Why Security Pros Fail: No Ethics, No Dice - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.csoonline.com/problem_5_are_you_an_insider_threat

<comment><USER2> In my industry, "ethics" advocacy is often a coded appeal to create a guild system with the advocates grandfathered in. That's what happened with the CISSP certification, which is lucrative for guild members are has absolutely no beneficial impact on the industry as a whole.

</comment><comment><USER3> I stopped reading at "Cyber ethics? Hello! Most hackers I know think those two words are an oxymoron."

Most hackers I know are very concerned about ethics. Almost fanatical. They don't necessarily agree with eachother on what is ethical, but they care.

</comment><comment><USER4> Ugh...The smug arrogance of the professional "security" community is sickening. This is a great article showcasing it.

</comment><comment><USER5> Very good article. I'm definitely rethinking some of the admin tools I'm developing for a community website I'm working on.

Admins being able to login as any user (viewing only) doesn't look so good any more.</comment>


The Making of Tesla: Invention, Betrayal, and the Birth of the Roadster (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://uk.businessinsider.com/tesla-the-origin-story-2014-10 <comment><AUTHOR> Summary:

\- A company called "AC Propulsion" built a zippy electric sports car called the tzero on top of a kit car.

\- The original Tesla Motor founders (Eberhard and Tarpenning) invested in that and then decided to start their own electric sports car company. They built the prototype on top of a British Lotus Elise.

\- AC Propulsion pitches Musk, he turns them down. Tesla pitched Musk, he invests $7.5MM and became chairman of the board. The executive summary of the original Tesla business plan, shown in the article, pitches a profitable electric sports car called the Roadster.

\- The co-founder of Ideo puts the vision to a design. ("OK, let's consider this axis, from retro to futuristic," Moggridge said..."Here's another axis, masculine to feminine"...)

\- Musk leads the Series A, B, and co-leads the C ($55m of personal funds) and reviews/steers the product design.

\- Complications in getting the product out delay the release of the Roadster from feb 2006 to 2008.

\- Eberhard floats the idea of bringing in a new CEO, to sort out company's financial picture and ERP software. They pitch the board to get in a new CEO so Eberhard can focus on the Sedan.

\- Musk has a board meeting without Eberhard and replaces him with another CEO. Eberhard is off everything but troubleshooting and tending to peripheral issues. Suits and countersuits are filed. They settle.

\- Two CEO's later, in 2008 Musk takes over as CEO and fires a quarter of Teslas employees. In 2014 they unveil the model D. "Three settings: normal, sport, and insane."</comment>


Ask HN: How and whom to hire – First designer? - <AUTHOR>

Hey everyone,
I run a B2B SaaS company (5 month old), so far I've been doing the user research/UX stuff, while my school friend is helping out with visuals. So many product features getting shaped and I feel it's high time we hire a full-time designer. After talking to lot of people and reading articles online, I understood there are three types of designers - UX (user research, wire framing, story board, sitemap), UI (design the interface using Photoshop/Illustrator/Fireworks) and Visual/Graphic designers (logo, posters, branding etc.)
My question:
Should we get someone who'll own all the facets of the design? Where to find such desingers and what to test during the interviews?
Or either hire two designers one will be doing the UX part and the other will be designing the user interface?
What would you suggest and why?
Thanks in advance for sharing your knowledge! <comment><USER2> Frankly if you are smaller and working on a tighter budget, I'd get someone that can be a jack of all trades. Not saying that having an expert in each area wouldn't be awesome, but it doesn't come without its headaches. If you are small < ~10 people, having more than 1 designer is a bad idea in my experience. If you hire really good people you will wind up with delays while they either A) collaborate or B) battle over who is right. It is better in the early stages to move faster and have one vision on design that is done in collaboration with the other users.

So instead I say go with one good designer for now, you can always add more later, but remember, hire slow, fire fast.

If you are interested, I know of someone who is really good and amazing at collaborating with the team. As far as I know, he only works remote, but if you even want to talk to him about what to ask or look for, it may be worth your while. You can shoot me an email (in profile) if you have any interest.

</comment><comment><USER3> The nice thing about having someone unqiue to each area is they should "theoretically" be an expert in that area. Most of the time that really isnt the case and I suggest you search for some that is disciplined for the most part in all.

I would wholey reccommend skipping the Photoshop stage. Find someone who can design/mockup wholey with html and css. This will reduce overhead of having multiple people while speeding up your pipeline.

Hope this helps out a little!</comment>


Black Hole Evolution Traced Out with Loop Quantum Gravity - <AUTHOR> https://physics.aps.org/articles/v11/127 <comment><USER2> If I understood the article correctly:

1\. Black hole gradually evaporates (Hawking radiation) until it's Plank size.

2\. Quantum transition and Plank star.

3\. White hole is formed and "the collapsed star is bouncing back".

I Always thought that black hole evaporating energy as Hawking radiation contains all the energy that went into the black hole when the evaporation is complete. This theory assumes that there is energy left.

How is the total energy that went in is distributed between the Hawking radiation and the white hole that follows the evaporation?

Are all white holes equal in size and does Hawking radiation account for the black hole size difference?

<comment><USER3> My understanding is the transition to a white hole exists instead of a singularity at the interior of the black hole, and is therefore hidden by the event horizon. When the event horizon shrinks to the Planck length, the white hole is exposed.

<comment><USER2> Yes, but the event horizon shrinks by emitting Hawking radiation, right?

When the white hole is exposed, what it looks like? Is it just hole in the space that does not emit anything? Nothing exits (because Hawking radiation already emitted all of the energy) and nothing can enter.

What is the radius of the white hole?

<comment><USER4> I think Roger Penrose's explanation here is appropriate, but I don't know if the similarity between a black holes evaporation and the eventual entropy death of the universe are similar enough: [https://youtube.com/watch?v=z2_6h15UCMg](https://youtube.com/watch?v=z2_6h15UCMg).

If so, I think it would mean a Plankt scale black hole would have a significant probability of spontaneously evolving a white hole?

<comment><USER2> I just listened Sean Carrol's podcast interview wit Penrose and I think they are different. [https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2019/01/07/epis...](https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2019/01/07/episode-28-roger- penrose-on-spacetime-consciousness-and-the-universe/)

In the loop quantum gravity there is a bounce because at the lowest level spacetime is discrete and can't be compressed. The big bounce theory of relating to big bang in the loop quantum theory might be similar to the black hole/white hole theory.

In Penrose's theory it's the gravity/mass that is creating time and clumping things together between the big bang and the heat death of the universe (you need mass to create clock and time).

At the beginning of the universe temperature was so high that masses did not matter, at the end of the universe there is no mass, just massless particles (after googol or so when the biggest black holes have evaporated). Massless particles (photon, gluon, graviton) don't experience time so they in a sense fly into the the end of the eternity instantly.

Then there is something geometrical I don't understand and the ends meet and the new universe matches the end of the previous across timeless eon.

Penrose thinks you could perceive the ripples caused by the massive black holes from the last universe in the background radiation of our universe.

<comment><USER4> I think it's like a duality or equivalence through asymptotic states. Ie old universe becomes timeless energy and new univese.

<comment><USER2> LQG and big bounce requires big bang and expansion being followed with contraction of the universe ending with big crunch at the end.

Pernroses CCC (conformal cyclic cosmology) is a big bang followed by an infinite future expansion and timelike infinity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Rovelli himself wrote this more popular account and didn't manage to state a clear physical reason for the bounce, so the title is overstating the result.

I take this to be an interesting technical advance for a theory whose relevance in general is still an open question.

</comment><comment><USER6> Is there evidence for or against the interior of black holes being similar to distinct separate universes? Is that a popular idea at all, in physicists' circles?

How much (and _what_) would I need to read and understand to get a feeling of the nature of black holes?

I'm a total layman when it comes to physics and it would put some distant worries of me to rest.

I'd rather measure a lot of Hawking radiation while throwing bottles in flasks into a black hole. However, I'm currently preoccupied with figuring out why my mouth keeps talking when I'm not thinking of anything.

<comment><USER7> PBS Spacetime is a great series, and delves deep enough for interested layman as well as practitioners to be interested. I find the videos really good. Here is a link to one of many on black holes. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaEBbFbvcY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaEBbFbvcY)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> My quick summary of white holes, which I thought were a product of science fiction:

Predicted by some solutions to relativity.

