Are you a data hoarder? I'd like to hear from you. - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@vrypan/are-you-a-data-hoarder-4f1549184d70

<comment><USER2> I hoard data - maybe a hundred floppy disks, thousands of old burned CDs/DVDs, and 4 or 5TB of hard disks.

I stopped burning DVDs in ~2009 because it was more cost-effective to store data on hard disks of ever-growing size and didn't take 15 minutes to burn data in 4GB chunks.

For me, holding on to data is more of a "but I might need it one day" sort of thing, and it works out cheaper to store it (and back it up) than to put in the cognitive effort to work out "will I _really_ use this in the future?" before throwing bits of it away.

In recent years I've learned to be less concerned about deleting some types of data, partly out of apathy and partly because, if I'm honest with myself, much of the data is going to go completely unused...

...but one day I might need it!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> If you read the article, you can leave a comment here too :-)</comment>


Not Everything is an Expression (2016) - <AUTHOR> http://www.rntz.net/post/2016-06-06-not-everything-is-an-expression.html <comment><USER2> It's fairly simple to write an extensible macro in common lisp, if you leverage CLOS's eql specializers:

[http://paste.lisp.org/display/353777](http://paste.lisp.org/display/353777)

Also, using symbols in an eql specializer like this lets you leverage Common Lisp's package system for namespacing your extensions.

</comment><comment><USER3> Common Lisp acknowledges at least one syntax class: setf forms[1].

[1] [http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Body/m_defs...](http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Body/m_defset.htm)

<comment><USER4> Another one is, for example, the "lambda list" and "macro/destructuring lambda list".

We can write some new macro and say that the "foo argument is a destructuring lambda list". The macro then inserts that into the target code in some way that it is interpreted that way.

Yes, however, in CL terminology, everything in fact is an expression. In _(let ((a b)) ...)`,_ (a b)* is an expression. What is is _not_ is a _form_ : an expression intended to be evaluated. Not every expression is a form.

(Other dialects may have different terminology).

<comment><USER3> Source: [http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Body/26_glo...](http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Body/26_glo_e.htm#expression)

It is interesting that when people say "everything is an expression," they usually seem to mean that "everything evaluates to a value," as a contrast to the expression/statement dichotomy in most other languages. But (summarizing) as far as Common Lisp is concerned, an "expression" is the object of what one expresses.

Let expression1 mean the syntax class of expressions-with-values (like mathematical expressions) and expression2 be the Common Lisp definition. Then it's "in Lisp, everything is an expression2" and "every form is an expression1." This ambiguity might explain the surprise when realizing Lisp in fact has other syntax classes than expression1s.</comment></comment></comment>


YC Open Office Hours - <AUTHOR> http://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-open-office-hours <comment><USER2> Most great startups would not exist if not for the work of some critical helper in a position to help.

Apple had Mike Markkula, Facebook had Sean Parker, Airbnb had Michael Siebel, and Viaweb had Julian Weber. The list endless.

The ingredients are: great founders + great products + great helpers.

It's easy to say that great founders with great products will attract great helpers, but that ignores how few great helpers there are and how inefficient the "market" is.

YC is the _greatest_ helper of startups in the history of startups, and expanding that help to a wider group is a great thing for the world.

<comment><USER3> And I would add, many of the best founders (tech startup or otherwise) are those willing to ask for help and listen to advice. Those founders who fear revealing their flaws and so avoid talking to mentors and colleagues are always woefully underprepared to go to market (where, you know, you not only reveal your flaws but do it in the context of asking for currency).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hey folks - Kat and I so excited to announce this new program - happy to answer any questions

<comment><USER5> Thank you for this opportunity. I've noticed ycombinator has been trying a lot of new things, and trying their best to reach out to as many people as possible. You guys are great!

<comment><USER4> thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Can any focus be given to rural communities? For example the coal miners of Kentucky. [https://medium.com/backchannel/canary-in-the-code- mine-90388...](https://medium.com/backchannel/canary-in-the-code- mine-903884eca853)

As someone who grew up in the rural South I'm saddened by how overlooked it's communities are. Poverty is wide spread but services and activist groups are lacking. No one cares about rednecks.

</comment><comment><USER7> I put down Skype on my application because Mountain View is a 12 hour drive from here... but now I'm wondering; does Skype vs in-person have an effect on whether you'd be accepted?

... 'cause I'm pretty sure I'd make that drive for the chance to meet with the YC partners if it made any difference :)

<comment><USER8> Choosing Skype vs. in-person won't have any effect on whether you're accepted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Just applied for the veteran opening and very excited about the prospect! It's encouraging and helpful to see a few initiatives like this spring up.

TechStars has been running a sort of primer on entrepreneurship for veterans ([http://patriotbootcamp.org/](http://patriotbootcamp.org/)) for a few years now, but that's aimed at people just trying to figure out what's going on.

The YC opportunity seems more appropriate for those of us who are all-in and already building great companies. A nice evolution, and an important gap filled- thanks YC!

</comment><comment><USER10> _Additionally, Amazon is generously offering $5,000 in AWS credit for all participating teams._

This seems really dangerous -- it creates a huge incentive for companies to waste YC's time. There aren't many things early startup founders can do which are worth more than $15000/hour. Sure, you can probably filter out many AWS- credit-seekers via the application process, but that adds more work for the people who read through all the applications.

Have you considered either (a) refusing the credits, or (b) taking a small number and handing them out to the most "deserving" startups at the end of the day?

<comment><USER11> At the risk of sounding too cynical, have you considered that Amazon is likely paying YC as much or more for the opportunity to offer this credit? And that maybe this whole deal is at least partially because Amazon wants to acquire new customers?

<comment><USER12> Without taking any position on whether YC would be willing to sell their reputation like that (personally, I'd say almost certainly not), I can't imagine amazon would be willing to pay the price they'd charge.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Kat's great! Easily one of the most competent people I've met and she went out of her way to sit down with me in New York.

Bonus: For some reason Twitter now sends me a notification every time she tweets about Rick and Morty.. I'm mostly ok with it!

</comment><comment><USER14> This is an excellent strategic move to improve YC's pattern recognition of alternative signals coming from "diverse" marginalized groups.

Continually impressed.

</comment><comment><USER15> I work in USA on a visa. Can I apply under international category?

</comment><comment><USER16> If our founding team includes an Army vet AND an international founder.. which one should we apply for?

<comment><USER8> Apply for both! Or either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> what will YC Research address?

<comment><USER18> That's a separate announcement, of course, but I'm pretty sure it's coming soon.</comment></comment>


Donald Trump Creates Space Command but Must Wait for Space Force - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/united-states/2019/08/30/donald-trump-creates-space-command-but-must-wait-for-space-force <comment><USER2> TRUMP: Trump Lightyear to Space Command. Come in, Space Command. (...) Space Command - come in. Do you read me? (to himself) Why don't they answer?!! (GASP) My ship!!</comment>


Getting started on simple mathematical approximations - <AUTHOR> https://www.solipsys.co.uk/new/ElementaryEstimates.html?sa12hn <comment><AUTHOR> Note to the mods:

I, as the author, have changed the title here because for this audience I think this title is more expressive. For people who visit the blog directly the title there is appropriate, but I think this title is better here.</comment>


Recipe from a startup founder  - <AUTHOR> http://foodia.org/blog/2011/04/overnight-oats/

<comment><USER2> Brilliant. I've got a similar recipe for green tea. Instead of steeping it, cold brew it. Drop two teabags in a bottle of water. Put it in the fridge overnight. Comes out perfect every time. Cheaper and less sickening than those commercial green teas that are sweetened with corn syrup.

</comment><comment><USER3> 75 cent, complete, well balanced breakfast. Cool

</comment><comment><USER4> Nice trick for health and easy breakfast!</comment>


Is Valve's SteamBox a contender for the next developer workstation? - <AUTHOR> http://radar.oreilly.com/2014/01/is-valves-steambox-a-contender-for-the-next-developer-workstation.html#more-58853

<comment><USER2> Dupe: [http://radar.oreilly.com/2014/01/is-valves-steambox-a- conten...](http://radar.oreilly.com/2014/01/is-valves-steambox-a-contender- for-the-next-developer-workstation.html).

Seems this submission has an anchor ID which makes the URL unique from HN's point of view.

<comment><USER3> link to HN post: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7030194](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7030194)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Deciding between Haskell & Lisp - <AUTHOR>

Hey folks, I'm going functional and want to decide between the two.  Some of my thoughts and concerns are below.  I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.
Why I like Haskell:
- It compiles to native code (in GHC)
- It has a grammar
- The type system looks fascinating
- GHC also has native support for Literate Haskell files, which sound pretty useful considering the density of functional code.
- Lazy evaluation looks like a great way to pass around work for threads, or to model certain problems.
- It's nice how they handled side effects ala Monads.
Why I'm still curious about lisp:
- I don't know how to compare CLOS or macros against  Haskell's functionality.
- Emacs.  A single language across the board could be nice.  I've been a long-time user for it, but mostly for imperative languages, org-mode, and latex.
- Connections to old hacker lore & culture.  Tons of old stories on Lisp being wonderful, AI research, etc.  Considering how simply lisp's survived & evolved over the last 50 (!) years, there's apparently a lot more to the whole thing than I can determine beforehand.
Of course, the real decision is which one becomes my first native functional language, and which one becomes the second.  But it's really going to boil down to which one I choose for my next personal dev project.  The second will have to be an experimentation platform, based on the lens developed in the former.
I suspect others are in the same situation (for differing reasons) and hope that this thread be useful to them as well.
Thanks in advance!
-Lally <comment><USER2> Add OCaml to your shortlist.

