dp/1439110123)</comment>


Detailed Critique of Jeff Atwood's CODE keyboard - <AUTHOR> http://movingfulcrum.tumblr.com/post/59601153792/critique-of-jeff-atwoods-code-keyboard

<comment><USER2> From the critique:

> The CODE keyboard is just a very expensive version of your standard keyboard > that can make cool clicking noises (which some of your co workers may not > find that cool).

From the product page:

> These switches are unique in the Cherry line because they combine solid > actuation force with quiet, non-click activation, and a nice tactile bump on > every keystroke. These hard to find switches deliver a superior typing > experience over cheap rubber dome keyboards – without deafening your > neighbors in the process.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why not put special keys for things programmers use, eg:

" Build Debug Step In Step Over Step Out"

Isn't this F10,F11,F12 etc...

</comment><comment><USER4> A keyboard critique without even touching the keys, nice. 15 minutes fame IMHO.

<comment><USER5> Yep, he didn't even bother to actually read and understand all the features even. He complains right at the end that it's noisy, but they mention right in the details that it uses the silent version of cherry switches so it isn't in fact "clicky".

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> An interesting rant. I ordered one of the keyboards to play with and see how it holds up. For me the "features" for keyboards are:

1) accuracy

2) repeatability

3) positional awareness

#1 is about hitting the right key that you wanted to hit and is facilitated by keeping distances correct. I had a vaio keyboard where the keys to the right of the home key were a bit further away from the home row than the left ones and it drove me nuts.

Repeatability is about allowing your muscles to actually train. Since much of what I type is by muscle memory anyway the more often the exact same muscle sequences are actuated the more 'trained' into the muscles they become.

Positional awareness is about "feel" and knowing where your fingers are, relative to where they should be, by how the keys feel. This is something I really didn't appreciate until I learned to play the piano where playing a chord can happen anywhere your hands are in the right place, and getting from one chord to another is again a function of where you are vs where you want to be.

I use a Logitech G15 at work (a G10 at home) which is ok, although I can type faster on my old ThinkPad keyboard. (black with cherry key switches and heck-a loud.) I like the programmability of the "macro" keys so that I can put basic sequences in them, but would appreciate better Linux support :-) Anyway, we'll see how this keyboard compares.

</comment><comment><USER7> I can't say that I find any of these critiques relevant.

<comment><USER8> Yes, it's the thing with keyboard preferences - they are highly subjective. They can depend on what OS you use, IDE/editor, shell, even your least hated browser.

For example, I don't care for the Step in/Step out keys because I don't use debuggers much and even if I did I probably wouldn't need a special key for those tasks - I would've just mapped them to a chord that I use without looking at the keyboard - or something like that.

I think the "ideal programmer's keyboard" should cover the tactile front (key- press depth and feel, size and arrangement of the keys) and allow as much customization as to mappings as practically possible - perhaps going as far as providing several sets of stickers on a sheet and letting the user attach them to the keys.

<comment><USER5> It should be noted that the maker of that keyboard (WASD Keyboards) sells customizable keycaps for their other keyboards. It seems reasonable that if the CODE keyboard sells well they'll probably offer to sell customizable keycaps for it as well, so you wouldn't even need stickers, just order a handful of custom keycaps and swap them out yourself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Surprised at how many posts here are disparaging this keyboard. Seems pretty rude to me to put down a pet project like that. You don't have to buy it.

</comment><comment><USER10> > Why not put special keys for things programmers use, eg: Build, Debug, Step > In, Step Over, Step Out, and a special key between Ctrl and Alt just > dedicated for 'Auto Complete' so we don't have to hit Ctrl+Space ever again!

Because those aren't system commands, where as media keys are.

</comment><comment><USER11> If it made cool clicking noises, I'd be more interested. It makes a standard quiet cherry noise. Now if it was a complex white ALPS switch or something completely new, we'd be talking something genuinely interesting (or at least actually rare/difficult to come by).

</comment><comment><USER12> I would love to find a clicky key keyboard with the function keys on the left side like they once were.

</comment><comment><USER13> Has anyone actually substantiated this 'vast majority' of coders who prefer an ergonomic design?

