Bill Nguyen: The Boy In The Bubble - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/160/bill-nguyen-startups

<comment><USER4> I used to work with Bill at Seven, and this article captures his personality pretty well.

His biggest strength is he's an unbelievable salesman. He can talk pixie dust and make you want to sign on to his vision.

I believe the ability to sell your vision is the most important skill for an entrepreneur (which is too bad for me, cause I'm a coder and I suck at this skill).

<comment><USER5> He should stay in sales then. Without a meaningful vision, all the sales in the world is just bullshit talking.

<comment><USER4> Depends on your perspective. He sold OneBox for $850 million, so I'm sure he's happy he didn't stay in sales.

<comment><USER6> Seems to me he still IS in sales

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> First his product was the Facebook killer then he decides that he doesn't want to kill it, he wants to build on top of it. _"It's the everything." ... "So we're about to make it more functional, more valuable for people than ever."_

You can't flip-flop more than that. I can't wait until Facebook incorporates their new ideas into the product and puts them out of business - assuming that this new business actually exists in the first place.

<comment><USER8> What struck me is that he pimped out Color as a Facebook killer without, according to this article, having really used Facebook before.

Then of course to turn around and say that Facebook is the answer to all things is pushing the irony very far…

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is it just the way I read it, or does Bill Nguyen come across really badly, there? Wow.

<comment><USER10> > "I mean, I literally don't think there's anything to be learned from other > people's stuff." That is exactly what happened with Color, which Nguyen > never even bothered to test. "I'm not here to practice. I'm here to play," > says Nguyen[...]

I don't think there's any other way to read that.

<comment><USER11> I'm naive when it comes to anything related to VC's and funding, but I'm pretty sure if I had a ton of money to invest, it wouldn't be anywhere near someone like that. Even after reading the article, I don't think I fully understand why he can secure funding so easily.

<comment><USER12> VCs know that most of their investments aren't going to pan out. When they evaluate companies, they aren't worrying about whether they'll fail. Even the good companies fail. What the VCs are worried about is that they're going to say no to Facebook, and then have to explain 5 years from now how the fuck they possibly could have said no to Facebook.

What that seems to mean is that if you:

* have a persona that at least superficially seems driven, ambitious, likely to succeed, and

* you tell a convincing story about a market that might experience explosive growth, and

* you have any kind of track record of any sort to make it hard to write you off as a total bozo, and

* you have some sales skill, so you can manage the pitch process and create pressure to VC firms, then

you're probably fundable even if you think testing means "practicing instead of really playing".

These kinds of pitches seem very different from the kinds of things people write in Show-HN: postings. In particular, these pitches aren't meant to be _reasonable_.

This is way more of a response than you were looking for; sorry, I just had to get this out, since all I can think of when I read about Color is how good an illustration it is of VC cliches.

<comment><USER13> Life note for HNers: Like almost any other market failure, this is profitably exploitable.

<comment><USER14> Can you elaborate?

<comment> barry-cotter Let me sketch the exploit, assuming you are not that guy.

Find someone who has done more than one highly impressive thing, prefereably in approximately the same line, who seems high energy and sociable. If they have anything resembling sales experience that's a big plus. One of the best hunting grounds will be in and around universities, as they're full of people with not much money and confidence that's higher than is justified, and some of them will be much more impressive than their age mates. Find one.

Harvest startup ideas by say, looking at previous Show HN posts, or doing a Madlib generator on the Crunchbase DB for X of Y, and look for something that you can build a good story about explosive growth around, or have what you think is a good idea already.

Sell your ambitious young go-getter on your idea, or on you, somehow, and start pitching VCs with your incredible story of wild growth and fantastic riches. Meanwhile iterate on your idea. Pivot if it looks like a good idea, and hope and pray for growth while pitching VCs all the freaking time.

Basically, have an idea that could conceivably grow explosively and have a business guy with previous record of Impressiveness, capacity to Believe in your Great Idea, and the ability to Sell Stuff, including your Awesome Idea.

If you are that guy, _and_ you can program your own mockup and iterate you might be able to get into YC as a single founder.

<comment><USER15> I believe that you have just managed to generalize Poe's Law. Congratulations

<comment> barry-cotter I would appreciate a much expanded version of what you just said. I am aware that Poe's Law states more or less that no parody is so extreme that it cannot be taken seriously by at least one person in the faction the author is atempting to parody.

<comment><USER15> I always felt that extremeness (extremity?) is not necessary in the statement of Poe's Law but I could never find a good example. What you said sounded like a mockery of the YC process, but I'm not sure. The 2 have something in common... attention to detail? (Poe's Law: the parody and the parodied are both outrageous in their own ways.) In light of your discovery, I might restate Poe's Law thusly: no parody can be so ardent that it cannot be mistaken for what it parodies. What do you think about punctuation to indicate the state of being serious?

<comment> barry-cotter I think that punctuation to indicate seriousness/sarcasm would never catch on because it would interfere with deniability, deliberate obscurity, signalling and (im)plausible deniability.

I wasn't really joking at all with my description. I mean there are almost certainly groups that fit that description _perfectly_ among YC alumni.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Facebook started with $17,000 investment from a friend and was a dorm room project, not a company. When trying to beat someone it is probably a good idea to see how they got to where they are at. Steady growth over time works. Dumping a shit ton of money into something and saying its going to the the "X" killer doesn't.

The laughing stock is not Bill Nguyen, its the VC's that gave him the money. If you walk in a room and say Color and they laugh, they should really be embarrassed. How many of these same people wanted to get in on this deal before it launched? The really funny thing is that there will be someone else that comes in with a great deck and grand illusions of how they will be the next Facebook, the VC's will pump this person with money too.

</comment><comment><USER17> Why is it that political journalists are critical, trying to turn every stone, and business/financial journalists treat their subjects with softer gloves than a teen mag does Rihanna?

If there's one person in the Valley who you can ask difficult questions, it's Bill Nguyen. Instead, the author asks him about whether his wife likes the house on Maui.

<comment><USER18> Politicians live in the public eye, in a way different from celebrities (be they pop stars or CEOs). They are, in a sense, obligated to grant interviews and be open to the hard questions, because a politician is selling him or her SELF.

A pop artists sells music, a company sells a product or a service. I'm not predicating my use of facebook based on whether or not Mark Zuckerberg did pot in college or got blowjobs from his secretaries.

So when you interview someone who isn't selling themselves, you don't have the freedom to ask those kinds of questions. Unless maybe you don't that person to ever grant you or your magazine an interview ever again.

<comment><USER19> This explanation doesn't really get to the heart of it.

Fast Company has always been breathless and brainless. They always present "business" in such a way to make it seem like all you need to be a rich, successful, famous, sexy entrepreneur is "a great idea" and maybe some fun personality traits.

They aren't in the business of _reporting_ , they're in the business of titillating, teasing, and making their reader think "that could be me!" - exactly, in other words, the stuff I've dubbed entreporn:

[http://cubic-m.blogspot.com/2011/09/entreporn-dictionary- def...](http://cubic-m.blogspot.com/2011/09/entreporn-dictionary- definition.html)

"I've got a pizza here with extra sausage." "Ohhhh, we lost our purses, however can we pay?" -- I DELIVER PIZZAS… IT COULD BE ME!

<comment><USER20> that's true, but that's also why I love Fast Company. If you want harder- hitting business journalism, it's better to stick with Fortune or Businessweek. There you can read about the underbelly of business,the Madoffs/Goldmans/oligarchs etc.

Fast Company and Inc. are both owned by the same firm, and they try to portray a more humanistic view of business, ie. social capitalism, the belief that entrepreneurs can one day solve all of the ills in the world. Its a very uplifting philosophy, and I for one find it encouraging.

I've never heard of the term entreporn though, if you coined it then congrats! I like the term, and maybe it is apt. Maybe that's precisely what someone is curious but hesitant about entrepreneurialism needs.

<comment><USER19> Which is fine! I'm not ANTI-Fast Company. I'm also not anti-porn. Assuming it doesn't hurt anyone, people have a right to enjoy whatever they care to enjoy. Some people even enjoy _TechCrunch._

People just need to understand _what_ they're reading, and _why_ they shouldn't _place their trust_ in its realism. What I see here on HN all the time is a refusal to question the motives or background of the speaker/writer/what-have-you. It's considered ad hominem, a fallacy. But it's not. It's just _good thinking_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "The premise was to create a mobile social network of people you didn't know, rather than ones you already did. Nguyen believed Color would be the Facebook killer."

I have a theory that conflicts with his thinking. If an app connects people it will trump an app that requires people to physically connect themselves. My test for this is "does this app work for users coming from a rural setting?". Facebook works amazingly well because it connects people. Color works horribly. Your app can be profitable and cool not working in a rural area, but it won't be a Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER22> There's no big secret why Bill Nguyen can raise money. Once you have sold one company for $850 mil, you aren't going to have trouble raising money in the future.

<comment><USER23> I don't really know how venture funding works, so pardon my stupid question: Why did he need/want to raise $41m from outside when he sold his company for $850m a few years ago?