What sort of applications are you trying to write? Which language has the people working in your field? That's what it boils down to really.

</comment><comment><USER3> In CL, I find it natural to program functionally most of the time, but use side effects whenever it suits me. That leads to a different mentality than pure functional programming. I like it because it's pragmatic. But if functional purity appeals to you, you may want to go with Haskell (or Scheme).

p.s. "It compiles to native code" is true of CL as well.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'd try to start learning both. Spend a few days learning lisp, do as much of it as you can. Then, spend a few days learning Haskell.

After you start picking up on their essence, I'm sure one of them will feel like home more so than the other and you'll understand their individual raisons d'etre.

<comment><USER5> Can you learn enough to know a meaningful difference in a few days, though?

Also, it seems to me that Haskell is harder to learn /incrementally/; ie, you have to learn much more before you can write anything useful. I got ~halfway through the 'monk' book without feeling I could write anything useful; but maybe that's just me.</comment></comment>


Why your genius new idea is already forgotten - <AUTHOR> http://innovatorinside.com/2014/01/09/why-your-genius-new-idea-is-already-forgotten/

<comment><USER2> Depressing.</comment>


Ask HN: What was your biggest mental shift when learning Rust? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Ownership. There are other things but this is the single biggest adjustment one will have to make.

In other languages say C++/Go/Python, you have a shared buffer in two threads. Both threads have mutable access to it but you _know_ only one of them is modifying it at any point of time (because you wrote it :) ). This is not good enough in Rust. You will have to _prove_ it to the Rust compiler at _compile time_ that this invariant is true. In Rust you express this using its type system. Syntactically & semantically it is very different than other languages.

The implication of the above is that in Rust you will have think a lot about your code structure & data-flow upfront compared to other languages else you will hit the wall very frequently. Some people say this is how it should be anyway & others think it as impediment to the productivity. Both points are valid in my opinion ... it more of a question of cost vs benefit.</comment>


Why Shamans Stand Apart - <AUTHOR> https://www.sapiens.org/culture/shaman-uncertainty-specialists/ <comment><USER2> This is one of those realms that is hard to penetrate with traditional hypothesis-based scientific study. I doubt we will ever get to a point where we can do some type of double-blind study as to the efficacy of shamans and shamanism. The data will largely be anecdotal and will thus easily lead to speculation.

The result? I'm not entirely sure. Perhaps it's one of those things we will have to explore on our own, individually. Each of our experiences will be unique, and more likely than not, in contradiction with one another.

I applaud and respect those, particularly in academia, who can both acknowledge the boundaries of their knowledge, and yet be open to the idea that there remains a lot beyond our understanding currently. And those that partake in these substances, via anthropological study or for personal reasons, can let the experience speak to them for what it is, beyond the need or reflex to break it down in an academically rigorous, scientific manner.

The author of the article tries to make some analogy between shamans and financial money managers. I don't think anything could be further off. It's speculation like this that results in the ill-informed decisions that lead to potentially life-saving treatment modalities being branded as Schedule I restricted substances. In any case, an academic trying to make sense of the ancient healing mystic wisdom traditions is like Einstein trying to make sense of a Dali painting. Maybe you can get somewhere, but you're not going to really _get_ it until you voyage there yourself.

Anyhow, whether it's Golden Teachers, or Bufo Alvarius, may your experience be enlightening, magical, and transformative!

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd argue that the sleep deprived decade-long social isolation of modern physicians make them science's equivalent of a trance practitioner.</comment>


Wes Craven, Horror Maestro, Dies at 76 - <AUTHOR> http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/wes-craven-horror-maestro-dies-818806

<comment><USER2> As a huge fan of his work I'm sad we don't get to see another reinvention of horror akin to what he did with scream.

Craven sort of puttered in the first 20 years of his career - first a professor, then a porn director (why not), then with a couple of smaller hits (last house on the left).

prior to Scream his big moment was clearly nightmare on elmstreet - he was 45 when it came out.

And I think the HN crowd that's gone through fundraising can relate to how this risky director with a big, crazy idea had to work to put it together:

"the film's original investors backed out at one point or another during pre- production. The original budget was merely $700,000. "It ended up at $1.1 million ... Half the funding came from a Yugoslavian guy who had a girlfriend he wanted in movies."[1]

How cool, will miss this guy who clearly brought the hustle.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Nightmare_on_Elm_Street](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Nightmare_on_Elm_Street)

<comment><USER3> Craven was certainly a giant in horror, but Scream was an amazing script and Kevin Williamson doesn't get the kudos he deserves in reimagining that genre with that script.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wes Craven was a master of horror and a brilliant director. Nightmare on elmstreet is definitly among the most frightning horror film ever seen and ranks at the same spot than Halloween in the movies that made horror matter as an artistic form. he was an author and an artist from the brilliant "the last house on the left" till the end of his carreer.

<comment><USER5> I remember being a little bit obsessed with the "Nightmare" movies as a kid (like maybe around age 11-12). I think part of it was that those gory, R-rated movies were "forbidden" as they were meant for older kids and my dad didn't like me watching them. But a big part of it was the mix of dark humor and some of the more genuinely frightening concepts I'd ever seen in a monster movie at the time.

Admittedly my experience with the genre was limited at that age but up until then, I just thought of horror movies as the stereotypical "stalking monster" type thing. Monster is out there somewhere. Protagonist has to escape the monster and hopefully learn how to kill it or at least stop it.

The thing that always got to me about those early viewings of the Nightmare movies was that the protagonists were teenagers (often troubled ones) so there was the element of "the grownups will never believe me". As a kid you're familiar with the disconnect between children and adults so that's already a source of anxiety that the movies tap into.

The other part was that you couldn't escape the Big Bad by hiding in your house or even in a fortress. Freddy came after you in your dreams and sleep is something you just can't avoid. So many times the hero would think they were safe only to see something weird happen and realize that they were still trapped in a dream. It was that sort of surreal, almost Lovecraftian idea of the sinister, evil reality that exists alongside this one which legitimately scared the crap out of me as a kid. I'm pretty sure that when I first watched those movies, I wondered if I'd have the courage to fight a "Freddy" or whether I would just commit suicide rather than live in a world with no certain realities where I was forever in fear of my life and sanity.</comment></comment>


Should I stay till acquisition or leave? - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
Here is my situation:
--> I have a job offer at a series B startup with strong potential. I like product,people and culture --> My current startup; series A ~5Mil is going through acquisition process --> I have some 1.5% equity with few months left in cliff. --> Current acquisition may be a talent acquisition or talent + product acquisition.
--> There are not many users or activity to show for.
What should I do? 1. Leave for better opportunity to cash out in future don't worry about potential gain currently 2. Stay back; go through the acquisition and join acquiring company for Cash plus Bonuses 3. Try to leave the acquiring company after cashing out on acquisition.
For option 3; how long does it take to get acquisition money sorted out. And what is your guess for acquisition price might be for a talent + product acquisition.
Please help me <comment><USER2> So let's answer option 3 first. The acquisition price can vary a lot. There's no telling what the end value is because there are too many unknown variables here not being listed aside from the fact that you guys raised a $5M series A. Even with that, we don't know what the terms of the Series A were and if there were any liquidation preference. We don't even know if the acquisition is purely upfront, is it cash only or stocks or both, any earn outs, etc...

Chances are, if this is mostly a talent acquisition and you guys don't have much traction of any kind, I would probably assume the acquisition total isn't going to be extremely high (although I could be completely wrong). That said, at 1.5%, not sure if it'd be worth it (personal opinion). Obviously worth is relative to the individual and may differ greatly for different people. Keep in mind if there is no acceleration for early hires, your 1 year cliff is only going to 25% of that (assuming standard vesting).

As for how long you need to vest, it depends on the acceleration set to trigger at the time of acquisition. You might just end up not getting accelerated and you would vest as you normally would had the acquisition not occur. You might want to find out more info from the founders before making a decision and hope they will disclose at least something to you. I would just be honest about the fact that you're on the fence. They may need to disclose that you're thinking of leaving to the potential acquirer (or at least they should).

Without knowing much else, I am very hesitant to give any real advice here but if it was me, money aside, I would do what I enjoy more. In this case, option 1 makes the most sense regardless of financial outcome, especially if you like the product/company, the people, and the culture more (I'm assuming since you never said anything about the current startup you're in). Hope that helps _somewhat_

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for quick and informative reply.

I talked to founders; they did mention that some acceleration in conjuncture of retention package is in works.

And I have a double trigger acceleration in place as well. So I am thinking of Option 3; but I don't know how practical that might be; given acquirer may want to put earn out in place.

