Ask HN: Do you have a side project you want to sell? - <AUTHOR> Post them here! <comment><USER2> Honest question.

I'm curious what a the OPs motivation is. Are you looking to turn these side projects into profitable businesses, or are you hoping to use your network to flip them to a more interested party that would otherwise not have found the side project?

<comment><AUTHOR> Personally - stable, profitable businesses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I created a Kickstarter that made $104,000 . It's a map of all subway maps in the world. The project did really well and attracted the attention of ~25 Media Outlets including Wired Magazine, Gizmodo, FastCompany, Tech Insider, Travel & Leisure, Slate, Curbed, Cool Hunting, and lot more.

However, being a frontend developer that loves coding, I feel like I wasted a great opportunity of building a brand around it. The whole map was an attention grabber with the potential of turning it into multiple products for home, kids and even teenagers.

To the day I still receive a lot of requests to talk about it, people keep buying it around the world and is currently being exhibited in a museum in Beijing.

I would love to sell this to a great Marketing team / Visionary that can build a multi-million brand with it.

You can see the project here: [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1960956629/the-world- me...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1960956629/the-world-metro-map)

(Update: Yes all the IP belong to us because it's a modified version of the original and because we draw the whole thing from scratch.)

<comment><USER4> Got an email?

<comment><USER3> firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There seems to be a trend here where people don't want to sell their side project, but also don't want to stray too far away from "fun side project I can hack on" into the world of business/marketing/operations.

As someone who enjoys business/marketing/operations side projects the same way a dev loves a side project to code on, I'd love the chance to help anyone here out in that area (email in profile).

</comment><comment><USER6> I'd love to sell Tittie Time

[http://www.tittietime.com/](http://www.tittietime.com/)

Edit: (other than the logo and name, the homepage is SFW)

<comment><USER6> I guess I can understand why I'm being downvoted, but I'll share more info.

FYI, the homepage is SFW.

This was a goofy idea that I launched 2 years ago to test out Amazon SES and Sendy along with some content marketing skills I was wanting to put to use.

At the moment I spend ~10 minutes each morning making the email. When I do a shirt, I wind up spending ~ 20 hours sending out ones I've sold.

It's got ~10k subscribers who are all loyal fans (60% open rate on emails). I'm selling about 100 shirts everytime I post one for sale. I think there's tons of opportunity that I am not realizing as I've lost interest.

Happy to answer any other questions.

<comment><USER7> Serious question - are all the images submitted? How do you know nothing is 'revenge porn'?

<comment><USER6> Yep, all submitted. I don't know that, but have the obligatory DMCA page. I've never been asked to remove one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I have a small set of user generated content sites (all PG, no NSFW junk) that I have run for the last eight years. Net income ranges between $30,000 and $45,000 monthly. 100% ad supported, buyer beware. Overhead (servers, cdn, et al) < $1000/month.

I'm currently a software engineer working for another company while keeping this network alive in my spare time. It could definitely be monetized and run better with 100% attention, but after eight years I just don't have the energy for all the needless pop culture and memeology that needs to flow.

I'm a one man team, and have automated a lot of the flow, but it started as a hobby project and would benefit from some attention to update the code bases.

If you're heavy in the meme scene feel free to ping me at email@example.com. The money will be good for a while longer and if you have the energy for it, you could extend it into perpetuity.

<comment><USER9> I'm surprised you're bothering with a day job with that level of income.

<comment><USER8> Don't get me wrong, it's been a really fun thing to run. Rather than dedicate my life to something that started, more or less, by accident, I leveraged the opportunity to follow my actual CS passions which are quite a ways away from web dev.

At this point and age I'm more disconnected from the genre but it still demands my energy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I developed a web app (with daily email updates to managers) to help small, remote businesses handle various operational things such as time off, expense reports, etc.

[https://www.startopz.com](https://www.startopz.com)

</comment><comment><USER11> This comes up at a decent frequency lately. There was a Show HN lately where there was a listing website:

[http://borderline.biz](http://borderline.biz)

EDIT: Fixed the URL

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks like that site is down!

<comment><USER12> It's http only: [http://borderline.biz/](http://borderline.biz/)

<comment><USER13> I like the aesthetic of the site.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I was working on a program to calculate minimised Australian capital gains tax return for buying and selling shares. The core part is written as a set of custom PostgreSQL views and window functions. It is hosted by Django. I've built a minimal UI for it. Accountants and investors appreciate the tool, but I don't have the time and money to take it further. I had estimated potential market in Australia from $100k to $1m revenue per year - not enough to start a startup. If interested in buying source code let me know. It supports stock splits and code changes

<comment><USER15> That's enough to start a startup buddy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> [https://www.menutabapp.com/](https://www.menutabapp.com/) More than 25,000 restaurants on board, more than 500,000 food pictures uploaded, more than 14,000 Likes. One of the biggest menu apps on Facebook. Freemium, it generated 1.5k - 2k a month - then Facebook's payment api changed and I didn't have the time to fix it. It's free to use now.

</comment><comment><USER17> [http://mailprincess.com/](http://mailprincess.com/) and its companion piece [http://maleprincess.com/](http://maleprincess.com/)

<comment><USER18> Why do you want to sell it? My friend and I thought of this the other day as a business.

Do you do the printing yourself or use a SASS to do it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> [https://sendnda.online](https://sendnda.online)

e signature site built using WordPress. Uses stripe for payments. Built using mostly plugins. Tried to minimize customization for ease of maintenance.

</comment><comment><USER20> I have a few revenue-generating side projects, most notably StatusGator[1] which monitors status pages.

But the problem I always have with selling side projects is that they are worth a lot more to me in emotional value than they are actually worth monetarily. I've put a lot of heart and soul into StatusGator, not to mention a lot of time, and selling it for what it's worth based on monthly revenue ($1k/month) wouldn't nearly cover that emotional value. And so I hang on to it.

1\. [https://statusgator.com](https://statusgator.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> What do you value it at emotionally? Shoot me an email maybe its what I value it realistically!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> CompanyCarpool Carooling app for companies and organizations: [http://www.companycarpool.com/](http://www.companycarpool.com/) I keep on receiving interest from big companies, but don't manage to convert it into a sell. Not sure I want to sell it, but would be interested in some help and potential partners. The algorithm that finds compatible rides along the whole route is quite advanced (BlaBlaCar does not have it)

</comment><comment><USER22> I've seen a lot of interest for Fulfilled by Amazon e-commerce businesses on Flippa.com last few months. If you're making $1K or more per month in revenue, lots of buyers.

</comment><comment><USER23> I have a side project with _products_ I'm wanting to sell, does that count?

I wanted some merch for _Playerunknowns Battleground_ and I couldn't find anything decent, so I made them myself.

[https://www.thelootables.com/](https://www.thelootables.com/)

</comment><comment><USER24> [http://easyendorse.com/](http://easyendorse.com/)

SaaS that lets small businesses accept and display testimonials on their website, as an alternative to relying on Yelp.

No traffic/income, just a project I put way too much personal time into :)

</comment><comment><USER25> [https://www.mixfont.com](https://www.mixfont.com)

Ranks well for "font generator" a fairly high traffic query. Almost zero cost but unfortunately does not make money right now either. firstname.lastname@example.com

<comment><USER15> Wow, that's actually pretty great. Simple, creative, fast. Well done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I have a site with 2k recurring revenue(16 percent profit margins) but it requires support and marketing time(5-10 hours per week). What kind of multiple is normal for something like this?

<comment><AUTHOR> Seems the industry trend right now is 32x monthly profit for a decent stable site. Could be significantly less, or slightly more. Shoot me an email and I can send you a ballpark offer.

<comment><USER26> Email sent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> [https://kripko.trade](https://kripko.trade)

An platform for hosting cryptocurrency merchants.

</comment><comment><USER28> [https://goshipages.com](https://goshipages.com) pretty popular housing finder site for foreigners in south korea.

<comment><USER15> Neat idea. Used a goshiwon a few times, but this site didn't really help me. The good ones need to be found themselves and don't advertise.

<comment><USER28> Thanks! A shame the site didn't help you, but I am not sure I agree that the good ones need to be found themselves and don't advertise. In my experience it was opposite, the better ones were more likely to understand the importance of marketing. I think I have most of the better goshiwons in Seoul on the site, I can only think of 1 or maybe 2 goshiwons that considered themselves too good to need to advertise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> [https://tweetcareers.com/](https://tweetcareers.com/), a job search engine for jobs posted on twitter.

