Japan now the Hades of free speech and investigative journalism - <AUTHOR> http://www.japansubculture.com/japan-is-the-hades-of-free-speech-and-woodford-san-does-not-approve/ <comment><USER2> Abe is one of the worst politicians ever in Japan. Pushing Keynesians economics to the max, going on TV everyweek to show his face in variety programs, and controlling the media to ensure his Abenomics crap get good press, while pushing for an increase of VAT instead of reducing the absurbgovernment spending. Now this. This is about as low as you can get.

<comment><USER3> Being a Japanese citizen myself, I agree to your sentiments to some extent. Yes, he is very keen to satisfy media outlets and spread support for Abenomics. He has been jingoistic, using patriotic rhetoric to amass votes from nationalistic and conservative people alike.

Yet, when it comes to leadership in Japan's political arena, there are hardly any viable candidates. I had high hopes for the former-ruling DPJ, which ended up as three years of abrupt administrations. Voters once believed that DPJ, with its emphasis on national welfare, can improve Japan, but switched back to LDP not because the former party appeared attractive, but merely because it is the least appalling party among the many.

What Japanese voters appear to want is a stable regime while turning a blind eye to their increasing draconian policy that exploits the diplomatic fear against our East Asian neighbors. LDP is currently taking advantage of their most favorable term by passing many legislation to promote their conservative agenda.

It would be overly simplified to remark that Abe is the worst politician. Stock market average soared since he returned as prime minister. Despite the heinous copyright agreements, the TPP ostensibly promotes free trade in other sectors such as agriculture. And we're approaching the first anniversary of Abe's leadership - and his regime still looks stable unlike the last months of Fukuda, Aso, Hatoyama, Kan, or Noda. (It would be fair to note that DPJ's credibility crumbled partly due to the naturally-occured 3.11 earthquake.)

To improve Japanese politics, as a nation we have to invest in the younger generation. Hone better leadership skills so that eventually when they too enter politics, they can influence their colleagues effectively. Make the youth more interested in politics so that whenever a horrible legislation like this act on secrecy appears, a massive portion of voters protest, not unlike when the US Congress tried to pass SOPA/PIPA. Clearly, Japanese politics doesn't appear have a bright future as of now.

<comment><USER4> The stock market soaring doesn't mean alot to me. Then again, deflation didn't seem so bad either. Prices going down meant I was able to buy more things at more shops. Now Abenomics is raising prices on everything without raising my wage and I get to feel poor again.

<comment><USER5> > Prices going down meant I was able to buy more things at more shops.

Didn't your wages go down as well?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Japan: stagnated growth, closed society and now their own Chernobyl sized problem

A younger generation that won't have kids. A government without any sense of direction and how to improve things.

Immigration is not only governmentaly discouraged, society is against it. Immigrating to the US is easier.

It's not going to get better.

<comment><USER7> I suspect toughing out their demographic problem will prove better in the long run than opening the can of worms that comes with immigration.

And maybe they can institute a program like Israel's to encourage Japanese nationals living overseas to return to Japan.

<comment><USER8> > I suspect toughing out their demographic problem will prove better in the > long run than opening the can of worms that comes with immigration.

Have you looked at Japan's population profile? We're looking at 40 years of real hardship, starting right about now.

I quite agree that, in the long term, Japan should plan for a flat demographic curve, but the two baby booms of the 40s/50s and the 70s, followed by a plunging birth rate, mean the transition is going to be extremely painful.

> And maybe they can institute a program like Israel's to encourage Japanese > nationals living overseas to return to Japan.

They did that in the 80s. The outcome did not reflect well on Japan.

In truth, Japan doesn't have an immigration policy. It has a managing foreigners policy, overseen the Ministry of Justice. Naturalization is permitted, but not encouraged. For instance, as a British Citizen, I'd have to officially make myself stateless _before_ I could apply to naturalize.

Japan, as a nation, seriously needs to open its mind a bit if it wants to cope over the next 40 years. Either that, or start building grim, ultra-low-cost institutions to house its old folk.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Thanks Obama!

[http://killerapps.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/05/in_japa...](http://killerapps.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/05/in_japan_s_state_secrets_law_shades_of_red_white_and_blue)

 _" In Japan's State Secrets Law, Shades of Red, White and Blue"_

<comment><USER10> Either you are serious or this is snark. Either way, you get a downvote from me.

If you are serious, I'm amazed what a grown person tries to pass for logical thoughts these days. If you are not, please give it a rest. This isn't reddit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Hades is not hell, and actually not such a bad place. It's where all people go when they die, and only a small part is for torturing bad people.

<comment><USER12> Hell itself isn't such a bad place, either. All the interesting people will be there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> > _... The current administration is slowly trying to create a country that > has the ability to fight a war. I'll continue to fight against this law, > because it is the beginning of such a country. —Unemployed, 53, Yoriko W●●●_

That is a _great_ reason to vote, and an interesting way to look at secrecy laws.

</comment><comment><USER8> Breaks my heart.

</comment><comment><USER14> You want my click? Don't insult me with your headlines & titles.

<comment><USER15> Sadly, both title _and_ headline seem to be fitting here:

> "The law will punish journalists and whistleblowers who divulge government > secrets with up to ten years in prison, and up to five years for those who > "instigate leaks" (ask questions about state secrets)."

That's as bad as it gets..

<comment><USER16> > That's as bad as it gets..

North-Korea would beg to differ.

<comment><USER15> Then let me say it's very far from any desirable state.. there's _always_ something worse, but that doesn't really help, does it. If all countries in the world were in equally deep shit, the fact that they'd be equal would hardly be sufficient consolation for them being in deep shit.

<comment><USER16> >> there's always something worse, but that doesn't really help, does it

No, it doesn't. It's really quite sad that the best the people of any nation can hope for, is that their government doesn't rape them _too_ hard. The US is quite a police state already, but hey, at least it's not North-Korea.. yet. It _could_ be in a few years though.

Tyrannical regimes come and go, but that's just business as usual, especially as long as it "can't happen here".. It's almost as if mankind _could_ do better than this.. It's almost as if something was wrong on a global scale.

<comment><USER14> _It 's really quite sad that the best the people of any nation can hope for, is that their government doesn't rape them too hard. The US is quite a police state already, but hey, at least it's not North-Korea._

It's pretty interesting why we hear so much about NK but the rhetoric isn't nearly as harsh when hearing about the crazy societies in East Africa. Such flexible moralities at work here.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Dept of Homeland Security website hacked - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/25/mass_web_attack_grows/

<comment><USER2> I love the department of homeland security and absolutely do not think they are a disgusting combination of outright frauds, incompetent hucksters, evil masterminds and racist assholes who have done almost nothing to make us secure but have done a lot to spread fear, make peoples lives suck, and encourage people to be scared shitless of anything unexpected.

It's atrocious that someone would assault the vaterlan...er...American homeland. Ve..we should immediately raise the threat level to maroon (bright maroon, not dark) and start 2 minute hates of the unspecified hackers immediately. The americans will just transfer the hate to whoever our benevolent media says, like after kennedy or king or lennon got shot. Let's catch these bastards now so we can maintain some pride.