They have not been observed yet but recent theories suggest that some burst of gamma rays may be markers.

Other theories suggest that the expulsion of matter from a white hole may occur very quickly, almost instantaneously, so unlike say a supernova you'd need to be looking at the right place and the right time to see it happen.

White hole mass may be behind a horizion that makes them dark = dark matter.

Our Big Bang may have been a super-massive white hole event, so we are a universe-within a universe.

<comment><USER6> Has anyone tried sending information into black holes using lasers yet?

It'd be convenient if ET's only lived in black holes, although perhaps a little lonely, too.

<comment><USER9> > The closest black hole we know of is V616 Monocerotis, also known as V616 > Mon. It's located about 3,000 light years away. [1]

So no, because we haven't had lasers for 3000 years yet, and the black holes we can create here on earth last for microseconds.

[1] [https://phys.org/news/2016-03-closest-black- hole.html](https://phys.org/news/2016-03-closest-black-hole.html)

<comment><USER10> We can create black holes here in earth? I'd love to read more about that if you have any starting points

<comment><USER9> Looks like it is only a theoretical possibility and only if we have more than 4 dimensions.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you're interested in black holes, Shep Doeleman's efforts might be of interest.

Taking a Photograph of a Black Hole

[https://youtu.be/RTKIZvDQ6Jk](https://youtu.be/RTKIZvDQ6Jk)

Einstein's Shadow:

[https://www.amazon.com/Einsteins-Shadow-Black-Astronomers- Un...](https://www.amazon.com/Einsteins-Shadow-Black-Astronomers- Unseeable/dp/0062312022)

<comment><USER12> I also highly recommend this [1] episode of the Omega Tau podcast which touches on black holes, holography and quantum gravity.

[1] [http://omegataupodcast.net/191-string- theory/](http://omegataupodcast.net/191-string-theory/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> One thing I never understood is, how does a black hole evaporate, even via hawking radiation? Doesn't the matter it ejects just fall back in?

<comment><USER14> My limited understanding is that the Hawking radiation is caused by virtual particle-antiparticle pairs spawning just outside the event horizon. The event horizon is by definition the surface on or inside of which not even light can escape. This seems to imply that outside the event horizon some non-zero mass objects can still escape, if they're on a favourable trajectory. E.g. aimed directly away from the event-horizon isosurface.

<comment><USER15> My layman's understanding mirrors this.

Because one part of a pair of virtual particles crosses the horizon, and the other one does not, they become separated by said horizon and cannot recombine and disappear. The particles become actual and not virtual, but one is lost to the hole. Hence, it looks to the external world as if a particle was emitted by the hole.

Note that to my (layman's) knowledge, this has not been actually observed, but does seem to be a modern consensus and involved a paid bet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Are Gray Holes next? When a White Hole and a Black Hole merge a Gray Hole will emerge as predicted by the Chromatic Theory of General Relativity.

<comment><USER16> I was wrong! Grey Holes have been invented already! [http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1993AAS...182.5507B](http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1993AAS...182.5507B)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> If white holes exist that are the inverse of black holes. The universe could exist forever. Black holes would suck matter in and white wholes on the other side would create new matter on the other side.

Black wholes and white holes would then be gateways to other universes.

Multi verse [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse)

[https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/04/100409-blac...](https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/04/100409-black- holes-alternate-universe-multiverse-einstein-wormholes/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormhole](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormhole)</comment>


How does grammarly.com make revenue? - <AUTHOR> I watched youtube video and an ad came out, called Grammarly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VueSBzrIh1o
As it said, it provides grammar auto-fix for people. And it said it's better than MS office.
So how do you think they make revenue? I saw it's a free Chrome app, actually, no charge...
I am wondering how this startup survives.
Welcome to comment! <comment><USER2> [https://www.grammarly.com/premium](https://www.grammarly.com/premium)

[https://www.grammarly.com/edu](https://www.grammarly.com/edu)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! I did not find it.

Now that the 'free' product means 'limited free' as always.</comment></comment>


AI takes on humans to create video game - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22129504.300

<comment><USER2> A much better example of an automatically designed game, in my opinion, is Yavalath. It's a board game, which is a simpler problem space, but on the other hand it's actually been published and sold.

I remember reading an article discussing how it was made, but all I can find now is [http://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/2814/yavalath-on- evolution...](http://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/2814/yavalath-on-evolutionary- game-design)

> Ludi produced 1,389 new games over a four week run, of which it deemed 19 to > be playable and of varying degrees of interest. It ranked Yavalath as the > fourth best evolved game, while a group of human player testers found > Yavalath to be the second most interesting of the evolved games.

</comment><comment><USER3> The game's actual page is here [http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum- dare-28/comment-page-2/...](http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum- dare-28/comment-page-2/?action=preview&uid=29184) and if you have the Unity browser plugin installed you can play it here: [http://www.gamesbyangelina.org/ludumdare/sect/To%20That%20Se...](http://www.gamesbyangelina.org/ludumdare/sect/To%20That%20Sect.html)

The game isn't that unique or challenging. You're in a maze with giant 3d models in reference poses strewn about. You can only walk around and jump. You can collect the untextured white cruise ships that move around slowly. The enemies are some untextured white statues that seem to tumble around aimlessly and slowly. They do not pose any challenge or threat. Then you find the exit which is just a yellow cylinder.

I don't really find the game exceptional or noteworthy as it stands right now. I also don't see any relation between the game and the thematic prompt given by the contest ("You Only Get One".)

</comment><comment><USER4> This sounds really interesting but how will this be different than a "mix-and- match" ?? I am guessing Angelina does something like a Genetic Algorithm and tries to piece different things together to form a game... But as it stands, is this just a random game generator? Or is there a feedback loop in there somewhere that helps Angelina makes better games in the future?

Btw, I am not, in any way, saying that this isn't extremely cool. It's EPIC. I can't believe someone actually went through with this and made a game generating program! Kudos!</comment>


5 Myths Behind the Rising Cost of College in America: Tuition - <AUTHOR> https://michellelessly.com/2016/08/10/5-myths-behind-the-rising-costs-in-america-part-2/ <comment><USER2> It's very true that state funding has reduced sharply. I worked for a public university in the ~2011 timeframe in the advancement (fundraising) department. We were doing everything we could on a campaign to raise money that could be spent shorter term to offset rising tuition for some students, but it was a very uphill battle. I think they're up to 17k per year on in-state tuition now, which is really way too high.</comment>


A faster way to make Bose-Einstein condensates - <AUTHOR> http://news.mit.edu/2017/faster-way-make-bose-einstein-condensates-1123 <comment><USER3> Here's a question from a non-physicist. As Bose-Einstein condensate is formed, it starts to occupy larger and larger volume, because atoms slow down, and according to Heisenberg uncertainty principle, if momentum is slow, the location expands. So, theoretically, as one atom approaches the standstill, it can expand to occupy the entire universe?

<comment><USER4> You can't actually suck all the energy out - the best you can do is get the atom into its ground state, which is still non-zero.

The de Broglie wavelength of the atom is (h/p), where h is Planck's constant, and p is the atom's momentum. This is the wavelength of the atom's probability wave, so at the minimum value of p, the atom has some 'fixed maximum size', if you want to call it that (but size isn't really an accurate descriptor, more like 'the region in which you might find the atom').

The Bose-Einstein condensate is defined as the state where the de Broglie wavelength for atoms in a cloud is larger than the spacing between atoms - <USER2> probability waves overlap, and it is no longer possible to distinguish one from another.

<comment><USER5> It's not just that, right? You make it sound the same as hitting the diffraction limit in optics: [http://hyperphysics.phy- astr.gsu.edu/hbase/phyopt/imgpho/ray...](http://hyperphysics.phy- astr.gsu.edu/hbase/phyopt/imgpho/rayc.gif),

but at the Raleigh criterion and under, the waveforms can still be quite different depending on the source distance, and furthermore you can definitely tell the difference of those waveforms from that of a single source.

What I've read about Bose-Einstein condensates seems to imply that in the condensate form, the probability waves not only become unresolvable but also synchronized in phase, AND the energy behavior of the aggregate is markedly different since they "all" (or at least according to Bose-Einstein statistics) occupy the same quantum state: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shdLjIkRaS8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shdLjIkRaS8)

Is the transition from Maxwell-Boltzmann statistics to Bose-Einstein statistics a sharp transition or not? In other words, are condensates a descriptive marker or a suddenly different state?