</comment><comment><USER30> [http://zfeldman.com/projects](http://zfeldman.com/projects) anything here I suppose.

</comment><comment><USER31> This has come up twice (on Ask HN) in the past few months, you might use the search and find those past threads as well.</comment>


Connected is a Personal CRM, similar to eTacts (from the Anywhere.FM founder) - <AUTHOR> http://connectedhq.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> I've just started playing with it -- so far pretty nifty alternative.

\- integration with Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter/Gmail

\- sends you a daily email reminder of birthdays, info on your meetings that day, contacts you should hit up, people who got new jobs (from linkedin)

\- don't think dedupe caught all my duplicates, but it worked ok.

\- no exchange support :(

\- design is pretty ugly, but the features are really nice.

</comment><comment><USER2> I've been using Connected for a few months (lucky enough to get a private beta early on). It's amazing.

The daily engage emails are the most underrated feature.</comment>


Free version of Lynda.com - <AUTHOR> http://www.lessongalaxy.com/ I like Lynda.com, but it gets expensive.  Watching tutorials on youtube is cool, but they aren't organized well.  So I made a free version of Lynda.com where you can embed your favorite youtube tutorials or upload your own.  Hope you find it useful! <comment><AUTHOR> I like Lynda.com but it gets expensive. Youtube tutorials aren't organized well. So I made a free version of Lynda.com where you can embed your favorite youtube tutorials or upload your own tutorials. Hope you find it useful!</comment>


Ask HN: Task list/to-do tools like Trello, but with checkboxes? - <AUTHOR> I've been trying to find a webapp task list/to-do list that is basically the same as Trello, but with checkboxes on the cards so that I can tick them off once complete.
In Trello I like the columns feature where each list is a column on my screen (one for each project), but once a card is completed there is no feature to tick it off. At the moment I'm just setting a green label which kind of solves it, but isn't the intended usage of the labels feature.
I've tried some of the Trello power-ups but can't find anything that does what I want.
What other web apps exist that can do this? <comment> martin-adams I know Trello has checklists but they are hidden away in the cards. We're working on something in this area for our startup [https://zaro.io](https://zaro.io). Here's a wireframe of how we plan to approach subtasks (so it feels like checklists). [https://imgur.com/NdmL3Z1](https://imgur.com/NdmL3Z1)

Each subtask is a full task so can be assigned, have deadlines if necessary, or just keep it simple.

Is that the type of approach you're looking for? Sorry I can't recommend something you can use today.

<comment><USER2> Hey, seems like you work on a decent product! What's really annoying though: scrolling behavior on the site (on a mobile). Do you slow it down for a reason?

<comment> martin-adams Thanks! We're aware of that. It sure is annoying. We need to completely redo the page to update it with the current version of the app and link in the signup and login.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I would recommend Zenkit ([https://zenkit.com](https://zenkit.com)). The press expresses Zenkit as a "Trello-Killer". You have the Trello-like Kanban board but also a list view, calendar, mind map and table view.

If you have set up your board you can activate the checkboxes in the settings of this collection.

</comment><comment><USER4> You could also try labeling your Trello cards with "Complete", "In Progress" etc.

I believe the Trello philosophy is to instead use a "Completed" column on your board. You move the _completed_ card over into the "Completed" column.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm doing that at the moment - it's a good-enough solution for now.

Is there a reason that the Trello philosophy is moving cards rather than ticking them off? Why not have both available?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Trello can have checkboxes on the cards (like for subtasks), but in the overview it summarizes them like "2/5 checked". It would be nice if it listed the whole checklist at least for short lists.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah that's the problem I'm having - I want to be able to see all of the checkboxes without having to drill down into the card.

<comment><USER6> If you use the kanban view in airtable you can see all of the checkboxes on the overview of the card. You do however need to open the card to check them.

EDIT: nevermind. They hide fields on the overview of the card if theyre empty and unchecked counts as empty.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you just want to check all the boxes when a card is completed, you could use something like Butler to automate it ([https://butlerfortrello.com](https://butlerfortrello.com)). It won't help with showing the checkboxes on the cards though.

For example, I use this to ensure checkboxes are checked before a card can be moved into another column. Or to mark the due date as complete when all checkboxes are checked.

</comment><comment><USER8> I would definitely recommend setting something up with [https://www.notion.so/](https://www.notion.so/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks good - I think that their "Lightweight To-do's" feature is what I'm looking for. Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> why don't you create a '<Project-Name> Done' list and move the card/s to there? Once the project is finished you can archive the list.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ideally I want to be able to see what I've completed and what's still to complete all within the same list, rather than moving them out.

Once a project is done I will archive the list, so that feature is fine.

<comment><USER10> This is the 'right' way on a kanban board. The column indicates the status. A card should move from To Do, to Doing and then into the Done column when completed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Asana?

<comment><USER12> Asana is the elegant todo list they are looking for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Maybe ora.pm? [https://ora.pm/project/442/list/953](https://ora.pm/project/442/list/953) (once you are logged in there are also other options).

<comment><AUTHOR> This one looks nice, I'm having a look into it. Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Try [https://www.notion.so/](https://www.notion.so/)

Don't know about others, but out of a few dozens of tools I had looked into Notion was the only one that "clicked".

</comment><comment><USER15> I recommend checking out [https://dynalist.io](https://dynalist.io) or [https://nulis.io](https://nulis.io)

<comment><USER16> workflowy is also another similar one - [https://workflowy.com/](https://workflowy.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wunderlist ([https://www.wunderlist.com/](https://www.wunderlist.com/)) sounds like something you are talking about.

</comment><comment><USER18> Cards describe the work to be done, not the status of the work

</comment><comment><USER19> I use freedcamp

</comment><comment><USER20> Just use markdown [https://blog.github.com/2014-04-28-task-lists-in-all- markdow...](https://blog.github.com/2014-04-28-task-lists-in-all-markdown- documents/)

Why complicate with more software

<comment><AUTHOR> I looked at this originally, as well as GitHub's Project Boards and GitLab's Issue Boards. I was hoping for a solution in one of these to save having to have another service to use and maintain.

The boards are not really designed for general todo-ing, and the task lists require editing the markdown file and committing to update it I believe?</comment></comment>


Show HN: PicoTorrent 0.10 released – WebSocket API included - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/picotorrent/picotorrent/releases/tag/v0.10.0 <comment><AUTHOR> It's been a few releases in the last 168 days when I announced PicoTorrent on HN and I'd like to get some input on both the progress as well as the new WebSocket API.

You can find the relevant API documentation at

\- [http://docs.picotorrent.org/en/latest/websocket- api/index.ht...](http://docs.picotorrent.org/en/latest/websocket- api/index.html)

<comment><USER2> I took a quick look to see if I could find this but does picotorrent have RSS support?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, it does not, sorry. I've been asked this before and perhaps it's something I should prioritize :)

<comment><USER2> 3 essential features: encryption, filter.dat support and RSS =)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Is the 64bit check in CMakeLists correct?

I'm no CMake expert, but this looks odd:

[https://github.com/picotorrent/picotorrent/blob/develop/CMak...](https://github.com/picotorrent/picotorrent/blob/develop/CMakeLists.txt#L24-L29)

        # Get current architecture
        if(CMAKE_SIZEOF_VOID_P EQUAL 8)
            set(PICO_ARCH "x64" )
        else(CMAKE_SIZEOF_VOID_P EQUAL 8)
            set(PICO_ARCH "x86")
        endif(CMAKE_SIZEOF_VOID_P EQUAL 8)

EDIT: this is just CMake's very odd syntax and it's actually a single condition.

<comment><AUTHOR> It should be correct - or at least, it works for what I use it for :)

What is odd about it?

<comment><USER3> I don't know much about CMake, but to me the two conditions look the same, but maybe this is just how CMake magically works.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, yeah, it seems as it is CMake standard to put the if-expression inside the else-parenthesis as well. It is not an elseif.

<comment><USER3> Yes, came to the same conclusion, seeing how it's the same "string" in IF, ELSE, and ENDIF. Very, very odd syntax.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Never knew this existed. This could possibly replace qbittorrent for me on windows 10. Thanks for great work.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is this Windows-only? If not, what's the UI outside Windows?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, that's a good suggestion. The readme is due for a rewrite so I'll make sure to mention that somewhere up top!

EDIT: the parent post was edited, and this comment was written for the original post.

<comment><USER3> There's a linux directory, what's that for?

