A Program from a 35 Year Old Magazine for BASIC Month and a Chat with Its Author - <AUTHOR> http://www.bytecellar.com/2017/10/03/a-program-from-a-35-year-old-magazine-for-basic-month-and-a-chat-with-its-author/ <comment><USER2> At the People's Computer Company (PCC) we published many BASIC (and other programs) beginning in the early 1970s in a number of publications: PCC Newspaper, Personal Computing, Recreational Computing, and Doctor Dobb's Journal. We also ran storefront computer facilities where people (kids and adults) could rent time on a TTY connected to a computer. Most of the computers we used for that were DEC PDP-8s.

One of our most popular books was _What to Do After You Hit Return_ , [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_to_Do_After_You_Hit_Retur...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_to_Do_After_You_Hit_Return). It remains, to this day, a classic.

Typing in a program from a magazine or book was always a crapshoot unless you really understood and could change the program simply because of the large number of different dialects of BASIC.

Microsoft BASIC eventually became a "standard" of sorts, but that was later.

<comment><USER3> I hated Mircosoft BASIC in the 80s. Platforms like the C64 had widespread appeal but the BASIC it shipped always felt backwards compared to other micro computers I used in that era. But then we were spoilt in the UK with the likes of BBC BASIC (Acorn - the same company that gave us the ARM CPU) and Locomotive BASIC (Amstrad).

<comment><USER4> That's more on Commodore than Microsoft. They kept using the cheap bare-bones Microsoft BASIC license they got for the original PET on all their subsequent computers even though later versions were much better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If I were somehow transported back to 1983 in front of my TI/99-4a... I'd run outside to smell the grass, then head up the hill with some friends in tow to sit among the oak trees and talk about dragons and fairy lands, and only after the sun was solidly beyond the horizon and we'd eaten our ice cream and I'd let my father beat me in chess, would I lay out the list of companies he needed to invest in. I'd watch him prosper from afar until I was able to wedge my foot in solidly at IBM/MS and tell old Mr. Gates to open his eyes (and wallet) to make those dinosaurs at IBM look into what they were doing with the Amiga and Atari ST. I would drive broadband-over-cable while people were still using it to watch soft core skin flicks on Showtime, I'd show people how to implement Deflate and kick the mouse out of petek's hand before he added macros to word documents. I'd...

</comment><comment><USER6> There are lots of people like this with fascinating stories to tell about being the first programmer or systems specialist at a company back in the 70s or 80s or early 90s. Sometimes people share their stories right here on HN and they are always a joy to read (well, at least for me). So many internal and external dynamics at the companies as they transitioned to using software, databases, etc. For the people running the tech, there were huge challenges, yet there were also opportunities to grow.

Incidentally, I used to try out some of the BASIC programs in the magazines (usually the shorter ones) on my VIC 20 but I rarely got them to work. Not sure if that was a result of a typo on the printed page, or a typo on my screen, but when I did get something to run, it really felt like an accomplishment.

<comment><USER7> Because I was young and did not have much pocket money, I would get only the cheap magazines which were written, printed and carefully stapled by a bunch of volunteers. They usually had unclear characters, so you had to debug it. Which was annoying then, but great in hindsight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Typing BASIC from magazines was one thing, I also remember the densely packed pages of hexadecimal that you had to type in for the machine code programs. (Each line checksummed to try to catch mistakes - I remember as a terribly naive 10 year old thinking I had invented a way of only having to type in the checksum to enter the program!)

I also enjoyed being reminded of the incredibly hyperbolic write-ups the magazines used to give the games (you can see the one for the article in the photo). You would read lurid tales of battles against space aliens, then you'd type it in and it would be guiding an ASCII character through a maze with the slow as molasses reponse time that was the hallmark of 8-bit BASIC.

</comment><comment><USER9> Coincidentally, I recently located my first published BASIC game in an 80's magazine, on archive.org: [https://archive.org/details/1984-12-compute- magazine](https://archive.org/details/1984-12-compute-magazine) (page 79 if you're truly curious)

Back in that era I worked for Compute! magazine as an "editorial programmer". People would submit BASIC games to the magazine for some particular 8-bit micro (as in the linked story above), and it was the job of the editorial programmers to port the game to other computers. I did the Apple ][ ports. I got the job (high school, so after school) through a friend who did the C64 ports.

<comment><USER10> I miss reader service cards. :-/

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> My place of employment still runs on BASIC. Inventory management, shipping, order processing, invoicing, accounting, purchase orders. It's kind of a nightmare. It works. But, it's a nightmare.

<comment><USER12> Is it a nightmare because of Basic or because of the development and maintenance practices?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> i feel really bad now, i'm pretty sure i pirated his bbs software.

<comment><USER14> He just purchased an airport, so I think he did okay anyway. But you could always retroactively donate the money to a charity in his name.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Huh. I did the same a few weeks ago on a TS1500, my first computer :) [https://youtu.be/aHXDAOv8AQA](https://youtu.be/aHXDAOv8AQA)

</comment><comment><USER16> This is amazing. I can remember typing in that program in the 80s.

<comment><USER17> I totally remember that article and how pissed I was that I didn't have the extended basic cartridge. I loved that magazine, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Great read. I really enjoy hearing people's career stories, it is interesting where you can end up after 35 years of work.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'd like to see basic (or equivalent) for simple logic, but have the OO and more advanced techniques offset to another language. something simpler than lua, maybe similar to sql.

<comment><USER20> Like GAMBAS and FreeBASIC, even VB.net ?

[http://gambaswiki.org/wiki/def/class](http://gambaswiki.org/wiki/def/class)

[https://www.freebasic.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11804](https://www.freebasic.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11804)</comment></comment>


Millennials returning to Puerto Rico, launching startups - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/08/05/us/puerto-ricans-millennials-start-ups-small-business.html?referer=http://m.facebook.com <comment><USER2> I was born and raised in Puerto Rico, but left to work in tech. As with any place, there's some good points and there's some bad points. Below are some points that someone moving to Puerto Rico might want to know.

In my opinion, their greatest achievement has been in its educational system. Despite its huge list of problems, UPR enables people of any background to receive an affordable high quality college education. In the US, you're basically forced to take out huge loans that might take decades to pay off. This should mean you'll get access to lots of highly educated individuals, although I don't know if that's the case in practice.

One of my biggest complaints is its poor representation in the US government. If you're living in Puerto Rico you can't vote in any of the US's elections, even though the actions of the president and congress could potentially affect you. e.g. You could get drafted and sent off to war.

Puerto Rico has its own constitution [0], which arguably grants stronger rights to its citizens than the US constitution. For example, wire-tapping is explicitly illegal. It also includes entries allowing employees to organize into associations and collectively negotiate with their employers, as well as go on strike.

An interesting point is that everyone is required to get a voter ID in order to participate in an election. This isn't seen as a problem, and getting one is incredibly easy. I found it incredibly surprising this wasn't the case in the US.

Food is amazing, but there's very little variety. Since there's so few people from different cultural backgrounds, you mostly get the same templates repeated everywhere. In the last decade it has been slowly improving. If you're a vegan or vegetarian, or if you require a gluten-free diet (i.e. coeliac disease), you'll have a hard time eating out.

Due to cabotage laws, you can't import directly to Puerto Rico. Everything has to go through a US port, which translates to increased costs.

Shipping stuff to Puerto Rico is usually more expensive than shipping stuff to the contiguous United States. I'd guess it's comparable to Hawaii.

Even though both English and Spanish are considered official languages, you'll have a very hard time living there if you don't know Spanish.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Puerto_Rico](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Puerto_Rico)

<comment><USER3> Isn't there a crime problem? The murder rate in PR is like 30% higher than it is in Mexico...

<comment><USER4> To summarize, Puerto Rico's murder rate is higher than the murder rate of the USA and Mexico but no place in Puerto Rico is as deadly as the deadliest places in the USA and Mexico. Allow me to explain.

Using statistics from 2014 (because that's when I last did the research) San Juan's murder rate was lower than the murder rate of Detroit, New Orleans, St. Louis, Baltimore, Newark, and Oakland. It was a tad worse than Chicago. It's also important to keep in mind that most murders in Puerto Rico are the result of gang on gang warfare and just like everywhere else there are some good neighborhoods and some bad neighborhoods. Compared to Mexico San Juan's murder rate is a fraction of the murder rate of cities like Acapulco and lower than infamous border cities like Tijuana.

Puerto Rico as a whole has a higher murder rate than the USA and Mexico because of its ridiculously high population density. It's a small island (roughly the size of Connecticut) but it has one of the highest population densities in the states. Even in rural areas you're only a stone's throws away from your neighbor. In the USA and Mexico, however, you average the murder rate of thousands of safe and quiet towns with the murder rate of a few bad cities so you end up with relatively good numbers.

To give you some perspective, if you were to choose between Mexico and Puerto Rico without intimate knowledge of the two places you would probably choose Mexico because it has a lower murder rate than Puerto Rico. But if you were to choose between Acapulco and San Juan you would definitely choose San Juan because its murder rate is less than a third than the murder rate of Acapulco even though San Juan is Puerto Rico's deadliest city.

<comment><USER5> Lies, damn lies and statistics in practice.

