The Attempted Corporate Takeover of .Org - <AUTHOR> https://prospect.org/power/private-equity-corporate-takeover-org-domain-name/ <comment><USER2> I found this article incredible (despite the tabloid-like headline) on this subject:

[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/01/14/icann_org_redacted/](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/01/14/icann_org_redacted/)

TL;DR: _Purchase funded by debt, includes another ex-ICANNer, will be done through four different companies._

Some highlights that I think are important from it:

 _Incredibly, the names of three directors of the organization that will buy the registry remain redacted in documents published by ICANN [PDF] this month, despite the three entities pushing the sale – PIR, ISOC and Ethos Capital – claiming that publication of the information is "unprecedented" and they are "strong believers in the power of transparency."_

 _The rationale given for the removal of director names is that it was based "on the principles set forth in ICANN's Documentary Information Disclosure Policy (DIDP)" – a bizarre claim that has nothing to do with the issues at hand and which ICANN has refused to discuss._

 _As well as refusing to supply the names of those in overall charge, the three companies have also refused to publish the "underlying equity purchase agreement, sensitive financial information, corporate organizational information, draft organizational documents, documentation provided to governmental entities and certain supporting contractual documents."_

<comment><USER3> > (despite the tabloid-like headline)

I like everything about The Register but the cheezy headlines, nicknames, and bad photoshop are some of the best parts.

<comment><USER2> I mean, I enjoy it for personal consumption. It makes it way harder to seriously share, though!

<comment><USER3> What do you mean? Headlines like "Yabba Dabba Doo it's the iPad 2" scream professionalism.

<comment><USER2> Upon further consideration, you're absolutely right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think these are the major related threads so far. In reverse order:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21931258](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21931258) \- The NRO Issues Inspection Request to ICANN Concerning .ORG Sale

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21800085](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21800085) \- ICANN Delays .ORG Sale Approval

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21723682](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21723682) \- Why ISOC sold .ORG to VCs

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21689121](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21689121) \- The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21667355](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21667355) \- ISOC sold the .org registry to Ethos Capital for $1.1B

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21656960](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21656960) \- Why I Voted to Sell .ORG

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21626677](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21626677) \- ICANN races towards regulatory capture: the great .org heist

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21611677](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21611677) \- Save .org

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21592297](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21592297) \- Internet world despairs as non-profit .org sold to private equity firm

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21582622](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21582622) \- Private Equity Is Going to Ruin the .Org Domain System and Screw Nonprofits

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21557779](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21557779) \- ICA asks ICANN to block .Org private equity deal in damning letter

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21526982](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21526982) \- Private Equity company acquires .org registry

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20263561](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20263561) \- Regulatory Capture at ICANN

Did I miss any?

<comment><USER5> It's almost as if HN could use a tagging system... :)

<comment><USER4> I'm inclined to disagree.

<comment><USER6> Why?

<comment><USER4> It would add a lot of complexity, and any system has only a limited number of complexity cards to play. I'd rather play them on things that have a clear connection to HN's core.

With features like this, the benefits are obvious while the costs are not. I fear those.

That's not to say that tagging is always a bad idea—far from it. It depends on the system.

<comment><USER7> > I'd rather play them on things that have a clear connection to HN's core.

What have they been played on historically? Mostly behind the scenes stuff? Maybe I don't pay close enough attention but I haven't noticed much in the way new features/improvements over the past five years or more...(?)

<comment><USER4> Yes, mostly behind the scenes stuff. And also just keeping powder dry, per our motto: Move slowly and preserve things.

<comment><USER5> I was tongue in cheek with my comment, but I enjoy JWZ's "previously" links and tags can help traverse the history that you're working to preserve.

The simplicity you mention is worth a lot, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Verisign controls the registries for .com and .net, two of the internet's > most popular. All it does is administer a database and collect small sums > from website owners, but with computing power rising and practically no > marginal cost to adding another website to the database, the entire > enterprise is a license to print money. In the third quarter of 2019, > Verisign showed operating income of $205.6 million on $308.4 million in > revenues, a profitability margin of 66.67 percent. This makes Verisign one > of the most profitable companies in the world.

I wish we lived in a world where a company being kinda monopolistic to make a 67% profit margin was enough to get me angry. If I hadn't read this, I'd have assumed they were making a lot more than $100 million a year profit.

I see the real answer to this as the gTLD program: radically expand the number of domain-issuing entities and normalize companies operating on something other than .com.

<comment><USER9> The problem is you can't move a domain once you've established it. I'm stuck on byuu.org for life. There's 15 years worth of links to it scattered across the web that would all go dark. Or more precisely, that would all suddenly point at spam. I could never get most of them updated.

Even my _subdomain_ from my previous host from 15 years ago is squatted to this day to serve up advertising. It's even aware of the software that I used to host there.

One answer in my view is to remove the maximum length of prepayment for domains. Let us buy a domain for 100 years. Sure, that's $1,000. Maybe throw in a discount. But now we never have to worry about it again, as long as we live. Or at least, as long as the registry lives. It would never be squattable.

<comment><USER10> If you want a new domain and to keep your backlinks you can 302 the old domain to the new.

> One answer in my view is to remove the maximum length of prepayment for > domains. Let us buy a domain for 100 years.

Makes sense to me but I don't think I have seen anything more than 10 years.

<comment><USER11> > If you want a new domain and to keep your backlinks you can 302 the old > domain to the new.

Which will only work as long as you keep paying for the old domain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It seems that over time any sufficiently well funded non-profit will eventually hire a financial engineer as CEO and transform into a Hedge Fund with some sort of charitable appendage.

<comment><USER13> America's well-endowed universities seem like a perfect example of human greed. They have amassed so much money that they could seriously invest in furthering their ostensible mission — education — yet they'd rather just obsess over making sure the big pile of money only grows bigger.

<comment><AUTHOR> From Jordan Weissmann writing at Slate:

"The joke about Harvard is that it's a hedge fund with a university attached to it," Mark Schneider tells me.

[https://www.businessinsider.com/why-harvard-should-be- taxed-...](https://www.businessinsider.com/why-harvard-should-be-taxed-2015-9)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This article explained some things clearly.

ISOC didn't "buy" the rights to administer .org in the first place. They were given it. Along with $5 million actually; they paid, like, negative for it, they were paid to take it.

Now they get to sell it for $1.1 billion? How does that make any sense at all?

We're literally at "Russian oligarch-type" transaction here. America!

</comment><comment> munk-a ICANN has no technical power to enforce this change, so continuing with it while there is so much dissent is dangerous to itself and the current organization of the internet. If some big players in the DNS space decided to object to this change (like say google and a few ISPs who thought they should get a bigger slice of the registration pie) they could just disrespect registrations published by Ethos and require an additional fee to propagate a new name to their servers (Oh you registered a name? Well, how much is allowing comcast users[1] to see it worth to you)... I hope ICANN stops being silly before it fractures assumptions around DNS propagation.

1\. Specifically all those users who use the default assigned DNS, which is the vast majority.

</comment><comment><USER15> This quote kind of summarises the effect of the attempted takeover:

"Nonprofit websites will be trapped: If they want to keep their longtime brand and their archives, they'll pay whatever price. "When you buy a domain you own it, but after a couple years it owns you.""

Hope this ends well for all .org owners!

</comment><comment><USER16> There is a SaveDotOrg Protest at ICANN on Friday in Los Angeles.

Date: Friday, January 24, 2020 Time: 9 am – 11 am Location: ICANN, 12025 Waterfront Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90094

[https://savedotorg.org/index.php/savedotorg-protest-at- icann...](https://savedotorg.org/index.php/savedotorg-protest-at-icann/)

<comment><USER16> Update: Around 2 dozen people showed. ICANN received the petition. "Chairman Maarten Botterman said ICANN is looking at the impact of the sale and what guarantees they could obtain for dot-org registrants, though he made no promises."

[https://mobile.twitter.com/russforce/status/1220789586554523...](https://mobile.twitter.com/russforce/status/1220789586554523648?s=12)

[https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/nonprofits- worry-s...](https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/nonprofits-worry-sale- dot-org-universe-raise-costs-68504169)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Here's a slightly different question: the article mentions that Ethos is paying to take over PIR, thus taking over .org administration as well. How transparent is this transaction?

Viewed uncharitably, it looks like ICANN built a separate entity to admin .org, built a separate entity to buy it, and then claimed that the purchase was just normal business, even as they were self-dealing to sell to friends. Is this accurate, or is the purchase by Ethos actually something like market- rate? In that case, even if I dislike the capitalization of .org, it doesn't seem _illegal_?

</comment><comment><USER18> PIR (and, apparently, ICANN) are simply selling us out on this, and whether or not the sale goes through, they both have taken a huge credibility hit -- and ICANN, anyway, already had credibility problems to begin with.

In terms of its impact on the net, I see no upside to this at all. It's nothing but harmful.

</comment><comment><USER19> Protest this Friday:

[https://www.eff.org/event/savedotorg-protest- icann](https://www.eff.org/event/savedotorg-protest-icann)

</comment><comment><USER20> Something has gone seriously wrong when one of our original TLDs, which, from my perspective, should be considered sacrosanct elements of the internet with historical importance, are able to be sold off by interloping individuals, who, for some bizarre reason, feel that they are entitled to capitalize on these TLDs, and who do so purely with their own self-interest at heart.

