Ask HN: Review RentPost.com - <AUTHOR> http://rentpost.com After our team has spent the last 2 years in development, working countless hours, we have been able to FINALLY push out our service to the public!  We welcome your feedback and thoughts.  Cheers. <comment><USER2> I own with my father a 30 unit building. With that, let me just address the tagline: "Connect with tenants effortlessly, automate rent with online rent collection, organize work orders, and much more!"

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Connect with tenants effortlessly - Not a good thing, Usually leads to excess work orders, more "asks" and petty squabbles about this and that.

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Automate rent with online rent collection - Not sure how this is going to work. We have a option for people to pay rent via CC, but most people opt to do it in cash/check. Since only a fraction would use this, I would have to add to my work load to manually enter their transactions in here to have data integrity.

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organize work orders- Definitely dont want this. If they need something done, they just go the manager and ask. Taking away that element will just create unneeded work orders. We already have a internal system for tracking needed work. I think the last thing we would want is to make it easier for the tenant to complain about things.

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...tasks, contacts and more! I guess this is cool, but we never really have a need for this. You already have to file their rental application and other work anyways, so its not like you wont have this.

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I guess I just dont see the appeal. Its cool to have a nice online interface for this, but I know we wouldnt use it and even my friend who runs a 400 unit complex hates moving stuff to tech. Unfortunately, they always add more work then they solve. The last thing ANY land lord needs, is /MORE/ paper trail :)

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If you get anything from this, get this- I am a technical, HN user that owns a apartment building. I am (what you would assume) your absolute ideal customer.

And with that, I wouldnt use your product without significant changes.

~fin

<comment><USER3> I'm not trying to attack you personally, but your response is typical of the real estate industry, and exactly why there's a hole in the market worth billions. For whatever reason, customer service is almost uniformly bad in the real estate industry. It's so bad, people don't even realize how bad it is, because they've never had anything else to choose from. For example, this kind of attitude makes me really sad:

 _I think the last thing we would want is to make it easier for the tenant to complain about things._

This is the same kind of disdain-for-customers attitude that leads web developers to build paid services that are really hard to cancel.

The marketing and branding in real estate are also a joke, but it's the customer service thing that really gets me. There's a huge opportunity here for someone to do it right.

Disclosure: I'm an active real estate investor with three small properties.

<comment><USER2> How did you come off saying that our customer service is bad? Thats a pretty big jump without knowing me or our business.

Dont assume that because we dont want to induce more work orders / complaints that we have bad service.

What you are saying is "bad" is akin to me asking why sites dont have a "Dissatisfied? Click here for a refund" button on every page. Providing absolute ultimate customer service will cause you to go out of business. Customers will take you to the cleaners if they can get away with it and you need to have boundaries to stay afloat. You can find a great middle ground and keep everyone happy doing it also.

<comment><USER3> Again, don't take it personally, but I've been doing real estate for the last six years and I've spent tons of time talking to other investors and landlords. I also still rent because the returns in SF for buying are so abysmal. So I've had plenty of exposure to the way the real estate industry works. And the customer service is almost uniformly terrible. I read your statement as saying that you didn't want to make it easier for customers to contact you, because they would just whine and complain about stupid stuff. What makes real estate different than any other industry in this regard? What company with good service is determined to not "make it easier for their customers to complain"?

And there _are_ guys out there doing this right. I've lived in building that had online portals for customers to submit complaints and it didn't seem to be a problem for them. And I've talked to landlords across the country who run extremely efficient operations with low marketing costs, low vacancies, and high rents _because they kick ass for their customers_.

<comment><USER4> Please don't take offense, but you are going to run into tenants eventually who will call you DAILY to fix things or complain. Maybe they feel the bedroom is colder today than yesterday, or they saw a spider in front of the building, or maybe they don't like the shape of the clouds overhead on Thursdays.

Until you rent to enough people to start getting these renters, you've been isolated.

<comment><USER3> Every business has these kinds of customers. Hopefully your only plan for dealing with them is not to make it more difficult for all of your customers to contact you, including the 99% who never bother you.

<comment><USER4> Nope. We answer the phone the same for everyone. And we already have a web portal that does all of this. But none of our customers use it. They want to complain in person or over the phone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Website looks great but the copy needs some serious work.

The main phrase:

 _Start Simplifying Rent™ in the RentPost Cloud_

If you make the lady at my leasing office read this, she will be like 'What????'

 _Connect with tenants effortlessly_

I don't think the landlord wants to connect with the tenant. He is interested in collecting rent.

 _"We're just getting warmed up; get on the bandwagon."_

Why should I care that you are warming up?

 _You don't want to invest in yesterday's technology._

I don't care about technology, I care about how you can solve my problems.

 _We want to work with you to continue to build RentPost to best fit your needs; we listen!_

So you are suggesting that RentPost may not fit my needs.

I think you are in the same market as this software:

<http://www.landlordmax.com/>

Look at their website. It's not pretty like yours, but the website copy is all about the customer's needs/problems.

E.g.

 _Find out who's late paying your rents in seconds.

Over 100 reports at your fingertips for you to analyze how your properties are doing within seconds._

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> we are targeting a more technical audience right now while we get our feet in the door. We feel this is the best audience to help us get going. If we start to see issues with traction (it's been great so far), we will pivot as needed.

<comment><USER6> Huh? Having a great headline for normal people generally means it's a crappy headline for tech people. Regardless, tech people have non-technical friends/relatives that they might send this to.

Regardless of your opinion (and mine) you should A/B test your headline to maximize the traffic/attention you are getting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm currently managing approx 50 (?) units and I thought I'd drop my opinion:

Make me understand the pain I am in. Real estate is painful, but as you have undoubtedly noticed, people think the pain is a natural part of the package and they can't separate the two.

How about automatic late notices? Projected vacancy and turnover assistance? I mean, those are really painful and annoying processes (at least to me), present me with a punch-by-punch pain tour and offer the solution.

Additionally, for heaven's sake, drop the buzzwords and market talk. I feel like you designed the site first and tried to shoehorn some content in there. Property managers care little about the "cloud" or "we're easy to use!". _They want to get paid on time, how are you helping them?_

Best of luck! I think there is massive potential here but I tend to think you are going about it the wrong way in your presentation. As rwhitman has said, it seems like you are trying to solve tenants' problems, not the landlords'. Noble indeed, but not the best strategy.

</comment><comment><USER8> the problem is that most property owners aren't tech savvy. Most of them don't even have a webpage.

And I'm not talking about the 1-2 unit owners...I'm talking about multi building companies with $600K in yearly revenue who haven't even bothered to setup a 1 page site with their phone # and hours of operation.

If you are going to take on this market, you are going to need a direct on the ground sales team.

<comment><AUTHOR> you would think this is the case, and yes, an on the ground sales team will be helpful in addition to our affiliate program and partnerships, but these days are starting to phase out. These people are starting to realize they can't operate their companies the same way they did 10 years ago, and as the younger generation steps up the ladder in these companies, it's getting more attention.

<comment><USER9> You completely dismissed the parent, who is 100% correct. While you think these days are "starting to phase out" you are incorrect. Despite younger managers taking over, this is an industry where even younger people are not as tech savvy. Take your technical blinders off, step back, and look at the big picture. A 100% awesome tech experience is not going to matter when you don't have users.

<comment><AUTHOR> we won't get entire market saturation over night, no. So, yes, you are right, there are technical hurdles, but we believe that the market is large enough right now, at it's current state to support this company. Our competitors agree, and our traction thus far hasn't proved any different. This is something we will address as we grow, but for now, we are pleased with our traction.

<comment><USER10> Take it from someone who has pounded the pavement doing sales for my previous start-up, selling online lunch ordering service to restaurant owners, there is a lot of merit to what the parent's and grand parent's comments. You would be surprised how much many people despise technology. I think its because many of them were early adopters for various tech services sold to them by slick salesmen in the early days of software, and were then burned by how expensive and complicated it all was. They are now skeptical So yes you would need a stellar sales team, which I'm sure you will get. I love the idea by the way, and I do think there is a lot of scope. Best of luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for that. We do realize for deeper market penetration we will likely need an active sales team. We are happy with healthy online, technical user, adoption at the moment though as we establish our base.

<comment><USER11> > We are happy with healthy online, technical user, adoption at the moment

I think you'd be wasting your time to focus on anything but these people, ever.

Otherwise you'd be selling to the type of person that would find 10x the complexity from introducing a computer and the internet for every bit of simplification that your service provides.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The design is sick. Wonderfully balance color scheme, beautiful call-to action buttons (I clicked "see pricing" a few times just because I was compelled to), and I love that it's iPad and iPhone compatible out of the gate. These are my initial impressions, I didn't dive too much into the content. But looks great on the surface!

<comment><USER13> "The design is sick" - think there may be a typo there, reading your comment- "slick"? :P

<comment><USER14> "sick" can be slang for great or cool. see <http://onlineslangdictionary.com/definition+of/sick>

<comment><USER15> and to shake one's booty means to wiggle one's butt. allow me to demonstrate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Very well designed! One thing: out of context in a tab, your favicon could seem inadvertently religious†.