From valuation point of view; our product is compelling on paper but dont have much traction; so the biggest question I have is can that be big. A good team and decent product. If I compare offers; 5 times return on original investment will break me even in terms of my offer with new company and their valuation. So is it likely to get 5 times return in this kind of acquisition.

I also have one more question; will my departure negatively impact the acquisition of company as I am one of three core engineers and joined at very early stage.

<comment><USER2> Possible but chances are weighed more heavily on founders, _usually_</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How mature is Jython compared to JRuby? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> It's pretty mature, but its place within the Python ecosystem is different from JRuby's place in the Ruby ecosystem. Jython is basically an extension language for the JVM: it lets you use the familiar & comfortable Python language to script your JVM languages. Many popular Python packages won't work on Jython, either because they depend upon C extensions or because Jython is several versions behind CPython.

Ruby has much more of a bias toward writing libraries in pure Ruby, and so a greater portion of the Ruby ecosystem runs on JRuby. Also, Ruby's use-cases largely center around Rails and system administration, while Python also has large presences in scientific computing, scriptable C++ network servers, desktop GUI apps, etc, (none of which work on Jython). That makes JRuby very attractive for deploying a Rails frontend on top of JVM backend infrastructure, but the analogous situation in the Python world (Django webapp in front of say Twisted or Celery) won't even run on Jython.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't know about "mature", but my main frustration with jython is that it can't use a whole slew of libraries that call on native code. So a whole lot of things that happen to be important to me just aren't usable. And they aren't that exotic - things like pandas, numpy etc.

</comment><comment><USER4> My impression is that JRuby is a lot more advanced, particularly from the point of view of parity with its "parent". That's not firsthand knowledge though: I use JRuby a lot, but Jython not for years, so I'm not plugged in to the latter. My impression is that its development kind of stalled out a few years ago, but maybe has recovered in the last few years.

JRuby performs very well, especially if you're using it in an environment like a web app, where JVM startup time isn't an issue. It's definitely better once you reach a certain threshold of usage. I wouldn't use it probably for little stuff, but if you're getting to the point where you need things like multithreading and garbage collection becomes an issue, then JRuby is a good bet.

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't have any experience with Ruby, but I did a Jython project last year and I was rather disappointed. For a start it's still stuck on the 2.x versions of Python (I find 3.x _much_ better, esp. for things like Unicode support). Secondly I found it to be really, really s l o w.

So while I love the concept of being able to write Python code for the JVM, I'm probably not going to be doing it again any time soon with Jython.

</comment><comment><USER6> Jython is still hanging in there, and reached 2.7 this year. I imagine 3.x compatibility is going to require a big effort though.

But JRuby has way more momentum and a much larger userbase.

But on the .NET side, IronPython is still ticking along while IronRuby is dead.</comment>


HN Rant: Come and Go Voting - <AUTHOR> So I log into HN and read the wonderful essay about healthcare and end-of-life costs. I was going to comment and vote on some of the comments, but I can't downvote.
Must have ticked somebody off, I guess.
I upvote a few of the better comments and move on.
Then I go and read about the new Chrome HN extensions. Nice job!
Now I can upvote and downvote.
I go back to the healthcare essay. Still no ability to downvote.
Does anybody here besides the coders of HN want to support the idea that the user can have abilities come and go on a whim and this is going to make for a enjoyable user experience? HN keeps getting more and more nuanced about who can do what when, and, quite frankly, all it seems to do is intermittently piss me off. If it's making things better I can't see it. And even if it is, you don't screw around with system behavior without notifying your user of what's going on.
I'm sure somebody will point me to some thread somewhere or another where pg explains that for condition X we're not allowing users to downvote. And also frankly, that's part of the problem. Understanding the system shouldn't require extreme devotion to every little thing said about it over a period of years on every thread related to HN. A system should be simple to use and understand. HN is still simple to use, but beats me if I can understand it any more.
So am I out here all alone in this feeling, or is it bothering other HNer's as well? <comment><USER3> The entire source of news.arc is open - <USER2> <http://github.com/nex3/arc/blob/master/news.arc>

Lines 1095-1098 control whether the downvote arrow is displayed or not.

So, to answer your question, yes, it bothers me that there's very rarely a clear enumeration or description of features.

On the other hand, it's been a wonderful opportunity to learn Arc.

(I'm only half joking - Arc was actually my first stab at functional programming and I probably wouldn't have tried it if pg had bothered to document HN's features)

</comment><comment><USER4> downvoting is disabled for users comments after a while so people cant go and downvote all of a users old comments, as comment threads get deeper it takes longer for replies to be enabled to disuade arguments.

Since hacker news has managed to keep a relatively similiar experience despite a large increase in users, its pretty clear(subjectively) that some of these measures are working.

You should probably worry about it less.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is the user. This is the user telling you the application pisses them off at random intervals and for unknown reasons.

Worry is not part of this conversation.

<comment><USER4> if you stopped worrying about exactly how and why these features get enabled / disabled and accept that pg will and can experiment with features and isnt particularly worried about documenting them, then you will no longer be pissed off.

the way hn is developed is very open, and I dont imagine becoming the most easily understandable news site on the web is a particular goal for this place, so speaking in truisms like "dont modify users behaviour" doesnt mean much.

<comment><AUTHOR> Once again, you're taking this conversation somewhere that I'm not going.

Nobody is saying pg can't experiment. Nobody is saying that the site isn't great, open, wonderful, etc.

Just pointing out that inconsistencies in experience -- even to people who like the app and enjoy the benefits -- piss off the users.

You can care about that or not. Fair game. You can "worry" about how the system works or not. Still ticks people off, and people are still going to point it out.

Telling the user that their feedback isn't as important as the overall purpose of the site may also be true, but that's also not the point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> No downvote arrows appear for me either, so it's not just you. They appear on other items, so it's not just me. The item is only a day old, so it's not the "stale-out" feature. It appears to be just that item.

As with other measures PG takes to try to prevent abuse of the system, and occasional abuse by people of people on the system, it may be that there is a mechanism by which he can disable downvoting on a given item.

In this instance it wouldn't surprise me. Completely guessing here, but healthcare is one of the topics that can provoke intense reactions, and people can get very heated, and downvoting can pile on, even when it's not really justified. Replies and comments can get unpleasant, so disabling downvoting may be a defence.

I'm not defending the way the system works, and I occasionally wish it were more open, but this site is still working reasonably well despite its popularity. I think that is mostly because of the occasional draconian and obscure measure.

I've given up worrying about wrinkles like this. They still annoy me on occasion, but I shrug and move on. The site continues to decline, but less quickly than others I've been on. I accept that I won't know everything about the way the site works, and part of the reason for that enables it to continue to do so.

<comment><USER6> _"The item is only a day old, so it's not the "stale-out" feature."_

I was pretty sure that downvoting is disabled as soon as a comment is one day old. Check out the "bestcomments" list and you'll see that you can only downvote the ones that are less than 24 hours old.

I can currently downvote several of the <1-day comments on the healthcare story. But maybe I'm seeing something different from you, or it has changed since this post was made.

<comment><USER5> It appears that you're right - good call. I thought it was 2 days, perhaps that's been reduced of late.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Nothing has changed for a long time, either with HN or your account.

<comment><USER8> When _can_ we downvote a comment? Remembering this feels like remembering perl syntax.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Relax. The central thing about HN is not the ability to up- and downvote, the central thing are the submissions and their comments. Be annoyed if HN randomly disables your ability to submit or comment, don't be annoyed if you randomly can't vote.

Voting helps to create a useful structure for the content but it's not why I'm here. It's not what's fun about HN.

<comment><USER10> I think the Wikipedia folks are generally right that voting/polling has a poisonous effect on conversation--people get too wrapped up in voting up/down and score. The most important part is the article content and the substantive conversations that they create.

<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Polls_are_evil>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The recent thing about average voting score bothers me a bit. It seems to make commenting a risky business, and overall comments seem to not be welcome.

In fact, thinking about it just gave me an idea for a feature request: I might be better off if commenting was disabled for me for good. Overall I am mostly embarrassed that I wrote so many comments, and commenting wastes a lot more time than just voting.

I like to read people's comments on subjects, often there is useful additional information. Not sure what I actually gain from commenting myself, other than the "someone is wrong on the internet" effect.

<comment><USER12> I think your average karma is only visible to yourself. Or at least, I can only see mine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sorry to interrupt, but can you give me the link to the healthcare essay? I can't seem to find it.

Thanks in advance (and please don't shoot me -- I tried to find it, really).

<comment><AUTHOR> Seems like it was on page 3 or 4.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1168065>

or the direct link:

[http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=avRF...](http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=avRFGNF6Qw_w)

<comment><USER13> Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm confused why downvoting for comments matters. Or upvoting. It doesn't bury comments. It doesn't really change the conversation that happened. It doesn't really do much but give a bigger useless number to people you agree with and a smaller useless number to people you disagree with.

News.ycomb could get rid of all comment moderation and it would probably be at least as good. Maybe better. Suddenly what "Karma" means would become clear. It isn't some mixture of popularity poll and story contributor, it's just a measure of how popular the stories you've contributed would be.

My karma is over 2000, and it's almost all from comments. Maybe 100 of this karma is from stories. I consider it to be very artificial and meaningless, because most comment voting is basically "I AGREE!" or "I DISAGREE!". I wish I had karma from contributing stories that people wanted to share.