I'm really just disappointed and angered that this happened.

<comment><USER13> Alas the Internet was created in a capitalist world, and capitalism loves rent-seeking.

<comment><USER21> Would it be any different in a non-capitalist world? If we're being honest, corruption eventually permeates everything given time. IMO the biggest difference between capitalism and socialism is the massive centralization of power in socialist systems. The effects of corruption tend to be much worse the more power is concentrated. These systems of finite resource distribution are ultimately just hacks to mitigate the real problem: people or individual nodes tend to seek the optimal outcome for themselves even if it's at the expense of the system as a whole

Everyone tends to forget that sociopaths adapt

<comment><USER22> Capitalism is a system created by and for sociopaths. It doesn't get much worse than that.

<comment><USER21> How so for both? HN isn't reddit

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Sigh, I am flabbergasted at my own lack of outrage. Not to long ago something like this would have me all up in arms, now it seems like just another nail in the coffin of democracy..

<comment><USER24> And the truly horrible part that this is working as intended. The public has to get loud every time, while from the other perspective, getting lucky once is enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I updated my .org domains for the max 5 years that my provider would let me. At least I'm locked in for now. The whole thing seems shady though I really want to believe that the new owner will play nice. As humans we can decide that altruism > greed, something tells me that greed will rule here.

<comment><USER26> to future readers: namecheap will let you do 9 years.

<comment><USER25> In the past I've had a lot of issues with spammers and scammers using domain names that came from namecheap. namecheap made it difficult to report and resolve issues, spammer/scammers could create names much faster than they could be taken down. namecheap was not interested in tying one violation to another, they did not want to see that a few players were generating a lot of names that appeared to be from different people but all immediately started running the same spam/scam. If namecheap chooses to be a citadel for spammer/scammers then I'm sure not going to give them any of my money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm curious if private equity chose .org for a specific reason, and which other TLDs could be next. Perhaps there was something about the organizational structure that would make the .org TLD easy to extract profits from.

</comment><comment><USER28> >The entire market for domain name registries is broken, a troubling combination of government-granted monopoly, disinterested (at best) regulators, and eager extractors of profit.

well said

</comment><comment><USER29> Could this situation be improved/eliminated when we move from TCP/IP to NDN (Named Data Network)?

In NDN, you don't request data from a specific host, hence no need to specify the receiving machine's IP, indeed, you send the packet to a p2p network, another with certain data / signature can answer your request.

<comment><USER30> So what does a URL look like in this system? E.g. If I have put up a poster on a wall somewhere, what do I say instead of "Visit www.example.org for more details"?

<comment><USER29> Take news for example.

Instead of sending a HTTP GET on '[https://news.com/what-is- NDN.html'](https://news.com/what-is-NDN.html'), which must be answered from the server 'news.com' with https cert for prove.

You'll send an interest package '{title: what-is-NDN, type: news, cert: a-public-key}', which can be answer by any node having the data. Be the data source or someone that already got it (like BT download-and-seed sharing)

(The cert is optional, if you can trust an information from anyone)

<comment><USER30> What exactly do I put on my poster?

<comment><USER29> What do you mean by "poster"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> > ... and it could use its power to sell the browsing data of users of .orgs

By what mechanism is this possible?

<comment><USER32> That's what I want to know. I would _assume_ the article is talking about monitoring which IP's request which domains, but the overwhelming majority of requests that a registry sees have to be from downstream resolvers, right? In which case they don't know who's using the site, they only know that "somebody who uses this resolver" is using the site.

In most cases there are probably multiple levels of resolvers, so it might even be as coarse as "somebody on the west coast of the US is using this site," which isn't terribly useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> ... ICANNexit?

I mean

Switching out a computer's DNS root zone is a small operation.

Managing a substitute to ICANN, how much could that really cost? A few million a year?

</comment><comment><USER34> > Ethos ... could use its power to sell the browsing data of users of .orgs

Is this possible? Can all top-level domain name owners view all browsing data on their domain?

<comment><USER35> Not really. Unless they completely hijacked all DNS resolution under .org to IPs they control, fraudulently gain TLS certificates (using DNS-based proof), and proxy the traffic to the true IP. Not a realistic scenario at scale.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Isn't gTLD by convention? It is technically feasible to set up a shadow registry and route to that, operated as a NPO.

</comment><comment><USER37> Attempted? It already happened.

<comment><USER38> According to the article, no it didn't.

> ICANN must sign off on the deal in order for it to proceed. In December, it > paused the sale for 30 days amid public outcry, expressing concern about the > lack of transparency surrounding the deal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Can someone explain the issue? Currently, anyone can buy a .org. I imagine that this company will charge more money for .orgs in exchange for some verification procedure. Compare this to today, where anyone can buy .orgs for any reason: it might be a public good if there is some authentication and prestige.

NGOs and non-profits have money. Paying $100 a year to maintain a verified "I'm not a company" status might be a good idea. Keep in mind that non profits aren't necessarily good -- many are essentially tax shelters.

This article feels anti-capitalist. Nothing in the article makes a principled argument for how .orgs _should_ operate. What's the argument for allowing anyone to buy a .org for $10 per year?

<comment><USER40> The UNHCR or another huge entity will not give a shit. They have a legal department which can end Ethos Capital if they like.

However, the reading club with 20 members and yearly income of 300€ cannot afford a 100€ .org.

.org and the PIR had a dedicated purpose.

<comment><USER39> But why not just get a .club extension? Shouldn't .orgs be reserved for big orgs?

<comment><USER41> no, .org is reserved for organizations that aren't dedicated to making money. size isn't relevant.

let me turn the question around: why should Ethos get .org? make them drum up support for some new TLD. This is purely, purely a cash grab, allowed by regulatory capture, and it should be stopped.

<comment><USER39> What does "reserved" mean? Anyone can buy a .org. There isn't any actual restriction.

Well, let's say that a mission driven for profit corporation could ensure that .org owners aren't for-profit -- and do a better job than the current committee. Should they be allowed a .org? In my world, I'd say no, since I'd prefer that .orgs are actually restricted to non corporates.

<comment><USER41> > What does "reserved" mean? Anyone can buy a .org. There isn't any actual > restriction.

Fair point. The "restriction" was really a recommendation (from RFC 920 in 1985, in a more polite time on the nascent "internet").

> [...] Should they be allowed a .org?

Who cares? The cat is out of the bag. As of today there are 1514 TLDs [0]. .mil and .gov should still have some requirements, but .org, .net, .com (and almost all the other TLDs) are all effectively the same thing.

[0] [http://stats.research.icann.org/dns/tld_report/](http://stats.research.icann.org/dns/tld_report/)

<comment><USER42> What "recommendation" are you referring to from RFC 920? All I see is:

 _ORG = Organization, any other domains meeting the second level requirements._

I see nothing about not-for-profit or money mentioned at all in RFC 920. There are occurrences of the word "commercial", but they're all in reference to the COM domain. The ORG domain is only referred-to as being for "Organizations".</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Tasskr.  Re-written for the 5th time. - <AUTHOR> http://tasskr.com

<comment><USER3> Very neat. Lots of potential! If I can give some UI feedback (from my perspective, of course!):

* The Plus buttons are a bit confusing. It says down the bottom to press "enter" to put in a new task, I added some notes, then clicked outside of the textarea field... then I pressed enter... yes, silly I know, but easy to make this mistake. Then I realised that the + inside the task creates a new task!

* Can't remove multiple tasks in one go - the popup makes this frustrating.

* the <-> is not working. Test case: add two new tasks to a project. I can't move the bottom one above the top one for some reason - it seems to move all the tasks/projects up and down...

* Add a new task - in the task tab, the textarea box is quite small. Click on another task, then go back to the newly created task - the textarea is the right size.

* If you click on add project, it is excellent that you have it says "Enter a project", but a suggestion is to not provide focus in the text area - the next time you click in there it clears the warning.

* If you add a subtask, then make increase the task size but move it outside of the window, then without releasing the mouse button drag it _above_ the task, then some odd javascript loop starts occuring and my browser (Firefox 11) freezes until it asks me to stop the script.

* What do the checkboxes do?

* What does the text in the very left hand panel signify? Seems to be projects? I seem to be getting old ones appearing... duplicates sometimes.

* Why a seperate mobile view? You could use CSS media queries to achieve the same functionality.

* Is there any reason why there is a script tag after the end </html> tag?

* Can you split the js out of the page and into their own files?

Please take this as constructive feedback :-)

</comment><comment><USER4> Really like the hierarchy, my only problem is it would be another app on top of existing ones that already sync quite well and are fully mobile (i.e. g-tasks).

</comment><comment><USER5> I really like the simplicity.

One thing, I originally viewed it on my iPhone and was going to suggest a mobile version since I found display issues.

It wasn't until I viewed it on my PC that I saw you have a mobile button, on the top right hand corner.

Maybe for the demo, if you detect a smart phone could you show the mobile version?

Keep up the great work!

</comment><comment><USER6> I completely love it, oh my god! I was looking for something like this to plan out my revision timetable for my A-levels, this seems like the perfect tool to use. Not only that, but it seems like an awesome tool to keep me motivated. I really like that "task completed" section!

