How My Start-Up Failed - <AUTHOR> http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/1999/julaug/articles/condoms.html

<comment><USER2> _Though I had a Stanford MBA and regularly consulted on multimillion-dollar projects, I didn't know the first thing about starting a business._

Truer words have never been spoken.

<comment><USER3> I'm saddened that the two highest-rated comments are snarky comments about the man's degree. He's telling an embarrassing story in good faith, and the best we can do is insult his education? Classy.

<comment><USER2> Insult him? It was the author's own words; I was agreeing with his realization.

Before doing a startup, I (fallentimes) _used to be_ the consultant on _"multimillion dollar projects"_. I agree with regards to the second comment though.

<comment><USER3> The author clearly wrote that sentence to express the irony of the situation; your comment contributed no additional information, except to lay on the sarcasm.

Point being, when there are a thousand different insightful things that one could say about the _content_ of the story, a seven-word zinger about the value of his MBA degree doesn't strike me as a particularly constructive comment.

<comment><USER4> If you think genuinely agreeing with something the author said is sarcasm, you should look the term up in the dictionary. I don't know whether the comment added value or not, but it certainly wasn't sarcastic and almost certainly wasn't insulting.

<comment><USER3> If your dictionary has rules for sarcasm, I think I _would_ like to see it.

<comment><USER4> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasm>

"Sarcasm is stating the opposite of an intended meaning especially in order to sneeringly, slyly, jest or mock a person, situation or thing."

I don't think agreeing fits.

<comment><USER3> Well, if wikipedia says it, it _must_ be true.

(See that? Agreement.)

<comment><USER3> I see the humor police are out in force. For those of you who are unable to resist clicking the little down arrow on comments that seem vaguely negative, let's be clear: the whole point was to _demonstrate_ that it's possible to be sarcastic while still agreeing with someone. Yeesh.

In particular, when you "agree" with something that you have quoted out of context, it's quite easy to paint it with the opposite of its intended meaning. That's what the OP did -- he took a remark that wasn't intended to disparage the MBA degree, and turned it into something that did.

That's called sarcasm, whether wikipedia is your authoritative reference on the subject, or not.

<comment><USER2> Not like it matters at this point, but I was generally agreeing with the author because I used to be him. However, as noted in my comment above I should have elaborated.

It's always interesting when people declare what someone else is saying or thinking or trying to convey instead of just asking them to clarify :).

<comment><USER3> Well, regardless of the original intent, it's probably a pretty safe bet that people were voting for it because they _perceived_ it to be a bash on MBA degrees.

My main gripe is with anti-intellectualism and other forms of low-brow snottery in general, not so much with your specific comment.

<comment><USER5> >>perceived it to be a bash on MBA degrees How do you know????

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wow. How could a "Stanford MBA" not even know the basics of marketing? If this fellow had clearly identified his market before specing out and ordering his product he would have completely avoided his first-iteration fiasco.

I also suspect a bit more research would have shown that empty cases (which the customer would fill with their own product) would sell just as well. Instead, he plowed on through to obtain more inventory (wasn't discarding expired inventory the inspiration for the product in the first place?) and meet regulations (instructions, etc.) that he probably didn't even need.

Do your marketing up-front, folks. A well-designed product that doesn't address a market isn't much better than this guy's box of greasy, plastic- covered condoms.

<comment><USER7> It sounded like he did identify a market:

"just in time for the San Francisco International Gift Show...I soon began sales calls on buyers ranging from novelty shops and porno stores to gay rights groups and Planned Parenthood clinics...People began buying my key chains. Small gift shops in small towns bought dozens and dozens and regularly reordered"

His failure seems mostly economic: his financial projections didn't include all the overhead involved in importing the keychains, getting them ready for sale, and shipping them out to retailers. And much of that was because he didn't know all those things were required.

He would've been saved by researching the supply chain better, not the market.

<comment><USER6> Not quite. The product which met with some success was his second iteration: "Retailers told me that what the customer really wanted was a key chain with a usable condom."

Although research of his supply chain was extremely bad, it doesn't seem as though correcting it would have saved his first misdirected attempt at a product.

<comment><USER7> It would've shown that his business idea was not economically viable, regardless of whether people wanted the keychains, before he had invested $10K in it. If there's no way a business will work, it's better to find that out quickly and cheaply than to invest more money in it.

<comment><USER8> This is harder than you would think. I took a year off from programming to help a friend market and sell actual physical stuff.

Often times a product that gets well received when you have a few samples made doesn't sell at all. Something you think kinda sucks and is just a 'filler' product in your line up turns out to be the most popular, and you run out of stock. Something sells well, you can get more made, so you order 500 more units, and then all of the sudden the product is not cool and nobody wants it anymore.

<comment><USER7> Oh, I know. My erstwhile startup seemed like a hot area when we began it a year and a half ago, and people in our target market said "Thank God" when I said what I was building. Now, nobody seems to care, and none of our competitors took off either.

I'm saying that _even under his best assumptions about the market_ , his product was not profitable. He ended up getting customers after all, but even under generous volume and gross margins, it couldn't cover overhead.