<comment><USER24> A) He probably didn't own very much of it at that point.

B) Using other people's money is always a lesser risk.

C) Raising big money = big PR ("social proof").

<comment><USER25> "Raising big money = big PR ("social proof")."

And of course the mafia always needs to be cut into any good deal and requires a "taste" and to dip their beak.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> You know something interesting? I went around linking friends to this article due to Bill possessing a lot of the traits typically lionized in entrepreneurs.

My psych major friend reads it and goes "yup that's a checklist for psychopathic behavior. Don't believe me?" then he links me the wiki:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy>

VERY interesting if you read the wiki on psychopathy and re-read the Bill Nguyen article.

I'll also be careful to state I'm not trying to say anything here - <USER2> is highly contextual after all. Take for example a professional fighter who can be a really nice guy, loving family man and friend yet flip a switch when the bell rings. You just can't say whether this man is violent or not - <USER3> behavior is contextual.

</comment><comment><USER27> There's a lot of criticism about raising money, having a high profile team and starting a company without actually having a product. This may turn out to be short sighted. I think Cisco started the same way.

For all his negative qualities pointed out, at least this man is thinking something freaking different than a freaking share button with a varied alias. Color didn't go hit, but its far better than 90% of photo sharing apps out there. It at least does something different.

What these guys are selling is a photo app, what these guys are doing is that they are toying around with possibilities in sensing, VR and localization on mobile. Could very well be huge.

</comment><comment><USER28> One of the great secrets of the Valley is that investors love hypomanic CEOs.

<comment><USER29> _hypo_ manic?

<comment><USER28> Yeah, true clinical mania looks a lot like psychosis.

<comment><USER29> No, I meant that 'hypo' means a lack, and 'hyper' means an excess, so I would expect a 'hypo'-manic CEO to be some sort of depressive and not look like a great candidate for funding and a 'hyper'-manic CEO to be extremely energetic and convincing and voluble and so at an advantage with VCs.

<comment><USER30> Clinically it's used as "not quite mania, but close".

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypomania>

<comment><USER29> Huh. TIL. Goes to show that understanding Greek or Latin roots doesn't always help you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> After reading, I feel motivated to re-read my copy of 'Influence' by Robert Cialdini. Bill Nguyen was really really good at one thing.

Here is a guy who thrives on persuading people. I think the average founder could always use a little more of the same skillset.

</comment><comment><USER32> After so many times encountering Color, I still don't understand what this is.

</comment><comment><USER33> >' "When you're binary, you just pick a side; whether it's right or wrong doesn't really matter. You're all in. So you find out all the good and bad things about it instantly. When you find that it's not right, you just move on," he says.'

I'm reading the Isaacson book, and he reminds me of Steve Jobs. Everything is black and white, everyone is either a genius or a shithead.

</comment><comment><USER34> The new Color app, judging by its website, actually looks really cool. Nguyen has taken something that already exists -- social broadcasting from your phone's video camera -- and made it seem space-age (turn a photo into real life.. the "transporter" comparison). Same technology, but now I can see why he's a master salesman.

<comment><USER35> i couldn't agree less. I think the thing looks exactly like what it is. A hurried, "let's ship something before my reputation is entirely ruined" product from someone who sold a vision without so much as the scaffolding in place. The original product was a mess and facebook could easily eat the lunch of "color" as it stands now. Hoping for better for whatever is next from this team.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> This article summarises what makes the valley both awesome and absurd. I got mixed emotions reading it. It manages to be both appalling and inspirational.

And Bill Nguyen makes the manic Zuck portrayal in The Social Network appear shy and retiring by comparison. I'd love to meet him.

</comment><comment><USER20> fascinating article. It looks like Color raised a lot of money, then launched and found out why customers didn't want it, and now they are trying to pivot. Basically the opposite of what YC and 37signals recommends.

<comment><USER37> For the record, YC doesn't push any particular ideology as hard as 37signals does. And if you were to ask PG, I think he'd say that different things work for different companies and founders. Running out of money before capitalizing on a profitable business model is the most common way that startups die. So launching quickly, raising money, and pivoting are all good things.

<comment><USER20> oh I see. For some reason I thought Jason Fried and pg were completely on the same wavelength when it comes to startup methodology

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's been two years since we entered the 'post-PC' world. If you had to choose which one to give up - your ipad apps or the web, which would you choose?

That's what I thought.

<comment><USER38> If you had to give up your mobile plan or your home broadband, what would you pick?

<comment><USER14> Good question. On one hand, my mobile plan is expensive. On the other hand, its damn useful.

But I fail to see how this relates to what I said.

I can still browse the web on my mobile device/tablet. The web is very much not in danger of being replaced by native "post-pc" device apps.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> It was an interesting read. But by the end I have no idea what Nguyen is really good at other than selling a startup. He's a wheeler and a dealer, but I sure don't have the impression that he knows how to build something as truly disruptive as he says he can.

<comment><USER40> So he is missing a Wozniak, I guess.

<comment><USER39> But there was nothing in the article that gives me the feeling he is anything like Steve Jobs. He's just phenomenal at the flip, and that says a lot about what the Silicon Valley VC's that invested in Color are after.

<comment><USER41> He flips companies. That's nice and everything, but it's not innovation. He's essentially a parasite.

<comment><USER42> "Parasite" is unfair. You still need guys like him to agitate, to unsettle and disrupt the marketplace. Color was a pretty innovative idea, it was just terribly executed both in technology and marketing.

<comment><USER41> Yeah, that's unfair...I retract that. But I wouldn't suggest for a second that you don't need "guys like him" i.e. great salespeople who can sell ice to eskimos. That's why I find his arrogance so over the top insofar as he compares himself to Jobs and other innovators.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


All smartphones sold in Switzerland will use a standard charging port in 2017 - <AUTHOR> https://www.admin.ch/gov/en/start/documentation/media-releases.msg-id-59636.html <comment><USER2> The obvious question here being, will Apple switch to USB Type C for iPhones, or, more likely, include an adapter in the box?

<comment><USER3> The EU standard is micro USB. Why would Apple switch to Type C, then include a C to micro adapter?

Or are the Swiss picking a different standard?

Or is the EU switching, or allowing two standard ports?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I seriously doubt that Apple will change to micro usb that I believe that is the European standard, unless the new standard is usb-c I don't see that happening. Same thing happens with the 2year warranty AFAIK.</comment>


My DIY Underlit LED (Hikaru) Skirt - <AUTHOR> http://imgur.com/a/cAyO2 <comment><USER2> If you can look past the skimpy pictures there is an interesting message in there:

> Some of the Western women were nice. Some not. Compared to China the female > Maker scene in the West seems incredibly conservative and hostile to women > who don't conform to the blue hair and tattoos, zero-risk-non-conformist > look:-) Eccentric clothing and body-modification is ok- but only if it's the > same kind they have. Because if we look sexy the evil men will never take us > seriously

<comment><USER3> She can dress however she wants, of course. But consider a couple of things not about her, but about us:

1) What if she was not a 'hot', young woman and did the same thing? Overweight? Middle-aged? A guy? Would this project be on the front page of HN and otherwise getting so much attention?

2) Imagine your 14-year-old daughter or little sister, who is interested in tech, sees this. What will she think her success depends on? What will she think society (and her future peers at HN) values in her, her legs or her mind? What prospects will she see to be a hacker and escape being pigeon-holed as a sex object in a community and in offices full of young men?

3) What's the top-rated comment on this HN thread discussing, her project or her appearance? (As of this moment, the latter.)

<comment><USER4> > who is interested in tech, sees this. What will she think her success > depends on?

Is this success though? I think this is being overanalyzed. Here an attractive woman who also like DIY stuff is showing up how she made her skirt, but I think that is far from "success" (also which definition of success?).

Some people would look at her body and others would look at what she did. If my hypothetical daughter would have those doubts I would tell her to focus on what this woman did instead on how she look.

>What prospects will she see to be a hacker and escape being pigeon-holed as a sex object in a community and in offices full of young men?

Well that's this young woman problem (although I suspect she likes the attention). For other women in tech, I think they can follow other path and still get recognition (Who doesn't love Lady Ada creations?)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would never have guessed this needed so much tinkering and electronics. It's not immediately clear because all the pics show the same light, but the color is controlled using an app and it has (apparently) 3-5h battery life.

 _> Not only can our skirts match colors, they can chance in sync or strobe in complex patters across a group._

That's awesome! Neat trick.

</comment><comment><USER6> This was originally posted on reddit.com/r/DIY this morning with the mod and creator working together to limit the number of shitty comments. If you want to talk about the skirt/electronics with the actual maker the post is here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY/comments/3c9l2m/my_diy_underlit...](https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY/comments/3c9l2m/my_diy_underlit_led_hikaru_skirt_updated/)

</comment><comment><USER7> She has an interesting FAQ/bio: [https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/3c7gg1/thats_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/3c7gg1/thats_why_i_support_open_source/csta675)

Direct link: [http://pastebin.com/V3474kYs](http://pastebin.com/V3474kYs)

<comment><USER8> real girls actually wear clothes in public. especially chinese. she's being over the top blatant.