Thank you!

</comment><comment><USER7> I like it... I've been wanting a simple, no-bullshit task app that allowed subtasks. You may have just won me over.

One thing, though... Make the drag/drop icon area larger... Multiple times I've gone to drag and just ended up selecting a bunch of stuff.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is awesome - you should make yours an UI wrapper for existing well entrenched systems

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback everyone! I woke up and was amazed to see 5000 visitors, wow.

</comment><comment><USER9> I really love it. It looks like I'll finally start using a Todo app!

Just a small feature: Is it possible to add a default date for the tasks? I had to look at the date twice in order to get the due date correctly.

</comment><comment><USER10> Can you tell me what the "<\-->" (the button left to the delete button) button is doing?

I like it that you can do most of the things with the keyboard - although this is not really touch friends...

<comment><AUTHOR> The plus button is to add a task.

The up/down arrow button is to reorder tasks. Click and drag, make sure your cursor stays over the tasks. You can also re-order with shift+up/down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Very nice. Sleek and easy UI. I designed a to-do list a long time ago. 4 years, 3 developers, and $2,000 later the 2.0 version still hasn't launched. I learned a lot.

My recommendation is that deleting tasks needs to be a little easier. I hate those "are you sure" dialog boxes but on the other hand you don't want users accidentally deleting things. So do this: Make the user "double click" on the trash can icon to delete a task. That solves the problem elegantly.

There's 2 glitches. When I added projects then deleted the projects, their names still show up on the very left most panel. When I click their names nothing happens and I can't get rid of them. I had to refresh the page to get rid of them. When I click on mobile and then click the back button I get a red error message saying "Error saving to server. Check Connection."

In Firefox 11 for Windows 7 when you click the task boxes (which highlight blue) underneath the project's name the boxes change height slightly which is really awkward behavior. Setting overflow:hidden on the elements seems to fix it very nicely.

Color wise I wish it wasn't so grey. Too much grey can make a page look too cloudy and gloomy. Lighten things up a bit.

In the right panel, the tabs [Schedule | Charts | Help | Task]. Change "Task" to "notes". Otherwise it's confusing. And make the help tab the last one and the Notes tab (Task tab) either the 1st or the 2nd tab. The font-size used for them is also too big, use a font-size that's 95% of their current size. Also the tabs need some room to breathe, give the #tabs ul a padding:0 0 0 4px;. Also give #tabs ul li a padding:5px 8px 4px 8px;

Also you should show order and priority. There are 3 main panels. The left (project names) the middle (task list), and the right (schedule, charts, help, task/notes). In your css make the following changes: In #content #rightContainer get rid of the border-left, and add box-shadow:-1px 0 2px #666; and in #content #leftContainer get rid of the border-right and add box- shadow:-1px 0 2px #666 inset; It'll look much better because now it gives the app a slight 3D layered look. You could also do it in the opposite way (giving #leftContainer a box-shadow:1px 0 2px #666;) to emphasize the left panel first (which I think is more visually correct). It's just a little harder to do it this way because you'll have to create an inset box shadow for the right panel but because it uses tabs (with different divs on top) the inset box shadow doesn't show up unless you give ALL of the divs inside of it a box-shadow:1px 0 2px #666 inset; as well.

The button-links up at the very top (Sign up, Sign in, Feedback/help, mobile) should NOT be buttons but instead just links that are underlined. Get rid of the single "sign up" link and instead change "Sign up to save your tasks" to "Sign Up to change your tasks, it's free." and make the "Sign Up" part an underlined link. Change "sign in" to "Log In". And change "header nav's" padding to padding:2px 10px 0 0;

Make the changes and see if you like them.

<comment><USER12> A deletion done in error is normally realised pretty instantly; leave an `Undo delete' at a single specific location for them to get it back.

[http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.co.uk/2007/06/quick-all- actions...](http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.co.uk/2007/06/quick-all-actions- should-have-undo.html)

<comment><USER13> +1 for undo option. I find undo always better than confirming deletion.

<comment><USER14> Yes. This is pretty obvious.

<comment><USER14> Since my comment (parent) is being downvoted, I will elaborate. In the situation under discussion (deletion of a to-do item) a deletion will never free up a significant amount of any resource (e.g., memory). In those cases, it is pretty obvious to me that keeping the data and metadata of the to-do item around so that the user can undelete it is better than popping up an alert.

<comment><USER11> It got downvoted because HackerNews isn't like Reddit where you comment for the purpose of just speaking your opinion. I learned this the hard way a few times. Unless your comment contributes something to the conversation it's just noise.

A rule of thumb is basically: Unless you have something important to add don't add anything, otherwise it's just more mediocre comments to sort through. That's why HN has good comments and less noise. Whereas at Reddit and forums and comment systems on other sites, everyone and their grandmother chimes in. Creating a monstrous wall of "thank you"s, "neat", "I agree"s and other babble.

<comment><USER14> Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I like the way your thinking with the schedule and the charts.

I think there is definitely desire for someone to gamify tasks and build in a good daily schedule.

</comment><comment><USER16> <http://gyazo.com/8f7972ac6813c6957e0613b4492a8175>

"undefined Completed"

</comment><comment><USER17> Like the UI, kind of like Workflowy plus a calendar.

In the help it says "Dates and times must be seperated by a comma." - <USER2> be "separated"

</comment><comment><USER18> I'd really like to be able to share a project with other members...

<comment><AUTHOR> If I find an simple easy way I'll re-write it again with sharing :D Meteor.js looks promising.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Nice. If you put "Task 10:00 Monday" it schedules for "5 days ago"

</comment><comment><USER20> Really great usability. I'd use it like a shot if it used https

<comment><AUTHOR> <https://tasskr.herokuapp.com/>

<comment><USER20> Great, this is something I'd pay for

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is well done!

</comment><comment><USER22> Not a huge fan of the design, but nicely done.

<comment><AUTHOR> What is an example of a design you like?

<comment><USER22> Asana is nice and clean.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Typing "yes" for a task leaves a blank line.

</comment><comment><USER24> You should rethink putting the add and trash and move controls all in the same vicinity. The buttons are all but unusable on the iPad.

In general, the design overall could use more breathing room

</comment><comment><USER25> This is really nice.

It seems the schedule ought to update and/or be able to hide completed items.</comment>


Ask YC: Incorporating - <AUTHOR>

We are a two person startup and each of us live in a different state.  If we want to incorporate our interent company do we have to incorporate in each state?  Or can we incorporate in Delaware?  if we incorporate in Delaware will we have to register as a foreign entity in the states where we live? <comment><USER2> You only need to incorporate in one state. Which one you choose depends on many factors.

Businesses are supposed to register in each state that they do business in. This is easy to understand for brick and mortars. Any place you have a store, register with the state. It gets a little murkier with internet companies.

So, just incorporate for now. Get the limited liability. You do need limited liability so you don't lose your house, car, or anything else you may have an interest in. It is so easy to incorporate and pay the few hundred dollar fee each year, so do it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just incorporate in Delaware, but if you're serious, I'd recommend spending some money on a lawyer. Further, if you're not making money, you're not making giving anything of legal value so I don't see why you'd need any form of limited liability. And if you are, you can probably afford a lawyer, and you should, this is important stuff!

</comment><comment><USER4> Have you asked yourselves: for what liability/tax/funding reason is incorporation necessary? Check out this thread <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=244009> (there may be others). Maybe then speak with an accountant or attorney to explore options.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> thanks for the help</comment>


ttf.js - A JavaScript TrueType Font Engine For Modern Browsers And Node.js - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ynakajima/ttf.js via Functionn - Open Source Resources For Web Developers & Designers: http://functionn.blogspot.com/2012/12/ttfjs-javascript-truetype-font-engine.html
P.S. Functionn contains a whole lot more of awesome resources like ttf.js. There only a fraction of them I can post here at a time. Take a look if you're interested, and subscribe:
http://functionn.blogspot.com <comment><USER2> Cool, he is using my lib jDataView to read binary data in Javascript.

<https://github.com/vjeux/jDataView>

<comment><USER3> nice, do you know if there is a reliable way to PUT binary data using XHR in JavaScript?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I really love how the author has taken pains to ensure that everything works in browsers and Node.js. The demo is all client side code, which is truly impressive--there is no uploading to a Node.js server to retrieve SVGs or images.

</comment><comment><USER5> My workmate did something similar few years back, <http://cufon.shoqolate.com/generate/>

(Converts font files to js structs and renders them into canvas/vml, this was meant as sIRF replacement before native support for CSS custom fonts was common.)

<comment><USER6> Heh, many production sites still use Cufon, mind. :)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> via Functionn - Open Source Resources For Web Developers & Designers: [http://functionn.blogspot.com/2012/12/ttfjs-javascript- truet...](http://functionn.blogspot.com/2012/12/ttfjs-javascript-truetype- font-engine.html)

P.S. Functionn contains a whole lot more of awesome resources like ttf.js. There only a fraction of them I can post here at a time. Take a look if you're interested, and subscribe:

<http://functionn.blogspot.com>

</comment><comment><USER7> Awesome, I tried a Chinese TTF font and it works! For many years I've been waiting for some JS code which supports CJK fonts, none of typekit, cufon etc. worked. This is really awesome.