If it's too hard to catch the hackers, just tell us how many ribbons we should buy to stick on the SUV's we paid for with the appreciation on our house with a sub-prime mortgage, and we'll give you hardworking guys all the support you need. If ribbons ain't enough to protect america against all the standing armies waiting to invade us, I know a kid down the street who might know as much about security as you guys and could help you out.</comment>


Ask HN: Which LDAP server doesn't require a degree to run? - <AUTHOR> I have a bunch of services on my private servers that all support LDAP-based authentication, so I would like to deploy a suitable server for SSO. The only serious option seems to be OpenLDAP, which seems to consider itself a rather generic database that just happens to be used primarily for authentication. And even if I eventually get through the initial setup, that just gives me the directory service. I still would have to deploy something else to give the users a frontend for changing their password etc.
Can you recommend something simpler than that? Requirements:
- deployment on Linux server
- schema defines at least user accounts with passwords, and groups where users can be a member
- self-service web GUI for users: to review group membership and change passwords
- should not require a bazillion components (e.g. I ruled out Authelia after reading it wants an LDAP server and a Redis and a MongoDB)
This is not about an enterprise deployment with SLAs or anything. Just a dozen users and a handful of groups. <comment><USER2> FreeIPA.

It supports a lot of features, has a lot of documentation backed by Red Hat, and a fantastic mailing list that helps usually within hours. It also can create a 2-way trust with active directory if that is also desired. It has integration with multi-factor authentication too if desired.

I've been running a several hundred user development environment with dozens of LDAP authenticated services, for about 4 years now. It has been great, the web UI works really nicely, and it has active development.

I recommend it without hesitation.

If you want further information, email anthonyclarka2 a.t. gmail.

</comment><comment><USER3> I feel your pain. I had to deal with this for our dev environment and its ridiculous how complicated it is to setup openldap. The creators are masochists as far as I'm concerned. No sane person would look at the esoteric syntax and directory layout and say "this is useful and straightforward". Not to mention the fact, and I kid you not, a trailing whitespace on a configuration line breaks everything.

</comment><comment><USER4> Active Directory.

I've implemented LDAP with most of the available options. I wanted to hang myself with just about every option except AD.

Fortunately, I think we are in or near a post-LDAP world.

<comment><USER5> > Active Directory.

Running Windows Server for the purposes of just AD is ridiculous IMO.

> I wanted to hang myself with just about every option except AD.

I've worked with (then) Novell eDir, OpenLDAP and a little with AD. I found OpenLDAP to be by far the nicest to use.

The moral of this story is: anecdotal evidence is anecdotal.

> Fortunately, I think we are in or near a post-LDAP world.

That's not a good thing.

<comment><USER4> > Running Windows Server for the purposes of just AD is ridiculous IMO.

I disagree. The pain of running Windows Server is outweighed by the excellence, stability, effortless scalability, and programmability of AD.

> I found OpenLDAP to be by far the nicest to use.

I've implemented all the same (and others such as Netscape/Sun Directory Server). I strongly disagree. Hell, I even come from a UNIX/C background.

> The moral of this story is: anecdotal evidence is anecdotal.

Pot. Kettle.

> That's not a good thing.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree across the board, then. Although I am well used to it now, I find LDAP programming is obtuse and thoroughly not a good setup for modern networks and APIs. There are much better, more naturally scalable ways to do things.

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol is anything but lightweight.

<comment><USER5> > Pot. Kettle.

That was my point. You have one view I have another.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A self service web app is pretty simple - I found

[https://ltb-project.org/documentation/self-service-password](https://ltb- project.org/documentation/self-service-password) in a few moments (ddg for "ldap self service password")

</comment><comment><USER6> Along these lines, does anyone have any good references for the best way to setup an authentication architecture for a product that is both multi-tenant SaaS and installed on premises? (Think GitHub + GitHub enterprise).

Would it be a good idea to use LDAP even internally (on the equivalent of GitHub.com) so that implementing on-prem is just a matter of swapping a config value? Or would it be better to maintain your own auth system in a relational database and sync it with LDAP if necessary?

</comment><comment><USER7> This is probably not what you're looking for but I just want to mention that you could implement a server supporting just what you need using ldapjs ([http://ldapjs.org/](http://ldapjs.org/)) and then create a custom web front end for it.

</comment><comment><USER8> I've had my eye on [https://www.gluu.org](https://www.gluu.org). Haven't yet had the opportunity to deploy it though.</comment>


Information Loss: Linking from Twitter is Broken - <AUTHOR> http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2010/10/12/Referral-Shift

<comment><USER2> Reposting my comment from the blog:

Browsers are the one responsible for providing the referer information to the web server. If you come from somewhere that isn't a browser page, it is sent without a referer (and considered a "direct link")

I wish I could track visits from external apps and bookmarks, but there are some privacy concerns, too.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is because they'll be being launched as a plain URL by the desktop app. It just says "Operating System, please open this URL."

Is there even a standard/cross-browser method of saying "Please open this URL, and here is a referrer to use."?</comment>


Why do startups mostly favour freelancer services and not outsourcing companies? - <AUTHOR> I noticed this trend in web development even if the price tag is comparable. <comment><USER2> I don't know about the trend, but one advantage of hiring a freelancer is knowing exactly who will be performing the work and the relationships are more likely to be personal. With an outsourcing company, that's less likely and the relationship is much more likely to involve pointing to contractual clauses and arguing over whether or not those clauses were met.

To me, competing on price is a sub-optimal approach to projects where the quality of results creates a lot of variation in the value of the work product. My experience is that relationships matter more over the long term, particularly for the kind of clients a service company or freelancer wants.

Good luck.</comment>


I know your name, where you work, and live (Safari v4 & v5)  - <AUTHOR> http://jeremiahgrossman.blogspot.com/2010/07/i-know-who-your-name-where-you-work-and.html <comment><AUTHOR> (Title _sic_ ).

Short summary: Safari autocompletes forms from your private address book, and can be tricked into doing that by Javascript events on form fields named in ways Safari would want to autocomplete; worse, once autocompleted, that data can be read out of the form by the same JS that triggered the event.

Long story short, if you browse to a site with Safari and you have autocomplete on, that site can slurp some stuff out of your address book.

<comment><USER2>
        that site can slurp some stuff out of your address book.

More specifically, it can slurp some stuff from your personal address card that you've set in AddressBook.app This hack does not allow you to get the address of someone's mother-in-law.

<comment><USER3> > This hack does not allow you to get the address of someone's mother-in-law.

Unless you're the mother-in-law :).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What do other browsers do differently to prevent this from being a problem?

<comment><USER5> They do not use your system's address book to fill forms online.

<comment><USER4> Doesn't firefox autofill forms? I didn't realize that was a safari only feature.

<comment><USER6> Autocomplete by other browsers works by remembering things you entered in forms previously (maybe restricted to domain?). One distinction is that you already decided you wanted to expose that information.

The most important distinction though, is that you have to still select to fill that out manually.

Of course logins are another story - those are automatically filled in. But those are restricted to the page you already entered them on, and you have to decide you want that information filled explicitly.

<comment><USER7> Couldn't you still use a variation of this hack to steal the info from Firefox?

Steps:

1\. Go to a popular site that makes one fill out the information you want to steal.

2\. Record the name they use for all their fields (afaik this is how FF determines what value to supply)

3\. Use the hack to make a form with those fields

4\. Profit

On step 3, it may be that you have to enter the field and type something to get the auto-complete to kick in, but that's easy: you only need to try 26 letters and 10 numbers to get a hit.

<comment><USER6> Autocomplete is activated by user interaction, not javascript events. The only way to trigger this would be a phishing attack, where you tricked the user into entering their information in.... but in that case, you're not really benefiting from autocomplete because they would have given it to you anyway.