What I mean is statistics can be considerably more misleading when the methodology is not explained. I found your comment incredibly helpful in understanding the point you were making.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > They are motivated both by an urge to help lift Puerto Rico out of its > quagmire, but also by a profound attachment to the island — its beaches and > countryside, its friendliness, its intimacy and the tug of family.

They're probably more motivated by the complete lack of federal income tax[0]. Funny that this wasn't mentioned once in the entire article.

0\. [https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2014/07/04/hate- taxe...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2014/07/04/hate-taxes-move- to-tax-free-puerto-rico-stay-american-avoid-irs/#43f7f9cf6397)

<comment><USER7> Eric and Bryan, the two founders of Lunchera featured in the article, are good friends of mine from MIT. They definitely didn't return to the island for tax reasons. Puerto Ricans are passionate about their "isla" \- hard to explain to people expecting rational reasons.

<comment><USER8> Not to be inflammatory, but I wouldn't expect nationalism to be hard for Americans to relate to.

<comment><USER9> He said its hard to explain it to people expecting _rational_ reasons.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> For anyone looking to be in Puerto Rico, the massive tax incentives help as well.

[http://puertoricotaxincentives.com/](http://puertoricotaxincentives.com/)

<comment><USER11> US Virgin Islands are similar as well.

Definitely real challenges though... these places are poor tropical backwaters. It's a shame as it's beautiful and full of potential.

<comment><USER12> Poor backwater compared to what? Puerto Rico has a GDP per capita between Spain and Italy.

<comment><USER13> And a Gini coefficient (.531 as of 2011) between Guatemala (.530) and Colombia (.535). Italy and Spain are at .319 and .359 respectively. The US as a whole is .475.

<comment><USER14> It's an inequality coefficient, not any kind of measure of how "nice" a country is for someone living there.

Countries with a high Gini, tend to segregate more heavily than those who don't, which for the typical 'rich' software developer means that they'll live in a trendy area and know to avoid the 'ghetto'.

For example, Miami has a high gini at ~0.6 to 0.7 which gives you the palaces overlooking shacks effect of Miami Beach.

High gini also correlates with extreme economic growth, where the benefits fall onto a small group (e.g. software developers), and a reversion to the mean hasn't yet taken place.

<comment><USER15> > _they 'll live in a trendy area and know to avoid the 'ghetto'_

 _cough cough_ the Bay Area. Seriously, though, the Santa Clara County metropolitan statistical area clocks in at 0.45 while New York is 0.60 [1].

[1] [https://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/acsbr10-18.pdf](https://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/acsbr10-18.pdf)

<comment><USER11> County statistics are misleading here. Santa Clara County is a big place (almost the size of Long Island) with lots of municipalities. New York County is just 1 of 5 counties that encompass New York City!

If you look at Brooklyn (Kings County), the number is 0.499, Queens County the number is 0.433.

According to another site, the citywide number was 0.547 in 2013. ( [https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/inequality-new-york-city- we...](https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/inequality-new-york-city-wealthy-poor- divide) )

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Local here. Feel free to contact me (check profile) for anything. :)

We have a incubator called parallel18, and a couple of working spaces. It's not a super huge tech scene but the people are awesome.

<comment><USER17> How's the internet there? I'd imagine that would be a significant barrier to productivity.

<comment><USER18> To boost productivity, wouldn't you want the internet to be really bad most of the time? Like "only good enough to read textual docs and ssh into AWS" bad.

<comment><USER17> Well, depends on what you do. Sure, it can be nice to be offline for some coding, but most work these days, even predominantly coding work, is a team affair and requires communication to work well. Further, being able to get quick access to docs, tickets, etc. is quite useful.

But also, if one is responsible for the functioning of significant amounts of infrastructure, then it's not so great to have to worry about internet flaking out in the middle of working through production issues.

But yeah if you were working on something solo, then bad internet wouldn't matter as much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Puerto Rico has such tremendous potential, it's kind of a shame it's not further along than it is. For people who've never been to it, the "feel" of it wouldn't surprise most Americans who've spent time outside of rich major metro areas. Lots of the really bad crime tends to be isolated to certain areas and groups.

There's also a huge mountainous interior that's a world away from the tropical beaches and Spanish colonial towns. Mostly that's the source of the absolutely incredible coffee that comes from the Island.

Why it isn't more like Hawaii isn't entirely clear, but I suspect not being fully integrated into the U.S. Federal system is part of it. The local governance of the Island hasn't been fantastic and most of the Puerto Ricans I know who lived there have long ago since moved to the mainland U.S. to find a better life (many of them also then turn around and buy investment vacation property back on the Island they spend time in every summer).

Still, if you know where to go, and where not to go, and learn some of the local ways of doing things, it can be a very lovely place, great history, good food, right in the Caribbean so other islands are close by...

</comment><comment><USER20> Some relevant reading before you pack your bags :)

[https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and- economics/2172167...](https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and- economics/21721670-islands-debts-will-now-bring-protracted-legal-battle- puerto-rico-declares)

And someone asked why it is not a state yet:

[https://www.economist.com/news/united- states/21723149-more-6...](https://www.economist.com/news/united- states/21723149-more-60-puerto-ricans-tell-pollsters-they-would-commonwealth)

And an year-old article about the troubles facing PR:

[https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist- explains/2016/05/e...](https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist- explains/2016/05/economist-explains-8)

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm not American, so would someone knowledgeable indulge me the obvious question: Why is Puerto Rico not a state while e.g. Hawaii is?

Is it the language -- a Spanish-majority state would not get the approval from other states to join the union? Or something less obvious?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's hard to become a state when the majority of the population only speaks Spanish and the island has its own constitution.

<comment><USER22> Probably not a huge issue - look up first home language in Texas or Arizona. Texas is also like 50%+ Hispanic, and I can't imagine the modern GOP being anti-Texas.</comment></comment></comment>


Resisting the Urge to Profess - <AUTHOR> http://www.chronicle.com/article/Resisting-the-Urge-to-Profess/238130 <comment><USER2> I like it when people "profess" to me in the sense of this article. I love to learn. Sure, maybe it's bad during a meeting with time limits. But in general, don't hold back your knowledge!

<comment><USER3> If you love to learn, you can always ask follow-up questions. The author's complaint is monologuing while your audience tunes out, a problem by no means limited to academia.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> IME, the smartest guy is usually the quiet one at the back of the room who doesn't say anything, and he probably won't talk to you unless the room is very, very quiet.

<comment><USER5> That's a stereotype. Just as often the smartest guy in the room is also the one talking.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Many small projects or one large one? - <AUTHOR> In all other industries, the opinion is that diversification into many projects, rather than putting all your eggs in one basket, is the key to wealth generation.<p>What about for startup founders in the valley? Should we stay laser focused on just one thing, or spread ourselves across a handful of projects to potentially hedge a flop? <comment><USER2> As a founder, you don't have the time and energy to diversify. There is just too much to do. Founding a startup is an all or nothing game... all your energies to try to make something work. If you want to diversify, yes, that is a safer approach... but then you don't want to be a founder.</comment>


Pythex: a Python regular expression editor - <AUTHOR> http://pythex.appspot.com/

<comment><USER2> Discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2466556>

</comment><comment><USER3> P-Rex (T-Rex, you know) would've been a much cooler name!</comment>


Tourists using Google Maps to get to Rio landmark enter favela, get shot - <AUTHOR> http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/02/28/tourists-using-google-maps-to-get-to-rio-landmark-enter-favela-get-shot.html <comment><USER2> Google should get the crime data and route taking it into account, especially walking directions.

<comment><USER3> I'm sure that won't be a PR disaster when news/blogs/twitter find situations where Google Maps suggests to avoid certain neighborhoods, statistics be damned.</comment></comment>


RKMS: highly available key management service built on top of SLA-less AWS KMS - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@armanshanjani/design-for-failures-up-front-because-they-will-happen-278a044d291a <comment><USER2> I think there's a world of difference between "formal SLA" and "reliable." The former is signaling to enterprises, and while I agree it's important, KMS underlies a number of SLA carrying services itself.

If KMS is down, so are a swath of other more visible things.

<comment><AUTHOR> While unofficially it is true that KMS is "reliable," in our case, our customers demand SLAs from our services, and we could not build a service and guarantee an SLA while using SLA-less services.