<comment><USER9> Perhaps he should have tried sell the key chains for 5$.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A friend of mine has one of those with a condom and a cigar on his wall. It's been there for years, he isn't that good with girls and doesn't smoke.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's called a Master of Business _Administration_ , not Master of Business _startups_ for a reason.

<comment><USER12> I am finishing a course called "Business Admin. - Entrepreneurial & Small Business Management" and I still feel that the majority of the classes are corporate focused, especially marketing. Almost everything they teach is in the context of a mature and competitive market. We never hear about entering new markets.

<comment><USER13> If they had that kind of knowledge they'd be out there doing it themselves. I don't think anyone knows about entering new markets cos they vary so much. It's down to instinct and dumb luck I believe.

<comment><USER14> Luck and instinct are important, but there's definitely skill, knowledge, and experience as well. Fail three times and you'll have a much better understanding of what it takes to make a startup work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't know why he didn't raise the price. It's the obvious thing to do if overheads are eating you up, and he could have sold the things for 3 or 4 dollars. Or more, over the internet, if he'd mischievously tagged 'shipping and handling' to the price.

<comment><USER16> Same here. I think people would have payed ten dollars for his product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I liked:

"I would wake up wishing that I had followed my classmates into something simple and easy, like investment banking.".

Don't speak too soon...

</comment><comment><USER18> Wow, was he ever over-paying.

But the story reminds me of my first searches on Alibaba: "What? you mean I can buy cigarette lighters for THREE CENTS EACH???"

(Of course, the MOQ was a million. What would I do with a $30k sea container of lighters? Go door-to-door at gas stations?)

</comment><comment><USER19> I thought his biggest mistake was thinking that he can sell millions of these keychains with ease. Since the only people capable of buying those volumes are the big retail chains and not those small mom-n-pop stores, he should have gauged the potential response from these retail chains prior to importing the key chains.

I would think that it would be obvious to the laymen that such a product would appeal only to the small novelty shops, so there is a ceiling to how much you can scale this business.

</comment><comment><USER20> loved this line "You're not in business until somebody sues you."... surprised no one commented on this yet.

</comment><comment><USER21> This bring up an interesting question.

Why commit to a specific product? Why not just by up a few boxes of different funnies & see which sells? Condom keychains are funny but hardly revolutionary. It's not going to be a product that sells it self, hires its own consultants & negotiates with Wal Mart while you sip Tequilas. What he did was establish a wholesaling business with only one product, where he had to pay cash & sell on credit.

Not knocking the effort, but designing/sourcing/manufacturing apples is not the same as selling apples. No reason to do both. Aren't you better off selling apples & pears & not bothering with growing at all?

<comment><USER22> So, I've been in the valley for about 10 years, and at least half the startups I've worked for, (and almost _all_ of the startups that my friends/colleagues have started) - have had far worse obstacles, challenges, and difficulties to overcome than this individual seems to have run into. He has described the first two chapters in a 50 chapter novel of building a business.

I don't understand why he quit just when he started to get a bit of traction. He got past his first lawsuit (it appears, and most employees of a company aren't aware of how much legal and sometimes government friction their is involved in running a going concern), he started to discover how important a D&B number (or a proxy thereof) is for customers who buy from him on credit, he overcame some serious product quality issues, and began to understand that running a business is hard, hard, hard work. The story had just _started_.

And then, he quits.

Now is the time that he needed to start networking with other manufacturers (or wholesalers, or retailers, or product designers - or whatever he wanted to be) and understand how to improve his product design, his sales channels, etc...

It sounds like he limited his distribution to less than a hundred organizations. Certainly less than a thousand. The type of product he had _required_ knocking on tens of thousands of doors, calling, emailing, mailing, and reaching out to people who could distribute it.

I don't see where he hired his first employee, that would start to take over some of that manual labor, marketing, calling, packaging, delivery, etc...

I didn't get a chance to read about the technical improvements that he made in shipping, or even any of the passion that he had for selling. I realize this was a "All startups fail for different reasons" + "An MBA doesn't mean you will be successful in a startup" type article, but reading between the lines, I wonder if there was an even better, "I didn't really fit the Startup Character" article - despite some initial victories.

Compare that to an entrepreneur who is passionate like Joel Spolsky - even on a completely trivial side project that I suspect is mostly part of his recruiting efforts for FogCreek he keeps blocking and tackling and overcoming obstacles (check out [http://www.joelonsoftware.com/oldnews/pages/December2005.htm...](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/oldnews/pages/December2005.html) for the summary of one)

Anyways, I do enjoy reading "How my startup failed" stories as much as "How my startup succeeded" - but I don't sense that his startup failed. He just quit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I would have marked it up way more than 150 percent; I would have charged USD 10.00. If this guy could make USD 9.50 off each condom, instead of USD .75, he might have done much better.

Of course, I don't think this guy's a bad businessman. I'm just saying I would have done that one thing differently. I'd say that, latex notwithstanding, the demand for condoms in the right place and the right time is very inelastic. Shit, you could charge $300 for a condom if you were in the right place in the right time. Which place and which time those are I will leave to your imagination.