†: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_cross>

<comment><USER17> I had the same reaction. I personally would change the tab.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> If I were you I would strongly reconsider your pricing....you're underpricing by quite a lot.

The last place I was in, the company my landlord used for online rent collection charged 1.50 per transaction...to the tenant. That's in addition to whatever fixed monthly fee the landlord was paying.

<comment><USER19> The danger with underpricing is that it can make it harder to sell. If you're priced too cheap, there must be a catch, so potential customers will be less likely to buy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I found the pricing page confusing at first. At a casual glance it looks like most of the plans are exactly the same. Something about the design made me ignore the number of units listed at the top.

It also doesn't state if there are transaction fees, which you mentioned in another comment.

<comment><USER21> Found it confusing too. Easy fix would be to add a new row in the table with the numbers so it appears in both the table and the graphic.

<comment><AUTHOR> We'll review this, thanks for the input!

<comment><USER22> Also check out how it looks on the iPad or simulate this by resizing your browser width so that it's at the smallest possible size without having a horizontal scrollbar. The content is right up against the browser edge with no space. You should add some padding on each side to avoid this.

<comment><AUTHOR> ouch, I knew about this, forgot to put in a fix... thanks for reminding me!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Amazing! I run a coworking space for entrepreneurs in Brooklyn, which means every month I'm running around gathering up a dozen or so checks from tenants --so this the most exciting tool I've seen in a long time.

Thanks, oojacoboo. You're a lifesaver!

<comment><AUTHOR> that makes me :)

<comment><USER24> Congrats on the launch! A few people here aren't sold on the concept but that's fine. There are obviously others that are.

<comment><USER9> Don't mistake constructive criticism for not being sold on the concept.

<comment><AUTHOR> Couldn't agree more, I appreciate the input on things! I am a very harsh critic myself ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Love the site, unfortunately I'm definitely not in your target market :) One quick & easily implemented suggestion for you: put your phone number in a more prominent place.

My company targets business owners as well, and at first I buried our phone number on the contact or about page. After talking with some customers I decided to not only make it more prominent, but to put it at the top of every page. Best change I ever made, the conversion rate of people who call us is astronomical.

Business owners, especially ones in 'offline' industries, often want to hear your voice before they decide to work with you. Anyways thats just my 2 cents, congrats on the launch!

</comment><comment><USER26> I wouldn't use the term "cloud" in the main slogan. A lot of people don't know what it means.

</comment><comment><USER27> I think this is great. I've been dreaming of a day when I can do online billing with a landlord.

I once had a landlord where I was doing online bill pay from BofA, and they would mail the landlord physical checks, but the landlord wouldn't accept them. Apparently they periodically would think the bank's automated check was junk mail and would toss them in the trash and persisted to accuse me of not paying rent. So I will never mail a rent check again without a physical check in a handwritten envelope.

</comment><comment><USER28> This looks absolutely incredible - I would love it if you could get landlords to use it.

Unfortunately both of my previous two lacked even an email address. My job has a contact email for employment verification and I had to get a special phone number from HR for my landlord because they didn't use email. This company probably has two dozen properties around town (each with multiple units) and doesn't even have email. Sometimes its amazing when we step out of our tech field and see how normal people live and work.

That being said - if you could convince landlords to give you 20 minutes for a demo, I bet you could sell a lot of them on it. You would probably need a sales team for that though.

<comment><AUTHOR> for the large operations with massive numbers of properties that where people are old school that make the decisions, this is absolutely the case. There are a large number of 200 and less companies and owners that are quite tech savvy and absolutely willing to adopt, at least from everything we have seen so far.

<comment><USER28> That's awesome, I'd love to see a new generation of landlords that use stuff like this.

When I get my utility bill - he calls and leaves me a voice mail with the total and then I combine it with my rent on a single check and send it in. That's not efficient by anyone's standards. Best of luck to you guys, maybe my next landlord will be using RentPost!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> As a current Buildium user, I really like the look of this. I'm a small property manager and although I love the convenience of having software like this available I'm curious how your online payments are processed. My biggest complaint with my current program is that it takes 5-7 days for rents to hit my account and then another 5-7 for them to hit the owners' accounts.

I think a great market for a product like this would be real estate agents that do some property management (10-25 units).

</comment><comment><USER30> This looks great!

Do you have any thoughts on lower tiers? I have 1 rental unit. On the one hand, $9/month is pretty low; on the other hand, paying the same as someone with 15 units is psychologically painful =). If it was like $20/unit/year for 1-4 units, that'd be pretty cool.

<comment><AUTHOR> We've considered a very small free plan, and will think more on that. As per the rent collection for these accounts, it doesn't become profitable for us at these smaller numbers, so this is why the $9 plan exists.

<comment><USER31> Are you thinking of making this internationally available? The whole concept of 'rent collecting' and 'checks' or 'paying rent is cash' doesn't exist in Europe. Rents are paid by bank transfer, usually automated (with rental contracts stipulating that the tenant needs to set up this automatic transfer or otherwise there will be a rent hike).

Re: pricing, I agree that a smaller or freemium plan would be nice, but for people who don't need anything from you to do automatic collections (i.e., everybody outside of the US ;) ), it would be quite hard to see how you could make money off them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> What's with the '$get_social()' on the bottom right of the page?

I'm guessing it's not meant to be like that.

<comment><USER33> I think it's just a clever way to show their Twitter, Facebook, etc.

<comment><USER32> I found the dollar sign and underscore confusing. As though there was something wrong with the markup.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> can you describe what took two years? It looks nice, but just trying to understand where the time went. Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> day here, day there, all adds up, the application has thousands of files... these things just take time.

<comment><USER35> Sorry to be pedantic, but that's not really the definition of full-time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> You might want to go through all your pages and do a spelling/grammar check. For example, take a look at this: <http://rentpost.com/tenants>

"Your rental property now comes standard with it's very own web dashboard"

When I see an error like that, I lose a great deal of respect for the company. Either it means it's worked by people who lack understanding of grammar, or lack the motivation to proofread their work. Neither is a great signal for me.

The website is BEAUTIFUL though.

</comment><comment><USER37> Congratulations on the launch. I like the look of the product and wished my landlord would use it.

Looking at the comments you may want to adjust the pitch a bit to show that it makes the day to day management of units more efficient. If your tool can identify bad tenants quickly a landlord can address them before it forces other renters to leave. Also easy reporting of problems, however minor, prevents small issues from becoming large ones. For instance a leaking tap is much less costly to repair then a tap and a water damaged ceiling and floor. Other efficiencies could be the tech itself removing the lags of phone and voice-mail communications, using template replies instead of having to write fresh emails or make long phone calls for all situations, rapid forwarding to contracted service providers for repairs, and tracking of expenses for similar items and services. One of the big complaints of property managers is that they mostly get calls for bad things or when tenants and strata owners are mad. If you could make communications more formal with a tool like this you could minimize the time managers have to sit on the phone and be yelled at which could make for a happier workforce and cut some of the BS out of the workday. Oh and look into Strata managers also

</comment><comment><USER38> I've thought about doing something like this for a long while. Finally I had an apartment complex a couple years ago that allowed you to pay online (e-checks only), so maybe the industry is finally ready for this.

Expect a lot of resistance to landlords letting tenants pay with anything but e-checks, though. Think about adding something like automatically sending out emails to tenants to remind them to pay the rent (opt-in on first payment)?

Oh, and I think you might be underpricing yourself.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for this, yea, we are connected with the ACH network for check processing, and we do send notices to tenants. We realize that the pricing is a bit low.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> The page took over a minute to load for me. After hitting reload -> 4.5 seconds for the main rentpost.com/ to load, 12s for combine.php, 20s for typekit javascript (which seemed to block anything from loading until it was done, including resources from rentpost.com domain and jquery from the google ajax api). After these resources are in my browser cache, the load time is normal (400ms) but the first load and after a reload...ouch!

<comment><AUTHOR> server was getting hit HARD there for a bit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I see that you offer a 14 day free trial. How does someone go about doing a trial of software that transforms the entire process of running an apartment building? You get all your tenants to sign up with this system, then change your mind and make them sign up with a new system again?

It might be more useful to have a live demo system people can log into both as a tenant and landlord to see how it works.

</comment><comment><USER41> Are you guys aware of <http://www.rentjuice.com/> ? How to you compare to them?

</comment><comment><USER42> I love the 'Unlimited Units' plan for $249 which is there just to make 'Unlimited Units' plan for $69 look like a good deal.

</comment><comment><USER43> RentMonitor beat you to the punch. What would you say the advantages of choosing RentPost over RentMonitor are?

<comment><AUTHOR> wow, this is the first time I've seen them... I will have to check out their offering more.