<comment><USER7> There's a lot in what you say about comment voting. It used to be useful, or at least harmless. But now HN has grown so large it has become an injection of dumbness (and often ill will) into the conversation. I plan to try to some design changes to deal with this when I have time, maybe in April. I'll probably get rid of the display of point numbers on comments.

<comment><USER15> I find comment voting tremendously useful:

\- It gives me direct feedback on whether other users found my comments insightful. I find it encouraging when I put some effort into explaining something and I get a bunch of points for it. I'd much rather get upvotes than a bunch of meaningless replies like "I agree", "good post", or "x2". (Getting substantive replies is even better, but not always warranted.)

\- It gives me an easy way to find comments others have found insightful, even if they're nested deep in a thread where they don't get auto-sorted to the top. I was actually planning to ask for highlighting on highly-rated comments -- something unobtrusive like bolding the number.

\- It gives me a way to reward/encourage those whose comments I found educational or insightful.

Downvoting can also provide an injection of dumbness or ill will into a conversation. But I would take the dumbness of downvotes over the dumbness of people saying "you're an idiot" any day.

<comment><USER16> And with voting, I don't have to say "I second this" to everything I strongly agree with or that I find very insightful.

But in case PG doesn't look at scores, I second this.

<comment><USER14> You don't have to say "I second this," even without voting.

If someone says something you like and agree with: congratulations, you have found a kindred soul, enjoy this moment of warmth in an otherwise dark and unforgiving universe. If someone says something you dislike or disagree with: if it's not worth posting a rationally and carefully written rebuttal to the post in question then it's probably not worth your time or effort, the internet is full of people who are wrong.

In general that tiny number next to posts is more an indication of things other than the quality of the ideas expressed in posts. In fact, I'd say they're not well coupled. Usually, it's more correlated with political alignments or writing quality.

<comment><USER16> Well, the idea of HN's scoring is to bring the most insightful comments to the top while burying the noise, correct? I think it generally does a decent job of this, though the scoring seems to be somewhat noisier than it used to be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> On a slightly different but related topic: I've never been able to downvote anything, neither posts nor comments. Why is that?

<comment><USER4> there are karma threshholds on doing somethings, like downvoting, flagging, and changing your top colour

<comment><USER18> For downvoting, I think it's 200.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> If you want to "come and go at a whim", you are not a part of the HN community.......simply a surfer. In that case, why does upvote/downvote/karma matter? I believe HN functionality currently disables the "hit and run" attitude.

<comment><USER20> You misunderstood the OP. He isn't saying that _he_ wants to come and go at a whim; he's saying that _what he's allowed to do by the HN software_ comes and goes at a whim. (In this case, presumably Paul Graham's whim.)</comment></comment>


The Euler Archive - <AUTHOR> http://eulerarchive.maa.org/ <comment><USER2> I read a bit of original Euler material on the elastica and Euler spiral for my PhD thesis [0] on interactive curve design, devoting two chapters to such history. I personally found it fascinating and beautiful.

[0] [http://levien.com/phd/phd.html](http://levien.com/phd/phd.html)

<comment><USER3> So it's you! I read your thesis a few years ago, and recommended it to many people. I enjoyed the figures of elastica solutions with varying parameter, and I spend my time playing with spiro paths in inkscape; sometimes you get really wicked curves. Thank you so much, I love your work!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Anyone has suggestions on good papers in English translation from the archive? Here's one that is the first published proof of Fermat's Little Theorem (link to translation at bottom of page):

[http://eulerarchive.maa.org//pages/E054.html](http://eulerarchive.maa.org//pages/E054.html)

<comment><USER5> Euler's first major work, the one that brought him fame, was his solution to the Basel problem ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basel_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basel_problem)), when he was 28. Namely, he found the sum of the reciprocals of the squares of the integer, i.e. the value of the series (1 + 1/4 + 1/9 + 1/16 + ...), to be π²/6.

According to [https://faculty.math.illinois.edu/~reznick/sandifer.pdf](https://faculty.math.illinois.edu/~reznick/sandifer.pdf) Euler gave three solutions in his 1736 paper now numbered E41: [http://eulerarchive.maa.org/pages/E041.html](http://eulerarchive.maa.org/pages/E041.html) ("De summis serierum reciprocarum" = "On the sums of series of reciprocals")

Here is Jordan Bell's translation: [https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0506415](https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0506415)

<comment><USER6> 3Blue1Brown has a beautiful explanation of the Basel problem: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-o3eB9sfls](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-o3eB9sfls)</comment></comment></comment>


Prioritizing Product Features for Beginners - <AUTHOR> http://blog.proofdev.com/prioritizing-product-features-for-beginners/

<comment><AUTHOR> Would love to get some feedback on this post. I am trying to figure out what kind of information people find most helpful.</comment>


The Doctor Who theme and beyond: female pioneers of electronic music - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07439-1 <comment><USER2> Related program: [http://www.ahoem.org/?podcast=episode-5](http://www.ahoem.org/?podcast=episode-5)

 _A History of Electronic Music_ , "Episode 5 - Tape music and electronics in performance, early computer music and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Music by Terry Riley, Jean-Claude Risset, Delia Derbyshire and many more."

BBC 1-hour podcast on Derbyshire: [https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rl2ky](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rl2ky)

Sound-On-Sound (magazine) on Radiophonic Workshop, Oram, Derbyshire, et.al. [https://www.soundonsound.com/people/story-bbc-radiophonic- wo...](https://www.soundonsound.com/people/story-bbc-radiophonic-workshop)

<comment><USER3> Those who enjoy stuff like this will probably appreciate the "Alchemists of Sound" \- a BBC Documentary on Delia Derbyshire and the early days of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

This looks like it might be the full youtube playlist plus some extras: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_rQrQRMOk4&list=PL2E3236870...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_rQrQRMOk4&list=PL2E323687061478ED)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Super good related mixtape [https://www.mixcloud.com/poemproducer/nerdgirls- for-equality...](https://www.mixcloud.com/poemproducer/nerdgirls-for-equality- diversity-and-world-peace/)</comment>


Ask HN: Shouldn't gTLDs be non-generic? - <AUTHOR> Shouldn't the gTLDs express directly the company itself?
I can understand let's say '.apple', but '.app' is just too much. Yeah, Apple runs an "App Store". But, be serious they are not the only ones and that doesn't give you any rights over such a generic TLD. The same applies for mostly all other name grabs.
If they want their own TLD kingdom then let them be, but not by powering them with such generic ones. It is so clear that these companies don't have any intention to make these TLDs publicly available.
Can anyone clarify me how these things got through? <comment><USER2> Tragedy of the commons.

Plus greed on the part of ICANN. You can only sell one .google TLD, but there are thousands of relevant words in the dictionary for anyone with a deep enough coin purse.

<comment><USER3> Greed by its own board members, too. One of them, after seeing through opening up the gTLD market... quit to start a company that filed for over a hundred TLDs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What will this mean for Chrome users who use the address bar also as a search bar for their favorite search engine. If apple, for example, owns '<http://apple>, what would happen when I type 'apple' in the search bar? What if I'm actually searching for pictures of apples? Scary stuff.

<comment><USER5> Are there any TLDs that are valid hostnames on their own? Also, will this become true for the new ones? I certainly hope not.

<comment><USER6> I don't see why they won't be valid hostnames as long as they resolve to an IP address. "localhost" is a valid hostname, too. A lot of existing software, of course, will complain that it's not a valid FQDN.

<comment><USER5> Do you know of any that work that way though? I'm just intrigued if any exist. The only example I can think of where a generic suffix resolves separately on its own too is <https://gov.uk> but that's still a second level domain.

UPDATE: Aha, "to" has an A record. It doesn't respond to an HTTP request for me but it does exist at least.

UPDATE2: OK, there are quite a lot: <http://ydal.de/a-records-on-top-level- domains/> .. <http://dk/> goes to the .dk registry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The ICANN administration is notorious for its motives. While a public organization, many of its decisions are clearly to benefit their own and are clearly not in the public benefit.

</comment><comment><USER8> Couldn't you say the same for .com domains? Is it fair that one company gets to own search.com?

<comment><USER9> I don't think so. TLDs are, by convention, categorical in a way that search.com isn't. It's problematic for a company to own a category in that way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Heh. You want to see generic, check out Verisign's applications. '.com' in a whole bunch of scripts other than Latin - they've applied for the Cyrillic script 'ком', the Hebrew script 'קוֹם', and what I assume is the same thing in a bunch of languages I don't read.

On the other hand, I'm sure they'll make them publicly available - for the right price.

<comment><USER11> There's also كوم which is 'com' in Arabic.

I'm not sure how the gTLD are supposed to work technically, but it seems to me that VeriSign made a mistake when registering the Hebrew '.com': Their version uses the Holam diacritic (the dot over the middle letter), which is not used in every-day Hebrew (it's mostly used to teach reading and to differentiate between different words with the same spelling, when such a thing might cause confusion). In any case, most computer users in Israel don't even know how to add diacritic marks, so I don't see anyone typing such an address in their browser.