<comment><USER8> Yup. Also worth noting is that this is a proof of concept, a real attack would likely use non visible form fields and background automatic data transmission. I think most people would agree that there's a world of difference between a phishing attack and an automated drive by attack.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It occurs to me that the reason it doesn't work for saved information that begins with a digit is probably to protect CC numbers / CVVs from a similar attack.

</comment><comment><USER10> The demo doesn't work for me – it can't detect my information at all. I'm using Safari Version 5.0 (6533.16), have the red-circled autofill setting enabled (and no other autofill settings), and have information about myself in my address book card.

<comment> mike-cardwell Didn't work for me until I went into the address book, selected my contact and then clicked "Make this my card". I'm using the same version of Safari as you.

<comment><USER11> The upside is OSX doesn't make any card your default until you do something that requires it. Certain things in Mail and iCal will bring up a dialog box with instructions on how to "Make this my card" (such as creating a meeting invite in iCal)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> While this exploit sounds like trouble, what's more disconcerting to me is that in mid-2010 Apple still doesn't have a functioning system in place to handle responsible disclosure.

<comment><USER3> Email firstname.lastname@example.com or go the extra mile and encrypt it: <https://www.apple.com/support/security/pgp/>

<comment><USER12> Apparently, he did:

> I figured Apple might appreciate a vulnerability disclosure prior to public > discussion, which I did on June 17, 2010 complete with technical detail. A > gleeful auto-response came shortly after, to which I replied asking if Apple > was already aware of the issue. I received no response after that, human or > robot.

<comment><USER13> Yeah. And he waited just over a month. Which is not very long, compared to other similar vendors.

I suspect that Apple doesn't have a lot of goodwill in the security community these days. For better or worse, they're viewed as indifferent on the subject of security.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > These fields are AutoFill'ed using data from the users personal record in > the local operating system address book.

Sorry, maybe a stupid question, but can someone explain this? I had no idea my OS had an address book. Why does it have this? If it does, how do I put stuff in it? Or delete stuff in it? Is this just on mac, or windows and linux too?

<comment><USER10> On Mac, there is an application called Address Book in the Applications folder. It comes with the OS so as to allow apps to integrate with it. Such apps include Safari, as we have seen, and Mail (the email program). Adding and editing contacts should be obvious from the interface – click a + at the bottom to add a new contact or contact group. I don't know if Windows or Linux have address books.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Since this is a problem in the JS handling (as mention in another comment in this thread, Safari isn't differentiating between keyboard entries that were generated from JS from ones that actually came from a keyboard), that's probably in Webkit itself and therefor fixable by the community, no?

<comment><USER15> That doesn't help with an actual Safari release though, does it?

<comment><USER7> If the code is accepted it would, and likely faster than sitting on our hands hoping that Apple will care about this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This reminded me of Gator and their disingenuous practices. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claria_Corporation>

<comment><USER17> Argh... my mother used eWallet to store her credit card info... I deleted it as adware and she was extremely upset.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> completely unrelated - didtrade <http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=didtrade> has been spamming HN for 21 days now, but they're still not banned?

<comment><USER19> I was trying to think of how to ask that myself. I guess just auto-deleting whatever they post (if that's actually what's happening) is better than banning them, since a ban would alert them and they can just make a new account. This lets them continue spamming nobody (except showdead folk).

</comment></comment><comment> mike-cardwell Has anyone actually confirmed this works yet? It doesn't look like it to me...

<comment> mike-cardwell Scratch that. I had to go into my address book, select my contact and then click "Make this my card". Then the exploit worked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> TL;DR. I use Chrome these days.

</comment><comment><USER21> Wow Ilove this stuf, I can already see Apple apologist lining up to show how this is "Just Works" or "magical Design" and how Chrome is evil since google is transffering data over their seceret wi-fi internet which fills the whole world.

I also see an idiot commenting about his mother in law, sadly theses people never understand concerns for privacy.

</comment><comment><USER21> Wow Ilove this stuf, I can already see Apple apologist lining up to show how this is "Just Works" or "magical Design" and how Chrome is evil since google is transffering data over their seceret wi-fi internet which fills the whole world.

I also see an idiot commenting about his mother in law, sadly theses people never understand concerns for privacy since being apple fanboi they already have hardly anything to hide.</comment>


I bootstrapped a $10 million company and need serious help - <AUTHOR> Two years ago I started Social Print Studio as a little design company. We have been able to make a name for ourselves in the world of photo printing. We have many repeat customers, some large corporate clients, and growing six-figure monthly revenues. Things are going well and we have a strategy to compete directly with major players the field and really take the company to the next level.  Problem is that we turn down massive opportunities everyday and executing our strategy has been a huge problem due to our lack of technical and managerial skills.
We are just a group of friends who got in over our heads. We have no network and are having trouble scaling. We are looking for a CTO or solid lead web engineer, someone with solid marketing experience, and maybe even a new CEO. We want to grow this thing huge, are ready to make bold moves, and we want to have the right experience on the team so we can do things right. Craigslist recruiting is not cutting it.
This is our cry for help. If you want to come work with us to build and grow the company 10-100x in the next couple years... Whether you are an engineer, designer, marketeer, or know someone who is... please get in touch. Now is the time, we have some amazing opportunities and really want to push amazing work.
please get in touch directly:
firstname.lastname@example.com @benjaminlotan on twitter
ps. we are in San Francisco. <comment><USER2> Be careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. You're probably doing a better job than you realize.

Try working with an executive coach - I work with Bryan Franklin. It's easier for you to develop leadership and management skills than it is for an outsider to really grok your business and share your vision.

Regarding the marketing role, be sure to get the right kind of marketer: [https://medium.com/on-startups/1308a8f17137](https://medium.com/on- startups/1308a8f17137)

Most of all: go slow on executive hires. There are a lot of "good talkers" out there. An empty seat is better than the wrong person.

<comment><AUTHOR> sound advice, thanks a bunch. i just threw the executive titles out there since i think that's where they would ideally lead to, and i don't exactly know how to speak to the people we are looking for to help us. I will read the medium post you linked now! if you are ever in the bay area, hit me up, id love to meet for coffee.

<comment><USER3> Just to add to the general chorus, what you really want are good consultants (or coaches, depending on your vernacular) for the specific problems you're facing. Crossing your fingers and letting a new CTO or CEO figure out the big picture for you is attractive, sure, but the risks are too high.

After you've filled in the blanks, you'll feel much more comfortable, and at that point make some hires to deal with those specific business areas, while still maintaining overall control. As others have said, you guys are doing something right or you wouldn't be in this position in the first place.

If I was over in SF, I'd love to help you out, but I'm based in Sydney.

Anyway, best of luck to you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Each of the three startups I worked for as one of the first 10 employees were ruined when the 'seasoned pros' were brought in. Don't hire any C level or VP people. There is a class of losers in the Bay Area who bounce around between VP of Engineering/Ops/Product jobs at post-funded startups and sink the ship while using their inflated salaries to redo their deck in Los Gatos. Hire additional engineers / marketers / finance / designers as needed and promote from within (as needed).