<comment><USER9> So what?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I love how she breaks the bimbo and geek stereotypes by following her own combination of personal interests. Very inspiring character.

<comment><USER11> She is my hero.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Awesome that SexyCyborg manages to promote hardware hacking, sex positivity, and Shenzhen all at once.

</comment><comment><USER13> And v2: [http://imgur.com/a/EonaF](http://imgur.com/a/EonaF)

</comment><comment><USER14> The lighting is a bit off putting standalone. It feels like it really needs to be paired with some type of upper body/necklace/arms effect to balance it out.

</comment><comment><USER15> Is there anyway to split up the one HUUGe battery into a number of smaller ones? so that the battery box isn't so large?

<comment><USER15> Turns out there is; [http://imgur.com/a/EonaF](http://imgur.com/a/EonaF)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Very enlightening.

</comment><comment><USER17> Are you sure it's a skirt and not a really wide belt? yeah yeah this isn't /. so there's no "funny".</comment>


Twitter keeps losing monthly users, so it's going to stop sharing how many - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/7/18213567/twitter-to-stop-sharing-mau-as-users-decline-q4-2018-earnings <comment><USER2> I have little sympathy. Twitter's algorithms can shadow ban accounts at any time for seemingly any reason. I had my account locked for breaking a rule but I never found out what the rule I had broken was.

I sometimes have replies to me I can't see unless I search my username specifically.

Twitter support seems to be nothing more than a dumb script pretending to be a human. There's no transparency and all these anti-user features mean I for one an fed up with it.

When the internet was still young there was Usenet, which wasn't owned by a single corporation. Nowadays we have to submit to whatever whims these private companies dictate. There's no freedom of speech because they're private spaces. Unless we have something akin to Usenet or email where blocking can be done at individual levels but not mandated for everyone by a single corporation I don't want to take part any more.

<comment><USER3> We have that, it's called Mastodon and it's more fun than Twitter.

[https://mastodon.host/@stavros](https://mastodon.host/@stavros)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Twitter can and could be a lot of things, and it certainly is no longer the thing it was when it started. It's mostly why I rarely use it anymore. As a microblogging tool, I think it was great. At a conference? "Heading down to $BAR_AND_GRILL with John." "Finally! Sunshine in Seattle today."

But at some point it turned into what I consider the cesspool it is today. Yelling at the wind. Building my "personal brand". A lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. But mainly a low signal-noise ratio, just not worth my attention. Maybe it's what some signed up for, but it's not what I signed up for ten or so years ago. And perhaps because Twitter itself can't seem to figure out what it wants to be, it turns into something a lot of others didn't signed up for, either.

What do I know, I don't use it much anymore. But perhaps if they had a better defined mission, and a more narrow view, they'd keep the smaller number of users they end up with. But I guess when you're building with other people's money, the mission is "MOAR USERS!"

<comment><USER5> My best use case for it is following people or entities of note in the industry who pretty much keep on point about their particular niche without diverging into much else (aside from some self promotion, but that's to be expected and I don't mind since I receive value from their comms).

<comment><USER4> Ya know, I thought I'd go that route, but I must have chosen poorly. Many might have held the line for a while, but eventually degraded to about a 20:1 cat/food picture:"what I followed you for in the first place." But they owe me nothing, they can do as they please.

And perhaps that's the problem, perhaps Twitter was better suited to having a dozen, fifty or so people that you follow and who follow you. People you might not know intimately, but at least kinda know. So while you might have to put up with "awww, look at Ms. Sylvia Plath, isn't she the cutest cat?" on ocassion, at least you might have some context. IOW, the way _I_ viewed Twitter back in the day was a lot more personal and less public than it turned out to be.

<comment><USER5> You're describing using Twitter initially the way WhatsApp was initially envisioned: broadcasting statuses to friends —which kind of worked but the problem is was it was either DM or broadcast, no group or list concept to keep things fenced in.

So, I basically use it as a broadcast listening platform tuned to chosen sources and works well in that regard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> We're back to "Twitter does not understand its own users". Partly because it's never even attempted to take money from them.

Personally I think Twitter's destruction was triggered by the event it (and many of us) thought of as a great success at the time: the "Arab Spring", Tahrir Square etc. From that point on it increasingly became a political battleground, which is increasingly bot- and sockpuppet- infested, used for targeted harassment, and even from your _friends_ feeds you a steady stream of miserable news.

Meanwhile the people who want to "engage with brands" or just look at cute puppies have moved to Instagram, while the bleeding edge communities are slowly drifting to Mastodon.

There's probably another reckoning due now that Tumblr has banned porn and some of the affected accounts have moved to Twitter; I expect a FOSTA/SESTA- driven purge sometime in the next year or so.

</comment><comment><USER7> Guess locking people's accounts for nothing at all isn't good for your growth! My own account, which I barely use, was locked a few days ago because of "suspicious activity". Not posting anything is suspicious activity now? And there was no way to re-enable it without entering my phone number. I'm surprised anyone is still putting up with this bullshit.

</comment><comment><USER8> Nice, I guess next all publicly trading automakers stop releasing car sales number because of car accidents?

<comment><USER9> No, a better analogy would be like Toyota not breaking down individual model sales numbers because the Camry isn't selling well compared to competitors.</comment></comment>


Possibility of Circumventing the GPL for Profit - <AUTHOR>

Based on the following discussion:
http://redd.it/30gbq0
Can it be concluded that the GPL can be easily circumvented? <comment><USER2> 1: Individual/Company takes a song that is playing on the radio.

2: Individual makes crude and lossy recording of the song.

3: Individual now considers the recording as significant changed from the original, and starts selling CD's with the recording.

4: And the story ends, and the individual get sued. A crude and ugly conversion, be that from radio to mp3, painting to photo, text-to-audio version of a book and so on is all _transformations_ , which the copyright owner has exclusive right to.

The reddit comment also says this, so I am not where the "easily circumvented" conclusion is derived from. The people in charge of this company risk huge fines and prison time, as with any for-profit infringement of copyright.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why? One does not even need to make any wrappers over the library and still sell the library for use, as long as it is clearly stated it's GPL code and where it can be obtained in the source form. This is the way GPL was supposed to work.

<comment><USER4> Sure, go ahead with this approach. Now ask yourself, why aren't other enterprises as commercially savvy as you and haven't got around to explore this route? :-)

<comment><USER3> I'm not saying that this is feasible to build a company around this scheme (but it seems to be occasionally, with Red Hat being prime example). I'm just saying it's possible to sell GPL code written by others.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> That is not circumvention, it is misappropriation. If the copyright holder gets upset enough, it will lead to a court case.</comment>


Show HN: List Engine – powered by the english language wikipedia - <AUTHOR> http://www.listxt.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Here's an example list to get you started:

[http://www.listxt.com/?subject=Shakespeares+Plays](http://www.listxt.com/?subject=Shakespeares+Plays)

</comment><comment><USER2> That's quite a fun list of southpark episodes I made. Once I added a few episodes the list got going - pretty powerful. The front end sucks though!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks - glad you found the engine powerful, and yes.. the front end does needs some work :-)</comment></comment>


Price tag for the American dream: $130K a year - <AUTHOR> http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2014/07/04/american-dream/11122015/ <comment><USER3> So what parts of the "American Dream" are cut and/or subsidized with debt to fit reality? Median household income is about $50K so there's about a $80K shortfall between the $130K "American Dream" and the $50K "Median American". Assuming $20K of the $80K shortfall are taxes you wouldn't have to pay due to earning $50K instead of $130K, you would still need to cut $60K out of expenses. Looking at the list, the line items most likely to see cuts are:

Housing at $17k per year

Groceries at $13k per year

Car at $11k per year

Medical at $9k per year

Education at $4K per year

Apparel at $2.6K per year

Vacation/Entertainment/Discretionary at $17k per year

Savings/College Investments at $22.5k per year

What's scary is you can completely cut savings, discretionary, and medical (~$50k total) and still need to find another $10k to cut. This is how we end up with people in debt and/or are forced to live without a safety net (no insurance/savings) to fund everyday expenses.

So what's the fix? Tough to say. Near term you're definitely seeing a rise in "sharing economy" type activities to better utilize/monetize assets. Provider gets another revenue stream (to supplement flat/stagnant wages). Consumer gets an end product at an affordable price (since they can't afford it otherwise).

</comment><comment><USER4> This would be really interesting with some sort of selector to see how the costs and relative balance would change by region/state.

For instance, in the DC area it would be far more - probably nearly double for housing, utilities and education/childcare. Median home price here is $400k, electricity is $0.13+ kWh, daycare is $500-1000/mo, private school is $11-30k+/yr.

Personally, I spend far more than listed in each category above plus taxes and far less on nearly every 'extra' and several 'essentials'.

Also, since a surprising number of people commenting here don't seem to be familiar with the phrase:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream)

</comment><comment><USER5> I really appreciate that they pointed out where they got their numbers.

I don't agree with all of them (I don't think that a family of 4 should necesarily own a 4WD SUV which will accentuate gas and insurance costs when 4 door economy car would be fine.