There are others too... <http://appfolio.com> <http://buildium.com> <http://propertyware.com> <http://tenantfile.com> and others. This isn't a new idea, people have been using property management software for years. We have just taken a slightly different approach to implementation with automation and communication between the two parties, landlord/tenant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Why do I need a website to connect with my tenants? They have my phone number and email. Assuming I signed up because they would _prefer_ to contact me through this service, then if I were the type to ignore them by phone and email, I'd probably ignore them through this as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, if that's the case, this probably isn't for you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I find one HUGE error. In today's world, you call the people that rent from you "residents" -- not "tenants". When I see or hear the word tenant it make me cringe. Might as well draw your fingernails across a chalkboard. Tenants rent office, industrial and retail buildings. Residents rent apartment units. I have a million other comments as well, some favorable and others negative, but I hate to type and am too busy to bother going into this at length. Good luck going forward. Lots of other competitors out there -- but your pricing does seem reasonable.

Oh and BTW, I would NEVER rent a building from DanBlake. He's the type of person who gives the industry a black eye, as well as ensuring that the indutry stays at least 10 years behind the tech curve.

That is all.

</comment><comment><USER46> So since you're way ahead of the game. I would like to suggest this. The ideas behind rentpost.com have been on my mind for a few years now. I've never done anything to pursue it so congrats, the site looks great. Please, grow and hire people so that this saturates the market. Then, when large enough, please provide a clean interface for prospective tenants to view apartment listings. Searching for apartments have got to be one of the biggest pains to deal with. If you have a central database of awesome tech-savvy apartments with your website as a portal for great customer service, I don't see why you can't make your customers more happy by providing listings.

</comment><comment><USER47> Several years ago, I had an apartment that used a similar online rent payment system, though I can't remember the name of it (payyourrent.com? rentpayment.com? hmm). As a tenant, one of the features I loved most about them was the ability to pay by credit card - so I could earn points through my rent.

I didn't see a mention of being able to accept credit card payments, so if that's not in this version yet, here's a vote for having it in the next version.

Good luck with the property owner sales end of this business too. As a tenant, I love systems like this, so I hope to see it in use someday.

<comment><USER48> Something that makes it easier to be a property owner is great. I see this not going after the current market but people like me who want to make renting easier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Who did your design? I'm looking for one.

</comment><comment><USER50> oojacoboo this looks awesome man - congrats! What did you develop it with?

<comment><USER51> I'm also curious as to the technology behind the site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I think execution on this is really great, even if the copy needs work.

I worked on vaguely similar concept about 12 months ago and it is definitely an interesting space. Our angle was to try to remove the need for a real estate agent by empowering landlords.

My advice for your system is to get out there and sell, sell, sell. You'll only get better by direct sales, you'll only get traction via direct sales. They won't come to you, you'll need to bust your ass convincing them to get on board. If you do that then the copy doesn't mean a thing.

</comment><comment><USER53> Can you talk about what you did, the process from day 0 to now. I'd be interested in what you learned if anything.

This looks so awesome, but I'm not your market. I'll post this on my buildings HOA board.

</comment><comment><USER54> Please make it obvious if this is available for international customers or US only. I dug around but not any closer to knowing if this service is available at all to me.

</comment><comment><USER55> Haven't read all 220+ comments so sorry if someone has already suggested this, but what if you tried to convince landlords by sheer weight of numbers. Allow tenants to enter their landlord and 'vote' for them to adopt this system, as well as encourage other tenants to do the same.

</comment><comment><USER56> Disappointed how similar the sign up pages are (<https://www.shopify.com/services/signup> vs. <https://rentpost.com/pricing>)

<comment><USER57> Disappointed? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> I'm really hoping you actually become mainstream and the only way to manage rents and payments. I've had this idea a couple hundred times while looking for a place and then while having to deal with payments etc. Goog luck guys, keep us posted.

</comment><comment><USER59> I'd like to get more of a sense of why it took you 2 years... is anyone using it yet? A blog post on your process would be great. 2 years seems like a long time (assuming you don't have a bunch of customers already using it).

</comment><comment><USER60> Beautiful, technically and visually. The only reason for (business) failure would be if you released it 20 years too soon. I sincerely hope you're the one to make the tipping point.

</comment><comment><USER61> An odd nitpick, but your logo looks like a religious artifact.

</comment><comment><USER62> I would change the "Few Goodies" wording on the Take the Tour page; it feels like there's very few goodies. "Highlights" or even "A Few Goodies" works better.

<comment><AUTHOR> wow yea, I thought for sure that said "A Few Goodies" :/

I dont' like that section all together though... needs redoing.

<comment><USER63> There's also a typo on the tour page in the 'Few Goodies' section. You wrote 'Fuly' instead of 'Fully'.

Other feedback: I am overwhelmed how great your design is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> This looks great. I think you have a great looking and useful product here. It could take awhile to catch on, but I think you have something.

<comment><AUTHOR> it's not a blow-up-over-night groupon or zynga business, we know. Our goal is to create a sustainable business with healthy growth. Thanks for your kind words.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> How is this different than propertysolutions.com?

<comment><USER66> That's a good question. I don't know myself. Do you have other competitors in this space?

<comment><USER67> It's an incredibly fragmented market. There's plenty of competition, but the biggest players in property management software (<http://www.realpage.com> and <http://www.yardi.com>) have less than 10% of the market.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> This looks sweet! I wish my landlord used it.

<comment><USER69> I think with tools like this, that's a very common reaction. My suggestion to the founders would be to work to leverage that sentiment to get RentPost in front of landlords. A couple ideas:

* Allow roommates to collectively pay their rent online without the landlord being a customer of RentPost. You then turn around and cut a cheque which is mailed to the landlord. Included with the cheque is the upsell to subscribe to the service.

* Allow tenants to submit maintenance requests, etc, turn these into an email to the landlord. The property manager could simply reply to the email, but you could also give them the option to manage the "ticket" online & you could ease them into your service.

On a different note, hit up the Property Management trade shows!

<comment><USER70> Awesome suggestions!

We haven't thought of the 2nd concept at all. I'll have to bring this one up to the guys.

thanks :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> i like the idea.I've thought about doing something like this before and wish every place would take credit card for rent. It would be great to be able to get credit card points for my largest monthly expense and also not have to worry about cutting a check every month. Its a great product from the tenants perspective.

</comment><comment><USER72> Great looking site, love the idea. Forwarded your site off to a few friends who could use this. Best of luck to you!

<comment><USER70> :) you're the best!

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> > You will not find anything that is more user friendly, period

And yet, no hover states on your buttons :P.

<comment><USER70> Heh, input received.

+1 for you :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> Will online payment collection work with all U.S banks?

<comment><USER70> It should for all banks that operate on the ACH network, which from my understanding, is all banks in the US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> Does this process payments from Canadian banks?

<comment><USER70> Hey!

We are currently working with our merchant provider and our dev team to support Canada.

I can let you know ASAP of any updates. Just give us your email via rentpost.com/contact form.

thanks for the input :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Who did your design? In house? It's AMAZING.

<comment><AUTHOR> yours truly ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> 37signals want their design back.

Edit: Come on, the site design is a rip off of the product site of i.a. <http://backpackit.com/>

<comment><USER70> Heh,

I think I see what you are trying to get at. We used a very popular design philosophy right now. Same reason why all tires are round :P

<http://clockspot.com/> <http://www.postbox-inc.com/> <http://www.skyledger.com/> <http://www.kindlingapp.com/> <http://www.roninapp.com/> <http://www.mailchimp.com/>

This is a really cool resource to see the hottest, freshest websites weekly: <http://abduzeedo.com/tags/sites-week>

Thanks for the input, we love to hear from both sides of the fence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> hey jacob, great to see you finally got this off the ground. good luck, it looks great!

</comment><comment><USER78> Totally dumb pedantry, but:

> You will not find anything that is more user friendly, period

If you write 'period' does that mean you don't need a period? It's the only sentence in the list that doesn't end with punctuation.

</comment><comment><USER79> This is a great start... it would also be useful to have a system that automatically created listings to post on craigslist and any other sites

</comment><comment><USER80> what technology you use - php, ruby ?

and why

<comment><AUTHOR> We use php b/c of previous experience, availability to scripts, compatibility with existing technology, and we like its licensing.</comment></comment>


Eleventh - <AUTHOR> http://rors.org/2008/2/11/eleventh <comment><USER2> "Ninety percent of everything is crap." <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_law>

Not only true for products. I use this rough estimate in developing ideas and prototyping. It works for me.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just out of curiosity... How many implementations of Arc has pg tried in the past howevermany years?

I don't think any language was written on the first try. Nonetheless, eleven is a pretty amazing number.</comment>


Alan Moore Kickstarter - His Heavy Heart - <AUTHOR> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1288561702/alan-moore-and-mitch-jenkins-his-heavy-heart

<comment><USER2> Alan Moore is the guy behind classics like Watchmen and V for Vendetta in case you didn't know.

To say he is quite the character is a bit of an understatement: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Moore](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Moore)

<comment><USER3> I like to think of him as the Richard Stallman of comic books.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Alan Moore is one of my favorite writers, and I've been considering doing a Kickstarter in the next several months, so I've been watching this Kickstarter with trepidation (after pitching in my own contribution, of course).