<comment><USER10> Yep, I'm guessing whoever wrote the Verisign application didn't know about כתיב מלא. Whoops.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Generic gTLDs should remain free for all to use. Of course, this makes it hard for some companies whose names are generic but to me app.apple is easy enough to remember. Amazon.books? Perfect. Google.books? Works well, too. From a user/customer point of view, making generic gTLDs non-purchasable makes perfect sense.

</comment><comment><USER13> Who cares. This is just another way to fleece idiots.

How are those non-standard .cc addresses working out for everyone.

</comment><comment><USER14> I've always thought the entire TLD taxonomy was an ugly, unsystematic hack, but I can't actually think of a better way to do it.

Were any alternative methods of allocating TLDs ever proposed?

</comment><comment><USER15> Thought the same. most of those are ridiculous...

</comment><comment><USER16> The fact that apple will literally control <http://apple/> is more scary.

<comment><USER3> This thing _could_ have its benefits. If Apple grabbed .icloud, say, then people could have yourname.icloud, or something like that.

<comment><USER2> Yes, and .icloud makes a lot of sense, because it's company or product specific. .cloud makes NO sense because neither Apple nor Amazon nor any other company owns the idea of clouds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I agree with your point, but your specific example is flawed as Apple did not apply for .app.</comment>


Our Workflows with Address Sanitizer and Valgrind - <AUTHOR> https://engineering.backtrace.io/posts/sanitizers/ <comment><USER2> I'd love to check out Backtrace to see if it helps to classify and better understand the myriad of positives (false or otherwise) that are obtained when using Valgrind or AddressSanitizer with Kurento Media Server [1]

We use Glib/Gobject and Gstreamer, so there is a good amount of 3rd-party libraries that introduce quite some noise to final reports (even with the use of suppression files...) Would Backtrace help to categorize and identify false positives, and maintain suppresion lists?

I cannot believe that only today I'm discovering the existence of this tool! When was it released?

[1]: [https://www.kurento.org/](https://www.kurento.org/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Give us a spin! Would absolutely love more feedback, it has had a big impact for us already. It's free for open-source projects.

The tool for ASAN/etc... is just a few weeks old but we have been doing crash / error reporting and custom debuggers (built-in static analysis) for the last 5 years.

Welcome to also shoot me a mail at email@example.com.</comment></comment>


Bootable NASA 'SPOC' Software on Your PC - <AUTHOR> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/seattle-retrocomp/vN-gZYBUAb8 <comment><USER2> I tried booting to this with QEMU 2.6.1 with `qemu-system-x86_64 -sdl -fda nasa-spoc.img`.

It does boot but it uses some graphics mode that isn't properly emulated with QEMU, and only about half of the screen contents get displayed in the window.

edit: I got virtualbox to boot it but it's slow as molasses. Perhaps I don't have the right virtualization enabled. And I can't get the ALT (or CODE) key to work, so I can't get past the first screen.

<comment><USER3> Try mine: [https://github.com/robertely/SPOC- VirtualBox](https://github.com/robertely/SPOC-VirtualBox)

It's basically a stock VM with very low memory,minimal peripherals, and a CPU priority of 1% (even at 1% it's blazingly fast compared to the 80s)

<comment><USER2> I was using your .vbox file from GitHub. I have no idea why the ALT key isn't working. I tried changing to US keyboard layout but to no avail. I'm under Linux / x11 and I don't have any hotkeys on ALT.

The speed is perhaps 1/100th of what QEMU was putting out. May be related to not having correctly set up the virtualbox modules or something?

<comment><USER3> For speed try increasing the cpu execution cap here: [https://github.com/robertely/SPOC- VirtualBox/blob/master/SPO...](https://github.com/robertely/SPOC- VirtualBox/blob/master/SPOC-test.vbox#L24) (out of 100) incromentally till you have a reasonable speed.

Sadly I can't explain the alt problem. I suppose I could rebind that to something like the space bar and upload a modified floppy image. I will poke at that later.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Can someone explain what this does, or was used for in the real world?

<comment><USER5> I believe it's this:

"SPOC, a navigation monitoring computer used by NASA in a 1983 mission, was a modification of a commercial computer called GRiD Compass, produced by GRiD Systems Corporation. ... SPOC automatically computes position, orbital paths, communication locations, etc. Some of the modifications were adapted for commercial applications."

[http://spinoff.nasa.gov/spinoff/database/spinoffDetail.php?t...](http://spinoff.nasa.gov/spinoff/database/spinoffDetail.php?this=/spinoff//hdqs/HDQS- SO-130)

Here's an Adafruit blog post with pictures of the hardware: [https://blog.adafruit.com/2016/09/03/grids-compass-os- bootab...](https://blog.adafruit.com/2016/09/03/grids-compass-os-bootable- nasa-spoc-software-on-your-pc/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> video demo from email thread [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quHlMiwTQZs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quHlMiwTQZs)

<comment><USER7> From the video/screenshots it seems that the software is written "SPoC", not "SPOC".

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I just found the SPoC readme in the boot image. Aparnetly some people are having trouble with ALT as the CODE key, I'm looking for ways to change it.

For now this is a fascinating document: [https://github.com/robertely/SPOC- VirtualBox/blob/master/REA...](https://github.com/robertely/SPOC- VirtualBox/blob/master/README.DOC)

</comment><comment><USER8> quaalud.es (where the image is hosted) is one dodgy sounding domain hack...

</comment><comment><USER9> Good thing I have a floppy drive

</comment><comment><USER10> Works on the bare metal, reading from the bare metal oxide.

Very quick & easy.

Here's a tutorial, most of this is ordinary 21st Century floppy handling, geared toward this SPoC floppy image-

to make the 3.5inch floppy-

-Make sure all necessary PC mainboard bios settings are adjusted to fully enable Floppy, Legacy, FDD, Read/Write, USB FDD, etc.

optional quality ckecks- Quick format a 3.5inch floppy using any version of MS-DOS or Windows. Using your favorite disk editor, write F6 hex consecutively on every byte of the floppy over sectors 1 through 2879, leaving only sector 0 untouched in its formatted condition. Quick format the floppy again using any version of MS-DOS or Windows. Select a 3.5inch floppy which passes a thorough sector check fully without any defects. -using the WindowsME DOS version of SCANDISK.EXE while booted to the Windows98SE version of DOS is ideal for this diagnostic test. Other Win9x SCANDISK versions while booted to their Win9x DOS's are OK too.

Using your favorite bit copying routine, or disk editor, copy his default image to the floppy bitwise.

to boot the floppy-

Any PC made within almost 3 decades should work, as long as it supports 3.5inch 1.44MB floppies correctly. The PC does not need a hard drive, and may not need more than 128K to 512K of memory.

On modern UEFI systems you will probably need to disable Secure Boot and might need to be in Legacy, Bios Compatibility mode. \--you will likely revert these settings afterward in BIOS when you are completely finished using 20th Century SPoC

Make sure your PC bios has its setup boot order giving the appropriate floppy hardware (mainboard or USB) the highest priority. -Make sure all other necessary additional bios settings are adjusted to fully enable Floppy, Legacy, FDD, Read/Write, USB FDD, etc. \--you may or may not want to revert these settings afterward in BIOS when you are completely finished using 20th Century SPoC

As a performance check, there should be no problem booting to a Windows98 startup floppy. -a proper 64-bit mainboard handles this perfectly

Leave the SPoC floppy inserted to the drive.

Restart the PC.

It boots to the MS-DOS 3.31 on the SPoC floppy and automaticlly runs the batch file AUTOEXEC.BAT, which launches GRID.EXE \programs\spoc.run then you eventually see the Space Shuttle logo

to operate SPoC-

after the floppy boots, progress stops at the screen "GMT OF LAUNCH" where you set the GMT time of your launch, his defaults are- YEAR 1989 DAY 352 HOUR 23 MINUTE 46 SECOND 0 (you can change data on this screen if you want to by backspacing & typing) leave his defaults -you will have to accept this by typing ALT-RETURN where SPoC asks for CODE-RETURN

the next screen "Set time in GMT" is where your actual system time is displayed, and you set your actual system time on your mainboard hardware back to the 20th Century. -this GMT System time will need to be somewhat later than the above GMT Launch time, you will be using your system to plot the course of the Shuttle starting from your point in time after the launch had taken place- DAY 354 HOUR 15 MINUTE 41 YEAR 1989 -accept this by typing ALT-RETURN where SPoC asks for CODE-RETURN _if "CAUTION: Vector more than 2 days old" message appears, the system date is more than two days later than the most recent vector data (shown on the following screen). \--After you you are completely finished using 20th Century SPoC, you will have to correct your system time back to the 21st Century before your PC will be normal again.

the next screen "M50 STATE VECTOR (KFT) WITH GMT TIME TAG" has your "recent" Shuttle coordinates at a certain GMT time later than the launch, there is no year entry, it is assumed to be less than 2 days earlier than your newly-set 1989 system time. his defaults are- Day (GMT) 353 Hour (GMT) 0 Minute (GMT) 59 Second (GMT) 35 leave his defaults -accept this by typing ALT-RETURN where SPoC asks for CODE-RETURN "Inclination" & "Approx. orbit" info appears -accept this by typing ALT-RETURN where SPoC asks for CODE-RETURN _if "CAUTION: Vector more than 2 days old" message appears, the vector date is more than two days earlier than your 1989 system time.