</comment><comment><USER5> i'm running a $2 million and growing company, and i can say that if you're doing _$10 million dollars in 2 years_ (TWO YEARS) and think you have a "lack of technical and managerial skills" you are being intellectually dishonest with yourself, and possibly being disingenuous to your audience here.

from what we've seen and what we've heard, basically starting at $1 million/year in revenues, you will hit a serious new set of problems (some call these inflection points) at every doubling thereafter (i.e., 2M, 4M, 8M, 16M)

obviously there are exceptions (some businesses are simply born to be able to handle massive amounts of revenue in a flat manner) but basically, every time a business doubles, the problems change. this doesn't mean you're incompetent, or that you lack skills.

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah, i mean, i know what i;m doing by following instinct... but really at this scale... all decisions seem wrong. we truly have no one in the company who has been here before, and that is a problem.

<comment><USER5> one of your challenges is that at this point, anyone who is interested in helping you, is also the kind of person who wants to get rich off of your hard work (aka ownership in your company). not to say that they won't work hard themselves, but incentives are incentives.

just be careful when you talk to private equity, investment banking and growth capital folks and do not give up ownership of your business easily, if at all.

if they haven't hit you up yet, they certainly will after your posting this. like moths to a flame, they will appear. or maybe wolves to a kill. or vultures.

be especially suspicious of companies that wish to incorporate your firm before you're ready.

also beware of competitors or "consulting firms" calling you up to find out more about your firm for the purposes of a "purchase or partnership" who really just want to squeeze out as much info about you as they can before never calling back.

either way make sure you have good legal representation.

<comment><AUTHOR> wow, you totally called it! already got on the phone with someone wanting to take things over and do crazy things. shady people ;-) Thanks, i'll be careful. appreciate the advice. I've kept close control thus far and have not wanted to raise money. Hope the right person might come into the picture. Already happy to get a couple genuine emails. cheers!

<comment><USER6> What you're looking for is a mentor, not a hire. You need someone who's been around the block to give you pointers and illuminate your blind spots. You're clearly doing very, very well already and should be proud of it. Don't let yourself feel like an impostor. You're not. You've earned your success.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hi Ben,

First, I can completely appreciate your mentality. When the software company I founded was at about $650,000 in annual revenue, I was convinced that it was time to bring in a seasoned leader who knew how to take the business to the next level because I, as a first-time entrepreneur, had certainly not done it before.

In retrospect, that mentality was a mistake. The truth is that you understand the business better than anyone else and there is no magical skill or talent that someone else can bring to the table that will so fundamentally improve things.

Do not make the mistake of thinking that if you _transfer_ responsibility to "better" executive that they can do a better job. That person will bring their own strengths/weaknesses to the table. They will need to rely on a team to make up for their handicaps just as you are looking to do.

In this situation, I recommend the following:

\- First, clearly identify exactly what issues are vexing you. If it seems like "everything" or "things are just overwhelming" then make a list of just the most important issues.

\- Then pick 1 or 2 or 3 that you can actually focus on solving. You can't do more than that at once, but imagine how much impact fixing your top 3 issues will make on the business! In fact, you should try to quantify how much money you are losing or missing out on by not resolving these issues to give yourself a sense of what you should budget to solve them

\- Then block out or delegate everything else, and focus 100% of your creative energies on how you can resolve these issues. Use any and all resources available to you, including friends, consultants, or even Hacker News ;-) If you don't even know where to begin on an issue, then find an expert for THAT ISSUE (which is different than finding a new CEO).

\- Then keep at it, keep refining your ideas, listen to your intuition, and push through until you make progress.

I made the mistake of thinking other businesspeople were "better" than me or more talented than I am. The truth is you just need to know what your strengths/weaknesses are. Then lean on the team around you or new people to help you fill in the weaknesses.

Hope this helps,

Josh

</comment><comment><USER8> Beware of the sharks, a call out like this will bring them on like blood in the water. Best of luck, the golden rule for me has always been that anybody that approaches you is not to be trusted by default.

<comment><USER9> So does that mean that when _you_ approach somebody you have something shady in mind? Or are you just above the standard you set for others?

<comment><USER8> Let me try to help you out since what I wrote is apparently not clear enough, I thought the 'default' in there covered the remainder.

If you make a public announcement that you have _vast amounts of money or cashflow_ and that you are looking for help because you are out of your depth then you will find that this will attract besides a few possibly capable people a (probably larger) number of people that will just focus on relieving you of your cash, your company or both.

Personally I would never approach someone making such a call for help for any kind of compensation at all because I (1) don't want to be associated with the sharks (think of it as an easy way to differentiate) and (2) feel that they are better off to go out and do the approaching themselves.

Given that I have in the past approached people in situations like this, and have helped them out as much as possible without compensation (and in some cases spending some of my own money) should hopefully be enough to convince you that there are indeed standards here and that I try to hold others to the same standard as I hold myself to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hey Ben,

I'm going to write you a longer email tonight. My wife and I run Cheergram ([http://cheergram.com](http://cheergram.com)) and we've always admired what you've done at SPS. We had pretty good success with Instagram cards last holiday season and now we're looking into other kinds of cards, invitations, artwork and prints. We're also doing some wedding-focused stuff (think hashtag + prints/books).

Maybe there's a way we can share ideas, work together, or even join forces. I do all our development and it sounds like we have a similar tech stack. I also have some connections in the print industry.

No matter what, keep it up and I agree with most of the commenters here.

<comment><USER11> That's actually a cool idea - I was sold when I saw the ability to cling it to the wall.

PS: I went to [http://cheergram.com/](http://cheergram.com/) can I saw the footer twice ("Copyright 2013...")

<comment><USER10> Thanks, fixed that issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Wow! The quantity of bad advice in these comments is shocking, if not down right disturbing.

If Intel, GE, or Mircosoft hired a consultant to advise them on the right move, the vast majority of people on HN would scream bloody-murder and speak about it as a perfect example of big-business and its stupidity. What hypocrisy!

Ben, the reality is that you clearly have moved past Steve Blank's description of a start-up; you have found a working business model. Now, the challenge is to find out if that business model is something that can last for 5 years or 50. No one on this board has run a successful company for 50 years. Thus, everyone, definitely including myself, is well out of their league.

However, since entering the old school world of finance, I have realized that there are many men and women who are twice our age who would be able to give you great advice. You need adult supervision and that is OK. You don't know how to hire an executive (i.e. adult supervision). Thus, you should first find someone who can help you find adult supervision. A great place to start is in the 'boring' industries: finance and manufacturing. Find a wise advisor who can help you find an executive to lead.

You are no longer a start-up. Running a post-start-up company like a start-up will kill it as quickly as running a start-up like a Fortune 500.

<comment><USER6> I think that your advice is itself pretty bad advice.

It is theoretically possible to hire someone like what you describe, but it seems vanishingly unlikely and much more likely to cause damage.

As many others have pointed out, each business is unique, and the fact that the OP has reached the level of success they've reached is proof that they have a fairly solid management team already. Most likely, they are falling prey to impostor's syndrome - "one of these days someone will discover I'm a fraud and don't deserve all this success".

The cure for that is not to give in to the impostor's syndrome, but to reject it by observing the simple evidence that someone who builds a $10m business in 2 years is clearly very talented and skilled.

Ultimately, if the OP doesn't want to run this business anymore, they could just sell it. But if they want to keep running it, there's no way to abdicate to some "adult supervision" that will magically make all the problems go away. It will just replace the problems with a different set of problems, specific to the new hire.

A better approach if the OP wants to keep running this company is to build some good relationships with mentors who can help the OP grow into the role.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> If you are doing 6 figure monthly revenues, one thing worth considering might be to read some mr money mustache and really contemplate what you want for your life ... You aren't required to grow 10 or 100x ... You also have the option of pocketing profits, living frugally, and retiring young. That's one of the big advantages of bootstrapping.