If he doesn't reach his funding goal with his crazy imagination and track record of creating great art, what chance do I have? :)

</comment><comment><USER5> Has anyone seen the previous shorts, and are they any good?

<comment><USER4> I watched Jimmy's End when it came out, and enjoyed it overall. It was good but not excellent. Still, seeing Alan Moore come out on stage at the end gave me a delightful little fanboy thrill.</comment></comment>


IPv4, IPv6, and a sudden change in attitude - <AUTHOR> https://apenwarr.ca/log/20200708 <comment><USER2> IPv6 is still a good idea, or at least a _better_ one than IPv4. While the author makes some good points in their original screed, what they miss is that a larger address space is objectively needed to scale the Internet. Otherwise we get layers and layers of NAT and a fundamentally broken or "nerfed" network. This will make P2P almost impossible and will degrade service for a lot of other things.

Looking backward and taking into account the difficulty of moving to a completely new system, a 48-bit or 64-bit extension to IPv4 would have been a better lower friction option. Yet it's probably too late for this. IPv6 has traction. We should push it over the finish line. With 128 bits we will never ever have to do this again.</comment>


Paul Allen, Microsoft's Co-Founder, Is Dead at 65 - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/obituaries/paul-allen-dead.html <comment><USER2> Discussion of Paul Allen's death at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18224227](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18224227)</comment>


Ask HN: Books on how to implement math calculations - <AUTHOR> Are there any well-known or hidden gem books on how to implement, for example, linear algebra/probability/diffeq/etc. either discrete or continuous methods? Say one wishes to understand how linear algebra or statistics libraries are written. <comment><USER2> During my time at university, "Numerical Recipes" ([https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_Recipes](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_Recipes)) was always the gold standard for implementations of standard / common numerical algorithmis.

Then of course there is "The Art of Computer Programming" ([https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Computer_Programmin...](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Computer_Programming)) which has one book dedicated to numerical algorithms as well.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you want to know how they are written, you could look at the library source for any open source ones.

If you want to actually implement, then I would say "don't". The libraries should be accurate and exposed to mass scrutiny with their use throughout the industry.</comment>


Experience porting a Firefox add-on to a Chrome extension - <AUTHOR> http://sidthemonkey.com/blog/2009/12/porting-a-firefox-add-on-to-a-chrome-extension/

<comment><USER2> The big big difference between the platforms is that extensions are sandboxed on Chrome. I'm convinced that this is the only way to go. Free-reign extensions inevitably lead to instability and support is a nightmare because you can never be certain of what is going on in your own app.

However, the sandboxing is severely limiting. Extensions get a separate JS environment for each tab and they can only communicate through async messaging. This makes global state, like user settings, a pain in the arse. I think they can do better than this while remaining secure.

And of course, you can only extend the browser using the specific hooks it provides, which currently doesn't include much in the way of user interface modification. I'm sure that more hooks will be provided in the future.

They did a great job of keeping it simple though. Nearly everything is done through standard JS/HTML/DOM. XPCOM will not be missed.

And now for the plug, though it might not work yet: [https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/ljecomdaijmibeca...](https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/ljecomdaijmibecakcpjadigpfkollbh)</comment>


MIT Researchers Produce Micro-Light that Outputs More Power Than Applied - <AUTHOR> http://www.core77.com/blog/technology/mit_researchers_produce_micro-light_that_outputs_more_energy_than_it_takes_in_22644.asp

<comment><USER2> The title (and the first comment on the link) makes it sound like it's a perpetual motion machine, but as far as I can tell it's more like a tiny heat- pump: energy is conserved, entropy increases. Still kind of neat though.

<comment><USER3> Of course they didn't beat thermodynamics, but still, assuming they can scale the tech up to a useful power, it's a light that's also a _cooling_ element. That'd be more than kind of neat, wouldn't it?

<comment><USER4> But where would you use light that cools?

Fridge lights? House lighting in warm regions? Hmmm. On second thought it could have interesting applications depending how much it cools.

<comment><USER5> Lighting is hot. I'd love to have lights that weren't also little heaters. Or, if the cooling effect is big enough - imagine solid state cooling on devices. Who needs a fan when you can have a little cooling light?

I doubt that they'll be able to scale this up too much though, since it probably relies on an effect that only occurs below a certain threshold.

<comment><USER6> Most LEDs don't heat up that much... they're usually cool to the touch.

I'd love a computer that glows brighter to release heat when it gets too hot, though :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is one of the best things I've seen invented in a long time.

It's like a peltier cooler[1], but it produces light instead of heat.

I'm thinking of the most amazing beer cooler/Christmas light display ever!

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_cooling>

<comment><USER8> It does NOT cool things. To use it you have to _heat_ it hotter than wherever it is shining into.

It uses that heat to make light, but it is not a cooler (i.e. a heat pump).

<comment><USER9> The led itself should cool down if it is producing more power in light then is being put in electrically. The energy is coming from the the lattice phonons and as a result the lattice cools down.

The paper[1] behind a pay wall show has a graph showing its cooling power vs current.

I think where the light is shining into is open space so the source temperature has to exceed what ever temperature the local background radiation is at; a common local minimum being the cosmic background radiation.

[1] <http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v108/i9/e097403>

<comment><USER8> Yes, the LED is cooling down, but it will not cool down any lower than the ambient air. i.e. you can not use this as an A/C - you must _already_ have a cold source in order to use it.

The cosmic background radiation is not exactly common. You'd have to be in space.

BTW, I don't think we are actually arguing.

<comment><USER10> I don't understand. Why can't it cool down more than ambient air? You put in X amount of power, and you get out 2X amount of power as light -- therefore additional energy is being taken in as heat and converted to light. Say you direct that light AWAY from the area through mirrors or something so it doesn't heat anything nearby up. Then, by simple energy thermodynamics, you can show that X amount of energy IS being taken away from this local system and deposited elsewhere as light.

Unless you claim that the LED stops producing the >100% efficiency levels at room temperature, I don't see why you're claiming it can't cool anything down.

<comment><USER11> Second law of Thermodynamics. It takes additional energy to move heat up a temperature gradient, and you're not accounting for that. You can't move heat from a cold source to a hot sink without paying for it somewhere.

edit: I don't mind a downvote now and then, but I would really prefer a discussion or explanation to a fire-and-forget downvote.

<comment><USER3> You pay for it with electricity. That's what a heat pump is, ya?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Energy input and heat in the "thermodynamic system", versus energy output and heat remaining stays in balance. If energy input (in electric current) is higher than energy output, then heat is added to the system. If energy input is lower than energy output, then heat is lost from the system.

All it takes is the ability to channel some of the light (energy output) away from the reservoir of heat to show that the reservoir of heat will decrease.

Ultimately you'd expect a temperature gradient at the system boundary to start transferring heat back into the system. through the first law of thermodynamics.

</comment><comment><USER13> In the UK, a microlight is an ultralight aircraft[1]. This would have been so much more badass.

[1]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microlight>

</comment><comment><USER8> Previous discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3669688>

</comment><comment><USER14> It says it produces too little light for "most" applications... I wonder what the applications actually are!

<comment><USER15> Probably entanglement and other optics experiments if the light produced has the right properties.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm pretty sure this is the first step to create an Arc Reactor.

Tony Stark built it in a cave ... with a box of scraps</comment>


Show HN: Visualize Fitbit steps with Notch - eli-bryan

Hi folks, wanted to get feedback on a project before making it 'public'. It's called Notch and the idea is to create a more fun UX for personal health tracking (using data from Fitbit, Fuelband, Withings, etc).
The demo project is a first experiment with this. The 'private' signup page is at http://notch.me/start.html. Users go in, add their Fitbit, and it creates a personalized infographic based on their Fitbit steps, like this: http://notch.me/p/7Isumkw5k2P1WhyeUVwFmj
Feedback is appreciated! Feel free to email me at email@example.com.
Thanks! Eli <comment><AUTHOR> Seems like a nice idea but the name is confusing for gamer geeks who will immediately assume this has something to do with Markus Persson or Mojang.

<comment><USER2> My hunch: the intersection between gamer geeks and fitbit users is not a large one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> That's very cute. I like it a lot, good work. Is the info randomized, or do you get the same info every month (i.e. is it always the panama canal or are there other things? Like walk on the moon, or around NYC, etc.)

<comment> eli-bryan Thanks! And yup, it changes based on how many miles you've covered.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Very nice, love the idea of sharing this type of graphic with friends on Twitter.

Any plans to integrate data from non-hardware based tracking devices (like Fitbit, Fuelband, etc.) but from other apps like Nike + GPS?

<comment> eli-bryan Definitely (down the road). And not just health-specific things. There's all kinds of data that can serve as a (proxy) signal for health. e.g. physical activity is correlated with weather: <http://rd.springer.com/article/10.1186/1479-5868-3-21> and it's suggested that your diet can be affected by a bunch of different things: <http://eab.sagepub.com/content/39/1/106.abstract>

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a great start. For me, staying motivated to be healthy and work out is all about having fun while doing it, and I think you're definitely on the right track with Notch. keep it up mate!

