A Colorado school district does away with grade levels - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20090210/ts_csm/agradeless

<comment><USER2> Based on the comments, it seems everyone thinks they're doing away with grades as in A, B, C, D and F. I think they're actually just doing away with grade leves 1-12.

A good analogy for the gamers out there would be they switching from a level based system to a skill based system. Currently, after each school year, you level up to the next grade. In other words, when you pass a grade, you move to the next grade level in all subjects.

In the new system, your math level is independent of you english and history levels. In one school year, you could advance two levels in math, one level in english and half a level in history. To graduate on time, the overall goal would be to average passing at least one level of each subject per year.

<comment><USER3> > Based on the comments, it seems everyone thinks they're doing away with > grades as in A, B, C, D and F. I think they're actually just doing away with > grade leves 1-12.

It looks like this site is coming down with the same RTFA-itis that plagues other news aggregators. And I no longer have the down vote ability to help correct this...

Back on topic, I'm curious how slow progression or level skipping could be handled. I would think this kind of system would make it hard to synchronize lesson plans or teaching sessions, if all the students in a given classroom are in differing levels. The "little red schoolhouse" never really scaled up, after all...

<comment><USER2> The way it works at my wife's school is she ends up acting more like a classroom moderator as the students work through workbooks independently. She's there for one-on-one help if the students have trouble with the content.

Not sure if this is how they're doing it in Denver however.

<comment><USER3> > She's there for one-on-one help if the students have trouble with the > content.

I hope Denver really vets its teachers well then. I remember going through public school in the 80's, and having to be careful which questions I asked in class because the teacher would be literally learning the material at the same time as the students. The teachers under this new system, in order to be effective, will have had to already gain familiarity with the course content ahead of time; they won't be able to afford any "Yukari Tanizaki" type teachers who drop all prep work when away from school...

<comment><USER4> "I remember going through public school in the 80's, and having to be careful which questions I asked in class because the teacher would be literally learning the material at the same time as the students."

I'm curious: Do you have more details? Because it seems to me that it's just absurd that such would occur. Not because I don't believe you; I do. But... at the risk of sounding snotty, there just isn't anything that a public school could cover that should have the teacher _scrambling_ to learn the material, unless the school did something radically stupid. The curriculum just isn't _that_ large, and by definition, teachers were at least smart enough to get through college.

The only thing that leaps to mind that this could have happened with is "new math". I could see how that could cause trouble, since it was pretty stupid. But what else could throw the teacher for such a loop?

<comment><USER3> I know this is late, but...

> But... at the risk of sounding snotty, there just isn't anything that a > public school could cover that should have the teacher scrambling to learn > the material, unless the school did something radically stupid.

In my experience, it was usually just that. Either the teacher was given a new textbook or curriculum the prior summer with no evaluation period, or the instructor was transferred from one subject to another due to a financial or staffing pinch.

For example, I had a teacher who specialized in teaching algebra and trig, but had to be pressed into teaching calculus one year. While he knew enough of the material to grade and write assignments, his ability to explain the more obscure stuff in lecture was hobbled by his forgetting most of the material was about last time he was exposed to it. I've also had instructors bounced between teaching English and Social Studies because administrators thought they were similar because the tests of both subjects involved essay answers.

My experience may also be atypical, since at the high school level, I tended to take "honors" courses, which usually were an afterthought funding-wise than the majority of the "college prep" or "remedial" classes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > _She often uses a video game analogy: Students are engaged, take as much or > as little time as they need to at each level, and can't move on to the next > level until they've mastered the one before it._

There is your elevator pitch.

This is brilliant. This lets kid move at their own pace without resorting to grouping by ability, and it turns school into a _set of things to accomplish_ rather than a _length of time to tolerate_.

</comment><comment><USER6> This is long overdue.

<http://learninfreedom.org/age_grading_bad.html>

<comment><USER7> This isn't about grading, it's about grade levels - K-12. Still, it's not a new idea, Ted Sizer has been promoting this since the 80's:

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> My wife teaches at a small private school similar to this. It mostly works well for them, but the kids who don't want to work can fall behind. I think this problem would be exaggerated in public schools because of the larger classrooms, but hopefully it will work out in Denver.

<comment><USER8> Perhaps we could let them tier themselves into a trade. I don't think it would be so bad for society. Either they're going to end up in a trade, or worse, or they'll have a chance to realize where they're going early to work themselves back into HS and College.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was studying business/project management full-time while running a couple companies. My biggest beef was that the grading scale rewards consistent mediocrity over inconsistent excellence - basically the opposite of the real world.

Out in the wild, let's say you run three advertising campaigns. Each costs $1,000. Two return almost nothing - utter failures. The third returns $9,000. In the real world, you've got +$6,000 and you've tripled your money. In academia, you've got an average of 33% and you've failed the course.

The problem is, once an assignment is "near perfect" and gets an A, there's nothing to separate "excellent" (an "A") and the "best paper ever put together in this topic" (...also an "A"). In the real world, you can do excellent work and make $100,000 in a year, or do the best work ever done in a field and make millions. Academia has a mild learning component and a significant credentialing component (it is a major plus, and I do look at degree/grades when hiring), but the atmosphere is not conducive to experimentation and prioritization - two crucial skills for making it big in the real world.

Passing heavy homework-laden courses shows you can take orders and execute on them sufficiently well and consistently, which has some value for people who want to be employees, but considerably less value for people who want to do great things. A mix of real world learning from experiences, and accumulating some credentials in other ways is more and more becoming a viable option.

</comment><comment><USER10> Marvin Minsky's thoughts about this problem. He was thinking about the OLPC project in particular.

<http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Drawbacks_of_Age-Based_Segregation>

</comment><comment><USER11> It would be awesome if this started to catch on across the country.

</comment><comment><USER12> In Spain, the ESO (a high-school reform) implemented a system of no grades. The only grades were "needs to improve" and "is progressing fine".

Guess what, it didn't work: they did away with any incentive for students to really improve. Overall knowledge and performance of students went down.

I conceptually agree that grades are not proper for an evaluation system. But the alternative can be worse! I hope they really, really worked out and tested an alternative that wasn't just _politically correct_ or _fair_ (ugh) but rather, a proper, better evaluation system.

<comment><AUTHOR> I would think the stigma of your friends moving up and your staying behind with ever younger students would create the social imperative to learn.</comment></comment>


A Reminder: Private Key Security - <AUTHOR> http://isc.sans.edu/diary.html?storyid=12817 <comment><USER2> _Algorithm: RSA is usually providing the best tradeoff with respect to speed and security, but for some applications, DSA may be more appropriate. Read up on the particular application and find out what algorithm works best._

Jibber-jabber. Why doesn't he just say "we don't know", or, better yet, leave this clause out?

