Leap: A new gesture based interface for devices - <AUTHOR> http://www.leapmotion.com/

<comment><USER3> Not to be cynical, but this reminds me a little of Alan Kay's comment:

""" By the way, Sketchpad was the first system where it was discovered that the light pen was a very bad input device. The blood runs out of your hand in about 20 seconds, and leaves it numb. And in spite of that it's been re- invented at least 90 times in the last 25 years. """

from <http://archive.org/details/AlanKeyD1987> around 7:10

<comment><USER4> I think there will be some things it's great at and some it's terrible at. Here's one for free: how about using this to create the Rosetta Stone of sign language? Or a portable sign-to-speech translator? (These are hard problems for other reasons, but this thing brings you a lot closer.)

Think of it like this: Alan Kay isn't wrong, but you could say the same thing about any input. The mouse is a very bad input device. It takes forever to use it for on-screen typing. The keyboard is a very bad input device. It can't tell how hard you're hitting each key when you do musical typing in GarageBand. The microphone is a very bad input device. Voice control is way slower than just clicking the menu item you want ...

If this thing is real, then within a couple of years there will be a dozen reasons to refuse to buy a computer without one.

<comment><USER5> (I like the idea of a pressure-sensitive keyboard. Could be useful for music. Probably hard to engineer in a way that would be useful and which wouldn't compromise button input. Blue-switch cherry keyboards are annoying to type on. Still, interesting idea.)

You're papering over the problems with relativism.

The keyboard is rapid to use and flexible. Although it has the possibility of physical health problems with RSI, with light pen interaction you have the certainty of pain and fatigue. Sign speakers don't need sign-to-speech - <USER2> are keyboards already. There's been multiple attempts at text to speech as well, and the result is more fiddly, less flexible and less rapid than you can get with a keyboard.

There could be an argument that keyboards are complicated and have a learning curve. But computers are the super-tool of our age. Why would you not learn use of a tool that gives you combines great power with flexibility.

I think we still have discussions about alternative user interfaces that hark back to the way humans interact with each other because most of the population are not yet expert keyboard users. This will change. Once the developed world is flush with expert keyboard users, user interfaces will go back to putting greater emphasis on them.

<comment><USER6> I don't think it's one or the other. Has the mouse replaced the keyboard? It's an additional way to interact.

Hell, I could have used it a little earlier today - I was bleaching my hair and realized my machine wasn't playing any music. Currently my options for remedying this are (1) poking at the media keys on my keyboard (and getting bleach all over them), or (2) picking up my Wacom stylus, going to the Dock to bring up iTunes, and hitting its play button, thus smearing bleach EVERYWHERE. With one of these sitting on my desk and wired into some global hotkeys, I'd have had the additional option of waving my hand in a particular way.

I'm also thinking I totally want to incorporate one of these into the media PC I'm working on based on a Raspberry Pi, a pico projector, and half of a rubber cat[1]. Slouch on the couch, wave my hands in precise gestures to control it instead of having to bring up a mouse somehow.

Using it for long, sustained periods? Nah. Using it now and they? Oh yeah.

[1] the whole thing is disguised as Nyan Cat, with the projector poking out of its snarling mouth and the plaque it's mounted on painted like a Pop-tart.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm sad the word 'robot' hasn't appeared in this thread yet. Let's correct that.

Visual slam is great for medium distances, but pointclouds aren't really that dense and are slow to update. Also the lidar to make the point clouds is stupid expensive.

Add one of these guys onto your robot and you've got a really cool set of 'wiskers.' Short range, highly sensitive, super fast update. I'd love to put several of these on a robot and use that to give it a sensitive field surrounding its body.

Depending on how open the software and hardware are this will be a great addition to the robotics community.

<comment><USER8> Great point. As far as openness, I'm concerned by this talk of an app store.

<comment><USER9> Even putting aside concerns about openness, the mere fact that they are talking this early about an app store is evidence that they're not focused on delivering value. Apple did not start talking about an app store for iDevices until they had millions of satisfied customers. I mean, why not use the Mac App Store? Maybe they have a good answer to that question, but if so, they should tell us what it is.

<comment><USER10> Why would they use the Mac App Store? To throw profits to Apple?

<comment><USER11> I was thinking Apple had this technology patented...maybe they have a licensing agreement that requires use of App Store.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Dev Kits (free) Ship international within 1-3 months.

Pre-orders ($70) only ship domestic (for now) around winter.

20,000 dev kits are being made. We want to ensure this tech becomes ubiquitous.

We're getting slammed with launch response. But if you guys have questions, we'll try to answer them here shortly.

-Chris Community Builder

<comment><USER13> Waiting for the load to drop so I can try to get a preorder!

Question: How can you render the "other side" of the hand at the 51+ second mark? If this is indeed possible, that's quite a remarkable technology you have.

<comment><USER14> I suspect it's an illusion and that does not represent their true 3d point cloud. It's probably a skinned 3d mesh of a hand which is then moving in sync with the detected hand.

<comment><USER15> Their webpage suggests they can handle multiple devices connected to the one PC, so I was wondering whether they had another sensor out of shot above the scene pointing downwards.

Actually - scrap that. A better hunch is that it's not structured light at all, but actually an electric field sensor. See this Quora answer (disclaimer, by someone who "knows shit all about this"): [http://www.quora.com/Leap- Motion/What-is-the-technology-behi...](http://www.quora.com/Leap-Motion/What- is-the-technology-behind-Leap-Motion)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is very cool technology. The company was formerly "Ocuspec". One break- through is using very inexpensive hardware (<$5 at RadioShack) to get that sub-mm resolution. At the other end of the spectrum, they can cover a football field (and more in the future). What they are showing now is just the beginning. Kudos to rolling out with an SDK. I can inly imagine what sorts of applications developers will dream up.

<comment><USER17> What's the hardware? Two infrared cameras and a laser dot pattern of some sort?

<comment><USER18> 2 normal digital cameras and a uv or infrared dot pattern. I think the glass is a uv filter. I got to play around with one at work.

<comment><USER12> Close enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Let's have a constructive comment thread. Instead conveying love or hate for it, how about listing the cases it's good and bad for.

 _good_

* Fruit Ninja - made for single finger input, short gameplay

* Pinching and zooming maps - good because it's usually a short activity

* CAD camera interactions - good for periodic strange rotation needs or showing a client that doesn't understand the normal movement hotkeys

* Periodic writing with pencil tool

 _bad_

* Shooters - can't turn player around, gameplay too long.

* Longterm writing or drawing - too tiring

<comment><USER19> > _Periodic writing with pencil tool_

Very _very_ inconvenient. Writing on air is completely different and considerably more tricky that writing on paper. Physically more demanding too. It's one of those things that sound nice in theory, but not really practical.

<comment><USER14> You're right. I just tried it (not with the leap hardware) - the inability to "lift up" off the paper without leaving the sensor zone is weird. No haptic feedback when you're on the "paper" and not.

<comment><USER20> How about writing in the large - I am thinking big movements, like when writing on a marker board?

<comment><USER19> Still need to lift the marker to separate the words. And to touch it back rather precisely so not to have the next word to be an inch below the first one.

<comment><USER21> ain't feedback a relic of all 'press-double-hard-to-be-sure' buttons? With handwriting recognition it shouldn't be that hard. also, <http://madebymany.com/blog/wizards-and-haptic-gestures>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'd love to get one of these and play with it. Will the SDK and spec for talking to it be freely available after the initial batch of preorders and free dev kits?

As a counterexample, Emoviv gave a TED talk a while ago showing off a headset that lets you control your computer with your mind. When you visit their website you discover that you can only develop with a $500 "developer edition" headset that comes with a single, nontransferrable license to use the SDK (additional licenses are $99). The consumer model of the headset only runs approved applications.

<comment><USER12> Dev Kits ship for free to 20,000 developers in 1-3 months.

Pre-orders are for consumers at $70 and ship this winter.

The idea is to give all the hackers maximum access to create awesome apps and then deliver a healthy shiny ecosystem to the consumer. Also, we'd like to see a larger shift towards people creating things, so encouraging early adopters to get aboard the coding train is a positive trend.

It's a huge new interaction space, and we're looking for innovators to explore it!

<comment><USER22> That's awesome. Are there any differences between the consumer model and the dev kit, other than the price (and will people who bought the consumer model be able to develop with it later)?

Other people have asked about openness… will there be any kind of control over what programs can use it (i.e. do they need to be approved by you guys to work?)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> More demos: [http://cnettv.cnet.com/control-your-desktop-wave-your- hand/9...](http://cnettv.cnet.com/control-your-desktop-wave-your- hand/9742-1_53-50124905.html)

Funding announcement: [http://www.marketwatch.com/story/leap-motion- announces-1275-...](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/leap-motion- announces-1275-million-series-a-funding-round-led-by-highland-capital- partners-2012-05-09)

</comment><comment><USER23> The first thing I thought after watching the video was how much money will they make with pre-orders on this site and how much would they have made with a kickstarter campaign?

</comment><comment><USER24> I really can't imagine using this for a longer period of time. Maybe as an extension of keyboard and mouse/trackpad that you would use to scroll trough pages when researching something or stuff like that. You still need a keyboard to type as far as I can see.