Better to be safe than sorry.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: SSL certificates - <AUTHOR>

Hi all.
There has, over the last year or so, been quite a number of interesting crypto-related news coverage related to not inconsequential vulnerabilities and issues. In briefest terms, I'd like to get an idea of what the current best practices/recommendations are regarding deploying applications/services that will operate over HTTPS. For starters--though I'd love to hear beyond where applicable--if someone is launching a new product wanting to be as up-to-date on best security practices in this regard, a few questions:
1. What is the current recommendation for SSL certificates regarding strength, cipher types, etc.? Do wildcard certs have special needs worth being mindful of that non-wildcard certs do not?
2. Any recommendations on reputable, reliable, and trustworthy vendors for securing a new SSL certificate that meets current best-practice expectations?
3. Aside from ensuring a server is up-to-date with all security-related releases/patches, what else should one be mindful of in setting up and deploying a product/service that needs to be secure?
Thanks in advance to all. <comment><USER2> 1) Strength - always at least 2048 bits, 4096 if speed isn't as critical as security. For your CSR make sure you use SHA256 for signing ([http://itigloo.com/security/generate-an-openssl- certificate-...](http://itigloo.com/security/generate-an-openssl-certificate- request-with-sha-256-signature/)) As for ciphers, depends on the tradeoff you need for compatibility vs. security; I would consult Mozilla: [https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Server_Side_TLS](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Server_Side_TLS) They also have a handy config generator, depending on what server you're going to use: [https://mozilla.github.io/server-side-tls/ssl-config- generat...](https://mozilla.github.io/server-side-tls/ssl-config-generator/)

2) For lowest cost and no bullshit, I'd go with CertSimple ([https://certsimple.com](https://certsimple.com)), or DigiCert ([https://digicert.com](https://digicert.com)).

3) As mentioned below, SSLLabs will point out if any of your config is risky. Besides that, you might want to add a 301 URL redirect to your web server to force people to only use SSL and avoid the fatal mistake of someone forgetting to type http_s_.

Have fun!

<comment><USER3>
       Besides that, you might want to add a 301 URL redirect to
      your web server to force people to only use SSL and avoid
      the fatal mistake of someone forgetting to type http_s

Is there any other way to do this. If a user makes a non SSL request to my server they have potentially already leaked information in that request, especially if it is a post. Cookies etc are all exposed.

Is there a best practice to prevent users making this first incorrect request in the first place?

<comment><USER4> Using HSTS and browsers pre-loaded list of sites that are HTTPS-only prevents leakage: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_Strict_Transport_Security](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_Strict_Transport_Security)

Also cookies also have a 'secure' flag.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I deploy a couple of new projects every month and I've gotten into a habit of HTTPS full time everywhere on all projects.

From my experience using SSL Lab's web-based test[1] on all of them, the issue is less with the cert vendor and more with the server configuration. All the vendors I have used recently will use a 2048 bit RSA key which will grade as A just fine on SSL Labs. But it's pretty easy to get lower grades by not having an up-to-date server which restricts broken ciphers like TLS 1.0 and SSL. Or by having broken certificate chains.

My favorite vendor is DNSimple because of their extremely easy process for generation, but they are just reselling Comodo certificates.

1\. [https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/](https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/)

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for your thoughts and pointing to the ssllabs test. much appreciated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Mozilla has a great article posted up about this here: [https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Server_Side_TLS](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Server_Side_TLS)

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for the link to this article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Use 2048 bits, not 4096. I'm kind of paranoid and always try to use the highest recommendations, HSTS, all-SSL, etc. But in terms of SSL connection setups / second, your CPU will be the bottleneck, and having 4096 bits will limit you to about 1/4 of the connection setups / second that 2048 could have handled. So if the site has low traffic and a enough CPU resources, it could be ok, but if you ever need to handle a lot of connections: use 2048 bits! (I learned the hard way ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> that's a great observation. thanks for the recommendation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> To answer question #1, a lot of people use the SSL Server test: [https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html](https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html). It's one way to analyze if your certificates and SSL/TLS settings are configured correctly. The results are arguable - getting an "A" does not guarantee safety - but getting an "F" can show that more work needs to be done.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks a bunch for the reply.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> 1: [https://github.com/cloudflare/sslconfig](https://github.com/cloudflare/sslconfig)

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for this. always helpful to see what bigger entities are using with their nginx setups.</comment></comment>


Deutsche Post to start sale of electric vehicles in 2017 - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/deutsche-post-electric-van-idUSFWN1AT0C7 <comment><AUTHOR> [http://www.streetscooter.eu/](http://www.streetscooter.eu/)</comment>


Too Many Americans Will Never Be Able to Retire - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-23/america-needs-more-young-workers-to-support-aging-population <comment><USER2> The article skips over one important point - people are living longer, and are generally a lot healthier at "retirement age" (60-65) than a generation ago. While the number of young people decline, there's no reason why we can't expect people to continue working for 5 or even 10 more years than expected to make up the difference.

I believe what really needs to be fixed isn't birth rates but rather income inequality/working-class wages.

<comment><USER3> "But now we can keep you alive long enough to squeeze out an extra decade at your desk" is not exactly a silver lining.

<comment><USER4> Well, suppose a miraculous breakthrough occurred and the life expectancy shot from, say, 75 years up to 750, pushing back the onset of debilitating age.

Surely it would seem like grumbling to dismiss it as: "Now they can keep you alive long enough to squeeze out an extra 675 years at your desk."

This might be rather millenial of me, but I don't view retirement as some long-deferred tasty dessert for being a good compliant worker who eats their vegetables... as much as a someday-unavoidable lifestyle transition.

<comment><USER5> > Well, suppose a miraculous breakthrough occurred and the life expectancy > shot from, say, 75 years up to 750, pushing back the onset of debilitating > age.

I wonder how this would play out economically. Most of us here could probably retire by 100 (and many by 50) and have enough accumulated wealth to live off interest. Could we have a world where that many people live off interest forever it would the extra productive years create enough inflation that it's not feasible?

<comment><USER6> The fewer people work, the more scarce products and services become, and the more expensive everything becomes. So it would probably make retiring early unfeasible. Unless things get automated to a degree that causes abundance.

Either way I'd imagine you'd be able to live a more relaxed life. With 50 years work experience you'd probably be very effective. Your probably only need to work 2 or 3 days per week.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> you can't fix it with immigration. A greying white population supporting their lifestyle with the labor of poor, young, non-white workers? I can't think of a more reliable path to civil war.

Need to boost birth rate, increase automation, and change economic focus. Cut the welfare state down to poverty relief. Pay down the debt. Get a sovereign fund going.

</comment><comment><USER8> What about shifting to a more stable form of retirement instead of the DIY solutions (401ks, IRAs, etc.) pushed since the 80s? As great as they are, there's a lot of BS marketing around 401ks (unless you self manage) and while the market has consistent returns over time, the premise "past returns do not indicate future performance" still applies.

Before then there were pensions which seemed more stable. Only thing I wonder about them is what would happen to the pension if the company went out of business.

<comment><USER9> Public sector pensions are bankrupting states around the country and widely mismanaged. Not to mention extremely politicized and an easy way to get votes by over-promising and kicking the burden to the future.

For all the faults of 401ks and such, they aren't destabilizing state budgets around the country, and the market is in fact relatively stable if you keep it simple. They also aren't dependent on your company remaining solvent for the rest of time.

We can also relatively stabilize Social Security if we want to, but nobody is willing to make the hard choices to do so: [http://conversableeconomist.blogspot.com/2019/01/a-plan- to-f...](http://conversableeconomist.blogspot.com/2019/01/a-plan-to-fix- social-security.html)

Until then, we'll suffer the consequences of turning anti-immigrant, years of property value getting held hostage by the few, and politicians who are fiscally irredeemable at this point (another bomb that will drop on our heads eventually)

<comment><USER10> I fully support high marginal tax rates on high earners (70% @ >$5 million/year in income) to help stabilize social security as well as contribute to the general fund. It's also not a hard choice to make.

I never understand why "tax the ultra wealthy" is always deemed a hard choice, or thought of as untenable. Could they leave the country? Sure! That's what the exit tax is for upon renouncing US citizenship.

I am not advocating for squeezing the rich to death like a python, but argue that the pendulum has swung to far towards "let them eat avacodo toast and watch Netflix". The pendulum must swing back a bit.

<comment><USER11> > I never understand why "tax the ultra wealthy" is always deemed a hard > choice, or thought of as untenable.

I think part of the reason is some of those "ultra wealthy" have spent some of their wealth promoting ideas and policies that are favorable to them, though think tanks, etc. I suppose it's kinda like taking out an insurance policy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> According to [https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/24/most-americans-live- paycheck...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/24/most-americans-live-paycheck-to- paycheck.html) 78% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. So at a minimum, 78% of Americans will never be able to retire, except perhaps into extreme poverty. The percentage only goes up from there.

</comment><comment><USER13> Play stupid games (40 years of anti-natalist policy, dilution of labor bargaining power) win stupid prizes.

<comment><USER14> What "anti-natalist" policy are you referring to?

<comment><USER15> You can't deny that there is a reduction in birth rates. Many policies combine to make this the case:

1\. Supplementing housing prices or guaranteeing mortgages makes them unaffordable. People cannot afford to have kids

2\. The severity of the divorce process makes people unlikely to want to marry. Marriage rates have declined. Less marriages, less kids.

3\. Helicopter money keeps real wages down. Cannot afford to have kids.

You may say these are not explicitly "anti-natalist" but in effect they are.

<comment><USER16> I don't think it's a bad thing that the birthrate in the US has gone down. In general, it means women have more opportunities, and that's a good thing. More access to birth control. More women choosing to start a career. They didn't used to have that choice -- they were dependent on marrying a man for financial security.