</comment><comment><USER3> No mention of ECDSA, although recent openssh, openssl, and many other crypto libraries support it. It's not usable for public facing SSL (few if any CAs will sign an ECDSA csr), but it's eminently usable for ssh to servers that keep their openssh up to date (5.7 and later).

<http://www.nsa.gov/business/programs/elliptic_curve.shtml>

"4096 bits is typically preferred..." by whom? Serious gpg/pgp users perhaps (all 1000 of them), but not most websites.[1]

"...it is still feasible and doesn't 'break the bank' for CPU cycles on a modern server."

Has the author bothered to benchmark 2048 bit rsa vs 4096 bit rsa? CPU time for signing goes from 2.5 or 5 ms (2048 bit), to 14 or 35ms (4096 bit), on two computers I just benchmarked (slower: xeon 5130 w/ openssl 1.0.0h, faster: i7-950 w/ openssl 1.0.1)

      [1] site: rsa key bits (default negotiated ciphersuite w/ openssl 1.0.0h)
      Google: 1024 bit (ECDHE-RSA-RC4-SHA -- nice)
      Facebook: 1024 bit (RC4-MD5)
      Twitter: 2048 bit (RC4-SHA)
      Linkedin: 2048 bit (RC4-MD5)
      Youtube: 1024 bit (ECDHE-RSA-RC4-SHA)
      Wikipedia: 2048 bit (RC4-SHA)
      Live.com: 2048 bit (AES128-SHA)
      Amazon: 10248 bit (RC4-MD5)
      Ebay: 2048 bit (RC4-SHA)
      USAA: 2048 bit (AES256-SHA)
      BofA: 2048 bit (RC4-MD5)
      Wells Fargo: 1024 bit (RC4-MD5)
      Citibank (online.): 2048 bit (AES256-SHA)
      TDAmeritrade: 1024 bit (RC4-MD5)
      Fidelity: 1024 bit (AES256-SHA)
      Etrade: 2048 bit (RC4-MD5)
      EFF: 2048 bit (DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA -- Someone knows what they're doing)
      EPIC: 2048 bit (DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA -- same)

<comment><USER2> In addition to the fact that lots of sites use RC4 TLS because it's faster, it's worth noting that DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA is a TLS 1.0 ciphersuite and was thus vulnerable to Thai and Juliano's blockwise-adaptive chosen plaintext attack. Several sites switched from AES to RC4 in advance of Thai and Juliano's publication.

Using AES256 instead of AES128 doesn't make much of a practical difference (using 2048 bit keys, though, probably does).

Also, more than one smart cryptographer has reservations with ECDSA (the one issue I'm aware of is that ECDSA/SHA-1 is especially vulnerable to collisions in SHA-1); there are replacement ECC signing algorithms in the literature now (EdDSA being one). ECDSA has also already had a couple major implementation errors (the one everyone thinks of is the nonce in Sony's implementation, but OpenSSL also coughed up private keys in a timing attack they've now fixed).

I agree with your general point though, which is that this advise seems pretty arbitrary and not grounded in reality.</comment></comment>


HTML5 games can now be played on Xbox 360 - <AUTHOR> http://www.lostdecadegames.com/play-our-games-on-your-xbox-360/

<comment><USER2> I love how HTML5 let's my code work almost everywhere. Thanks for the story.

</comment><comment><USER3> Makes the Gamepad API more relevant...

<comment><USER4> Do you think Microsoft would ever support Gamepad API on Xbox, opening the market for free online games instead of going through their own store? It seems unlikely to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't dug through this 14-page document yet: [http://www.microsoft.com/en- us/download/details.aspx?id=3044...](http://www.microsoft.com/en- us/download/details.aspx?id=30442)

But the gamepad API could easily supported. Only problem is the controller now has default behavior (controlling the browser cursor).</comment></comment></comment>


Want to speak Chinese without learning it? Here's how - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2012/11/09/want-to-speak-chinese-without-learning-it-heres-how/ <comment><USER2> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4759620></comment>


We don't pay you to work here - <AUTHOR> http://venturehacks.com/articles/ordinary-people <comment><USER2> I think it foolish to take a job without first sorting out both a written job description and an agreed salary. The idea that we shouldn't only strengthens this ridiculous idea that somehow employees owe the business a favour for working there. Part of the reason that programmers don't get paid more is because geeks are typically poorer negotiators than other professions. So even if an individual is strong, they don't have as much room to move because unless their skills are particular management will know that the trick of getting good geeks has more to do with getting them to the offer stage first than paying a rate that would be competitive in a liquid market.

Employees are business units in and of themselves, have opportunity cost considerations as well even if they're comfortable in their current state of life. Just imagine the conversation with your kids at a future time, "Guys - sorry we can't send you to the school we wanted to, but I hope it warms your heart to know that I had a really good time working at blah consulting when I was in my prime." Having money allows you to support family, pursue hobbies and create business opportunities of your own in the future.

I've been thinking about a new way of negotiating recently: one-bid job offers. In this situation both parties would to the terms and a mediator. Both guarantee a deposit of - say - five thousand dollars to the third party and agree that if the negotiation does not conclude in a hire but they end up negotiating further then the negotiator will keep the $10k.

To resolve the salary, the prospective employee writes down the figure below which they would not accept the role in an envelope. The prospective employer writes down the figure above which they would not choose to hire the person. Then the trusted third-party opens both envelopes in front of them.

If the amounts are compatible, then the salary is the midpoint of the amounts. If the amounts are incompatible then both parties walk away with the amounts undeclared. Has anyone heard of this being done in practice? I think this guarantees that both parties would always get a good deal, and neither would feel diddled.

</comment><comment><USER3> This should be an obvious part of most managers philosophy.

If the type of job your employees are doing (and type of people you are hiring) provides more value then monetary compensation that you should be aware of that.

This is especially true in software development where many developers would do it for the love of it, if their basic necessities are covered. Many other professions are the same.

But there a many more jobs (and employees) where this is not the case and money is the best motivator.

<comment><USER4> Just because I love developing software doesn't mean I'm willing to make you rich while I get a salary alone. The only people I know who are willing to do that are people who don't know their worth, people that aren't worth more than a salary, and people so new that they don't know any better.

<comment><USER3> I agree with you. I think the best developers should get paid accordingly.

I mean that managers should be aware that some workers are not directly motivated by money as some other job types. To get the most out of say, your developers, it might take more then money.

This post summarizes it well, [http://foohack.com/2008/11/how-not-to-get-real- and-die-tryin...](http://foohack.com/2008/11/how-not-to-get-real-and-die- trying/)

<comment><USER4> I'm all for _more_ than money but not for everything _except_ money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> old-gregg Sounds pretty sweet. Their quotes of Tandem Computers CEO also make you want to work for them. The reality however is that...