That being said; I really like the idea and would love to know the tech behind it.

</comment><comment><USER25> I can't see why there is so much negativity as to end use applications. I can see lots of potential for this - slideshow presentations, laptops (goodbye annoying trackpad), as well as a stylus-and-tablet replacement for designers, etc. etc.

I think the key however the key will be in the recognition of subtler gestures. If you can show me a man using two hands to type, then moving them not far from the keyboard to activate simple gestures for navigating a document, I'd be really sold that this is for everybody.

<comment><USER26> If they claim a submillimeter accuracy; I don't see why you can't type without a physical keyboard.

<comment> mike-cardwell Haptic feedback

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There's no perceptible latency in its response to gestures -- I'm very impressed assuming it's not a rigged demo. (In videos I've seen of the Kinect the software responds to a gesture only after a noticeable fraction of a second.)

<comment><USER27> It's not a rigged demo. (I saw them film it.)

<comment><USER8> Fantastic -- thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The cynic in me thinks:

\- I have to see it before I believe it.

\- If this works as advertised, this company will never ship the product. They will be bought within months for a huge sum of money, even if they do not want to be bought. Reason for that is:

\- Litigation, litigation! They will need deep pockets to defend themselves against patent claims.

<comment><USER29> Do you seriously think they haven't got that covered?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> this isn't a concept - I got to play with the Fruit ninja demo as well as the point cloud when I interviewed there. It really is that fast.

</comment><comment><USER31> Already a lot of negativity here...

To me this looks amazing and although LEAP seem to be pushing for you to get rid of your mouse/keyboard, personally I think this is probably best as an addition to it. Imagine if you had one of these built into the keyboard.

You're typing an email need to add a location switch over to google maps, hands off keyboard as you manipulate it around to get a decent resolution, 'tap' the address bar to copy it, swipe left to switch back to the email program, tap again to paste and boom carry on typing.

You wouldn't need to be using it all the time for it to be extremely useful.

We keyboard jockeys sometimes forget how much faster something like this would make the less shortcut-key knowledgeable users!

<comment><USER12> as a side note. Consider how many positions you can put your fingers into. Now both hands?

Now imagine if each position was mapped to a different shortcut...

How many unique positions could you map? (compare to keyboard).

<comment><USER32> I bet someone, somewhere is already planning an app where you downvote a post by flipping the finger.

<comment> mike-cardwell Surely that would be a thumbs up/down motion in the manner that Romans used to decide the fate of gladiators.

<comment><USER33> Honestly a lot of gestures based controls of the floating in mid air kind are prone to tiring you out.

I suspect that unless there is some form of support, this may be like drinking Pepsi: Sweet on the first sip, but after a while, not as great.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Forget the desktop. With the sensor being this small, I can imagine hanging this from your neck and have gesture sensing anywhere, SixthSense-style. ( <http://www.pranavmistry.com/projects/sixthsense/> )

</comment><comment><USER35> I think i'll need to demo this unit before I purchase it. I remember getting burned in the early nineties by the power glove's cool commercial: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93iDhnBcMGo>

</comment><comment><USER36> Interfaces like this look cool in movies but your hands aren't 'designed' to be above your heart for an extended period of time. Now if you had something like a drafting table with a touch screen I'd be first in line.

<comment><USER37> Agreed, but I don't want a replacement interface; I want a companion to my keyboard.

Type type type. Throw that away. Type type. Make that bigger. Type type type type. Run that.

I can't wait.

<comment><USER38> Mount it above your monitor pointing down instead of setting it below pointing up. Basically, point it at your keyboard. Type, type, type, lift your wrist a couple inches, pinch, zoom, drag.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> If you're an interface designer (I am), you should pre-order this thing. This will be a standard form of interaction in a couple of years and you should jump on it early and start figuring out the kinks. Too cool.

<comment><USER40> It really won't. Have you any idea how tiring waving your arms around like that would be all day?

There are so many use cases where it doesn't even work that would require a complete rethink of how anything is presented on in internet. For example how about the HN comments where it's pasted as code and it scrolls horizontally. Target that and scroll it with that system. As soon as you have a single use case where a mouse and keyboard is more effective you blow your value.

<comment><USER41> I'm familiar with the usual "arm-waving sucks" arguments against gesture-based inputs, but I was just wondering -- is there any reason this couldn't just replace the touchpad on laptops, maybe being integrated into the forward edge for a larger field of view?

They _do_ claim sub-mm accuracy; maybe applications in the small are realistic.

So instead of arm-waving, think of rotating your hand just above the touchpad to rotate and object in 3d space, but briefly. And the touchpad would still work like a regular touchpad, but maybe you don't even need to touch it.

Sub-mm accuracy seems to imply that really subtle gestures could work.

<comment><USER42> Not being able to un-touch your pointing device on your laptop would really suck. It'd have to be mixed with a capacitive plate that knows when you touch it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Better start working on my arm muscles...

</comment><comment><USER44> I'd love something that was a combination of the two, a touch surface and something like this looking 'down' toward that surface at what my hands were doing. I could make typing like motions on the touch surface for typing. But more importantly mostly my hands would be resting on something rather than hanging out in front of me.

</comment><comment><USER45> As a concept this is pretty awesome and it removes the need to touch your screen so I guess you can move the sensor closer to a more relaxed place, I can see it getting tiring pretty quickly. Just like a standing desk though I guess you just get used to it over time.

Aside from end use issues, the tech behind this is very nice

<comment><USER43> Any idea what the tech behind it is? They're very vague on the website, and my patent searches are turning up empty.

I guess some kind of infrared thing?

<comment><USER46> I suspect infrared time-of-flight. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-of- flight_camera>

You can get pretty impressive accuracy and precision at short distances, and the plane of depth points matches what their demo video shows: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d6KuiuteIA&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d6KuiuteIA&feature=player_embedded#t=53s)

<comment><USER17> I've read some other comments claiming that they can cover football stadium sized venues. If that's true, I think that suggests laser illumination.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.

Believe it when I see it live.

</comment><comment><USER48>
      We asked one simple question: 'What feel[']s natural?'
      Two or three hundred thousand[s] lines of code later
      The Leap is a small iPod[ ]sized USB peripheral
      Do you support [w]indows?
      When do dev-kits ship[ ]

They are in serious need of a copyeditor.

</comment><comment><USER49> Very interesting and looks slick (in the videos).

So could this be a Flutter.io competitor? Flutter.io is purely software driven. I feel flutter will release a SDK/API as well at some point.

So I think intuition suggests that whoever can execute these best, will likely succeed:

\- Rich feature set to capture gestures.

\- Simple API. Should be easy to integrate with 3rd party apps.

\- Performance.

Leap already has an edge in that they are releasing a SDK, Flutter should follow this quickly (hopefully). Flutter makes it easy to get it to people as it is just pure software, but can they achieve capturing rich gestures?

Exciting times.

</comment><comment><USER50> From FAQ

 _How can I get a free developer kit?_

We're distributing thousands of kits to qualified developers, because, well, we want to see what kinds of incredible things you can all do with our technology. So wow us. Actually, register to get the SDK and a free Leap device first, and then wow us.

 _Do you support windows?_

Yes! We also support native touch emulation for Windows 8.

 _How about Linux?_

Linux support is on the agenda.

 _When do dev-kits ship_

Depending on which batch you're in; anywhere from 1-3 months.

 _What are the tech specifications for the LEAP?_

TBD.

</comment><comment><USER51> While waving your hand in front of a monitor looks pretty cool, its definitely not going to work well for most work or extended use. Also, I think the reason touch-based devices have caught on so well is that we like the tactile feedback of dragging our finger across a defined plane.

I'd be interested to see what you could do if you projected an image onto a work surface to make that more interactive. Seems like it would be easier to draw or manipulate 2D things on a plane rather than trying to wave your hand in 3D space. (Image Manipulation, Graphic Editing, Maps, etc)

</comment><comment><USER52> I've been searching all over for something like this as a potential mouse replacement to help with my finger tendinitis. I just pre-ordered. Also an interface designer, so I'm excited to see where this goes.

</comment><comment><USER53> So the obvious weakness here is that this will be less precise than a control system that uses direct touch such as a keyboard, mouse or touch pen. It looks fun and dramatic though.

</comment><comment><USER54> I want to play Modern Warfare 3 (or more likely BLOPS2) with that thing.

I've already started thinking about some gestures that could be used for this, but I'm wondering, how hard it's going to be on the hand(s)? I mean with the mouse and keyboard (supposing PC gaming) the hands are resting on the table 90% of the time, with this the hand(s) will be up in the air.

...unless someone puts a nice glass table on top of that thing so that my hands could rest... could this work?

</comment><comment><USER55> Wow.. I would love to develop for this.

I dropped out of state U. after my 3rd year (math major), but that was years ago. At my current start-up, I have recently been forced to learn much more than I was expecting to about probabilistic graphical models and curve similarity measures (gladly though; always been interested in pattern recognition).

Anyone with a vision for this, consider dropping me a line. I might be able to help.

<comment><USER56> I'd love to integrate it with my KType application ( <http://ktype.net> ) or build a new software that converts hand gestures / ASL to speech. I think it's totally doable and would be a lot of fun technically too. What do you think?

