Why Finnish babies sleep in cardboard boxes (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22751415 <comment><USER2> I love this, especially the inclusion of the book that helps new parents with the basics. Becoming a parent is such an overwhelming avalanche of advice (good and bad) and piles of crap. There is a massive industry dedicated to preying on the paranoia and naïveté of new parents. With that first baby, you're awash in a sea of ridiculous products like microwave baby bottle sterilizers and electric bottle heaters. By the second or third month, you come to realize just how worthless all of this junk is and you toss most of it and go back to the basics--the basics that are included in the Finnish baby box. How much easier it would have been if someone had handed us a box and a book and said, "Everything you will need for the first three months is in here."

<comment><USER3> Everything you've said is true, however all you've done is given the state the responsibility of deciding what part of the avalanche of advice is good and what part is bad.

<comment><USER4> People in the nordic countries including Finland have more trust in government authorities and public administration compared to for example Americans. A government agency given the task to given the task to produce some kind of recommendation of best practices is expected to do so reasonably well.

<comment><USER5> Nordic countries are the size of American cities, or at least metropolitan areas. I can tell you I have a lot more trust in the mayor and city council than I do in the president and my senators (even though I voted for all of them). If most government functions occurred at a more regional level I'm pretty sure Americans would have more trust too. I think SF (for all its problems) is doing a good job showing what can be done at a local level. It's telling that at least in SF politicians are talking about fixing poverty, while this discussion never really even comes up at the federal level, especially this election season.

<comment><USER6> That's a two way street.

There's huge parts of the country where government at every level is regarded as corrupt and dysfunctional.

When a higher authority (fed > state > town > individual departments > subgroup within a dept.) has to tell the offending institution to step in line it's usually very welcome. People being screwed tend to place their trust in the other parts of the government stack (the parts that haven't screwed them yet).

<comment><USER7> Agreed. Take Flint, Michigan for example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Posted because we just received our 2016 box, and I thought it was fascinating to see the contents as a Scottish man:

* [http://imgur.com/a/I0NYI](http://imgur.com/a/I0NYI)

<comment><USER8> My wife and I our currently expecting and are about to have a baby shower.

For those unfamiliar with the shower concept here in the US we have a party that is generally more expensive then if you were to just buy the baby stuff. We invite people over and they give us stuff off a list that is at a few big box stores.

Registering for the baby shower was my eye opener of what we are getting ourselves into. I actually seriously wondered what we would do if we didn't have friends, family and/or money. I had no clue where to start. I wasn't even sure what car seat we needed (the baby store will tell you).

I have to say though I'm amazed by the quality of the cardboard box stuff. Some of that stuff looks better than the stuff we registered for :).

<comment><USER9> Oh man, just coming out of the dark times (it's hard for the first few months), my little babyface is a bit over 6 months old. Everyone likes to offer un-asked for advice, and I'm no exception, but sleep sleep sleep. Bank it as much as possible before it's gone. Sleep dep is easily the worst part of being a new parent, it makes your brain go funny and makes it hard to cope with things. Be prepared to feel super depressed about your work performance for the next six months. That one actually hit me hard - your brain is how you do your job and your brain doesn't work properly for the first six months, so it's incredibly demoralizing. Lots of rewarding things in there too, but man, there's definitely a trough of sorrow you go through at the beginning!

<comment><USER10> On my third child, and my ex-wife, and my current wife or I have never had a sleep issue. We made it a point to put them in bed with us from the get go. No crib or sleeper. Breast fed, and we all slept fine with the occasional sickness or hot day making sleep a bit difficult for everybody. The babies tend to sleep better and wake less when they hear breathing and heartbeats nearby is my guess. That and both of my wives were/are very adept at breastfeeding in bed on their sides. I count myself lucky!

<comment><USER11> It is very dangerous to sleep with your baby. I know that many people in many cultures do sleep with their babies but you should not. There are several ways it can result in the baby dying:

1\. You can suffocate the baby by breathing on their face while you are asleep. The baby will not cry and will not wake while this is occurring.

2\. You can crush your baby by rolling on to them while you are asleep.

3\. Your baby can suffocate from their nose and mouth being covered by a blanket or pillow or even the soft mattress if they are get rolled over.