 _"As the company entered the 90's, however, sales and profits slowed, and many of these innovative programs were either curtailed or eliminated totally. By the end, Tandem was pretty much a company like any other in the computer field..."_

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

</comment><comment><USER5> The book linked to at the end of the first section - "Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-truths, and Total Nonsense" - looks interesting. Has anybody read it?</comment>


Writing great documentation: what to write - <AUTHOR> http://jacobian.org/writing/great-documentation/what-to-write/ <comment><USER2> dup (he apparently made a new URL): <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=934375></comment>


YOW Lambda Jam: Hole Driven Development in Haskell - <AUTHOR> http://yowconference.com.au/slides/yowlambdajam2013/Davis-Hole-DrivenDevelopment.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> Video is at: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHH5mNaseis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHH5mNaseis)</comment>


We were a little naive - <AUTHOR> http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/fyre-fest-head-billy-mcfarland-we-were-a-little-naive-w479502 <comment><USER2> Ja Rule being involved really reminds me of the Dave Chapelle bit where news crews ask Ja Rule his opinions on a tragedy

</comment><comment><USER3> It's quite difficult to be less competent. To make bad decisions at so many turns...</comment>


How Apps on Android Share Data with Facebook - <AUTHOR> https://privacyinternational.org/report/2647/how-apps-android-share-data-facebook-report <comment><AUTHOR> >Using the free and open source software tool called "mitmproxy", an interactive HTTPS proxy,

How can anyone take something called "mitmproxy" as seriously as a non-harmful thing to put trust in? That totally sounds like someone is having a laugh at the whole thing.</comment>


Gitea: Open-source(MIT) self-hosted Git service - <AUTHOR> https://gitea.io/en-us/ <comment><AUTHOR> [previous discussions]

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17006503](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17006503)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17245246](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17245246)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13451783](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13451783)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13296717](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13296717)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21537454](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21537454)

</comment><comment><USER2> It's almost a perfect drop-'n-work service. Just needs Discord things patched out. It's a bit creepy how tightly they embrace, defend and push it.

<comment><USER3> > It's almost a perfect drop-'n-work service. Just needs Discord things > patched out. It's a bit creepy how tightly they embrace, defend and push it.

What do you exactly mean? Is Discord involved in development? Or is this a typo in Discord? Thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does anyone know a good alternative for Mercurial to Gitea?

<comment><USER5> There sourcehut, but the flow isn't exactly as simple as point and click.

Simple being relative word as once setup, email workflow has proved to be far better for my personal taste.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I like gitolite more.</comment>


Kat Manalac's Whale AMA [video] - <AUTHOR> https://blog.ycombinator.com/kat-manalacs-whale-ama/ <comment><USER2> > Is a bad cofounder relationship worse than being a solo founder?

Why do people constantly demonize single founders? (Just to be clear, I'm pointing my finger at the person asking the question, not Kat or YC).

Sure, startups are hard and it's always better to have 2-3 people in the founding team, but there are valid reasons people choose to go solo. Seriously though, YC should write a post to discuss the single founder situation and what they have observed over the years and share any relevant numbers to go along with the post.

<comment><USER3> I agree that there seems to be a stigma in the startup echo chamber around single founders and as one I find it frustrating. The reason am I a single founder is that while I have always been a computer nerd my friends and colleagues were not so the number of programmers in my immediate network is effectively zero. Secondly, the people that I would have chosen to start a company with in my industry are former colleagues and were not in a position to leave their jobs for something new with zero pay. (We would not have been allowed to build this company in our freetime as there would have been too much overlap with the employer.)

I imagine my situation is pretty common and the way out of it is to bootstrap to enough profitability to be able to provide salary to co-founders or to hire help. But at that point I wouldn't need investors. :)

My good days are ones where I end the day with more todos that I started with because that means I made progress and now have new challenges ahead. So I continue to appreciate what having a cofounder (or even an employee) could mean for me.

Because of that new appreciation if I was investing my own money I would also be taking a long and hard look at companies with a single founder and would likely pass on many of them for that reason. Creating a successful company is incredibly hard and I believe having a second person increases the chances for success.

I love the quote that is along the lines of "All it takes is one sufficiently motivated individual to change the world." I hope that is true for us solofounders.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> AMA is a registered trademark of Reddit, Inc. (#86944696).</comment>


C# Hidden Optimizations - <AUTHOR> http://www.gavindraper.co.uk/blog/2010/08/10/CHiddenOptimizations.aspx

<comment><USER2> Nit: These aren't "optimizations", they're syntactic sugar.

<comment><USER3> I'm far from impressed with this. How is ?? any different from a guard ( || )? I use that all the freaking time in every language. I've never written a line of C# and even I know about the parallel module, how didn't that make the cut?

<comment><USER4> C# has || just like any other language, but objects aren't truthy and nulls aren't falsy. This was a good design decision, since it catches the common = vs. == error if(a=b) while doing the type check rather than silently doing the (probably) wrong thing. As a consequence, the || doesn't work as it does in other places. Hence ??.

<comment><USER5> ?? is the null coalescing operator and it's neither new nor is it hidden.

It is damned handy though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would say expression trees is one of the less well-known and under- appreciated features of C# 3.0:

        Expression<Func<int, int>> e = (x) => x + 1;
        Func<int, int> f = e.Compile();
        int b = f.Invoke(42);

<comment><USER7> I'm quite fond of C# but that syntax is a bit much when compared to things like humble old JavaScript:

       var f = function(x) { return x + 1; };
       var b = f(42);

<comment><USER8> well you can write it as

      var f = ((x) => x + 1).Compile();
      int b = f.Invoke(42);

<comment><USER6> I don't think that would work. How would the compiler know the type of x and the return type of the lambda expression?

<comment><USER9> It won't. In just about all cases, C# doesn't do backtracking to infer types. See Eric Lippert's posts: [http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericlippert/archive/2010/10/04/no- ba...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericlippert/archive/2010/10/04/no-backtracking- part-one.aspx)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This article is Ok, in an introductory sort of way, but these are not "optimizations" in the sense that they will make your code run faster. They're syntactic sugar as _heresy_ says.

They're also not very hidden either.