<comment><AUTHOR> I've split the project in two parts, PicoTorrent and PicoTorrentCore. PicoTorrentCore is cross-platform and builds on GCC4.8.

The linux directory contains build scripts to build on Linux, which is used for the TravisCI builds.

<comment><USER3> And there's no UI yet, right? If you plan to write one, I'd suggest Qt, since you use C++ extensively already.

<comment><USER5> I hear qt is excellent, but would encourage you to do distinct ui code for each platform, in that platform's native ui libs. You'll look like a fish out of water otherwise.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, that's what I'm planning in order to keep it small and tidy.

<comment><USER6> You might want to start with a web UI then (like SyncThing). This provides you with a simple way to display your data and you get Mac / Linux / etc support for "Free" while also allowing your Windows users to have simple network access.

No extra dependencies, no UI toolkits!

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, and then you have Hadouken ([https://github.com/hadouken/hadouken](https://github.com/hadouken/hadouken)), another BitTorrent client of mine (though server oriented) :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Doctors Grow Nose on Man's Forehead - <AUTHOR> http://abcnews.go.com/m/blogEntry?id=20371616

<comment><USER2> This is fascinating. I am curious as to why the only way to attach it was with the "nose" upward, it seems like this could be inconvenient when showering.

</comment><comment><USER3> In the 80s people paid good money for that nose he's got now.</comment>


Ask HN: Greece defaulting. Are we headed for another recession? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> That question is of course based on if we technically 'left' the last recession; I realize that by the supposed numbers we are out of the recession though it certainly doesn't feel that way. I would say that hard times are certainly not over.

</comment><comment><USER3> Who is "we"?</comment>


The New Dating Game - <AUTHOR> http://www.weeklystandard.com/print/articles/new-dating-game <comment><USER2> A great revelation of the internet was that exhibitionism is approximately as widespread as voyeurism. Who'd a thunk it?

As for Mr. Max, I'm not sure why he shouldn't play the field as thoroughly as, say, Mick Jagger. I assume he's at least no uglier, and I can't imagine he could sing much worse.

As for The Weekly Standard, shouldn't it stick to telling us who to invade? "Lifestyle" journalism never wears well.

</comment><comment><USER3> Ugh. That article nauseated me. Monogamy is a by product of Western Civilization and not the natural inclination of any gender, based on anthropological evidence? Give me a break.</comment>


Propel: Machine Learning for JavaScript, a Ryan Dahl Project - <AUTHOR> http://propelml.org/ <comment><USER2> Nice, would be great to access Nvidia CUDA from NodeJs.

Hope that this library will have the same impact as NodeJs had on the development of the Javascript ecosystem.

</comment><comment><USER3> Any idea how is the performance vs pytorch?</comment>


The TSA is a waste of money that doesn't save lives and might actually cost them - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/2016/5/17/11687014/tsa-against-airport-security <comment><USER2> TSA is the number one reason why I don't fly and drive instead. From my POV most of the world's industries have progressed positively, but not air travel. I took a train a couple of years ago and it was a beautiful example of old merging with new. Walking through an antique of a train station, iPhone in hand, with my digital ticket ready to board; so easy and pleasant.

At that point I realized that air travel is by far the worst traveling experience money can pay for.

If an alternative airport wanted to do things a little different, such as "fly at your own risk" "no lifeguard on duty", aka no TSA b.s., I'd happily take the "at your own risk" option rather than the TSA controlled situation we're subjected to currently.

<comment><USER3> I arrive at the airport in a Lyft.

I walk up to the security checkpoint checkpoint, where I show the agent my phone. They see my boarding pass with the green checkmark and send me to the empty TSA Pre line.

I walk through the metal detector with no adjustments to my attire.

I am at the gate in 5 minutes.

I like how trains basically let you show up last minute, and a 3 hour train ride actually means a 3 hour train ride, compared to airport, checkpoints and boarding time, possibly waiting on the runway, and air time.

But you really just need to upgrade your travel accommodations to make your airport experience more seamless.

<comment><USER4> >I arrive at the airport in a Lyft.

That costs money. Many people take the train or a shuttle or lean on a friend.

>I walk up to the security checkpoint checkpoint, where I show the agent my phone. They see my boarding pass with the green checkmark and send me to the empty TSA Pre line. I walk through the metal detector with no adjustments to my attire.

You paid for that TSA PreCheck privilege which, while not in the grand scheme a large amount, is technically something.

It's also beside the point. TSA PreCheck is the result of a careful plan:

1\. Make everyone undergo an intrusive, invasive, and time-consuming process that provides little to no additional security.

2\. Allow people to pay for the privilege of not going through that procedure.

3\. Profit!

I don't do PreCheck because buying your rights is not something we should be able or have to do. It's a perversion that leaves us happy to pay for something that was commonplace until 9/10/01.

<comment><USER5> > 3\. Profit!

The Department of Homeland Security (of which the TSA is a part of) has a budget and its priorities are set in Congress. There is no "profit" motive here.

The US is throwing money at this problem, and money that only creates inconveniences for us.

<comment><USER6> The 2nd US Secretary of Homeland Security and co-author of the Patriot Act is the founder of a lobbying front for the the manufacturers of the body scanners.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Chertoff](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Chertoff)

<comment><USER6> Apologies to all for posting this 5 times. Each time I hit reply it was giving me an error.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In my opinion, the TSA is basically a very expensive jobs program rather than an actual security organization. This is a big part of why it's going to be hard to get rid of now. According to Wikipedia, the TSA employs over 55,000 people, many of whom would probably have difficulty getting a similar level job if we reverted to a more sane security screening program. Anything that kills thousands of government jobs is hard to get through Congress, even if it's unpopular with the public.

<comment><USER8> So is HN turning into a copy/paste of Reddit comment threads now?

[https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/4jr1td/the_tsa_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/4jr1td/the_tsa_is_a_waste_of_money_that_doesnt_save/d39146b)

<comment><USER9> So we're judging ideas on their novelty rather than applicability now? Something that appears on reedit can't be good enough for HN?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The TSA is a jobs program with a bit of "throw government contracts to your buddies" mixed in. Same with the military to an extent.

A TSA Screener job is about the closest we'll get to Basic Income: stand around in an airport occasionally groping people for $13-18/hr, plus awesome Federal benefits. Qualifications: essentially none.

<comment><USER11> > The TSA is a jobs program with a bit of "throw government contracts to your > buddies" mixed in.

The TSA is not a jobs program, especially for screening, etc.; those jobs directly replaced private sector jobs. The function was nationalized to move potential liability from the airlines (who contracted with the organizations operating airports, who contracted with private security firms) when they complained about the potential liability for security failure in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.

<comment><USER10> I didn't read the sources in depth, but it looks like the TSA is bigger than the jobs it replaced:

> _TSA is a major part of DHS, having a workforce of about 62,000 people. TSA > became a large organization very quickly after 2001, when it replaced 16,500 > private airport screeners with more than 40,000 federal screeners._

[http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/homeland- security/tsa](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/homeland-security/tsa)

<comment><USER11> Sure, but the increased security requirements and the nationalization in the TSA were two different things that were done together; the former could have been done separately -- permanently increased security requirements were adopted after the hijacking sprees of the 1960s and 1970s, and again -- along with some additional temporary measures that were later lifted -- at the beginning of the 1990s justified by perceived threat from Iraq in the run-up to and during the 1991 Iraq War; those were politically likely to be done after a major successful terrorist attack in the US _whether or not_ the functional was nationalized. And, as the ones which went previously, it would have created more security jobs.

The nationalization of the function in the TSA, though, had nothing to do with jobs, and everything to do with liability.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> rm_-rf_slash I live in a small city with a small airport. One day, while waiting for my departure plane to arrive, TSA kicked everyone out of the secure gate and back into the insecure terminal, because the plane would not arrive for another half hour and they didn't want to keep watching us in a room with barely 50 seats. Then we had to go through security again once every single passenger had arrived.

The point is that security is fear-motivated. 99% doesn't matter if it isn't 100%, even if logic and probability puts that 1% insecurity in a .001% chance of actually happening. So if you let the 1% slip through and something happens, well, who wants to take the blame?

And now we have this mess.

<comment><USER12> Was this Wenatchee?

<comment> rm_-rf_slash Ithaca

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wonder how autonomous driving will affect shorter flight commutes. I'll probably never take a car from Philadelphia to LA, but I might prefer to travel by car from Philadelphia to Chicago if I know that I can sleep throughout the car ride (as well as leave whenever is most convenient). When you take into account driving to the airport, checking bags, security, flight delays, baggage claim, and rental cars/driving to your hotel, a 12 hour drive doesn't look nearly as bad, especially when you could leave at 10 PM and wake up at 10 AM arriving at your destination. And it's way less stress compared to the hassle of TSA and flights.