<comment><USER23> You could even charge way, way more than that if you could somehow sell them retroactively.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> There are a couple of comments on here to the tune of "Why didn't he charge more?" or "Why didn't he sell them on the internet?"

The article was written on an alumni web site, and the author lists his MBA as attained in 1984. It's likely that he attempted this business shortly thereafter. Probably would've been harder to sell on the internet 15 years before Viaweb. May have been harder to sell key chains for more than $1.50 too, though who knows.

</comment><comment><USER25> I'm still not sure why it failed.

it sounded like he just got tired of working on it. I mean, for a job like that with lots of physical schlep work I'd budget for a few people to handle the physical labor.

Maybe $10,000 was a hard budget limit? I dono. it sounded to me like he should have stuck it out for a while longer, maybe after finding an underpaid lacky or partner.

</comment><comment><USER26> It sounds like he could have made it a success if he streamlined the production process and kept the cost per keychain down.

<comment><USER27> I think it could have been a success, but I do wonder how much a one-off product like this can really make. There is money in novelty items, but I think the only ones making real money there are people who already have distribution and willing markets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I find this extraordinarily interesting, because I've come to the conclusion over the last year+ that I would do a non-software startup if I ever do another. I have all sorts of invention ideas (one somewhat similar to this actually) and figured I'd either run one of those or a restaurant idea I have.

</comment><comment><USER28> So he knowingly sold and gave away condoms even after learning they were defective and had been exposed to air? What a douchebag. Why is this guy not in jail?

<comment><USER29> I think they were a novelty item and not intended to actually be used.

<comment><USER28> "Then came the fine-print details. According to the Food and Drug Administration, I needed to include a "how to use" guide with each key chain. I realized I needed insurance in case some fool inadvertently Bobbittized himself with my product during a drunken tryst."

"When my inventory dropped below 500, I took the remainder to a local advocacy group for prostitutes."

<comment><USER30> Following the article, the condoms he sold in this way were actually bought from stores and placed in a keychain condom holder. Most likely the condoms stayed in their individual packaging.

<comment><USER28> My bad, I apparently missed that sentence.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Intel Makes a Big Bet on Driverless Car Technology - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/13/business/dealbook/intel-mobileye-autonomous-cars-israel.html <comment><USER2> Discussed here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13856551](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13856551)</comment>


Ask HN: Startup workspace - office or house? - <AUTHOR> Pros/cons for having a separate office & living arrangements versus a large house for all employees to live & work in? <comment><USER2> Some people have no trouble working from home. They're more productive. Others need a separate place to go to so they can get into "work mode".

Money is also a factor. If you have funding and a few employees it probably makes sense to spend $2k/mo on an office.

If it's two co-founders bootstrapping it might not make sense for a while.

</comment><comment><USER3> There are definitely many startups in SF whose teams all live in the same house together, and work there, who seem to be doing just fine. Some (like <http://thumbtack.com>) even have an in-house chef and other perks.

In my opinion, early-stage startups should live together. Yeah, sure, it'd be nice to have more of a distinction between home and work, but honestly 90% of your day in an early-stage startup is work. However, an office is definitely preferred during the later stages, which is not to say that a house is inappropriate.

Key milestones which might be a good sign for getting an office space:

\- Not even two houses could hold all team members

\- You're on your third hiring wave (i.e. none of the new hires are considered part of the core, or even secondary, team)

\- Your advisors tell you to get a house

\- Increasing tension among workers

</comment><comment><USER4> Initially homes are great but the work/home split generally goes away completely. I'd look to move to an office the minute you have (or are within a month of) an MVP that has a good chance of being ramen profitable. It doesn't have to be a big office, you don't all have to be there all the time, it just needs to be something that isn't where you eat, sleep or relax.

</comment><comment><USER5> I ran a startup that was based out of my house. The team would show and we would work in my living room.

Pros: \- Cheap \- Always had good food and a full kitchen \- I could talk to sig other when I wanted to

Cons: \- My sig other could talk to me when they wanted to \- When I was sick or away, the team had to work from home \- Easily distracted

</comment><comment><USER6> House: Bad for productivity. Office: Sucks at general. (IMO)

 _Garage: Best of both worlds_

As in some bootstrapped place which inspires you to work. Can be a room in your home or even rooftop (like Mashable).

<comment><AUTHOR> Garages are attached to houses so...House? Haha ;) Also, I'm personally noticing the reduced productivity, that's why I'm not sure I like the "house" idea.

<comment><USER6> Garages have different environment and physical set-up. >Take a room >Empty it >Now just put bare minimum you need to work (a Computer, Table and Chair / Beanbag) in my case. And let it fill up with inspiration. Being a designer I like blank canvas to paint it with my imagination.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think it completely depends on the people. Some people find it too difficult, but I think it's perfect. There's also another aspect, which is time... it takes time to cook, clean, find a place, commute. Living together eases all of these things and allows for sharing of other stuff.

Anyone know the tax implications? (Ie what can you write off?)</comment>


Own your own Bitcoin Exchange - <AUTHOR> http://bex.io <comment><USER3> What is the appeal of this when the rates are so high? The fees on most exchanges are in the .4%-.6% range for low volume. If I tried to run an exchange and had to pay a 3rd party 1% of all transactions, I'd be running at a loss.