Not sure what the $2,000 a year per child education expense is, seems too small for private school, too big for public school. I couldn't find the referenced USA Today article. Our neighbors' kids who are still going to the public high school spend about $1,500 on various sports costs and other school supplies.

Also food seems a bit steep, a bit over $1,000/month on food? That is like $250 a week. Presumably they eat out a lot?

But the quibbling then boils down to _how_ they are living and _where_. So that makes it challenging. A family of four that buys annual ski passes every year, eats out for at least four meals a week, has the bread winner buying lunch every day, buys all new clothes to match the latest fashion, doesn't keep any vehicle longer than 4 years, and only buys things "new"? Ok, I could believe $130K.

But then I fall back to what is the point? And then you see it, the entire point:

 _" Nonetheless, it's clear that though the American dream is still alive, fewer and fewer of us can afford to live it."_

And this, I just don't believe at all, although I get how if people do believe this, it works to their advantage. So by and large, not a reasonable article in my opinion.

<comment><USER6> Maybe food is more expensive in Canada, but my family of 4 never eats out and we spend $250-275/week. I cook most things from scratch and I buy mostly local or organic dairy and produce which costs me an extra 25-30% depending on the season.

<comment><USER7> There can be a lot of variability depending on where you shop.

We buy fruits and veggies in the specialized "market" stores. Supermarket prices are double. We buy stuff that's on sale (pretty much everything goes through a cycle of sales or is on sale somewhere). We shop for dairy across the border where organic milk costs about half...

(Vancouver, BC, area)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Keep in mind that there are assumptions made about what the "American Dream" is, driven by cultural representations of what a stereotypical successful American life should be like. It doesn't seem geared toward what the "Average American" life is really like, it's more of a "How do I live like the families on TV?"

Hence the 4WD SUV, owned home, 2 kids and college attendance, etc.

EDIT: Downvote? Am I misrepresenting something?

</comment><comment><USER9>
        "It's not about getting rich and making a lot of money.
         It's about security"

that the American Dream can somehow provide security is its greatest lie. any american that has lived in europe long enough understands what differentiates it from america is how people perceive this issue of social and financial security. europeans expect their socialist structures to provide security. one can see it clearly in the mentality of personal investment. american's, to their credit, live for taking risks to get ahead. whereas europeans avoid it (and save), with the expectation their government is to provide them with such security. a european is more likely to put their money into an obscure insurance than a stock. sure, this risk-averse mentality might might make the place a lot less productive (at least one _could_ argue) but it sure makes it a lot more liveable and safe.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think it's a good goal to work towards. Second, it's one less thing to worry about. You could easily get by on half of that if your American Dream is different.

As a software developer, I've always dreamt of making enough money, or getting funded to the point where I can make my own software.

Recruiters often remind me that programmers are a dime a dozen, so chasing projects can be frustrating.

My 'workaround' to a lack of funding is to develop my first game (that I designed) on the weekends. The only drawback is it takes a lot longer.

The sweetest advantage to weekend software projects? I can focus on making a game that I know will be fun and sell well. That aspect has always been out of my control for my previous projects, where the focus is creating another's vision of an app or game.

You can check out my apps at bensapps.neocities.org for previous client work.

<comment><USER11> Programmers are a dime a dozen......what are you talking about...?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> And in the Bay Area... I'd guess at least $280K a year.

<comment><USER13> It depends how to define American Dream. That's an outlandish salary even there, attainable by almost no one, at yet thousands upon thousands of folks are getting by ok.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Living where?

<comment><USER15> In whatever town has new homes available for the national median price of $275k. Definitely not my neighborhood.

<comment><USER16> Where I lived in TX(Mckinney/Frisco/Plano) had median home prices around that range for newly build homes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> $2k for clothes is "essential"? That seems ridiciulous. I probably spend less than 200 a year on clothes.

Also, I disagree with the sentiment that children (2?) are essential.

<comment><USER18> >I probably spend less than 200 a year on clothes.

For four, including growing children?

>Also, I disagree with the sentiment that children (2?) are essential.

Essential for the "American Dream," not for the calculation. Of course they are.

<comment><USER7> "I wear your granddad's clothes, I look incredible"

You can spend anywhere between close to zero to infinity on clothing. Brands or not brands, new vs. hand-me-down. Sale or regular prices...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The American Dream isn't about a price of annual income. The American Dream is about the possibility of having an annual income. Originally American was free which brought on the Enlightenment Period, the Industrial Revolution and allow with it, the concept of making money. The dream is you can make money. This is an important concept to understand back then because making your own money was impossible with the enslavement by kings and variants of Statism. Today American isn't free there is no American dream. Today we are more taxed and more regulated than ever. The concept of making money only exists by having 50% of it redistributed - enjoy.

<comment><USER20> _Today we are more taxed and more regulated than ever._

Say what? Tax rates in the U.S. have been trending down for decades, _especially_ for the wealthy.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States)

See the section titled "History of income tax rates adjusted for inflation".

<comment><USER19> You are talking about 1 element, out of a million, pointing to it and saying this is a falsehood. For example, you are basically looking at 1 tree saying its not growing, while ignoring the forest around you - enjoy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think the American Dream has been inflated to mean "the American citizen gets everything s/he wants." hmmm, seems like whining.

Look, the American Dream is about being able to have a reasonable life, keep your family healthy and safe, be a free citizen, and work hard to earn your living.

When did it get to be redefined as "I need a 80 inch TV, XBox, 4-wheel drive car, private education, cellphones, multiple DVRs, 3000 sq ft home, and no taxes and no responsibilities for my expenses, nanny for my kids, golf lessons, soccer, and three cars"?

That attitude of entitlement is what is killing the American Dream, IMHO.

<comment><USER22> > Look, the American Dream is about being able to have a reasonable life, keep > your family healthy and safe, be a free citizen, and work hard to earn your > living

No, its always been about having two general things: (1) Experiencing continually improving material abundance by the standards of the time, and (2) Not being prevented by imposed class or other restrictions from being able to attain even greater material abundance with the scope of one's own ability.

This has been pretty true even before the phrase "American Dream" for the concept was popularized in the early 20th Century, but was clearly attached to the original popularization of the term and to its use since then.

It has _never_ been as modest as you present it.

<comment><USER23> In fact, the American Dream is the opposite of modest.

<comment><USER21> I dont think "opposite" is the right word.

It just means you have the opportunity to prosper based on talent and achievement. It never guaranteed prosperity individually.

<comment><USER22> > It just means you have the opportunity to prosper based on talent and > achievement.

No, it doesn't. From the earliest articulations, it involves both _having_ wealth and having _opportunity_ to further that wealth without barriers of class.

> It never guaranteed prosperity individually.

It doesn't guarantee _anything_ , because its an common individual _aspiration_ (hence the word "Dream" in "American Dream"), not a covenant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> May not fit for Silicon Valley dream though.

<comment><USER25> Wow, I have never heard that SF is expensive. Thanks for letting us know this revelation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Ridiculous Article. All the costs are exaggerated and padded.

<comment><USER27> really? the 'essentials' seemed mostly reasonable to me - grew up in midwest, now living in the US 'south' (NC). Not much there struck me as way out of line.

on the 'taxes' segment: most people won't owe $32k in taxes unless they're actually earning a high amount anyway, so it's sort of self-fulfilling - <USER2> you include $32k in taxes, then yes, you'll need to earn far more than that to pay those taxes.

Not sure why 'cable/internet' are separate from 'entertainment'.

<comment><USER28> The expenses for groceries and the car are far higher than what someone making $130k a year would pay.

$12,659 per year on groceries works out to roughly $240 per week. While it is possible to reach that (e.g. by shopping exclusively at high-end specialty grocers and avoiding coupons), most families would pay far less. A family with access to a supermarket would probably spend around $80-$120 per week on groceries, or $4200-$6300 per year.

The car expenses assume a very large fuel-hungry vehicle, and appear to assume the vehicle will be purchased on a high-interest loan. A five-seat sedan would work just as well, and would result in expenses of about $3000 per year ($10k amortized over a ten-year operating lifetime, plus $2k per year in fuel).

Similar issues exist with the other large expenses. For example, the author's chosen goal for college savings is higher than the cost of a four-year degree at Stanford (according to the stanford.edu Net Price Calculator) and is far more than tuition costs at a normal school.

<comment><USER22> > A five-seat sedan would work just as well, and would result in expenses of > about $3000 per year ($10k amortized over a ten-year operating lifetime, > plus $2k per year in fuel).

(1) automobile costs include more than amortized purchase costs and fuel (such as maintenance) -- especially if you are going to keep it operational for a decade. (2) what 5 seat sedan has a $10K new price?

> For example, the author's chosen goal for college savings is higher than the > cost of a four-year degree at Stanford (according to the stanford.edu Net > Price Calculator) and is far more than tuition costs at a normal school.

The savings target for college savings shouldn't be compared against the _current_ cost, but against the expected cost at the time the student will be attending college.