<comment><USER14> I wonder why so many people immediately jump to thinking about a car as an alternative to short distance air travel. Would people in the US never even consider a fast train system as a good option between Philadelphia and Chicago? (If it were built, of course. But self-driving cars need to be built too. But I guess they're easier; I'm just dreaming)

<comment><USER15> Likely because the TSA issue is something they expect to see infecting the train transport system if it existed and that the car is figuratively and literally a symbol of freedom and the ability to escape the rules of others in the American culture. (Source: I live here.)

<comment><USER14> Interesting. To me the car is the least free method of transport. I feel like I'm in jail. There are thousands of rules, stay between the lines, listen to all the signs, careful to not hit children, it's so much more stressful than smoking a joint, sitting in a train and reading a book (my preferred way to get around).

<comment><USER16> >careful to not hit children

What are the rules on trains?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's easy to say that TSA sucks (it does), but it's hard to propose a workable alternative. Well alternative 1, stop making us take off our shoes and taking out our laptops, its clear from pre-check that it's not really necessary.

You need some security. That was clear before 9-11. Airports had security and it was pretty similar to how TSA does it right now. You put your bags on an Xray machine, show your ID, and walk through a metal detector.

I'd suggest keeping the government in charge of what procedures to use, but then using private contracts to actually manage the airport security.

The real problem with TSA isn't that it is intrusive. It's that is terrible mismanaged and has no incentive to improve the experience.

Although apparently airports can opt out of the TSA.

<comment><USER18> All those problems you mention are real, but they're not the main problem. The real problem with the TSA is that it's explicitly unconstitutional, since the 4th amendment _explicitly prohibits_ search and seizure without a warrant.

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

This does not at all describe the operation of the TSA's search and seizure. Notably, the statute's language makes no allowance for implicit consent based on location or attempting to use some private transportation system. A sensible compromise is to privatize airline security, since the constitution does not prohibit Delta employees from searching and seizing without a warrant.

<comment><USER19> > In _Davis_ and its progeny, we have established a general reasonableness > test for airport screenings. "An airport screening search is reasonable if: > (1) it is no more extensive or intensive than necessary, in light of current > technology, to detect weapons or explosives; (2) it is confined in good > faith to that purpose; and (3) passengers may avoid the search by electing > not to fly." _Torbet_ , 298 F.3d at 1089 (citation omitted); see also > _Davis_ , 482 F.2d at 913; _Pulido-Baquerizo_ , 800 F.2d at 901. ( _U.S. v. > Marquez_ , 9th Cir. 2005)

You definitely don't have to agree with the correctness of this line of cases; you should just be aware that the courts have looked at the question and have a theory they've been pursuing for about four decades about why totally suspicionless searches are "reasonable" and hence constitutional in this context. A tricky thing about the fourth amendment text is that it talks about what the requirements are to get a warrant, but doesn't explicitly say whether searches without a warrant are exactly the same as "unreasonable" searches. Courts have interpreted this for a long time to suggest that some kinds of searches without a warrant are nonetheless "reasonable", although _Davis_ was a pretty enormous expansion; I wouldn't be surprised if searches pursuant to it are an absolute majority of all the searches performed by the government!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Exceptions_to_the_warrant_requirement)

<comment><USER18> These precedents are interesting, thanks for bringing them up.

This gives me an idea for a constituency that might have standing to challenge Davis: Active-duty members of the military flying commercial, on orders, to remote locations accessible solely by air, who explicitly cannot "...avoid the search by electing not to fly" by orders of the same government that is searching them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The article is exactly right about what needs to be done, and who needs to do it: the airports themselves. No chance _any_ elected official is going to scale back the TSA's screening creep at this point.

The political risks of looking "soft on terrorism" are just too high. Imagine being a politician responsible for a TSA rollback, and then, by dumb luck, a terrorist attack succeeds a short while later. There may be zero correlation, but do you think the media will care? Do you think the public will care? Do you think your political opposition will care? Ha. Your career would be over in a heartbeat. And if your opponents really felt like twisting the knife, they might drum up hearings and lawsuits against you. So call me cynical, but I just don't see any lawmaker or policy wonk sticking his or her neck out anytime soon.

This is why it's in the hands of airports to push for any particular change. They're not running for office.

<comment><USER21> >This is why it's in the hands of airports to push for any particular change. They're not running for office.

They rely on federal funding for new infrastructure, which brings more air traffic, which brings more gate fees, which results in more money for those running the airport.

<comment><USER20> Totally fair, but any threat of fund withholding there is far less direct.

It also seems unlikely. If the feds withhold infrastructural funding out of spite for X, Y, or Z airports, they will cause a _lot_ of collateral economic damage. Commercial airline passengers are just one of the many types of traffic that airports service every day. There's also stuff like FedEx, UPS, DHL, and all of the companies who rely on them for shipping, fulfillment, and logistics. That rabbit hole runs deep.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The article completely misses the point of the TSA. It is not meant to actually make air travel safer. It is there for exactly two reasons:

1) Provide our dear politicians the satisfaction that they "Did something" \- Security theater is very useful during election times (Tough on Crime et al)

2)Provide a convenient excuse to expand the govt. ability to dictate yet another aspect of people's normal lives. The govt. now has another tool to harass "undesirables" \- simply put their name on a "No fly", "No Train" , "No $SomeOtherThing" list and have their TSA buddies enforce it. Or have the "undesirables" be pulled aside for Random screenings every single time [1].

[1] [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/07/citizenfour- filmm...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/07/citizenfour-filmmaker- after-six-years-of-border-searches-sues-for-more-info/)

This is the real purpose of the TSA. Your safety or saving lives is irrelevant.

<comment><USER23> Technically the TSA is there to protect the nation's transportation system. I've complained to my representatives and I'm told it is there to make us safe. Sure they may be there to APPEAR to make us safe, and there maybe ulterior motives. But you still have to attack the reason they claim

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> What's crazy is that the article doesn't even mention the effective lost lives in the sheer number of hours people waste by getting to the airport so early.

If you assume 75 years x 365 days x 24 hours, that's 657,000 hours in a fairly typical life. Millions of travelers waiting an hour or more each = a lot of "lives" wasted standing in line.

</comment><comment><USER25> > Airports should kick out the TSA

I'm not American and haven't been there for a long time so forgive my ignorance. TSA is an agency of DHS so I believed that its presence in airports was mandated by the government. Can airports really replace it with anybody they like? If this is the case, why they didn't do it before? Only because TSA is for free and airports have to pay private security companies?

<comment><USER26> Airports can replace the TSA with private contracts. SFO farmed security out to a company called Covenant. They still have to follow TSA policies and aren't necessarily an improvement from a passenger standpoint. I.e., you're still getting yelled at by otherwise-unemployable nitwits on a power trip.

<comment><USER27> I've actually found the SFO private contractors to be fantastic. I once left my laptop at the security scanner, and they shipped it to me next day (at my expense) where I urgently needed my laptop the following day--it was boxed and packaged nicely and sent to FedEx for me for free. I just had to send them a PDF label. They simply verified serial number. They had a great lost and found tracking system and called me "customer."

The other time I brought some Chinese takeout that had a lot of liquid in it. The scanner said for future reference try to order drier dishes (I brought a papaya with soup embedded in the cavity), but she was going to look the other way and winked at me and told me to enjoy dinner.

Never had to wait long either (but I have TSA Precheck) and don't recall being barked at... I did have to wait quite a bit in the official TSA Precheck line in EWR though (those were DHS employees) and dealt with a slew of surly employees...

<comment><USER28> So you were forcibly separated from your laptop, yet are thankful that you _only_ had to pay for overnight shipping to get it back?

Stockholm syndrome indeed.

<comment><USER27> If we are going to have to have TSA, I'd rather have the private contractors run it than the TSA. No Stockholm syndrome; just thought they offered a better experience for the same thing than the TSA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> In terms of $$, by far the biggest cost is in the wasted time of the millions of people who are subjected to this. It's obviously in the billions.

<comment><USER30> I saw in a different thread some back of the napkin math that he number of people-hours wasted by the TSA adds up to something like 500 lifetimes each year.