Furthermore, you can pretty much already do this by buying/selling on localbitcoins.com[1]. They provide an online wallet, escrow service, and also charge a 1%, but they don't charge a monthly fee.

[1] <https://localbitcoins.com/cash_exchange_howto>

<comment><USER4> I almost don't want to mention this, but it could be a "selling shovels" business model. Since they keep their $199 whether your exchange succeeds or fails, it looks like they are offloading all risk onto their resellers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> By hosting the platform, are they trying to avoid licensing/regulation? After all, they are not providing money transfer services, but are providing a platform for others to do it.

I looked into legally building an exchange in Texas, but I would have to get licensed as a money transmission company or a currency exchange company. The fees were outrageous! $2,500 application fee, $300,000+ security deposit and requires the applicant to have over $500K net worth.

<comment><USER6> This...

The service seems to imply a business model where there are lots of little operators would open an exchange if they weren't so capital constrained such that they can't roll their own.

But how many with 500k to play around with are going to then want to pay 1 percent? Even if there are a bunch of people just waiting to sign up - <USER2> the competition is going to see their margins evaporate - with no air to breathe over and above that 1%. What else are they going to compete on besides price?

Either that or I just don't understand this business model at all. Best of luck to them though.

<comment><USER7> Maybe they won't target US customers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Even though it is licensed to allow it, not giving credit to the creator of the hero image on this site is a little unkind.

<http://redd.it/1c4er5>

<comment><USER9> At the bottom, in the footer, they give credit...

"Background image is a fantastic work by cubrbeat, licensed under CC-BY-SA"

<comment><USER8> That wasn't there when I made the comment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> w-ll There's an opensource exchange being built, albeit with a terrible name (IMO)

<https://github.com/buttercoin/buttercoin>

<comment><USER10> I don't understand why they want to build a high-performance exchange engine, in Node.js. Even I wouldn't choose my language of choice, but would rather look at either Java, C/C++, hell even Go or Erlang!

<comment><USER11> They're pretty clueless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't understand the point of having a bunch of little exchanges running on the same backend. Why not just have one?

<comment><USER12> Although this might not be the right way to do it, I think the goal of the project is to exemplify bitcoin's "distributedness" and minimize the reliance on a single exchange (ie MtGox).

<comment><USER4> Several exchanges running on the same backend aren't that distributed; there are many scenarios where they would all go down at the same time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "... our technology is secured by state of the art techniques such as OS-less deployment, eliminating a large variety of exploits."

OS-less deployment? Are they using Erlang on Xen?

I'm just guessing since I know Yurii is an Elixir (a flavour of Erlang) core developer.

<comment><USER14> Could be HaLVM

<http://corp.galois.com/halvm>

<comment><USER15> Halvm doesn't (yet!) support recent ghc versions. For high concurrency workloads the ghc rts recently got some nice improvements merged in that will make the mega scale concurrency performance story even more awesome once ghc 7.8 gets released sometime this fall

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> If you can do so much, why not build a bitcoin exchange directly? It's not like currency exchanges are that much a commodity for you to sell. Mmm... aren't you a bit like making excuses for not trying? ;)

No seriously, if you made a bitcoin exchange site _with the same copy_ , that's the one I would use. Well. If I wanted to buy Bitcoin again. You know, a _superhardened_ style, paranoid exchange. Maybe with its paranoid wallet too, dunno'. So do it.

<comment><USER17> >If you can do so much, why not build a bitcoin exchange directly?

Because the margins are awful unless you are doing huge volume.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Do I still need to get licensed as an authorized money-transmitter? Unless you're getting me around that monumental obstacle, you're solving the wrong problem.

<comment><USER19> Where does it say that bitcoins are money?

<comment><USER4> [http://www.fincen.gov/statutes_regs/guidance/pdf/FIN-2013-G0...](http://www.fincen.gov/statutes_regs/guidance/pdf/FIN-2013-G001.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This seems incredibly unnecessary, especially since I might actually use _their_ exchange if they ran one. (More design chops than most of the abhorrent exchanges.)

Though an alert() is a rather inelegant confirmation...

</comment><comment><USER21> Not sure I quite understand... Is this so the kids on the corner can sell bitcoins for cash instead of lemonaide?

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm afraid this kind of scenario is doomed to failure too. The issue with individual exchanges has been a lack of standardized security and hardware configuration. Many exchanges get broken into and bitcoins get stolen.

The issue with something like bex.io is that now we have many different exchanges, but all running on the same provider. Suppose that bex.io is able to put the best security around their systems. It still will possibly only take one vulnerability to get inside hundreds or thousands of exchanges.

Further, instead of DDoSing one or two exchanges like mtgox and btc-e but leaving the rest of the ecosystem free for trading, it only takes one massive DDoS against bex.io in order to take down hundreds or thousands of exchanges in one go.

Bad, bad, bad.

What's needed is both security and distribution. Someone else mentioned a node.js exchange product that's popped up in the last day or so, <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5545271>. Its called Buttercoin, <https://github.com/buttercoin/buttercoin>.