These very sad infant deaths happen frequently even in the US where co- sleeping is not as common as elsewhere in the world. Here are some recent news articles: [http://www.nola.com/health/index.ssf/2016/04/co- sleeping_dea...](http://www.nola.com/health/index.ssf/2016/04/co- sleeping_deaths_st_tammany.html) , [http://woodtv.com/2015/06/05/mom-hopes- babys-co-sleeping-dea...](http://woodtv.com/2015/06/05/mom-hopes-babys-co- sleeping-death-warns-others/)

Co-sleeping advocates will tell you "as long as you do it safely you can sleep with your newborn." This is false. There is no safe way to sleep with a newborn. Newborns cannot turn their heads away if you breath on them. They cannot move if you get too close. While, many parents sleep with their babies and the babies do not die that does not mean that it is safe.

Update: The mayo-clinics prevention guide for SIDS: [http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/sudden- infant-...](http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/sudden-infant-death- syndrome/basics/prevention/con-20020269) . TLDR; Newborn babies should sleep by themselves on their back in a crib with no stuffed animals, pillows, or "crib pads."

Another note: [http://thescientificparent.org/crib-notes-is-cosleeping- real...](http://thescientificparent.org/crib-notes-is-cosleeping-really- unsafe/)

<comment><USER12> This simply isn't true for most people. If a normal person rolls over on something they will feel it and wake up.

Do you typically fall off the bed? No? Why not? It's because you retain awareness while you sleep.

People who should not cosleep include people on medications, extremely heavy sleepers, sleepwalkers, and the very overweight.

For most people it's just fine. You go to sleep knowing "there is a baby here" and you will be aware of that all night.

<comment><USER13> >For most people it's just fine. You go to sleep knowing "there is a baby here" and you will be aware of that all night.

Hmm. I go to sleep knowing "my wife is there" and I've still elbowed her in the face countless times accidentally.

<comment><USER10> That's why I made the remark about drugs, alcohol or hypermobile sleepers. My current wife, myself and my ex-wife never had an issue before babies, during and after.

<comment><USER13> It's actually not something I do while _asleep_, but when groggy. If I wake up in the middle of the night and decide I want to sleep on my side now, my sense of spatial awareness is pretty poor. I believe people can get by without issues, just thought I would pop in with an amusing anecdote :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If anyone else wondered why the Finnish baby box includes condoms: [http://help.finnishbabybox.com/article/9-why-do-your-baby- bo...](http://help.finnishbabybox.com/article/9-why-do-your-baby-boxes-come- with-condoms)

<comment><USER15> Well considered, if only to get folks to ask why they are included. Many do not realize how quickly some women can get pregnant again after giving birth.

<comment><USER16> Definitely guilty of not asking. Am currently awaiting birth of second child.

<comment><USER17> Forgive me if this is overly intrusive, but were you breastfeeding the child? I was under the impression that you are extremely unlikely to get pregnant whilst nursing.

<comment><USER18> It is extremely unlikely that you will get pregnant again if your baby is under 6 months, your period has not returned, you are exclusively breastfeeding, and you do not go more than 6 hours between feedings. Once any of those things changes, all bets are off.

I got pregnant with my second when my first was 9 months old, I was still breastfeeding all the time.

<comment><USER19> This is certainly one of the more useful nuggets of knowledge I've picked up from HN. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I feel sad for reading this, here in Argentina until December 2015 we had a similar state backed plan called Qunita. Now the new right-handed government cancelled the plan without delivering 60k boxes and a judge is trying to burn those arguing insecurity (but none of the 1000s of mothers who received them found any glitch in the boxes).

Please read more (in spanish): [http://www.infobae.com/politica/2016/09/14/bonadio-ordeno- de...](http://www.infobae.com/politica/2016/09/14/bonadio-ordeno- destruir-60-mil-cunas-del-plan-qunita-por-inseguras/)

<comment><USER21> > I feel sad for reading this, here in Argentina until December 2015 we had a > similar state backed plan called Qunita. Now the new right-handed government > cancelled the plan without delivering 60k boxes and a judge is trying to > burn those arguing insecurity (but none of the 1000s of mothers who received > them found any glitch in the boxes).

How do you know that none of the mothers had a problem with them? Are there any studies about this?