Terrorists would seriously have to step up their game to kill more than 500 people each year in the US, especially with passengers no longer operating under the "hijack just means a free trip to Cuba" assumption and actually fighting back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> In the world we live in there is one surefire way to get rid of the TSA: Stop flying.

Sad to say but money is a big motivator, and until the airlines get the message that we don't want to deal with this shit, they aren't going to really push for actual change.

<comment><USER14> I don't understand your point about money. Airline costs are the lowest they've ever been, and like the other comment said, from business/first revenue airlines are making plenty of money.

I also don't really see a reason to stop flying. There's nothing wrong with flying itself--if we simply fix the issue with the TSA it'll be as good as it ever was. And it looks like it finally might change, based on what people are saying and articles like these.

<comment><USER31> Think of it this way:

I pledge not to fly again unless there is a medical or family reason to do so, until the TSA is no longer at the airports I need to use.

No more vacations, no more business trips... that pledge (if made by enough people) would hit airlines in their pocketbook rather quickly, and the TSA would be show the exit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> SEATAC in Seattle and the Port Authority in New and New Jersey have threatened to privatize TSA duties as well. The question is can they? What's to stop them? Why is it taking so long?

How was this agency not looking at actually travel data that they failed to hire more staff as the number of air travelers increased? This was over a two year period. The idiot in charge of the TSA said they anticipated more people would sign up for TSA prescreen. At some point in the last two years they couldn't see that this trend wasn't transpiring?

This same idiot said they he was asking congress for more money for overtime for TSA employees. Great, make the same miserable people work even longer hours. That sounds like a great solution.

He also made a statement to the effect that their "mandate is to keep America safe' yet he seems to not grasp that if we can't get on the plane it doesn't much matter.

They also seem to blame part of the increased wait on the tragedy in Belgium but do you mean to tell me that not one person in this agency could see that the departure halls's were a huge a blind spot?

I imagine that lawmakers in Washington don't have to wait in the long lines like the rest of us? That's generally how the broken stuff in the US stays broken b/c lawmakers aren't exposed to it. This is true of healthcare as well. Congress has indemnity health plans which is why they have no idea how bad it is for the rest of us.

<comment><USER33> I think recently the lines go longer and the efficiency went down on purpose, to show proof that they need more funding.

"Media: Look the line is 2 hours long at the airports"

"TSA: That's right, we are so very overworked, we need more funding".

"Uncle Sam: here is more money for TSA"

"TSA: Thanks"

<comment><USER32> That wouldn't surprise me, lets hope that this is the final straw and we a mass privatizing of of security in airports as a result.

You would expect that an agency tasked with the security of citizens might be a data-driven organization so the fact that this current shortage of staff while there's an increase in the flying population is just inexcusable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> It is so frustrating to see a lot of the "solutions" being proposed by the administration: wanting to hire _more_ screeners, blaming passengers for bringing too many pesky bottles of water and pocket knives, etc. They are missing the obvious solution that should be at the top of the list, right in front of their faces: we must REMOVE "safeguards" to speed things up.

The probability that a bottle of water _or anything that looks like water_ will cause an airline disaster is effectively ZERO. It is not a risk, and not even slightly concerning, period. This is _not_ worth checking even _once_ , even at random, much less millions of times a day.

And pocket knives? They SERVE FOOD WITH KNIVES on planes. They literally _give_ you a knife in first class. If it was someone's goal to obtain a knife on board, they would not need to bring it through security. And frankly, one could argue that knives are the opposite of risky: a few passengers with knives to defend themselves may very well be able to prevent a handful of hijackers from doing anything. Either way, I am strongly on the side of "teach people to band together and defend themselves", not "cower and be fearful of everything".

And don't even get me started on having to take off shoes. It is frankly sad that we have been so fixated on ONE piece of clothing, for years and years and years, as a reaction to ONE passenger out of millions who couldn't even carry out his "threat" successfully.

Besides, the entire concept of "prohibited items" does not eliminate risk. There are human beings who are powerful enough and skilled enough to cause serious damage or death all by themselves. They don't need "prohibited items", they simply _are_ deadly. A group of passengers that knows how to band together and fight back can subdue anyone, even a passenger that is deadly all by himself.

</comment><comment><USER35> The TSA is obviously a complete clusterfuck, but it is offering us an important lesson:

Despite everyone hating it, including Big Business, it persists and will likely continue to exist until the U.S. Government collapses. It is nearly impossible to ratchet back a government program dedicated to "security", among other sacred words.

Look at the solutions being offered: add more workers, more bomb dogs, etc.

The system cannot fix itself. Perhaps the system does not want to fix itself.

<comment><USER36> > The system cannot fix itself. Perhaps the system does not want to fix > itself.

Absolutely! The horrible truth is that there is nothing to fix when you make hundreds of millions of dollars off of scared public. If you don't believe me, ask Chertoff.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Chertoff#Body_scanners](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Chertoff#Body_scanners)

[http://gawker.com/5437499/why-is-michael-chertoff-so- excited...](http://gawker.com/5437499/why-is-michael-chertoff-so-excited- about-full-body-scanners)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Airports should replace the TSA with security companies that use El Al's techniques: [https://skift.com/2013/11/15/tsas-behavioral-detection- techn...](https://skift.com/2013/11/15/tsas-behavioral-detection-techniques- are-worthless-says-former-el-al-security-director/)

<comment><USER38> Racial profiling (with "threat level" stickers!) and intrusive questions which become really extended and aggressive if they don't like the way you're answering?

Think the USA sounds more appealing, and I'm a white, obviously non-Muslim Brit.

</comment></comment><comment> awinter-py Love that they're quoting bruce schneier in defense. I think he was just being fair-minded because he doesn't want to appear smug. This is a guy who walked through the screening with a 'beer belly' (beer smuggling device for stadiums) full of gasoline and then blogged about it.

</comment><comment><USER39> I've had TSA agents look through my wallet, and on a separate flight look through playing cards one by one. I was also let through with no screening once by accident.

I've seen them yell at passengers, drift off, sit around talking with long lines waiting, and every other conceivable offense. Most are fine but there are a lot of exceptions.

They contribute nothing, and I for one fly less frequently because of them.

As to pre-check: at Atlanta that doesn't always get you a short line or fast security wait time.

</comment><comment><USER40> I also have stopped flying altogether due to invasion of privacy and feeling like cattle PLUS now that there are long lines, the chance of tempers flaring is real. Just witness the violence and hatred in the streets of America these days and watch how the police are unable to control riots...YES RIOTS...we no longer have protesters...protests are now riots. Airport crowding combined with invasion of privacy, impatience & anger = disaster waiting to happen. TSA is the terrorist here.

</comment><comment><USER41> In my personal experience what slows it all down the most is the actual people flying. Every time I fly I see countless people wearing tons of metal/jewelry/belts/whatever that they have to take off, often not till they are told to do so, the laptap is tucked far away until last moment. They still carry all sorts of lotions and liquids on for some unknown reason. When they then exit the scan they clog up the line by standing right there trying to put everything back on or away.

<comment><USER42> Don't blame the victims. You might as well say it's their fault because they didn't memorize the Gettysburg Address prior to arriving at the airport. What does reciting the Gettysburg Address have to do with airline security? About as much as making someone take out their nose and navel rings in the security line, and confiscating their hand lotion.

<comment><USER41> Oh I think the TSA is in inefficient and somewhat laughable, but I don't consider someone a victim who is not prepared to get on a plane and wastes everyone time. I consider that just rude. If someone gets their lotion confiscated, I consider them part of the problem that slows everyone down.

Edit to include I also think the TSA is making things slower on "purpose" but that's a whole other topic.

<comment><USER42> Prepared to get on a plane is, in my view, to be dressed appropriately for a public venue, carrying an appropriate size and quantity of hand-carried baggage, with a paid ticket, complete travel itinerary, and valid airline boarding pass.

It is not the traveler's concern whether the TSA finds it more burdensome to screen someone wearing polished, straight-laced oxfords than someone wearing slipshod flip-flops. The _traveler_ is not wasting _anybody 's_ time. The TSA that cannot process an unprepared, ignorant, yet cooperative traveler as quickly or as easily as a million-mile air travel expert is actually the party wasting _everybody 's_ time.

Imagine for a moment that someone sets out to _intentionally_ slow down the screening queue. Whose fault is it if he is easily able to do so? The people that established the operating procedures for the screening are responsible. On a highway, the slow car is passed, using a different lane. On a computer, the processor hog may be interrupted so that other processes and threads may still execute. Unfortunately, as you suspect, the TSA has a motive for keeping the lines slow. Slow lines may lead to bigger budgets, as they complain about being "resource constrained".