<comment><USER55> Well, off the top of my head I don't see a straightforward way to integrate with KType (nice work btw!). Just because there would be so many possibilities for mapping hand gestures to the KType actions/commands.

On the other hand, converting sign language to text/speech _seems_ like it _should_ be quite straightforward. Not knowing anything about sign language, I'm assuming signs map (more or less) one-to-one with words. The input from LEAP appears to be extremely high resolution, so if the sign gestures are properly normalized (and judging from the demo video, it looks like the LEAP SDK itself already does a good degree of input normalization), you _should_ be able to just train your classifier (neural network, SVM, etc.) right out of the box.

Of course, things are never as easy as they look so in all likelihood there are plenty of complications I'm completely overlooking at first glance. But I agree with you 100% that it sounds totally doable.

<comment><USER57> So sign language isn't really one-to-one, but that is something that I really want to work with, so I look forward to getting a unit. I think this system has a lot of potential as a learning tool! Awesome job guys!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> I'm calling fake or very optimistic to say the least.

The promo video doesn't show a physical device, the price point seems ridiculously low especially for a resolution of 0.01mm. And also there is this <http://bit.ly/KOqDi2> the physical hand and the point cloud don't match. It's like someone is moving their hand(s) fast to mimic the movement of the visualization.

<comment><USER59> Been running a little through all the vids of it around.

I'm still undecided. Perspective on each supposedly "fake" screenshot could explain the mismatch. In your example, you actually don't see how far his fingers are apart. Also, it might be attributed to that particular finger going to the borders of the 3D interaction space of Leap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Looks like it'd be a nice augment to the usual keyboard & mouse/trackpad setup (& to a touchscreen, too).

For some tasks (e.g. changing to a diff browser tab five across from the current one) I can imagine that pointing at it would be the quickest and easiest way to switch to it.

I can imagine it'd get a bit tiring if you were relying on it too exclusively.

</comment><comment><USER61> Google should be all over this. Microsoft has Kinect, there are rumors Apple has been working on it, too, and I know Google hired the product lead from Kinect a while ago (George something), but I haven't seen much come out of that. This could be very useful for Google TV and who knows what else in the future. Better to integrate it in the Google X lab.

</comment><comment><USER62> wonder what they thought about 'gorilla arm'.also the demo did not show a way to type information. but looks really cool :))

<comment><USER63> > also the demo did not show a way to type information

I don't think people in the gesture interface market are looking for ways to replace the essential function of the keyboard. For all intents and purposes, it's probably the best way to input textual data into a machine.

<comment><USER62> Keyboards are the also the only way ( until now) to input textual data.not implementing that makes this at best a companion device to existing setup and not a replacement. [edit]. voice to text transcriptions can be an alternative..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> They should mount this inside a keyboard, I don't want an extra dongle randomly lying on my table.

On a completely different note, though, I wonder what the range on these things is. Could have excellent applications to robotics, I hope they don't completely close the vision outputs behind their own gesture APIs or something...

</comment><comment><USER65> It'll be interesting to see how this pans out - but I can't see it being widely adopted in the home any time soon. People who want gesture based stuff will use Kinect.

However, I can see this being huge in the commercial market. I can easily imagine using something like this in a shop, or for presentations at work.

<comment><USER6> Googling for "kinect price" gives me numbers of about $150; this is priced at $70. Even if we assume this is a discounted price to lure in pre-orders, that still leaves room for it to cost less.

I would not think of getting a Kinect but my thought upon seeing the video was "I want to get one of these and use it to control the RasPi I'm sticking in some fake taxidermy along with a pico projector for a micro media PC."

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Motions like they use in the fighter jet game or the shooting game (and some others) may not come naturally to everyone. In fact the one for continuous shooting specifically seems to be counter intuitive.

But the idea of bringing such gesture based interaction to just about any device is really great.

<comment><USER67> Motions like using a mouse or a keyboard are not a single bit more intuitive for flying planes or shootings guns. It just an issue of familiarisation with the interface as it was with the mouse, as it was the keyboard.

Beside that, it really doesn't matter as these were only two examples of a large variety of possible applications. If it doesn't fit the need - don't use it. There are other interfaces. There is no need for one interface to rule them all but for interfaces that really hits the spot for particular applications.

Regarding Leap: Looks really promising. Though i would prefere if it would be "hidden". Anyhow, can't wait to get my on it. Or over it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> At that size and price point, it could have a significant impact on mobile UI. I'm looking at you, google glass.

</comment><comment><USER69> Windows 8's tabletification will possibly end up being a smart move with the introduction of this thing.

</comment><comment><USER70> This is gonna be a pain in the arm for photoshoppers. But i'm interested to see this technology grow into popularity. I can't believe we're actually having something like this in our time. 20 years ago, you can only see stuff like these in science fiction novels and movies.

</comment><comment><USER71> Love it. I was just wishing for this recently [1].

Now they just gotta turn it into a protocol and build it into monitors.

1\. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3988700>

</comment><comment><USER72> Add some weight bracelets on your wrists and work out while using your computer:)

</comment><comment><USER73> Surprised by the negative reactions here. If Kinect has shown us anything it is this thing will be used for a host of things not shown in their demo videos. Robots, Interactive Art, etc,

</comment><comment><USER74> ChrisFornof: What is the normal workflow after filling the dev kit application form? I got redirected to the homepage with no confirmation step or email. I wouldn't want to double-apply.

<comment><USER75> I was sent to a result page that read, "Your developer application has been confirmed. Thanks for your interest in Leap."

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> Well I just pre-ordered one and applied for the dev kit. I don't even have a specific plan for this yet, but I think the 3-d object scanning ability alone makes this worth it.

</comment><comment><USER77> That looks like Tony Stark's interface, except this is in 2D.

</comment><comment><USER78> Did anyone get an email confirmation after applying for the dev kit? After I hit the button, it reloaded to the home page, and I haven't seen any emails.

<comment><USER12> Website is a little wonky at the moment. Bear with us guys. We'll get you your kits soon enough.

<comment><USER78> Just wondering if I should fill it out a second time, since I never saw a confirmation screen. I understand it will take some time to ship, just want to know the application actually made it into the database! :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Another interesting application not mentioned yet is 3d scanning... and their site mentions 3d modeling work as the initial motivation for the product.

</comment><comment><USER79> We're almost there: <http://youtubedoubler.com/49ni> (LEAP vs Minority Report)

</comment><comment><USER80> I already want this as a captcha solution:

Say 3 with your fingers to prove you are not a robot.

</comment><comment><USER81> No SDK love for Canadian developers?

<comment><USER12> Dev kits go to anyone internationally. Pre-orders are domestic only (for the moment).

And we've got nothing against our northern neighbors, nor is it some grand favoritism conspiracy. Pure rollout logistics. Lots of people are getting confused on this point, we'll announce more shortly.

<comment><USER82> Hmm I've just pre-ordered two from Japan (and applied to the dev program too). I believe the form included international locations, can you confirm it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> I see a lot of potential for a new class of musical instruments based on waving your hands.

</comment><comment><USER84> I absolutely love the concept of using something akin to chopsticks to manipulate data.

</comment><comment><USER85> Beside Google Maps and fruit ninja, what are the apps demoed in the video ?

</comment><comment><USER86> First thing that came to my mind was Tony Stark's computer.

</comment><comment><USER87> Does this have no lag or is that a concept video?

<comment><USER16> There is very little, if any, perceptible lag.

</comment></comment><comment><USER88> not good...it's tiring to not rest your fingers on a surface. your muscles need to rest, your fingers need to touch.

</comment><comment><USER89> signing and finger spelling. If it can be made portable, it is a HUGE breakthrough for certain people.

</comment><comment><USER90> This looks awesome, but very tiring.

</comment><comment><USER91> Structured light?

</comment><comment><USER92> I'm happy that the team took their passion to execute one something so effectively.

But not all ideas are good. It violates Fitt's law by placing all user interaction within a vertical band next to your computer. This is very uncomfortable and decreases the usefulness for most applications (because missing the interaction band is likely).

If these were wireless gloves that I could more easily (with my arms in any location) then I'd love this.

<comment><USER93> "This is very uncomfortable and decreases the usefulness for most applications"

You are forgetting that "most applications" are designed for a mouse and keyboard.

A more useful critique would be to analyze the type of applications that can be built with LEAP in mind.

<comment><USER92> Why would "a more useful critique" be looking at pro-LEAP applications? Is it because this what you want to hear? LEAP is a bad idea, not bad due to software, bad due to the constraints of human beings.

You're literally arguing a logical fallacy by the way: <http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Negative_proof>

<comment><USER93> You don't understand my point. I was picking at how you claimed that X was bad because it can't be used for applications designed for Y.