</comment><comment><USER8> very nice!</comment>


Crawl the web for anything - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gns.newcrawler <comment><USER2> Is the crawling actually taking place on the phone or is there a backend service that's grabbing data? If the phone is doing crawling I'd imagine this would nuke your battery.</comment>


Moonshot Innovation 101: Part 1: What is it & do you fit the profile - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/SebastienMurat/the-art-of-the-moonshot-part-i

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a quick 101 `shallow dive´ into on moonshots, if you're one of those BIG thinking types, but with feet firmly planted in reality. Part 2, forthcoming early next week, is my base template to hack, tackle, assault such innovation, & with biotech examples from my experience, but you could modify to your chew, whatever the flavor, I suppose.</comment>


Ask HN - Your thoughts on Gitlab.com pricing - <AUTHOR> http://blog.gitlab.com/2012/10/19/gitlab-com-pricing-thoughts/

<comment><AUTHOR> Please let me know what you think. I learned a lot from the discussion on HN a month ago when I started Gitlab.com <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4428278></comment>


Ask HN: Where can I look for a non-profit organization to help? - <AUTHOR>

Hi, I'm graduating this year and would like to find a non-profit organization to help while I'm in college but I don't know how.
I'm a software engineer and I prefer to help non-profit organization rather than doing and internship so I'll get the experience anyway while helping a non-profit organization.
Where would you look? <comment><USER2> Not sure where you live, but I have found excellent opportunities on the careers section of the Washington Post. You can search for volunteer opportunities and there are a lot of non-profits looking for assistance on everything from answering phones to web design/software engineering. Some of the opportunities pay and others don't you just have to go through them and find ones that may interest you. Most of the positions are within the Washington DC area though so if you don't live in that area it may not be viable for you, but most likely other larger papers like the Post have something similar.

On a side note, it can be a great way for someone to build a portfolio with great references.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Jeff,

I'll look at the Post, and some others paper from Chicago, where I live.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hey there, Its great that you are interested in using your skills to help out a non-profit while you are in college. We are launching a new social venture called Atma, to develop mobile phone solutions for people at the base of the pyramid who struggle to meet their basic needs. Our first mobile app, Water Buddy, crowd-sources and delivers user generated information on water prices and vendors to poor urban consumers in developing countries, saving people time and money on a critical necessity. We would love to have your help! contact me at meenajpalaniappan (at) gmail . Cheers!Meena</comment>


The paper that started Waterfall - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.umd.edu/class/spring2003/cmsc838p/Process/waterfall.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> The first diagram in the paper is the commonly implemented version of waterfall. Dr. Royce didn't intend for it to become so, however: "I believe in this concept, but the implementation described above is risky and invites failure."

He goes on to explain what else is required to do it correctly.</comment>


You Can Get a Better Job If You Just Ask - <AUTHOR> http://hash-money.com/post/27072947122/you-can-get-a-better-job-if-you-just-ask <comment><USER2> Many of this advice echoes _The Passionate Programmer_ [1]. However, I believe it should also echo this one[2]: _Don't waste your time in crappy startup jobs_

Maybe more importantly, it should echo _You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss_ [3].

An even more disruptive perspective actually came from Bret Victor[4]:

 _There are many ways to live your life. That's maybe the most important thing to realize in your life, that every aspect of your life is a choice. There are default choices. You can choose to sleepwalk through your life, and accept the path that is laid out for you. You can choose to accept the world as it is. But you don't have to. If there's something in the world that you feel is a wrong, and you have a vision for what a better world could be, you can find your guiding principle, and you can fight for a cause. So after this talk, I'd like you to take a little time, and think about what matters to you, what you believe in, and what you might fight for._

[1] <http://pragprog.com/book/cfcar2/the-passionate-programmer>

[2] [http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/07/08/dont-waste- yo...](http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/07/08/dont-waste-your-time-in- crappy-startup-jobs/)

[3] <http://www.paulgraham.com/boss.html>

[4] [http://gumption.typepad.com/blog/2012/03/principle- centered-...](http://gumption.typepad.com/blog/2012/03/principle-centered- invention-bret-victor-on-tools-skills-crafts-and-causes.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> _Are you a software engineer at a company with a languishing flagship product where any attempt at innovation is prematurely killed in the name of optimizing quarterly profits?_

Stuff like this bothers me and I think paints an unfair picture of a corporate environment. Corporations aren't some Disney dichotomy of either being incredibly encouraging of change or a supervillain who purposefully punishes developers in order to line their own wallet.

The reality, I think, is that the vast majority of companies are in the middle. Change is good; change for the sake of change often goes against business principles. Why is a company shunning your 'innovation'? Is it because its unfeasible, or costly? Does it not integrate well with the product line?

<comment><USER4> Products have lifecycles. One of the states is the milking state, where you minimize investment in that product to maximize profit (put another way, the incremental value of new work is less than or equal to zero). Anybody would be stupid to continue dumping money in those.

The problem is that state occurs right before product death. If you aren't investing that milk money somewhere new, your company is in a death spiral, regardless of how much money there is coming in today.

So if your company is only milking and not investing, then, yes, leave, immediately. Personally, I've not seen that happen often, but I have seen it.

<comment><USER5> I'd leave also if the company's definition of "investing" is limited to some combination of polishing, enhancing, or repackaging the same milk money projects repeatedly. Its almost as dangerous as just sticking to the milk money projects (unless your company is a government contractor).

<comment><USER6> So engineers (coders) at IBM, Microsoft, Apple, HP, Dell, Wal-Mart, etc. should give up their "dangerous" jobs and seek out startups?

<comment><USER7> Oh, come on, are you serious?

IBM - one of the biggest R&D IT companies in the history of computing.

Microsoft - invented Windows, the XBox, Visual Studio, Silverlight, C#, the list is endless.

Apple - inventing radically new consumer products every other year.

Those examples are _not_ what he was talking about at all.

<comment><USER6> If you think my examples are not valid then provide some you think are representative of what he was talking about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> >Think of any reason why you're tolerating your current job and ask any prospective employer to beat it.

What about a great team, reasonable hours, lack of red tape, and flexibility in technical choices? All reasons I love my current job and things I don't think a potential employer would give an honest answer about anyway. _That's_ the biggest friction, for me at least.

<comment><USER9> Yup, I loathe the deception involved in the interview-hire process. People lie to each other with smiling faces, from both sides.

Just once I'd like to walk into an interview and have them say 'We want to work you like a dog so that we can make a million dollars and then fire you', and be able to reply 'That's fine, I am more interested in the color of your money than your ideological purity'.

<comment><USER10> I think that line is more for contractors than full-timers. Less red tape to let you go.

Which sounds snarky, but I mean it seriously.

<comment><USER9> The line between contractors and regular employees is virtually nil, at least in technical jobs. In at-will states you have no protection at all, the only difference is who pays the taxes and benefits from the employer side.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's just not true. Not for everyone. I've worked with people in the past who would shine in a new role, and I keep telling them to quit their job and move on to something better. But I've also worked with people who think they're good programmers but really aren't, and those people should thank the lord with both hands that they got the job they have now.

</comment><comment><USER12> Alternate title: How to become delusional and get fired from your solid job that pays all your bills and allows you to save for retirement and invest, too.

<comment><USER10> In silicon valley we dislike the term "delusional."

It's our "reality distortion field" :-P

<comment><USER12> I don't have anything against dreaming big.

My main observation, also from personal experience, is it's possible for someone who is otherwise content and on the right track in life to become confused by the kind of rhetoric utilized in this article.

I'm all for saving money and working on side projects until you have the stability to undertake a dream without significant risk.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This seems to be nothing more than a long-winded advertisement for Persway.me. Which doesn't even serve areas other than NYC and LA.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is sort of reminiscent of those billboards proclaiming "Life is short. Get a divorce."

Go talk to some people who've made the leap to founding their own companies or going for that bigger position. The pressure increases and the race never ends. Sometimes it's nice to just be able to knock out code on interesting problems without constantly worrying about your next move. Engineer comp is going up, way up. I don't think the right next step is to turn engineers into hyperpolitical MBAs.

<comment><USER15> Ironically I believe that we need technically competent people on the business side more than ever. When an industry gets "Hot", it attracts pretenders, and that can only hurt us.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The article starts by listing a couple of problems, at least one of which most software engineers will identify with.

Most of us have sometimes had our ideas turned down and a lot of companies do that for wide variety of reasons - not just to maximize quarterly earnings. Most of us have had our projects cancelled midway and usually the communications may not have been as you would have expected.

These don't make your jobs "crappy". Any company will have to make tradeoffs between the longterm vision and the short term earnings. I think quitting is not a good reaction to any of the above problems.

I would also try to address some of the allegations he makes about a company being "crappy".

Being profitable and stable means a lot of things. They are not a crutch that people hold on to. It means that there are people who are paying for what you make. It means that your team mates are doing a good job of selling what you make. It means that you are made something what people want. For most of us the pay is a small part of the equation on the job satisfaction. If I am making something that is profitable with people that I like and the company is trying its best to provide me some small perks,the low pay may hardly matter.