The language its written in isn't as important as the fact that its open source. If we get an environment of several open-source exchange engines that can be hardened by their respective communities, we get security. (Yes, individual instances are susceptible to bad server configs...).

By having relatively easy to setup OSS exchange systems, we get distribution.

People have complained that mtgox is a problem because its the largest extant exchange. At least its a single point of failure that only affects btc and money on its systems. Something like bex.io is going to lead to catastrophic losses across any number of customers as soon as they start becoming a target for nefarious people.

<comment><USER19> DOSS attacks can be overcome with a solid infrastructure like Cloudflare (expensive but possible) and also with the help of modern browser capabilities such as webRTC and offline cache.

<comment><USER22> Services like cloudflare do nothing for API's, which is the core part of any exchange system. Browser technologies have nothing to do with building out secure, distributed trading systems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> "We do the tech. You do the rest."

... So, my job is to press the button that says go?

After i pay the 200/800$ off course.

</comment><comment><USER24> High exchange fees. Little info about what it is built on. Suspect timing (and likely too short of a build time) Likely to have regulation issues in the near future especially if lots of people do it.

All adds up to not how I would do it.

<comment><USER25> I've read over it twice and I'm convinced it's a joke, like MailAppApp. <http://visualidiot.com/articles/mailappapp>

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm getting tired of this website design style already.

</comment><comment><USER27> "Easy is not easy enough." Uh huh. Talk sexy to me baby. So now I've gotta buy a bitcoin exchange too?</comment>


Mozilla shipping SSL root certificate, has no idea how it got there - <AUTHOR> http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.security.policy/browse_thread/thread/b6493a285ba79998/26fca75f9aeff1dc

<comment><USER2> The person who started this thread added a message:

'I have received email from official representatives of RSA confirming that RSA did indeed create the "RSA Security 1024 V3" root certificate that is currently included in NSS (Netscape/Mozilla) and also in Apple's root cert store.'

So sounds like there hasn't been some rogue root cert out there for the last 9 years. Good to see that root certs are rogue until proven valid, though.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It's more likely than not that there's a harmless explanation for this one, but with the rash of these stories lately I think it's past time to declare that the PKI trust model is broken.

<comment><USER3> Can anyone find the link to that recent article / guide on registering a likely-looking address at a webmail provider then scamming a root certificate for that domain?

The article gave the impression that some CA's are a bit too happy to issue root certs, and he mentioned he's been blogging about the whole SSL trust system being broken for quite a few years now.

<comment><USER4> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1234460>

<comment><USER3> Nice one, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Circa 2002, the rogue cert was checked into the mozilla dev CVS by the Man ... in the middle.

<comment><USER6> I double-checked and it looks like it was actually checked in by the Man...in the mirror.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Could someone please explain to me what this means ?

<comment><USER3> As far as I understand it:

The entire SSL-certificate system is trust-based. When presented with a certificate for a particular domain, you need to ask some trusted Certificate Authority, like Verisign, whether the credentials match up. If the credentials don't match then you can warn the user that something's up - the site might not be who it claims to be.

However, how do you know whether you can trust the computer identifying itself as Verisign? Well, various CA root certificates are built into browsers. It seems that Mozilla has been shipping with a potentially rogue root authority for a while now, so there's the potential that whoever owned that certificate / IP might have been abusing it -- all the while having that comforting green tick in your browser to say the certificate is valid.

[http://www.rapidssl.com/ssl-certificate-support/ssl- faq.htm#...](http://www.rapidssl.com/ssl-certificate-support/ssl-faq.htm#8)

<comment><USER8> Just to be fair, one of those certificates is shipped with Internet Explorer too.

<comment><USER9> You mean the one that RSA clearly said it owns? Let's be clear: this is a question about _one_ certificate, that seems to ship with a number of different browsers and systems. Internet Explorer, however, isn't one of them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> My gut says that it is a RSA mistake. That they shipped a wrong certificate way back in 2002.

</comment><comment><USER11> It seems that the problem is that the certificate file name does not match its contents.

[http://www.mail-archive.com/debian-bugs- firstname.lastname@example.com...](http://www.mail-archive.com/debian-bugs- firstname.lastname@example.com/msg151195.html)

<comment><USER12> Hmm, it looks like that bug's still open with no responses, 4 yrs later: <http://bugs.debian.org/351745>

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The associated bugzilla ticket was posted here on hacker news earlier today: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1244164>

Resuming the matter, the SSL system is broken, as it works today, one of the messages clearly states:

Both "RSA Security 1024 V3" and "RSA Security 2048 V3" are shown as valid in Apple's System Roots.

Microsoft's list includes "RSA Security 2048 V3", but not "RSA Security 1024 V3".

Has someone checked if they are included in Opera and Chrome as well?

<comment><USER8> > Has someone checked if they are included in Opera and Chrome as well?

My copy of Chrome doesn't seem to have it.

As always, YMMV.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Browsers should provide a function that monitors certificates for changes and alerts the user if (if he wants to).

<comment><USER15> This introduces a decision your typical user is not competent to make ("should I enable this setting?") and yet another error message they will quickly learn to ignore.