Perhaps you are making it more convenient for yourself by transferring your irritation to those who are not able to retaliate against your visible annoyance, by abusing their authority to perform additional unnecessary screenings the instant you reach the head of the queue? Stop blaming the victims!

<comment><USER41> Both are responsible because they both took actions that caused delays,and I was not speaking of any bias the TSA have when taking people out of line etc and doing things also that may increase lag.

I have no irritation with passengers wasting everyones time in line, I expect many people to be inconsiderate of others, that is human nature. I also note how many pass the blame onto others instead of realizing there are things they can do to help their fellow passengers, but they don't, to me it says a lot about that person.

I place blame of the slowdown on anything that causes the slowdown, including inconsiderate people and inept TSA policy and people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> How do we get rid of it, though? I get that it's terrible, and I've heard all these arguments countless times. How do you actually take action, though?

<comment><USER44> Find a politician who promises to get rid of the TSA and vote for them. And encourage everyone you know to vote for them. And write checks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> The difference between the US and other countries is not that we're stupider. It's that the slightly smarter/more powerful people are much better at manipulating the stupidity of masses, and much more greedy, than other countries. That's why we leveraged fear and pushed hard so that you have to bend over for the TSA every flight.

My question is, what does the US look like without the TSA, and can we ever get there?

</comment><comment><USER46> I have long looked for an answer outside of security theater as to why the ban on liquids continues. If anyone has an answer, I'd appreciate hearing it.

If you go through a screening line and a liquid is found, the liquid is not tested. It is not handled carefully. It is not thoroughly inspected. It is tossed in the closest garbage can.

If the liquid really did pose a danger, wouldn't it be handled more carefully?

<comment><USER47> I think the (ostensible) reason is similar to this, from the link:

> As security expert Bruce Schneier likes to note, such screenings don't have > to be perfect; they just have to be good enough to make terrorists change > their plans: "No terrorist is going to base his plot on getting a gun > through airport security if there's a decent chance of getting caught, > because the consequences of getting caught are too great."

That is, the act of confiscating the liquids almost ensures that the liquids are already harmless. But if they didn't confiscate the liquid, it (supposedly) might not be harmless. It's a bit like Newcomb's Paradox: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcomb%27s_paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcomb%27s_paradox)

<comment><USER23> Except that... it wouldn't really make anyone change their plans... at least not drastically.

How much liquids do you need for a decent explosives? A few liters, 10 liters? 20? So get 10 or 20 of your followers to bring it in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Those who say that the TSA is just a jobs program are missing the point. The TSA is a constant reminder of government presence and the security state, it's effectiveness at security or a jobs program is a minor concern compared to its value as a symbol. And of course, its growing, spreading its presence to highways, rail, and other forms of public transit.

</comment><comment><USER49> Air travel should be the same as motor vehicle travel. The only reason there aren't small air taxi companies that offer regional trips for affordable prices is because government has been involved in airplanes since day 1, and it is illegal for private pilots to charge.

</comment><comment><USER50> TSA Precheck: [http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-sign-up-for-tsa- preche...](http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-sign-up-for-tsa- precheck-2015-7?op=1)

</comment><comment><USER51> IAMA request: an honest to god TSA screener. Not an imbedded pinko journalist... someone who actually signed on.

</comment><comment><USER52> TSA is not a very important issue, but politicians love to discuss about this kind of issues where they can show their talent without hurting their sponsors. It is a good way to distract public from the more important issues (economy, unemployment, privacy, ...).

</comment><comment><USER53> I hate security, though I hate the discomfort of air travel even more. In fact, I just got back to the US from Europe, and the cold that struck 12h after I left lasted 7-10 days (and I rarely get sick!)

That said, am I the only one who doesn't have these long security waits? I typically show up at the airport ~1h before boarding is to begin, and am often at my gate 50min before boarding begins.

I typically fly out of SFO, and I do admit, several journeys ago, I was actually IN LINE at security for 30 minutes which seemed absurdly painful and I was actually starting to sweat being late for boarding. Of course, at SFO they had TONS of extra machinery, they just didn't bother staffing it.

As much as I HATE taking off my watch, fitbit, ring, car keys, wallet, belt, shoes, phone, then the scramble to take my laptop out of my bag as soon as I get room on the table (it becomes a high pressure situation to do the laptop thing as by the time you get to the table you have roughly 8 seconds before you're holding people up!).. the actual lines are quite tolerable.

I typically fly SFO, SEA, SAN, SJC, and fly cross country at least once or twice a year. I just got back from Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Stockholm, Munich airports, and again, no problems. I've fairly recently been to Auckland, Queenstown, Reykjavik, Heathrow, Florence, Paris as well.

There's no doubt most other countries do a better job than the US; the automated machinery for dealing with your possessions to be xrayed (they hold your bin until it's empty and then automatically return it to the beginning of the line!) and the switching between 10-15 security lines so that you're never behind more than a few people was a revelation.

But the actual time in security is rarely all that bad inside or outside the US.

<comment><USER23> You've gotten lucky. Recently I got to the airport early (unusual for me) a 2 hour wait in line later, we missed our flight (by about 15 minutes) As we were getting placed on the next flight the agent said lately 2 hours wasn't long enough. I flew out of the same airport about a month later, and an hour earlier in the day and had no issues. Doesn't mean there isn't an issue with TSA. Why should we have to wait at all? Why should we be treated like criminals?</comment></comment>


Best free (and almost free) resources for tech startups - <AUTHOR> http://austintechgeeks.com/2010/11/19/best-free-and-almost-free-resources-for-tech-startups/

<comment><USER2> The best free resources are your friends and contacts. Your personal network is the reach of your world. Everything beyond that requires direct knowledge or money.

<comment><AUTHOR> Friends and people in general are always a good and necessary resource, however you still need the tools (software, platforms, services) to make your startup work. I am referring to resources such as Gmail, mailchimp, unbounce, rubyonrails, etc.. which are free for the most part and are also necessary when you are building something.</comment></comment>


'Braid' creator sacrifices his fortune to build his next game - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2015/02/06/the-witness-money/ <comment><USER3> Here's a nice thread about Jonathan Blow's view on investing: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2198255](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2198255)

 _you are better off taking the mental energy you would have expended on "investing" and subsequently worrying about your money, and instead funneling it into your creative endeavors. You will make more money that way, especially when you take a long-term view._

...

 _If creative endeavors are profitable, you can use the resulting money to fuel more creative endeavors, thus making the world a better place. Keeping money in a bank account or publicly-traded stock does not particularly make the world a better place.

Once I got approximately into the f-you money level of income, it became crystal clear how fictitious money is in the first place. I wake up one morning, and bam, I am wealthy! Why? Because someone said so and typed a number into a computer. Okay... that's kind of weird.

Given that money is so fictitious and somewhat meaningless, it is a shame to give into primal hoarding impulses, just so one can see the number in one's bank account go up like a high score in a video game. It's much better to make like Elon Musk and use your money for what it is: a way to wield influence to make the world more like you would like it to be._

<comment><USER4> Sure, money is fictitious and meaningless once you've moved into the f-you echelon. By definition. Perhaps for that segment piping it into creative endeavors is fulfilling and worthwhile.

For everyone else for whom money is a meal, rent, or essential good instead of an expletive, who cannot afford to take an ethereally long-term view, this advice is out of touch with reality if not plain dangerous.

<comment><USER5> You and I read his advice quite differently. Once you quite your job to pursue your dream you have a finite runway determined by your savings and minimum expenses. He is suggesting you use that runway to build you dream instead of using it to try to get funding for a longer runway.

<comment><USER6> But what if your dream isn't profitable?

<comment><USER7> Then it was just a bad dream

<comment><USER8> This is a bad statement.

Without your "bad dreams" we wouldn't have the Red Cross, Kiva, Linux (or a majority of *nix releases), GPG (or lots of other OSS projects), One, Doctors Without Borders (or any number of other non-profit organizations), immense amounts of historically important art, music, documentaries, museums...

Some of the best, most important dreams in human history weren't profitable.

<comment><USER9> One would argue that "social profit" (ie: where society profits) is where all those not-for-profit "bad dreams" go.