I also doubt your understanding of "negative proof"... But that's off-topic

<comment><USER92> I addressed your point directly.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A Zip Archive Walkthrough - <AUTHOR> http://i.imgur.com/BXuOFqT.jpg

<comment><USER2> This looked so much like an XKCD comic that I started looking through the archives to see what other interesting comics I had missed.</comment>


Ballmer: You want XP, we'll keep XP - <AUTHOR> http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9927721-7.html?tag=newsmap

<comment><USER2> they should keep xp as long as needed (its too soon)

\- The article mentions windows 7, which seems to be even more "ram weighted" than vista; actually it seems to be just the full version of vista including features they wanted to include in the initial release

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7>

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm actually pretty happy with Win2K

</comment><comment><USER4> Sounds to me like they're setting the stage for a big, dramatic "XP Life Extended" announcement.</comment>


Ask HN: How to get into game development? - <AUTHOR>

I'm interested in getting into game development. Many of you are established in this field and I would like to ask you:<p>What are the mainstream software development platforms for game development? What skills would increase my chances being hired as a game developer? Is there a particular programming language or development framework that I should focus on? What general advice would you give to someone who is considering entering the field? What are the best companies to work for as a game developer? <comment><USER2> Step 1: Pick a popular platform.

Step 2: Make some games. If you can't think of a game or the games you want to make are too hard for now then learn by trying to re-make someone else's game.

Step 3: If you find yourself saying you're making a framework or engine before you've made dozens of games punch yourself.

You might like getting started with Unity3d: [http://unity3d.com/](http://unity3d.com/) or Cocos2D [http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/](http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/) and there's a lot of devs here: [http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev](http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Good links.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Here is a free class on HTML 5 Game Development from Udacity:

[https://www.udacity.com/course/cs255](https://www.udacity.com/course/cs255)

Start building a github repo with examples of things you have done...they don't have to be magic.

<comment><AUTHOR> What examples of really popular games are there that were written in HTML 5?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Don't do it. It's a terrible place, filled with bad software, worse customers, and awful markets.

EDIT:

More helpfully, if you really insist on going down this sad, dark path, some things.

For native development, learn C (with SDL) and then either C++ or Obj-C. Make some stupid and fun little games. Then learn OpenGL or DirectX and make stupid and fun little 3d games. Don't spend endless cycles writing libraries for the game you'll never make--just write some code.

For web development, learn some Javascript and jQuery and make some dumb games in the browser. Then learn Three.js and make some dumb 3d games in the browser. Then, pickup a modern backend framework (node.js, rails, or laravel) and create a site with persistent score tracking and leaderboards. Rinse, repeat while adding more features.

Most importantly, just make games. Use RPG Maker, use native code, use Unity, use whatever-- _just make games._

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a great reply :).

<comment><USER4> Hopefully it helps. If you have any more questions, feel free to shoot me an email.

<comment><AUTHOR> Will do.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: When did the Y Combinator home page change? - <AUTHOR>

I was looking at the YCombinator home page today, and really liked the changes they made. <comment><AUTHOR> [http://www.ycombinator.com](http://www.ycombinator.com)

</comment><comment><USER2> Nice moderator view of Hacker News. ;)

[http://www.ycombinator.com/images/home/HackerNews.png](http://www.ycombinator.com/images/home/HackerNews.png)

<comment><USER3> Well, that's hilarious.

<comment><USER4> The extra options are especially funny in the context of #5 in the news list in the screenshot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> About 9am. [http://blog.ycombinator.com/new-y-combinator- website](http://blog.ycombinator.com/new-y-combinator-website)

</comment><comment><USER5> This morning :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I figured it was probably this morning. I hadn't been to the home page in a week so I thought maybe I missed the announcement or something.</comment></comment>


Tracking down the roots of "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" (2012) - <AUTHOR> https://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/tracking-down-the-roots-of-a-super-word/ <comment><USER2> > … Merriam-Webster's director of defining, Steve Perrault …

That is an awesome job title!

</comment><comment><USER3> How do we know this 'smoking gun' wasn't a planted fabrication?

<comment><USER4> But why would they do that after they had already won the copyright infringement case? It seems like it would be pointlessly risky to perpetrate the fraud at that point.

If Disney faked it and it was found out, wouldn't that strengthen the plaintiff's case on appeal?</comment></comment>


An Image Processing Startup with No Servers - <AUTHOR> http://www.99serverless.com/index.php/2017/11/25/building-a-serverless-image-processing-saas <comment><USER2> This came at the _perfect_ time, thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad, it helped. :)</comment></comment>


What's Holding Back Business Formation? - <AUTHOR> http://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/publications/economic-letter/2017/july/what-is-holding-back-business-formation/ <comment><USER2> The difficulty of getting health insurance for small companies perhaps?

<comment><AUTHOR> Prescient, the other link I submitted about Single-Payer has totally blown up. There are a lot of frictions to be sure.</comment></comment>


Venture-backed Co Filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy – to evade a patent dispute - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/08/this-venture-backed-company-just-filed-for-chapter-11-bankruptcy-to-evade-a-patent-dispute/ <comment><USER2> This seems like an incredibly odd strategy and unlikely to be successful. Not a bankruptcy lawyer, but I'm not sure what they are hoping to achieve. Yes, the automatic stay would temporarily prevent BrightEdge from obtaining injunctive relief to prevent the U.S. Searchmetrics sub from using the technology at issue in the patent lawsuit. But that's not going to last forever.

BrightEdge is probably the biggest creditor, by far. So, in the end, what? BrightEdge ends up owning Searchmetrics U.S.?

That aside, I don't see how this passes the smell test for a bankruptcy filing. One contingent liability for alleged patent infringement provides a basis for Searchmetrics U.S. claiming its insolvent? It should probably just get dismissed as a bad-faith filing.</comment>


Lovecraft and Poe combined by an AI agent to create a new story - <AUTHOR> https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0771SXB4Z <comment><USER2> Seems like gibberish.</comment>


Extreme weather and extreme politics (2018) - who-knows https://twitter.com/RogerPielkeJr/status/987052536883376128 <comment><AUTHOR> Wow. That guy attracted serious railroading and pushback by people who didn't like that his data didn't align with their talking points.

He's not denying climate change, he's presenting scientific data that contradicts the narrative thst climate change results in increased losses due to weather events/disasters.

<comment><USER2> He's one scientist pushing against the consensus scientific view, and the people most keen to promote him to the general public are those who want any excuse to deny climate-change. He himself may be honest, but it essentially doesn't matter, such is politics.

<comment><USER3> > such is politics.

Attempting to get people fired is just politics?

<comment><USER2> Who gets to do public-facing science writing is political yes. Whether it's good or not, I don't know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's interesting to note that he's being attacked in part because republicans are relying on him. Of course they don't do this because of any sort of scientific integrity on their part, but only because they happen to agree with him on some specific points. And of course the democrats do not point that hypocrisy out since they're doing the same thing.

He's also only addressing his area of expertise, extreme weather events and their cost, not the overall risks triggered by climate change (such as ecosystems collapse, or triggering additional release of greenhouse gas via thawing). That is, at no point is he denying other areas of this (large) topic.

And yet this is sufficient to get lies (including in this thread) about him being a climate change denier, which clearly he's not, or that he's "against the consensus scientific view". He's against the consensus _political_ view. His work is based on the IPCC. The IPCC has its problems, but it is an international body that's pretty mainstream and recognized as such by many countries. The IPCC assess the validity and importance of papers published around the world, their reports are the opposite of fringe.

To me an important point is that this is just one more example of the supremacy of dogma over facts in US public discourse, and that it impacts _both_ the left _and_ the right. For us non-American it is (I assume) pretty easy to spot crazy republicans and their agenda: they're usually quite shameless about it and not very subtle. And so we are somewhat immune to their ideas. What I'm growing increasingly concerned with is that we tend to consider the democrats as the comparatively "reasonable party", the ones that accept facts and science, the ones that are more humanistic. I don't think they are, I think they're just a hell of a lot more insidious about it.

<comment><USER5> As a US right-winger I believe that climate change is pushed by the democrats because it provides the justification for unlimited and centralized government intervention in people's lives, which is what they wanted anyway because of ideological reasons. The actual impact of climate change is therefore irrelevant and possibly detrimental to this agenda. It's also my opinion that foreigners are unlikely to get an unbiased view of the right in America unless they go digging for it specifically.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sad that the guy has to start off his presentation by showing how many Democrats he's voted for in his lifetime (and that still wasn't enough to tame the mob). That's the fever pitch, antagonistic world we find ourselves in. What if global warming isn't the dire catastrophe that so many people seem to desperately cling to? I have conversations with people who think we are going to face extinction from global warming. It's pseudo-religious and it strikes me as very primitive.

Humans live in Antarctica. We grow tropical plants in greenhouses in Canada. We've invented thousands of ways of harvesting electricity. We have climate control systems for indoor environments. Some humans even live in outer space. Some humans spend months at a time in submarines under the ocean.

We're one of the most adaptable species on the planet and that's the very reason for our success ...but global warming is going to kill us all? Give me a break. None of this is constructive.

<comment><USER7> Humans are the most adaptable species, but we still depend on the global ecosystem. Sure, our species could probably survive a few tens of thousands of years underground after a meteor strikes, huddled around breeder reactors, but this mode of live doesn't scale to nine billion people. If critical systems like phytoplankton in the oceans get out of whack literally billions will die.

<comment><USER6> Listen, life has thrived on this planet for well over a billion years. It's seen carbon levels much, much higher and primates literally evolved during such periods. It's ludicrous to suggest that billions will die.