He also goes on another tangent expressing different frustrations about working in a company namely having "idiots with no technical background ... just because they have an MBA".

There are two different and unrelated points here. Why would someone without a technical background be an idiot? Why wouldn't he be competent to lead a team? Is your company hiring managers solely based on degrees? Does your company hire engineers just because they have a computer science degree? Would you have a person run a team just because he has a technical background?

There are a lot of reasons why people hate their companies. There are a lot of reasons why people love their companies. It is a good thing that the authors is trying to minimize the hateful relationship through your startup. However, he has provided no convincing argument to why some of the things that he listed make the company "mediocre" or "crappy" and why it is worth leaving the company.

<comment><USER17> >Why wouldn't he be competent to lead a team?

IMO you need to have a technical background in order to lead a technical team.Otherwise you will fail to distinguish between making software and shoveling snow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I fully support leaving a job that is not satisfying, but I can't recommend creating a profile on a web site that implies that you regard yourself as a rock star who requires a leather furnished tour bus and a bathtub filled with chilled champagne before you can consider joining an unworthy enterprise. I assume any employer desperate enough to scope out talent that has this attitude is probably the kind of place I don't want to work at.

</comment><comment><USER19> Why persway.me and not persuade.me?

<comment><USER20> someone has parked a domain there

<comment><USER21> I think he's asking why they haven't bid for a domain name that appears to be dormant.

<comment><USER22> Cost? Squatters will ask for $2k as soon as you demonstrate interest.

<comment><USER23> Which is a piss in the ocean if you're looking to start a real business.

<comment><USER22> Right, I forgot we were on HN where everyone's salary is $10k/month and investors throw piles of cash at you.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Opensourcing the Universal Package Manager - <AUTHOR> https://repl.it/blog/upm <comment><AUTHOR> Repl.it founder here. Happy to answer questions. But also I'd like to point out that this is not the only "universal" project we're working on. See:

\- Prybar: Universal REPL interface [https://github.com/replit/prybar](https://github.com/replit/prybar)

\- Polygott: Universal docker image for all languages (we support) [https://github.com/replit/polygott](https://github.com/replit/polygott)

Between these three you'd be able to add your favorite language to Repl.it (patches welcome). We have a write up on how to do that using elisp as an example: [https://repl.it/site/blog/elisp](https://repl.it/site/blog/elisp)

<comment><USER2> Wow, that's very cool.

I'm curious though, won't open sourcing all of these make it much easier for competitors to catch up to your head start in these areas? I wonder what your risk/reward thinking is wrt deciding what to open source.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure it well. We have a lot of copycats as well. But as Elon Musk likes to say: the only moat that matters is the continuous pace of innovation and the value of open-source outwieghs any contrived barrier to entry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is pretty cool! Lots of "configuration package managers" would benefit from a universal interface, and many of these boil down to "directory of git repositories at a specific commit". Some examples: many dotfiles repositories, pathogen (vim plugins), fisherman (fish shell; exrok/fisherman).

It would be nice to have a unified way to manage these, and even better if that unified way was through UPM, the same way I install new nodejs, python, whatever packages.

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly mirrors our thinking!

Our number one priority is that the programming experience on our site is flawless. We're playing hardmode though because we're dedicated to making the experience across languages the same. And that's why we create abstractions like this.

I'm hoping a project like this could at least start the conversation around standardization of interfaces.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is awesome!

I'd love to work on an integration with [https://wapm.io](https://wapm.io) (WebAssembly) and [https://crates.io/](https://crates.io/) (Rust) if you think that could be useful!

<comment><USER5> How would integration with Rust (cargo/crates) even be possible?

Looking at how Go is so different in dependency management (Go modules intentionally broke from the config/lock file format)... I'm not sure it could be used there. I wonder if there are any other end cases that wouldn't work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Crates would totally be possible. AFAICT it follows the exact workflow we're trying to standardize.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Ctrl-f "nix": zero results. _Come on._ What's the problem? Nix isn't my favorite language but this is just getting to be stupidly silly. Every three months one of these posts pop up, never going anywhere, never addressing the already existing nearly universal package manager that literally powers tons of workstations/servers/containers top-to-bottom.

Nixpkgs currently contains:

\- the linux kernel (and supporting bits+userspace to build an entire bootable OS installer/disk image/PXE payload, etc)

\- tens of thousands of Linux packages (many of which also work already on Darwin, where applicable)

\- thousands of native {Go,Python,Haskell,Node} dependencies

If half of the effort that has gone into Linuxbrew and other efforts like this, went into nixpkgs, it would probably have even more packages and Windows support and we could stop inventing a new package manager to rule them all every 6 months. Insert XKCD joke here.

edit: -1, zero replies, years of being here and nothing changes. gotta love it. Maybe do more research next time instead of NIH?

edit2: I'll donate $500 to the charity of your choice if you can show me a "universal package manager" that contains more packages than nixpkgs (which has existed for ages at this point). I'll wait.

<comment><USER7> While I understand (and share) your frustration, I don't think this is the right attitude to express here, and if anything it's just going to (understandably) scare people off from using it.

I personally really wouldn't want the Nix community to end up being "those people who roll into any thread about package management yelling at people". Thankfully, for the most part that isn't the case right now, so let's keep it that way.

On the topic itself: yes, I think that everybody who's working on a package manager could (and should) learn from the work that's been done on Nix. Particularly the LISA paper[1] is a good and accessible read on why Nix works how it does, and what problems it solves that you might run into with your package manager project.

That having been said, that doesn't mean that there cannot be competing implementations. The important thing is ultimately the package management _model_ , not the _implementation_ , and it's no secret that Nix's implementation of the model has quite a few usability and documentation issues. Those might be easier to solve in a new implementation of the model.

In the end, everybody's working towards the same goal of better package management. So let's default to a constructive attitude towards other projects in the same space, rather than a tribal war.

[1] [https://nixos.org/~eelco/pubs/nspfssd- lisa2004-final.pdf](https://nixos.org/~eelco/pubs/nspfssd-lisa2004-final.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I am a tiny bit confused. The readme says

"you don't have to figure out whether to use Pip or Pipenv or Poetry to manage your Python packages or wade into the Cabal-versus-Stack holy war in Haskell- land"

Python is on the list of supported languages, but Haskell is not...

<comment><AUTHOR> Haskell support is planned. The idea is to cover as much surface area as possible. Help would be appreciated too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm really grateful for the explanation of Project Package Managers in this. I've never come across that term and it makes the idea of per-language package managers make a whole lot more sense to me, as long as they are used that way. Without that concept, I lean much more towards using system packages. I'm going to keep Project Package Manager in mind from now on.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is awesome! I started a wrapper around system package managers because of similar frustrations (pull requests welcome!):

[https://github.com/krupan/package_commands](https://github.com/krupan/package_commands)

I really don't know why all package managers don't use the same simple commands.

<comment><USER10> Mental models of the creators

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> What are the advantages over conda?

<comment><USER12> I would imagine the advantages are more languages than R and Python.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Use OS packages instead.

<comment><USER14> Right should I package it as deb, RPM, tgz, deploy, p5i, pkg, msi, msix, appx, apk, aar, ipa, ISMP or do you have any other favourite OS package format in mind?

As fun game you can try to map those package formats to their respective OSes.

<comment><USER15> To be fair, isn't deb/apt already open source? If you don't know it, check out the "competing standards" xkcd.

If I was a FOSS dev, I'd say "screw it; just let people pull the git and package it however their distribution wants it".

<comment><USER16> I mean, for 99% of the packages in most distribs, that's how it works. Someone makes a cool binary, someone else packages it up and submits it to their favorite distro's package manager.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Company imploding; customers at risk; hostile partner - <AUTHOR>

HN: I'm in a bind. I've got a 2 year old company that's falling apart (not profitable, out of money). The CEO, some employees, I own 49.5% together, and the "money" partner owns 50.5%. The partner has taken over financial operations, as he owns the bank account. He's stopped paying most employees and arbitrarily pays vendors.
The problem: We provide critical IT services to companies which service thousands of end users. Some of which include hospitals and police stations. Our service powers a lot of day-to-day stuff. I simply cannot just walk away or shut it down without helping the customers. I'm not exaggerating to say there could be a public safety risk in some cases.
We should have gone out of business a month or two ago, but I personally put in cash to help keep some things floating and make critical payments. I promised every employee I'd find a way to personally pay them if the company didn't.
I want to email customers right now, and let them know the situation. But the partner isn't replying in a useful manner. I told him in no uncertain terms, in October, we'd have to shutdown without more funding. (Fatal Pinch, how appropriate.)
I was thinking of writing customers and CC'ing the partner. Something to the effect of "The entire technical team of <company> has resigned. <Partner> is available if you have any questions. And remember, you can export your data at portal/mydata.". Does that put me at risk?
On a semi-related note, a couple of customers are a custom job, and they'd follow me even if I don't solicit them. And if we just shut down, even with a month's notice, they could easily go out of business. How do I help them without making it look like I'm trying to steal a contract? Just drop them a line saying I now work for <othercompany>?
What should I do? <comment><USER2> What does your lawyer say about all this? I really hope you've already spoken to one those two months ago. If you haven't, you're a fool and you should talk to a lawyer right now. If you have, what advice from random internet people do you need on top of the legal advice from your lawyer?