<comment><USER15> At least as of 2009, female happiness has been in steady decline. Not a surprise, you could have asked any man if he would prefer to play with his kids than work and 75% of them would tell you they would rather not work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> My family doesn't know this, but I have a solid retirement plan. It's not really a retirement plan in the traditional sense, because I won't be able to retire from the workforce and enjoy the spoils no matter how hard I try. However, when I'm no longer able to work for money, I'll pull out my gun and put a bullet in my head. I'm at peace with the idea because it leaves me free to raise my child in the best way possible. What happens to me after is unimportant.

<comment><USER18> My wife has a friend whose husband ended his own life that way. The family members who found him not only lost a loved one, but they also have the horrific images of his self-mutilation seered into their memory. I'd really urge you to think about that aspect...

<comment><USER17> Yes, that does sound horrible, but I'm not what one would call a suicidal person acting out of desperation. I'm also not an idiot. When the time comes, no one will be subjected to horrific images.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> How about letting prices deflate so that retirees and millennials can afford to live with normal wages and savings?

The whole ponzi scheme is needed only because we have govts, Central banks, Wall Street looking for inflation and returns. Why not let Wall Street go bankrupt and let the economy deflate?

</comment><comment><USER20> I think this basic fact will push American politics towards more socialist European style programs like universal healthcare. While the boomer generation talks big about some of these conservative values, the basic economic facts will push the drive for leftist policies, even if they are sold as something else in the political world.

</comment><comment><USER21> Why should we all have more kids to subsidize social security? I doubt I'll receive any to begin with; I don't factor it into retirement projections at all.

With the continuing trend of politicians and businesses attacking American retirement options, there's no incentive. Who even says to themselves and their spouse, "Oh man, we should really have _more_ kids, because 40 years from now, social safety nets are going to be compromised if we don't."

Kids are expensive.

</comment><comment><USER22> Full socialism is the only true answer. Don't provide the elderly a money stipend, provide them medical care, housing, and other basic needs (and probably free rides on public transit infrastructure).

<comment><USER21> Social security, Medicare, general health, income security, and veterans benefits and services take up over 62% of the United States federal budget. How should socialism address this growing problem?

What a poignant comment, considering right this very moment, there's a socialist collapse in Venezuela being broadcast.

<comment><USER23> Perhaps we will have to increase the budget somehow. Or print some extra money, as we are already quite willing to do.

And is there any particular reason, aside from partisan ideology, to point at Venezuela, which is different in many important aspects from the U.S., instead of one of the very successful Western European nations?

<comment><USER24> Sovereign wealth funds, or the abrupt lack thereof, seem relevant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> We should phase in a federal 400% annual land value tax on the appraised price which all land would sell for if clear of improvements over the next 80 years.

A 400% annual tax on the market value means the expect purchase price of an empty lot will approach 3 months worth of tax payments for holding it. A percentage of the gross revenues can be prebated to citizen residents at the beginning of each year to afford taxes due at the end of the year. A large deduction can be granted for land and real estate property tax payments made to state and local governments.

The additional revenues gained from the tax can be used to abolish sales and payroll taxes which fall more heavily on younger working families so it is more affordable for future generations to have a larger number of children earlier in life.

<comment><USER26> My retirement plan includes living somewhere where I can own the land and not be raped by property taxes. Many people, my in-laws included, have to flee their high property tax states upon retirement in order to be able to afford to do so. How does this help maintain stable communities? Shouldn't people be able to retire in place?

<comment><USER27> They can't use a reverse mortgage to pay property tax?

<comment><USER26> Why should people have to enter into an exploitive financial agreement with a bank to pay a tax to stay in their homes that they putatively own during their aged years? How is that just?

<comment><USER27> Why should people use government services without paying tax? If they don't want to pay property tax they can live somewhere with a homestead exemption.

<comment><USER26> In what world do government services cost 400% of the land value per year? That isn't paying for services, it's paying for the right to exist, no less than being taxed to breathe.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Aaron Swartz's Prosecutors Were Threatened and Hacked, DOJ Says  - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/04/swartz-prosecutors-threatened/ <comment><USER2> Oh, and Aaron Swartz wasn't threatened? I see... Eye for an eye they say.</comment>


Meet the tireless entrepreneur who squatted at AOL - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-32973_3-57440513-296/meet-the-tireless-entrepreneur-who-squatted-at-aol/ <comment><USER2> _...given just $20,000 by the incubator, and after the four-month program ended, the money was gone..._

 _...after pivoting and focusing solely on letting teachers share lesson plans, Simons said he was able to score $50,000 in seed funding from Ulu Ventures and Silicon Valley VC Paul Sherer._

 _Now, Simons said, he's looking to raise an additional $500,000._

 _So is Simons just a kid with a particularly honed entrepreneurial spirit?_

Exactly when did the definition of entrepreneur change from "build a sustainable business that provides value to its customers" to "survive long enough for the next round of investment"?

I admire Eric for his tenacity (most others would have quit long ago), but I'd much rather hear about when he actually sells something.

<comment><USER3> He used AOL infrastructure to build his company, I'm wondering if he disclosed that to investors as he's pretty liable to them otherwise.

It's lesson number #1 (don't use your employer's computer off-hours when working on your own projects) for people that try to build something outside their company's influence.

<comment><USER4> Might be wrong, but isn't California law especially lenient about ownership of work produced outside of work hours? (vs. here in NYC, for example)

<comment><USER5> Especially lenient, but not infinitely lenient.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Judging by the gossip I heard while at AOL, he surely isn't the only person using AOL's offices and food without contributing to AOL, but he's the only one who isn't actually employed by AOL.

</comment><comment><USER7> While I applaud Eric's inexhaustible dedication to his company and mission, taking advantage of AOL in order to accomplish it is disgustingly unethical. It just makes it harder for other entrepreneurs who share that dedication but have chosen to build their businesses above-board.

I'm glad AOL has a sense of humor about this. But you can be sure that this incident will create additional requirements and restrictions for the [honest] entrepreneurs who still remain in the building.

<comment><USER8> Do what you have to do. AOL is no worse for having someone sleeping on their couch.

<comment><USER9> AOL out the funds they spent on his theft of service and resources, and they're out the time they spent having security figure out why someone was sleeping there. They've been embarrassed in the press, and they're that much less likely to trust people that are part of their entrepreneur programs in the future.

The security staff in question was probably reprimanded for their failure to detect the interloper -- he abused the trust he had gained by previously becoming a "known" face.

You do what you have to do, _ethically_ , to succeed.

<comment><USER10> "They've been embarrassed in the press"

They've actually been profiled as a reasonable company that invests in the future. How many people reading this article know AOL as "that company that first sent me discs in the mail" and previously thought AOL as a dead company?

AOL gets free, positive press showing that they're not dead, they're investing in the future, and that they're reasonable. The positive spin this article gives them is worth every penny of resources spent.

<comment><USER9> > _They've actually been profiled as a reasonable company that invests in the > future._

The best thing they can do at this point is put a positive spin on it, but ...

> _The positive spin this article gives them is worth every penny of resources > spent._

Not your decision to make for AOL. AOL will spin this, but post-facto justification ("see, it's not that bad -- they made good on my theft!") does not an ethical decision make.

<comment><USER10> Nowhere do I lay claim to making decisions for AOL. While I doubt they are interested, if AOL wishes to hire me for such purposes, I am available.

I pointed out that it was my opinion that the cost of the resources that Eric used was less than the cost of genuine, positive press.

I also did not declare his actions ethical. I responded to your claim that AOL has been embarrassed.

AOL responded appropriately (not pressing charges, just kindly requiring him to not sleep/live there anymore), and was able to respond to the press inquiry with a lighthearted statement that fits the narrative of the article. The article presents AOL not only as having reasonable management, but also as a place to work with great benefits (food, showers, gym, startup incubators, friendly environment).

AOL is where Yahoo will be in 5 years: they have nowhere to go but up in terms of public reputation and mindshare.

<comment><USER9> I see AOL as doing their best to avoid a bigger snafu over a smaller, unattractive snafu. Opinions on the value of this PR will vary, but the fact is that there's no substance here.

Somebody abused their fairly standard SV corporate perks, they responded without bringing in the police.

At the end of the day, my subjective impression is that their startup interests brought in an immature, ethically-challenged entrepreneur who is stuck in the money-raising cycle, and accordingly AOL has been dragged into the press because of something stupid he did.

That isn't a particularly positive narrative, but I can see how people that are more comfortable with Eric's failure of ethics can see it as a cool story of "hustling" entrepreneurship.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Reminds me of the story of Graphing Calculator:

<http://www.pacifict.com/Story/>

<comment><USER12> That's awesome, thanks duskwuff.

Just one quote: "I asked my friend Greg Robbins to help me. His contract in another division at Apple had just ended, so he told his manager that he would start reporting to me. She didn't ask who I was and let him keep his office and badge. In turn, I told people that I was reporting to him. Since that left no managers in the loop, we had no meetings and could be extremely productive."

If you have a spare 15 minutes you really should read this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Got to say the response from AOL was pure class. They could have been really annoyed at the kid for sponging off their employee services, but no, 'we just didn't expect it to work so well'. Nicely done from AOL there.

Sure, the kid contravened plenty of rules and laws, but the level of focus to do 18ish hour days and maintain a lifestyle like that to achieve the goals? You don't get that everyday.

And lets be honest, he's not the first guy in the Valley to treat the rules with a loose interpretation.