<comment><USER16> I agree. But imho this is no reason to not include the suggested feature.

There are so many settings and warnings that a common user does not understand. This new one would not scare any users away I guess. They will just ignore it.

I would be very happy to notice that my browser suddenly uses a different certificate to validate the certificate of one of my servers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It looks like the certificate can easily be deleted manually: Preferences > Advanced > View Certificates.

<comment><USER18> yes this sould not be the core of the problem. its important to know _who_ owns the debatable CA.

This gives a great Mitm Vector if i'ts a malicious CA

<comment><USER19> Is it possible to do a web crawl scan of https and SSL certs and find out which certificates have this questionable one as their root?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Uh... thats not good... and our gov-CA is hanging in the cert approval proces since... about a year now. strange world

</comment><comment><USER20> maybe what is needed is an additional mechanism that browsers can use to verify that a CA is the correct one for a particular domain name.

</comment><comment><USER21> Whoops! So much for open source allowing for greater scrutiny and security.

It mostly does, of course. But greater transparency also means you need excellent auditing and tracing procedures. This highlights the potential dangers, as well as the daftness of the current trust-based security model.

<comment><USER8> > Whoops! So much for open source allowing for greater scrutiny and security.

There are two certificates from the same CA. Microsoft ships one of them. Are you willing to vouch for every certificate Microsoft ships with Windows? Are you sure their process is flawless? Are you absolutely sure their code shows all certificates they trust and there is no sneaky unlisted CA in their whole HTTPS stack?</comment></comment>


Some Kauai residents unhappy about wall being built by Facebook billionaire - <AUTHOR> http://westhawaiitoday.com/news/local-news/some-kauai-residents-unhappy-about-wall-being-built-facebook-billionaire <comment><USER2> tell trump! Zuck did it first!</comment>


Skype does not allow users to delete their account - <AUTHOR> https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA142/can-i-delete-my-skype-account?frompage=search&q=delete+my+account&fromSearchFirstPage=false

<comment><USER2> [http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/wgix8/til_its...](http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/wgix8/til_its_not_possible_to_delete_a_skype_account/)</comment>


Clojure/West 2012 slides collected here - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/strangeloop/clojurewest2012-slides

<comment><USER2> From the slides clojurePoweredStartups.pdf

        1. Our community is not enterprisey.

I always thought that this is because of : <http://perl.plover.com/yak/12views/samples/notes.html#sl-39>

        problem #1 is a total cluelessness about what other people consider valuable and useful.

        problem #2 is that when faced with someone else's problem which Lisp doesn't solve effectively, the response is a mixture of ``that's not a real problem'' and ``you're an idiot for wanting to solve that.''

I have seen this so many times, that I have even forgotten the count. MJD is right.

In my case this is what prevents me from using Lisp.

        1. Lack of most commonly used libraries to do every task.
        2. No proper tooling support, No IDE's. No good build and maintenance tools.
        3. Impractical approach to everyday problem solving which can other wise done in Perl.
        4. Very high barrier to entry. And no effort from the community to make it easier. Reading documentation requires knowledge of a lot of things.
        5. Overall complete refusal and denial to even agree these problems exist.

All this prevents people from learning, hence using. Without some volume of people knowing how to work with Lisp. Lisp doesn't have a chance of getting adopted in the enterprise.

No body will use a language in which hiring is difficult. And who ever hires uses his own tools and programs with notepad. Frameworks, libraries, tools, volumes of programmers, good documentation, good forum support is crucial for any language to win today.

Merely language being good, does little for the adoption.</comment>


Tarantool: Lua application server and NoSQL database - <AUTHOR> http://www.tarantool.org/

<comment><AUTHOR> We have been using it for some months now and it´s really a joy. The openresty + tarantool combo is really a powerful Lua stack for us.</comment>


Can We Finally Stop Talking About 'Male' and 'Female' Brains? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/03/opinion/male-female-brains-mosaic.html <comment><USER2> Garbage. Here, have this: [https://quillette.com/2018/11/30/the-new-evolution- deniers/](https://quillette.com/2018/11/30/the-new-evolution-deniers/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Oh no of course, the sex hormones have absolutely 0 effect on the brain. None at all.</comment>


China hacked Navy contractor and got 600GB+ data on submarine warfare - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/china-hacked-a-navy-contractor-and-secured-a-trove-of-highly-sensitive-data-on-submarine-warfare/2018/06/08/6cc396fa-68e6-11e8-bea7-c8eb28bc52b1_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.5e7040b8356d <comment><USER2> Another source that's not WaPo [https://gizmodo.com/china-hacked-a-navy- contractor-and-stole...](https://gizmodo.com/china-hacked-a-navy-contractor- and-stole-600gb-of-data-1826689038)

</comment><comment><USER3> Could be a lucrative business idea: secure your defense contractor network as a service.</comment>


Fun With Numbers - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/2011/11/fun_with_numbers

<comment><USER2> His point has an analogue in traditional book publishing. Historically they would decide (at least, in the US, up to say the 90's) what was a "bestseller" only after first excluding any book or genre they did not approve of, like romance, westerns, military adventure, the Bible, etc. Which just happened to have very high and consistent sales. In other words, the actual bestsellers were first excluded, then among the remaining they decided which of those also-rans were the least also-ranny, and called them the bestsellers.