On the other hand there are three studies pointing that the box had problems and it was considered unsafe (sharp edges, structure fails with weights under 9kg). [0]

Not to mention that one of the companies tasked to build it was just a small real estate company that thanks to that government program increased their revenue by 15.000.000% (in your face SV unicorns!!).[1]

[0] [http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1871615-plan-qunita-inseguros- cun...](http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1871615-plan-qunita-inseguros-cunas) (spanish) [1] [http://www.eliminandovariables.com/2015/06/el-kindergate- y-e...](http://www.eliminandovariables.com/2015/06/el-kindergate-y-el-gran- sueno-argentino_12.html) (spanish)

<comment><USER22> It's funny that you quote that La Nacion article which is supposedly based on an INTI study that states that the cribs are insecure for babies weighting 9kg+. While the plan is aimed at early stage babies and just the first few months (-6m).

The same report also states that, according to the criteria used, the huge majority of baby products in the segment are insecure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I have seen this one before, but was happy to read through it again. I have zero interest in having children, but think this is a great idea and would be more than happy for my taxes to help pay for it. The thing is, if this did exist in the UK (where I live), it feels like it would be the first thing to be dropped at the next budget - feels like the only chance it would have of existing in the UK would have been if it was introduced 25+ years ago :(

<comment><USER24> You get a bag full of coupons and advertorials, perhaps a free sample like a nappy in the UK instead. "Bounty bags" are the main ones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> > it's designed to give all children in Finland, no matter what background > they're from, an equal start in life

So nice to read this! It's a pity that ideals like these are things from the past, completely gone in our western, capitalist culture. Words like those now mostly invoke feelings of cynicism and snarks about socialism or communism.

<comment><USER26> Finland is a western, capitalist culture. Most western, capitalist countries have more compassionate cultures than the United States.

<comment><USER25> Do you think that, if this program had not been invented yet, that it could be introduced now, by the current government, in Finland?

I'm from the Netherlands (supposedly more compassionate), and we have something like this box. Only the program is run by a marketing data company that wants to sell your data, and box is filled with low value goodies and commercial offerings. The Finnish box is much nicer, as it seems offered with the right intensions and the content is really helpful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> tl;dr: It's not because the cardboard boxes are significantly better than cribs and other sleeping methods, it's the fact that the box comes with almost everything a new parent needs to look after kids, which means they don't have to shell out $foo-money to be able to take care of the children properly, and aren't left worried that they left something out.

<comment><USER28> And also because the parents need to visit a doctor to get the box.

<comment><USER29> That makes no sense.

How does the requirement to visit a doctor imply that the babies sleep in a box?

Wouldn't they sleep there if the box was given out without a visit to the doctor?

<comment><USER2> You would be surprised at how many babies are born in western countries without prenatal care, simply because the mothers-to-be didn't know that it was something that was available and needed. Encouraging new moms to visit the doctor is a fantastic thing. Besides check-ups, it encourages vaccinations and can help with early identification of congenital problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> There's a company that sells a version of the Finnish baby box, and we got one for our kid: [http://www.babyboxco.com/](http://www.babyboxco.com/) \- everyone loved it. My wife is part Finnish, but we're in the US, so this was a good approximation.

<comment><USER31> I have a question. Our first child is due this week, and we also got a box from babyboxco. What did/do you use as sheets for the box's pad? We noticed this week that the sheet that came with it is just a non-fitted one that fits a regular-sized crib.

<comment><USER30> Congrats! I think we used a pack-and-play sheet, which was too big and we just rolled the edges under.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I like the idea of all of the goodies, but as I have mentioned in another reply, I am on my third child, and they have always slept in bed with us, so the box and mattress is still weird for me. I have even slept with one of my babies in a small bed for all three of us with no issue.

We have never owned a crib or bassinet by the bedside even.

I may be wrong, but I remember hearing it was during Victorian times that this became popular.

I know there are people afraid of smothering or crushing their infants. Most negative studies seem to come out of the US. Other countries don't seem to have the same issues cited in US studies. I think it is common sense not to sleep with your baby in bed if you have waterbed, or tons of pillows, a soft mattress and a fluffy comforter.

My wife and I don't drink alcohol either, so no possibility of being so drunk that we would be unaware of smothering our baby, and neither of us is hypermobile in bed. All mammals keep their young close. The 'co-sleeping' is a modern term that makes it sound out of the ordinary, but in fact it is very ordinary.

People will say they slept better and the baby got used to being in another room, or across the room, but I can say from three babies worth of fathering, they get comfortable real quick being in bed with their parents.

<comment><USER32> Some people are very heavy sleepers and might not notice turning over onto their infant.