<comment><USER6> I am not sure what you mean by the probability waves (amplitude?) becomes unresolvable for the condensate, but it is true that the condensate will have a continuous phase with integer windings of 2 pi around vortices etc. The wavefunctions of the atoms overlap below the critical temperature and you get Bose-Einstein condensation for atoms with integer spin.

But those atoms themselves are still made up of electrons, protons and neutrons which have half integer spin, and at even smaller scales of quarks and gluons. If you probe the condensate with high enough frequency without thermalizing it you would be able to resolve those details, but at the macroscopic level of the condensate those details are not resolvable (is that what you were getting at?).

When you cool an atomic cloud below a critical temperature there will be a condensate fraction and non condensate fraction. If you are just looking at the condensate fraction then you can use Bose-Einstein statistics.

At zero temperature with 100% of the atomic cloud as condensate ( in reality we can never get to zero temperature, but we can get pretty damn close), the Gross–Pitaevskii equation ( [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross%E2%80%93Pitaevskii_equat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross%E2%80%93Pitaevskii_equation) ) is a good model for the dynamics of the condensate. If you want to go above zero temperature and include interaction with the thermal cloud (the non- condensate fraction), then you can use the SPGPE, the stochastic projected Gross–Pitaevskii equation.

<comment><USER5> I mean "unresolvable" in the same sense that two nearby point sources through a diffraction-limited lens are unresolvable. If you watch the video, it appears as if there is only one wavefunction for the BEC of many particles (presuming that is what the video is depicting). Is that in any way an accurate depiction of what's going on?

<comment><USER7> Indeed, that's accurate (apart from finite temperature and interaction effects). A BEC is in some ways pretty similar to a laser, where all the photons are in the same state, even quantum mechanically.

But it's important to distinguish between a BEC and a superfluid. Superfluids are the substances with strange collective properties, and these properties come from being cold, bosonic, and interacting. BECs with very low inter- particle interactions do not behave like superfluids, but will exhibit e.g. interference (just like a laser, which is kinda like a non-interacting BEC).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Here's a link to the actual article in Science [http://science.sciencemag.org/content/358/6366/1078](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/358/6366/1078)

<comment><USER9> And here's the arxiv version (no paywall): [https://arxiv.org/abs/1705.03421](https://arxiv.org/abs/1705.03421)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> There is a good PBS Space Time episode discussing Absolute Cold. This portion of the episode discusses the Bose-Einstein condensate: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvgZqGxF3eo&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvgZqGxF3eo&feature=youtu.be&t=2m34s)</comment>


MDMA 'cures' sufferers' PTSD in a few weeks during study - <AUTHOR> https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/mdma-ecstasy-mdma-post-traumatic-stress-disorder-veterans-a8332561.html <comment><USER2> Great news that governments seem to be open to considering the potential medicinal benefits of MDMA & psilocybin.

>Participants were given doses of the drug ranging from 30mg to 125mg alongside psychotherapy.

I know a lot of people talk about "micro dosing" so they can experience the supposed mental health benefits without experiencing the high. Forgive my ignorance, but perhaps someone could explain how the doses in this study compare to a micro dose? What about a "recreational" dose? Or maybe the study dosage falls somewhere between the two?

<comment><USER3> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDMA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDMA) says "then reported typical retail prices in the range of €3 to €9 per tablet, typically containing 25–65 mg of MDMA" and "The majority of tablets contain 70–85 mg of MDMA" and "The average content of MDMA in a preparation is 70 to 120 mg with the purity having increased since the 1990s" and "100 mg is sometimes considered a typical dose". Those numbers are for different countries.</comment></comment>


Why Amazon Went Down, and Why It Matters - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2008/06/06/why-amazon-went-down-and-what-it-means-to-you/ <comment><USER2> The title should be "Why did Amazon go down?" because they don't really have any more idea than the rest of us do.</comment>


America's Fastest Spy Plane May Be Back and Hypersonic - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-16/america-s-fastest-spy-plane-may-be-back-and-hypersonic <comment><USER2> Reading this, I just realized that I bet we do more and more testing of cutting edge aircraft in computer simulations nowadays, waiting until later in the stage to actually build prototypes.

This might also explain why we've got fewer "UFO" sightings than we used to even 20-30 years ago, in spite of all of us carrying cameras in our pockets (apart from the fact that many of these were hoaxes to begin with).

<comment><USER3> I don't think even modern day smartphones are fast enough to capture objects traveling at hypersonic speeds. Just a guess, I may be wrong here.

<comment><USER4> Distance makes speed irrelevant. The moon is traveling 1km every second but that's hard to directly notice.

If you every watched a jet moving at ~600mph then I think we can agree something going 10 times as fast would still be easy to notice.

<comment><USER5> Possible to capture if you noticed it anyway.

Jets cross out of view in a couple minutes and are big (and probably flying lower). So a little thing in ~20 seconds.

<comment><USER4> If it's tiny, dark, and distant then it's hard to see even if stationary. Thus the real issue would not be speed.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I was agreeing with that part of you comment and quibbling over "easy to notice".

Even with the tiny size the speed is still a big factor because the opportunity to sight the object from a given location will be pretty short.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> maze-le It is noted in the article that this airplane has no real mission profile. I mean hypersonic cruise speed is an impressive feat on its own, and may result in new methods and applications in space travel. But the military usage of a plane like this is questionable. Recon aircraft have long since been abandoned in favor of satellites, and a fleet of bombers might not be maintainable because of the huge costs involved.

<comment><USER6> Satellites can be re-oriented into different orbital inclinations but that requires fuel and in the absence of a Shuttle fleet they cannot be refuelled. So despite movie depictions they don't go swerving hither and thither to follow a camel up a mountain track.

Such limited manoeuvring also requires planning and 90 minutes between passes. Lots of opportunity for bad guys to push their missile back into a hangar.

An atmospheric aircraft can follow an arbitrary course to take in as many targets as required, can be rerouted on a moment's notice and can approach from unexpected vectors to catch the target out in the open.

<comment><USER7> > Satellites can be re-oriented into different orbital inclinations but that > requires fuel

A LOT of fuel. So much so that even if lifetime wasn't an issue, it makes more sense to launch additional satellites in the proper inclination, rather than moving one.

I know that, in one instance, a company wanted to use the moon's gravity to change a satellite's inclination, as it was cheaper to all the way to the moon and back (and then circularize again). That maneuver seems to be patented, though.

<comment><USER8> Patent number/reference please? I'd love to use this as a test case in an orbital dynamics library I'm building.

<comment><USER9> I am fairly sure that "US 6116545 A" [1] is the patent in question.

[1] [https://www.google.com/patents/US6116545](https://www.google.com/patents/US6116545)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Video from SciTech conference [https://livestream.com/accounts/6056055/events/8001237/video...](https://livestream.com/accounts/6056055/events/8001237/videos/168229789) starting at around 41 minutes

<comment><USER11> the bombshell part is from 00:58:58 - 01:00:28 where his phrasing is as if the hypersonic plane has actually been built within the last 5 years, with a 3-d scramjet engine (and 3-d printed as well).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> There was something about the SR-71 Blackbird that really captured the feeling of the time. Whenever I drive the 215 past March AFB and see the one they have on display, it reminds me of the age of movies like Firefox and War Games.

</comment><comment><USER13> This has been known for a while. Seismologists discovered it and tracked one at 5000 MPH. The ability to be anywhere in the world in a very short time is a compelling tool for the military.

<comment><USER14> Can you elaborate on that? I'd be very interested to see how seismologists tracked a plane. Can you pick up high-altitude shockwaves from seismographs?

<comment><USER11> 1992: 4,000mph, Los Angeles [http://articles.latimes.com/1992-04-17/local/me-607_1_spy- pl...](http://articles.latimes.com/1992-04-17/local/me-607_1_spy-plane)

USGS on seismographs and sonic booms generally: [https://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/topics/sonic- booms.php](https://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/topics/sonic-booms.php)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This seems a bit "reading the tea leaves" to me. The statements in the article are easily read as "the technology that _would_ allow this is new".

<comment><USER16> 'a Lockheed vice president a "digital transformation" arising from recent computing capabilities and design tools had made hypersonic development possible.'

The "digital transformation" part alone gives this up as vaporware...