<comment><USER14> 6 figure revenue means nothing without knowing margin.

<comment><USER15> Especially in the photo printing business!! I don't know exactly what part OP's in, but 4x6 prints are about as profitable as airlines...

Disclaimers: 1. I work for Vistaprint, so possibly a competitor though we shuttered our photo printing business years ago as not profitable and without a clear path to profit. 2. Your site is constantly crashing Safari on an iPad original. (not complaining, just explaining why I don't know what you actually do) 3. All content and opinion in this post is mine. I don't speak for my employer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Agree with everything that is being said here regarding the executive seats, don't give those out and keep control.

In addition to some executive coaches, who will help you grow personally, it seems you need some good advisors who can help you with the problems that you're facing. Some of these could have experience with technical issues you're facing, while others could have managerial and supply chain experience. It wasn't clear from your website if you have any advisory board or not.

NOTE: there is a very big difference between board of directors and advisory board, what you need at the moment is advisory board, don't give out board of director seats unnecessarily unless you raise a VC round of funding or go IPO :).

By getting a good set of advisors you will be able to fill the immediate gap in your skills/experience that you're facing and may even decide if any of those (or their referrals) need to be hired, if at all, for executive positions.

Now how you find advisors is non-trivial so I will advise you to look for people with experience in your industry and domain, and contact them. Even if their companies seem to be mildly competing at times, you'll be surprised how many people will meet with you over coffee and might have recommendations. If you decide to have a person come on as an advisor, don't give them any compensation till they start providing value. If someone comes on very strongly and will only help if compensated, then perhaps that is not the right person.

Good Luck!!!

</comment><comment><USER17> Ben, first, you are NOT in over your head, you are simply questioning whether or not to grow your company to some preceived "next level" by looking for funding to take on major players in your field.

Why not continue to innovate your successful bootstrapped business?

The most important thing for you to consider is whether or not you _actually_ want to compete with the major players in the field. It sounds like you are doing well managing your boutique operation, and frankly, based on what you've provided it sounds like you are killing it. Boutique operations often destroy their larger competitors, and are far more nimble to have the next best thing that becomes popular and doesn't require "funding" to generate revenue.

Yes, you could hire a new CEO to help track down funding and manage all the acquisition inquiries that you've received. But, if you have a successful bootstrapped business that is generating profits, why would you want to deviate from your current course?

</comment><comment><USER18> Ben, just want to say - congratulations! This is a FANTASTIC problem to have :-) Great job to you and your team getting this far... I think you realize how special and rare it is. Great job!

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks so much! appreciate the comment :-) come say hello if you are in SF.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm having a hard time understanding what exactly it is that you do, from your confusing web site introduction.

Concerning your scaling pains, lots of people probably already do some form of what you're trying to do; you may do better to assimilate/enfranchise them rather than competing.

</comment><comment><USER20> Book suggestion: "Four Steps to the Epiphany"

Basic takeaway is not to add structure until it's painfully obvious that you need it. If you hire a VP or CxO from a large firm, he's going to staff you up like a large firm, and you can't afford that yet.

</comment><comment><USER21> You know more about your business than anyone else. Nobody is in a good position to do things better than you, given the things you have learned. Otherwise, you wouldn't have gotten as far as you have.

Perhaps you need some mentors, or just folks you are comfortable talking to -- perhaps other founders?

As an angel investor I have found that the one of the things I am called on the most to do is just let people talk stuff out. I don't feel like it is very useful but people really like it.

</comment><comment><USER22> Are you saying you guys are making $10m a year printing Instagram pictures? That is incredible. This company must not have existed a few years ago..

pat yourself on the back and get yourself some local angels on board. they get to wet their beacon and you reap the rewards of a business coach.

</comment><comment><USER23> This is a brave post, Ben!

Gotta agree with most of the comments here -- I think it's incredibly hard to find someone who's "been there before" who can walk in and actually do it for you in a CEO role. I've spent some time looking + asking others in similar situations.

That said, and though I strongly prefer moving people up from the inside, I think there IS opportunity for finding people who can bring specific areas of expertise, like fundraising+connections, building a sales team, leading a tech team.

And I think there's a lot to be gained in finding a strong mentor or group of entrepreneurs in similar situations to act as a sounding board. I can't help with the former, but perhaps the latter. Let's hang again, soon.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm not sure if this will help or not but I would head over to [http://clarity.fm](http://clarity.fm) and find someone to chat with.

Your bound to get some great advice and gain some valuable insight.

</comment><comment><USER25> I recommend looking into joining Entrepreneur's Organization. It's an organization of business owners who own businesses with revenue > $1 mil/year (there's also an "accelerator" with owners whose revenue is > $250K/year). They will provide invaluable coaching, insight and network that will help you take your company to next level.

There's a chapter in SF: [http://eoaccess.eonetwork.org/SanFrancisco/Pages/default.asp...](http://eoaccess.eonetwork.org/SanFrancisco/Pages/default.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER26> Great advice in this thread. If I can leave anything, it's to be very careful not to fall into the I-need-a-COO hole. If you start thinking you need a COO (I really f'n hate that title btw), take Brad Feld's advice and make sure you can define the role as Head of _______. If you can't define that something, you definitely just need a CEO coach and a few smart soundboards to hang around with.

Good luck!

PS - The sharks will all want to be CEO and talk about comp before they've tried out your service...they're easy to flush out.

</comment><comment><USER27> Surprised some commenters have trouble figuring out what you do... You folks have fun doing it! But hiring will always be hard because finding people who fit and who also sustain your high level is hard...

No useful advice... except, stay extremely clear on who you are, don't compromise even a little on that. "An empty seat is better" is a corollary.

</comment><comment><USER28> I just wanted to say that I remember seeing you at probably more than one event. I think you guys are doing a fantastic job and I think your cry for help is necessary - but only because you know what you need and you're likely not doing as badly as you might think.

I know you guys can do it. I've seen what you do and I'm impressed. Keep truckin'!

</comment><comment><USER29> It almost sounds like you're looking for a parental figure more than anything. If you're at the stage you're at, I would suggest building up existing talent and establishing authority and a process for that authority. Better to do that now while things are young before you hire in some flashy top talent guy with perfect teeth.

</comment><comment><USER30> you should mention your current technology stack for the web dev.

<comment><AUTHOR> it's all over the place since we have been building and rebuilding things, but currently it's mostly rails and node.js. Hosted on Heroku.

<comment><USER31> Doesnt sound Bad, what are your technical struggles about exactly?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Are you guys open to remote work?

</comment><comment><USER33> are you guys open to remote work?

</comment><comment><USER34> Your hiring page is awesome.

I can't comment on how you should proceed going forward, but to echo the other comments, you've obviously been doing something right. Hopefully this post will put you in touch with the right people.

</comment><comment><USER35> I was thinking about you guys just the other day as I walked past your old place on Atherton. Been meaning to catch up; you want to grab lunch sometime soon?

<comment><AUTHOR> yo steve! good to hear from you. drop by our new space!

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I've built two printing companies (sold the first one). Feel free to contact me if you have any questions on scale or anything else. email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER37> Can't help you guys out, but congratulations!

</comment><comment><USER38> Wish you guys were in New Jersey ... ;)

</comment><comment><USER39> I have no idea what you do by looking at your website on an ipad.