</comment><comment><USER11> How did this garbage get on the HN front page?</comment>


Any other authors on here horrified at Google Book Search? - <AUTHOR>

I wrote a book on Ruby on Rails over the course of 2007-2008. While checking out Google Books for the first time today, I searched for my own book and found that the India branch of my publisher (John Wiley & Sons) posted virtually the entire text online for reading (http://books.google.com/books?id=za3qrVS3bwYC&source=gbs_navlinks_s).  Investigating further, there apparently is some sort of class action which gives Google the right to do this with all publications, whether or not the author even knows about it or agrees to it.
Having spent about a year of late nights and neglecting my friends & family to put this book together, I am horrified. I'm a big believer in open source, and have contributed to more than a few open source projects, but I also believe that the hard work of individuals shouldn't be pillaged by companies with giant legal departments.
Authors / readers on HN: Am I right to be angry? Have you had a similar experience with this? <comment><USER2> The same principles apply here as they do to piracy (which is essentially what Google is doing)... If the book is any good people will buy it regardless. I have several books out that are doing quite well in spite of widespread piracy or appearing on Google. I've surmised that a majority of any book's sales are going to be made by honest people, and therefore any perceived monetary loss from piracy (or Googleiracy) is not in fact loss at all, but just a matter of whether or not the trolls have been fed.

In addition to this, having your book pirated/circulated could actually lead to more sales because it'll fall across the eyes of more "honest" readers who will buy the book if it's any good, regardless of whether they found it online.

Also see: Libraries.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Also see: Libraries.

Ha :). But the library isn't providing a download link, is it?

Regarding a majority of a book's sales being made by honest people, yes, I assume you're right. And perhaps the publicity from being available for free will increase the number of honest people that buy a book.

But it is a tricky line to walk.

I remember reading about how the Soviets were suspicious of supposed "free markets" being able to stabilize themselves in the Reagan / Thatcher era. They just couldn't believe that things would work out to an equilibrium in the end. Auctions are similarly magical.

Perhaps the "give it away, and then let people pay you if they like it" model of the internet is similar from the standpoint of an outsider: sounds impossible the first time you hear it, but it tends to work out in the end.

<comment><USER2> It's not really "give it away, let people pay", it's more, "let people choose whether to pay or steal". Bezos' prediction that e-commerce would "work" when it became easier to buy than to steal has been true now for several years, and I think that's a better principle to go by than trusting soviet economics :)

<comment><USER3> Definitely. Convenience is key for digital goods. I could never bring myself to install iTunes, but I spend -loads- of money on amazon mp3, because it's as convenient as any regular download link, it just happens to charge me money. The downloader for amazon mp3 (which isn't even required for single songs) is also extremely lightweight compared to iTunes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> 1) Your book is available for "Limited Preview" only, not "Full View." Google will let users search within the book, and will show them a limited number of pages. It won't let them read the book from start to finish. (I was able to read 18 pages.) Next to the "preview" it displays links to buy the book from various retailers.

2) Do you think Google hurts websites by letting people search their contents and see excerpts in the search results? How many websites would benefit by using robots.txt to prevent Google from linking to them? Is web publishing as an industry helped or harmed by the availability of web search engines?

3) This page explains the Authors Guild settlement from Google's point of view: <http://books.google.com/googlebooks/agreement/>

Here's a good summary of thoughtful criticism about the settlement: <http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090204/0248153640.shtml>

and a thoughtful take by lawyer and copyright activist (and Creative Commons founder) Lawrence Lessig: [http://lessig.org/blog/2008/10/on_the_google_book_search_agr...](http://lessig.org/blog/2008/10/on_the_google_book_search_agre.html)

Here's where you can opt out of the settlement class (retaining the right to sue Google on your own, relinquishing any benefits Google has promised in the settlement, and giving you an option to remove your book from the index): <http://www.googlebooksettlement.com/>

4) Personally I think the settlement has its flaws, but if I were an author I'd rather have my work searchable at Google than not, including under the current settlement terms.

</comment><comment><USER5> Before getting angry, consider the positives as well. There are roughly 3 camps of people reading your book online:

(1) This group will use your book as a free reference because it's available but _cannot buy your book_ (think poor student, 15 year old with no credit card and other priorities, third world country - too expensive). You didn't gain a paying reader but they are not hitting your existing stash of cash, just potential earnings. On the plus side, they know of you now because of your book. Maybe you can actually get paid for a speaking gig.

(2) This group will peruse your book online a few times but _will buy it_ because they prefer to have a hard copy they can read in their cubicle, on the train, etc. A win for you.

(3) This group can afford your book and _would have bought the book but now will not_ since it's available online. A loss for you. However I have a hunch (though no data) that this group is a minority especially when it comes to the well paid (and often reimbursed) group of engineers who are the market for your book.

</comment><comment><USER6> What did your book contract say about your rights with regard to international editions? Could you quote the contract language exactly, so we have a better sense of what rights may or may not have been violated?

<comment><AUTHOR> I will try to dig it up later this afternoon and paste in in here.

My assumption is that because I share rights with Wiley, they can do as they please with the text. So from a legal standpoint I assume no agreements have been violated.

Where I _do_ feel violated is my understanding of a mutual desire between publisher & author to sell the work. I imagine their calculation is that once publication costs have been recovered, if the book isn't a best seller it may be more worth their while to give away the book and use it to build their brand. This is completely at odds with the motivations & needs of the author, even if it is within their right.

I understand that electronic text is a non-rival good, so the following example isn't a perfect one, but it is like if you and I went in 50/50 on importing lemons to sell on the side of the road at neighboring stands. Then, the moment I recovered my costs, I began given the rest of my lemons away for free, completely obliterating your ability to sell lemons for a price, and thus removing _your_ ability to recoup _your_ costs. It may be legal, but it is a pretty lowly thing to do. I end up breaking even and you end up with a net negative.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The best index writers can't match a decent full text search. For that reason I fully support google book search -- It's easier to re-find information I already read. I have read books on google books, and then didn't buy them, but I wouldn't have bought the book anyway, particularly technical books. At least this way I may recommend your book to someone.</comment>


A look at Apple's R&D expenditures from 1995-2013 - <AUTHOR> http://www.tuaw.com/2014/02/12/a-look-at-apples-randd-expenditures-from-1995-2013/ <comment><USER2> Not surprising, since most of the core R&D needed happens in the supply chain -- the fabs, the screen manufacturers, the battery makers, sensors, etc. If the iWatch for example, uses new curved battery tech or curved screen, that will have arisen mostly from the R&D done by their partners.

With the acquisition of PA Semi, Apple does seem to be doing basic chip R&D now. But the industry as a whole would be no where without most of the traditional semiconductor manufacturers doing R&D to keep Moore's law going.

I do think it is sad that Apple, with $100+ billion in cash sitting in the bank, isn't spending more on basic research. IBM, HP, Bell Labs, Xerox, et al delivered a lot of serendipitous discoveries by spending money on stuff with no immediate product focus or return. Apple is sucking up the lion share of the mobile revolution's profits, but I think a bigger fraction of that could be channeled back into basic R&D as a whole.

<comment><USER3> ..and Microsoft, Atari, Sun, et al sunk billions of dollars into "research" groups with very little to show for it other than a bunch of concept videos and the resumes of the researchers. It's a double-edged sword.