</comment><comment><USER6> Cool idea. Unfortunately I signed up and linked my fitbit, and it didn't load any of my data. Though I did enjoy the "creating suspense.." loading animation.

<comment> eli-bryan Ha, glad you liked that part. Right now it's setup to only show the last month or so of data, so if you haven't tracked any steps since 3/27 it won't show you much. (if you've logged some steps since then though, please shoot me an email and we'll figure it out!)

<comment><USER6> I use it every day, including tracking separate workouts so it should be loaded w/ data. Now it's telling me 'something is wrong with my username' when trying to login. Where can I find your email?

FYI - on a side note, I'm the creator of fitbolt.com, which also integrates w/ FitBit. It's cool to see the different uses of their API people are coming up with!

EDIT: found your email.. must be friday ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is cute idea. Seems like I would be more motivated to keep up my fitness with this type of breakdown.

</comment><comment><USER8> Signup doesnt appear to work. Chrome Dev Tools tells me: Uncaught ReferenceError: _gat is not defined

<comment> eli-bryan =X good catch! will fix in the next build.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Looks very nice... bought a Fitbit just now just to be able to try it out :/

</comment><comment><USER10> Wow. Really impressed with the design, it feels so warm!

<comment> eli-bryan Thanks! Bruno Barros did the original (@IlustreBOB). He's crazy talented.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Nice but please don't insult Opera users like that.

</comment><comment><USER12> I like it! I emailed you, would love to chat more.

</comment><comment><USER13> Very cool! Keep it up. This is awesome.</comment>


Ask HN: Where can I find some really good business plans? - <AUTHOR>

Hello everyone, I'm using a business plan format as a way to document my knowledge and findings while performing some due diligence on a business idea. I was wondering if anyone had, or knew where I could find, some really good examples that I could take a loot at.<p>Thanks, <comment><USER2> I know this doesn't answer your question, but I have to ask: why are you even writing up a business plan?

I don't mean to be harsh, but in Silicon Valley writing up a business plan is seen by many as a _negative_ signal. Lots of people (myself included) see it as something a business student with no real-world experience would do as their first step.

The reason for this is simple: you can't _really_ know if users will actually like or use or pay for your product. A business plan is only going to be a bunch of guesses, the vast majority of which will turn out to be unfounded. If you think you can predict what users will like before users themselves tell you, then you should change your first name to Steve and your last name to Jobs. So instead of spending time on a business plan, the recommended route is to build a quick prototype and see how users respond to that.

An exception to this might be if the product you're building is something _you_ need, in which case it might be excusable to build something that's more than just a prototype. Nonetheless, the same problem applies: you don't really know if _other_ people will find what you build useful until you get it in front of them.

<comment><USER3> I can answer the point from a different perspective. You are right in what you say, except in the UK for example you won't raise any money at all without a business plan. It answers questions like "what are you going to spend our money on?" and provides background to the founder(s).

Perhaps in the USA it is different and money is thrown at any company that has an "idea" even if they are not able to put it on paper... but I'm not convinced and never have been that this is really the case.

I seem to recall I had a similar discussion with someone else along these lines, and the bottom line was they they had not raised money, and so it was just an impression they had of what goes down in the Valley.

<comment><USER2> You completely missed my point. Read what I said here: "So instead of spending time on a business plan, the recommended route is to build a quick prototype and see how users respond to that."

A business plan is nothing more than an idea wrapped up in some estimates and guesses. Sure, you can do "market research," but those are nothing more than guesses and they usually turn out to be wrong. So in a sense, when you criticize money being thrown at an idea, you are criticizing the notion of business plans. My point was that business plans are a negative signal because all it indicates is that you have an idea and that you haven't built anything to test your idea.

It is not a point of whether or not you can put your idea on paper. It's a point of wasting your time over-analyzing things you cannot know - and then putting all that useless analysis on a multi-page business plan or a 15 slide presentation, etc.

No, it is not the case that Silicon Valley just throws money at ideas (alone), and you're arguing against a straw man if you think I ever made that point. In fact, the process of building a prototype and validating your product by testing it in the real world is the quickest way to get huge multi-million dollar valuations in Silicon Valley. The exception would be having a very strong team with experienced founders.

<comment><USER3> I totally agree that actions speak louder than words, and a app or site with traction certainly demonstrates that an idea works, but the point you missed is the money point.

If you have money coming in, why do you need to raise more money?

If you plan to raise more money on the back of traction how much do you need, why do you need it and how will you spend it?

What does your balance sheet look like?

What is your cash flow?

All these questions are answered by a business plan, and you cannot avoid answering them just because you have traction, no matter what you say.

<comment><USER2> > the point you missed is the money point. Explain how I missed the point. > Nothing you said indicates anything about how I missed the point.

You don't need a 5 page business plan or a 15 slide presentation to answer those questions. You can answer all of those questions in 5 minutes of questioning from investors.

And yes, you CAN avoid answering those questions if you have traction. If you have MASSIVE traction, your cash flow and balance sheet is pretty much irrelevant since the assumption is you can monetize later (see: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, many other social companies). Even in Silicon Valley this is the exception, make no mistake, and generally doesn't apply to B2B or B2D(eveloper) companies, but it is one possibility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> May I suggest you opt at creating a business canvas. Less verbose and more direct than a x-page doc file. Easier to on-board people with it as well. Once you have the canvas its going to be easier drilling down on the details.

<http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com/canvas>

<http://leancanvas.com/></comment>


It's better to be born rich than gifted - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/10/09/its-better-be-born-rich-than-talented/ <comment><USER3> This isn't going to be popular, but:

Should parents be allowed to try to give their children a boost in life? If the answer is yes, then it follows that parents with more resources will be more able to provide that boost.

For me, the line is drawn at "legacy" admissions or jobs, where a clearly lesser candidate is given the nod over someone who is more qualified. But if the parent is able to provide e.g. volunteer opportunities or early business exposure, tutoring, and other extracurriculars, and their child grows as a result of that, I think that's actually progressive at a societal level (spurring more growth at earlier ages).

The problem with summary statistics like in this article is that there's no nuance — just a brute "unfair" reflex triggered in the reader.

<comment><USER4> It is definitely inequitable. However, it is also how humans work - we want to advantage our inner group over other groups.

This cuts directly to the heart of the meritocracy argument (most strongly in technology, but it exists everywhere): how can you claim that everyone is judged by their merits (directly related to how hard they work and how smart they train themselves to be) when being lucky (in genetics, in birth, in support and growth, in opportunities) plays such an overwhelming role?

<comment><USER5> I had a meeting with a very successful guy who is CIO at a major tech startup who was looking to acquire our company.

Because we were friends for a while I said something to the effect of "I just want to make sure this doesn't look like nepotism"

His response was basically, "Who cares? I love Nepotism. that means me and my friends do better and help each other out."

Kind of shocked me to be honest, but after thinking about it it makes total sense. Why wouldn't you help your friends? I mean I help my friends all the time, but there seemed to be an artificial cutoff when it came to hiring and buying companies or otherwise giving them outward signs of "success."

Not sure I can make a rational case against Nepotism even though it feels wrong.

<comment><USER6> Suppose it is clearly the wrong business choice for your friend's company to acquire your company.

Suppose a friend promoted you over someone else who was vastly more qualified, and worked much harder than you for that promotion.

Etc.

Now suppose you're the one getting screwed over instead of the friend benefiting.

It's not nepotism if friends benefiting is merely a side effect of making the best business (or whatever) decision. But if that decision process is subverted in order to benefit friends, negatively impacting other stakeholders that you have a responsibility to, creating a work environment which is deeply unfair and unmeritocratic, etc., then that is absolutely a problem. This should be pretty obvious.

<comment><USER5> The problem with that approach though is that it's never clear cut.

Maybe someone is "vastly more qualified" technically but doesn't have any business sense or some other quality that is unknown to the rest of the group. There were many times where I thought that the wrong person was promoted or hired, to find out later that they were actually a good fit. Were they the PERFECT fit? I don't know, but there is value in having history with someone to have a higher confidence they will meet the minimum standard.

There's always someone or some group that is "better" for a job or acquisition or whatever based on some metric.

It's a real problem in my mind for "market information." Generally people go for a product they know, that can fit the bill, over a product they don't know that might be better. Same goes for hiring and personnel etc...

<comment><USER6> I was merely giving you the clearest possible examples, since you seem to be confused about what possible harm nepotism could cause.

Sure, in some situations, it may be ambiguous who is actually the better pick. For argument's sake, let's assume such choices are ALWAYS ambiguous. If you're consistently picking your friends in those situations, you're nevertheless creating a perception of nepotism (read unfairness) throughout the rest of the company, which will minimally be harmful to morale. So yeah, even if you're not being particularly nepotistic, guarding against the perception of nepotism is still important.

My bigger concern, however, is that it's very easy for someone to rationalize nepotism when they're a beneficiary.