Additionally, the other big reason that you're not supposed to have an infant sleep in a normal bed is that they might roll off. It's fine I guess if both parents are around and "box" the infant in, but otherwise it's quite possible that the infant might toss over one too-many times and fall off the bed.

<comment><USER33> We've occasionally brought our little dude into bed with us when he's going nuts, but also know the potential consequences. It's not generally safe to bring a child into an adult bed and I know without my spouse being super- vigilant I might roll over onto him.

<comment><USER10> Yes, it takes two to parent in all things family! Congratulations on your little one!

I didn't realize how much I would enjoy fatherhood until I became one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> <rant> Not directly related to the article, but reading thru the series of negative replies when a poster suggests "hey, this is a great idea, we should do it in the US", is disheartening.

A great deal are so fiscally short sighted, misguided, and downright hostile, that it really takes away any hope for the "average American". HN demographic should represent some of the best of the best of the US, and well... i guess this kinda explain the rise of Trump. </rant>

<comment><USER35> Maybe the US is just too big and heterogeneous for this kind of thinking. I mentally multiply the cost of the box by the 4 million babies born each year, come up with some absurdly large number, feel overwhelmed by the need to pay for so many people. Of course, the burden of that cost is shared across many people as well, but the huge number has already asserted itself in my mind; I can't help thinking what that billion dollars could buy for me and mine. I can't help thinking how different from me are some of the people receiving my hard-earned money. Never mind that those same people are providing the funding when I have _my_ child.

Finland has ~50k babies born each year. Everyone speaks the same language, has a shared cultural identity; each one of those 50k mothers could be your neighbour, your sister. There is real empathy: the thought of depriving one of those mothers is painful.

I don't know what the solution is. Smaller, more culturally homogeneous states? I hope not. I like living amid diversity. Maybe we can build a cultural identity that sees fellow citizens as kin instead of just greedy, grabbing hands.

Or maybe I should just move to Finland.

<comment><USER34> I think no one really knows "the solution". Solutions for social issues are ever changing. I think the knee jerk fear of change over what are minute issues is the disheartening part.

This would be trivial to implement, but the ramifications could be great and save a ton of down the road health care costs. Preventive care and all that comes with it.

The US has 3-4M births per year. But ranks in the 70's for infant mortality. It's is not a stretch to think the 300-400M spent for this, is a small percentage of the medical costs that are saved... and if it doesn't, its not the big waste it appears, and the naysayers seem to imply....

That was my point.

No need to blame multiculturalism, no need to start micromanaging the biggest economy ( thats why costs seem large ), etc etc. Just simple cost/benefit that too often is sidelined by knee-jerk "'MERICA!" thinking.

<comment><USER35> I think lack of trust of the government/experts is a big problem here. Leading economists can say "this expensive program is a good investment and will reduce costs in the long run", and people simply don't believe them or care. Cutting costs seems to be the surest way to win votes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> We had a baby a few months ago. We got so many clothes from friends and family, some of it brand new, that our baby haven't had the chance to use it all before outgrowing it.

We even got the pram, cot and car seats (plural!) for free. It's crazy.

Any clothing we bought was just because we liked it and not because we needed it. Seriously, I don't know how is it in northern cultures, but where I come from it is extremely common to get the clothes from your cousins (and pass them on to the next :)), regardless of your money (unless you are rich, in which case I don't know how it works :)).

I'm not sure if this is a Latin thing, Southern European thing, Mediterranean thing or what :)

Edit: My point being: Corruption (as mentioned by others in different countries) and the very strong family support networks in other cultures might be the reason why this doesn't exist in other European countries.

</comment><comment><USER37> Last time I came across an article about this, I found out that there is a company that sells a version of the "Finnish baby box".

[https://finnishbabybox.com/](https://finnishbabybox.com/)

<comment><USER38> Wouldn't be surprised if the Finnish gov could make some decent money by selling the real deal (at market rate).

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> As millions of cats have shown, there is no better place to sleep than a cardbord box :)

Joking aside, this looks like a fantastical practical approach to social support. No complex and very expensive program, just a very practical "starter set" for parents. It relieves both a possible financial burden and of course makes sure, that nothing immediately important item isn't present at a time when parents probably think about a lot of things but not shopping.

</comment><comment><USER40> As a way to bring something like this to the US. I wonder if something like this could work as a similar model to Toms. Buy one give one away to a family need.