the next screen gives you the option to display the World Map, select "DISPLAY WORLD MAP" with the up/down arrow keys, then ALT-RETURN where SPoC asks for CODE-RETURN \- or - accept this by typing ALT-M where SPoC asks for the CODE-M shortcut

the next screen gives you the option to select the communication and observation features select "INVOKE DEFAULT COMMUNICATION SITES" with the up/down arrow keys, then ALT-RETURN where SPoC asks for CODE-RETURN \- or - accept this by typing ALT-D where SPoC asks for the CODE-D shortcut

now you get the "live" map as the Shuttle orbits in "real" 20th Century time.

to stop the map and return to its menu- type ALT-ESC where SPoC would normally want CODE-ESC -you return to the previous menu

to restart the map or exit to DOS 3.31- select using the up/down arrow keys, then ALT-RETURN where SPoC asks for CODE-RETURN \- or - restart map by typing ALT-M or exit to DOS by typing ALT-ESC

in DOS while booted to the floppy, at the A> prompt-

restart SPoC by typing- grid \programs\spoc.run \- or - a:\grid \programs\spoc.run

to start only the GRID emulator itself, at the A> prompt type- grid \- or - a:\grid

when within GRID- -use ALT-Q followed by ALT-RETURN to QUIT -use ALT-ESC followed by ALT-RETURN to CANCEL

reboot to the floppy by leaving it inserted and simultaneously holding CTRL- ALT-DEL \- or - shut down from DOS using the power button on the PC

\--After you are finished using the SPoC floppy, you will have to revert your system time back to the correct 21st Century time in BIOS before you fully boot back to your regular modern operating system.

\--On modern UEFI systems this is also the time to return the Legacy, Bios Compatibility mode and Secure Boot settings to your preferred options for modern operating system usage.

hope this helps</comment>


How to Avoid a Malicious Attack That Ransoms Your Data - <AUTHOR> https://www.mongodb.com/blog/post/how-to-avoid-a-malicious-attack-that-ransoms-your-data <comment><USER2> So basically: we don't do secure by default. It's your own damn fault you didn't read all the documentation...

<comment><USER3> Digital Ocean saved my butt by notifying me a few months ago that a MongoDB instance I had was wide open.

My mistake was coming from the PostgreSQL world were it's secure by default - you have to jump through hoops to get a DB even visible to the internet let alone with read/write access.</comment></comment>


Modern MVP infographics (explanation) - <AUTHOR> Hi guys, is someone knows the best (by your thoughts) graphical explanation, or infographic about MVP for startups. <comment><AUTHOR> looks like I just found one interesting

[https://www.cleveroad.com/public/comercial/mvt_infographic.j...](https://www.cleveroad.com/public/comercial/mvt_infographic.jpg)</comment>


What Else Is Revealed by Order-Revealing Encryption? - <AUTHOR> https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/786 <comment><USER2> Previous discussion about forthcoming work in this area:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11903356#11905582](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11903356#11905582)

But the person who promised to share new work isn't one of these authors (though is cited by them for an older paper), so that must have been a different research project!</comment>


Google.com/killer-robots.txt - <AUTHOR> https://www.google.com/killer-robots.txt

<comment><USER2> __For those who missed this story __:

Its the 20 year anniversary of the robots.txt file.

The new Google Easter Egg robots.txt was uploaded recently, on the anniversary of the Robots.txt file.

You can access the new Robots file at google.com/killer-robots.txt.

The new File Reads as:

User-Agent: T-1000

User-Agent: T-800

Disallow: /+LarryPage

Disallow: /+SergeyBrin

 __T-1000 and T-800 are the different versions of Terminators for the movie series, The Terminator. Here its telling these two killer robots to not kill the Google founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Pun Intended.

Now Larry & Sergey are safe enough.

<comment><USER3> There's more to it. At Google I/O a protestor interrupted a presentation to yell that Google made killer robots. There have been a lot of jokes internally about it. This is probably playing on that as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Funny but also a bit scary to think that Google now owns some of the most advanced 'killer' robots. Is Google going to continue providing robots to the DoD or are they going to let those contracts expire?

There was even a protester at Google I/O.

Petman[1] vs. T-800[2]

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFrjrgBV8K0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFrjrgBV8K0) [2] [http://www.cinemaquette.com/sites/default/files/image_galler...](http://www.cinemaquette.com/sites/default/files/image_gallery/cinemaquette_maquette_t800_6.jpg)

<comment><USER5> Sending robots into combat is better than sending humans I suppose

<comment><USER6> Only for the country employing them... What if the Americans will have "freedom robots" who will "liberate" those poor middle eastern countries, who will never be able to afford something like that? Will there still be a reason to back down when there are no American soldier's lifes at stake?

<comment><USER7> _Only for the country employing them..._

That still counts.

 _Will there still be a reason to back down when there are no American soldiers ' lives at stake?_

Yes. It's not like the Americans' decision-makers' lives have been on the line in this war anyway.

<comment><USER6> > It's not like the Americans' decision-makers' lives have been on the line in > this war anyway.

Right, they're not. They do still have to convince their people and the families of their soldiers that it wasn't an absolute waste of life to send the soldiers into death. There will be no such concerns with robots, because hey, who cares? It's just a small % of funding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Funny that they're among the closest to create Skynet:

«sorry, we were just creating a ads targeting system, but we screwed an if condition...»

Or did they already do it, and they're saving their asses?

</comment><comment><USER9> Am I going nuts, or was this on the front page of HN only a couple of days ago?

<comment><USER10> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7979909](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7979909)

<comment><USER11> Maybe it would be a good idea for HN to chop off the protocol when comparing to old posts?

<comment><USER10> [https://github.com/HackerNews/HN/issues/84](https://github.com/HackerNews/HN/issues/84)

<comment><USER11> Ah. Those are good reasons not do it, but maybe a middle ground that a warning could be shown? Duplicate posts like this are usually a simple case of not knowing it has been said before, so a warning would be enough to nip it in the bud. Ohwell, not really the correct thread for these thoughts :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> There's Google being evil again! Why not disallow * and be done with it?

<comment><USER13> This wildcard would match other killer robots, possibly those with no disallows at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> No love for +EricSchmidt?

</comment><comment><USER15>
      Google is built by a large team of engineers, designers, researchers, robots, and
      others in many different sites across the globe. It is updated continuously,
      and built with more tools and technologies than we can shake a stick at. If
      you'd like to help us out, see google.com/careers.

[https://www.google.com/humans.txt](https://www.google.com/humans.txt)

</comment><comment><USER16> According to a friend there was someone at the Keynote of Google I/O shouting about how Google builds killer robots. This seems to be the response.

</comment><comment><USER17> I wonder how long this has been there.

<comment><USER11> Last-Modified: Tue, 01 Jul 2014 22:03:05 GMT according to the headers. It probably hasn't been up for much longer than that, or it would have been found already.</comment></comment>


Killing lava monsters and helping Marines - <AUTHOR> http://www.killfoot.com/2012/03/22/how-i-solved-a-personal-problem-with-marines-mil/

<comment><AUTHOR> Lava Monsters = <http://youtu.be/lDZ2fMHTvwk></comment>


Companies still bending finance rules, Enron boss warns - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34742691 <comment><USER2> Sounds like Fastow is on the self promotion bandwaggon. How would he know anyway? Isn't he band from being within 100 miles of a balance sheet?

<comment> jon-wood According to the article he now consults for companies to tell them whether what they're doing is either legal or ethical, and more interestingly to me, hedge funds that are looking for companies to go short on in preparation for their finances being found illegal.</comment></comment>


Making WebAssembly better for Rust and for all languages - <AUTHOR> https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/03/making-webassembly-better-for-rust-for-all-languages/ <comment><USER3> One thing that continues to amaze me is that WebAssembly isn't being discussed more outside of the context of the web. Think about it just as a format that (a) is low-level enough to support performance tricks, (b) is fast to turn into native code, and (c) easy to check.

Compilers could stop worrying about obscure/old architectures. Deploying an application onto multiple platforms is no longer a problem. Sandboxing is much simpler. Formal verification becomes possible (the WebAssembly spec actually reads like a spec, unlike the C standard which reads more like a religious text).

I'm so excited about WebAssembly, but really not because of the web.

<comment><USER4> This has been tried many times in the history of computing (ANDF/TenDRA, JVM, NaCL, P-code, TIMI, etc). What's different this time?

<comment><USER3> What other low-level format supports my points (a), (b), and (c)? And has an actual spec?

EDIT: you've since added some examples. Here are my (very subjective) opinions:

\- The JVM isn't really all that low-level - it eeks out a lot of performance at runtime. Plus, you need to have GC, which tends to increase memory requirements and complicate real-time constraints.

\- NaCL was interesting but its spec wasn't as good. IIRC Google didn't do too much in the way of asking for public input. I think some folks had some security concerns too. I really like WebAssembly's spec - I don't see any typing judgements or small-step rules for NaCL.