Numbers: the best way to lie.

</comment><comment><USER3> I actually enjoy gruber's posts most of the time, but this article is incredibly stupid, for exactly the reasons he posts about. If you include the iPad numbers, the numbers for all other tablets become meaninglessly small. So if you want to write an article about the number two tablets, _the only way to do it is to exclude the ipad_. The article isn't about how successful the iPad is, no matter how desperately John wants to be reminded of that.

<comment><USER4> As John points out, this analysis also excludes the Nook.

 _if you want to write an article about the number two tablets, the only way to do it is to exclude the ipad._

Not at all. You can show, and write, exactly what you just said one sentence earlier: "The iPad has 90% market share, and the other companies split the remaining 10%, with five companies each taking 1 to 2 percent of the market."

What about that is so difficult for mortals to understand?

Even if you never mention Apple more than once, it's important, when (e.g.) pointing to the fact that HP has almost twice the share of unit sales as Motorola, to recognize that you're comparing a 2% share with a 1% share, not a 20% share with a 10% share. There's a big difference between 1% and 10%, both qualitative and quantitative. For example: Smaller numbers are closer to the noise level, and therefore more subject to fluctuation. 1% could really be 2%, and could easily jump to 2% in the next quarter, but it's unlikely that 10% is really 20%. And, lo and behold, this turns out to be relevant to this very case, because in fact HP's numbers have probably been goosed by a one-time money-losing giveaway of Touchpads. That's a fluctuation.

<comment><USER3> The analysis excludes the nook because it is an e reader, not a tablet. And yes, that matters. We talk about tablets because they are a platform for third party stuff to run on, nook is not a platform for anybody but B&N.

"Why is this so hard for mortals to understand"

No need to be an asshole

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This article reminds me of what I like to call the 'Ernie loves Skittles' story.

My childhood friend Ernie loved Skittles. He ate them at lunch every day.

But he would get so angry if someone at our lunch table ate any other type of candy. He'd say things like, "Starburst candy is stupid. Skittles are better." Or, "Why are you eating Smarties? Are you stupid?"

Eventually we just had to say, "Ernie. Relax. Skittles are great but there are other candies, too."

</comment><comment><USER6> Seems a bit like a Yankees fan complaining bitterly about the press covering the National League too. It's not like there is any shortage of coverage about who is number one in tablets. There is obviously real competition for the #2-#5 slots (witness all the blood in the water) so why does it matter if an analyst report focuses on that?

<comment><AUTHOR> > ...why does it matter if an analyst report focuses on that?

If you finish the piece, it matters because the resulting conclusions come from some sort of bizarro world. Right now the tablet game really comes down to Apple, Barnes & Noble and Amazon. (The Nook, which has sold literally orders of magnitude more units than the TouchPad, isn't even being counted.)

But the report wants to reassure PC manufacturers that, somehow, that they are still in the hunt.

From TFA:

"Including the iPad makes statements like this, from NPD, seem absurd:

 _PC manufacturers are dominant in the tablet space, as four of the top five tablet brands already have a strong U.S. consumer PC presence. Only two of the top five brands play in the smartphone market._

NPD is trying to paint a picture that there's a contest going on where there is none. I repeat the following from their report:

 _76 percent of consumers who purchased a non-Apple tablet didn't even consider the iPad, an indication that a large group of consumers are looking for alternatives, and an opportunity for the rest of the market to grow their business._

That's one way to put it. Another way is that 92 percent of U.S. tablet buyers considered an iPad, and 89 percent bought an iPad, which means 97 percent of tablet buyers who merely considered an iPad bought an iPad, and if not for the 8 percent of tablet buyers who for whatever reason did not consider an iPad, none of these companies would have sold even 100,000 tablets over the first nine months of 2011."

<comment><USER7> OK? So? 8% of the market is "a large group of consumers". Most of top tablet makers are PC manufacturers. The original piece was entitled "U.S. Tablet Sales (excluding Apple) Exceed 1.2 Million Units in First 10 Months of 2011", and the article is about that. Gruber's piece is basically saying "I know this isn't about the iPad, but why aren't you talking about the iPad?" The original piece acknowledges the elephant in the room, says for the purposes of this article they will ignore the elephant in the room, and then analyzes the data as they say they would. What is wrong with that?

If PC manufacturers take this report as an indication that they are safely in the hunt in the tablet space, then they would be complete and utter idiots. But there is still information to be gathered other than "Apple won, give up".

<comment><AUTHOR> > But there is still information to be gathered other than "Apple won, give > up".

There most certainly is more information.

Namely, how it was that Apple won and how it is that another company could maybe come close to trying. That would be a more useful analysis than "Hey, so, this guy has half a percent more of the market than this guy, but let's pretend that the iPad doesn't exist and say it's actually more like 6%." Pretending that fighting over the table scraps is a viable business is hardly impressive, here.