<comment><AUTHOR> There are private companies replicating the idea:

* [http://www.babyboxco.com/](http://www.babyboxco.com/)

* [http://britishbabybox.com/](http://britishbabybox.com/)

* [https://www.finnishbabybox.com/](https://www.finnishbabybox.com/)

Seems like if you had the right marketing and the right balance of items/price it'd make a nice startup.

<comment><USER41> I started a similar one for the Indian market but so far haven't had much success.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you have a website this would be the perfect thread in which to add a link!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> We should try giving useful items to welfare recipients instead of just money. It would be a great way to insure that the support was going to the right things. Why not give kids a back to school kit? This could be huge for kids in situations where no one will buy them the things they need for school. This happens a lot more than most people know.

<comment><USER43> That's a pretty controversial statement. Many countries are experimenting with purely cash based welfare instead of in-kind. See: [http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/09/wel...](http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/09/welfare- reform-direct-cash-poor/407236/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> They do give these out at some US hospitals:

[http://www.adn.com/alaska-news/health/2016/07/04/alaskas- lar...](http://www.adn.com/alaska-news/health/2016/07/04/alaskas-largest- maternity-center-begins-offering-free-baby-boxes-to-new-parents/)

</comment><comment><USER45> The BBC did a follow up article on this recently: [http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35834370](http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35834370)

Apparently spurned by the article, a few startups have appeared offering similar boxes in other countries.

</comment><comment><USER15> If only the USA had a similar program!

<comment><USER46> We can -- let's start with a population the size of Finland. The State of Colorado has about the same # of people -- a great place to start! Think critically before you toss out the old argument: The U.S. should do X, just like Y; where X is the socialist program of choice and Y is a Nordic Country of your choosing.

<comment><USER47> Not sure if that applies here.

There isn't anything particularly hard to administer about sending a one-time box to every parent who has a kid. It's not even collecting any new information--everything needed is recorded during birth registration. Even the potential for fraud is limited, because generating fraudulent SS numbers is much more lucrative than cardboard box resale, and we already have systems in place to limit that.

A county or state could easily implement this, with well-scoped resourcing requirements and little chance of cost overruns.

<comment><USER48> My worry about fraud isn't about the mothers, it's about the politicians and suppliers who would run this program. Too many pockets getting in the way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I got two of these when our son was born a couple years back, and they were amazing. I posted a review and tons of photos:

[https://www.care.com/c/stories/580/a-year-with-the- finnish-m...](https://www.care.com/c/stories/580/a-year-with-the-finnish- maternity-box/)

Yes, we did use the box. Yes, we did use all the clothes, lotions, toys, etc. In fact, our son basically wore nothing except eurogarb for his first year.

There are some commercial versions of this available in the US, though they're relatively pricey. The fact that this is a public benefit in some places is truly awesome, and something I wish could be politically tenable here in the US.

</comment><comment><USER50> _Baby-box-industry lobbying intensifies_

</comment><comment><USER51> You actually have the choice between the box or 140 euros, but not many people take the money. We did, once.

If you have twins, you're allowed three boxes---if triplets, six. We had twins so we opted for two boxes and the money.

</comment><comment><USER52> Build your own baby kit. (Just add baby)

</comment><comment><USER53> I've heard that Finns even have another box for dads as 'paternity package' which complements the content of maternity package. But that is probably not state sponsored: [https://www.instagram.com/p/BCj- EgjHrhs/](https://www.instagram.com/p/BCj-EgjHrhs/)

</comment><comment><USER53> I've heard that Finns even have another box as a 'paternity package', which complements the content of the maternity package. But I guess that is not state sponsored: [https://www.instagram.com/p/BCj- EgjHrhs/](https://www.instagram.com/p/BCj-EgjHrhs/)

</comment><comment><USER54> France goes way beyond that.[1]

[1] [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9211691...](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92116914)

</comment><comment><USER55> It's a great programme.

You might be interested in some of the comments here, from 3 years ago. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5817728](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5817728)

</comment><comment><USER56> Great idea. I think in US, we can build a warby parker model for this.

<comment><USER57> Same here, I actually read/watched a documentary about sleep that pointed they do this a lot in Scandinavian countries (such as this article). Hopefully the uS can find a solution like it

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> That gear looks well designed.

<comment><AUTHOR> It does.