It's important to realize that you are not the company. The company has stopped paying salaries, so it is already bankrupt.

Another thing I'm wondering is: if you have such important customers, why is the company not profitable?

<comment><AUTHOR> Lawyer hasn't been super helpful, mostly focused on lawsuits we've filed. Random Internet people on HN sometimes have remarkably keen insights.

Though after sleeping on what I've written, it seems more and more clear that there's nothing real special about this situation. Perhaps I panicked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Talk to an attorney.

Also, if you are considered critical to any public safety systems your contracts likely have clauses in there that could make life really bad for everyone if you don't give them enough warning to your situation. Including forced insolvency/receivership, loss of investment, barring future contracts for named partners etc. Law enforcement has been way more aggressive about these types of clauses on contracts lately, but I have been involved a lot in Public Safety EMS/Fire and they have these too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I definitely want to give them enough time. To the point of I'll personally pay for a few servers and field support calls myself for an extra month, if I have to. Good points though, I will make this extra clear to my partner so he understands the gravity of the situation.

Gonna call my lawyer first thing tomorrow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Talk to an attorney. Some of the options you mentioned could come back to bite you legally. I'd start there.

<comment><USER5> Agreed.

That said, IANAL but:

> _He 's stopped paying most employees and arbitrarily pays vendors._

That's questionable, and probably illegal. In many jurisdictions, your company will have to pay fines for late salaries. Also, in case of bankruptcy, salaries take precedence over debt and payments to vendors. Even if your company hasn't entered bankruptcy yet, these payments will be scrutinized. So, besides the obvious moral issue, paying vendors before paying the salaries makes no financial sense.

> I promised every employee I'd find a way to personally pay them if the > company didn't.

Why? It sounds like you're volunteering to be the fall guy.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well I felt I had no option. Everyone was nervous, and I couldn't have everyone just quit on the spot. I figured the few grand it'd take to pay a month of salaries, in the big picture, is only small amount compared to what I've lost. Of course, we'll sue and try to get the company to pay as much as possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Don't CC the partner, that's just passive aggressive.

You can email your partner that you need (and feel an ethical obligation) to inform customers and employees asap, give him 24 hours to respond if he might have input to better the wording. Especially encourage a plan for your "public safety risk" customers.

Also, as you might be personally liable for employees salaries at this point, let them know asap.

<comment><AUTHOR> I only meant to CC him to make it clear I'm being transparent in how it's being handled. So he cannot claim he wasn't involved or didn't know or ... whatever complaint he may come up with.

I'll email him tonight and give him a day to object. I'm not sure what to do if he does object, as there's no real other option at this point though.

We've laid off most people already and have only 4 people left, all of which are aware of the situation.</comment></comment>


The Unruly Genius of Joyce Carol Oates - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/07/06/the-unruly-genius-of-joyce-carol-oates <comment> ur-whale [http://archive.is/m45yr](http://archive.is/m45yr)

<comment><USER2> Alternatively Reader mode seems to work fine, at least if you only fetch HTML using something like μMatrix.</comment></comment>


I'm the CTO, bitch - <AUTHOR> http://vimeo.com/81923078

<comment><USER2> I lose insane amounts of respect for my CTO when they have very little technical insight. Had a lifetime Java CTO once when we were a Microsoft only shop, and was one of the worst experiences with a boss I've ever had, and he was technical, just in the wrong products.

</comment><comment><USER3> Great topic! More female CTOs! More CTOs knowing about their code!</comment>


Why it's so hard to find a photo of Neil Armstrong on the moon - <AUTHOR> http://apple.copydesk.org/2012/08/25/keep-in-mind-as-you-put-together-your-neil-armstrong-packages-tonight/ <comment><USER2> _One idea: Use this picture of Neil shot immediately after his historic walk on the moon._

After reading the Armstrong family's statement last night, that's the photo which expresses the legacy he wished.

He looks ready to wink back.

<http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-37-5528HR.jpg>

<comment><USER3> If I still worked in news (I worked in TV) I'd go with this, definitely. "Neil Armstrong, seen here back in the lunar module after his historic moon walk..."

Also, the picture of Armstrong climbing back in the Lunar Module is fine.

Conversely, to those arguing the use of a reflective shot of Aldrin's visor? I think that's worth including if I'd also included that shot inside the LM. An close up of this picture, showing Alrin's helmet, backpack, and shoulders, reading "Neil Armstrong took most of the photographs on the moon that had an astronaut in them. However he can be seen clearly in the reflection of Buzz Aldrin's visor here." Just pair it with a matching (size-wise) photograph, unzoomed.

<comment><USER2> What I love about the photograph is that it captures his total wonderment at having just fn walked on the fn moon.

He and Aldrin still have to get their spacecraft off the Lunar surface, rendezvous with the command module, fly back to Earth, and land the damn thing.

It captures a timelessness moment in between.

<comment><USER4> If nothing else, the following plaque sums the humbling nature of someone who accurately captured the gravitas of the moment: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:A11.plaque.jpg>

Today, some of the flags planted on the moon still stand upright. However, 40 years of intense UV radiation have bleached them all white. The plaque remains.

<comment><USER5> Somehow I feel that bleached out featureless flags on the Moon matches the message in that plaque perfectly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _In fact, now that you know this picture was manipulated by the source, I'd urge you to have it removed from your photo archives. Permanently._

Uh, Neil Armstrong had a Hasselblad camera strapped to his chest. I'd say excuse the lack of sky composition. Besides, the original picture also captures the lander in the composition. Wouldn't you want more photographic detail in a moon landing operation photo instead of one which is more harmoniously composed but contains useless black sky? But like I said, he's taking pictures with a camera strapped to his chest.

.. And who cares if it isn't a picture of Neil? It is the best representation of the feat and overall project. Besides, he took the picture.

<comment><USER7> > _.. And who cares if it isn't a picture of Neil?_

Editors searching for pictures of Neil? Because he was the one that died recently and they have to write stories about him?

<comment><USER6> The only people who care that it isn't a picture of Neil Armstrong are:

\- People who know it isn't a picture of Neil Armstrong and feel like they need to point that out.

\- People who are bothered by the slight inaccuracy that it isn't a picture taken of him.

Either way, he _took_ the picture. He _took_ one of the most famous pictures.

If the caption to the picture reads "Buzz Aldrin as captured by Neil Armstrong", who cares? Have you ever seen a caption which says that it is Neil Armstrong? I haven't. People just assume it is because he is the best known since he was the first man on the moon.

<comment><USER7> > _If the caption to the picture reads "Buzz Aldrin as captured by Neil > Armstrong", who cares?_

I _effin_ care. E.g. I want a picture of Neil Armstrong for my article. Not a picture that _he_ took of somebody else. Not a quick sketch he did of his cat. I want a picture of HIM, preferably on the moon.

That he "took the picture" is meaningless for the purposes of _showing_ the man in action. If I was writing about Knuth I wouldn't post a picture of McCarthy he took and caption it "John McCarthy as captured by D. Knuth".

As someone who used to do photo editing for a newspaper, I assure you that this is Photo Editing 101. Your arguments are loco.

<comment><USER6> Find me a credible publication that will:

A) Use the mentioned picture as the centerpiece to their article.

B) State incorrectly that it is a picture of Neil Armstrong.

Neither is likely to happen. It is just a common misconception that it is a picture of Neil Armstrong since it is the most famous picture of the mission and because people know Neil Armstrong. People see the picture and assume it is Neil Armstrong. Credible publications won't use the picture.

The parent article makes out that there aren't many pictures of Neil Armstrong. They will most likely use the one mentioned taken by Buzz Aldrin or this one:

[http://static.guim.co.uk/sys- images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/20...](http://static.guim.co.uk/sys- images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/8/25/1345929814833/Neil-Armstrong-008.jpg)

<comment><USER8> The Atlantic doesn't state who it is, but Aldrin's name appears nowhere in the text: [http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/08/neil- arm...](http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/08/neil- armstrong/261575/)

<comment><USER9> The file's name is also "Neil_armstrong.jpg"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I always assumed that the poor composition of the original AS11-40-5903 (and many other photos from the Moon which suffer from the same problem) was because every pixel was precious, so they didn't want the uniformly black sky to take up any larger fraction of the image area than necessary. You can always add more black, unlike the rocks or equipment or whatever which was captured in the bottom of the picture.

BTW in AS11-40-5903 they took it too far and cut Buzz Aldrin's antenna.

<comment><USER7> > _I always assumed that the poor composition of the original AS11-40-5903 > (and many other photos from the Moon which suffer from the same problem) was > because every pixel was precious, so they didn't want the uniformly black > sky to take up any larger fraction of the image area than necessary._

It wasn't pixels -- it was emulsion film.

Nor was it that precious. What would they do with a photo of more rock/equipment and less space?

I guess the photos was more for a documentation/publicity use than of actual scientific interest.

<comment><USER2> The film was precious. Every gram of film had to be brought back into orbit by _Eagle_ in lieu of some onboard instrument, backup system, additional fuel and air or sample from the surface.

<comment><USER7> A kilogram of film is still too much film. And they have too many useless and bad photos taken so it doesn't seem good pictures was their priority.