</comment><comment><USER14> Another fact which is ignored in this "review" is the possibilities for tweaking and customization; e.g. switching the layout, pulling of key-caps, etc.</comment>


Bouba/kiki effect - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouba/kiki_effect

<comment><USER2> Relevant anecdote - the other day a friend sent me the logo for a new product his company is working on. Their target market is women in their 20s, and the product name starts with a B. But the logo is a jumble of sharp angles -- definitely a 'kiki' instead of a 'bouba'. So, although it would be impossible to measure, I wonder if the design is less successful because of this effect.</comment>


The match between the two actual strongest chess players in the world just began - <AUTHOR> http://tcec.chessdom.com/live.php

<comment><AUTHOR> In case it's not clear, this is the TCEC ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoresen_Chess_Engines_Competit...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoresen_Chess_Engines_Competition)), widely regarded as the "world championship" of computer chess. This is the superfinals, between Komodo ([http://komodochess.com/](http://komodochess.com/)) and Stockfish ([http://stockfishchess.org](http://stockfishchess.org)).

It just began at the time of posting, it's a best-of-48 and will likely last 2-3 weeks.</comment>


Design a Lucky Life - <AUTHOR> http://www.designluck.com/design-lucky-life/ <comment><USER2> This starts off sounding like it's going to be a fascinating story about how lotteries are designed, and how a smart person with a lot of persistence and an understanding of statistics can exploit tiny deviations from randomness to their benefit.

It becomes clear after a dozen or so paragraphs that it's some meaningless pseudo-profound bullshit about "the power of taking control of your life". Don't waste your time reading it.

<comment><USER3> Thanks. I got the same vibe part way in and bailed as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > If you consistently work the odds in your favor, you'll almost always come > out on top in the long run.

Only if 'consistently' means 'forever' and you have infinite funds. If you have lottery with value 2*10^9 with probability 10^{-9} and -1 with probability 1-10^{-9}, then the odds are in your favor, but you are still very likely to lose a million dollars if you if you play a million times.

Being consistent/persistent can help you, but it shouldn't be thought of as a eliminating all influence of luck.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's a cleverly designed affiliate link list for self help books at Amazon.

OP's account is less than a day old. OP's two posts are to the same website.

</comment><comment><USER6> This brand of insight porn backed by an opening anecdote really rubs me the wrong way. It reminds me of The Secret.

Hmm, maybe there's money to be made in writing my own insight porn. I should design my life with a blog such that I become the next Tony Robbins. So much luck to be had.

</comment><comment><USER7> The history of probability-based lottery hacks is long and rich. Here's a Planet Money podcast episode about it: [http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/01/13/462982983/10-11...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/01/13/462982983/10-11-51-52-62-18)

</comment><comment><USER8> This is why persistence works so well in the long run. If you are persistent in your business/profession/art, it might take a very very long time but in the end you are bound to hit some luck, learn which levers work and try a lot of things.

</comment><comment><USER9> There's a somewhat related book by Deepak Chopra called The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire

<comment><USER10> While I am not as negative towards ideas presented on the site, Deepak Chopra is full of shit. Like seriously.

One thing is to go Secret, woo-woo and another is to understand to explore and followup on opportunities when they are presented to you.

<comment><USER9> I haven't followed his work lately, I've just read a few of his much older books. He might be full of shit now, but I can see how most people here wouldn't be into what he shares, as it's more Feely Science than 'real' science. I enjoy both and have found his perspective on spiritual life helpful, among many other sources of course.</comment></comment></comment>


Trouble in the Checkout Line: Which Way to Pay? - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/trouble-in-the-checkout-line-which-way-to-pay-1448706603 <comment><USER2> I will always use Apple Pay if available, since it prevents tracking by evil merchants and leaks by hackers via unique credit card numbers.

I do not understand why the US uses these terrible chip and signature cards, which were a repeated source of frustration for me in Europe this year, since they don't work anywhere.