<comment><USER2> That's the nature of R&D. There are 100 failures for every 1 success, because often, the usefulness of basic research is unknown.

Modern cryptography is based on advances in number theory and abstract algebra. None of the mathematicians over the last 2 centuries who contributed to those advancements foresaw the applications.

Modern GPS satellites are dependent upon general and special relativity. Einstein never foresaw it.

Much of the military industrial spending that funded the creation of Silicon Valley was not specifically targeted at creating the industries that followed.

The whole point of basic R&D is you don't know the economic outcome. It is a quest for knowledge. It may create the next disruptive technology or industry, or, it may not, and just be a another curiosity to be studied by academics.

It's a double edged sword, but why should we want swords with only one edge (short term economic success)?

Microsoft R&D funds for example, like IBM, mathematic researchers. These people are not working on products or applications, they're working on proving theorems.

I don't fault Microsoft for "wasteful" spending. Research and Development is a genetic algorithm for searching the fitness frontier of knowledge space. A whole lot of organisms, or ideas, have to die, before local optima can be broken out of to find the next peak.

<comment><USER4> "100 failures for every 1 success"

There aren't a lot of examples of big tech companies dumping money into R&D - with no end goal in mind - and then cashing out big time. Even companies that that have gotten useful discoveries from hiring smart people to sit around and invent (Bell Labs, Xerox Park, Microsoft Research etc.) don't ever seem to end up raking in the big bucks.

The only thing that comes to mind is MS and their Kinect.

Unfortunately the ROI is pretty bad when you just throw money and hope it gives you results. It's cheaper to just buy up startups with interesting ideas

<comment><USER2> All of the startups you're talking about are sitting on the shoulders of much longer term R&D that was funded by corporate labs or government/academic R&D.

When was the last time a small startup produced a huge breakthrough in physics or manufacturing that did not build off of research funded by the public or big consortiums, corporate labs, or universities?

I don't care if Bell Labs didn't cash out, just like I don't care if NASA, DARPA, or Sandia Labs makes a profit. Quantum Theorists need work too, and Y-Combinator isn't going to fund them.

<comment><USER4> "I don't care if Bell Labs didn't cash out"

Yeah, well that's nice that you don't care - but Apple's shareholders do. The point is that this kind of R&D doesn't pay-off. Companies have tried it in the past and it didn't work.

If you want R&D then I completely sympathize, but you'll have to go get your government to fund it - don't expect Apple do it as a charitable donation to society.

PS: Examples like Leap Motion come to mind.

<comment><USER2> That's an unsupportable blanket claim. Such research approaches have paid off in the past. Take IBM:

Invented: * DES * Hard Disks * DRAM * RISC * Relational Database * Laser Eye Surgery * Barcodes * PC

Apple shareholders apparently care, because the company is currently being valued as if there are no more disruptive breakthroughs that will produce significant growth in its bottom line.

Also, to say Bell Labs didn't cash out is to be charitable. Ma Bell dominated for decades before the government broke them up. Did they fail because of failure to cash out on inventions, or because Bell Labs was split off from the parent company that was funding them.

Also, if you suggest the government fund it, then maybe the government tax Apple's cash, I wonder how their shareholders will like that?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Pie chart: The world's worst way to display time-series data.

[http://o.aolcdn.com/hss/storage/adam/2c59e6862a532820a9854bd...](http://o.aolcdn.com/hss/storage/adam/2c59e6862a532820a9854bd3e7517688/Apple%20R&D%20Piechart.png)

<comment><USER6> For the statisticians and data scientists in the room : do pie charts _ever_ have a valid use case (as defined by being superior to another form of visualization)?

<comment><USER7> Of course. Pie charts look natural and easy to comprehend when visualizing things like market share of certain products, for example browser market share ([http://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market- share.aspx?qpri...](http://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market- share.aspx?qprid=2&qpcustomd=0)). In fact I'd argue that that's a much better representation than a bar chart, like [http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php](http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php), because the former makes it easier to comprehend roughly what proportion of the total market each browser represents, which is not as straightforward to see in a bar chart (in bar chart it's only easy to see how different browser market shares compare to each other). So yes, pie charts may be appropriate at times, although I agree that it's a poor choice in this particular case, as the root comment explains.

<comment><USER8> How about a stacked single-bar chart? I'd suggest that it has all of the benefits of a pie chart without introducing perception issues of angles and areas.

Well, I guess you could make a fat bar and still run into problems... Ah, visualisation!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am not an expert, but it's my understanding that what is R&D vs. "only" engineering is largely an accounting question. I don't think Microsoft is spending all of that $10B on MSR, for example.

As a metric I don't think it provides much insight.

<comment><USER10> you are spot on with that thought. accounting for r&d is pretty much an accounting/financial call. rather than accounting for costs, you capitalise that cost/capex as an asset, which can later be amortised in x years. i'm guessing that given that apple generates billions in profits, it would rather account much of its r&d as an operating expense, reducing the immediate tax bill.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> [http://o.aolcdn.com/hss/storage/adam/3924d8cabc4e8469af6fa91...](http://o.aolcdn.com/hss/storage/adam/3924d8cabc4e8469af6fa91259881564/R&D%20global%202013.jpg)

One question: Why is VW's R&D spending so high? It's BILLIONS more than other car manufacturers.

<comment><USER12> They build cars in many segments. Tesla build one model, while VW has 27 models (from their german website) + commercial vehicles. Also, they own several brands like Audi, Bentley and some others. Most of them has a wide model range.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, take a look: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group#Subsidiaries_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group#Subsidiaries_and_marques)

Bugatti and Lamborghini are fun to note, though probably insignificant against VW's entire R&D budget.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This could be interesting to analyse but those charts are not really the best, mainly the pie chart. Maybe the best way to look at research costs is to compare it to the other costs of the company (maybe with the exception of those related to the cost of building the products).

I'm in no way an analyst so I might be way off on this recommendation though.

</comment><comment><USER15> The article feels a little shallow on the analysis side.

For instance I would expect this oddity to be caused by the fact that they aren't a traditional hardware manufacturer (they don't have any fabs and outsource their production) nor are they a traditional software manufacturer (their software focus pales in comparison to Google or Microsoft).

Since developing silicon and software are two of the biggest drivers in the industry and Apple doesn't focus on either, it makes sense they have a low R&D budget.

<comment><USER16> "they don't have any fabs"

Isn't this not true anymore? I thought Apple brought chip production "in house" as well as other specific hardware related to their iOS products.

<comment><USER17> You are correct. Apple just spent billions of dollars buying up a fab lab. However, it will be years before this investment sees any practical use at Apple.