</comment><comment><USER40> Not every company is a billion dollar company. Is yours?

</comment><comment><USER41> The community here is overly negative on VCs (often with some justification) but this is exactly the kind of reason they exist - fast growth, real revenues, money can help get you to the next step.

</comment><comment><USER42> If I were in your position, I would apply to YC.

<comment><USER43> YC's 6% equity cut isn't a big hit when you're at the "we have an idea" stage, but if they're a $10M company already that's a lot to pay for advice...

<comment><USER42> The value of the business would instantly go up a lot more than 6% just by having "YC" forever attached to the company. All of the advising, connections etc would just be a cherry on top.

<comment><USER44> The value might go up by more than $600K right now, but assuming it gets to $100M, who knows if the value will have gone up by $6M due to the YC branding.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Black Market for Social Media Manipulation - <AUTHOR> https://www.stratcomcoe.org/black-market-social-media-manipulation <comment><USER2> This is a very basic article, but presents a decent outline of this niche. As they say, all of this is very open and available on the clearnet anyway.

One technique used by those "high end" account creators: they all network with each other irl, add their (1000s) of fakes as friends with each other, and hire staff to send random chat messages to all friends every day. Do this over time and you extend the hidden limits set by FB on adding friends and sending messages.

</comment><comment><USER3> This isn't anything new. A buddy of mine ran a "company" that sold backlinks (mostly low quality garbage) about a decade ago -- the company was making 7 figures yearly. At around the same time, I figured out how to game the StumbleUpon algorithm and was selling front page spots (for like $1k a spot) with my sister.

It doesn't surprise me that this is still happening. There's money to be made, but there's a lot of risk involved with greyhat/blackhat business models. Being young and dumb helps.

<comment><USER4> hahah, my brother and I also sold gamed StumbleUpon front page, and digg, and early reddit, and delicious back in the day and sold it as a service. It was insane how easy it used to be...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think it is pretty obvious that these companies have built pretty sophisticated scrappers for social media sites as well to bypass any API or ToS restrictions. Twitter bots for politics aren't even hidden. Reddit has a huge problem with social media manipulation as well.

</comment><comment><USER6> The best part of this basic article is that probably cost 250k to EUR taxpayers and provided 0 insight, keeping the wheel of fraud spinning.

</comment><comment><USER7> This should start to be tracked.

I caught Aldi advertising with Reddits frugal board.

Young accounts, lots of Aldi Love.

That marketing company has gotten better.

I find it awful HN mods won't let this be discussed. Is HN manipulated? Why wouldn't it be?

<comment><USER8> We spend a lot of time addressing readers' concerns about the integrity of HN. I did so just this morning: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20508960](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20508960).

The main constraint is that answering these questions thoroughly is time- and energy-intensive. Since our resources are limited, this quickly eats into the other things we need to do to keep HN up and make it better. So we have to be careful how we engage. That mostly means answering users who have substantive questions and good-faith concerns, and avoiding getting lost in the forests that the wilder kinds of insinuations lead to. The internet is a gigantic Rohrschach test that is all too ready to supply whatever people want to see.

<comment><USER9> Would it be possible to add the invited page ([https://news.ycombinator.com/invited](https://news.ycombinator.com/invited)) to the lists page? [https://news.ycombinator.com/lists](https://news.ycombinator.com/lists)

It would be super helpful to also provide a 'lobbed' page. I didn't know about this practice, and I'm sure many other users don't know about this either. It's important in my opinion for the sake of transparency.

<comment><USER8> We'll add the lobbed page once it exists. The invited page probably doesn't belong there since the distinction between invited and reupped is just an accident of timing.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Satoshi was wrong - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@homakov/satoshi-was-wrong-cd06d2877128 <comment><USER2> Sure, he was wrong. So was Newton. Einstein fixed some of it, and then a lot of others fixed some of the remaining parts, etc. Writing "Satoshi was wrong" as a headline, is misleading at best. Why would someone talk about Satoshi with such disrespect? I don't get it. Can somone explain?

<comment><USER3> I think the simple answer is that it's clickbait. A while back there was a relatively well-known pop science magazine with a cover story "Darwin Was Wrong". I'm having trouble finding the actual article now since the title is such a common phrase. It turned out to be something like him being wrong about the "tree of life" because genetic studies proved that horizontal gene transfer was extremely common in the earliest generations, hence there's no single common ancestor or "trunk". Not, as any reasonable person might conjecture from that headline, a debunking of the overall theory of evolution by natural selection.

<comment><USER4> I don't see how crypto-currency dogma is on the same level with evolution. It seems to me a lot of the criticisms have been borne out. Bitcoins are worth a lot to speculators but they remain infrequently used as an actual currency.

<comment><USER3> > I don't see how crypto-currency dogma is on the same level with evolution.

That's not a claim I have any interest in. I'm just drawing the parallel of an article "debunking" someone while actually agreeing with their central thesis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > 1\. A cap at 21M. It made the currency deflationary by nature. Ask an > economist, no one thinks it's a good idea long term > [http://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal- > finance/030915...](http://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal- > finance/030915/why-deflation-bad-economy.asp)

Most economists, not all economists. And most of those economists are the ones destroying economies, in my opinion.

If you're interested in reading a counter-viewpoint on why deflation is actually good – it's the policies aimed at countering it that are really what's bad – here you go: [https://mises.org/blog/deflation-always-good- economy](https://mises.org/blog/deflation-always-good-economy)

<comment><USER6> > [https://mises.org/blog/deflation-always-good- > economy](https://mises.org/blog/deflation-always-good-economy)

That article is just _bad_. It spends a lot of time talking about reduction in prices, but the real problem with currency deflation is that it results in a reduction in wages.

If computers cost half as much as they did ten years ago meanwhile everyone is making the same amount of money, that's great. But if people are also making half as much money then it's useless, or worse than useless because then people are making less money but still have the same mortgage they took out ten years ago. Which is what happens with currency-generated deflation (as opposed to efficiency-generated consumer price deflation).

> The economic effect of money that was created out of thin air is exactly the > same as that of counterfeit money — it impoverishes wealth generators.

Except that the created money can go to the government which it can spend in lieu of collecting more taxes, which would otherwise have come from "wealth generators" regardless.

<comment><USER7> Nope, its good. It may reduce wages, but prices will be much lower, so who cares?

<comment><USER6> It's not about the stuff that just cancels out, it's about everything that doesn't.

Money you already owe becomes more expensive to pay back.

It turns the currency into an investment vehicle that competes with economically productive activity for investment. If cash in a mattress predictably appreciates by 4% a year then nobody will be willing to invest in anything that produces less than that in real returns, so all of that productive activity disappears out of the economy to be replaced by currency speculation. Or is forced to pay the higher returns to investors by paying lower wages to employees or charging higher prices to customers, and _is able to_ because less available investment means less competition when your would- be competitors don't get funded.

When most of the currency is held by speculators it causes high volatility in the currency value, which interferes with normal businesses using it as a currency because the value can fluctuate wildly even for those who only hold the currency temporarily. Which leads to economic inefficiency and less competition again.

Everything about it causes unearned wealth to go to people who uselessly hoard currency at the expense of everyone else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Very poorly written article. Throwing a lot of shit at someone and discrediting them for some mistakes.

<comment><USER9> If we can finally accept that Bitcoin was made by the CIA it doesn't feel too bad ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I would classify this article as typical FUD that consistent observers of the Bitcoin/cryptocurrency space see quite often.