<comment><USER28>
      > automobile costs include more than amortized purchase
      > costs and fuel (such as maintenance)

For modern cars, maintenance is not a significant expense compared to the purchase price and fuel. Insurance is cheap if one's not driving an expensive truck.

      > what 5 seat sedan has a $10K new price?

No need to buy new, let some other sucker eat the depreciation. A 3-4 year old Corolla (or equivalent) shouldn't cost more than $10k.

      > The savings target for college savings shouldn't be
      > compared against the current cost, but against the
      > expected cost at the time the student will be
      > attending college.

Inflation isn't going to be a significant factor, since long-term savings are going to be placed in something like a TIPS bond. It is possible that the total cost will increase, but what are the chances it'll cost more for a regular school then than it does for a top-tier school now?

<comment><USER22> > For modern cars, maintenance is not a significant expense compared to the > purchase price and fuel

Its certainly not in the first few years (which is why some companies offer prepaid routine maintenance) -- in the latter several years of a 10 year life, that's far less the case.

> No need to buy new, let some other sucker eat the depreciation. A 3-4 year > old Corolla (or equivalent) shouldn't cost more than $10k.

A 3-4 year old Corolla or other economy car is going to be spending more of the 10 year life you propose in the part of its lifespan where the "maintenance is not a significant expense compared to the purchase price and fuel" argument is invalid than a new car.

> Inflation isn't going to be a significant factor, since long-term savings > are going to be placed in something like a TIPS bond.

A TIPS bond is indexed to general inflation, inflation of higher education costs has been _much_ higher than the general inflation for quite a long time. So, yes, for _college savings_ , inflation _is_ likely to be significant factor, even if you use an investment vehicle protected against general inflation.

> It is possible that the total cost will increase, but what are the chances > it'll cost more for a regular school then than it does for a top-tier school > now?

Quite good. Using reference points I'm familiar with, the tuition for a UC now are higher than the tuition at Caltech in the early 1990s, and the ratio of college tuition inflation to general inflation has been higher in the second half of that interval at the first, having stabilized at around 2.0 from the late 1990s on, where it had been at around 1.5 in the early 1990s. So

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm becoming increasingly annoyed with this kind of article or political statement.

Look man, we know we're being screwed over. We all do. Why don't you tell us what to do about it? Oh what's that? You don't have an answer...?

<comment><USER30> I cannot tell what your point is. Is it that nobody should discuss problems without a solution ever?

Like should we not talk about the North Korean work camps/political prisoners/torture because we aren't ready/willing to go invade them?

<comment><USER18> Or AIDS or global warming?</comment></comment></comment>


Aggressively Stupid: The Story Behind After Dark - <AUTHOR> http://lowendmac.com/thomas/07/0209.html <comment><USER2> If you miss the flying toasters, you can get a Quartz Composer screensaver that imitates it for free from <http://uneasysilence.com/toast/> .

The only thing that bothers me is that the toasters don't fly in quite the same pattern, but it's a darn good recreation otherwise. Puts some retro vibe into Snow Leopard.

</comment><comment><USER3> Ah, those were the days. I remember "Talking Moose" as well. Having a computer that insults you is an underrated pleasure these days. =)

<comment><USER4> With an appropriately offensive fortune file and xscreensaver's noseguy hack, you can continue to experience the pleasure of an insulting computer.</comment></comment>


Get your customers to rethink their decision to unsubscribe with this 1 word - <AUTHOR> http://www.copyhackers.com/2011/11/07/reduce-subscription-cancellations-by-using-this-one-word/

<comment><USER2> Same here. I'd like to see real data. Personally if you are spamming me and I want to unsubscribe, having the word "quit" will likely hasten my decision in much the same way I'd like to hit something and smash it if I am frustrated.

<comment><USER3> Exactly the same for me. When I have already reached the decision to stop receiving emails those words would be an even stronger indicator that "quitting" is exactly what I want!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd be interested to see some stats from some a/b testing on this.</comment>


Corona Virus Real Reports – How was it? How did you fight it? - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/groups/513914352883877/ <comment><USER2> For those without a Facebook account, can you post a summary, or the content?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes will do! It's easy to manage this via FB due to the sheer volume of people across the globe on there.</comment></comment>


2018 foreign profit repatriation is a $592Bn taxpayer ripoff - <AUTHOR> https://www.cringely.com/2018/01/19/prediction-3-2018-foreign-profit-repatriation-591-8-billion-taxpayer-ripoff/ <comment><USER2> Still better than the previous situation where they would (and did for years) have paid $0 for that money.

So, the current scheme might be a ripoff (of course it is, most laws are passed to benefit corporatism) but the previous one was worse.

<comment><USER3> The previous one and the current one aren't the only 2 choices.

A third one would be to pass a law saying US companies and US subsidiaries need to repatriate 80% of foreign cash at 35% else the executives will be jailed. Guess how much cash will come back and at what rate.

Ever seen such amazing tax breaks for the poor?

<comment><USER4> Most of the poor pay 0% tax. A company is mostly just a collection of assets, and many of them can move their operations from one country to another if they're motivated to do so, you can't just say "this company belongs to the US federal government". If you want capital to permanently leave the US, then start jailing executives anytime they structure a multinational company. If you'd like them to structure their companies in a way that benefits the US, then implement an internationally competitive tax structure.

<comment><USER2> > _you can 't just say "this company belongs to the US federal government"._

Actually you can, it's called nationalization, and has been used many times in the past.

That said, you could just force their hand. Sure, they can "permanently leave the US", but if they value it as a market, you can hurt them with that (e.g. taxes on their stuff when they try to import it back).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The "Holy" Scrum War - <AUTHOR> http://blog.aha.io/index.php/the-holy-scrum-war/

<comment><USER2> Scrum definitely focuses on "What", but it is much more than the author claims. The difference between Scrum and "old school engineering" (aka waterfall) is primarily that Scrum actually measures the full production cycle; you can't do that with the long development cycles of waterfall. If you use Scrum to measure the full development cycle (which means you actually ship the Sprint product), you can then use velocity to forecast feature delivery in the future with some statistical justification.

If your engineers say that "agile doesn't forecast", they are giving you a snow-job. They are using agile as a weapon against naive Product Managers who don't understand Scrum and why it was created. Scrum was designed to replace the inaccuracies of waterfall "pseudo forecasting", which had resulted in many projects failing dramatically. Basically, waterfall "planning" is hypothesis without any verification. In contrast, Scrum verifies with shipped product every Sprint.

Astute product managers can use Scrum's verified velocity to forecast far into the future, with the usual tools of statistics (such as standard deviation, etc.). It isn't prescient, but it's the best we have. Waterfall is far worse.

Scrum done well is an experimental framework for measuring and improving feature production. It works when done well, but it is hard to do.

You can think of Scrum as a religion, but only in the way that atheism/agnosticism is a "religion". There's faith-based development and that includes waterfall; there's reality-based development and that includes Scrum (but could include any other technique where you measure and forecast using shipped product and velocity).

On the matter of Product Management, Scrum's short iterations buy you something cool: You can do Lean Product Management a la Eric Ries. This is the Product converse of Development's Scrum. Lean Product Management says "We don't know that much about the market, so let's run experiments to find out more, then let's adapt as we learn."

Scrum lets you experiment with production; Lean Product lets you experiment with markets. If you are certain that your production methods are sufficient (and you don't need truthful forecasting), then you don't need the experimentation of Scrum. If you are certain your market hypotheses are right, then you don't need the experimentation of Lean Product.

</comment><comment><USER3> I am trying to reconcile these two statements made by the author:

1) "[Scrum] provides a framework that prioritizes delivering real, working, business-quality software sprint after sprint."

2) "Scrum is engineering centric. Great companies are customer and product centric."

So, with the second quote the author sets up this dichotomy between Scrum and being customer-focused. But to me, the first quote (which is accurate) positions Scrum as supremely customer-focused. Meaning, to deliver value as soon as possible, as much as possible.

I think the author fails to make any persuasive arguments about Scrum. His arguments about what Scrum is not are inaccurate. I was hoping for some useful counter-perspective.

<comment><USER4> I don't think that those two statements are inconsistent. The OP is not disparaging scrum, but rather pointing out that when organizations embrace scrum as a religion they lose sight of the fact that scrum is a tool for engineering - it is not the complete answer to making good products.

Scrum provides a tool that allows you to run your engineering org like a factory production line - it is efficient and (sometimes) predictable. But just having a good production line doesn't mean that you are going to build a product that customers want to buy - only that you will build something faster.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I agree that most of scrum is focused on engineering. The product owner is where it focus lies on product. I've seen companies where product managers became better in having product delivered on time when they adopted the Product Owner role with scrum teams.

@BenLinders</comment>


Optical Effects in User Interfaces (for True Nerds) - <AUTHOR> https://medium.muz.li/optical-effects-9fca82b4cd9a <comment><USER2> I've inadvertently noticed this quite a bit before, but I didn't realize the solution was so basic though, it's a very simple trick!</comment>


Lightbeam for Firefox – Shine a Light on Who's Watching You - <AUTHOR> https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/lightbeam/ <comment><USER2> Odd that the product page for Lightbeam makes no mention of the granular blocking feature. It's almost like they don't want to advertise that, rather calling it a visualisation tool.