<comment><USER2> In my work, I shoot a lot of photographs when I visit a project site during design and construction. My priority is not composition or aesthetics, it's documentation so that I can answer questions which I didn't know I would have when I went so that I can avoid another trip.

They sent pilots, to the moon. They had a couple of hours. That's all. Film allowed them to collect a large amount of data which hundreds or thousands of scientists could later analyze.

Some rocks are more interesting than others. But it's better to have the scientists decide which to take a closer look at on the next landing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Hey, it actually is a photo of Neil Armstrong on the moon - you can just about see him taking the photo, reflected in Buzz's sun visor :)

<comment><USER12> I concur! In fact, I think this would have made an excellent release of the "first man on the moon" photo; It's just a recrop of their original: <http://i.imgur.com/PyiKT.jpg>, so no disallowed manipulation.

<comment><USER13> Nice idea for my wallpaper (1080p) for next week.

I fiddled the curves a bit on the inset photo, but still need to do something with that blue/violet cast on the bottom right.

[http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8403291/armstrongs-picture-of- aldrin...](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8403291/armstrongs-picture-of-aldrin- cropped-inset-1920.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Pardon my ignorance, but why is it so horrible to use a photo manipulated by the source--especially if you know exactly how and why it was manipulated, and you still have access to the original? This manipulation seems rather benign, too. Why must it be "removed from your photo archives"?

<comment><USER15> Journalistic ethics basically.

<comment><USER16> Generally yeah, but in this case? If they 100% knew for a fact that the sky above his head was black, then adding some black padding is fine. Maybe not from a photography standpoint, but from a journalistic one? Come on..

<comment><USER15> This is why it's so contentious, it improves the photo but it's no longer original. Oddly from a photographic side that's fine, but photo journalistic standpoint it's no longer the moment that was capture but a modified version. It's a thorny issue with grey areas.

<comment><USER17> "Burning" the edges [of the final print] to the extent it mimics the "deep black" of space, is in fact faithful to the scene. PJ's "Burn" the edges of news images everyday. That is, they "darken" the edges to create relative contast to the focal point they wish to show. This is not deemed unethical, but rather legitmatley "expressive". The terminology comes from film emulsion days, when the overexposre of the positive image to (unfiltered) light, would darkens the photosensive elemnts of the (white) paper. The fact that this was shot originally in MF film, makes me feel better about this, for some reason. The original negative would have been "clear" in this area.

<comment><USER15> It does differ from publication to publication, but it depends on how much of a stickler for rules and ethics they are.

I'm also alright with it, they had to do what they had to do to make it work and make it clear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is from a reddit ama where the OP has worked through Apollo 1-14. He claims it was Neil in the photo - [http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/xove1/iama_97_year_old...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/xove1/iama_97_year_old_that_worked_apollo_missions_1/c5o9ph6)

<comment><USER19> There were a ton of huge inaccuracies in that AMA. Here's a few things that were pointed out to be wrong: [http://es.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/xp6il/methusela1915_i...](http://es.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/xp6il/methusela1915_is_a_97_year_old_who_worked_apollo/)

I wouldn't rely on that for any real information.

EDIT: Not to mention the fact that the suit says "E Aldrin" on it. I have a hard time believing they swapped suits, too.

<comment><USER20> Not vouching one way or the other for the AMA, but he claims that Armstrong is in the "astronaut saluting the flag" picture ([http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/Buzz_salu...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/Buzz_salutes_the_U.S._Flag.jpg)), not the one where you can see the "E Aldrin" name tag.

<comment><USER19> Yeah, that's a good point, but he also says this: "So that's who I said it was. When Aldrin came back, he told me no, first thing Armstrong did was pass the camera back to me."

It's still hard for me to believe they were passing the camera back and forth. That, with all the other inaccuracies, lead me to believe it's fake. Why someone would purposefully fake that I don't know...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I don't really have a problem with the photo as long as the caption doesn't say it's Neil. It's a historic moment that everybody should recognize. He is known for this event and even took the photo.

As for the doctoring, I don't find it unethical. I don't have a problem straitening a crooked photo, adjusting the contrast, etc to make the photo visually appealing. That's not the same as adding a person. I understand journalists want "the truth" but with film there are so many artistic decisions made when processing a photo anyway. Maybe the truth is that is was very dark or bright. Should darkroom manipulation be skipped and the photo be blown out or solid black because that's the real truth? If there was a scratch on the negative I don't mind if it's repaired as long as it isn't maliciously trying to trick us.

<comment><USER22> The 'doctoring' is only slightly above the level of adding a border around the image. If this is doctoring, then all Mars photos's are 'doctored', as they're stitched together from much smaller photos.

<comment><USER21> I have to agree. If they had added the earth or some detail which wasn't in the original photo then I might feel differently. But just adding some black to fix the composition issues seems ok to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Why is it that nobody could land on moon after 1972? After all cold war was still on. All moon landings happened between 1969-72. It is really unbelievable that US would forego such an advanced technology that nobody else had. There are many unanswered questions here.

<comment><USER24> > Why is it that nobody could land on moon after 1972?

Lack of political will to fund it. Funding wars was more important than funding science.

> There are many unanswered questions here.

Sadly, no. We know precisely what happened, and that's the depressing part.

<comment><USER23> Has US ever been in an either or situation? Defence budget in 2010 is $680B, and cost of a moon landing is $18B in 2010 dollars. Given that both are deficit funded, and dollar can be printed at will, is this convincing?

<comment><USER24> > Given that both are deficit funded, and dollar can be printed at will

This bespeaks a gross lack of knowledge about how a modern economy works.

<comment><USER23> Perhaps you may find it gross to understand why US has been able to spend well beyond its means - Does dollar denominated trade ring a bell?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> > Despite the vast attention paid to the astronauts' psychological profiles > and their ability to work in teams, the Apollo 11 crew verged on the > dysfunctional. While Armstrong and Aldrin didn't quite match Stoppard's > Scott and Oates, there was a fierce behind-the-scenes battle between them to > be first to set foot on the Moon. Early plans were for Aldrin, as module > pilot, to step out first, but one version reported by Smith has it that > Armstrong, as mission commander, lobbied more vigorously than Aldrin, and > Nasa backed him up because he would be 'better equipped to handle the > clamour when he got back' and, more mundanely, because his seat in the lunar > module was closer to the door. Aldrin paid Armstrong back by taking no > photographs of him on the Moon: the only manually taken lunar image of the > First Man on the Moon is in one of many pictures Armstrong snapped of > Aldrin, showing himself reflected in the visor of Aldrin's spacesuit. Asked > about this omission later, Aldrin lamely replied: 'My fault, perhaps, but we > had never simulated this in training.' Later, Aldrin put it about that > Armstrong's First Sentence might have been a bureaucratic concoction.

[http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n17/steven-shapin/what-did-you- expe...](http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n17/steven-shapin/what-did-you-expect)

</comment><comment><USER26> This Warrior of a Dead World: Gene Wolfe's literary portrait of Neil Armstrong [http://silkandhornheresy.blogspot.com/2012/08/this- warrior-o...](http://silkandhornheresy.blogspot.com/2012/08/this-warrior-of- dead-world-gene-wolfes.html)

</comment><comment><USER27> In this photo: [http://apple.copydesk.org/uploads/2012/08/120826ArmstrongLem...](http://apple.copydesk.org/uploads/2012/08/120826ArmstrongLem.jpg)

How come the flag is waving in a environment with no atmosphere ?

<comment><USER28> <http://astroprofspage.com/archives/162>

tl;dr the flag had embedded wires to keep it unfurled, also the pole was flexible and springy, it kept wobbling after it was planted in the ground

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Because it's hard to find anything on the moon. Where would you look? Plus photos will be much lighter on the moon so a little solar breeze would probably send the photo flying for weeks.

</comment><comment><USER30> very insightful article. Do newspapers refuse to publish handout pictures that were manipulated by the source even if there was no wrong intention?

<comment><USER31> Here's a very comprehensive archive of images that have been manipulated by the source, or by the publisher: <http://www.fourandsix.com/photo-tampering- history/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> idiots, its all staged moon stuff, just like 9-11 was phoney video... hence the "september clues documentary"... go look it up and watch it you idiots

</comment><comment><USER33> cue in the obnoxious conspiracy theorists...

</comment><comment><USER32> idiots go watch SEPTEMBER CLUES DOCUMENTARY already

</comment><comment><USER34> Well that's a very interesting article to bring out facts. There are at least a billion people out there who still think this guy: <http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5903HR.jpg> is Neil Armstrong. Also there is another half-a-billion or so which thinks man never landed on moon.

Darn the fluff, get the truth. Upvoted.

<comment><USER35> > _Also there is another half-a-billion or so which thinks man never landed on > moon._

Citation needed. It looks to me like only a small gang of wingnuts are part of the "moon landing conspiration believers" (I never met one). Like s slight portion of those believing that 9/11 was a CIA/Israeli job, or that there isn't any biological evolution.

<comment><USER36> Obviously you live in US, get your information from mainstream media (instead of doing your own research on the Web) and belong to the upper middle class. That's in my humble experience the only type of guy, who would never meet anyone disagreeing with government propaganda.