</comment><comment><USER14> Its a neat story. When I read the headline I thought it was a Mike Arrington story :-)

We joked at Google that they really did want you to live there but their secops team would not let a non-employee do this.

However for a potential investor this is a great demonstration of how committed someone is to their idea, and their passion. I don't doubt for a moment that Eric will be successful at what ever he sets out to do, you can't buy that kind of focus.

<comment><USER9> It's also a demonstration of an ethical failure. It was theft.

<comment><USER14> I could argue it both ways (theft and non-theft) which, for me, puts it into the ethically 'grey' area of interpretation.

I would reason to 'non-theft' based on an argument that AOL gave access to the building (badge) and provides services for people with access to the building, therefore giving access was tacit agreement to the use of the facilities. Other employees no doubt sleep there on occasion and that it also tacitly allowed. Therefore non-theft.

I would reason to the 'theft' conclusion that AOL provides services to incubators and to employees but does not explicitly extend employee benefits to incubator attendees. Using services and consumables that are provided to AOL employees is outside the scope of services offered to incubator participants. Therefore Theft.

Eric was aware of this grey area, clearly trying to stay outside the regular patrol of security, and thus actively trying to not force a resolution on the question of allowed or not allowed. His response when the resolution occurred appears to be 100% compliance.

If I were considering investing in Eric's activities I would consider both parts of that story, the first where he exploits a grey area and the second how he responds to being discovered.

In my experience it is people who take Eric's approach of interpreting grey areas in the most optimistic way until shown otherwise, and being 100% rule following on explicit rulings, are successful. There are thresholds of course, if there were signs that said "No one is allowed to sleep in this facility" or "At no time will anyone spend more than 12 out of 24 hrs in a day in this facility" or even more general guidelines that define a standard for defining 'living on site' and a express a prohibition against it. Something which might say "You would be considered to be living here if you spend more than 100 hrs a week or do more than 3 loads of laundry or sleep more than 12 hrs a week or eat more than 12 nominal meals at the facility" etc. AOL _could_ call it out, but they haven't. And that leaves it open to interpretation.

In the business world that is sometimes called 'moxie' or 'stones' or any number of euphemisms and its generally respected.

What is not respected is explicit exploitation. So for example when I worked at Google the mini-kitchens all had refrigerators that were full of beverages. A small number of employees were found to be exploiting this 'perk'. An example of that which was given was an employee that prior to the weekend, would take an empty back pack and fill it with anywhere from 20 to 50 beverages to take home. That was 'theft' in the sense that the intention was for the beverages to be enjoyed _at work_ not at home, even if you were working from home. But it was theft because of the _quantity_ not because of the _taking_. Taking one beverage to drink while riding the shuttle home? Not a problem although you were not 'technically' at work any more.

I think Eric intentionally interpreted the situation in a way that would support his actions, and recognized that those actions might not be completely inline with the intent, and waited for AOL to express its intent. I don't think he ever believed AOL would 'endorse' his living on campus while he worked on his startup (incubator participation not withstanding) but I could see a case for it being an open question if not explicitly disallowed.

<comment><USER15> >I could argue it both ways (theft and non-theft)

If the district attorney's office in Santa Clara County wanted to, it is more likely than not that they could get a conviction for illegal lodging (misdemeanor).

If I were the district attorney, I'd tend to let something like this slide when the doer is as young as this guy is. It bothers me a little though that he is speaking openly about it to the press because that suggests that he has no shame about it. If he really has no shame at all about it, I would prefer that he be dragged into court.

If your reaction to this report is to excuse the behavior because the guy is an entrepreneur, I think your reaction is no better than, "It's OK because he's a member of our club."

<comment><USER14> " _If the district attorney's office in Santa Clara County wanted to, it is more likely than not that they could get a conviction for illegal lodging (misdemeanor)._ "

I mention the risk of violating zoning laws below but I also asked a public defender their take on that aspect as well. They said pretty much that unless you could prove that AOL both knew and allowed this to occur, or could prove that they didn't actively try to discourage such things, you could not convict them of violating the rules. She related a case of a homeless person who was charged with loitering and the business was charged for allowing people to live at their facility in violation of zoning laws, but the case against the business was dismissed for lack of evidence that the business knew about the activity or allowed it. I expect AOL would use a similar defense in this case.

<comment><USER15> I meant that the district attorney could get a conviction _of the young entrepreneur_ if he wanted to. "Illegal lodging" means sleeping where it is illegal to sleep.

<comment><USER16> Could you please reference the law that prohibits people sleeping on AOL's couches?

His security clearance was never revoked. Nobody directly informed him he couldn't sleep there. I'd say this is perfect 'grey area' since he didn't knowingly commit any crime and AOL didn't knowingly allow it.

<comment><USER15> >Could you please reference the law that prohibits people sleeping on AOL's couches?

Entering into a search engine the phrases "California penal code" and "illegal lodging" should allow you to find the text of the law.

I learned about this law when someone I knew was charged with illegal lodging for sleeping in one of the building at Stanford long ago. (He pled _no lo contendere_ , had no priors, and was fined $100.)

No offense, but I do not want to discuss it with you anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is an entertaining story, at most. The pursuit of round after round of funding that Eric - and many other entrepreneurs, surely - are striving for is concerning. What ever happened to the pursuit of a savvy business that brings in real profit? The hunt for funding needs to be replaced with a hunt for sustainability.

Am I wrong for believing that?

<comment><USER18> I agree that it is concerning.

The worst part is that I've seen attiudes subtly shift away from real entrepreneurial spirit and towards a "how do we make ourselves attractive to patrons" attitude.

It's a pragmatic choice, if you are going to be the subject of patronage and treated as such then you don't work on building a business you work on pleasing the patron so he and his friends will keep giving you money.

It's an unintended consequence of the very healthy VC/Angel ecosystem and consumer internet sites that are hard to monetize but still valued by the public. Maybe it's just a weird blip and not a big deal. But it's a direction that strikes me as unhealthy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I wonder if he was eating our food. Playdom has three meals a day "up stairs" in that building, where we are headquartered and have an entire floor. There is also another startup incubator in this building. It's pretty funny they just mention AOL in the article.

<comment><USER20> Shameless self-promotion: If you guys want to have three _awesome_ meals a day, you should check out ZeroCater. We will hook you up with food from the best places around. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm reminded of Rodney Rothman's _My Fake Job_ (New Yorker, November 2000), a "personal history about the writer's tenure at an unnamed downtown Internet company where he did not actually have a job":

[http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2000/11/27/2000_11_27_120_T...](http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2000/11/27/2000_11_27_120_TNY_LIBRY_000022173)

* Reporter's fake job irks real dot-com: [http://articles.cnn.com/2000-12-05/tech/reporter.irks.dot.co...](http://articles.cnn.com/2000-12-05/tech/reporter.irks.dot.com.idg_1_employees-luminant-worldwide-dot?_s=PM:TECH)

</comment><comment><USER22> This kid's drive and ambition is impressive, but using that as an excuse to ignore honesty? Sounds like he should be working on wall street, instead.

Kudos to David Tempkin for his response -- spot on. He recognized the situation for what it was, and responded most appropriately.

But here's the thing -- suppose he was instead sponging off a smaller, non- corporate, recently-funded, bootstrapped operation. Would everyone be calling him a go-getter? I'm guessing not, as the "theft" conversation would likely take a different tone.

</comment><comment><USER23> This guy is fantastic. If what he's doing now with the new incubator doesn't work out I hope he considers applying to YC. Living at AOL is at least a good a story as selling cereal.

</comment><comment><USER24> He also has been solo the whole time, which makes it more impressive. He had a cofounder who gave up, but Eric never budged.

</comment><comment><USER25> Break the rules when it fits your own interests. This kid should leave the valley and move to Wall St.

</comment><comment><USER26> > Update 9:31 a.m. PT: This story has been updated with a response from AOL.

What was the response? I can't find it in the article, would be interesting to see it.

<comment><USER27> > Contacted for comment, David Temkin, senior vice president of Mail and > Mobile for AOL, told CNET, "It was always our intention to facilitate > entrepreneurialism in the Palo Alto office -- we just didn't expect it to > work so well."

<comment><USER28> Understatement of the year.

<comment><USER29> There's one thing you can say about AOL: they have a sense of humor.

<comment><USER30> From that one statement alone, I suddenly have a lot more respect for AOL. That was hilarious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Homeless entrepreneurs: The new cool thing.

Now I just need $50k or so.

<comment><USER32> And a contact at CNET.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Hearing about AOL throws me back to the late 90s.

And whenever I hear about them it is never in a technical context as in "check out this new database AOL techs created" it is more of "remember how AOL used to send people a ton of CDs?" or "Check out the statistics of people still using dial up"

I don't even remember what made them sort of quitely disappear from the radar? Was it broadband from cable companies and Verizon's Fios?

So I am wondering what do AOL tech people do there? Is it just maintenance to keep the dial-up server pool working?

<comment><USER6> Tech people at AOL not involved in maintaining the dial-up service are working on about.me, AIM, AOL.com, the Blogsmith CMS, features for blogs running on the Blogsmith CMS (Engadget, Autoblog, etc.), AOL Desktop, Games.com, Huffington Post, AOL Mail, Mapquest, Moviefone, Patch, Shortcuts, TechCrunch, and Winamp, to name a few.