<comment><USER7> As far as I know it's been a _really_ long time since the climate changed as rapidly as it's changing now. I'm not sure whether it ever warmed up as quickly before. Evolution needs time. We're already in the midst of a major extinction event. Life will most likely go on, but I see no reason to believe that we'll survive the transition at our current numbers.

<comment><USER6> I see no reason to believe that we won't, unless you think we'll suddenly lose all technology that we've developed over the past 5000 years.

Also, here's a list at some of the dramatic swings in temperature and sea levels over just the past 2 million years, including many events impacting modern human history, such as the Little ice age: [http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7x.html](http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7x.html)

<comment><USER8> > unless you think we'll suddenly lose all technology that we've developed

Which is normally what happens after a civilisation crash.

Getting back to the level of the Middle Ages is fairly easy to do - many, many people can figure out some of the basics even from first principles. Figure out a windmill, weaving, fulling, irrigation etc just from the basics people got going through school probably in just a few years.

Yet the more advanced tech? That's a system fragility. Easy to lose, hard to get back if lost. If there's mass destruction of cities, relocations, perhaps wars and huge numbers of deaths and displaced people why expect a globalised, technological and mainly online world to survive?

Could just as easily find ourselves in the same boat as those in the worlds after the Romans, Greeks, Egyptians etc. Lots of things we can see but have no idea how to recreate. It could take hundreds of years to claw our way back to creating chips. Once the first generation that remembers high school or uni is passed, it gets even harder...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> 'Climate change denial' is a pretty broad basket of opinions that ranges from directly ignoring clear evidence through to claiming that no attempt to predict the future at that scale has ever worked. Even if all the direct evidence deniers disappeared for some reason, I personally suspect that would still not necessarily be enough to get green policies implemented. The debate would just be a bit cleaner if people where honest about their motives.

The prediction people do have a point. The older predictions we have about peak oil [0] suggest our problems are about to be solved by virtue of running out of oil to burn. Quite hard to sustain our hydrocarbon emissions if we run out of hydrocarbons by 2050. A lack of hydrocarbons could easily cause more problem then continuing to emit them.

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

<comment><USER7> The prediction guys indeed have a point, but it's a really scary one. There are good reasons to believe that our models are wrong, but there are no good reasons to believe that they're wrong in the direction of less climate change. For example right now permafrost is melting at a rate predicted for the end of the century, threatening to release amounts of carbon that dwarf human emissions. Even mundane things like earthworms moving north can lead to dramatically more heating that we predict in our models: [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/20/science/earthworms- soil-c...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/20/science/earthworms-soil- climate.html?action=click&module=Discovery&pgtype=Homepage)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Dr. Pielke's credentials are a BS in Mathematics and a Ph.D. in Political Science. Regardless of what you think of his points, he presents himself very much as a climate scientist in these slides, yet I don't think that he really is one. There may be more to this than just some ties to Wikileaks, does any one else that studies the climate take him seriously?

<comment><USER11> Credentialism is one of the worst forms of intellectual laziness. Judge a person's ideas by their quality, not the piece of paper some institution saw fit to sign.

<comment><USER12> Some institutions may have significant expertise on a subject where you don't, making such credentials occasionally very useful.

<comment><USER11> That's exactly the point and why it's laziness. If you lack the knowledge to judge someone's work then intellectual honesty requires foregoing an opinion on its quality. Saying "well I don't understand, but his degree doesn't have climate in its name so he must not know what he's talking about" is gross laziness. And if you do have the expertise to accurately judge the work in question, then it stands or falls on its own and the credentials don't matter.

<comment><USER12> Perhaps I have some meta-expertise on judging the correlation between credentials and credibility.

Exclusive first-hand observation is a cripplingly restrictive epistemology. Even much of our own first-hand expertise is based on us learning from and believing sources, professors, textbooks etc.

<comment><USER13> Expertise isn't one of those words that metas all that well. Expert tends to sound a lot more, well, expert, than meta-expert. If someone tried to reassure me by saying that they were a meta-expert, I'd probably try and shoo them out of the building with a broom before they damaged anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> That is just one side of the argument. For the other side, see [https://skepticalscience.com/drought-and-climate-change- hold...](https://skepticalscience.com/drought-and-climate-change-holdren- pielke-jr.html) and [https://skepticalscience.com/print.php?r=462](https://skepticalscience.com/print.php?r=462).

<comment><USER15> The side Roger Pielke Jr. argues for being concluded on slide 67:

> So after this massive thread we come to the conclusions.

> Have disasters become more costly because of human-caused climate change?

> The answer is clear: No

> It's not a welcome conclusion in some powerful circles. But it is what the > science says.

[0] [https://mobile.twitter.com/RogerPielkeJr/status/987339314806...](https://mobile.twitter.com/RogerPielkeJr/status/987339314806734848)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Science and Politics should not be mixed, in an ideal world.

Once Politics jumps in, people become committed to a point of view. We want to be 'right' (at least so far as the debate is concerned) more than we want the actual truth.

Politics unfortunately costs us progress in this and other areas, sometimes. (But I suppose it is the best thing available.)

<comment><USER5> In the context of a universal suffrage democracy, everything is potentially political, and pretending otherwise is wishful thinking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I found it much easier to just read it on Twitter: [https://mobile.twitter.com/RogerPielkeJr/status/987052536883...](https://mobile.twitter.com/RogerPielkeJr/status/987052536883376128)

<comment><USER18> May the gods damn people who use Twitter as Slideshare...

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> tldr; Link to a twitter rant in the middle of a messy finger-pointing exercise. Unsurprisingly, the author of said rant considers himself a victim of some kind of witchhunt.

I think this guy's main problem is that he just doesn't _get_ it. At best he thinks he's sharpening Science by pointing out where it has not yet been conclusive on some subjects (e.g. the link between climate change and extreme weather events). He might actually be right about that specific point, but others with even better credentials dispute that. On a range of other issues, he's got a worse record. Wikipedia quotes him:

"In coming decades the only policies that can effectively be used to manage the immediate effects of climate variability and change will be adaptive."

This isn't him just pointing out that data is missing. He's full-on advocating we do nothing about emissions but adapt to the effects as they come. He uses the telling word "variability"\--a dog whistle to all those deniers who think that somehow climate just "varies" and what we are seeing somehow within some "normal" envelope. He's flat wrong, and he's spreading misinformation and feeding deniers and trolls. Worldwide we are in some seriously deep shit and he's taking potshots and seriously mudding the waters for who knows why the hell.

</comment><comment><USER2> His statements might be correct. But it's interesting to note who is most supportive of him: namely right-wing climate-change deniers.

This is a problem in politics. He may be a completely honest actor and yet he will be weaponised against climate research altogether.

<comment><USER20> So if republican uses your findings they are automatically wrong?

Brb, gotta publish that P!=NP proof in a Republican journal.

<comment><USER2> You're putting words in my mouth.

<comment><USER20> Climate change is a serious problem that requires a serious solution, but pursuing an outright false narrative to deal with it is a wrong way to go about it.

Defusing his contribution is easy - just acknowledge the author is a proponent of climate change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> At first I was sympathetic to his point. But then I realized that this is a classic case of picking the metric to push your agenda. What matters is that climate change is causing more severe weather and that weather is causing increasingly more damage and that this whole problem is severe enough to be a national security issue (indeed an international one). It is completely beyond the point that poor people have simultaneously been pushed into areas more prone to weather damage. A sensible person would think that is even more of a reason to combat climate change. A propagandist will twist it to somehow argue that climate change advocacy is "alarmist" and continue ignoring the issue while the real and potential costs keep rising exponentially the more we wait.

<comment><USER6> No, he did the analysis on actual weather events, including hurricanes, drought, tornadoes, etc and came up with no evidence of increased extremes in the past 50 years compared to the 50 years prior.</comment></comment>


MooTools Vs. jQuery - <AUTHOR>

I'm a MooTools fan but my co-workers are jquery. I'm open to be persuaded but I need some good reasons. Please discuss, suggest, etc. <comment><USER2> One thing that converted me from Mootools to jQuery was how much control I have over my code with jQuery. With Mootools I found myself constantly constraining myself to the design patterns the Mootools team found best. Although those design patterns aren't bad, they sometimes don't suit the most intuitive solution to a problem. jQuery on the other hand, lets you do whatever you want. You can use Mootools and jQuery at the same time (which is a killer combination if you use the "Core Builder" for Mootools).

Also, the jQuery UI package is fantastic. It is without a doubt a great way to do progressive enhancement: it uses a css framework, sprited icons, and js for the interaction in separate layers. Mootools More feels disjointed and unfocused, while the jQuery UI project feels crisp and professional. Any functionality you like in More is available as jQuery plugins, which brings me to this point:

I find it much easier to modify the code for a jQuery plugin than I do a Mootools class. I personally find it much simpler to change a few function calls than redo the structure of a class.

</comment><comment><USER3> All the momentum is with jQuery. By far it's the #1 at this point. More users, plugins, tutorials, etc.

If there are two roughly equal (in a technical sense) technologies it usually makes sense to go with the one that has the big advantage in momentum.