Not until you install it and take a look do you find that blocking any particular site is easy to do and manage.

I've noticed a few sites I regularly visit are faster now that I've blocked some of their third party tracking and advertising crap with lightbeam. I've even blocked facebook.com and facebook.net, I hate their stupid junky web page widgets cluttering the web. Now I'm finally rid of it. Sure, I can't visit Facebook at all, but that's a small price for not seeing any of their crappy like buttons on the web anymore.

</comment><comment><USER3> I disabled this plug-in months ago because I was not too interested in who is watching me (of which I know - google analytics, facebook, and most importantly the NSA). I was rather more interested in blocking their APIs, scripts, e.t.c. Hence, I began to use reactive mechanisms - plugins like HTTPS Everywhere, Privacy Badger, RefControl and Ghostery. I know they are intertwined (i.e. some doing the same work). But I prefer that approach to a listing or graphical visualization of who watches me (with little of no (re)action).

<comment><USER2> Lightbeam lets you see and block individual third party sites. It's actually pretty good.</comment></comment>


Show HN: This holiday season, Sell better with VisitorEngage - <AUTHOR> http://visitorengage.com

<comment><AUTHOR> We just launched our pricing plans and public signup (beta) after being in closed beta for over a month.

VisitorEngage helps you collect feedback, run surveys and push proactive notifications on your website based on visitor's behavior.</comment>


Elektro the Moto-Man Had the Biggest Brain at the 1939 World's Fair - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/dawn-of-electronics/elektro-the-motoman-had-the-biggest-brain-at-the-1939-worlds-fair <comment><USER2> It's pretty mind-bending to think about the technological development of the United States this robot came into. On the one hand, seemingly limitless progress -- electric light, airplanes, radio, talking motion pictures, nuclear fission and rocketry just over the horizon -- and on the other, rural areas that would be lit by kerosene for another quarter century.

</comment><comment><USER3> [(partially) tongue-in-cheek]

After working in AI research for about 10 years, I suspect that most of what you see (especially outside "scientific" literature) is... very sophisticated smoke and mirrors.

After reading this and seeing the (impressive!) video, I'm starting to think it was smoke and mirrors and hype since the beginning, and even earlier than that.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, the way that voice commands were recognized via pattern-matching the syllabic rhythms rather than via the actual meaning of the commands was, in hindsight, kind of cheating.

But consider the degree to which today's neural nets are simply engaging in (admittedly far more complex) pattern-matching, with little more understanding of the actual _meaning_ than Elektro.

A lot of today's AI researchers/enthusiasts/hypesters like to imagine that there isn't really anything fundamental missing from this picture, that it's just a matter of the pattern-matching getting _better_ until it really becomes useable in a general-purpose sort of way. But I'm sure that Elektro's makers could have told themselves the same thing. "Look at how sophisticated Elektro is, with 48 electrical relays! Imagine what it will be able to do with hundreds of relays! Or thousands! The possibilities are virtually limitless!"

<comment><USER5> Yes, but false hopes keep people going. And these days, your garden variety automaton has billions of tiny switches. There is a well-known saying that "quantity has a quality all its own".

My uninformed opinion is that there is probably some crucial learning mechanism missing from current AI but I suspect the raw power of current electronics is completely sufficient. Perhaps we just need a way to couple one module to another to automate training in some way we haven't invented yet but will seem obvious when we do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> >By the early 1920s, the company had succeeded in developing fully automatic electrical substations, and its engineers were looking for ways to improve them. One operator requested a way to call the substation system remotely and initiate a change in the normal operating routine. Thus was born Televox, a set of control units that started Westinghouse down the path to developing robots.

>Roy J. Wensley designed Televox to change switches in a substation in response to sounds it detected.

Alexa, change the power mode on the transformer #1.

</comment><comment><USER7> [https://youtu.be/sdLEQNmsXag](https://youtu.be/sdLEQNmsXag)

[https://youtu.be/Q6TQEoDS-fQ?t=33m47s](https://youtu.be/Q6TQEoDS-fQ?t=33m47s)

I would love to have a replica of this in my office

</comment><comment><USER8> "Hey Mommy. Elktro is smoking, can I?". "Sure Billy what brand would you like?".

</comment><comment><USER9> OT: bring Futurama back :) (There was a pavillon on that World's Fair, which named the show.)</comment>


Ask HN: Where am I needed? - <AUTHOR>

I am a developer with a fair amount of capital that I could invest into the startup "scene". Any advice as to which angle I should take?
1) Invest my money into an existing startup. 2) Invest my time as a developer into a startup for limited $$ and live off of my savings. 3) Start up something of my own and invest either my money, time or both...
This list could go on forever and I am just not sure enough about anything to make a jump fowards....please advise... <comment><USER2> I am/was in a similar situation.

Personally, I stay away from #1, unless I have something to offer the startup besides cash.

Rather, I'd keep my eyes open for interesting early-stage startups, or startup ideas that catch your fancy.

We see projects here all the time looking for a technical co-founder; have any of them appealed to you?

<comment><AUTHOR> It seems like there is always an abundance of people wanting to be technical co-founders here so I haven't seen one yet that has been flooded with responses. Also, I don't live on the west coast so that seems to be another barrier for me...</comment></comment>


Seth's Blog: No business model - <AUTHOR> http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2007/08/no-business-mod.html <comment><AUTHOR> In the same way as Seth's example Hacker News is providing a service to the community and at the same time they are promoting their company YCombinator. Very clever.

</comment><comment> daniel-cussen I always felt business models were kind of unnecessary...you just need to be able to sell something down the line.</comment>


Unix at 50: How the OS that powered smartphones started from failure - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/08/unix-at-50-it-starts-with-a-mainframe-a-gator-and-three-dedicated-researchers/ <comment><USER2> > Today, Unix powers iOS and Android

How about the vast majority of the web? Have we hit the tipping point of technology ubiquity where people identify their phone more than the sheer size of the internet that actually enables this devices to function? Maybe "back in my day" syndrome has finally come for me too.</comment>


A Pizza or Not a Pizza - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_S7caqSFxc <comment><AUTHOR> A simple scripted created after being inspired by the Silicon Valley TV Show. This script is written in Python and Uses different API's such as Twilio and Clarifai Here's the GitHub Link: [https://github.com/mraza007/Pizza-or-Not-a- Pizza](https://github.com/mraza007/Pizza-or-Not-a-Pizza)</comment>


Apple found guilty of willful patent infringement - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/04/apple-found-guilty-of-willful-patent-infringement.ars <comment><USER2> That's a tough one to decide. I read the patent quickly. I know quite a bit about PCI, cache coherency and prediction.

I'd say whoever wrote the patent covered a good idea. Good enough to be patentable? Hum... It's clever. Not completely obvious. But not earth shattering either...

If Apple couldn't find any prior art, meaning the patent authors were truly the first ones to come with this, then I'd have to side with them and say that yes, it's patentable.

I'm just surprised because there were millions of academic and research papers on such topics. No one described this before or even mentioned it in passing?

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure there is such a thing as _not_ "good enough to be patentable". There is a patent for de-boning a turkey, for god sakes. Oh, and a related patent for a "method of removing meat from a bone". We ran into our own patent issue when we managed to duplicate the functionality of a partner's (pending) patent in a week. The wording is so vague that every site remotely like ours would be in violation, were it ever actually accepted, which I doubt it will be.

In short, I have lost all respect for patenting in general and believe it should be abolished entirely.

<comment><USER4> Agreed. I'm sure everyone on hacker news who has done anything has violated some patent in existence somewhere. The quicker we can abolish the whole system, the better. I don't think it's helpful for anyone.

The award of $19m is also pretty ridiculous for something so trivial.

<comment><USER5> _The award of $19m is also pretty ridiculous for something so trivial._

Yeah, but they _willfully_ used a good idea to make money. We should penalize companies that apply good ideas to bring products to market. Don't want any of that...

<comment><USER4> Just goes to show that ideas aren't worthless, assuming you have the money to file a patent and sue someone who executed on the idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm a little torn on this.

On the one hand, I think the patents are abused and it's ridiculous that a company or individual has to look up everything they think of in isolation in order to avoid getting sued.

On the other hand, Apple is known for being a bully with patents, and it's rather satisfying to see them feel the pain a little bit.

</comment><comment><USER4> How about any judge who passes judgement on things like this, has to learn to program just a little bit. Just so they can understand how trivial some things are, compared with others.

It does sound like the original patent was bogus. How can you patent something so obvious and trivial as this? If you can sum up the idea in pretty much a single sentence as you can here, should raise a few flags.

<comment><USER7> I agree with you in that the judge and jury probably didn't understand the first thing about patent at all. Unfortunately that's not what the lawsuit was about. It was that Apple was aware of the patent and infringed upon it anyways. I think the patent process needs some major reform. After all, Apple is trying to (or did by now?) patent the pinch. And then there's the person who patented the use of a laser pointer to play with a cat...