I really don't know enough about the specifics of your situation to know if nepotism is much of a concern, but I definitely don't think your friend's "nepotism is GREAT" stance is worth taking seriously.

<comment><USER5> What is confusing is that I realized there are cases where Nepotism could be net-comparable or even net-benefit. I had never considered there to be an ethical upside to nepotism before, only a downside.

So that's why I was shocked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Contrast that with a finding from the other end of the genetic scoring > scale: about 27 percent of those who score at the bottom quarter of the > genetic index, but are born to high-income fathers, graduate from college.

Is this "genetic index" real and scientifically accepted? It sounds vaguely like eugenics.

> And their work has limitations, in addition to being limited to white people > for now.

I guess you can use the idea of "genetic scoring" as long as you side step race, but the idea has a long dark history and strikes me as un-scientific.

<comment><USER8> It has nothing to do with eugenics. One can also create a genetic index/profile for heart disease risk or anything else.

<comment><USER7> Pre-disposition to illness is fine. But that's not what the researchers are talking about when they talk about a superior "genetic score".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> No-bullshit link: [https://archive.is/Yp12Q](https://archive.is/Yp12Q)

Also, I feel like it's necessary to point out just how scummy this site really is. They advertise a more expensive, no-tracking subscription, but say "By subscribing, you agree to the use by us and our third-party partners of technologies such as cookies to personalize content and perform analytics" on the subscription page.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think this article sets up the paper against two incorrect worldviews:

1\. America is a genetic meritocracy -- you achievement is based on your potential. My interpretation of "traditional" American values is more focused around hard work, toughness, and foresight ... this sort of thing: [https://www.trumanlibrary.org/lifetimes/farm.htm](https://www.trumanlibrary.org/lifetimes/farm.htm) . I'm pretty sure the idea that your academic performance determines your place in society _is_ the tradition of _somewhere_ but I don't think it is America: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination) .

2\. That going to college is not a direct product of wealth. Spending 4 years of adulthood doing something other than work could itself be used as a measurement of wealth. It feels to me like they are comparing two slightly different measurements of wealth and acting like it is something else.

Almost everyone in the study population would have gone to college before 1990, so their choices aren't based on the current situation, they are based on the situation 30 years ago as well.

The one thing I am positive about is that is provides evidence that wealth is actually a positive influence on education ... maybe it will help people who value education above all support pro-wealth policies like lower tax.

<comment><USER11> I never really understood why lower tax is pro-wealth. What does it really mean? I am not trolling, I am really curious. Let's say I see some opportunity to grow my wealth, am I going to look at the current tax level and if it's above certain threshold I am just gonna say screw it, I am not taking it?

<comment><USER12> Yup, exactly which is why the rates for capital gains are reduced. If you make the capital gains high enough the reward you get for taking the risk won't be high enough.

I think it has a bigger deterrence effect with non-capital gains income. Once you start getting in the higher income tax brackets, it isn't really worth it to put in more hours for additional income when 50% of it is taken in income tax off the top. That's how I look at it at least.

<comment><USER11> I am paying 52% income tax rate in the upper bracket. I doesn't stop me from trying to increase my income.

Clarification - I am not making any claims as to whether I support this tax level or not. I am just saying it doesn't discourage me from trying to get ahead.

<comment><USER13> In economic modeling of course it does, and in terms of individual experience, which can vary from that , Im willing to challenge it as well.

If they told you that if you volunteered for government on saturdays, they would exempt you from income tax altogether, would you do it?

<comment><USER14> I would, that's a great deal.

<comment><USER13> Im pretty sure most people would: its working more time, for paying less taxes. An intuitive example of how taxation does affect the amount of time worked, at any income level.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Reminds me of the original "Ocean's 11" \-- after silver-spoon punk Jimmy Foster [Lawford] is done needling his gangster soon-to-be stepdad Duke Santos [Romero], Santos launches in to a story about growing up tough in the streets and how it prepared him to "always fight" [and thereby become wealthy], but at a cost of years and health.

After a beat, Foster says "Just goes to show : My way's better."

Santos [incredulous] : "What way is that?"

Foster : "Choose rich parents."

Santos : "Ha! You can bet your boots it is."

</comment><comment><USER16> Just take a look at Wikipedia. There are more people on there with parents who are university professors, doctors or succesfull entrepreneurs than parents who are farmers. Even though the amount of farmers vastly outnumber the others.

I don't think it is just the money. You also have someone (your parents) to mentor you everyday about how to be "succesfull". They probably have a network you can tap into, someone who knows someone. You wanna start your own business, great let us call X,Y,Z and set up a holding company. Also here is some bootstrap cash.

You most likely also live somewhere nice and have resourceful friends growing up. Hey let us start a business together. You are not going to settle for working at a supermarket because you would have no chance of keeping of the standard of living you had growing up. And those friends, they are dining at the Fat Duck again, while you go to McDonalds.

Almost all of my "succesfull" friends have "succesfull" parents. Even though I lot more friends with parents who have ordinary jobs.

<comment><USER17> > Just take a look at Wikipedia. There are more people on there with parents > who are university professors, doctors or succesfull (sic) entrepreneurs > than parents who are farmers. Even though the amount of farmers vastly > outnumber the others.

Do you have any data to back this up?

<comment><USER18> I'm also curious. Strong claims like that require strong evidence.

I'm not just going to take that comment at face value and neither should anyone else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Depends on how 'better' is defined. It looks like they are defining 'better' in this study as 'graduating from college'. That seems like an awfully narrow view of better.

<comment><USER20> Graduating from college is correlated with better life outcomes in a lot of areas, including income, health[1], and life expectancy[2][3].

The causal effect of college graduation on those aspects of life varies, but the correlation is so strong that it makes sense to use it as a proxy for "better".

[1]: [https://www.luminafoundation.org/files/resources/its-not- jus...](https://www.luminafoundation.org/files/resources/its-not-just-the- money.pdf) [2]: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4435622/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4435622/) [3]: [https://www.mpg.de/10795685/longevity- education](https://www.mpg.de/10795685/longevity-education)

<comment><USER21> Just if wealth is correlated with graduation, and graduation is correlated with success, doesn't mean that wealth is correlated with success.

If anything, the article could be interpreted to apply the opposite - <USER2> skilled poor people that _do_ graduate have climbed so high so fast compared to unskilled rich graduates that they're very likely to climb _even farther_ further in life.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Rich always have the advantage of better nutrition, information and resources (if parents don't have time, they hire tutors). Is it truly a genetic advantage or a socio-economic advantage? Is there a good way to hold all other variables as a constant in this study?

<comment><USER23> Rich parents also are more likely to show their kids how to handle money and get rich. See the book "Rich Dad Poor Dad" by Kiyosaki.

Edit: Teaching kids how to manage money, the time value of money, the basics of running a business, how markets work, etc., is painfully neglected by the schools. Young adults often have little knowledge of this, and it definitely puts them at a serious disadvantage.

<comment><USER24> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kiyosaki#Criticism_and_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kiyosaki#Criticism_and_controversy)

<comment><USER23> Thanks for the info, I didn't know that about him.

I've read his book, and the fundamental idea of looking at money differently is sound. I know I look at money very differently now than I did when I was young. I.e. I view it now as a tool rather than a scorecard.

<comment><USER24> Yeah, I can see that.

I rather believe in the "God can draw a straight line with a crooked stick" principle, so it's quite possible his advice is good, or at least part of it. Just figured it'd be good to know this about him.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Completing college and getting a well paid job is not the absolute measure of a person, nor the highest attainment of success.

Ghandi.

Joan of Arc.

Jesus of Nazareth.

Dr. Martin Luther King.

William Wallace.

Einstein.

Etc.

Freedom, human dignity, compassion, knowing how to live right. These all tend to fall outside the scope of corporate aspiration.

The article is talking about "success" by essentially a single metric. Humankind does not live by bread alone.

<comment><USER26> born rich (his dad was a provincial minister)

poor

poor (middle-class, if you think a carpenter is that way, maybe)

middle-class

rich (born a landed knight)

rich (although his father's engineering firm went bust but restarted and did well in the second time and they had money worries at times)

about 0.5-5% of people are rich by most definitions

humankind does not live by bread alone, but put a human in a box and don't feed them and see what happens

<comment><USER25> Put all humans in a mental box that suggests that how much money they make and how much profit they turn are all that matter and see what happens. That isn't pretty either. We are seeing some of the gruesome outcomes of that currently, for example:

[https://medium.com/@joycebowen/murder-by-medicine- dfe9d23207...](https://medium.com/@joycebowen/murder-by-medicine-dfe9d2320726)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I just skimmed the article, but one huge problem:

Intelligence is known to be largely genetic, _but_ we have almost _no idea_ what genes, or combination of genes are responsible. So whatever genetic correlation this is based on is bound to be nearly meaningless.

<comment><USER28> It literally specifies all these things in the article. There are thousands of genes that are all in part responsible and the study was initially performed across 20,000 people and then was replicated in independent studies.

<comment><USER27> I'm sure they used all available knowledge.