[http://semiaccurate.com/2013/07/12/apple-has-their-own- fab/](http://semiaccurate.com/2013/07/12/apple-has-their-own-fab/)

<comment><USER18> Is there a link to substantiate that claim that doesn't put the information behind a paywall?

<comment><USER17> Not one that I know of.

Charlie isn't the typical blogger though, and I prefer his paywall style over the ad-based models that other sites have done. When Charlie wrote a few honest (but blasting) reports on various companies a while back... the ad- companies held his revenue hostage. They didn't like him writing the way he did. As such, he stopped doing ad-hosted content and was forced into the paywall model.

Now to be fair, Charlie is a bit rambunctious and exaggerates some claims, but his fact-gathering tends to be months or years ahead of others (Do a double- take at the date of this article: [http://semiaccurate.com/2012/03/02/sony- playstation-4-will-b...](http://semiaccurate.com/2012/03/02/sony- playstation-4-will-be-an-x86-cpu-with-an-amd-gpu/). I personally can verify the date on that article, as I read the article when it came out and didn't believe it.) . His writing style is abrasive though, and ad companies didn't want much to do with him.

He gets things wrong sometimes, because he's really trying to predict the future. But since he gets things right more than 50% of the time, I'm pretty confident in his claims. Overall, he does good work. It is unlikely that other sites will have his information for another few months at least.

<comment><USER18> There are a whole bunch of other sites linking to this piece calling it a _rumour_ , and that there is little detail beyond the paywall and no corroborating evidence since then.

I think it's false.

<comment><USER17> Fair enough. As I've said before, Semiaccurate is only "mostly" correct. Charlie has been wrong before, mostly because he pushes (likely) hypotheticals.

I have however, read the contents behind the paywall, and Charlie is quite specific. He has the company name, some vague details on the deal, and the location of the facility.

He is stretching the hypothetical a bit to say that "Apple bought a fabrication lab". That may have gone to far... but those details are discussed in the paywalled article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Perhaps they spend slightly less than others, but what interests me is that there is an exponential growth of R&D spending over the last five years with no real innovation (in my opinion, since the iPhone). And Microsoft has been spending consistently around 15% of their revenue on R&D. For what? Higher pixel density and an OS with tiles that can be swiped on touch screens? Is R&D really that low ROI? We're talking about _tens of billions_ of dollars here.

<comment><USER20> In a lot of cases, you won't notice the result of every dollar spent on R&D (until much later on, when the technology becomes mainstream). For e.g. siri: might just seem like voice-to-text to you, but there's probably a ton of stuff happening in the backend in the fields of ai, scalability, personalization of the results, etc. Some of this stuff might have been known problems with known solutions, other things might have been applied research.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Normalize to show percent of revenue and then we'll talk.

A time series of $$$ allocated to R&D is basically going to show when the company's growing and when it's shrinking, the same way a heat map of who clicks on furry porn is basically going to show population density.

I realize there's a chart of $$$ allocated to R&D as a percentage of _sales_ but that's not quite right either.

</comment><comment><USER22> The best chart shows percent of sales. Shows how lazy they got the last couple of years ;-)

<comment><USER23> Agree. They are waiting for other companies to provide more inventive technologies, ;-)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do Compete.com or Quantcast collect data? - <AUTHOR>

I can't find a good explanation to how they product traffic and other data. <comment><USER2> If you dig into their sites, there are some general descriptions. My understanding is that they partner with ISPs, toolbars and the like to get data on people's browsing habits.

So small time ISP might share what sites are being visited, so they extrapolate on that. Alexa uses a toolbar, for example. So they know what sites people are browsing.

Quantcast lets you add your own codes, so then you get an actual measurement of traffic.</comment>


Ask HN: Where can I get good powerpoint/keynote templates? - <AUTHOR>

Say you are pitching your startup to anyone (investors, partners, Y Combinator audience, etc.) where is the first place you go to get nice templates for your presentation. Yes, I know you should customize it - and if you have access to a graphics person that would be awesome, but what if you don't? - but where do you start?
I am talking about Wufoo & 37 Signals quality presentations - http://www.flickr.com/photos/wufoo/2985775820/  & http://37signals.com/svn/posts/981-the-secret-to-making-money-online  respectively.
Also, what are some tips for other sites where you get good photos/font ideas/any other ideas that go into making a presentation good...not bland and lame.
Also, it seems that everybody sticks to Guy Kawasaki's rule of 10/20/30 - http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2005/12/the_102030_rule.html
Feel free to add as many tips and links as you would like, that can help everyone make better presentations.
Oh and by the way, I know that presentation zen is a good resource - http://www.presentationzen.com/ - but they don't typically have templates and other downloadable stuff (or that I can find anyway...if you have contrary info please provide links).
Thanks :) <comment><USER3> > Also, what are some tips for other sites where you get good photos/font > ideas/any other ideas that go into making a presentation good...not bland > and lame.

I spoke to a team of lawyers about how software was made recently - <USER2> source code, libraries, binaries, etc.

Since my story was linear, I use the slides as a window on a larger process.

Eg, a single line went through the whole presentation, sometimes going right, sometimes up, occasionally down or left. The current slide simply followed the line to determine where to go next.

</comment><comment><USER4> According to presentationzen this is first mistake people make during making a presentation. \- Create story \- Be story teller \- Use slides to support you story

</comment><comment><USER5> don't you need a graphic designer for your startup anyway? or are you planning to use a template for your logo and your site?</comment>


IRobot launches educational program - <AUTHOR> http://www.boston.com/business/ticker/2009/12/irobot_launches_2.html <comment><AUTHOR>
      iRobot Corp. today announced that it has launched a new education initiative
      called SPARK (for "Starter Programs for the Advancement of Robotics Knowledge").

I used to work at iRobot. They have a disease, caused by working for the government, where names made from acronyms are given very high weight. Often, you'll think of the name close to what you're trying to do, and then come up with the acronym. This case is worse because the name already implies education, and the acronym is redundant. The best acronym I've ever seen came from <http://cra.com> where a particle filter project had the acronym P.A.R.T.I.C.L.E. - and it fit perfectly.

The worst was one of my own. MISSR: Multi-spectral Image Stabilization and Super Resolution. Yeah, I named something that required image tracking "misser". I preferred to pronounce it miser.

The next project was just a name: "Spartan". It worked much better.

There has got to be a lesson in naming startups somewhere in here.</comment>


Ask HN: What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail? - <AUTHOR>

What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail? <comment><USER2> I couldn't fail. My current project could, but I have gained enough intelligence in a niche market segment while researching my startup that I could start working as a highly paid consultant NOW.

</comment><comment><USER3> 1\. Rob banks 2\. Date Supermodels 3\. Become a movie star

Not necessarily in that order. On second thought, perhaps you should rephrase the question.