</comment><comment><USER4> The two are similar at first glance but pretty different when you get into it.

jQuery specializes in making javascript/DOM interaction drop dead simple. Nothing else out there comes close to achieving this as well as jQuery. When I write with jQuery, the most basic pages are written functionally and when I need something more advanced it's easy to step into some OO. But, jQuery does nothing to help with object oriented javascript, you have to use javascripts prototype model.

MooTools specializes in being more of a javascript framework. It adds functionality to javascript (which is controversial in itself), and lends itself to a very classical object oriented development approach.

Both tools are quality, jQuery has a huge user base, whereas MooTools has a smaller and very rabid user base. If your project is a very UI/javascript focused project then MooTools may be the right answer. If it is not, and is just your typical site/application, then jQuery is probably it.</comment>


Ask HN: How is your family organized? - <AUTHOR> Thinking of the family as a socio-economic unit, it's interesting to understand the roles different members play in a family and the different family organizational patterns in practice across the globe.
Keywords: Family Organization Chart, Family Life Strategy, Family Model, etc.
Reference: http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/350/350-093/350-093.html <comment><USER2> You might get some answers if you pose your question better with specifics.</comment>


All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace: Love and Power - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b011k45f/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_of_Loving_Grace_Love_and_Power/ <comment><USER2> A fantastic documentary! Highly recommended.</comment>


How often do you "Google" while programming? - <AUTHOR>

Let's face it. We all google/search a lot while programming. I am a new programmer (from the last 2yrs) and I hate it, but when ever I am stuck, I search for quick solutions online.<p>What about you guys? How can this "problem" be solved? or...its ok? <comment><USER2> It depends a lot on the experience/background of the person, as well as the problem at hand. Most programming "problems", like any other engineering field, have already been solved, so there's no shame in turning to a search engine or even better, StackExchange, for solutions. The best coders are the ones that are learning all the time.

On the other hand, there is usually an impedance mismatch between the description of the problem and the actual solution. Take a look at the horror stories on The Daily WTF. <http://thedailywtf.com/>

Anyway, try to read as much code as possible, both good and bad, find a mentor(s), be able to take constructive criticism, and just persevere, and you should be fine.

</comment><comment><USER3> My search history page says ~70 queries/day on work days and ~30 on weekends - majority of that stuff is about programming. So yeah it's not a problem.

That said - I don't even bother remembering the links to documentation. When I need something I just go to "python docs multiprocessing" or similar address and hope that I'm lucky. Search is the new URL ;)

<comment><USER4> Same here, but that might not be the best example since there is `pydoc multiprocessing`, perhaps integrated with your editor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've been programming since middle school and I'm now almost 30 and I google all the time. There's too much to remember, and I wouldn't want to burden my memory with too many specifics. I try to focus on remembering generic patterns, since those are far harder to search for.

</comment><comment><USER6> More than 10 years in (implies mastery, right?) I still search all the time. However, I'm not looking for solutions per se. Instead, I'm just looking to refresh myself on the available building blocks (whether it be the API or whatever syntactic sugar the particular language at hand provides). In exchange for this constant dependence on external technical reference, you can gain fluency in a large number of languages libraries and tools.

Learn the big, important concepts in a variety of domains, and don't ever worry about memorizing the finicky details (which might very well change in the next release anyway).

</comment><comment><USER7> I find searching is the fastest way to find documentation for library functionality as well as example code for when the documentation didn't cut it. I don't see why you should hate it. I did a fair bit of Win32 stuff a while back, and still poke around the occasional bit of Windows driver code when trying to make weird/outdated stuff work. The documentation on those is terrible. Searching is the only way. I mostly write Python now, but I still find I rather search modulename+functionname than use help().

</comment><comment><USER8> Its perfectly ok. A lot of times others have already ran into the particular problem and already solved it. You need to understand the solution, just don't blindly accept some random solution found on the internet. If you do this, then your code will get ugly fast and you will not know what it is doing. But there is nothing wrong with finding a solution, studying it, understanding it, and then using it in your own code.

</comment><comment><USER9> I remember only 5 years a gruffy old sysadmin preaching "Can't you guys code without googling all the time? Programming is not what it used to be." I listened to his advice for a while & I'm thankful for it. I now try to do big conceptual work in offline mode but google like crazy for all the nitty-gritty details.

</comment><comment><USER10> $needle, $haystack

or

$haystack, $needle

<comment><USER11> I google this nearly every time I use a PHP function.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Technology changes fast. So fast, that now days the most effective strategy is not to know everything, but to know how to find relevant docs efficiently. Of course you also need basic skills for understanding and using them properly.. Now _that_ , comes from experience.

</comment><comment><USER13> I google all the time at work. Hell, I google all the time at home and 90% of the time it's about programming in some way or form.

I think Google is one of the greatest and most useful tools in my very meager toolbox.

</comment><comment><USER14> It is like reaching for a reference book albeit, perhaps one that is less edited. Reference books exist for a reason... to reference.

<comment><AUTHOR> But, the old way of referencing is using an index, so I think I should go to javadocs and look for the method and not search for "how to do xyz+java"

<comment><USER15> Why on Earth would you limit yourself to the old way of doing things? You're not recreating a war; you're trying to get stuff done.</comment></comment></comment>


Seq: chainable asynchronous flow control for node.js - <AUTHOR> http://substack.net/posts/e0741f

<comment><USER2> That's some really interesting code. It _kind_ of reminds me of the "pipes" concept posted here recently in ANI: <http://code.google.com/p/anic/wiki/Tutorial></comment>


Evernote launches web beta - <AUTHOR> https://blog.evernote.com/blog/2014/10/02/evernote-welcome-to-your-new-workspace/

<comment><AUTHOR> The blog post is a little too corporate to my taste.

tl;dr: Log in and experience a new UI.</comment>


Basic Sniffing With tcpdump - <AUTHOR> http://sysadvent.blogspot.com/2010/12/day-10-basic-sniffing-with-tcpdump.html

<comment><USER2> Other articles about tcpdump:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1983915> <\- Repeat

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1982509> <\- Different

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=712395> <\- Repeat

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=502898> <\- Repeat</comment>


How I said "no thanks" to Apple's offer - <AUTHOR> http://cubic-m.blogspot.com/2011/04/how-i-said-no-thank-you-to-apples-job.html

<comment><USER2> I've seen these kind of posts before, but once again, you can't really call this a job offer. They ask to send your resume, that's all.</comment>


Amazon Is Strictly Liable for 3rd Party Marketplace Items - <AUTHOR> https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2020/09/amazon-is-strictly-liable-for-marketplace-items-reinforcing-that-online-marketplaces-are-doomed-bolger-v-amazon.htm <comment><USER2> Without arguing the merits of distributor liability or supply chain liability.

Why should Amazon not bear the same responsibility as a mostly physical retailer (eg Walmart - who currently is liable for products it sells - assuming a retail store transaction)?

This ruling follows the same logic as sales tax. In 2020 there is no reason to argue an online transaction should receive special treatment from an in-person transaction considering a sale of the same product to the same consumer.

<comment><USER3> > Why should Amazon not bear the same responsibility as a mostly physical > retailer

The typical argument is that they're more akin to a farmers market, bringing buying and sellers together and facilitating a transaction, and most legal disputes should be handled between the parties who actually bought and sold items. It's not an online vs in-person distinction.

The key point of the ruling seems to be that Amazon can't claim to be a neutral arbiter while simultaneously branding itself to consumers like an online counterpart to a physical retailer (as opposed to, e.g., eBay where it's abundantly obvious that you're interacting with some third party) and while substantially restricting the activities of and information available to sellers such that they are sellers in name only and don't actually have a relationship with the end consumer.

<comment><USER4> Except there is no co-mingling in farmers markets.

<comment><USER3> Well sure. I'm not taking Amazon's side on this, just trying to explain from my perspective why it's not really an online vs physical issue like the grandparent comment suggested. Other factors (I listed a couple; co-mingling also matters) are the points of contention.

<comment><USER4> I'd say the co-mingling makes Amazon more than just an intermediary, regardless of whether customers are in person or online.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If this ruling stands, I could imagine them just shutting the marketplace down entirely.

<comment><USER6> Shutting down would mean regulation worked. Sadly I expect the opposite, something as brazen-faced as establishing a fake insurance company in one of tax heavens like [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_Park](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_Park)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Potentially huge. If amazon decides to appeal, which they almost certainly will do, and if the 9th circuit and supreme court declines to hear the appeal, or upholds the verdict, then this would be precedent setting.

Online retailing will turn into physical retailing except in cyberspace. In this sort of environment then Amazon will likely have no competitive advantage over Walmart, or any other big retailer who sets up a good site, on the retail side. And Amazon doesn't have a monopoly on smart tech/marketing/strategy/etc. folks either.

No wonder they're putting so much effort into other projects, it's doubtful they'll ever turn a significant profit on their core business in this future environment. The margins will stay near zero.

</comment><comment><USER8> This guy is a professor? He talks like he's very inexperienced in the law. Especially:

> This kind of stuff makes my head hurt, because the court seems to imply that > Amazon could avoid liability by taking fewer steps to protect consumer > safety.