Maybe they think Americans are too dumb to comprehend a PIN, despite having used them for years on ATMs? If so, why add the time-wasting signature? If we're not doing chip and pin (we should), why not chip and nothing? My signature is a different squiggle every time, there's no way they're doing computer vision on that in time to verify the transaction (if they could even decode it at all).

<comment><USER3> I have one atm card, and six credit cards. It's easy to remember one pin, but not seven. Also, typing a pin on a merchant controlled device seems like a terrible idea. (I try to only use the ATMs controlled by the institution that issued my card)

<comment><USER4> Change your PIN? The problem with bank cards is when you swipe then, not if you dip them. Interestingly, the NFC bank cards are practically more safe because (at least in my country) you don't need to enter your PIN below 25 EUR. With the average transaction 10-12 EUR, there's way less options to capture the PIN.

A signature can easily be faked. The cost of fraud is passed on so best to have it secure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Being from australia, when i purchase something it could potentially be cash only, swipe CC, insert CC or use paypass/paywave (nfc).

Not once have I ever considered this to be 'dizzying'

I mean, if you insert the card and it needs you to swipe, it tells you to swipe the card right there on the terminal (or just doesnt have the chip slot on it).

Why dont people just throw their wallets at the register and start curling up into a ball when it doesnt work

<comment><USER4> In Netherlands they coordinated it. Any machine which switched from swipe to dip has their swipe covered with sticky tape. Before that they replaced the bank cards with one with both chip and magnetic strip on it. There was a deadline for merchants to switch and advertisements to inform the public. Dip is slower than swiping. NFC is fastest (because often you don't enter a PIN).

Abroad is fun. Some places want my PIN and my signature! Others just one of them, a few nothing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Easy solution: stick. to. cash.

Side benefit: authorities, tracking companies, banks, "big data analysts" and friends cannot use the information about your shopping behaviour to profile you.

<comment><USER7> I would not be so sure about the authorities. Consider:

1) Get cash out of bank. At this point, it is possible to record which bills you received from the bank.

2) Spend cash at store.

3) Store deposits cash at bank.

Because of how little a lot of cash tends to circulate before being returned to the banks, it is possible for the authorities to get a fair idea of how you spend your cash. This is still better then cards, but not nearly as good as it looks.

<comment><USER8> Sure government or bank tracking could know _where_ you spent that money but less so on _what_. Spending it in a supermarket will tell them food but not brands or habits or diet.

If you also have other people getting cashback at the same register the notes are then spread to someone else before collection.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> May be I'm old fashioned, but unless I'm buying something expensive I stick to just cash. Always works. Ironically, now I consider cash more 'secure' than plastic.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm calling it now: at least one major US retailer will miss their holiday sales projections and blame it squarely on EMV card transaction times.</comment>


Cancer is solved: by PD-1/PDL-1 inhibitors - <AUTHOR> https://www.cancernetwork.com/news/hyperprogression-nsclc-patients-pd-1pd-l1-inhibitors <comment><USER2> Improper title.

1\. This is specifically about non-SCLC.

2\. This article is entirely about a _downside_ to receiving PD-1/PDL-1 inhibitor biologics as immunotherapy; that approximately a third of patients develop HPD and should be switched to salvage chemotherapy as soon as this is noted.</comment>


Ask HN: Is it harder and harder to be an entrepreneur as time goes on? - <AUTHOR> In the late 90's and early 2000's seems like a golden era to be an software entrepreneur. Internet was still relatively new.
Nowadays, any cool idea or problem you want to solve already has multiple solutions. Now, that's not completely true but I feel that it is harder to be a solo entrepreneur or have a small, lean, and efficient team that does more with less.
Maybe a particular problem is already solved in the United States, but maybe it is not in Europe. So maybe that's a way to think about it. Maybe pick an existing problem and make it better.
Will we ever reach a point where a solo entrepreneur is just a pipe dream? Where every problem is saturated with several solutions.
My dream is to bootstrap a company and never have to rely on investors. Create something that nets me a decent passive income and then never have to worry (as much) about money as I do now. This seems possible for a pure software solution but anything non trivial that involves hardware or tangible things, one needs investment.
I wish I had the knowledge and mindset I do now 18 years ago. I am 29 years old. But I feel that nowadays I will have little choice to but to work for someone else and make that someone else rich.
I just wanted to see what you all think. <comment><USER2> > Nowadays, any cool idea or problem you want to solve already has multiple > solutions. Now, that's not completely true but I feel that it is harder to > be a solo entrepreneur or have a small, lean, and efficient team that does > more with less.