My point is that right now we know very little.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> For every silver spoon who flies through higher-ed to the gilded cage at the end of the rainbow, there are several more left back home--still living under daddy's shadow--duking it out with the others for a bigger share of the corpse.

Sometimes, we need adversity. Not so much for our bank accounts as for our souls.

</comment><comment><USER30> You know what's better than both? Perseverance. Learned or by birth,those who can persevere succeed. The world is full of gifted losers. Even those born rich might not amount to more than what they were born with.

If a child grows up to be a decent human being,a functional member of society ,a responsible spouse,parent,child and can hold down a decent job is that person not doing better than a rich and gifted person that can't function well in society and does not treat others well?

All I'm saying is 'better' should mean across the board better. Not _just_ financially , career wise or contributions to society.

</comment><comment><USER31> So we measure "better" in life using academic success now? Is academic success the ultimate goal in life, the key to happiness? Or is the WP just pushing typical political propaganda using fake science these days?

<comment><USER32> "Academic success" as a useful proxy because of how it predicts income, health, longevity, and so on [1], [2], [3].

I'm not sure whether "fake science" in the absence of obvious, easy-to-google evidence is mere intellectual laziness, or if you actually believe that because _some_ people are successful (by many reasonable measures) without an education that this somehow means that _education itself_ is not valuable. In either case, here you go.

[1]: [https://www.luminafoundation.org/files/resources/its-not- jus...](https://www.luminafoundation.org/files/resources/its-not-just-the- money.pdf)

[2]: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4435622/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4435622/)

[3]: [https://www.mpg.de/10795685/longevity- education](https://www.mpg.de/10795685/longevity-education)

<comment><USER31> > _it predicts income, health, longevity, and so on [1], [2], [3]._

We already knew that rich people live longer, so what's the point in using "academic success" as an intermediate predictor?

> _if you actually believe that because some people are successful (by many > reasonable measures) without an education that this somehow means that > education itself is not valuable._

Straw man.

It's not a valid (scientific) conclusion to apply the result of correlation studies on a large mixed group to selected subgroups and assume it will apply equally. IOW, rich people with college degree might not live longer than those without just because the general population does.

But my point was something else: a better life is neither measured by wealth nor academic success or life expectancy at 25. It's entirely subjective and such click-baity titles are misleading. It should read "it's better _for academic success_ to be born rich than gifted", but then it would't be sensationalist enough.

<comment><USER32> > We already knew that rich people live longer, so what's the point in using > "academic success" as an intermediate predictor?

That's because we can then explore if it's causal or not. Current best research suggests it is, at least in the USA[1]

[1]: Lleras-Muney Adriana. The Relationship Between Education and Adult Mortality in the United States. Review of Economic Studies. 2005;72(1):189–221.Kawachi Ichiro, et al. Money, Schooling, and Health: Mechanisms and Causal Evidence. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 2010;(1186):56–68

> Straw man.

Sorry: how exactly have I misstated your point?

You've got a controversial opinion, and an aggressive way of presenting it (fake news). You're giving it even though it's not the mainstream opinion, and you're doing it without reference or attribution. If you actually think I'm not giving you a fair shot, please explain.

My understanding is: You think that since money and lifespan are related, and education and money are related, that IFF lifespan and education are linked it must be through money?

If you've actually got a different point, then you haven't yet made it clear to me. If you can manage that, I'll try to address it, but this one has been addressed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Lot's of nonsense here.

Rich vs gifted? Yeah, right, as if you can control for all the other factors and compare the two.

Rich correlates with so many other things (genetics, support network, exposure to the right kind of things).

Gifted is also impossible to ascertain (e.g. exam scores aren't a perfect indicator of gifteness as ability, perseverance, hard working ethic etc all drive success in life).

What's discussed here cannot be science. Take it for what it is.

</comment><comment><USER34> The article fails to adequately emphasize a huge point.

Even if wealth gives better odds, it's not like it's 10:1. Being gifted, educated, and having a modest but healthy environment are massive advantages.

It would be difficult to calculate the fundamental contributions to society of people in the latter category.

</comment><comment><USER35> How the hell is this study seen in a negative light? Genes, how fast your brain processes information, CANNOT be changed. That's just biology. Money, education, knowledge - these CAN be changed.

</comment><comment><USER36> It's better to be born rich than gifted, if you think that college graduation rates are the number one most important thing in the world.

</comment><comment><USER37> This should be the tag line for politicians in the UK!

</comment><comment><USER38> The understatement of the century

</comment><comment><USER39> It's much more likely for a gifted person to become rich than it is for a rich person to become gifted.

</comment><comment><USER8> Jordan Peterson says it's the opposite. I guess it also depends on how one defines 'rich'. If you're the only child of a multi-millionaire family, then you're in a much better financial position than being one of 3-5 children of a family that is only upper-middle class. But one cannot underestimate the power of having a high IQ though in terms of making wealth. You look at at all these successful people in STEM and start-ups, many from middle-class families and 2nd gen. immigrant families, and they tend to all have high IQs. Just a few days ago someone solved the 310 bitcoin challenge and made a cool $2 million. The person who solved it probably has a high IQ. Same for ppl who invested in bitcoin early. Again and again, with the possible exception of some actor and athletes, you find that with wealth, a high IQ is not far behind.

<comment><USER40> If I had to pick between IQ and pre-existing wealth, I would choose wealth.

Having a high IQ still requires you to rely on luck by rolling the dice at investing (knowing to buy bitcoin is more gambling than intelligence), squeaking past super selective all-or-nothing societal gateways like Ivy League admissions, FAANG interviews, YCombinator, etc. against very stacked odds, tenacity whenever life randomly and inevitably decides to punch you in the gut, and tremendous sacrifices in terms of hard work, time, MORALITY (screwing people over and fighting hard to prevent others who are actively working against you from doing the same to you), and personal health.

I think the fact that you can solve puzzles really well on a test doesn't really lend itself well to money making at all. There's FAR too much of a chance/luck component to making money to attribute it to IQ alone. Any time I've ever made money, I came back thinking wow, I was very lucky -- even though everyone is still biased towards themselves in terms of their own personal attributes or qualities (intelligence, hard work, savviness, hustling, etc.) when they make money, I can still recognize that yes, buying and selling crypto at the right time was almost entirely luck -- so was teaching myself how to code when I was 8 years old growing up in a rural area where everyone else thought it was a waste of time. Hard work is a necessary but not sufficient condition to make money -- same applies to IQ. Often you'll find people who had the exact same amount of "talent" or worked just as hard doing exactly the same things as someone who has a lot of money but don't have anything to show for it. Right place, right time.

Meanwhile, having money handed to you on a silver plate by virtue of your birth family means being able to accomplish all of the above without doing or sacrificing anything at all, and you even still have a free pass from society to still have an ego about it. Even worse, many people somehow see having money as a moral characteristic while selectively ignoring the very often immoral cost of acquisition.

<comment><USER8> >If I had to pick between IQ and pre-existing wealth, I would choose wealth.

It depends how one defines wealth. If the choice is framed as choosing between $10 million lump sum with no taxes or any conditions vs. an IQ of 130, then maybe the $10 million and an IQ of 100 is the better bet. However, these studies define 'wealthy' (assuming they even quantify it at all) to be merely upper-middle class, which is much less, and this this wealth is further diluted by number of siblings and other factors.

>. Hard work is a necessary but not sufficient condition to make money -- same applies to IQ.

That's my point and I agree. But many of these articles downplay or ignore the role of IQ. IQ is still necessary but it may not be sufficient.

<comment><USER40> You need an IQ of at least 140 probably even 150 to make $10 million (4+ stddev). You see people on the street every day with a 130 IQ, that's your average software engineer right there.

<comment><USER41> No you don't, where is this supposed to come from? 130 IQ on 15 SD is probably significantly too high as well to be the mean average.

<comment><USER42> I've lived in the Bay Area since before starting kindergarten. No way the average IQ of software engineers here, or anywhere, is close to 130. Software engineering might be one of the only STEM disciplines that gives credibility to the Ortega hypothesis.

<comment><USER40> How so? I don't see how the average software engineer IQ being 100 vs 130 affects the (rather questionable) proposition that the large mass of average/mediocre software engineers MIGHT outperform the handful of Jeff Dean's (the claim made by the Ortega Hypothesis). Just based on the IQ population distribution alone, it's not unreasonable to think that Jeff Dean has a 160-170+ IQ.

It is still a questionable proposition -- "10x engineers" are a thing, and brilliant singular insights that unlock billions of dollars in productivity like the concepts of convolutional neural networks and MapReduce are the brainchild of rare chart-defying individuals, rather than a product of the masses working in tandem. The Pareto Principle still seems to hold, even for software engineering (just ask any Bay Area software company's HR department).