</comment><comment><USER11> The post seems at least decent but the title is terrible I think.

</comment><comment><USER12> > 1\. A cap at 21M. It made the currency deflationary by nature. Ask an > economist, no one thinks it's a good idea long term > [http://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal- > finance/030915...](http://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal- > finance/030915/why-deflation-bad-economy.asp)

Most economists thought that "Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks" The Times 03/Jan/2009 was a good thing, but many, including Satoshi, disagree on this.

As for Bitcoin being deflationary, that's a more subtle point. Nobody (to a reasonable approximation) thinks that there is a direct link between monetary base and inflation/deflation. There is a relationship, but total money supply is generally considered more important, and that includes liquid monetary instruments (like demand deposits, etc.) that are not reflected in the monetary base.

The notion that Bitcoin is worthless because it is deflationary is self- contradictory -- if it increases in value it cannot decrease in value. The contradiction here is that the price of Bitcoin will fluctuate with market forces just like everything else, but if supply chains begin to materialize denominated in Bitcoin, then by necessity the output and intermediate products of that supply chain will be stable in value relative to Bitcoin itself.

> 2\. He offered a system where the inputs/outputs blockchain is the state > itself, and in order to prune your chain you need to store UTXO set.

Agreed here; this was definitely a design flaw. I'm not totally sold on the ETH solution, which depends strongly on transactions being ordered properly, and has some odd race conditions that are a pain to deal with (that is, a transaction which is not currently valid may "become" valid, either by advancing the nonce or increasing the momentary balance at an address). One problem with the UTXO solution is that offline (air-gapped) signing solutions are very complex, because you need to locate UTXOs, rather than just signing "send X bitcoins from this address to this address".

> 3\. He didn't oversee the idea of Root of Trust

Eh; this seems like an independent problem to me. If you want to trust someone, by all means trust them, and use whatever web of trust primitives you want to expand that trust into trusting their software. But putting it in the blockchain means that the chain of custody becomes suspect; what if an individual (or their key) is compromised? That extends the surface area of any attack significantly. That's not to say that it wouldn't be nice to have some notion of trust, but so far I haven't seen any ideas that seem even a little attractive for solving this problem. Satoshi didn't cure cancer either.

> 4\. He offered "new payment — new address" as a rule

This rule still makes sense for a lot of situations just because there's no "receipt" mechanism. I sell widgets, and a customer buys a widget -- did they send the money or not? If I have a single payment address, all I see are hundreds of payments for .01 BTC.

On an individual level, using a new address for the change from a transaction doesn't seem to add a lot of value, but since Bitcoin tracks UTXO, not address balances, there's relatively little bloat associated with this.

> 5\. He never defined clearly threat model of Bitcoin. Who's the attacker? > ... The one and only real attacker ... is ... governments.

The threat model, on the contrary, was extremely well defined. The only threat that Satoshi took seriously is the threat of double spend attacks.

The nation-state threat model is more subtle -- currency controls and police actions against users and miners. That's a little out of scope of a software project.

If a nation-state chooses to take over mining, then all they do is increase the security of the network by adding hash power. If they try to use their hash power to facilitate double-spending (for some reason?) then that's easily detectable by humans. But mainly it just doesn't make sense as an attack, especially for a nation-state with a police force and a justice system, which can be used to enforce arbitrary rules much more cheaply than building a huge mining farm can.

> 6\. Complete lack of governance was sold to us as a good thing. What we got > now? There's nothing Bitcoin can do that Ethereum can't, there's no clear > strategy or way of resolution of conflicts when one side whats 2x of blocks > and another wants to keep it 1 Mb.

Better to have the debate, and have the forking and contention, than just sticking with a bad policy set by a bad policy maker. This is just inefficient democracy vs. efficient totalitarianism -- your mileage may vary, but I side pretty hard with the inefficient here.

As for Ethereum, I love a lot of what it brings to the table, but in the end, it brings too much, at the cost of a huge amount of complexity that makes trust decisions, already complex, exponentially worse. Also, I don't understand what Ethereum has to do with a governance failure of Bitcoin. Ethereum has not yet taken over from Bitcoin in the space that Bitcoin was designed for, so I don't think we can count it as proof of Satoshi's mistakes.

> 7\. Lack of vision what Bitcoin would do when transactions reach maximum of > capacity. In fact Satoshi himself envisioned it as a constantly growing > onchain without any second layers. It's only now when people realized that > increasing onchain further is ridiculously stupid idea since it's already > way too hard to be a full node. And utopian hot-patches with completely > broken incentives models like Lightning Network are another proof Satoshi > had no idea how to fit all people onchain.

The whitepaper says nothing about block sizes or off-chain settlement. Satoshi went away before block sizes became a contentious issue, so we'll never know if whatever he thought was right or wrong. And frankly, although I'm a "big- blocker" myself, I don't think the answer here is settled. Whether on-chain can scale as storage costs drop and light-weight payment verification becomes more common and full nodes rarer, or whether we need a formal off-chain solution like LN or an informal off-chain solution like "some company maintains a ledger", the jury is still out.

</comment><comment><USER13> What actual real world problem does bitcoin solve other than foreign exchange transfers and black market operations?

<comment><USER14> With more civil asset forfeiture, bitcoin is the only easy to store value, gold can be seized

<comment><USER15> "They" need only seize _you_ and beat you with a wrench to get your passphrase/convoluted security mechanism(s) protecting your private key(s).

Or just pass a law requiring you comply or else.

<comment><USER14> True but I can have a hidden bigger wallet

<comment><USER13> The size of your wallet doesn't matter when you're in prison or dead.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you eat/drink during the workday? - <AUTHOR> What sort of food/drink do you eat during the workday?  I'm trying to find things that aren't very heavy - it's becoming too easy to run to grab fast food, so I'd like to find a better alternative (obviously bringing food).<p>Drinks - coffee/tea I suppose? <comment><USER3> Nothing, as I fast during the workday usually (either 18/6 or 20/4). I drink lots of water though. Eat the equivalent of 2 dinners in the late evening (70-80energy% of fat is the target). It's pretty liberating not to think about food the entire workday. The only awkwardness is the social part - so I sometimes eat lunch just to join in if I'm working with a team, or for other social reasons.

Edit: Another benefit is that you don't get the after lunch crash.

<comment><USER4> I'm intrigued by this—how long did it take to get used to? Breakfast?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am as well - I would be interested in hearing a little more since I get headaches if I go without eating for an extended amount of time. I believe IF helps some people with weight loss as well.

<comment><USER3> I would get those too back when I was a sugar junkie. And I would get them a lot during the time I transitioned from running on sugar/carbs to running on fat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In order of volume and priority...Coffee, leafy greens(in all forms, especially cabbage - all types, kale, napa, green, etc.) and protein in all forms, diversity is important, animal and vegetable sources.

I mix in other fruits and vegetables for flavoring and variety. Also, I eliminated salt and that relieved my stress in a significant, noticeable way.

I start my day at 4am, if I eat heavier, carb-based items, I notice a crash somewhere around 3 or 4 pm and the last few hours of my day are a struggle. If I stick to what I listed above, I power through the afternoon and feel more balanced when I end my day.

<comment><USER6> Do you supplement iodine?

<comment><USER5> I do not.