<comment><USER8> OMG, that is actually a patent. I thought you were joking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This was from East Texas where there is no such thing as a bad patent and there is no jury award too big. Note that the two companies are within a few miles of each other and the case could have been tried in SF Federal Court, but then the SF court might have taken a reasoned approach to the case. I hope Apple appeals.

</comment><comment><USER10> You can think of the Industrial Revolution as the birth of a new kind of society and culture -- one that collectively understands and effectively leverages machines.

I suspect that we are in the midst of another deep change. We are seeing the emergence of a society that understands and effectively leverages Networks and Computation. Also, just as the Industrial Revolution was accompanied by deep changes in economics. I think that understanding this will be key. What is the 21st century equivalent of mass production and economies of scale?

I also suspect that all of this is deeply tied to our understanding of _Intellectual Property_.</comment>


Hack Ghost in time for Halloween - <AUTHOR> http://thundrfoot.com/

<comment><USER2> Ghost is the best idea in blogging for a very long time, and it deserves a lot of love. Back to the real roots of free speech and the best of hackers. Hack for Halloween is an awesome idea.

</comment><comment><USER3> Thanks for the tips. will you be keeping up with 4 posts on Ghost a day? ;-)

</comment><comment><USER4> Some great hints and tips for this promising new blogging platform

</comment><comment> no-brainer Quick and simple implementations of useful applications. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER5> V useful ... Thanks!</comment>


Your day just too long? Chilean Quake is here to help you out - <AUTHOR> http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature=2504

<comment><USER2> Please show some sensitivity to the people of Chile and change the title to something more factual, and less sensational.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, too late to edit :( I wasn't aiming for sensational, just dry humor. I apologize.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This makes me wonder -- what is the root source of Earth's energy? The sun? Chemical reactions?

(My research says that tectonic motion is caused because the Earth's core/mantle is hot. OK, but how did it get hot? Is it cooling off? What happens when there's no heat left?)

<comment><AUTHOR> [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=000B2C71-BC...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=000B2C71-BCF0-1C71-9EB7809EC588F2D7)

<comment><USER3> Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> When you find out the day is shortened by milliseconds you really have to think was all that work finding out how much time the day was shortened worth it.

</comment><comment><USER5> Tasteless title, considering the death toll.

<comment><USER6> For passer's by, the title of the actual article reads, "Chilean Quake May Have Shortened Earth Days".</comment></comment>


A Handwritten Math Parser in 100 lines of Python - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/gnebehay/parser <comment><USER2> Slightly more amusingly, but non-equivalently:

      import sys
      from functools import reduce
      from operator import add, sub, mul, truediv as div

      def calc(s, ops=[(add, '+'), (sub, '-'), (mul, '*'), (div, '/')]):
        if not ops:
          return float(s)

        (func, token), *remaining_ops = ops
        return reduce(func, (calc(part, remaining_ops) for part in s.split(token)))

      if __name__ == '__main__':
        print(calc(''.join(sys.argv[1:])))

Does support order of operations, in spite of appearance. Extending to support parentheses is left as an exercise for the reader :)

<comment><USER3> This is pretty clever. There's a video by Jonathan Blow, creator of Braid and currently making a programming language called Jai, that talks about parsing expressions with order of operations. He gives an simple approach that apparently was discovered recently (though he didn't remember the paper name) that does this in a single pass and hardly any more complicated than what you wrote. You can see it here [1]. He also trashes on using yacc/bison before that and on most academic parsing theory.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnctEW1oL-E&t=4578s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnctEW1oL-E&t=4578s)

<comment><USER4> I would like to know the name of that paper if anyone knows.

<comment><USER5> I believe he was talking about Pratt parsing in the video.

Top Down Operator Precedence - Vaughan R. Pratt - [https://tdop.github.io/](https://tdop.github.io/)

What he called "priority" is called "binding power" in the paper.

<comment><USER6> I like Jonathan Blow and all, but he should be careful with trashing academic parsing theory if he thinks that Pratt parsing was only discovered "in the last few years".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Luckily, one can make the grammar LL(1)-parser-friendly by rewriting all the > left recursions in the grammar rules as right recursions.

The problem with this is that it changes all the left-associative operators to be right-associative. For example, `python compute.py '3-2-1'` gives the result 2, but it should be 0.

Edit: Why the downvote? Am I wrong?

<comment><USER8> You are correct, the result 2 from the submitted parser.py is erroneous. Downvoters should be ashamed of their abusive behaviour.

It is not well known amongst programmer who would like to use parsers that most algorithms as implemented in countless software libraries are wrong and broken beyond repair. We should strive to make it a well-known fact and promote those parsers that work properly, so that less programmers and end- users need to suffer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This does not properly handle associativity.

It erroneously computes "7-4+2" as 1, not 5.

</comment><comment><USER10> Doesn't shunting yard solve this pretty simply? Once you have an expression in RPN, building expression trees is pretty easy.

<comment><USER11> I recently did this same project in Javascript and you're correct, shunting yard is perfect for this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Similar calculator written in C++ by Bjarne Stroustrup: [https://www.stroustrup.com/dc.c](https://www.stroustrup.com/dc.c) and in Go by me: [https://github.com/glxxyz/snippets/blob/main/calculator/dc.g...](https://github.com/glxxyz/snippets/blob/main/calculator/dc.go)

Not that much longer, and supports in interactive session with named variables.

</comment><comment><USER13> When I saw "handwritten math" I thought it was something in the vein of [https://photomath.app](https://photomath.app)

</comment><comment><USER14> shameless plug. probably messy code but same mission.

[https://github.com/kuesji/mec](https://github.com/kuesji/mec)

</comment><comment><USER15>
        (3) Exp -> Exp2
        (4) Exp2 -> Exp2 * Exp3
        (5) Exp2 -> Exp2 / Exp3
        (6) Exp2 -> Exp3

This is horrible to read and to maintain. Real grammars use names like "additive_expr", "multiplicative_expr" etc., or maybe "term" and "factor", though I can never remember which is which.

<comment><USER16> For me it's actually the opposite, I find using the priority makes it actually a lot more readable, especially once you have a lot of operators. It's also quite close to a generalized (and potentially dynamic) version that is just a function that takes in a priority and returns the correct parser.

<comment><USER15> It's not that I'm opposed to priorities, it's just that I think it's unreasonably hard to see the typos here:

        (3) Exp -> Exp2
        (4) Exp2 -> Exp2 * Exp3
        (5) Exp3 -> Exp2 / Exp2
        (6) Exp2 -> Exp3

There are reasons why we usually give variables more meaningful names than var1, var2, var3.

(Obviously I agree that if the parser can be expanded dynamically with operators with numeric priorities, then you need numeric priorities. But that is a very different case.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Really nicely-written project. The documentation is clear and sufficiently comprehensive; the project structure is immediately obvious and navigable; and each source file is both intuitively named and very readable.

</comment><comment><USER18> Where would I read up on what's currently considered best practice for implementing a parser? We learned recursive descent in school, but I have heard several remarks that this is no longer considered en-vogue.

<comment><USER19> Recursive descent is what I use today. En-vogue or not, it's the most robust, flexible and - most importantly - maintainable approach in the long term.

<comment><USER20> It's also easy to explain to someone who has not studied parsing, and easy for them to implement. That was why I chose recursive decent when I needed to trick someone into writing a C compiler.

This was back in the early '80s, back when there was much more variety in personal computers both in CPU architecture and operating system, and C was fairly rare on such small machines.

A friend who was a really good programmer but who had not taken the compiler course in college (he was a math major, not a CS major) had started a company aiming to produce a C compiler for a new small computer that was coming out in in a few months, with the compiler meant to be available as soon as the computer came out. He'd hired another friend to write the compiler.

This was well before the internet, when advertising was a lot slower than it is now. The company had to buy its ads in the relevant computer magazines well ahead of time.

That guy writing the compiler was a genius, and was on track to produce an amazing compiler especially given the limited resources of the personal computers back then...but it turned out he was not a _fast_ genius. The compiler would not be finished until long after the new computer launched.

The first friend was getting rather depressed, knowing he had to get someone faster to write the first version of the compiler but not knowing anyone else who could do it and was available.

So one evening I decided to convince him that he could do it himself. I sat him down in front of a whiteboard, and told him he needed three things: a lexical analyzer to tokenize the input, a parser to parse the token stream, and a code generator to turn the parse tree into assembly.

I then outlined recursive decent parsing on the whiteboard, giving examples of using it on C. I was able to convince him that parsing was not hard, and that he could do. I then moved on to code generation, and showed him that he could generate code for a simple stack-based virtual machine, and that could easily then be mapped to the real, register-based CPU--it would be inefficient, but I also went over how later he could add a simple optimizer that could remove a lot of the inefficiency.

Once I had him convinced that he could handle parsing and code generation and some optimization by their deadline, I pretended we were done and started to leave. He interrupted and asked about lexical analysis.

I acted embarrassed that I had forgotten that, and "admitted" that it was the hardest part, and said I'd try to think of something and went home.