\- Wasn't ANDF unix-bound?

<comment><USER5> I'm not very familiar with the various jvm profiles - but isn't javacard pretty light? (the stuff that runs on similar cards and such)?

<comment><USER6> Yes but you're still bound to java semantics. Java is very high level. Almost everything except the blessed primtives long/int/short/byte is an object. This is not a suitable target for lower level languages like C.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > we can use the ES module API. With this, working with WebAssembly modules > should be as easy as importing them.

> import {myFunction} from "myModule.wasm"

> We're working with TC39 and the WebAssembly community group to standardize > this.

Note that this is already possible using Webpack 4.

<comment><USER8> And Parcel, and hopefully others in the future!

<comment><USER9> Does it work with Node.js?

<comment><USER8> Yup! The most recent Node LTS includes wasm support without a flag, previous versions required you to include a flag.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Looking forward to ref types[0] and host bindings[1] so this stuff doesn't get too JS-specific. The former has seen a good bit of activity recently.

0 - [https://github.com/WebAssembly/reference- types](https://github.com/WebAssembly/reference-types) 1 - [https://github.com/WebAssembly/host- bindings](https://github.com/WebAssembly/host-bindings)

</comment><comment><USER11> A friend was recently trying to use webassembly from rust and ran into an issue where he couldnt use anything that depended on rust's random - <USER2> it depended on a nano scale clock from the system. With problems like meldown/spectre, how could this even be resolved in the future? Would anything that depended on that need to use a random function from js instead?

<comment><USER12> Maybe eventually if retpoline robustly resolves the issue of speculative execution, the high precision clock access could be restored?

<comment><USER6> Alternatively the problem could be fixed directly in the hardware.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > This is because JS is a good choice for most things.

It really isn't, though. Maybe less bad with ES6. I feel like this was thrown in to mollify the scores of people who <strike>wasted their lives with</strike> invested a lot into javascript.

I know the unfortunate story of how javascript came to be the "web language". It's a shame even a tiny bit more thought didn't go into it.

</comment><comment><USER14> wasm-bindgen looks Awesome. Definitely the most painful part of using wasm/emscripten and looks like a very clean solution.

</comment><comment><USER5> > One of the hardest parts of working with WebAssembly is getting different > kinds of values into and out of functions. That's because WebAssembly > currently only has two types: integers and floating point numbers.

So... The only overlap between Javascript and webassembly is floating point numbers? Are they the same type of floating point?

And is the conversion unicode-string > js float > ws int - or something else?

Or does js have integers now?

<comment><USER15> JS doesn't have integer, but its Number is really just a double, which has a 52 bit mantissa, meaning it can hold any 8, 16 or 32 bit integer. Only 64 bit integers are unable to be stored in a double, which is why the WASM->JS interface doesn't allow them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The article talks about being able to integrate into the JavaScript "ecosystem," but for me the excitement of WebAssembly is that I can avoid JavaScript and an object system that is fundamentally unsuitable for anything other than static word-processor-like documents. (Which, to be fair, is what HTML was designed to be.)

We know how to write a UI library, I think the basic components are pretty well-defined. Qt and NextStep (surviving to some extent in Cocoa) are well- regarded. Java Swing is okay. So if we could get a real UI library for use in the browser, instead a JavaScript framework poorly re-inventing it, that would be wonderful. And, best of all, it doesn't have to be in JavaScript!

<comment><USER17> Why does nobody think of accessibility when they indulge in these weird 1980's-style-ui-library-in-a-browser fantasies?

<comment><USER18> With web assembly you don't have to write a lick of javascript to write a guide in some other language that uses a completely accessible dom tree under the hood, provided your library provides the glue (like the rust library Yew).

There's no reason one couldn't wrote a UI frame work like the ones mentioned by the parent that use the dom under the covers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> >> One big 2018 goal for the Rust community is to become a web language.

Without DOM access I fail to see how that would happen. So until WASM gets DOM access no other language(except JS) can become a(first class) web language.

What is JavaScript without DOM access?

<comment><USER8> You can access the DOM, but you have to call into JS, which adds some overhead. When people say "DOM access," they mean native, not through JS. Check out the stdweb crate.

Even then, there's tons of logic you want to execute in the browser that aren't related to UI. For example, any sort of number crunching. That stuff is now feasible, which opens up all kinds of applications.

<comment><USER20> To add a specific example here, I've recently compiled a roguelike I'm working on to WASM, not knowing what to expect when I started.

This required only a handful of changes across the codebase (mostly handling external resources such as the filesystem and the random generator) and then implementing a bit of JavaScript that took the drawcalls from the WASM core and rendered them on the canvas. And vice-versa, a bit of JS that passed the browser input into the WASM game.

Since the original game had no concept of a DOM, it didn't matter to it. I think WASM can be huge for browser games.

But like Steve said, you can call any JavaScript function and manipulate the DOM that way. At least for Rust, there's also a library that does this for you. So you can have Rust code that uses a DOM API and the WASM <-> JS bridge is handled for you:

[https://github.com/koute/stdweb](https://github.com/koute/stdweb)

<comment><USER21> The bridge is currently VERY slow though. Like 10x slower than doing it in JS, sometimes worse.

<comment><USER22> Then applications in WASM will have to reduce the number of these calls until it gets native.

This can be easily achieved by buffering calls to the DOM and merging batches of actions together (you could probably even divide DOM actions into priority queues to improve reaction time at expense of throughput in less important UI elements)

<comment><USER6> I'm wondering if it would make sense to have a virtual DOM inspired by react. This would be faster than direct DOM access via a bridge.

<comment><USER22> A vastly simplified DOM if anything. I imagine each language will use native objects, like how .NET did it for a while.

But I don't think languages will interact with the DOM extensively once it has been properly abstracted.

One major difficulty would be to have it available quickly so a page refresh doesn't take until the WASM binary has sorted out it's internal state.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> _> This is because JS is a good choice for most things._

That's why it's one of few languages: 1) with mainstream transpilation; 2) more than one transpiler.

<comment><USER24> Isn't that simply because, until recently, JS had a "monopoly" on languages you could use inside a browser?

<comment><USER25> Yes, that's the only reason anyone has voluntarily used JavaScript.

<comment><USER26> This, is false. for many (some, if you prefer) use cases javascript is perfect.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Prevalidator – Powered by Prevalidator - <AUTHOR> http://prevalidator.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Prevalidator is a showcase which puts new startup ideas in front of the crowd. Users interact with projects by commenting, rating, sharing and direct liaison with project owners. Users can also prebuy products at significant discounts. Users can signup for individual projects and project owners will receive their contact information to enable them to build their own potential user lists. Prevalidator will have a large registered user database providing a "built in" audience for projects. Unregistered users can also view, but not interact with projects.The platform measures all interactions and uses an algorithm to calculate project popularity and validity of the concept/idea. The concept was built around the principles of simplifying validation, user acquisition and product development based on early adopter feedback for new startups.</comment>


Free: a Tactic, not a Business Model - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2007/03/13/free-a-tactic-not-a-business-model <comment><AUTHOR> Great Comment:

Anne,

Offering your content or service for free implies that you need to rely on an advertising based business model. If you aspire to build a big online media business (say $50m in revenues) you can do it in one of three ways:

1\. If you're broad reach, you need to grow to be one of the top 10 websites in the US by traffic 2\. If you're demographically targeted, you need to grow to be one of the top 25 websites in the US 3\. If you have content that attracts endemic advertisers, you need to grow to be one of the top 150 websites in the US

Analysis and math that gets to these conclusions is at the Lightspeed Venture Partners blog (click on my name in this comment). jeremy liew on March 13th, 2007 at 12:27 PM

</comment><comment><USER2> There are some crazy good comments.

(Josh Morgan):

The "business model" for many of these companies is to get acquired before their money runs out. If that is the "actual" business objective, as opposed to the publicly stated one, then FREE is a business model because it allows them to grow more quickly.

On a personal note, I don't think this is sustainable or smart for the long run.</comment>


The Future of Biography - <AUTHOR> https://thewalrus.ca/the-future-of-biography/ <comment><USER2> > When you download future biographies of, say, Leonard Cohen or Justin > Trudeau, with one tap you'll be able to watch a concert version of > "Hallelujah" or the filial eulogy to Trudeau père.

This has been the promise of the web since the beginning. I'm willing to bet that by 2047, this still isn't a thing (using the beginning of the WWW and then going forward that many years).

> Plenty of tomorrow's biographers will bypass print altogether.

The death of paper has been predicted many times. We use more paper now than we did then.

> Podcasts and YouTube biopics free their creators from the constraints of > linear chronology in a way that is harder to achieve with the written word.

A. No, it's not really harder. And B. the biopic has existed for as long as films and it has not killed the written biography.

> Charlotte Gray (charlottegray.ca) is a historian whose latest book is The > Promise of Canada: 150 Years—People and Ideas That Have Shaped Our Country.

And she promotes her own book. Which I find ironic given the article about how books are done. Why not a podcast or YouTube series that can free her from the constraints of the written word? Basically she wrote a biography of Canada.