</comment><comment><USER4> Negotiate a comprehensive world peace settlement.

</comment><comment><USER5> everything

</comment><comment><USER6> ambiguous question: clearly "everything possible" is the only logical answer :)

</comment><comment><USER7> rethink my assumptions

</comment><comment><USER8> Invent FTL and some cheap/limitless form of energy.

</comment><comment><USER9> Mt. Everest. Duh.

</comment><comment><USER10> Is failure really that bad?

</comment><comment><USER11> I wouldn't try.</comment>


Layoffs Hit Gumroad as the E-Commerce Startup Restructures - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/05/layoffs-hit-gumroad-as-the-payments-startup-restructures/ <comment><USER2> Former Gumroad employee here. Since we didn't write about this, here's a response from the other side-- we weren't blindsided by this. We knew there was a chance we wouldn't get our series B, yet we believed in the product. The numbers looked great (the best they had ever looked). And we wanted to see this work, whether or not it meant being part of it in a few months.

This isn't some photo sharing app; many creators earn their living from Gumroad. When the time came to make a decision whether to be acquired and have the product die, or to downsize and have the product live on, this choice involved a lot more than our 20 person team. It involved the thousands of creators that rely on Gumroad. With or without me, I still believe in Gumroad.

<comment><USER3> It's refreshing to see employees who are this dedicated to the product. Kudos, Gumroad team.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4>
        The company had 22 employees as of earlier
        this year, and it has been in the process
        of laying off all but what is expected to
        be around 3 of its staff.

Normally, when I hear the words "layoff" and "restructure", I think 15% of the company, not 'basically everyone.' That's a bummer, and I expect this won't be the last time we hear this story this year.

I hope the frontend engineers making $75,000-$125,000[1] for a shot at one day accumulating up to 1% of Gumroad decide to pursue market wages at the next company they join :-\ The economics of startups rarely offer a worthwhile return to those who choose to play the game. For what it's worth, this is something I've found out the hard way.

[1] [https://web.archive.org/web/20130516103241/https://angel.co/...](https://web.archive.org/web/20130516103241/https://angel.co/gumroad)

<comment><USER5> That's from 2013. No way they were paying sub $100k today.

<comment><USER4> How about middle of 2014, then? "$95k-$125k"

[https://web.archive.org/web/20140707172338/https://angel.co/...](https://web.archive.org/web/20140707172338/https://angel.co/gumroad)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I run a company called SendOwl, which is probably the biggest competitor to Gumroad, and I must admit I'm sad to see this. We've been watching them over the years and have been impressed with some of the work they've delivered. I've also met a few of their employees and have liked their thinking around selling digital goods and where it's going. You could see they wanted to make a success of the company.

Their problems, in my opinion, have come from being VC backed. VCs ultimately want thier money back and with this comes massive, often unrealistic growth expectations. I've had a lot of offers of VC money for SendOwl over the years but I've never once considered taking it. I've bootstrapped SendOwl because I wanted complete control of the company, to direct where I thought it should go, to create the company where I wanted to work at (we work a sensible 9-5, I spend lunchtimes hitting the gym...), but most importantly to serve our customers and build something for the long term. This last part is something I've always seen as uncompatabile with the VC model.

The VC model is alluring though - VC money makes growing quickly easier, it makes getting PR easier and it makes bringing in lots of staff early on an easy decision. I'm not saying it's right or wrong per say, it's just not the path I wanted to go down. Bootstrapping isn't as sexy as VC money, but as long as we're growing, getting great customer feedback, and innovating with new features I know we're on the right path. Focus on those three things with Boostrapping and it's hard to go far wrong to be honest.

Interestingly we're getting more and more people asking about us as a company and whether we'll be around long term, so maybe the tide is starting to turn. Anyway I wish everyone leaving Gumroad all the best for the future. And any sellers out there who are interested in alternatives please check us out at: [https://www.sendowl.com](https://www.sendowl.com) Happy to also answers questions in the thread below!

<comment><USER7> I just read your blog post on the topic. We need more voices like yours.

<comment><USER6> Thanks so much - we're going to be talking about this much more in the future

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interesting. I've been a customer of theirs for ~2 years. It's been really great until a couple months ago. Then something seemed to change. Rather than just being a great payment provider, they seemed to change direction in order to become a "platform".

In emailing with Sahil about my concerns about Gumroad's new direction, he said "We want Gumroad to be the core channel for everything. We started with sales, and are moving into audience/list management."

He made it clear that they want me to import my audience lists to Gumroad and that they don't plan to support future integrations with CampaignMonitor, Mailchimp, etc. That makes sense, since those email platforms are now the competition I guess. It's bad news for me though - if I wanted to stay with Gumroad, I'd now have a project on my hands to move everything over to a (currently) much less powerful email platform.

I imagine this will work for many of their customers, but there are customers like myself that don't want to be pushed in this direction. I prefer to keep my audience management separate from my payment provider. I don't want my payment provider deciding that my customers are now their customers that they can now spam and upsell them in order to grow their platform. I'm not saying that that is Gumroad's plan - but I'm increasingly worried that it might be. Particularly if they get in a "desperate for growth" situation like this article hints at.

Again, they've been great for years and I really appreciate that. The new direction just seems too risky and not a good fit for folks like me who don't want their payment provider as the middle-man for communicating with their audience.

I guess there's an argument that they're not a payment provider, but a "sales platform" or something.

Currently I'm looking for a replacement payment provider (or whatever they should be called) to use. SendOwl looks promising. If you've used them, or have another provider you'd recommend, please let me know!

<comment><USER9> I've been using SendOwl for a few years now to sell music education eBooks and albums directly through my website.

I can't recommend it highly enough.

Here are a few things I like:

\- It works 100% reliably, has never let me down

\- The checkout process is easy and neat from the customer's perspective

\- Supports PayPal and Stripe which is the ideal imho

\- Integrates with all popular email providers so you can do product-specific followup sequences with bonus gifts, etc. after purchase

\- Provides simple support for running an affiliate program

\- Support it absolutely superb: personal, swift and effective

\- They handled the EU VAT mess better than anyone else I saw

\- Monthly fees are very reasonable, I think I pay just $20-30/month

\- It's easy to issue refunds and/or re-issue download link emails if you need to, so customer support can be handled quickly for those things

\- You can create product bundles to support multiple products or discounted versions of products. After trying e-junkie and Clickbank before SendOwl, I can't tell you how much easier this feature alone made my life!

\- You can do upsells/cross-sells during (or after) checkout

\- They've been continually improving and extending the features offered in substantial ways - but without making a total mess of things.

\- The reporting/analytics is simple but effective.

\- In integrates effortlessly with e-commerce in Google Analytics so your sales (including dollar amounts) just show up in GA automatically.