Of course that was a lie. When I got home, I quickly wrote a lexical analyzer for C, and then the next morning went back and handed it to him.

He now actually believed that the hardest part was done, and was now sure that he could do the remaining easier parts himself. And he did. We both got a good laugh later when I finally told him that lexical analysis is the easiest part.</comment></comment></comment>


Toyota Prius' Power Split Device - <AUTHOR> http://eahart.com/prius/psd/ <comment><USER2> I had to stare at this for few minutes before I figured out how the ICE part drove the planetary gears. They're mounted on a disc, so that the system in profile is:

            ___
           |   |____
           |MG2|____|
       ___ |___| ||||        ___
      |   |      |   \______|   |
      |MG1|/////////> ______|ICE|
      |___|      |___/      |___|
                 ||||
             ___
            |   |__________
            |MG2|__________|
       ___  |___|  ___  ||||    ___
      |   |       |__ \________|   |
      |MG1|/////>  __> ________|ICE|
      |___|       |___/  __    |___|
                        ||||

</comment><comment><USER3> This video allowed me to understand it better, it truly is a elegant design:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmHpSyTsfm0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmHpSyTsfm0)

<comment><USER4> I enjoyed that video but it also confused me a bit. It is useful in that it clearly makes the point that what's different about the PSD is that, unlike the planetary gear system in the Ford Model T and many others, at no time is any of the three components ever locked or fixed. The sun-gear, planetary gears, and ring gear are always free to rotate, and do.

What was not clear to me was the power flow from the ICE to the wheels. It seemed as if he was saying that the only connection from the ICE to the wheels was indirect, by turning MG1 to generate current that could drive MG2 which drives the wheels. But I don't think that's the case.

I know that if I floor the pedal entering the freeway, the ICE spools up to something like 5000rpm and holds there while the car accelerates. So clearly there is a flexible connection. But is all of that mighty horsepower being transmitted by first being turned into AC in MG1, which flows to MG2, which turns it back into torque? Because that would be rather inefficient I would think.

<comment><USER5> MG1 can provide some resistance against the ICE's motion, causing part of the ICE's power to drive the ring gear instead. So in some cases, you have MG1 acting as generator (thus resisting the ICE) and driving MG2 electrically, AND you have mechanical contribution by the ICE as well.

There's a detailed explanation of all the various modes the gears interact in here: [http://prius.ecrostech.com/original/Understanding/WhatsGoing...](http://prius.ecrostech.com/original/Understanding/WhatsGoingOnAsIDrive.htm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here is a video demonstrating a (possibly less elegant) electrically controlled CVT called the D-Drive:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6zE__J0YIU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6zE__J0YIU)

The concept is straightforward if you visualize mechanical advantage. A high torque at low RPM is the same power output as a low torque at high RPM. If you picture an asymmetric differential with primary power going into it where one wheel is geared higher than the other, then a weaker motor on one of the wheels could control the torque and RPM of the other wheel.

So we probably could have been using electrically assisted CVTs decades ago where a small fraction of the power could have gone into a generator/motor pair at about 90% conversion efficiency to control the output RPM. I can't help but feeling that most of the gains in things like 6 speed automatic transmissions to increase fuel economy have largely been a waste of time. We could have gotten rid of traditional transmissions and gone with a design like the Prius that are simpler, more efficient and more durable. By now economies of scale probably would have made them less expensive as well.

I'm actually a little curious why this hasn't happened with supercars.

<comment><USER7> Supercars generate 5x-10x more torque, which would likely break this sort of transmission. Most automatic transmissions have a similar planetary gear design but use clutches to control power delivery (from the single motor). These clutches will burn up under lots of torque.

Furthermore, it would be hard to implement a way of shifting the CVT to a predictable ratio and holding it there while in a tight turn. (Holding the ratio might not be hard, but the driver will probably want a _predictable_ ratio before going into the turn).

<comment><USER8> > Supercars generate 5x-10x more torque, which would likely break this sort of > transmission

Perhaps, perhaps not. Williams had a working CVT in the FW14C F1 car, which was pre-emptively banned at the behest of their competitors. It probably set back CVT research by a couple of decades, and marked the end of F1 as a tech testbed.

Currently it's worth noting the Toyota are running the Lexus 450h in racing, and the Lexus LS600h runs a 327HP/520Nm V8 though a CVT mated to an electric motor running over 200 HP.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is truly genius engineering. Initially you would think hybrid vehicles must be more complex and less reliable than conventional vehicles because they have another system to fail, right? Turns out Toyota figured out a way to make hybrid vehicles structurally simpler, more reliable and energy efficient. Really well done.

<comment><USER10> I believe the Prius is definitely more complex than a typical ICE car. It has many, many other systems to support the hybrid drive in addition to the power split device, including many that are genuine innovations too. It's a testament to how good that team's engineering is that the Prius is generally considered reliable (unlike the piece of crap that the Toyota ETCS ECU was until the recent crackdown - [http://betterembsw.blogspot.com/2014/09/a-case- study-of-toyo...](http://betterembsw.blogspot.com/2014/09/a-case-study-of- toyota-unintended.html)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> We have owned a Prius for 6 years now. Not sexy, but an incredibly utilitarian car.

The power split device is indeed a brilliant piece of engineering.

</comment><comment><USER12> Planetary gearing has been used in bicycles for over a century. A planetary mechanism built inside the rear freehub provides clean and reliable gearing, albeit at a slight efficiency loss versus derailleur gearing. These gearhubs are extremely popular in many parts of Europe, where utility cycling is the norm.

The greatest example of hub gearing is the Rohloff Speedhub, which features fourteen ratios with an overall range of 526%. It is a true mechanical marvel, and several examples have done over 100,000km without major servicing.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohloff_Speedhub](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohloff_Speedhub)

<comment><USER13> Automobile automatic transmissions (with the exception of Honda transmissions) have also used planetary gearing since their introduction in the 1930s. The Prius is innovative because of its design utilizing MG2 to alter the output speed continuously, not because of its use of planetary gears.

At any rate the Rohloff hub is really cool, and I'm glad the technology has finally trickled down into popular, attainably priced planetary gear hubs like the Shimano Nexus as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Isn't this any oxymoron? "It acts as a continuously variable transmission (CVT) but with a fixed gear ratio"

<comment><USER15> Confusing but not an oxymoron. From the point of view of the ICE the transmission is CVT because the road speed can vary (thanks to the electric motors) whilst keeping the ICE running in the same speed band.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> On a fully electric car, as Tesla, they use a standard transmission? Or there is something inherent to electric motors that need a different technology?

I mean: electric motors can rotate at very high speeds. Do it even need a gearset? Or can it just rotate from 0 RPM to say, 15k RPM? Or there is a torque curve or efficiency issues involved?

<comment><USER17> Sort of. Unlike gas motors which get part of their mechanical advantage from the angular momentum of the flywheel, electric motors have a torque that is strictly proportional to the current through the coils.

AC motors (like the ones Tesla use), work by pushing a sinusoidal wave around the "outside" of the stator, while a similar sinusoidal wave (at a retarded phase) is run inside the stator. This creates a magnetic field which is "ahead" of the stator's field (well in forward mode) which "pulls" it toward the field. The torque curve is "constant" and the speed is limited only by how well you can modulate that voltage. (and of course the mechanical construction)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> That power-split device is genius. But, I'm a fan of the latest trend where you put enough batteries in to supply the power needed to completely propel the car by electric motor. That way, the gas engine only runs a generator at low speed (series hybrid), then clutches in directly to the wheels to avoid conversion losses at freeway speed. You still have no "gears" (so it feels like driving a CVT), but the design is far simpler and even more efficient. The Mitsubishi PHEV does this, as well as the new Accord Plugin (I think).

</comment><comment><USER19> Took me a bit to understand that the four "planet" gears are connected by a ring (faint shadow in the animation, better shown on mouse-over), which is where the combustion engine pumps power.

</comment><comment><USER20> Here is a breakdown of the Volt 2.0 drivetrain, ignore the thread title, the diagrams and description are good

[http://gm-volt.com/forum/showthread.php?158881-New-Voltec-ap...](http://gm- volt.com/forum/showthread.php?158881-New-Voltec-appears-to-be-an-engineering- masterpiece)

</comment><comment><USER21> Very cool. I always thought motor and ICE were series connected, such that the motor would have to push back against the ICE to move the car. I suppose the still are though when with this gear setup.

</comment><comment><USER14> Is this the same gearing setup used by the Chevy Volt?

<comment><AUTHOR> They're very similar, yes. Here's a detailed article comparing and contrasting the two:

[http://www.motortrend.com/features/editorial/1010_unbolting_...](http://www.motortrend.com/features/editorial/1010_unbolting_the_chevy_volt_to_see_how_it_ticks/)</comment></comment>


How the Web Became Unreadable (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/2016/10/how-the-web-became-unreadable/ <comment><USER2> It's a bit ironic that this article was posted on wired of all places. The poster child of glitzy, hip and unreasable.

I have books and magazines that are half again as old as I am and the letters are BLACK and the colors are often still SHARP if a bit faded.</comment>