</comment><comment><USER3> Stopped reading at _" how many readers will want a heavyweight linear narrative about a Dead White Male?"_

<comment><USER4> I do find Robert Caro awfully hard going. Having said that, when the DWM is LBJ, I would be open to reading a less minutely documented linear biography.

Based on what I see on bookshelves, DWM biographies (of presidents, military leaders, sports figures) still do sell.</comment></comment>


Help from HN: Investor wants to sue me - <AUTHOR>

Hi all,
Throwaway here. I'm 21, I raised investment from an angel when I was 18 (or 19) - <£100k, but a decent chunk of money. I raised this money in the days before I knew how stuff worked, and before I'd "learned my lessons" like, outsourcing your software dev rarely ends well. Hindsight is a fabulous thing.
Fast forward to now, we're 2 years into the investment, the money ran out 6 months ago, I stopped getting paid 12 months ago and we've been trying to make it work/recover ever since. I've even put all of the money I had into this (keeping the servers on etc).
Now I've been offered a job, it literally fell into my lap with a group of guys I used to work for - good salary, back in the city doing what I used to. Its brought us to a bit of a cross-roads because obviously I won't have the time to put into this to make it work.
(I have to accept the job due to financial commitments)
We've put a lot of blood sweat and tears into this.
I should preface this with, our investor isn't technical, and he's a bit direct - he believes what he believes and thats it.
Ultimately, he wants to sue us based on 2 things:
1) in the contract, he would give us the second batch of money when we told him the tech worked. This provision was there because they were worried we couldn't actually make the tech.
When our developers finished the code, we checked it and signed it off. The tech was then delivered to us.
We sat down post-second batch and said "hey, if we want this to fly off the shelves we have a few things we might want to add/change". The changes we made improved on what we had, and also allowed us to go after new markets. We discussed this with him and he agreed - he even wanted to send me abroad to where our developers were based.
He's now saying that we're in breach of contract because it should have been working when we said it was. Even though, well, it was and he agreed we should make the changes. As you software guys know you can add a couple of things and improve something massively. Its not as though its ever really "finished".
I even demo'd the software to him at his house. He saw it work.
I have a letter from the developers saying the software works.
2) in the email with the scanned letter confirming "the tech was working" our FD said "we're real excited we can get out and sell, and talk to the patent guys". We spoke to the patent guys who said we didn't really have anything patentable, we just had business methods and algorithms (and we're based in the UK) - he advised us to use the money to develop the product and work on competitive advantages.
This point came out of nowhere, two or three months after I think I managed to convince him his opinion about the tech above - was wrong. He said we'd promised to patent it, even though we just said we were going to look into it. He refuses to accept that we were advised otherwise.
----
I guess having written this I don't really know what I expect anyone to say. I guess if someone can answer the question "does he have any grounds to sue me/us?"
The thing is - none of the information he has, or has spoken to his lawyers about has come direct from the software developers, or from the patent attorney. He has formed an opinion literally from discussions we've had, he's interpreted some things completely wrong. I'm not talking about things that perhaps he could see differently, but in a way a non-techy would look at a software project. He doesn't appreciate that its not like solid goods, they have bugs, things might need to be changed when you get some customers testing it.
He's really difficult, his response to "the developers have written a letter saying the software worked when we signed the agreement and the patent attorney told us not to patent it" is just to repeat his earlier point.
He's literally going to sue us just because he can. I may very well go bankrupt, which to be honest doesn't really bother me. Our FD might have to put his hand in his pocket. I say that knowing that he has to win first, and I actually don't think we've done anything wrong. There is just no telling him.
If anyone can lend any advice I'd be greatly appreciative, I just don't think this is going to end well.
Can he sue us? What should I do? What do you think? What would you do?
Major thanks in advance. <comment><USER2> Usually the protection against an investor suing a startup is that no startup in the future would take his money. But of course that only works if the investor wants to invest in more startups in the future. Does he?

Incidentally, this is one (of many) reasons it's better to take money from experienced angels. They have a brand to preserve.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi - thanks for replying, much appreciated. No, he invests in anything that can make him money (property, clothing etc). He has maybe two or three tech investments.

You're absolutely right about taking money from experienced angels, I'd add always take money from somebody who understands the sector. Seems obvious, I know.

<comment><USER2> If he wants to invest in more startups, it may work to point out to him how tightly connected the founder community is. He may simply not realize the cost of maltreating you. But an investor suing a startup he invested in is so rare that a story about it could not fail to attract the attention of every other startup in his market.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Sit down with your investor and work something out. If you just split you may be dooming his investment. You need to offer him a path that could possibly lead to him recouping his investment at some point in the future. Can you find a replacement? Can you give up some equity? Since you are done, is there anything you can do to make things easier?

<comment><USER4> Agree on this, but find a replacement (or firm) that will be willing to take on the project and work with the investor to make sure it gets done.

<comment><USER3> I sort of agree with everyone who says "talk to a lawyer", but once you start communicating via lawyers it's more likely that everyone loses. When I say sit down, I suggest meeting in some neutral territory in an off the record context. If you are past this then you need to lawyer up.

<comment><USER5> Everything posted here suggests that these guys are WAY past the point of amicable resolution. Given the (now total) destruction of goodwill trust between the parties, there is no reasonable expectation of their salvaging a working relationship. Accordingly, the only course of action is for both sides to cut their losses and move on.

Unfortunately, the investor seems to have little interest in simply moving on. Assuming that the OP is being accurate about his own limited finances, it's fair to say that the investor has no hope of recovering even a fraction of his ~$150k. Accordingly, this is not a rational (if exceedingly hard-nosed) attempt to recover money. Rather, it looks like an emotional, vindictive, and exceedingly ill-advised attempt to destroy another human being, which is pretty much the opposite of moving on.

This would remain true even if the OP had actively defrauded the investor, who'd naturally feel that his attempt to inflict pain was entirely justified. Indeed, in the event of outright fraud, the desire for serious retribution would be normal - even healthy. But the fact remains that, faced with an individual whose only discernible motive is inflicting maximum personal damage, you have precisely zero room to negotiate, unless you considers a discussion about which kneecap to sacrifice a 'negotiation'.

Assuming that the OP acted in good faith (which his own significant financial contributions suggest he did), he still has some leverage in his ability keep what appears to be egregious conduct on the part of the investor confidential. Obviously, a trial would mean full public disclosure of the guy's true nature - something which could have significant impact on his other investments. A good lawyer would recognize this immediately, and use it to maximum effect when responding. More importantly, a good lawyer would be able to make credible threats a way that it consistent with the law, which is something that the OP is almost certainly unable to safely do on his own.

One more thing the OP has in his favor is a clear appreciation that a loss would be personally catastrophic, which makes him far more dangerous in a fight. Indeed, the investor may have overplayed his hand by insisting on his full pound of flesh. With bankruptcy a foregone conclusion, the investor's irrational, go-for-the-jugular approach frees the OP to become VERY aggressive in his own defense. This is something else that a good lawyer will recognize as a valuable piece of leverage, and will use to maximum effect. As a wise fortune cookie once said, "never chase a dog into a dead-end alley".

<comment><USER3> I agree with what you are saying for the most part. The relationship seems trashed. However, I don't think that the investor is at a disadvantage legally, at least he wouldn't be in the US. Here the legal system is the perfect tool for a rich individual/organization to bully and harass anyone without a sizeable legal warchest. See: Scientology. So my advice is still to try every diplomatic strategem you can. Don't just assume this investor is just a total dick. There is some evidence to the contrary: he funded this young guy in the first place. If it is all about emotion, then try to find a psychological solution.

<comment><USER5> From what I understand, UK law recognizes this avenue for abuse, and responds (in a way American law doesn't) by making a suit's loser automatically responsible for their opponent's legal costs.

It's also worth noting that bullies (which is something the investor seems to be in spades) are famously unresponsive to anything but genuine fear and humiliation. It's a big part of what makes them such a scourge, since peaceful people of good will are so naturally reluctant to respond in kind. All the more reason to hire an experienced lawyer, since they're not only capable of making credible and effective threats, but can safely do so within the narrow, and highly technical constraints permitted by law.

If the OP is still interested in being diplomatic, he can honestly say that he and his investor have found themselves at a legal impasse that their contract did not clearly anticipate. For this reason, he's retained a lawyer to advise him on what's likely to be the most mutually beneficial resolution, and will be letting this individual handle the conversation from here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Honestly, talk to an experienced litigation lawyer, yes it might cost you some money but it can potentially save an awful lot of grief.

Trying to handle things yourself and being "reasonable" probably won't work - I know from a nasty experience when I was a start up founder and a customer who I was very friendly with turned round one day and sued us over an IP issue - probably the most stressful experience I've ever had.

NB If you are in Scotland I can probably recommend a suitable lawyer if you want.

</comment><comment><USER7> You've made a mistake writing all of this and placing it in public. It can now be used in court in any way his attorney sees fit. Don't talk to anyone or ask for anyone's advice. Get a lawyer now and turn it the case over to him or her ASAP.

</comment><comment><USER8> He is suing you because you can't get a patent (2) and you wanted to fix some bugs (1) which you did?

So why haven't you made him any money, which would make him want to be your friend? Was there ever a plan to make money?

</comment><comment><USER9> Talk to a laywer please.</comment>