<comment><USER33> And out of those things the last thing I remember using was probably reading an article from huffpo or techcrunch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Anybody know his Twitter username? The one linked to from the "About Us" page doesn't work.

<comment><USER35> Hi! My twitter is <http://twitter.com/#!/ericsimons40> \- not sure why it didn't work from the about page :O

<comment><USER34> This explains it:

@Support: Some users are having trouble accessing Twitter on the web. Our engineers are looking into it.

<https://twitter.com/support/status/205735369034039297>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Great story and lucky for Eric he wasn't locked up in prison. Worth noting he was involved in an earlier project at AOL and they hadn't deactivated his pass. A without this things may have gone the other way.

I think Gates and Jobs spent nights at places they were working at, leveraging off free to use, latest technology.

His startup idea is great. There are variations out there already but maybe this story and network will turn this into something successful.

</comment><comment><USER37> I'm sure once AOL eventually goes out of business, they can crash on his couch and use his shower. Fair enough he was using their facilities to work on his own projects and try and raise capital, but I admire his audacity. This is probably one of the most impressive things I've heard and read about in a long time.

</comment><comment><USER38> Bending the truth gets you far - I spoke to a trainfan once who told everyone he was a train/locomotive driver/engineer and used that to travel all throughout Europe in traincabs

<comment><USER32> Also, it sounds a lot better than "lying."

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Very cool story :) I understand the ethics arguments, but I can't find the heart to support them. I admire Eric's resourcefulness and outright balls ;)

</comment><comment><USER40> So today I found myself reading Robert Burns' poem, "To a Mouse" (the origin of the famous phrase, "The best laid plans of mice and men").

I think it's almost possible to read this poem in the voice of AOL talking to Eric Simons.

<http://www.worldburnsclub.com/poems/translations/554.htm>

</comment><comment><USER41> Good hustle, Eric. Sorry for dropping the ball on not getting back to ya but you've been making do better than I can.

</comment><comment><USER42> Too bad his incubator wasn't at Google. He probably could have lived a little better down in Mountain View.

</comment><comment><USER43> I had a friend that claimed he was squatting at Virginia Tech's Math Emporium. At the time I assumed he was joking (they didn't have showers) but now I'm not so sure anymore. And it's not like college students are renowned for their personal hygiene.

<comment><USER44> We had a homeless guy living in our dorm lounge for almost a week before someone realized he wasn't a student.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. "

</comment><comment><USER46> His motivation and will to make his project exist is out of the ordinary and I respect that.

However his behaviour is just shameful. I guess the end, justify the means ...

Still I don't like it, one bit.

</comment><comment><USER47> Discarding the primary point of this article (squatting at AOL), today is my last day of college (16-18 age bracket in the UK), and you can tell that every single lesson is the same as it was five years ago, bar electronics because it's a new exam board and the teacher is only just finding his feet.

Computing, we still use VB6 for coursework, Chemistry, everything is photocopied with ye olde dates on

Props to him for attempting to introduce variety into lesson plans, thankfully, today is the last day of copying out photocopy masters from a whiteboard onto paper

<comment><USER48> Off-topic, but you should think about going to <http://youngrewiredstate.org> this summer. It's a week-long open data hack that ends with 1-2 days of camping at Bletchley Park. I've been to it two years running now and it's done wonders.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Similar to that Duke U. student who lived in a van on campus. Of course he was paying for tuition.

Also reminds me of Half Baked and the guy on the couch.

</comment><comment><USER50> See film 'Secret of My Success' with Michael J. Fox for similiar plot. Great film.

</comment><comment><USER51> Where did he work during the day as to not be noticed by hundreds of employees?

</comment><comment><USER52> I think "don't die" refer mostly to his ambition and startup....epic!

</comment><comment><USER53> love this guys hustle

</comment><comment><USER54> Maybe he should have brought the security guard on as a co-founder?

</comment><comment><USER54> Simons' supervisor commented that he was a model employee for AOL's Palo Alto Office.

"Eric was always on time, never late for work."</comment>


Facebook auditors call out Zuckerberg for vexing and heartbreaking decisions - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/8/21317199/facebook-civil-rights-audit-final-report-trump-zuckerberg <comment><USER2> What a world we now live in where decisions _not_ to censor speech are considered "vexing and heartbreaking [...] setbacks for civil rights". I feel as though many people have lost perspective on how hard the civil rights movement fought to be allowed to say things that offend the mainstream.

<comment><USER3> When the speech in question is hate speech directed at minorities, then giving a platform to bigots to spread that hate is definitely a setback for civil rights.

<comment><USER4> Not everything bad is a civil rights violation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> From their audit:

"The Auditors believe this clarification is an important one, as it signals that Facebook recognizes that messages warning of surveillance of the polls by law enforcement or immigration officials sends the same (suppressive) message as posts that explicitly use words like "arrest" or "deportation.""

That's an ominous admission on their motivation.

</comment><comment><USER4> The report is here: [https://muslimadvocates.org/wp- content/uploads/2020/07/Civil...](https://muslimadvocates.org/wp- content/uploads/2020/07/Civil-Rights-Audit-Final-Report.pdf)

The Verge article is mainly quotes about how some individuals feel about the report.

It seems strange to call an advocate report from a special interest group an "audit". Audits are independent studies.</comment>


RVM 2.0: Convert 20,000 lines of shell script into Ruby [Fundraiser] - <AUTHOR> https://www.bountysource.com/fundraisers/489

<comment><USER2> Alternatively, use <100 lines of shell script: [https://github.com/postmodern/chruby](https://github.com/postmodern/chruby)

<comment><USER3> Or even better, rbenv: [https://github.com/sstephenson/rbenv](https://github.com/sstephenson/rbenv)

<comment><USER2> Better how? I used rbenv before using chruby and while rbenv is a huge improvement over RVM, I've found chruby to be a further improvement over rbenv.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> How does one write a page like that, without even _trying_ to explain, in a single sentence, what "RVM" _is_? It surely wouldn't hurt?

I assume that if you don't know (like me), you're not in the target audience of people willing to chip in to get the conversion done, but it still manages to frustrate me.

<comment><USER5> It's definitely something only targeted to Ruby devs. If you use ruby, you know what RVM is.

To answer your question, RVM is a version manager for Ruby. [http://rvm.io/](http://rvm.io/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> $50.000? I don't get the amount of cash needed. Not judging, just not understanding. Could someone explain and justify the need for this?

<comment><USER7> Is not a crazy amount, you have to take into account that it will probably be a year or more before this port is even close to done. And then take into account the years of support he will probably offer.

That's not even thinking about all of the service they've provided to our community already.

I would argue it's on the low side, I sincerely hope he'll go over it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think I'm missing something. If an operating system doesn't come with a version of Ruby installed at all, how would you run RVM if it was written in Ruby? Unless it came bundled with a version of Ruby, which sounds bad. I thought the entire point of having these systems written in bash was to make them usable _before_ having Ruby installed at all?

<comment><USER8> After thinking about this for more than 1 second I guess a large portion of RVM that works after you have Ruby installed, such as rvmsudo, could be based on Ruby. Leaving the setup code written in Bash.

<comment><USER9> There's a Google Doc with a lot more detail as well:

[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xW9GeEpLOWPcddDg_hOPvK4o...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xW9GeEpLOWPcddDg_hOPvK4oeLxJmU3Q5FiCNT7nTAc/edit?pli=1)

Your question is covered under "Bootstrapping"

> Bootstrapping > Using ruby should be possible thanks to binary rubies, in > worst case we can fallback to static build or use JRuby. The binary Ruby (or > static or JRuby) will be installed along with RVM 2 using very simple > bootstrapping script written in shell most likely pure SH to provide > compatibility with as much systems as possible

I had similar thoughts. The fact that RVM is implemented (currently) in shell means you don't need Ruby installed. It does, however, expose your tool to all the idiosyncrasies of someone else's shell environment.

I sit in #rvm on Freenode from time to time and the vast majority of trouble pings are related to differences in environment. That is to say, if you run a standard (as in, not heavily customized) environment, you won't have much trouble. There are a large number of users who _really_ like to tweak their shell though, so RVM has to face the issue head on.

I think this is what has lead the team to the "bundled" approach. It sounds like RVM 2.0 will be a full-blown application, rather than a collection of scripts. The choice to build the application in Ruby, as opposed to something like C, seems obvious when you consider what it is. Ruby folks want to write Ruby.

<comment><USER8> Thanks for the link. That definitely makes sense. They'll get a lot more involvement from Ruby developers when they wouldn't have to write it in Bash, that's for sure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I would love to hear more about "leverage existing package management systems".

I guess many people use rvm to install ruby and I always recommend newbies to try it out for that purpose.

But recent criticisms of ruby made me wonder if that really is the right approach. Maybe it would be better to put more effort into creating top-notch packages for the major linux distros (and, say, homebrew). And to work with the distributions on the stable packages, while offering official repositories to get the latest versions.

rvm could still play a role in this scenario as a tool to switch between versions, isolate gem installations and so on, offering a unified interface that hides the platform differences of the distros.