Okay, that turned out to be more than a few things. I love SendOwl.

<comment><USER10> So you... work for them?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > has been in the process of laying off most of its staff in an effort to run > more efficiently

Is that meant to sound quite as much of a death knell as it does to me? I hope not.

I've made a few comics purchases through Gumroad (Skin Horse, Narbonic, and Inhuman Relations, amongst others), and found the process quite delightfully straightforward. I do hope this isn't their end - they deserve better.

</comment><comment><USER12> I remember when Gumroad was announced on Hacker News 4-5 years ago as a little weekend project.

"Over this past weekend I had the idea to build a sort of link shortener but with a payment system built-in... I think it has some potential. What do you guys think?"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2406614](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2406614)

<comment><USER13> It was April 4th 2011. There's an entertaining sub-thread about Bitcoin in that discussion [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2407053](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2407053)

 _At the current ~$0.70 / bitcoin..._

 _I can 't imagine bitcoins in their current implementation gaining traction as a form of payment with 'regular folks'..._

<comment><USER14> And four years later at $400/bitcoin, that's still true.

<comment><USER15> Yep. One of the main allures of credit card processing is that it's instantaneous. Bitcoin's confirmation system is a non-starter as a competitor against credit cards unless you have special circumstances that make it the only practical option (can't trust customers to refrain from filing chargebacks and/or conventional financial institutions won't have anything to do with your business). Ultimately, while Bitcoin may maintain some value, it's not very convenient as an everyday payment instrument (just like gold, actually).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Huh? I thought Gumroad was one of the better services out there for selling stuff. Too bad "hypergrowth" mania devalues companies like Gumroad because they look like a pretty awesome and sustainable business.

</comment><comment><USER17> I've wondered why a company like this needs to be present in the bay area paying bay area salaries and bay area office space prices.

<comment><USER18> For anybody doing the VC thing, they need to be able to plausibly promise their VCs to grow really, really fast.

That means hiring a lot of engineers, designers, etc., really fast.

That's much harder outside the Bay Area, and especially outside really expensive areas generally -- Seattle isn't that much cheaper than the Bay Area, for instance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> That's pretty surprising...

You would think with 15K creators and their traffic they would be able to monetize better... having to cut down to only _three_ employees suggests they aren't making much revenue at all...

<comment><USER15> That's the unicorn way. Tech companies are encouraged, practically forced, to overspend in an attempt to show "hockey stick growth". This strategy has two positive properties for the investor: it ensures that the entrepreneur will be back before the VC to grovel for more cash in the next 24-36 months, and it gives the VC a way to kill investments he doesn't believe in anymore, despite what is a conventionally respectable and sustainable growth rate, by refusing to provide that infusion. Since most founders are naive 20-somethings, this trick works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The real question is, why did they have 22 employees? I think this would have been an incredibly profitable one-man business (think TinyURL) but it tried to be something that was very hard for it to be.

<comment><USER21> This is what VC investment does to a company. The investors make you go for hockey stick growth, which means instead of just having a good service for selling content (that makes the owner a very handsome income), you need to take on the likes of Facebook and Pinterest. DHH's article from yesterday is right on:

> Part of the problem seems to be that nobody these days is content to merely > put their dent in the universe. No, they have to fucking own the universe. > It's not enough to be in the market, they have to dominate it.

[https://signalvnoise.com/posts/3972-reconsider](https://signalvnoise.com/posts/3972-reconsider)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Restructuring down to only 3 people? I think this will make the company way more attractive for an acquisition.

</comment><comment><USER23> Intermediaries get disintermediated. Braintree is a tad bit closer to the iron and maybe (if PoW conundrum finally overcome and after debt is introduced) crypto will do it again.

</comment><comment><USER24> SHL learns a ton from this, gets experience most executives don't have. Optimistic in his future either way.

To the GR team, your work is not marginalized by this speed bump. GR is really good and something people love.

I hope other people recognize that and snap up everyone into good places.

</comment><comment><USER25> You've gotta find some semblance of product/market fit or traction before staffing up to 22 people.</comment>


The Three Body Problem(Novel) - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three-Body_Problem_(novel) <comment><AUTHOR> Just saw another post about answering calls from Aliens : [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20369901](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20369901) It might be apropos to share my favorite science fiction related to Aliens and one of the possible consequence of contacting them.

It's a fun read and is critically acclaimed(Won a Hugo award) and it presents a very different way to look at life and the Universe.

</comment><comment><USER2> An unbelievably great series.</comment>


Ask HN: Why was "Harvard withdraws acceptances" dropped from the front page? - <AUTHOR> At the time of writing, [1] has 81 points, 200 comments, and was posted 2 hours ago, but is currently #43 on page 2 of HN.
Meanwhile, [2] has 14 points, 1 comment, posted 4 hours ago is at #14 on the front page of HN.
What's going on here?
<comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14487788
[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14485477 </comment><comment><USER2> Please see [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html).

</comment><comment><USER3> A post's ranking is penalized if it gets significantly more comments than upvotes, because generally this indicates a flame war is taking place.

<comment><USER4> That's a shame. I think many people honestly forget to upvote an article but will comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have no idea and for all I know, dropping it wasn't a choice of the moderators but a mistake or an unforeseen outcome of some algorithm, but if they did drop it on purpose I support the decision. There are countless other websites to debate that stuff on, I would rather have fewer of the incendiary, purely political discussions make it to the front page of HN.

Come to think of it, I do recall hearing something about how HN's algorithm nukes topics with tons of commenting but not very many votes, so it is probably that.

<comment><USER4> Based on the numbers wound that signal a rather weak algorithm trigger?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sometimes moderators downvote posts that are inappropriate for HN even though people may like the content. This is really important for keeping the community decent because the crowd does not make good decisions for the future of the community. My guess is the post encourages an anti Harvard circlerjerk or something stupid about memes.

If you've been on Reddit for a while, you would understand that the moderators having that power here is a good thing and that curating content is the only way to keep an online community from becoming a sensationalist hellhole.

<comment><USER4> I didn't see an anti Harvard bias in here. I think it was a useful discussion on social media use and its impact on society. Certainly HN worthy.

<comment><USER7> agreed, even a little surprised, that it wasn't a Harvard pile-on.

<comment><USER4> I can't put my fingers on it at the moment but I seem to recall this is not the first time this precise scenario has happened elsewhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> HN seems to do this with some regularity. I have made similar posts once or twice, noting how a link that is less popular in all metrics is substantially above another.

Mods almost surely have a weighting button, though I don't know if your question is affected by it.

<comment><USER9> I think it's often users flagging the submissions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Huh, it appears this this tread has also been buried. Either there is some algorithm edge case going on or that Harvard thread got _really_ toxic.</comment>