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I won an essay contest in college that NASA set up regarding the future of supersonic and hypersonic aviation.

Even back then, supersonic, let alone hypersonic, aviation was such a pipe dream for civilian aviation. Not saying it can't be done, but I can't imagine the breakthroughs that need to be made would be made outside of any context short of a World War.

Let me list the problems:

1\. Materials Science. Very hard to design materials that survive those kind of stresses, and that you know will last 30+ years. Airplanes routinely have 60 year life cycles, so 30 years of material survival is the minimum. The stresses on these things are huge. The Concorde would actually expand 10 inches from head-to-tail during flight because of the heat.

2\. Overpromising dating back 40 years. My favorite example is Ronald Reagan promising an "Orient Express" that would be 90 minutes New York to Tokyo. That was in his 1986 "State of the Union".

3\. Acceleration. Flying Mach 6 is one thing. Having a plane that can accelerate up to that speed fast enough that the flight doesn't already end, AND THEN slow down an equal amount, is another thing.

4\. Sound. This sounds like a nuisance thing, until you hear one of these aircrafts in action. THEY ARE SO DAMN LOUD. It's a health and safety issue almost. I would compare it to being around artillery fire, maybe worse. It stays with you for days.

The Japanese and Australians from time to time do some good work on this kind of aviation. Boeing had a civilian supersonic project in the 70's, but it's all been given up except for the occasional private jet or military experiment.

<comment><USER18> _supersonic, let alone hypersonic, aviation was such a pipe dream for civilian aviation. Not saying it can't be done_

One word: Concorde.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'd like to see the modified UH60 used in the bin Laden raid. The only hint of it's existence is the remains of the tail section.

<comment><USER20> Interesting, I hadn't heard about that before, but here's a link to an article about it: [https://www.defenceaviation.com/2011/05/stealth- uh-60-black-...](https://www.defenceaviation.com/2011/05/stealth-uh-60-black- hawk-revealed-by-death-of-osama-bin-laden-in-operation-neptune-spear.html)

<comment><USER21> Also [https://theaviationist.com/2016/05/02/five-years-ago- today-t...](https://theaviationist.com/2016/05/02/five-years-ago-today-the- raid-that-exposed-the-stealth-black-hawk-helicopter/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Having a degree in aerospace engineering and being a lifelong air and space fan this discussion is mostly disappointing. hacker news comments are of distinctly poorer quality outside the subjects of software and startups - sensation, urban legend, and ignorant story-telling is rising to the top instead of explanation, context, and insight. 8 of the top 10 comments are inane (UFOs! Movies! tinfoil-hats! Sophomore-year economics!).

Makes one wonder how much the mainstream hacker news threads are suffering from similar problems that I just can't perceive.

</comment><comment><USER22> I can't see how even America's seventh fastest spy plane could be anything less than hypersonic, let alone the fastest one. :)

</comment><comment><USER23> is that the follow up to the Aurora project ? [https://www.defenceaviation.com/2007/06/sr-91-aurora- aircraf...](https://www.defenceaviation.com/2007/06/sr-91-aurora- aircraft.html)

</comment><comment><USER24> This is obviously cool on many levels but fundamentally this is very sad. This, while places in the US don't have clean running water. The best national defense is creating a next generation that's healthy, worldly and educated. Instead, this.

<comment><USER25> I'm not sure what your point is. We already spend more on education and healthcare per capita than almost every other developed country. At what point is it appropriate to spend the incremental dollar on defense instead?

<comment><USER24> I was with you until you called it the "incremental dollar". We spend 3x more on defense than the nearest competitor[0]—0.6 trillion dollars per year. Given that we only collect $3 trillion per year[1], after debt service we're not really left with that much.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures)

[1] [https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal- bud...](https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal- budget-101/revenues/)

<comment><USER26> I'm under the impression that if the USA doesn't maintain a significant level of military superiority, it will quickly find itself under duress from myriad sources.

This is a path which once you start down, you're somewhat committed to in perpetuity.

<comment><USER24> > I'm under the impression that if the USA doesn't maintain a significant > level of military superiority, it will quickly find itself under duress from > myriad sources.

Is England under duress? Is France under duress? Are the Dutch under duress? Is Spain under duress?

Most importantly, at what point do we ask ourselves what it is that we are even defending? 50% of the population making less than 5 richest people?

<comment><USER25> > Is England under duress? Is France under duress? Are the Dutch under duress? > Is Spain under duress?

Those countries were under duress for years during the Cold War, and were protected by the U.S.'s massive military spending during that time. And given that Russia recently annexed part of a sovereign country, those times may be back.

<comment><USER24> Right, but Russia spends less than one tenth of what we spend on defense. Certainly the Western World can scrape together enough to defend itself from Russia. They took Crimea and Eastern Ukraine because they knew no one would do anything. I think they know where the lines are drawn, and I don't know why those lines cost the United States $550-600bn per year to maintain.

<comment><USER25> First, unofficial estimates of Russia's defense budget are about $70 billion: [https://www.rt.com/business/russia-increases-military- spendi...](https://www.rt.com/business/russia-increases-military- spendings-702). Second, Russia doesn't pay soldiers US salaries. Russia's purchasing power parity (PPP) GDP is 2.6x higher than its exchange rate GDP. Applying that same factor to Russia's defense budget results in $182 billion. Third, we quite reasonably don't want to maintain mere parity with our enemies. We want a decisive if not overwhelming advantage. That costs exponentially more money. It's like Intel's spending on fab R&D. Intel spends 6x as much as TSMC and 4x as much as Samsung. That buys Intel a well under 50% advantage in fabrication process over those companies. Or airliners. In constant dollars, the 777 cost twice as much as the 747. The 787 cost another factor of two more. For 4x the cost, improvement in fuel use per passenger mile is under 40%. It would be amazing if the less than 3x (real) difference in spending gave us even a twice as capable military.

<comment><USER24> So that is a compelling argument! Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> in my view the first stage of SpaceX Falcon is the thing which is most close to the hypersonic transport today. One can imagine that such reusable stage would accelerate the high-altitude/suborbital plane thus solving the task of having engines for different regimes. Cost-wise - the few millions such a reusable stage launch would cost isn't that far from ~$35K/hour costs of SR71 on missions of 10+ hours.

</comment><comment><USER28> "However, Aboulafia noted, such a capability could also be considered a destabilizing development if a U.S. adversary decided to react preemptively to such an aircraft's existence."

In other words China and Russia may contemplate fighting WW3 now rather than waiting to be leap frogged. Fun.

<comment><USER29> China is already working on hypersonic weapons. They aren't waiting for anyone.

[http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a14512512/c...](http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a14512512/china- reportedly-tests-new-df-17-hypersonic-weapon/)

<comment><USER28> China is always "working on" whatever the US is. Issue comes down to timing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Similar to Russia. The increasing gap there of course is that Russia can't keep up with the US and China on investment, they're going to increasingly fall behind except in a few isolated segments of defense tech. Russia is becoming a second tier military power, if they're not already (that is, closer to Germany, India, France etc. than the US and China).

The US and China are now spending $1+ trillion per year on their militaries. The combined sum will likely eclipse the entire value of Russia's annual economic output in the next 15-20 years.

<comment><USER7> Is it just a budget game, though? How efficient is each country with their budget?

US spending one trillion dollars, and China spending one trillion dollars, it doesn't guarantee that they will be technologically matched.

It does not have to be symmetric. You only have to spend as much as you need to nullify an adversary's capability. Ex, one does not need to manufacture an aircraft carrier to counter one, you just need to take it out of action.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> _"We couldn't have made the engine itself—it would have melted down into slag if we had tried to produce it five years ago," O'Banion said. "But now we can_ _digitally print that engine_ _with an incredibly sophisticated cooling system integral into the material of the engine itself and have that engine survive for multiple firings for routine operation."_

They made a computer model that wouldn't immediately destroy itself. Let's calm down a bit.

<comment><USER31> I'm not saying they've actually built it. But "digitally print that engine" sounds to me like they're talking about additively manufacturing the engine.

"Digitally print" is used as a synonym for "3D print" or "additively manufacture."</comment></comment>


Multics Emacs: The History, Design and Implementation (1979) - <AUTHOR> http://www.multicians.org/mepap.html <comment><USER2> Such a wonderful writeup! I fondly remember reading this while writing an Emacs clone in Erlang ("Ermacs"), spending time with Hemlock under CMUCL, watching Climacs evolve for SBCL, etc.