Uh, obviously? It's a list of heuristics to separate a flea market from a walmart. Amazon is obviously a walmart. Ebay works pretty hard to be transparent about being a flea market slash auctioneer for this reason, Amazon is just trying to bully the state Gov.</comment>


How the rise of individualism is upending the Middle East - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/how-the-rise-of-individualism-is-upending-the-middle-east/2019/12/20/e007ef10-21ba-11ea-bed5-880264cc91a9_story.html <comment><USER2> I worked for a while in Riyadh, which is a very conservative city. The manager tried to have a "bonding" chat, and confided to me that he felt a little western because he often caught himself looking at pictures of women.

In my mind, I was thinking "Dude, if being straight is the worst of your troubles, you'll be just fine."

However, I did meet a _lot_ of people who were definitely individualistic. Most of them thought the regular hand or head chopping was barbaric, and felt the city culture should be more modern, like it was once.

As the "token westerner," they confided this stuff easily with me, but it was clear they worried about the repercussions if other people knew they thought this way. It was a very interesting perspective I was immersed in.</comment>


Show HN: Decentralized application starter with Vue, Ethereum and IPFS - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/redacademy/vue-ethereum-ipfs <comment><USER2> Can someone explain what this does?

Like, what should a user expect to see when visiting the application, and what a developer could expect to make developing this application further?

I see a "gas" and a "gasprice" used, but ctrl-f doesn't show anything in HN comments, nor in the readme outside of the code, indeed the code itself is commented with:

      // Someone help me understand this.

<comment><USER3> Just to add to echelon answer, gas represents the computational effort of a specific EVM (ethereum virtual machine) instruction. For example, deploying a contract cost a certain amount of gas, storing a variable another, etc...

However when you send an ethereum transaction (i.e you modify data in the blockchain) you need to pay the miner in ether. You cant pay in gas. So you have to specify how much ether you are willing to pay for each unit of gas, i.e the gasprice. The combination of both (gas x gasprice) will give you the maximum amount of ether you are willing to spend for this transaction.

<comment><USER4> Just to add to this, here's a website listing some real time stats for ether gas: [https://ethgasstation.info/](https://ethgasstation.info/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Awesome! Since you use Truffle, it would be even better if your code was wrapped in a truffle box, so that it can be installed very easily with the "truffle unbox" command.

If you are interested, I have actually just published a video about the "truffle unbox" command: [https://youtu.be/LlVj1wAEMAU](https://youtu.be/LlVj1wAEMAU)

And here you will find the official docs for how to publish your own truffle box: [http://truffleframework.com/docs/advanced/truffle- boxes](http://truffleframework.com/docs/advanced/truffle-boxes)

<comment><USER5> A trifle to Truffle.

<comment><USER6> The Trouble with Truffles

<comment><USER7> Let's stop touting the terrible trouble with truffles.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you're looking to use React instead of Vue, the Origin Demo Dapp is a great starter also combining IPFS with Ethereum.

[https://github.com/OriginProtocol/demo- dapp](https://github.com/OriginProtocol/demo-dapp)

(Disclaimer: I was a big contributor)

Also note that `ganache-cli` is not strictly required in addition to truffle, as one can use `truffle develop` to get a local test chain.

</comment><comment><USER9> What exactly does it do? Although it is such a buzzword nowadays I still have absolute zero idea about how are these "smart contract" things used and what Ethereum is if not "a better BitCoin" (and if it is - what kind of applications can you build with it? money exchange/ecommerce/gambling?).

<comment><USER10> You can easily google what smart contracts are. A good starting point is also ethereum.org, which has three easy to understand examples.

<comment><USER9> A smart contract is a computer protocol intended to digitally facilitate, verify, or enforce the negotiation or performance of a contract. Smart contracts allow the performance of credible transactions without third parties. Smart Contracts are self-executing contractual states, stored on the blockchain, which nobody controls and therefore everyone can trust. Etc...

So what exactly can these be used for other than for what ordinary paper contracts are used? What does it mean to build an app with this? Is this just about developing digital wallets/baskets or what?

Yes, I am this stupid when it comes to this subject. I would really appreciate if somebody could direct me to an article/video/book that would explain the thing from the practical point of view for a plain old application developer having zero understanding of what's this all about.

<comment><USER11> You're right. I also cannot think of anything useful that "smart" contracts can accomplish that a normal contract cannot. Also, wtf does "apps" mean? Can I run this "app" on my phone? Is it like instagram?

<comment><USER12> You probably live in one of the less corrupt countries in the world, where the public record the ownership you hold over your house won't disappear over night.

More than 4 billion people don't, and even those of us who do, should probably use our non-corrupt climate to implement these anti-corruption use cases while our political leadership isn't corrupt. I mean, even if we never turn to corruption it's infinitely easier to implement when you don't need it.

Aside from that private sectors like container shipping desperately need a secure and global way to authenticate container ownership. Shipping the piece of paper that will let you pick up a container at a dock is currently more expensive than shipping the container itself, because anyone with that paper can steal your stuff.

Or what about making sure consumers know that they are actually buying your brand and not a copy?

That being said, most of those use cases won't be decentralized. Maersk isn't going to utilize public nodes, they'll run their own.

<comment><USER9> > You probably live in one of the less corrupt countries in the world, where > the public record the ownership you hold over your house won't disappear > over night.

In sufficiently corrupt countries they don't even have to disappear, they just can be either ignored easily or proclaimed illegitimate. A blockchain record saying you own something means nothing in countries where these are not legally recognized and I don't know any where they are (but Estonia, perhaps) and especially in corrupt countries where police and judges do whatever they are told by particular people rather than the law, the evidence or whatever. Also, a person can just come and beat the secret key out of you and submit whatever transactions he wants to the actual blockchain in countries like that.

<comment><USER13> I understand that even Estonia requires a manual process, with two witnesses at site to a property transaction. Then the question becomes how you digitize this on the blockchain?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> There has gotta be an encryption enthusiast out there that can explain to me how secure multi-user private communications can occur in a decentralized web.

Assuming the crypto was strong enough to guarantee privacy, how does an application automatically allow a user to transparently decrypt topics they're invited to?

Point to point trust seems relatively easy with asymmetric encryption but point to point to point to point?

<comment><USER15> Privacy is not a feature of Etherium or "smart contracts". It's the opposite, in fact. All transactions are public. The only "private" aspect is your address used to make a transaction but it has the same problem as Bitcoin in that regard: When you turn it back into _real money_ your identity can now be attached to that address.

<comment><USER14> Is there a notification feature I can enable on HN to tell me when I get a reply?

Anyways, yes I completely agree with you, privacy is not a feature. Decentralization in general suffers from the inability to manage privacy and I think that's where future applications of the technology are going to struggle to gain traction beyond niche audiences.

<comment><USER16> > _"Is there a notification feature I can enable on HN to tell me when I get a > reply?"_

Check out Dan Grossman's [http://www.hnreplies.com](http://www.hnreplies.com)

<comment><USER14> Thank you kind stranger!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm actually trying to expand Kumavis's "Universal Dapp" which seems to only sort of work here if anyone would like to help:

[https://github.com/rareartlabs/udapp](https://github.com/rareartlabs/udapp)

</comment><comment><USER18> This seems like a great way to explore ethereum contracts, but the README stops early.

Following the README, I've got a ganash testnet and imported the accounts into metamask. truffle compiles the (empty) contracts into ./build/. It seems like at this step there should be an http server to give firefox/metamask something to visit, or a gateway.ipfs.io url to retrieve some HTML that was uploaded into IPFS. This second half of HTTP/IPFS is still a mystery. Please extend the README, thx.

<comment><USER18> I added a bit more detail in the README ([https://github.com/redacademy/vue- ethereum-ipfs/pull/2](https://github.com/redacademy/vue-ethereum-ipfs/pull/2)) though it runs into the question of is this repo an empty skeleton for apps or can it double as a hello world Dapp? Currently the Vue app compiles to a placeholder page with no eth/metamask bits on it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is a nice bundle of things to install, however what is the end result here?

It seems to be an app that initializes web3 and saves a contract... a contract to do what?

We also have a decentralized tool, and people are building stuff like:

\- Testing character-by-character realtime updates on a social networking dApp in a P2P mesh-network of devices: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3akdQJs55E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3akdQJs55E)

\- A 3D multiplayer VR game in the browser: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_m16-w6bBI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_m16-w6bBI)

And more! Note, this is not using Ethereum, but our decentralized tool: [https://github.com/amark/gun](https://github.com/amark/gun) , and here is a 4 minute and 40 LOC interactive coding tutorial that shows you how to get started: [https://scrimba.com/c/c2gBgt4](https://scrimba.com/c/c2gBgt4)

So far CryptoKitties is the most interesting actual dApp I've seen with Ethereum. Does the op/parent github repo help enable building real dApps like above? I hope so.

<comment><USER20> The idea is not to make an app but to have as a starting point for people to do apps in Ethereum. The contract is there just to have something so you can get feedback.

<comment><USER5> Quick, someone name an Ethereum app that does something useful and is in widespread use.

<comment><USER21> Dai Stablecoin System

<comment><USER22> Is that in widespread use yet? I know it is in some use already, but not sure how much yet.

I look forward to when it works with being able to be backed with multiple types of assets (e.g. The digix asset)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think a better term would be "Dapp starter"

<comment><USER24> Does Dapp mean distributed or decentralized?