I expected it to be a little cheap because most baby-stuff isn't going to be useful for very long (the babies growing so quickly), but all of it felt solid, and the designs are pretty great too.

<comment><USER59> The cloth diapers are also a nice touch! We ended up using mostly cloth diapers until the baby started eating solid foods.

<comment><USER60> We liked cloth too, but it's a lot of laundry. We switched to disposable for the last child. I think it's more economical to use cloth diapers if you can afford the extra time it takes to manage them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Universal Baby Incubation will never work. Mothers will no longer buy anything for their baby because sufficient is supplied by the state.

</comment><comment><USER62> In Venezuela the babies are being put in cardboard boxes too: [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3800058/The- youngest...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3800058/The-youngest- victims-economic-disaster-Babies-left-cardboard-boxes-cash-strapped-hospital- Venezuela-country-spirals-financial-abyss.html)

<comment><USER63> These pictures are not "shocking". The babies sleep in boxes and seem to be doing all right. If you have limited resources, you should put the money in essential things. Proper food and medication is more important than having a big fancy bed. The babies sleeping in these pictures appear to be fed and well dressed.

But it is of course possible that in other respects, the Venezuelan baby care is lacking due to corruption and mismanagement. I can imagine that the level of care and attention given depends a lot on what kind of people you happen to have in each place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> I don't like how they correlate this cardboard box starter kit program to Finland's low infant mortality rate. The claim that the U.S. has such a high infant mortality rate compared to other industrialized nation has been thoroughly debunked[1].

[1] - [http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/oct/3/editorial- the...](http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/oct/3/editorial-the- statistics-of-life/)</comment>


Chess is taking over the online video game streaming world and it will change - <AUTHOR> https://theconversation.com/chess-is-taking-over-the-online-video-game-world-and-both-are-changing-from-this-unlikely-pairing-143790 <comment><USER3> Chess-related software is certainly booming as well. My favorite recent addition is OpeningTree[0], a platform that lets you input anyone's Lichess or chess.com username and load a tree of their opening moves. I play in the Lichess4545[1] league and its an incredible tool.

My contributions to the chess community are much smaller. I wrote u/relevant_post_bot[2] for /r/anarchychess and stylochess[3] in an attempt to solve the identity of mysterious super grandmasters[4].

[0] [https://www.openingtree.com](https://www.openingtree.com)

[1] [https://www.lichess4545.com/team4545/](https://www.lichess4545.com/team4545/)

[2] [https://github.com/fmhall/relevant-post- bot](https://github.com/fmhall/relevant-post-bot)

[3] [https://github.com/fmhall/stylochess](https://github.com/fmhall/stylochess)

[4] [https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/gqlqlz/the_identity_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/gqlqlz/the_identity_of_gm_konevlad_is/)

<comment><USER4> My own contributions are modest. I wrote the shitty little Chess program that Apple gave away on their early Apple II demo game cassette tape and a few years later wrote and sold a Go playing program for the Apple II.

I am going to check out the Twitch Chess 'show' mentioned in the article, looks very cool. I enjoy Go webcasts supported by the American Go Association.

I use a very strong Go playing program for practice. I have it rate all of my game moves and for each move show the best alternative. It really helps, and has replaced expensive lessons from a South Korean Go professional I took a few years ago.

I need to find something similar for Chess. I played in the US Chess Open in 1978, and have not played very many serious games since then.

<comment><USER5> Lichess has free analysis. Chess.com has limited free analysis.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Headline is almost certainly clickbait. While yes chess is increasing in viewership, 4,313 average viewers is hardly taking over Twitch's 15 million daily viewers. Chess is currently the 29th most popular game on Twitch: [https://sullygnome.com/games/30/watched](https://sullygnome.com/games/30/watched)

<comment><USER7> It doesn't get high viewership, but as a cultural moment for the site, it was huge. Chess posts regularly topped LSF for several weeks, and they remain strong.

It was popular enough that it drew a strong reactionary movement of people complaining about chess posts. You can argue about clickbait, but the view counts (not that #30 is shabby at all) don't do it justice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Although probably an unpopular position I agree with Finegold who is quoted in the article.

Ever since chess became big on twitch, online communities are increasingly filled with drama around Nakamura's persona, other twitch related drama, or just general gamer-community style content that was largely absent before.

The popularity largely focusses on a few twitch celebrities rather than talented players, it does very little to promote chess players who deserve to get more attention for the quality of their play, or just genuinely players who have played for a long time.