There was rarely a time when this wasn't the case. Hindsight might tell you otherwise, but consider that Wordpress was launched in 2003, long after blogging phenomenon started in 1997. Stripe was launched in 2010, long after Paypal, Authorize.net. Look around you, there isn't a lack of problems to be solved.

And I don't mean to cool-and-sexy stuff like VR and AI, but basic ones. Wordpress sucks. Why there isn't a CMS that combines static file generation with Wordpress' ease of customisability? Why is server administration still so hard? Why isn't there a programmer-friendly search engine that focuses of giving relevant examples (which constitute most of my Google queries)? Google Analytics shows too much stuff, why isn't there something simple for bloggers and publishers?

I accept, these ideas might be not be great, but these are problems I face frequently. Chances are even you (and people around you) would have frustrating problems that can be solved.

</comment><comment><USER3> At 29 years old you grew up with the fact that the Internet is like electricity. It's everywhere and part of our life. Same goes for mobile phones and Amazon Prime for 15-20 years old kids. At 50 years old you can't seem to imagine life without a personal computer. New born babies may not have to work a day in their life thanks to AI and will never learn how to drive a vehicle ever. The list goes on and on.

If you want to be a successful "entrepreneur" you need to ask yourself this kind of questions. How can I make the world a better place? How can I improve our lives? What will we be doing in the next 50 years that we're not doing at the moment?

Orherwise you'll quickly fall into a world of sheep. People who take everything for granted and keep consuming until there's nothing left. Then wait for producers to produce so they can consume everything. It's been this way since the begining of our human race. If you simply create value, you'll be fine.

<comment><USER4> "People who take everything for granted" so so true. Everything that is, was once not. And everything that is, will soon not be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> There is still a huge demand for b2b software and large swathes of industry that are in the very early stages of digitalisation. We work in an old fashioned industry (education) and are constantly asked to build x, y & z outside of our scope.

Get to know businesses and their problems and there are plenty of opportunities to build helpful software. You will constantly be battling to stay product-based vs service-based but if your building a small company this isn't as big a problem as it seems (Ive met more well off entrepreneurs with service-style businesses)

I think the best assistance you can give yourself is to reduce your personal expenses and save up a nest-egg that would allow you to work on this for quite a bit longer than you would think. While saving up, go out and talk to people about their problems. You'll find there are a million problems to which the current solutions aren't a perfect fit.

PS If you run a business you will be thinking about money far more than you are now!!

</comment><comment><USER6> Yes, it get's harder. All I had to do was buy a domain names and I would have retired. Today I need to write 50,000 lines of code across 25 micro services, running a hybrid multi cloud cluster of kubernetes instance consumping 100 other APIs with a sharded and replicated DB cluster to have a chance. :-) But it's still easier than tomorrow, tomorrow you will need to train a deep learning model that runs on 10k GPUs and using all sorts of Phd level maths. So start today instead of over thinking it. :D

<comment><USER7> I think developing, while not trivial is the easy part. its finding the right product idea and opportunity, and then marketing it, that is harder than ever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think its harder to some extent, but you can always find a niche to make significant improvements. If you think that everything is already done and there is nothing else left, that just means you're spending enough time on experimenting and researching.

As far as investment concerned, I'm personally a self-funded solo founder. This is a very hard and stressful path. I'd love to get an investment with a reasonable deal, but for me that's a little bit early. I probably start working in that area once I get few paying customers.

If you haven't yet already done so, read the "Lean Startup" book. I'm by no means associated with it. It was very useful to me, and I think this should the very first think for entrepreneurs to do. Will be probably best $15 spent on amazon.

</comment><comment><USER9> Last year I met 4 people under 25 who each respectively built $1m+ businesses. One guy started by flipping video games. The other was a programmer who did $300k+ revenue within a few months of starting his Amazon business. Another built an 8 figure business within 2 years making software for Amazon sellers.