I would certainly donate to such a cause.

<comment><USER11> Creating proper platform-specific packages is a mad undertaking, requiring huge amounts of manpower to setup and to maintain. We provide native Phusion Passenger packages for 5 platforms (3 Ubuntu versions, 2 Debian versions, OS X Homebrew) and it's already crazy complicated. Check out the toolchain that we spent months on building:

[https://github.com/phusion/passenger_apt_automation](https://github.com/phusion/passenger_apt_automation)

[https://github.com/phusion/passenger_autobuilder](https://github.com/phusion/passenger_autobuilder)

And this is just _one_ software package. Imagine at least 10 Ruby interpreters and versions (all versions of MRI 1.8, 1.9 and 2.0, all versions of Rubinius, all versions of JRuby). Now multiply that by the number of popular platforms. That's at least 13 (2 supported Ubuntu LTS versions, 1 latest Ubuntu non-LTS version, 2 supported Debian versions, latest 2 OS X versions, Windows, Red Hat, Fedora, CentOS, Arch, Gentoo). You'd end up with at least 100 different packages, and you'll have to test each one of them.

That's going to cost much more than a one-off campaign of $50000.

<comment><USER10> > Creating proper platform-specific packages is a mad undertaking, requiring > huge amounts of manpower to setup and to maintain.

Of course you are right, and I am well aware of this. After all, that is the reason it has not been done before.

Still, a crazy amount of effort went into creating and maintaining rvm, rbenv and the myriad of other tools we now have. I cannot help but wonder where we would stand now had all of this instead been directed towards great packaging.

> You'd end up with at least 100 different packages, and you'll have to test > each one of them. That's going to cost much more than a one-off campaign of > $50000.

I am not quite so pessimistic. What I am daydreaming about would involve the distributions and their package maintainers. They already ship ruby right now. The packages are just not in optimal shape and oftentimes not up to date.

But one can surely build on the foundation already laid out by the distributions and work with them to hand off some of the work.

Still, I know this would be a herculean task. And not only a technical challenge, but a social one as well.

<comment><USER12> system packages and maintainers in current day are not used to support mixing multiple software with an easy separation like RVM does, they put everything in one prefix like /usr and change only application suffix, it works well with alternatives-update - but it's static switching of ruby, what developers need is runtime switching and clear separation of libraries per language, the lack of clean separation also is bad when deploying servers that run multiple versions of given language (not limiting to ruby)

also check the update with schedule - [https://www.bountysource.com/fundraisers/489-rvm-2-0](https://www.bountysource.com/fundraisers/489-rvm-2-0) \- "2 months: Work on building packages using RVM 2 (so it deprecates itself)"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Rvm is still around?

I switched to rbenv years ago, never looked back.

<comment><USER14> I'm sorry, but why shouldn't RVM still be around? Did it suddenly become obsolete the minute you switched to rbenv?

<comment><USER15> RVM shouldn't still be around because of its user-hostile behavior of modifying the user's dotfiles (.bashrc, etc.) on installation without warning or permission.

This breaks other software in confusing ways. For example, I've had cases where after installing it, I could not view man pages for any programs because installing RVM modified broke my $MANPATH. In other cases, things that were failing for other reasons started producing confusing errors due to RVM doing sketchy things like replacing cd with a shell function.

<comment><USER11> > RVM shouldn't still be around because of its user-hostile behavior of > modifying the user's dotfiles (.bashrc, etc.) on installation without > warning or permission.

RVM tells the user very clearly that it has modified the user's dotfiles.

And how many people _do not_ want to modify the dotfile? Which user thinks, "oooh, modifying dotfiles is so evil, I'll just type in this command _every single time_ I open a terminal"?

At the end of the day, RVM just inserts a few lines to the dotfiles. What's the problem with that?

Actually, chruby does not modify my dotfile for me, and I thought that modifying the dotfile is optional. I figured I'll just manually source chruby.sh every time I want to use it, just to experience how it's like. And then I ran into issues like this: [https://github.com/postmodern/chruby/issues/213](https://github.com/postmodern/chruby/issues/213)

Thanks but no thanks. I'd rather have the software modify my dotfile so that it can give me a pleasant user experience.

> For example, I've had cases where after installing it, I could not view man > pages for any programs because installing RVM modified broke my $MANPATH. In > other cases, things that were failing for other reasons started producing > confusing errors due to RVM doing sketchy things like replacing cd with a > shell function.

Never seen these problems before. Have you reported these problems? Have they been fixed in the latest version? If these problems are fixable then why throw the baby out with the bath water?

As for replacing cd with a shell function: it's because it's one of the few ways auto-switching can be implemented. They found in a user survey that 80% of the users _want_ auto-switching, so who are they to say "no" to their users?

What problems have you experienced because of this? chruby's auto.sh implements the same functionality by installing itself into the shell's DEBUG hook... but is that really any better?

<comment><USER15> > Have they been fixed in the latest version?

I don't know. I don't use Ruby or RVM anymore.

> Which user thinks, "oooh, modifying dotfiles is so evil, I'll just type in > this command every single time I open a terminal"?

I did. And it's not "every single time I open a terminal", it's "the once in a blue moon that I need to work on a legacy Rails app".

> They found in a user survey that 80% of the users want auto-switching

Obviously people who choose to use RVM are going to be people who like the way that RVM operates.

> If these problems are fixable then why throw the baby out with the bath > water?

The bath water is the specific bugs I ran into. As you say, those may fixed and aren't the point. The baby is the general practice of automatically injecting things into dotfiles and messing with shell builtins. We should throw that away because when it fails, it leads to "spooky action at a distance" bugs that are hard to understand and that break totally unrelated things (the user is in a shell session where they aren't doing anything related to Ruby).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> RVM is already doing too much, and trying to do more. Sure there is no looking-back since I switched to rbenv a year ago.

And yes, so now I need to install ruby in order to install ruby?!

</comment><comment><USER17> Or, they could just learn shell scripting. How much would that cost?

I do not understand why the[1] shell... which is a relatively small language... is so difficult for people to learn.

If you can find the time to learn Ruby, what stops you from learning a shell? What is the cost of ignoring it?

1\. Preferably something resembling the proposed POSIX standard which might lend to portability. Bash is not necessarily the best choice unless every server you will ever use will be GNU userland/Linux kernel.

<comment><USER18> That's precisely the kind of dismissive comment I needed to read today. You don't seem to have read the link, in which the author makes good points for moving to Ruby, or think that somebody maintaining 20k of complex shell script should actually "learn shell scripting". I'm sure the author is well-informed about shell scripting. While it's certainly convenient in a pitch, it has little support for unit-testing, error handling or other things which are extremely useful to ensure a robust codebase.

<comment><USER17> Well, since you seem to have insight as to the reasoning behind others' choices, perhaps you could enlighten us how someone came up with the idea of writing 20K lines of shell and passing it off to a community of Ruby developers as a "command line tool"?

<comment><USER18> Insight comes simply from having read the linked page. But at a guess, I'd say it comes from "let's do something small and simple in bash" combined with a bad case of incremental feature creep.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I would if RVM 1.0 didn't suck so much of my time away that I gave up and just went with vagrant.

<comment><USER20> Using vagrant in place of rvm is like killing a housefly with a hammer. Vagrant is great if you want to setup the whole app environment but using it just for rvm's functions is overkill.

<comment><USER19> yeah except try working on several projects where you have to use different rubies with different c libraries and compilers. RVM can't handle that. Vagrant can. rvm is like swatting at a housefly over and over and over and over and over and over and over and not killing it and nothing happening.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> What is RVM?

<comment><USER22> I was affraid to ask, I always thought it was a codename for the Ruby Virtual Machine ..

ps : I was conflicted I couldn't believe ruby's vm would be built on 20K lines of bash. <relief/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Why we need rvm to install databases etc. when there is homebrew?</comment>


Groupon Rejects Google's $6B Offer. - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2010/12/03/groupon-google-no/

<comment><USER2> My gut instinct is that this deal was never on the table. The rational minds at Google would have to be high on something really strong to even consider Groupon worth $6B. (If so, please share, people!). My cynical thinking is that these were rumors spread by people interested in seeing Groupon go public; the $6B from Google rumor makes for a nice, fat initial offering price.

Groupon has zero barrier to entry and zero technology. Unless they have a strong IP portfolio (which they don't appear to be, given the number of competitors that have sprung up), I don't see the value here, other than brand name.

I was given a Groupon for a local specialty chocolate vendor recently, so I decided to chat her up to see what she felt about it. She had tried Groupon, Townhog and a couple of others. She shrugged and said that she wasn't sure if she was going to try these again; but if she did, she'd use Townhog. It was clear that there was no barrier for her to switch. Why should merchants give Groupon 50% of the face value of coupon, if their competitor will do the same for 25%? And the next one at 10%?

<comment><USER3> _Why should merchants give Groupon 50% of the face value of coupon, if their competitor will do the same for 25%? And the next one at 10%?_

Brand. It's why people pay for bottled water vs. free tap water.

It's why Groupon can argue they can send more people to you than their competitors.