And then you get little chunks of just straight bullshit, like this. "PC manufacturers are dominant in the tablet space."

No, they aren't. They're selling handfuls of units. The dominant players in tablet land aren't commodity PC manufacturers.

This is about as useful as saying I'm dominant in my run for the presidency when you only count polling from my friends, family and coworkers.

NPD doesn't get off the hook for writing something absurd just because their title matches their thesis and they turned it to their homeroom teacher on time.

<comment><USER7> Everyone is really misinterpreting that PC manufacturers are dominant line. They are saying that in the market besides the iPad, HP/Samsung/Acer/Asus are doing surprisingly well compared to HTC/Motorola/Nokia/Blackberry considering these devices usually run what were originally mobile phone OSs. But because everyone is up in arms about the fact the iPad wasn't considered, they miss that point and assume it is saying something (that PC makers are actually dominant) that it clearly isn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Does anyone in their right mind actually have to be reminded the iPad is the most successful tablet?

<comment><USER9> It's strange -- when misreporting mischaracterizes an underdog, I feel sympathy towards that underdog. But when someone calls out reporting like this, I find it more offensive than informative.

In theory perhaps I should treat them the same, but the best analogy I can come up for this piece reads is something dramatic and ugly like "this article claims economic conditions in South America are improving, but check out how poor they are compared to the US!"

<comment><USER10> Your argument would almost be a good one if NPD had not used quotes such as:

"According to NPD's Consumer Tracking Service, 76 percent of consumers who purchased a non-Apple tablet didn't even consider the iPad, an indication that a large group of consumers are looking for alternatives, and an opportunity for the rest of the market to grow their business."

If you overlay this argument on your South American analogy it would read something like:

Economic conditions in South America are improving, an indication that poverty has declined.

If you think about it, this does not make sense. Improvements in economic conditions may have no effect on poverty at all if the money is not trickling down.

NPD was probably targeting this report at some PC manufacturer that was looking to invest in the tablet sector. It is probably 'market research' reporting such as this that creates bubbles such as Groupon.

<comment><USER9> I saw your response late, sorry for missing it. That quote is a good one. I agree "76% of consumers who purchased a non-Apple tablet" is constructed to sound like a big number but is really a small one. Not sure why your comment shows up grayed out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Amazingly for once, I agree with Gruber about the report being weird - but not with his reasoning.

What I don't understand is why look at a time window a significant portion of for which the primary OS under consideration (Android) didn't even exist on tablets. The Android tablet ecosystem effectively only came to market in a meaningful way in April(and even then it took several months more to release world-wide). Why would someone make a report in which half the considered time period is more or less irrelevant?

</comment><comment><USER12> I wish he had more to back up his 10m US iPad sales than "a conservative guess." 40% of all iPad sales being in the US seems a bit much.

Maybe he could extrapolate from the other manufacturers' worldwide sales? So if Samsung sold 192,000 tablets in the US and 500,000 worldwide, his 40% figure might make sense.

<comment><USER13> I think 40% makes sense. Remember that for Apple, the US is a market above all others. For a lot of other players, the US is, at best, just one of many first-class citizens.

Apple is a US company, Samsung/HTC/Nokia/RIM/BLAH aren't. They market very well to US consumers, both their products and their brand. Also, Apple products tend to go on sale in the US first. Even if you cut it by half, the numbers are still embarrassing for everyone else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Now that Apple is getting it's clock cleaned in the smartphone market, time to focus on how awesome the iPad is. Wait a couple years, iPad will be 15% of the table market, then Grubertool will have to find something else to focus on.

<comment><USER15> Did Gruber made your Android phone cry? lets keep the "tool" part out, please. Completely unnecessary.

Gruber's point is obviously biased towards Apple but it doesn't lack truth or facts. NPD report is sketchy at best and gives a distorted view of the current scene, which is the opposite of what this kind of reports should do.

As for the marketshare it's interesting because so far what we are seeing is that the iPad is not behaving like the iPhone but more like the iPod. It makes sense, after all. The phone market its heavily subsidized and people choose phones based on carrier availability and special deals. A lot of the growth of Android can be attributed to 2x1 deals, middle range phones that are not used as smartphones and the lack of iPhone on Verizon and Sprint until recently. Im not saying that Android isn't a great OS or that Android phones can't be awesome and cutting edge -lots of them are-, just that when you analyze the Android growth you cannot discount these things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Option A:

TL;DR

        Apple   Apple  Apple
        iPad  iPad iPad iPad
        Tablet Tablet Tablet
        iOS iOS iOS  iOS iOS

Got you man, get a life, build something.

Someone at apple should give this guy a job so he can leave us alone.

Option B: Downvote.

I would have pick option B, but there is no down-votes for posts on HN.

<comment><USER17> I think this comment would be more useful if you pointed out what you found fault with in his argument.

<comment><USER16> this blog simply blogs about one thing which is praising iOS, this has been going on for I have no idea how many months or years. every post on this blog, gets to HN within about few minutes/seconds from its publishing time.

the message is not to daring fireball owner but to the HN community, please, stop copy-pasting every single post just to get karma or whatever other reasons.</comment></comment></comment>