Regardless, as an appeal to intuition, there is some sort of minimum bar (software engineers are still a VERY scarce commodity, as evidenced by market dynamics), suggesting that the average individual (100 IQ) is ill-equipped to take on the sort of abstract reasoning and novel thought processes so readily discarded by billions of years of prior evolution (indeed, knowing C++ would not have helped you as a primordial human fighting off that hungry sabertooth tiger) needed to comprehend and write robust code wading through some of the most complex systems (the Linux kernel is millions of lines of code) ever fathomed by humankind. This is the whole premise behind IQ theory, which really just boils down to a simple statistical argument.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How Signal Is Evading Censorship - <AUTHOR> https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/12/how_signal_is_e.html <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13245970](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13245970)</comment>


Back to balance - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@rymohr/back-to-balance-1572b44e432a

<comment><USER2> Thanks for sharing this so openly and honestly and kudos to you for recognizing this before it was too late and pushing our team to adjust. It's a great reminder of the additional struggles faced by those in a startup with little ones. There's far too many startup cultures where working there means missing out on entire parts of your kids' lives. And once those years are gone, they're gone...</comment>


A Library for Rendering RxJS Observables Using React Hooks - <AUTHOR> https://www.reonomy.com/blog/post/reactive-hooks <comment><AUTHOR> At Reonomy, we have been in the midst of a transition between FE technologies. Our platform was initially built with a mix of AngularJS – and over the past few months, we have made a full transition to the more developer-friendly React.

In order to make this transition feasible, we created a reactive-hooks library for rendering RxJS observables using React Hooks.</comment>


Thoughts and Observations Regarding Yesterday's iPhone 5 and Music Event - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/2012/09/iphone_5_event

<comment><USER2> _And what shows they were. When Schiller unveiled the iPhone 5, it rose from the stage floor on a smoothly-rising and rotating pedestal, pinpoint spotlights hitting the phone and only the phone. The rotation of the iPhone atop the pedestal was in perfect sync with the rotation of the iPhone projected on the big screen at the back of the stage. There's no store where you buy such pedestals; Apple designed and engineered it specifically for this event. It was on stage for about a minute._

I think I may actually be physically sick from reading this. There's just no room to satirize something this ridiculous.

For Apple to maintain its market-leading brand prestige and profit margins it has to be hands-down _better_ than the competition and no matter how much heavy breathing hype you want to shower on them the last two iPhones have been predictable, incremental upgrades that in some important ways are actually playing catch-up to the competition. Good, but not good enough.

Steve's most successful keynotes were noticeably devoid of this kind of Las Vegas showroom trickery.

<comment><USER3>
      > iPhones have been predictable, incremental upgrades

So Samsung Galaxy SIII was amazingly revolutionary compared to Galaxy SII?

      > that in some important ways are actually playing catch-up
      > to the competition. Good, but not good enough.

Oh, believe me, it is more than good enough. Of course you can choose some line for the spec sheet and proclaim that Apple is over, but in that case you are jus missing forest for the tree.

<comment><USER2> _So Samsung Galaxy SIII was amazingly revolutionary compared to Galaxy SII?_

Actually, the combination of new hardware + ICS was really a huge step forward and the first phone I'd really consider an overal better phone than the iPhone. And thanks to the diversity of the Android ecosystem we also have things like the note or the 7" tablets to choose from today.

If Apple wants to play one-size-fits-all then that size has to be in a different class.

<comment><USER4> The Samsung Galaxy SIII is the first phone that has got our died-in-the-wool- celebrate-apple-fanatic's attention. Honest to goodness direct quote from a recent convert to the SIII, "Dude, I thought I was trying the real stuff before, but this things like Heroin!"

I personally think that the big screen, and ICSs speed is pretty damn attractive - but I don't know how it would fit into my life over a year.

Regardless - Samsung now has a slight lead when it comes to overall mobile performance (Screen/CPU) - Apple has the lead in App Ecosystem and (in my opinion) - design tweaks. They do sweat the pixels a bit more than Samsung.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Here's the thing: it's really light.... The glass of the 4/4S feels great, > but it's fragile and, compared to aluminum, heavy.

I find it truly fascinating how magnificently Apple can spin anything it wants any way it wants and have people buy it. For years people have told me how their iPhone's were made of better quality materials and you could _feel_ it in the weight. It was the sign of quality. It's awe inspiring to witness now how after spending so long as a sin, lightness has transformed in the space of 24 hours into a virtue.

<comment><USER6> Also:

 _Almost weirdly light, to my oh-so-utterly-accustomed-to-the-heft-of-the- iPhone-4(S) hands._

I think the thing that bugs me is the tacit admission that he hasn't even tried any other devices. I own (although no longer use) a Samsung Focus S- a 4.3" Windows Phone. Weight? 110g. At this point the Focus S hardly a new phone- Apple was _behind_ the times and is just catching up, it's not blazing ahead.

But then, Gruber is only reviewing this for people that have already decided they want one, so the bar is lower.

<comment><USER7> Point of information: he's reviewed several Android phones in the past, and he's talked about them on the podcasts he's on. He does in fact try other devices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I like this guy but this opinion piece has almost nothing going for it.

What the tech-elite are upset about is that the iPhone is the product of -SAFE- design. They made safe design choices, safe technical choices, safe aesthetic choices, and paved over some platform disruptions that are going to stick in more than a few craws (new maps, new dock connectors, new advertisement rules, etc). There was no zing zap zowie twist, no manic panic streak, just safe iterations like thinner/faster/tighter/stronger.

Think about it: there isn't one new sensor type, one new I/O type, one signature new datatype (save for possibly Passbook), nothing. The smartphone is becoming mature and the 8000 pound gorilla isn't willing to start zigging and zagging with the highest profile product in technology.

People want to be wowed, and when all they got was a thorough refinement of what they had, they left disappointed. My mom is going to love the decisions Apple made regarding her iPhone 5. John X. Android won't.

It doesn't matter though. This phone is going to sell tens of millions a month, be the safe #2 market seller, be the #1 money spinner, and stand for another year as the overall best.

You want daring phones? You want risky phones? Look elsewhere.

<comment><USER9> What happened to "Think Different" ?

<comment><USER8> "Think different" won them a dominant position in two colossal (and colossally important) markets that they're in the process of eviscerating to the consternation of all involved.

I assure you they are in the process of "thinking different" about a number of new markets and form factors. For the ones that are gushing money? "Think Dominant"

<comment><USER10> _For the ones that are gushing money? "Think Dominant"_

Well, that goes fairly well with their 1984 commercial I suppose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Gruber is essentially arguing that those criticizing Apple's choice of Lightning over microUSB are wrong because Lightning is better FOR APPLE than microUSB is.

Of course Lightning is better for Apple. It's going to make them gobs of money. That doesn't make it better for the consumer than microUSB.

<comment><USER8> I need you to do a thought experiment: It's yesterday. Apple has just announced that they are immediately moving to micro-USB on all of their iOS products.

What does this mean for the existing ecosystem of 30-pin accessories and the customers who bought into it?

<comment><USER2> At least they could use any new accessories they have to buy with other gadgets instead of being locked into another expensive, proprietary Apple format.

<comment><USER8> Other gadgets? Like what? Describe this workflow.

Plugging in to your Kindle PowerFast adapter that only fast-charges a Kindle? Plugging in to a PMP that that supports USB-MTP or USB-MSP, which Apple doesn't support at all? Plugging in a HDMI or VGA adapter? Wait... they don't have those for micro-USB. Reusing your PDMI gear? Ooops, those are only pin- compatible with 30-pin and haven't gotten any real traction. Plugging into a USB audio device? Oh wait, THAT STANDARD DOESN'T EXIST EITHER.

So I'm begging you, tell me, my mind is OPEN on this: describe the benefit of Apple moving to micro-USB beyond "I can reuse my BlackBerry charger from 2005".

I can't come up with enough pros for anyone, including the customer.

<comment><USER12> MHL moves 1080p24 video and 8-channel audio over a micro-USB connector. The use cases for the 'dock port' in 2012 are docking in cars/alarm clocks/speakers/video docks and charging. MHL covers the first set, and any charger can give the right amount of amperage as long as they reverse-engineer Apple's hacky way of using a resistor grid on the data pins to control how much power the device can take.

Just because you don't hear about these things in the Magical Revolutionary Wonderful Apple bubble doesn't mean they don't exist. MHL to HDMI cables exist _today_ and are usable _today_.

<comment><USER13> S3 needs its own adapter for MHL. So much for a standard

<comment><USER12> That's primarily because it also supports sinultaneous USB OTG for some reason (likely Samsung's bizarre checkbox marketing team...) The GS2 supported MHL over the regular connector.

I hope companies start developing MHL compatible docks now that many high end Android devices are shipping with it. A good ecosystem of devices would prevent "improvements" like Samsung's from taking root. (obviously, Apple adopting it would have been enough to finally make one unified accessory ecosystem, but Apple can't charge exorbitant licensing fees for "Made for MHL" logos...)

<comment><USER8> It would seem that the 11-pin Samsung variant would have enough pins available for all of Apple's backwards compatibility needs. I too wish they'd gone in this direction instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Radio Friendly Unit Shifter.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER5NG2i_5V4></comment>