Emacs has a rich history indeed with many other branches of the family tree than GNU Emacs.

</comment><comment><USER3> > It was soon found that Emacs could be taught within minutes or an hour to > those with no technical experience at all.

Wow. Nowadays the ability to use Emacs is considered one of the pinnacles of technical accomplishment.

<comment><USER4> You can still teach someone Emacs in an hour and have them be able to reasonably edit text. It's just that other editors got better now, so you'll have to put in some hours to get on the same level as with the editor you're used to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's interesting to read about the debate between doing editing/screen-drawing on the physical terminal ('smart' hardware) and doing it all in software. The wheel of reincarnation in action! Something we've seen in tech constantly, the balance between local vs distant computing determined by bandwidth/latency... Lately, smartphones, desktops and VR or sound: should the processing be done in the headphone/headset or away in in the PC/smartphone?

<comment><USER6> I really liked the SUPDUP but that section describing it doesn't really get to the intense crockishness of the protocol. It _really_ was ITS terminal control brought out over the network: the capabilities were the 36-bit terminal descriptors sent over the network in PDP-10 order.

DLW later wrote a different Emacs implementation in Lisp, Zwei, for the Lisp Machine, which was even more deeply intertwined in the system than Multics Emacs was in Multics. Zwei (Zwei was Eine Initially) followed Eine (Eine is not Emacs)

FWIW both programmers mentioned in that section, DLW (Dan Weinreb) and MRC (Mark Crispin), died relatively young.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is there an emulator that can run MULTICS?

<comment><USER8> [https://sourceforge.net/projects/dps8m/](https://sourceforge.net/projects/dps8m/)</comment></comment>


Pro Rata - <AUTHOR> http://blog.ycombinator.com/pro-rata <comment><USER2> We live in an era where major founder leverage is a fact of life in the startup world. Unlike the bubble era, founders today - or at least those that are among the most talented - have substantial power in determining the direction of their ventures and the investors who most benefit from this are those who win their favor and align their interests along with those of such founders.

YC is an innovative venture capital firm whose model depends heavily on its maintaining credibility with the talented founders who run the ventures it funds. In this sense, it has caught the spirit of the age brilliantly and that is why YC stands out as one of the premier investment firms of our era.

A key element in this approach is for YC to do what it has done all along and that is to take common stock instead of the almost sacrosanct preferred stock that VC firms have always insisted on in the past. This radical innovation in VC-style funding has set YC apart from the pack of VC firms, incubators, and any and all other manner of investor wanting to hitch their wagon to the talented founders who are capable of building successful, massively scaling ventures that seek to transform all of world commerce. Its importance cannot be emphasized enough as a key to YC's success. It has enabled YC both to be in the midst of the fray and to stand above it, all at the same time. It is the founder's ally even while it benefits mightily as an investor.

What then to do after the founding stage to avoid dilution to its initial investment stake without jeopardizing credibility with founders? If YC were to pick and choose in participating in early follow-on rounds, this would selectively help and simultaneously hurt the various founders it works with. Almost by definition, the fact of such an investment would brand some YC ventures as in and others out of YC favor, a result that would prove highly damaging to the aura of goodwill that is not only helpful but absolutely indispensable for YC to maintain with its founders.

So how to maintain that goodwill and still avoid subsequent dilution in the various investment rounds that inevitably follow from the inception of star- quality companies?

Well, you can set up some fixed rules, make such follow-on pro rata investments automatic within the defined bounds that make sense for YC, and use that as a way of extending YC's leverage to help it keep the 7% (or whatever) stake it begins with in each venture.

And that is precisely what YC has done here with its pro-rata program.

Founders usually have no problem with early stage investors being able to participate pro rata in later rounds as long as they are significant investors and as long as such participation does not jeopardize their ability to raise later-stage money on good terms.

YC is of course a significant investor.

As to jeopardizing future funding terms, I believe YC has made a judgment call here that the investors it typically works with will have no problem taking something less than their accustomed full pieces in the later rounds to accommodate YC and will therefore continue to finance YC ventures exactly as before. Hence, no prejudice to founders and no loss of goodwill or credibility among founders.

I believe this is a sound calculation. YC has been able to persuade VCs to deviate from a variety of their traditional rules/requirements as part of being a part of the YC universe. This is just one more to be added to the list. It is a world of increased founder leverage and that means investors who want to stay with the deal flow need to adjust and adapt. I think they will do so here as well.

In a worst case for YC, this might prove a failed experiment. But the downside of the experiment's failing is minimal while the upside in being able to avoid later-stage dilution among a vast group of potentially valuable ventures is huge. Thus, this makes eminent sense for YC for sure and probably for its founders too. As for the VCs who will have to adapt a bit, they will survive and very likely continue happily investing just as before. At least that is how I read it.

<comment><USER3> 1 copywriting quibble: "We live in an era where major founder leverage ..." -> it's not an era, it's more like a few years and it could flip pretty quickly.

(Sorry couldn't help myself.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Maybe I'm reading something wrong here, but I think this actually substantially complicates the YC decision calculus. YC today is an overwhelmingly good proposition and so I do think they can add this without turning any off, but this does make further rounds either slightly harder or more expensive.

If a VC wants to own 20% at the end of an A, or 10% after a B, having YC in there with rights to buy back up to their 7% can add real dilution you wouldn't have otherwise wanted or needed to incur. As someone who did a party round seed and had a crowded A, it really does add up; though, it's for sure a first world problem and won't kill you, whereas YC for many companies is when they get serious.

YC is so valuable that this won't turn anyone off at the traditional YC early stage, but I wonder how this will affect things for the "late-early" companies they've been taking more of in the last few batches.

<comment><USER5> The numbers are pretty small. Pro rata doesn't apply to employee option pool dilution, so it's really probably only 5% of a round. If a VC says they will do an investment if they can own 20% but not 19% of a company, I believe they are lying.

<comment><USER6> Sam is right.... VCs put a line in the sand and everyone gets into a tizzy. Then you say to them "listen, I gave prorata to my early supporters and I intend to keep my word and reward them for their support."

The VC then has respect for the founder and say "OK, let's do it."

If they don't respect the prorata of the existing investors you need to ask yourself if this is the right VC to have as a partner. If they are so encouraging of you to screw your existing partners, how do you think they will treat you in a down market?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> YC has forgone billions by not maintaining their pro rata share in the past. Later VCs got that extra money. Now YC will get it. Seems fair, correct, and much better for the world. They'll do useful things with it. Another very impressive improvement. Keep 'em coming!

</comment><comment><USER8> This may greatly change incentives for YC.

I've always thought being an LP in YC would be fantastic because of the valuation bump companies get on demo day. Let's say a company could raise money at $5mm valuation, but instead gives 7% to YC, and as a result can raise at a $10mm valuation => (1) founders win by keeping more equity, (2) YC wins by their investments getting cash with less dilution, and (3) post-YC investors pay more (maybe still great investments, but not as good as getting in at $5mm).

But to maintain 7% in companies up to a $250mm valuation, it seems that the vast majority of YC's deployed capital will be in the place of what was previous a "post-YC" investment.

YC should still be in the business of finding great companies, but might not makes sense for them to help get gangbuster valuations at demo day.

<comment><USER5> It is a statement that we believe investing in YC companies at post-YC valuations is still a great deal.

<comment><USER9> I notice you use the words 'aim' and 'try' in your message, what do you think is the risk that if YC does not simply always do this it will be perceived as a very negative signal by other investors in later rounds?

<comment><USER10> I'd like to know the answer to your question but note the fact that sama says this:

"we believe investing in YC companies at post-YC valuations is still a great deal"

but also says this (from the post):

"And by doing this in every YC company, there will be no signaling issue of us supporting some companies and not others."

So how can you have both statements be true?

In other words how can you say "still a great deal" and also acknowledge that you are investing in all companies, not only ones that are a "great deal", simply so there is no signaling?

<comment><USER11> I assume that he's running the calculation as a whole, on the entire body of startups. In other words, _given_ that these pro-rata investments must be all- or-nothing to avoid signaling risks, what're the financial returns of investing in the entire body of YC startups that raise follow-up funding, regardless of whether they're actually a good deal individually?