<comment><USER2> Do you really think that the typical Groupon customer, who is extremely cost- conscious and willing to jump on a deal like this, won't switch to another coupon company if given a better deal?

Say Groupon offers a 50% off $10 coupon for $5, and keeps the $5. The business is out $10 (for the goods).

Now Soupon (fictitious name) comes along, offers a 60% off $10 coupon for $4; but keeps $2 and gives the business $2. Now the business is out only $8; the customer gets a better discount; and Soupon still makes money.

Don't you think most of Groupon's customers will move to Soupon in a heartbeat?

<comment><USER3> I don't, purely because local merchants are very, very brand conscious and _suspicious_ of new brands. It is why they keep giving their business to Yellow Pages and to newspapers. It's why Google's had such a hard time cracking the local market.

Groupon is the first tech brand that local merchants have totally bought into. Sure a percentage will be adventurous and go with the cheaper groupon-clone, but the vast majority will stick with the brand name imo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Keep in mind that the $2B estimate is the run-rate meaning the current period's sale (Quarter or Month) multiplied to estimate the entire year's rate if the same rate continues.

Their current period's revenue is extremely high due to this season (with the year ending) carries high demand from businesses to make more $.

Realistically they are said to have an estimated revenue of around $850M so with their 50% cuts, take in $425M and after wages, expense and taxes, they are probably profiting somewhere around $100-150M

</comment><comment><USER4> Probably a wise move if you're making $0.5 billion/year 2 years after inception. They should be careful though, they don't have the kind of lock-in that many big Internet companies do. You could easily compete with them.

<comment><USER5> I get near daily emails from the local newspaper website (San Diego Union Tribune) and from a local weekly paper the Reader... both send out different "Daily deals", not the mention Channel 10's local website daily deals too..

I have never signed up for groupon because I just don't believe i can handle the deluge of daily deals from so many places.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, besides being first mover and the associated brand recognition, I don't know what competitive advantages Groupon really has. Especially when sites like <http://www.sandiegosaves.net/> are able to "aggregate" the deals from all the daily deal websites.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If they are pulling in $2billion a year as the stories are saying, $6B is nearly chump change. Plus it keeps the humans involved in Groupon rather than Google trying to replace it with algorithms.

<comment><USER8> Who has said they are anywhere near $2B in annual revenue? The estimates I've heard are around $500m. That's revenue, they pay out 50% on the top, so $250m net. Not a bad amount, but they have a ton of staff (3,000+) to pay before any profits are considered.

<comment><USER9> I was wondering why the hell they need 3,000 employees. This WSJ article was informative:

[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870467920457564...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704679204575647033055940528.html)

"Currently about half of Groupon's 3,000 employees are in sales"

That explains a lot. They have a ton of telemarketers pushing onto every business with a phone number. This reminds me a lot of the "local directory" space (which the WSJ article claims they're occupying, but from the POV of the small business owner and the consumer it looks like a very different product). There was a lot of excitement and initial signups when things first got off the ground (just a bit before the bubble burst), but the churn can be horrendous.

The difference with Groupon is that the "ads" are actually accountable and produce sales compared to local directory ones. But there's been a few horror stories about dumb business owners getting fucked over with "we're losing $1 on every sale, but we'll make up for it on volume!" deals. Their own fault, but I bet the Groupon telemarketers are pushing it on them like Walmart pushes on suppliers.

What I'd like to see is the current churn rate. If Groupon and competitors keep going at the current pace and businesses keep getting burned, eventually they'll burn the market.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> $2 Billion/year for a niche advertising company _sounds_ a bit implausible.

Anyone have any concrete verification of this?

<comment><USER11> I doubt the $2B number too, but putting that aside, is there any verification that Google has bid $6B for Groupon or done anything with them in the past week? Isn't all of this stuff just 'sources'?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I can't say much about the $6B but I can see why the Groupon sales team along with their relationships with local businesses is valuable to Google.

</comment><comment><USER13> If there really was an offer then I think it's the biggest mistake Groupon's founders ever made.

</comment><comment><USER14> Why not link to the original source [http://chicagobreakingbusiness.com/2010/12/sources- groupon-r...](http://chicagobreakingbusiness.com/2010/12/sources-groupon- rejects-googles-offer-will-stay-independent.html) instead of a content mill like Mashable.

<comment><USER15> Especially considering that Mashable provides one of the worst ad experiences ever for the iPhone.</comment></comment>


What are good job boards for Bay Area startups? - <AUTHOR>

I really want to find a job with a San Francisco start up. (Remote ideally, but hey beggars can't be choosers.)
I've tried the HN Who's Hiring threads, and the SF Bay craigslist resumes section, and gotten some responses.
Are there any other good jobs boards out there that startups keep an eye on? Thanks! <comment><USER2> Start-up specific jobs: <http://www.startupers.com>

Venture-backed start-up jobs: <http://ventureloop.com>

Legit job aggregator: <http://www.indeed.com></comment>


Ask HN: How do you schedule inspiration? - <AUTHOR>

So I'm a 'big ideas' guy that seems to have 3 kinds of work.
i) Paid work for other people.  Task-based.
ii) Interesting projects for other people.  Task-based, requiring some inspiration.
iii) Perosnal projects.  Inspiration based.
Now this isn't a question of motivation.  Motivation is something else entirley to inspiration.  My question, as you might have guessed, is more about balance.
Obvioulsy the first category very easy to complete.   But it's the other two sections I find hard to work into my schedule.  My main problem is that inspiration cannot be scheduled.  That's really a killer, as inspiration is crucial for making personal projects genuinely disruptive and cool.  The same sometimes applies to category 2, and I find myself needing to schedule inspiration for clients projects that require creativity.
So if anyone has hacks on this I'd love to hear how you balance it all. <comment><USER2> If inspiration is asynchronous, the best you can do is have figurative pen & paper ready to record when it shows up. By also capturing the time & space context of the interrupt, you can look for unique-to-you patterns that prompt inspiration.

Generic tips: [http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/top-10-source...](http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/top-10-sources- inspiration-for-creative-writing.html)

If you're a visually-oriented person, mind map software (e.g. iThoughts HD on iOS) makes it easy to spatially rearrange photos and phrases into a vision board, offering some structure yet leaving implicit room to generate new concepts.

If you want structured creativity, look into TRIZ. If you want unstructured creativity, grab some metaphysics / philosophy books.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is golden. Thank you.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Cool online resume builders? - <AUTHOR>

A while ago, I remember coming across a cool looking online resume builder that allowed you to save your resume online but I can't find it.  Anyone know of some cool online resume builders? <comment><USER2> <http://www.jobspice.com/home> (YC S09)

</comment><comment><USER3> I can't think of one, but this idea has been in my head for a while now, with a few other features. Would this interest you?

</comment><comment><USER4> check out <http://www.eprotam.com></comment>


Ask HN: Can Stripe Be Used for Crowdfunding Sites? Amazon Banned Me for Asking - <AUTHOR>

I'm working on a crowdfunding site (similar to Kickstarter and Indiegogo, but with a different model) and I'm wondering if Stripe's terms of service would allow it's use for crowdfunding?
The reason I'm a bit reluctant to just ask their customer support is that I was just "permanently banned" from Amazon Payments for simply asking their customer support if it was an acceptable usage.
Also, any other options out there? Last I heard Paypal doesn't allow donations or payments for a product or service that does not yet exist. <comment><USER2> Yes it can, see [https://stripe.com/docs/connect](https://stripe.com/docs/connect)

Amazon Payments can also be used which is what Kickstarter uses so I'm surprised you were banned just for asking. How exactly did you ask?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your help.

Unfortunately I didn't think to copy my question - I was just typing into a help form, and they didn't copy it in their response. Basically something very vague about working on a crowdfunding site like kickstarter, and I asked what was the maximum allowable payment authorization window (for example, kickstarter doesn't actually bill for up to 60 days - I wanted to see how many months beyond that they would allow). I hadn't even applied to Amazon Payments yet, but I was signed in to my personal amazon account in order to access the help form. This was their response:

 _Unfortunately, at this time, we are not able to approve your request for an Amazon Payments business account based on our review of your intended use of our payments service.

As stated in our Acceptable Use Policy, the following product or services are prohibited from using Amazon Payments:

• Donations and Charitable Solicitations - includes charities and non-profit organizations without a valid 501(c)(3) tax exempt status, charitable solicitations, commercial fundraisers (including crowd-funding businesses and commercial co-venturers), or any activity associated with the solicitation of donations.

While we appreciate your interest, the blocking of your account is a permanent action. Please feel free to write to us for any questions that you may have._

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Balanced focuses on marketplace payment processing

</comment><comment><USER4> This is what you are looking for :) [https://www.trycelery.com/](https://www.trycelery.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for that. This looks like it could be perfect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think re:banning - you're not telling the whole story.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh shit, you could be right. I had an Amazon store with some partners about six years ago that was shutdown because we had a shipping screw-up and got some packages to a handful of customers a couple of weeks late.

We still had close to a five star rating though, so it seemed kind of capricious at the time.

Why wouldn't they give that as the reason though? It honesty never occurred to me. Why would they give this detailed answer (copied in my comment above) citing their Acceptable Use Policy?</comment></comment>