Based on the iodine content that naturally occurs in foods I don't think I am at risk of iodine deficiency. This is part of my strategy of diversity as well. For example, turkey and potatoes are both high in iodine. While I try to avoid carb-based meals I might include a half of a potato in a shredded cabbage salad that might be 80% cabbage. When you add up other items like tomatoes, eggs, some beans, etc. I don't think I'm missing anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The main things I stock are fruits (apples/bananas/oranges/pears/etc.), nuts, various crisp/flatbreads (wasa), hard candies, various teas/coffee, and a big water filled nalgene bottle. I keep a rotation of yogurt/greek/cottagecheese in the frig and then some type of lunch.

lunch varies a lot and it's whatever... sandwich, leftovers, soup. Main thing is I cut out the processed pre-prepared foods, but I do go out to eat maybe once or twice a week. I enjoy a burger and beer if I want to.

</comment><comment><USER8> Breakfast is typically a granola bar (I like the old-school crunchy Nature's Valley ones) and a cup of coffee. 30% of the time the coffee will be a latte from Starbucks or the local coffee shop.

Mid-morning I'll probably have another cup of coffee, and will start trying to remember to drink water. I have a big plastic cup on my desk.

Lunch totally depends. I try to bring lunch. Often that's a sandwich or wrap (with fruit and yogurt)--it so happens that's what I have today. Sometimes it's leftovers. Otherwise I'll grab something nearby. We often have food trucks in front of the building, or I'll get a sandwich from the cafteria in the building (OK) or one of the couple nearby places (Peruvian chicken: heavy).

Mid-afternoon, I'll drink water, tea, or--if I'm having a bad day--coke. If I'm hungry, I keep a pile of Clif Bars in my desk drawer.

I'm usually out by 6:30, so will go home and make dinner.

</comment><comment><USER9> Breakfast - I skip breakfast so usually just tea or coffee if I'm at a cafe

Lunch - Bowl of mashed sweet potatoes, avocado, apple, chicken or beef and all of it mixed with coconut oil, cinnamon and garlic. Takes less than 5 minutes to prep, most time spent after is just waiting to steam the potatoes and cooking the protein source. Can be made ahead of time and put in containers (I usually work from home so I make this during the day as a break). Not exactly a light meal but can be really filling.

Throughout the Day - Water most of the time, usually cut out caffeine past noon unless I'm at a coffee meeting.

</comment><comment><USER10> Breakfast: salt-free cottage cheese with granola, fruit and kefir all nicely mixed together.

Mid-morning: fruit

Lunch: Left overs from last night's dinner, or sandwich. I try to avoid lunches that are carb heavy or a on the greasy side. Today is salmon and beets with a bit of rice.

Mid-afternoon: fruit, nuts or a treat like cookies

Drinks: Just water

</comment><comment><USER11> Way too much coffee and cereal bars. Plus a normal lunch e.g. meat and veg.

For your needs the closest thing I found is a food delivery service for frozen home made meals. Some are.Veg only, but very tasty and filling.

</comment><comment><USER12> I stopped drinking coffee because I was ruining my sleep schedule and appetite.

Drinks

\- Loose leaf teas

      - Early morning something with caffeine (yerba mate, green, black)
      - Afternoons (herbal teas, no caffeine)

\- Kombucha

      - Morning or afternoon

\- Water all day

      - Buy a waterbottle and leave it at work, whenever you get up, fill it up.

Snacks

\- Soylent

      - Morning or around 3-4 to keep the caloric intake up. It doesn't feel heavy one bit.

\- Mixed nuts/trailmix

      - Great mixed with some goldfish :D

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you recommend any teas that don't taste very bland (and aren't overly spicy/over powering)

<comment><USER13> If you want something more satisfying, I recommend roasted barley or rice. No caffeine and it somehow gives it a nutty/savory taste.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I usually skip breakfast, have a coffee or energy drink in the morning, go out somewhere for lunch, go out about 75% of the time for dinner (cook the rest, trying to bump that up a bit), and maybe eat a couple squares of dark chocolate or cheese sticks at home as a snack or instead of a full dinner.

It's rare that I eat snacks while I'm at work.

Meals usually consist of some combination of the following: meat, cheese, salad, veggies. I avoid fruit, grains, and sugar.

<comment><USER15> What energy drink do you have in the morning that helps you avoid sugar?

<comment><USER14> I just have a diet one (Diet Rockstar Punched is my favorite). Yeah I know it's artificial sweetener, but I don't have good enough sleep habits to kick the habit effectively.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Breakfast: Winter is coming so some oat porridge is nice - porridge takes only the amount of time to boil some water then pour water over the oats for 2-3 minutes, super convenient and super light yet filling. Add milk, condiments, etc.

Lunch: Most often something from a restaurant in the park I'm based in. If time is no issue 1-2 hours shared with a former colleague to catch-up, thoroughly nice and heartwarming; if only 30-60 minutes, the same food and source but take-out and eaten at desk. As I'm in northern China this is predominantly rice or wheat-noodle based. I tend to go for soupy noodles. If traveling and find a place with good bread I pounce on it, but there aren't where I'm usually based.

Afternoon: Some fruit: whatever's looking good and in-season in the local shop in the park or from visiting trucks.

Dinner: Depends on time. Like to do a good cook on the weekend and use some of that for convenience; a lot of comfort food especially bean-inspired,. Just variety from taste to ingredients: mix in a lot of stuff which isn't in a common (northern) Chinese diet (beans, nuts, cheese). If time is easy I'll buy a fish and/or some seafood and steam, stew or fry.

Drink: Water. Have always disliked coffee and never much into tea of any kind. Gin+tonic is good at any time and any place though leads to reduced capacity after consumption.

</comment><comment><USER17> Breakfast - Scrambled eggs Elevenses - Croissant and coffee Lunch - <USER2> Burger or Pizza Mid-afternoon - sandwich Dinner - yogurt with banana

</comment><comment><USER18> I blog about what I eat and why:

[http://miceats.blogspot.com/](http://miceats.blogspot.com/)

</comment><comment><USER19> Breakfast: 2 eggs, bacon, avocado. A bit of dark chocolate with a cup of tea

Lunch: salmon in theriyaki sauce with lots lots of salad.

Diner: usually leftovers from salad and toast with some cottage cheese on top.

Drinks: water or mint tea

That's pretty much how my typical day (but not every day) looks like.

</comment><comment><USER20> I only drink water.

I only eat one meal a day, at 7PM.

I'm looking forward to exclusively eat beef for a whole month.

</comment><comment><USER21> Coffee around 8am. Not much else till I get hungry around 1:30. Then a zero carb meal. Usually some mix of avocados, cheese, meat, sardines.

Then a dinner consisting of meat and vegetable.

</comment><comment><USER22> I eat salad most of the time(vegetables)...rest of the time, I grab some food from the nearest fast food. + Water/Orange Juice.

</comment><comment><USER23> Mostly water, Sometimes tea.

</comment><comment><USER24> Many many Coke Zeroes.</comment>


Virtual Future and the Arts Exhibit at Mori Museum - <AUTHOR> https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=k49Cr68caXk&sr=-3.09,1.03&ss=6 <comment><AUTHOR> This is an exhibit of futuristic art at the Mori Museum in Tokyo that happened to run into the quarantine period. Since the exhibit had to close early they put it online.

While the page title is in japanese, the information throughout the exhibit is presented in Japanese and English.

More info about the exhibit:

[https://www.mori.art.museum/en/exhibitions/future_art/index....](https://www.mori.art.museum/en/exhibitions/future_art/index.html)</comment>