I can see how this could easily turn out in YC's favor. For one, the really obvious failures often flame out during YC itself and fail to raise follow-up funding, and so YC wouldn't have any obligation there anyways. And the really big successes become worth far more than $250M, enough to subsidize many failures.

The big question for me is what it does to incentive alignment - it seems like YC now has an incentive to ensure that companies it doesn't like don't raise follow-up funds, as well as incentives to get lower valuations on the early funding rounds. It also in theory should make them pickier about their application process, knowing they're committed to participating in any follow- up rounds. On the plus side, they have an incentive to ensure that promising startups _do_ raise follow-up funding (rather than go out of business), it avoids some of their misaligned incentives relative to the rest of the investment community, and they have an incentive to keep helping their investments later in life.

<comment><USER12> > _On the plus side, they have an incentive to ensure that promising startups > do raise follow-up funding (rather than go out of business), it avoids some > of their misaligned incentives relative to the rest of the investment > community, and they have an incentive to keep helping their investments > later in life._

YC already has incentive to do this; their post-dilution stake in wildly successful companies still shakes out as being far from trivial.

That said, it would certainly be fair to say that these changes probably do serve to strengthen existing incentives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What does this mean?

I have zero business acumen and have no familiarity with investing or how new companies work.

<comment><USER14> Related: is there some reliable "startup jargon for dummies" page somewhere? I'm often confused with all the talk of rounds, vesting, dilution, and whatnot. I know there are books, but I'm not planning to get into the startup scene; buying a book doesn't seem worth it to be slightly less confused on a website I waste lots of time on.

<comment><USER15> I second this request. Google took me to investopedia to learn "pro rata", but that wasn't as helpful as reading these comments. The startup community has so many buzzwords. My understanding of the jargon has increased a lot in the past year I've spent time on the site, but I still don't know much.

<comment><USER16> Round: Some people are purchasing shares of your company. Given cute names to indicate how many "rounds" you've done: Seed, Series A, Series B, Series C, Series D, Series E, etc

Vesting: When you actually get the shares (instead of just being promised you'll receive them)

Dilution: When the pool of shares expands without the existing shareholders receiving a commensurate proportion of the new shares (used to transfer value from existing shareholders to new). Usually occurs after each Round completes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> To put this in context YC is pro-rating its 7% to maintain that level until companies have $250m valuation.

YC companies to date have raised $3bn in total so far, with a couple dozen above $100m out of just over 800.

Therefore at most YC would have invested $210m if they'd done this from the start.

It basically adds up to a couple hundred thousand on Series A, 0.5-0.8m series B, $1-2m at series C, then at series D you'd hope to be approaching $250m

Given a propertied fund size of $1bn this makes sense in backing winners probably funding 200 companies a year at $200-300m/year, particularly as major pickup in valuation is A to C

<comment><USER5> The math is off here; YC companies have raised more than double that amount.

<comment><USER17> Sorry, was looking at last summers amount [http://blog.ycombinator.com/yc- portfolio-stats](http://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-portfolio-stats)

A run rate of $2-300m if its a $1bn fund (suppose you'll let everyone know soon!) would make sense

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Does that mean YC will fight against the "Major Investor" clauses in funding rounds that only allow pro rata rights to investors who have X% ownership?

[http://www.2-speed.com/2014/09/dreaded-major-investor- clause...](http://www.2-speed.com/2014/09/dreaded-major-investor-clause/)

Of course, 7% might be enough to overcome the threshold in many cases, but as an angel investors in YC deals, I have lost my pro rata rights following a YC Note/SAFE conversion this way (despite the docs suggesting I am protected).

<comment><USER19> It depends on how the YC pro rata rights are documented. It's entirely possible that their pro rata right will be completely independent of any later pro rata right for major investors (i.e., the major Series A investors might get their pro rata rights _in addition to_ the continuing YC pro rata).

That blog post is helpful but not the best source of info. For one, it confuses preemptive rights (right to buy a % of future financing) with first refusal rights (right to buy shares from other current stockholders who try to sell). And second, it's rather one-sided. Companies understandably want to limit these rights to only big investors for a number of reasons but especially because (1) it really can be expensive/time consuming to continually contact or chase down signatures from an investor base that eventually might include dozens of people/entities, (2) it can make it really hard to convince new investors that the investment will be worthwhile when there are pro rata rights to buy up a huge chunk of the round and (3) there's a major signalling problem when the prior angels have these rights but choose not to use them (the author mentions that he always demands these rights but doesn't always use them, which can scare off other investors and, what's worse, many angels will decline for innocuous reasons such as a seed-stage only investor who never does follow-ons or a smaller angel who is priced out by a high valuation).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't presume to know more about this stuff than the YC people, who are scarily good at it but this is a significant departure from 'our goals are 100% aligned with those of the founders, what's good for them is good for us'.

<comment><USER20> I guess it's a question of whether on average YC is as good or better a post seed stage investor as the average VC who invests in YC companies. If YC is as good or better, then the _pro rata_ is aligned with founders' interests since the founders are raising X dollars at Y valuation either way and it's just a question of which pocket the money comes from...it's still the same color.

In the universe of unicorns and rainbows, YC's participation puts the rest of a round's participants on their good behavior to reduce risk on future deal flows and the founders get a better deal. The situation in the universe with evil Spock is of course different, but it was going to turn out that way in that universe. In between a founder could probably ask YC not to participate. Since the investment is blind and YC is under scrutiny by potential founders, it may not be in YC's interest to force the issue and suffer Tweets of outrage.

The potential problem is a bad cap table and the first order issue is VC that treats that as an acceptable byproduct of a round it is leading or a company that does not have better options.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> "We will try to do this for every company..." If for some reason this term is not exercised, it will now unequivocally reflect badly for the company. I don't question the good nature and authenticity of a YC "try", but the sentence does naturally express doubt.

<comment><USER5> We will do it whenever we possibly can--our goal is 100%. There have been occasional instances where a company doesn't get us docs until 3 hours before a close or something.

<comment><USER22> Is that the only reason? Or will there still be some sort of veto power by YC partner(s) to opt out of the future round in extraordinary cases?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Who are the LP's of this follow on money?

</comment><comment><USER24> The pro-rata provision is only for raises of $100M or more post-money. Is YC only going to do these transactions for post-money between $100M and $250M? Or will you ask to be part of raises below $100M?

<comment><USER25> Is that true for the provision for companies in S'14 or later? The new policy will only apply to those companies.

<comment><USER24> It's true for W15.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Is the cash coming from the new growth fund that YC raised recently? Does that fund have non-YC LPs?

</comment><comment><USER27> I guess this is a way for YC to participate in the upside of the most successful companies without creating signaling risk. But from a pure investment perspective, there's a possibility it might not end up being that prudent. It will all depend on the home runs. If YC can create a few multi- billion dollar companies, this will work out well.

<comment><USER28> Looks like there's a useful built-in selection bias. YC commits itself to investing in future rounds, but only good companies will be able to raise future rounds, so they probably won't get stuck doubling down on too many failing companies.

<comment><USER29> > only good companies will be able to raise future rounds

Given the rather poor returns of the VC sector overall, I'm not sure you can make this assumption without more qualification.

<comment><USER28> Fair enough:

* ...only not-completely-screwed-up-trainwrecks will raise future rounds...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I have noticed this language about avoiding signaling in previous YC announcements and I think its a great thing to be cognizant of. Setting aside the fact that YC itself is an enormous signal, its a sign of maturity to realize that even your inaction is a signal. I imagine there was feedback from past YC classes who didn't receive follow-investments that were suffering more from the absence of YC than simply the lack of those funds.

Once you realize that you could either stop funding companies after graduating altogether or invest in all of them, both of which remove the signal. With the funds they have, clearly there is considerable risk tolerance for the latter.

</comment><comment><USER31> Just curious, will this change how SAFE docs are structured? IANAL, but right now SAFEs make it challenging for seed investors to get pro rata. That has already been frustrating, and becomes a little more frustrating if YC automatically gets pro rata on top of that. I know it's a free market, and I don't have to invest if I don't like the terms, and so on, but it feels weird for me if YC takes pro rata by default, while their default docs for seed investors are stingy with pro rata rights.

<comment><USER32> The default SAFE docs [0] already have pro rata rights agreements in them.