All of them bootstrapped their businesses. The first 3 were Amazon seller product businesses. It's possible and maybe even easier now than before.

</comment><comment><USER10> I read your title a little differently. I have to say as we age it becomes harder to do entrepreneur stuff. Once you start a family and have more than one kid, you literally are strapped for time.

Take advantage of every minute you have if you really want it.

</comment><comment><USER11> _. Internet was still relatively new._

I mean, if your approach is "find problem, add Internet, equals solution" then yeah, you're probably going to find it a tough row to hoe these days. But I'd challenge you to broaden your thinking and be more imaginative. There's a lot more to creating solutions that "mix in some Internet".

Think about the staggering array of things you can do today, with almost no up-front investment at all, using AWS, GCE, Azure, etc., that would have cost millions 20 years ago. You can deploy a virtual super-computer running in AWS and throw it at a problem for crying out loud.

Consider too the range of awesome open-source / free software packages that are out there, and all the capabilities they enable. Consider cheap, small, embeddable single-board computers, inexpensive software-defined-radio, cheap webcams, accelerometers, gps chips, and other sensors. Consider all the Open Data that's out there already, and everything streaming in minute-by-minute (see, SDR and receiving satellite data right off the air in real-time).

Consider the 8+ billion people in the world who are mostly all potential customers given how interconnected we are with the internet and global payment systems. Look at how much easier it is now to get content in front of potential customers with Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, etc.

Consider that you can prototype a physical item with a cheap 3D printer, using Open Source OpenSCAD software, ship a prototype off to an injection molding outfit, sell your item on Amazon, using Amazon's warehouses and logistics infrastructure, and never touch the inventory.

Further consider how much more we know about the mechanics of starting and running a tech startup now. Ideas like "product market fit" have been formalized and are better understood, Steve Blank's Customer Development process is out there as guide, and there are tremendous resources like Startup School, etc. out there to consult.

One could go on and on and on... personally I think there's never been a better time to be an entrepreneur than right now. There is so much possibility and so much potential out there that it's staggering, IMO.

Here, try this on for size and see if maybe you can draw some inspiration from this guy (Alan Kay):

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id1WShzzMCQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id1WShzzMCQ)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e8VZlPBx_0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e8VZlPBx_0)

Even better, go off somewhere and lock yourself in a room with a bunch of books by Philip K. Dick, Greg Egan, William Gibson, Charles Stross, and H.P. Lovecraft - and biographies of Nikola Tesla and Charles Proteus Steinmetz - and devour that stuff for a while. That's practically guaranteed to get your mind running in all sorts of interesting new directions.</comment>


Apple is already building prototype TV sets - <AUTHOR> http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/10/24/piper-jaffray-apple-is-already-building-prototype-tv-sets/

<comment><USER2> This may be Apple jumping the shark, imo. Why not spend that time and money making Apple TV better without having to include the T.V.? There is no way they can get much market share of the T.V. business. The economy is down and when people go to BestBuy they are going to choose low to mid tier.

<comment><USER3> People could choose low to mid tier phones -- but they buy iPhones instead. They could choose low to mid tier laptops -- but they buy MacBook Pros. They could buy Xooms but they buy iPads.

There's a lot of room for improvement with TVs. How many remote controls do you have? How many steps do you have to take to get your downloaded video to play on your TV, with audio? How many cables do you need? How many different services do you have to go to find the stuff you want to watch?

Maybe most importantly, how much do you pay your cable company per month for the "privilege" of getting a bundle of channels, most of which you never watch?</comment></comment>


Google Book Search Announces Deal with Authors and Publishers - <AUTHOR> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/new-chapter-for-google-book-search.html <comment><USER2> very nice. this was something i had planned on working on in the future. google is getting there.

i planned on creating a Hulu type service for reading books free online (or subscription if you hate ads) and directing 100% of the revenue to the authors. the infrastructure/maintenance/growth would be paid for by donation or charitable sponsorship.

basically a non-profit type organization, so i have to keep it on the shelf until i make some money elsewhere :D</comment>