In Latin America, East Europe, Arabic countries, Russia and Japan ~90% of the people I talked to believe 9/11 was an inside job.

As for the moon landings - I'm one of those conspiracy believers. I've looked at what NASA&Co has to say and it's far from convincing. Here's a good site IMHO proving Armstrong and the other 20 astronauts never left Earth orbit: <http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/Apollo4.html> .

<comment><USER37> Actually, my dad worked on the mission in Cocoa Beach. The real problem was that they sent the lander to Mars, not the moon. The real concern at the time was the Tycho Monolith, remember, so although the mission was originally intended for the moon, JFK authorized some changes to suit McNamara's DoD. Big change, yes, but obviously necessary for Homeland Security.

You're right that some of the photos were doctored -- good work! The primary purpose of all of the Photoshop work was to remove the red hues from the ground. Some of the backgrounds were reused, of course. That wasn't uncommon back then. And of course the constellations that are thousands of light years away would have looked distorted, so they had to be removed.

But you're wrong about the framing and focus problem. While it turns out to be impossible for a geometrically-inclined engineer to aim a camera without a viewfinder, NASA was able to work with Polaroid to invent a fixed focus lens, which they later commercialized as the Brownie.

Great research! That davesweb guy does good work. It's too bad that the govt can't acknowledge the hard work folks like him have put in. It's just still too sensitive. My Dad never should have told me, but you know how people get when they're old.

Oh, this goes with saying I guess, but they never did find the monolith. So when Bush gets his colony on Mars obviously that will be priority number one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Because it's all a conspiracy. There isn't and never was a moon.

See here a British youth journalist challenge Buzz Aldrin about it: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kKFYTBo6kA>

<comment><USER39> I prefer this brief interview about the "hoax" [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7KgdehBBsw&t=4m20s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7KgdehBBsw&t=4m20s)

<comment><USER40> I love this video. Aldrin was a test pilot for crying out loud. They could have used his brass balls in that scene from Glengarry Glen Ross. Did that dope really think he was going to intimidate him?</comment></comment></comment>


Why WSJ Mobile App Gets 2 Star Customer Reviews - <AUTHOR> http://www.useit.com/alertbox/mobile-startup-screen.html <comment><USER2> See that isn't quite right, while the app is free to subscribers to the physical newspaper, those of us who use the online web access don't get access to the iPhone, only the iPad. That's why I'm unhappy. Dudes mockups still leave us online users pissed.

</comment><comment><USER3> Thank you! Someone is paying attention.

This article makes it look like it's free to online subscribers (if you can figure it out).

But that's not the case at all. It is NOT free to online subscribers. Therefore it's got bad design, cryptic pricing, and the are double charging. All of which warrant two star reviews.

</comment><comment><USER4> A cynical person might say that the design was intentional, to vacuum up a few extra subscription fees. Especially when the actual login button is shoved all the way at the bottom of the screen and significantly smaller (due to a lack of a background shape) than the other two buttons. Buttons don't shrink on their own accord, especially when it comes to interface design. Whoever wrote the app had to have the stakeholders sit down and give input on the look and feel - I doubt they'd miss something like that.

</comment><comment><USER5> Nielsen concludes "Ideally, the next step is to user test the redesign. You can do this with paper prototyping, so you don't have to fully implement a new app . . ."

Rather than that, it's actually quite easy (and overlooked IMO) to implement a meaningful A/B framework within iOS by setting up your experiments as live web pages that the app accesses.

The key reason NOT to do this is latency, so make sure you're on the fastest box possible and consider pre-caching the experiment images via SDWebImage or similar.

In our experience any loss you have around latency will be made up in spades by having an engine that lets you test your funnel in a real world environment.

ref for image pre-loading -

<https://github.com/rs/SDWebImage>

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4617424/improve- uitablevi...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4617424/improve-uitableview- scrolling-performance-while-loading-images)

[http://www.iphonedevsdk.com/forum/iphone-sdk- tutorials/13315...](http://www.iphonedevsdk.com/forum/iphone-sdk- tutorials/13315-image-caching-tutorial.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Does this rely on having internet access available on the iDevice? Or could you bundle default screens in your app, which only update if internet access is available?

<comment><USER6> yes, you can cache pages locally, and update when internet access is available

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> These usability stories make me laugh.

Anyone else thinks <http://useit.com> homepage is almost unusable?

<comment><USER8> Did you read it? This isn't a "your site isn't usable to the 1% of users with motor disabilities" Nielsen article.

WSJ spent money to create an app that, because of one poor piece of text, made existing, paying customers dislike them.

And not for a real reason, like charging them twice, but a misunderstanding caused by bad copy and never testing the app with real subscribers.

<comment><USER7> First, how Nielsen came to conclusion that the reason for the app's bad rating is its startup screen design is beyond me. Read the comment of _cageyjames_. That could be the reason.

Second, usability isn't a science. So it's vulnerable to criticisms.

<comment><USER9> > Second, usability isn't a science.

You seem to be using a different definition of "usability" to most of us throughout this discussion. To people like Nielsen (who certainly popularised and arguably originated the term) usability _is_ like a science: it is about measuring how people behave in practice and improving your product in light of that hard data. Once may draw inferences from that data, if patterns start to emerge where some practices are on balance superior to others, but just as in science, such inferences are falsifiable and only as good as the latest data set.

It is more than a little ironic that useit.com itself has become less usable over time, according to many of the very factors that Nielsen himself has commented on in the past...</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Facebook, Zynga, and buyer-supplier hold up - <AUTHOR> http://cdixon.org/2010/05/08/facebook-zynga-and-buyer-supplier-hold-up

<comment><USER2> I like how Chris Dixon incorporates stuff he learned doing an MBA into his startup blog. Those are two different worlds and there aren't many people who are fluent in both. I'm not very interested in the bulk of what MBA programs teach; perhaps it's my ignorance, but it seems like a lot of voodoo that is mostly about solidifying corporate culture with an elite caste of guess-who at the top. But some of the ideas that Chris has written about that come from there are quite interesting and relevant to our world -- his post on commoditizing complements, for example -- so it seems like he's a pretty good filter. (It's sort of a unique niche in the startup blog world, too. Positioning?)

</comment><comment><USER3> "App makers feel comfortable investing in the Apple platform and even having most of their business depend on them in a way they don't on Facebook or Twitter."

I don't think that's true at all. The headaches on the iPhone platform are many times larger, and the profit many times less. The smart money is in Facebook games, by far. The amount of money invested in making Facebook apps far exceeds that of iPhone.

<comment><USER4> Really? What about the longer term? I'm pretty confident that in 2015 you'll still be able to make money by writing apps for iPods, iPhones et cetera; I'm not so confident about facebook games.

<comment><USER5> That's the wrong question. The question is not, "Will you be able to make money on the iPad?", it's "Will anyone ever make a couple hundred million per year (like Zynga has on Facebook) on the iPad?" In that sense, Facebook is the clear winner.

<comment><USER4> Has Zynga really made a couple of hundred million a year? Have they even been going for a year?

I don't see any reason why nobody could make a couple of hundred million a year on iPod/iPad/iPhone apps, especially as the huge existing installed base of iPods (over 260 million sold) will probably eventually churn into app- capable devices like the current iPod Touch.

<comment><USER5> Founded 3 years ago:

<http://www.crunchbase.com/company/zynga>

Estimated to have made ~$270 million last year:

<http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/03/zynga-revenue/>

<comment><USER3> It's kind of humorous to me that someone who doesn't even know about Zynga can express an opinion on this topic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> While 30% seems like a pretty ridiculous number, I don't think there is enough data yet on if Facebook credits will hurt app profits or strengthen them.

One of the nice things about Apple's app store is you just click to buy, you don't have to worry about giving your payment information to individual app makers. I buy many more iphone apps than I would if I had to enter payment information for each of them. Many of the smaller app makers I'm not sure I would trust enough to give payment information to. Many also use more trusted 3rd party systems like PayPal, but they aren't one click experiences which diminishes conversion.

If Facebook credits become the norm and are widely adopted, there could be a significant uptick in consumers willing to pay for apps from the 1-3% which is widely circulated.

</comment><comment><USER7> The FB developer APIs do make a nice platform. I did a little work a year ago on a customer's Rails app to make it play nice with FB.

That said, I woud hate to base my business just on one platform that I did not control. It seems safer to develop useful web apps and/or game web apps that can integrate with FB, perhaps act as Wave components, and run on the developers own servers.

<comment><USER8> True, but in Zynga's case their audience is going to be drawn pretty naturally to Facebook.

Even at "max diversification" of their platform, it seems unlikely to me that losing their Facebook platform wouldn't be a crippling blow to Zynga.

How many 15 year old girls are really going to want to go to a completely different site to play Farmville? 5%? 10%? Zynga's demographic primarily seems to be whatever the exact opposite of "hardcore power user" is.

Granted, depending on how draconian Facebook's take is, that 5% or 10% might be enough to make them more money, but that seems somewhat unlikely to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'd agree that the Apple app store is a pretty close comparison. However, wonder how one would compare the value FB delivers for their 30% in fees to the value, say, ebay delivers to the auction sellers for the ~3-5% (guess) they charge in posting & paypal fees?</comment>