[0] [http://www.ycombinator.com/documents/](http://www.ycombinator.com/documents/)

<comment><USER31> Interesting. I wonder if the docs evolved at some point. In the first few SAFEs that we did, we had to get side letters/special agreements for pro rata rights.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I wonder if this is truly founder friendly. Pro rata is a right given, and 7% changes a _lot_ of the calculus when doing a round that is probably 20% to begin with. Hopefully this goes along with YC asking for less equity, or some other allowance. (IMO, most incubators already ask for much more than they're worth, though YC obviously being a bit different.)

<comment><USER19> Eh, it's really not such a big deal. Maintaining 7% in a round for 20% total only lets YC buy 1.4%. As sama said elsewhere, the difference between 20% and 18.6% (with an equivalent reduction in their $ invested) shouldn't change much for a serious VC.

Given YC's history and reputation of being very supportive of founders, any founding team is also probably better off with YC taking a cut in a round that would otherwise go to another investor, especially given that the list of investors who are as founder-friendly as YC is pretty short.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Is the Pro Rata agreement going to work only after receiving further funding or is it once you join the program?

Couldnt that keep outside investors away?

</comment><comment><USER35> I don't see the reason to send no signals. There must have been at least one situation where investing in a followup was bad. Declaring a strategy like that is puzzling, I assume they have run a simulation

</comment><comment><USER36> What do early stage founders think of this? Like, hate, neutral?

</comment><comment><USER37> So cool. YC is revolutionizing itself these days. YC Fellows, Pro Rata. Many things people have suggested they might or would do are now coming to pass. What's next ?

</comment><comment><USER38> What is the official success & failure rate for Ycombinator companies? What percentage of companies succeed?

</comment><comment><USER39> Are YC becoming a standard VC firm?

</comment><comment><USER40> Can this be applied retroactively?

<comment><USER41> I don't think so since the pro rata wasn't in their "standard investment documents". Thus YC doesn't have a clause that allow them maintain their 7% in future funding rounds. Trying to maintain 7% on previous YC alumni, may caused the mixed signals they are trying to avoid with this change.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> No terms available?

<comment><USER42> The terms are usually the same: invest at the new round's valuation such that ownership percentage is maintained. They will only follow, so the valuation will be set by others.

<comment><USER16> Would be nice to see it in writing instead of assuming it's 'the usual'.

<comment><USER42> [http://www.ycombinator.com/docs/Series_AA_IRA.docx](http://www.ycombinator.com/docs/Series_AA_IRA.docx)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> an announcement internally would have been nice...

<comment><USER5> Doesn't apply to you--as mentioned in the post, only companies from S14 on.

<comment><USER44> Announcement says you have the pro rata provision baked into docs in S14 onward... but from your statement, it sounded (to me too) like founders from previous rounds could also count on YC's participation if the startup voluntarily holds open some room for YC in subsequent rounds:

> We will try to do this for every company in every round with a post-money > valuation of $250 million or less.

<comment><USER5> Fair; updated the wording. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> > Many new investors really like to see the support of existing investors.

Right, because it's a signal that you think the business is worth this round of investment. Since you set this up as not being a useful signal, I think the investors will probably seek out signal from you behind the scenes.

Perhaps this is ok, since it won't be public and won't have the effect of a negative signal for the ones you don't give secret signal to.

EDIT to clarify: I believe new investors "like to see support" because it's a signal. If it can't be used as a signal (as will now be the case), they will seek signal anyway (in informal ways). I think they will do this by feeling out YC through back-channel communications and "kremlinology" type interpretations (even if YC tries really hard not to signal)

<comment><USER45> One argument would be that VC's are starting to feel like ALL YC investments are overhyped, and that YC is generating its own returns via demo day. Participating pro-Rata in all future rounds is a signal that YC continues to think its participants are a good investment even after demo day.</comment></comment>


Bringing back the PC - <AUTHOR> http://idiallo.com/blog/2014/05/bringing-back-the-pc

<comment><USER2> The personal cloud built on FOSS is a very nice idea. We need this real bad.

I think the technological complexity of implementing this is quite serious--- setting this up for the average non-technical person would be an impossible task. If we can get past the Dynamic DNS + opening ports on the home router, this will be immediately useful. Then again maybe "my personal cloud" could be on AWS to begin with, see [1].

Are there any efforts for the "personal cloud" platforms that have traction? I'm interested particularly for easy-to-use ones---possibly focussing on a single application, e.g., share pictures with your family from the old PC in your closet.

[1] [http://minireference.com/blog/a-scriptable-future-for-the- we...](http://minireference.com/blog/a-scriptable-future-for-the-web-and-home- servers/)

<comment><USER3> For non-technical folks this is pretty difficult.

The average person can purchase an off the shelf personal cloud and probably get somewhere with storing and accessing files but going beyond that requires help.

As a test I set up owncloud and personal email on a digital ocean droplet just last night on their lowest tier. So far so good. But it needs some help on the user friendly aspects, like sharing a photo gallery.

<comment><USER4> I'm pretty non-savvy about servers, but I have been trying to learn ansible, and at the same time I wanted to consolidate some personal servers, so I used this to deploy more-or-less the same thing on DO the other day:

[https://github.com/al3x/sovereign](https://github.com/al3x/sovereign)

My experience was that it wasn't impossible, and faster than spinning up a postfix/dovecot server by hand... but it was really buggy and lots of little problems. As far as I could tell, there were some problems using the encfs with the kernal DO uses, and that took a lot of troubleshooting.

I am thinking that at some point there will be a setup that is as easy as, say, spinning out a wordpress site on shared hosting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Back in the late '90's I thought lots of aspiring computer scientists were already using Windows or Linux as they VPN'd from their remote laptop back to home so they could access their personal files and full desktop through VNC. Not much differently than people would do on a commercial scale to their company network when they were away. Mainly dial-up except for the few who had broadband.

I was too preoccupied with natural science, but by 2003 I got a cellphone containing a regular USB GSM modem and would use that plugged in to my laptop to log in to my own desktop PC network using dial-up my dang self. From anywhere having cellular service, no need for a wireless data plan which was not available in most coverage areas anyway. Was good to have a nationwide calling plan which most people did not have either, and it still used up minutes of your monthly allowance.

No FOSS on the laptop back then for me usually, but if you had broadband at a remote location too, Windows XP had everything you needed to VPN back to a regular home Linksys router which normally contained its own VPN endpoint in those days with a new service called DynDNS already preconfigured in the router's firmware. Too bad DynDNS is not free any more but with the router handling VPN, you could still access a home network that was barebones Windows9x, Linux, even DOS.

No need for software, just common hardware and regular Windows features.

Unless you wanted the automated "Assistant" type stuff like in the article, then you would need software, regular users would never call it apps.

Later once 3G wireless arrived, I got a phone supporting that and could get better speeds (when available) than dial-up, and without even needing the laptop when I just wanted convenient recreational use on the small-screen. Never did want to lose the regular dial-up cell modem from my toolbox though, but a number of years ago Tmobile walled it off. So much for Plan B when there is no 4G, which is still not everywhere. Plus, no faxing for you[1] directly from a laptop through a cellphone any more, without having to go through a web service. Clouds got in my way.

[1] I realize now the '80's called and they want their facsimile machine back, but I was out of tape on my telephone answering machine ;-)

</comment><comment><USER6> I like the ideas in this article.

Rather than the big footprint whitebox/blackbox from PC 1.0, instead I imagine PC 2.0 being a very small board, no fans, no spinning drives but having very fast CPUs and GPUs driving big monitors. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nettop](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nettop) Or, the very fast CPUs and GPUs with or without fans would hide quietly away in a closet but with a connector hub on my desk. It could draw a lot of power if required. It would be like an iMac, but with an open and modular PC 2.0 board that is separate from the big dumb monitor(s).

Rather than UEFI or UEFI-like so-called "secure" boot, instead PC 2.0 would be instantly on, and support virtual "smart" bootloaders as an option. So without a config card (swipe or whatever), it would default to turning on instantly. With a previously used config card it would turn on instantly using that previous configuration. For any new config card to would actually "boot" up the new configuration and create a new "instant on" configuration. There would be options to backup and remove old configurations, and to set the default instant on configuration. Sort of like Virtual Box snapshots, but using hardware for the snapshots to actually make the computer "instantly" turn on.

</comment><comment><USER7> Super nice article. In some ways a next step compared to 'The Mother Of All Demos', in some ways a step back. But still quite neat.