The Red Cross movement especially brought forward the Geneva Conventions (which improved the conditions of prisoners of war), successfully fought epidemics, and (in my opinion) began a tradition of humanism that combats extreme fundamentalism in a practical non-violent way (which is why the worst fundamentalists target Red Cross/Red Crescent workers.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Blow is also attempting to build a programming language [1], based on his experience in game development. While I don't agree with his direction, so far, watching the process is very interesting. The next Jai demo was announced for Feb 11th [2].

[1] Jai: [https://sites.google.com/site/jailanguageprimer/](https://sites.google.com/site/jailanguageprimer/)

[https://www.youtube.com/user/jblow888/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/jblow888/videos)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8541509](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8541509)

[2] [https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/563766250711425024](https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/563766250711425024)

<comment><USER11> Actually, he's been doing this for a while. When he was at XCF at Berkeley in the early 90s, I had contributed to his FMPL (Frobozz Magic Programming Language) project, writing MUDs in it. (I wrote a Dikumud/D&D like system).

He's a wiz, and his C code was humorously commented that makes it a joy to read.

<comment><USER12> is it possible to find this nowadays? things like that are always wonderful to come across.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> One of the contributors is creating a video game from scratch in a series of videos.

[http://handmadehero.org](http://handmadehero.org)

He just did day 60 today. It's probably going to take at least a year. It's quite educational to start from scratch without any libraries.

<comment><USER14> I've been thinking of binge-watching this rather than Netflix shows :D

I'm not into game development or C... but it looks so well done I'm sure I'd learn tons... even just watching it casually.

<comment><USER15> It's really good. Lots of stuff applicable to general programming, os, architecture etc. Very watchable. I love the guys style.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "Jonathan Blow's beautiful, distinct 2008 platformer Braid is largely regarded as the original indie game"

Really? I find this difficult to believe, considering the success of Cave Story back in 2004.

<comment><USER17> The whole early PC gaming industry was indie games... Infocom, Sierra On-line, etc...

<comment><USER18> How do you consider Infocom and Sierra to be "indie"?

<comment><USER19> Sierra started with Ken and Roberta Williams working out of their house on Mystery House, in their spare time while Ken held down a full time job. Later, of course, they became a big company and so no longer indie.

"Next time, be more careful!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I am really excited for The Witness. If you ever watch one of Mr Blows interviews on Youtube you will see why. His philosophy about video games is interesting and refreshing. Particularly, his thoughts on establishing a dialogue between the player and developer through small events and patterns in the game is very insightful and inspiring. I'm sure that The Witness will be a very thoughtfully crafted game and I am definitely going to buy it. Mr Blow, if you are reading these comments, I wish you the best of luck with this game.

<comment><USER21> I'm not sure where to insert this in the comment threads ... this seemed as good a place as any:

I have never played braid, but based on an article I read online when it was released, I bought the soundtrack. It is beautiful. I've probably listened to it over 100 times. Highly recommended.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Jonathan Blow is also passionately into the creation of a new programming language to compete with C++, with an emphasis on performance and ease of use.

[https://www.youtube.com/user/jblow888/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/jblow888/videos)

<comment><USER23> Haven't many tried, and failed, to compete with C++ when it comes to gaming?

<comment><USER24> That is entirely irrelevant.

Improvements can always be made on man-made things like C++, even if improvements aren't always obvious at first.

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take!

<comment><USER25> _You miss 100% of the shots you don 't take!_

Tangentially, I hate this phrase. It ignores the fact that there's an opportunity cost to missed shots. If you're imagining the metaphor of a ball game, it's possession (and thus time and position). If you imagine the metaphor of a gun, it's your limited supply of bullets. This exhortation has an implicit assumption of endless resources, which are typically not available in the real world. _Of course_ there are times you should risk things on an uncertain outcome, and be willing to move on to the next opportunity - <USER2> to hold on to a declining situation is often motivated by a sunk-costs fallacy.

But I've heard the 'miss shots you don't take' thing proffered too many times as an excuse for ego-driven, risk-indifferent, and resource-wasting decisions and I'm pretty tired of it. There is a certain sort of person (but I don't men you, parent poster) who comes into a situation, fucks everything up, and then sails off with the excuse of what a bold, visionary risk-taker they are, blaming any obvious failures on the timidity of the team/colleagues. An excess reliance on sports metaphors has become a huge red flag for me in picking the people I work with.

<comment><USER26> > _It ignores the fact that there 's an opportunity cost to missed shots._

For the record, Blow has said that he's making the language primarily for his own use. I expect that most of the games he makes in the future will be written in this language.

<comment><USER25> Yeah, I didn't mean it in the context of this particular discussion - I'm sure Blow knows what he's doing, and there's nothing wrong with trying to go past C++. I dont' disagree with the poster I replied to either - I was just venting my irritation at this increasingly popular but frequently empty truism.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some kids that I need to eject from my lawn :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I've followed Jonathan Blow for a while. He has a reputation for being condescending. If you follow him a Twitter then you might come to the same conclusion. But he has given some amazing talks.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxFzf6yIfcc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxFzf6yIfcc) <-compares games to televison

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1Fg76c4Zfg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1Fg76c4Zfg) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqFu5O-oPmU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqFu5O-oPmU) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjDsP5n2kSM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjDsP5n2kSM)

<comment><USER28> I've followed him for a while and I think it might be a little more complicated although this is definitely how it might come across to the average person. He is blunt, and seemingly socially detached at times, almost in a Carmack-ish way. I don't see this as a bad thing really, just a different type of personality. Most of the best programmers I have known have this kind of personality.

Also, as mentioned his new language is definitely worth checking out. Yes, a language is only as good as its adoption/tools/history, but I definitely think C++ needs a challenger and not many people are in the position where they can risk taking on such a thing. Since money is becoming an issue, I hope he tries to fund this language somehow.

<comment><USER26> I've found his Twitter very frustrating to follow sometimes, but I also learn a ton from the things he links to and talks about. For example, I'm certainly not in the anti-OO camp, but his perspective keeps me on my toes and has been informing my programming decisions to a degree. He also seems like a good person in general — just one who happens to be an old school programmer with a very specific view on how things should be done. (As are many other game developers, I've been discovering!) People are complex and multifaceted, and you don't have to like every part of them. It's clear that he's a visionary and a fantastic game designer, and that he's been in the trenches for a while, so he's worth listening to for those reasons alone.

Anyway, it's kind of weird talking about jblow when I know he'll be reading this. Even if he doesn't like us so much anymore. :(

<comment><USER27> Why doesn't he like us?

<comment><USER26> I don't think he thinks most people here are "good programmers".

<comment><USER29> He's probably right. HN has some serious talent around, but it also has as rather core principles a lot of stuff that's deleterious to the kind of understanding that forms the basis of what he considers a good programmer to be.

I have throughout my career tried to maintain a grasp of everything in my stack (I went through a "study the code for HotSpot in-depth" phase that, while I don't regret it, I'm glad is over--though I may be about to start in on MRI...) and I try to make intelligent decisions about when to approach problems at different levels. I see a lot more trend-following and operating off of tribal conventional wisdom than I would like.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Interesting story, but I'd hardly call this "sacrificing his fortune." The title led me to believe that perhaps there was some sort of looming intellectual property or non-compete battle -- instead, he just spent his money in development efforts for his next game.

That said, the game looks great -- and I'm sure he'll be very successful with this one, too.

<comment><USER31> Yes, this could be more accurately described as "investing his fortune", or if you want to focus more on the risk (as game development is a risky business), "bet his fortune."

Loved Braid, quite interested in trying out The Witness; hope it doesn't take too long to come to a platform I can play it on, as I have neither a Windows machine, nor any consoles, nor an iOS device.

<comment><USER32> At the same time it is sobering to learn that one of the more recent wildly successful indy games only made a few million at most.

<comment><USER33> I thought he hadn't made millions. I thought only notch had became truly rich w/ a single game?

<comment><USER34> IIRC Braid made a couple million. I think less than 10 though.

Minecraft, OTOH, made Notch over a billion dollars. So it depends on your definition of _truly rich_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Very stoked on The Witness but also Firewatch: www.firewatchgame.com

These are the kind of games I can get down with, a good slow ambiance based puzzle game—had enough of RTS and FPS for the time being.

<comment><USER36> Wow that Firewatch trailer is really well done. Adding it to my todo/play list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Link to game's own site: [http://the-witness.net/](http://the-witness.net/)

</comment><comment><USER38> I think that the traditional investment mindset is suboptimal for most people. Especially the young.

For example, the advice to start early on a pension is commonplace. But the young often have low disposable income, and this cuts in to other possible uses of money that have far more return on low amounts of capital.