I think it does little to foster growth of chess as a sport and is just an opportunity to milk whatever commercial value anyone can out of the attention which I wager will be short-lived, as the twitch crowd moves on to the next thing.

<comment><USER9> It's worth noting that Ben Finegold is also a streamer and 99% of everything he says is a joke. There's some educational content on his streams, but mostly he hangs out, plays casual games, and insults the audience. It's fun.

<comment><USER10> That sounds truly awful.

<comment><USER11> It's an acquired taste. Even then, sometimes it tastes sour.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> It's good time to mention that there is a lichess HN chess group: [https://lichess.org/team/hacker-news](https://lichess.org/team/hacker-news)

Although it's been a little dead since last time. I have been thinking of reviving it but lichess notifications aren't very good at least the forum system. Many people don't login to their account on a regular basis so it's easy to miss them.

An an email based invitation system seems better. What do you guys think? Is anyone interested in maintaining a sort of a club for HN members so we could include everything like open source experimentation and streaming place [0] from a few days ago?

0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24333474](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24333474)

Edit: Started a substack. I will head out now!

[https://hnclub.substack.com](https://hnclub.substack.com)

[https://hnclub.substack.com/p/lichess-tournament-next- weeken...](https://hnclub.substack.com/p/lichess-tournament-next-weekend-12)

<comment><USER12> My son and his online class teacher uses lichess extensively. He is learning a lot with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Fabulous time for chess.

Recent discussion on the same subject:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23537774](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23537774)

Btw this article is lifted from a less addy site here:

[https://theconversation.com/chess-is-taking-over-the- online-...](https://theconversation.com/chess-is-taking-over-the-online-video- game-world-and-both-are-changing-from-this-unlikely-pairing-143790)

<comment><AUTHOR> Oof, I came across this just few hours ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24384797](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24384797)

I should have been more careful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I just watched Nakamura play chess blindfolded yesterday while holding up a lively conversation. I know that blindfolded chess has been a thing for a long time, but it is always so impressive to me. Any hope that I'd have of keeping positions in my head would be gone as soon as someone talked to me.

<comment><USER15> What's the point of slowly moving pieces of wood when everything fits in RAM

<comment><USER16> It's an networking mechanism to send state changes to the other agent and broadcast them to nearby subscribers. It has the side effect of semi-durably persisting the state, too.

<comment><USER5> The range is terrible. Lower than Bluetooth and mugch tighter line of sight too.

And it's less durable than a smartphone which is great as saving to SSD at shutdown.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Taking over is probably a bit of an overstatement, but I would be thrilled if it grew in popularity. Not only is it a game of thought, but it is a game that I have taught children using nothing more than scraps of paper (to make the board and pieces).

The article mentions a cultural clash. That isn't so unusual for the game. The history of chess can be traced back centuries, with both variations in rules and its place in society. The game survived regardless.

</comment><comment><USER18> I know this sounds like I'm missing the point, but I'd love to see enhanced clients for chess which graphically pointed out long and short term options for those of us who play casually. That way we could be more like generals choosing among battlefield options, rather than having to memorize openings.

As a somewhat odd example, this would be like the Nintendo DS version of Street Fighter - which allowed you to assign on-screen buttons for common attacks. Rather than having to master a series of button presses and execute perfectly, you could just tap the button and fire off a Hadoken. Would I ever compete at EVO playing the game like that? No, of course not. But it was fun! I still lost a lot, but it was just a deeper game.

I think the same could be done for Chess. Let those of us with mediocre knowledge and skills play the game at the level the masters play at with the help of some AI. Rather than handicapping with time or giving up a piece, let the other player have options to get help from the AI once in a while - say 3 times during the game. Or have it set to not allow blunders without confirmation. There's a lot that could be done to add pleasure to the game.

<comment><USER19> > rather than having to memorize openings.

> those of us with mediocre knowledge and skills

Don't worry about openings yet, at all. Practise basic tactics (pins, forks, skewers, discovered attack, overloading, interference etc) until you almost never fall victim to them, and can spot it quickly when others do.

<comment><USER20> I'm one of the mediocre players and what's helped tremendously for chess tactics is the book "predator at the chess board" (it's available online) and lichess's puzzles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Just passing by to signal-boost the creator of Lichess, a single person who, out of frustration with FICS et al., made an amazing product out of the blue, released it under an open source license and delivered an UX that blew its competitors right out of the water.