One thing all those 'always on' devices could use their unused cycles for is to create things like federated search engines, peer-to-peer encrypted backups (for instance, seed a torrent of your own encrypted data with a key only you know, boot your 'assistant' afresh and the first thing it could ask you is to restore from some torrent).

</comment><comment><USER8> I am totally behind the spirit of your article. I also believe it's a travesty that we have so much power that can be attained so cheaply, yet we aren't using it at home.</comment>


Prostate-specific cancer drug engineered from Mediterranean "death carrot" weeds - <AUTHOR> http://gazette.jhu.edu/2012/07/23/drug-from-mediterranean-weed-kills-tumor-cells-in-mice/

<comment><AUTHOR> Research article here: <http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/4/140/140ra86.abstract></comment>


Don't be surprised when Microsoft Android shows up - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworld.com/article/3057170/android/don-t-be-surprised-when-microsoft-android-shows-up.html <comment><USER2> Another "Windows Phone sales are down" article. It doesn't add anything new to the conversation and overlooks some obvious things:

A) The intentional shutdown of Project Astoria; which is more proof that Astoria was on the verge of BlackBurying the platform, if for no other reason than it would be yet another bullet point in articles such as this.

B) It's glossed over, but as much as the author seems to want to stick with "Windows Phone" as a brand, the brand is dead. The trick is not for the reason the author asserts: it's not "yet another rebranding", it's an entirely new position that the author doesn't seem to understand/appreciate yet. There's no more Windows Phone (RIP), because there's now _just_ Windows, on a mobile form factor.

So yes, Windows mobile device form factor sales are down, but Windows device sales in general are up. Microsoft is clearly and intentionally counting on the platform effects of Windows keeping mobile efforts cheap in the long run and maybe bring developers to some excitement in building for the platform as a whole, across all device form factors.

I think the closest to a "Microsoft Android" will continue to be Microsoft providing toys for Cyanogen's efforts, and I think Cyanogen's efforts themselves (and Amazon's) show the limits of commercial viability for non- Google Play Store Android forks/alternatives.</comment>


Linux Kernel's Scheduler Causing Issues for Google Stadia Game Developers - <AUTHOR> https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-2020-Scheduler-Bugs-Stadia <comment><USER2> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21919988](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21919988)

</comment><comment><USER3> I've never seen spinlocks used in user mode. Is it common for game engines to use spinlocks?</comment>


The Cost to Mine a Single BTC Throughout 115 Different Countries - <AUTHOR> https://i.imgur.com/ndbR6Yu.jpg <comment><USER2> Myanmar, Uzbekistan, Kuwait, and Ukraine have very low prices...

Is electricity subsidised in these places?

Why are miners moving to Iceland if it's 3x more expensive than these places?

(I'm ignoring Venezuela, since presumably the very low price is due to the stats not taking into account inflation correctly)

<comment><AUTHOR> Those countries have cheap (hydro for Myanmar and carbon for the rest) based energy sources, but are not stable politically nor economically.

Iceland has plenty of renewable energy and a stable economy. With renewable energy your cost is nearly all upfront with practically free energy from there on. It is suitable for long term investment.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Source: [https://www.elitefixtures.com/blog/post/2683/bitcoin- mining-...](https://www.elitefixtures.com/blog/post/2683/bitcoin-mining-costs- by-country/)</comment>


Tech Companies That Only Hire Men - <AUTHOR> http://techcompaniesthatonlyhiremen.tumblr.com/

<comment><USER2> This is more of a problem with the English language and its lack of a gender- neutral alternative.

<comment><USER3> There are alternatives:

1\. Singular "they"

2\. Avoid pronouns with something like "the candidate" or "the developer"

3\. Goofy, non-standard gender neutral pronouns like "xi"/"xis"/"xir"

4\. Alternation and patterns - "he or she", "his or her", "s/he", /s?he/

Using "he"/"his"/"him" as gender neutral is more common, and most people will be understanding about the usage. However, I find it unprofessional in the context of a job listing. I always go with some combination of #1, #2, and #4 above. I like #3, but few people are familiar with it.

<comment><USER2> My point was that English is inherently non-simple when it comes to this. I'm guessing that most employers are just looking to put up a job ad to hire someone, not deliberately exclude women.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> (s)he</comment>


Scoble's view on Angelgate. A well balanced view. - <AUTHOR> http://scobleizer.com/2010/09/23/the-secret-hell-of-tech-industry-angel-investors/

<comment><USER2> Here's where he argument falls apart... and he should understand this, and I'm surprised he doesn't -- yes, money is available from many sources. Perhaps some of you even have rich uncles or aunts who can throw cash at you. But, the reason some angels rise above others is: the value and power of their network. This translates directly into an ability to help a startup a) get follow-on funding, b) get some initial biz-dev deals and alliances, c) get some press. That's what separates a top-tier angel from a second-tier angel.

It's a fact that, as with VCs, some entrepreneurs (the smart ones in my opinion) will take money at a slightly lower evaluation from the top-tier angels than a higher valuation from second tier angels, because anyone can throw money at a startup, but not everyone has a powerful business network and collection of relevant portfolio companies to contribute (the classic "smart money vs. dumb money" argument that you'll hear over-and-over once you start to try raising money).

Let's create a fictional example using Y Combinator... Let's say that PG just announced that he's going to take 1% more of companies that are accepted into his accelerator than the competing accelerators take. If you believe Scoble's argument, then people should just go to another incubator because there are plenty around, but many, if not all, would probably give up 1% more because they get more than 1% of extra value out of being involved with Y Combinator. My guess is that the deal flow into Y Combinator would not change all that much.

That's what's at stake here. It seems like people are assuming that these guys want to cut valuations in half or something like that. What if they just want to drop them by 2%? Seems trivial -- almost laughable -- but that 2% could mean tens of millions of additional profit in the pockets of these top-tier angels. And when an entrepreneur is given two offers -- one from a top tier angel that has a 2% lower valuation than a competing offer from an angel that is just getting their start in the industry -- which will they take?

Scoble is coming at this as a reporter and not as an entrepreneur. It's a lot more slippery when you look at it from the eyes of an entrepreneur.</comment>


Shake.ttf: A Typeface with Parkinson's - <AUTHOR> https://writewithparkinsons.com/ <comment><USER2> The author talks about using this font to preserve their mother's handwriting as her Parkinson's progresses. That's a really sweet and thoughtful use of technology to help someone cope with a really awful illness.

But outside of that usage, I can't think of a tasteful way to use this font. I'm sure some folks may buy the font to help support the cause though, and that's cool.

<comment><USER3> If you were concerned about losing your handwriting (if you were say - recently diagnosed with Parkinson's), you might want to have a font made that uses your own handwriting so that you could continue to write with your own style. I think this was one of the primary uses that was envisioned... not necessarily preserving a loved one's handwriting as an archive, but for the affected individual to use day to day.

It's not just about the publicly available font (which is a great tool for awareness), but also the service to capture someone's handwriting as a font.

<comment><USER4> My Dad has Parkinson's and this is exactly how I intend on using it. Helping him get his papers in order, his recipes together while still making it look and feel _from him_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The one concept of Parkinsonian writing/Parkinsonian movement is that the tremor is only one part (and is often variable - as it is a rest tremor that actually disappears with intention or movement). There are some folks that do have shaky letters but others will not.

The other interesting part of it is that the spatial representation of the letters/hand/arm movements, and indeed of limb movements in space, is that it shrinks over time. The term is micrographia. I think the whole idea of how 3D space is represented in the brain is still far from clear, but whoever is able to come up with a good reproducible model would be really onto something

(*I would also bet that maybe it's different/distinct from the hippocampal "place" or "grid" cells that won the Mosers the Nobel)..

</comment><comment><USER6> The zero character reminds me of the OpenDyslexic font (which is my primary font) - [https://www.dafont.com/open- dyslexic.font](https://www.dafont.com/open-dyslexic.font)

</comment><comment><USER7> There's a couple of sites out there that do a similar "fill out our template and get a .ttf of your handwriting" thing, like Calligraphr[0] and Fontifier[1].

The concept of using a typeface for Parkinson's awareness and fundraising isn't too bad, though. It'll be interesting to see the next version of the font.

[0] [https://www.calligraphr.com/en/](https://www.calligraphr.com/en/)

[1] [http://www.fontifier.com/](http://www.fontifier.com/)</comment>