For example, taking a few months out to study in a different field. Building up a relocation fund so that you can move to a higher paying area. Working towards a property deposit. Buying cars outright instead of borrowing money to finance them.

Most of those have a far better return than a few percent per annum. It's just not clearly quantifiable. And that's not even going in to the riskier things like starting a business.

</comment><comment><USER39> One of my favourite technical talks is by Jonathan Blow: [http://the- witness.net/news/2011/06/how-to-program-independe...](http://the- witness.net/news/2011/06/how-to-program-independent-games/)

</comment><comment><USER40> He is featured in this nice documentary about indie games along with a couple of different development teams:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lq5HRdTyKUs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lq5HRdTyKUs)

</comment><comment><USER41> I always sort of wonder about stories like this, where fairly established game-devs have to rely on Kickstarter, or on their own funds to develop games.

Seems like someone like Blow should be able to attract some investors.

<comment><USER42> I do not know him personally, but as a distant admirer I would say he doesn't seem like he would have any interest in dealing with investors.

<comment><USER43> Most game investors these days are mostly looking for free to play games that have a business plan beyond selling copies in (digital stores). He's very against that type of games and games as businesses instead of artform in general.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Puzzles, puzzles everywhere. I've read the interview and didn't get it - what's so great in this new game that he is spending all his money on it.

I hoped there will be some ambition to the like of Ice-Pick Lodge [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1535515364/pathologic](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1535515364/pathologic) or Tale of Tales [http://tale-of-tales.com/videogames.php](http://tale-of- tales.com/videogames.php) but nope, another game with puzzles.

<comment><USER45> You probably just have to accept that pure puzzle games aren't for you. It's the same for me, and Braid is the game that made me accept that fact. I could see it was great, but I couldn't enjoy it past a certain point. No need to be negative, just move on and play games you enjoy.

<comment><USER46> Just to correct you, Braid didn't succeed because it was a "pure puzzle game." Braid has an absolutely incredible story and milieu -- stunning art and music with a sad, beautiful ambiance. It helped that the puzzles are great, but I'm sure many crappy mobile games have puzzles. Braid has soul.

You might as well say that Portal succeeded because of its puzzles. I mean, Portal IS a puzzle game even more than Braid is -- but what matters is the atmosphere, the immersion, and the story. Why not compare Lord of the Rings to a hiking manual while we're oversimplifying art.

<comment><USER26> Not sure why you were downvoted — this is pretty true. At the very least, it's hard to argue that the art in Braid was absolutely top-notch for platformers at the time.

I also have to say, though, that Braid was remarkably fluid for a puzzle game. What I mean is that instead of having to stand in one place and suss out each puzzle in your head, you were compelled to experiment with the game world, internalize the rules, and eventually intuit each solution. In the end, I believe I only had to "work out" a handful of puzzles in the entire game. (Contrast this to a puzzle game like Sokoban, where you pretty much have to logic out each screen. I hate those kinds of games!)

With that said, it looks like The Witness is going to be a much more cerebral puzzler.

<comment><USER47> I completely agree. I miss playing more games like that.

Some 6 months ago I decided to learn how to draw pixel art to make one myself. I should have a playable demo out in a couple of weeks. You can track my progress on my twitter account (@mbabuskov).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> There's something really pleasant about graphics like those in The Witness and No Man's Sky.

</comment><comment><USER49> 677/40 = 17 puzzles per hour?

<comment><USER31> That's 677 total puzzles. But remember, it says that there are in total 11 areas, of which you need to complete 7 or 8. And it says that to complete an area, you don't necessarily need to solve every puzzle within it.

So let's say you need to solve, on average, 75% of the puzzles in an are to beat it. And that you need to solve 7 out of the 11 areas. That gives you (677 * 7/11) *.75 / 40 or about 8 puzzles per hour.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> "Jonathan Blow's beautiful, distinct 2008 platformer Braid is largely regarded as the original indie game..."

Nah, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_Story](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_Story)

</comment><comment><USER51> loved braid.

go jonathan</comment>


iPhone XS Camera Review: Zanzibar - <AUTHOR> http://austinmann.com/trek/iphone-xs-camera-review-zanzibar <comment><USER2> Some of the iPhone XS photos in this "review" look very similar to photos on Apple websites. Reproducing photos or text from other sources without attribution is plagiarism, no?</comment>


Show HN: Open-source email helpdesk - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/ivaldi/brimir We've tried systems like OSTicket, OTRS etc, but never found anything to our liking. Most systems were cluttered, slow or too advanced. Brimir is simple but usefull. <comment><USER2> Any chance you could setup a demo or provide some screenshots ?

<comment> w0rd-driven This is my request as well. A demo or screenshots go a long way to promote something like this. A lot of helpdesk apps are alike so showing your uniqueness is key at this stage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Self hosting is a huge benefit I think for these systems. I'd love to see you charging for the self-hosted version. Just because it's open source doesn't mean you can't charge for it.

Will some people dig into the source and find a way to pay you nothing? Certainly. But how many people will pay if your default setup screens ask them to and makes it dead simple? Hosting the service is basically free for the resources this is going to consume. Most of your costs are probably development and bugfixing, right? So aren't you giving away the farm?

Making it ridiculously easy to set this up while self hosting shouldn't decimate your bottom line. Adding some monthly or annual license for the self- hosted version shouldn't dissuade strangers from submitting pull requests. The world would be a better place if more SaaS companies could demonstrate it's possible to drive revenue even in a self-hosted and open source model.

I don't really know if it would work, but it would fun to see you try, and write-up the experience so we can follow along!

Without seeing screenshots it's hard to know the right price, but I would guess at least $49 - $79/year. Or just put a slider with a recommended default payment based on the number of support tickets in the DB and see what happens.

Fanatical support is such a cornerstone of startup culture, if your product moves the needle on "happier customers for each support manhour" it's worth $1000s even for a small business with just a single full-time support person on staff.

<comment><USER4> Have you heard of elivecd?

This has nothing to do with helpdesk software (it's a distribution of Debian+E17), but this was the first open source project that I ever saw that successfully got me to pull out my (paypal) wallet and fork over, similar to what you're describing.

The distribution comes in the form of a livecd which you can install "only with the help of the installer module" which I have not seen in any repository, but everything else is certainly open source. Historically the dev images have always come with free installer modules.

Of course being a livecd, you are free to use it without installing as long as you don't mind losing everything you've done each time you reboot. It may have also been the first livecd to enable a copy-on-write union filesystem (ram or on a USB stick) so that you could write into your home directory or really anywhere at all on the filesystem (apt-get install) without modifying the system image.

Thanatermesis only charged for the installer modules for stable releases, which to my knowledge started at 2.0 (debian lenny) and was supposed to get a new release for wheezy. But again, to my knowledge, no installer modules have been distributed for the new beta; they have spent more cycles on the new version of the website (which is finally looking mighty good today!)

[http://www.elivecd.org](http://www.elivecd.org)

<comment><USER4> I just tried the latest beta release, 2.1.56, it's pretty nice

Compared to compiling Enlightenment for yourself, it's really a breeze... most of what the installer module had to do was copy the rootfs to a live filesystem, but anyone on hackernews can probably do that.

Historically elive has been very good at having drivers pre-installed as well, but this round I lucked out... I think without the installer module, any closed-source drivers are not included; well my laptop only has intel hardware anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For comparrsion, I've been using django-helpdesk which has been pretty solid since deployed end of 2008.

[https://github.com/RossP/django-helpdesk/](https://github.com/RossP/django- helpdesk/)

</comment><comment><USER6> I've been comparing services in this space for a bit, and I've always felt unsure of inserting this into our CS workflow.

One immediate question that comes to mind is, how well does this support something like eBay's email support system? I know that Zen Desk was inconsistent with these emails: [https://support.zendesk.com/entries/21305048-eBay- integratio...](https://support.zendesk.com/entries/21305048-eBay-integration)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the reply! Clean and simple is what we aim for. Maybe we will add plugin support, but the base system should work stand-alone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like the idea - Would be good to see integration with Google Apps. I'd be interested in helping out!

<comment><AUTHOR> Great idea! What kind of integration do you mean?

<comment><USER8> Google Apps Login integration is one.

<comment><USER9> Even better, integrate it with the top five CRM/ERP solutions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> We've updated the website with some screenshots: [http://getbrimir.com/](http://getbrimir.com/)

</comment><comment><USER10> I've wanted to build something like this for a while. Kudos.</comment>