<comment><USER25> decentralized

<comment><USER24> prove it

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> It's a fun idea, but I really hope we don't have to sit through a multi year cycle of people using the term "Web 3.0"

<comment><USER27> If ajax was Web 2, I feel like decentralization feels apt enough to define Web 3. Like a major upgrade. ^^

<comment><USER28> Web 1.0 was decentralized (see e.g. the email protocol), Web 2.0 centralized everything, and now Web 3.0 is about decentralization again. I can see how the cycle will go ...

<comment><USER29> Every cycle should increase the power consumption by 10x.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> If it's on Ethereum, it's not decentralised. Their state is mutable -- as per the DAO.

<comment><USER31> I understand this, but good lord people need to stop bringing this up in every damn thread that mentions Ethereum. We all know about the DAO and what happened afterwards.

<comment><USER30> That's probably because people think decentralised apps should be decentralised.

<comment><USER32> What does having mutable state have to do with being decentralized?

<comment><USER33> Mutable history is the problem. What's written to the blockchain is supposed to be immutable forever and independently verifiable by everyone. If an entity can rewrite history (eg drop or revert transactions), it becomes a problem. This is what happened after the DAO hack and it resulted in the Ethereum classic fork.

<comment><USER22> Well, sort-of?

The chain still includes the transaction history of what happened with the DAO, but the hard fork added a special case unique state change which undoes most of the effects of the transactions that happened with the DAO.

So, the transactions still are recorded as having happened, but the state was edited?

Not that that necessarily is a particularly important distinction, but I think it is one that can reasonably be made.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


At peak, Spain gets 53% of its energy from wind - <AUTHOR> http://greenmonk.net/spain-gets-53-of-its-energy-from-wind/ *during high winds at 5:50am on a Sunday morning <comment><USER3> This, while impressive, is not a routine occurrence. It was due to abnormally high winds. Consider the following quotes from the Guardian article:

"High winds over the weekend supplied 53% of Spain's electricity"

"Experts estimate that by the end of the year, Spain will have provided a _quarter_ of its energy needs with renewables, with wind leading the way ..."

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/09/spain- nati...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/09/spain-national- record-power-windfarms)

<comment><USER4> The linked article is a bit ambiguous, but remember that electricity is a subset of a country's total energy needs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think this blogpost debunks this pretty good:

[http://uvdiv.blogspot.com/2009/11/spanish-wind-power- exposed...](http://uvdiv.blogspot.com/2009/11/spanish-wind-power-exposed.html)

Spain only gets about 9% of energy from renewables on average, which is much less than a lot of other countries. The 53% number is very deceptive IMHO, and really shows that you can't count on wind for reliable energy.

<comment><USER6> Not debunking at all, the first words in the article were:

"Ok, not all the time, but last weekend at 5:50am on Sunday morning (8th Nov) Spain set a new record, hitting 53.7%"

Which instantly made it clear that this was an exception. I don't think anybody is suggesting that you can provide all of your power requirements from Wind, but - clearly, Wind can be an important part of your renewable portfolio in some cases. Obviously Solar, GeoThermal, Hydroelectric, Conservation, Efficiency all have important roles to play as well.

<comment><USER5> The title of this post was edited after I posted, it was something like "Spain gets 53% of its energy from wind" first.

<comment><USER7> As the author of the article I can categorically refute this.

The title of this article was never edited.

And WordPress has obligingly saved all of the post revisions so I can quite easily prove this, if necessary.

<comment><USER8> He means the title on HN.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> For everyone who keeps saying that this is only at peak, that doesn't mean that it isn't important. If you can generate that much wind, then store the energy with pumped storage - you are still getting far more overall renewable energy than you would have otherwise.

<comment><USER10> Assuming perfect energy storage, the number you want is the _average_ power production. You get this by multiplying the maximum output by the capacity factor, which is 21-23% in Spain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Impressive.

But the headline is slightly deceptive, as 53% is the maximum ever recorded.

What's more impressive is the that over the 24 hours presented the contribution from wind never drops beneath 30%.

Contrast this with the current UK renewables target of 15% by 2020 ([http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/what_we_do/uk_supply/e...](http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/what_we_do/uk_supply/energy_mix/renewable/res/res.aspx))

<comment><USER12> I don't see how it is deceptive. It's stated quite plainly that it is a record, and not a normal occurrence. (None of this is spoken in a harsh, rude, or sarcastic tone.) How would you say it differently? (Real question.)

<comment><USER13> The title suggests peak energy demand, in fact it achieved it at minimum energy demand (early hours of Sunday morning)

It's like an airport saying that all it's flights were on time at peak - <USER2> saying that they didn't mean thanksgiving, they meant that on sunay morning they peaked by getting both flights out on time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> *during high winds, at 5:50 on a Sunday morning

</comment><comment><USER14> I can't see it from the article: are they talking about total _generated_ energy or _consumed_?

In Spain our government has banned new nuclear plants, so we have to buy electricity from France, that produces it using nuclear plants anyway.

The high percentages of wind power is no wonder. There are _a lot_ of generators installed.

<comment><USER15> > so we have to buy electricity from France

Lie.

      Year	Electricity - imports (million kWh)
      2000	9000
      2001	11945
      2002	12166
      2003	7588
      2004	7588
      2005	9800
      2006	8700
      2007	8300
      2008	8773
      2009	8773

      Year	Electricity - exports (million kWh)
      2000	5600
      2001	6230
      2002	7832
      2003	4138
      2004	4138
      2005	4400
      2006	7500
      2007	11400
      2008	14520
      2009	14520

Source: Cia Factbook.

More: <http://twitpic.com/5zscj/full> And more: <http://twitpic.com/5zxm3/full> 2nd chart show how much % of Portuguese electricity is imported from Spain

Source: Red Electrica Española (Spanish grid operator)

France exports electricity to other countries such as Belgium and such (70k kWh last year)

Last link shows consuption, production, imports and exports of electricty in Spain: [http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?v=79&v=81&v=82...](http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?v=79&v=81&v=82&v=83&c=sp&l=en)

<comment><USER16> Thank you for your eye-widening comment. It's surprising how we swallow "well known facts" as this (everybody pretends to know that we import energy from french nuclears), without any research.

The comment you answer wasn't mine, but it could have been. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> And most of the time, it has much lower wind production, and they make up the difference by burning a lot of natural gas. This sort of thing is why the natural gas companies like wind so much.

</comment><comment><USER17> ... last weekend at 5:50am on Sunday morning. Still impressive though.

</comment><comment><USER18> As a kite surfer I enjoyed your post.</comment>


What do you do when you have a great potential co-founder, but don't like their idea? - <AUTHOR>

I have friends who are smart and talented and would make good potential co-founders.  And they want to work together.  But often the idea they want to work on isn't right.  Either:
1) I feel they're thinking too small.  They're incredibly talented people, but they want to pursue what I think is a really small market, and could be doing something more worthy of them.
2) We have different opinions on the business prospects for the idea - I think it's just OK, they think it's amazing.
3) The idea seems boring to work on, often because the idea is 95% marketing or content and not technology (e.g. a variant on an online store, blog, content site, etc.)  This is bad for motivation.
I have good ideas of my own, but it's hard to persuade people to change their mind once they've decided what they want to work on.  Since I'm not in school, I've had to work hard to find other good people (through a lot of networking) and it would be a shame not to do something with them,  So, should I move on and look for someone to buy into my own ideas, or start working with these talented friends of mine and hope to evolve their idea into something better?
<comment><USER2> 1) Starting small is often the best route to doing something big. Starting small gives you the ability to complete something and not run out of steam along the way. 2) Ideas don't need to be mind blowing, they need to be good and for them to work well in a business they need to be solving some sort of problem that will result in you getting paid. 3) That could be a huge problem for your motivation. Is there some subset of the idea that you could run with and think a little bigger than they currently are?

Finding the right co-founders is much harder than finding the right idea in my experience, so I think that is why the general YC motto is the idea doesn't matter nearly as much as the co-founders do.

Best of luck...

</comment><comment><USER3> I think that honesty is your best weapon. If your co-founders are truly intelligent and motivated, you can probably convince them to think bigger. Try to do it in such a way as to show you thoroughly understand the current idea and its merits, which demonstrating its shortcomings. Just be sure to be nice about it; people tend to get angry when you talk about their own ideas that they put so much time and effort into.

Your course of action, I guess, really depends upon how far along you are though. If you're near a complete beta or working release, you might want to just ride it out.

</comment><comment><USER4> If you have great potential co-founders who are psyched about their idea, run with it right now.

(1) As has been said many times, having 100% of a small market is more attainable than having 1% of a huge market.

(2) If they think the business prospects are amazing, that's great motivation for them.

(3) Boring is good for startup success. The last field you want to compete in is the one everybody's excited about.

If the idea flops, drop it and do something else. If it works, use it to bootstrap your next idea.

</comment><comment><USER5> Do you have an idea of your own? Talk about your great idea and see if you can get your co-founder all excited...

</comment><comment><USER6> Make a logical case for why the idea won't work in the marketplace.

If necessary, come up some criteria you both can agree to.

Remember that you both have to be flexible, or the company won't fly anyway.</comment>