All it takes one person with skill and generosity to completely change a community for the better. I hope to become one day this kind of person.

<comment><USER22> He did it with virtually no resources and kept it as simple as possible - <USER2> he did it alone is astounding.

He has a good talk about how he did it here : - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZgyVadkgmI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZgyVadkgmI)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Is there a chess game which teaches you well known openings as well?

I use to have a java game on my old Nokia phone once. Never found it again. If I made a certain opening, or did a certain move, it use to tell me that I played that particular move.

<comment><USER24> Lichess will tell you the what opening is being played. It also suggests the 'best move' using arrows.

[https://lichess.org/](https://lichess.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> A couple friends and I started a Chess Puzzle app (Chess Puzzle Blitz) and chess.com + COVID-19 is a big reason there has been a massive rally in Twitch. Most players you see on Twitch and that have been talked about in this thread are signed to exclusive twitch streaming agreements by chess.com - Chess.com is very profitable. Downside is it solidifies their position as the dominant online player. Upside is it does make chess more known and watched worldwide.

<comment><USER26> How come it's not on the Play Store? And I can't download the APK on my desktop. I just get redirected to the Apple App Store.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Chess.com has excellent commentary and coverage of popular chess events. Not affiliated, but just impressed with the quality of their commentary, making it informative and exciting.

</comment><comment> chris-orgmenta It's also worth noting that, in general, Twitch chat is less toxic for Chess than other games/categories.

I do peruse Twitch fairly regularly looking for streams that resonate. I'm always repulsed by a "LET'S GO BOYS" mentality which meanders between homophobia, sexism, bullying, hate speech.

Chess is a very good thing for Twitch.

<comment><USER28> Actually most of the pogchamps players have commented how their chat is more toxic when they're playing chess than other games because of the backseating.

<comment><USER16> Different kinds of toxicity-- mocking people for missing a mate or hanging a piece is tempting (and perhaps stings more than some random's judgment call about whether you played a round well in some non-perfect-knowledge, reflex- drive game). So more of that type of problem, but a bit less of other types like sexism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> 0-_-0 Chess is a good game but the queen is OP. Hope they nerf it in the next patch.

</comment><comment><USER29> Marc Esserman is an entertaining streamer of chess in twitch, with music, tennis and world class chess.

</comment><comment><USER30> I did a Ctrl+F and no one so far has posted about cheating! How can we trust a Twitch experience of chess when actual video game streamers have been caught cheating on Call of Duty et all? This seems rife for abuse. I love chess but I wouldn't play electronically against random folks since the past 15 years.

<comment><USER31> I've been playing fairly regularly on lichess and I can assure you that I have not yet met players that were using computers to cheat. Firstly, lichess may have some simple checks for move strength relative to the player's rating. Secondly, I mostly play 5+0 blitz and it's really hard to cheat as the time goes low with no increments

<comment><USER32> In my thousands of games on lichess I've run into a couple of cheaters, but they are very easy to spot. You also get the rating points refunded once they are caught and removed.

A standard engine is probably somewhere around 3000 strength (better than any human), and the average person who cheats is probably 1000-1800 strength. Within 1-2 games you can easily tell if a 1500 player is magically playing above super-gm strength all the sudden. The player also isn't going to be good enough to not play the computer moves that give them away, because they won't understand them!

<comment><USER16> Yah, I've played a few games against people that A) played a tricky but objectively weak (memorized) opening hoping I'd fall into traps, B) blundered their whole way around the middle game, hanging pieces like mad, and C) slowed way down and played with 99.9% accuracy through the only, very non-obvious 20 move sequence that could salvage a draw for them. It's pretty obvious. (Often they are slow with the engine, so I flag them during C).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> It's growing in popularity for sure. Nakamura's streaming, Magnus's tournament and everything moving online due to covid helped. But I wouldn't call it "taking over" and I doubt it has staying power. How long will the casual fans stick around?

<comment><USER34> Think of it as a sales funnel. They don't all have to stick around. A percentage of them will, and they might never have come across cheers without this current popularity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Url changed from [https://scroll.in/field/972176/game-theory-chess-is- taking-o...](https://scroll.in/field/972176/game-theory-chess-is-taking-over- the-online-video-game-streaming-world-and-that-will-change-it-too), which points to this.</comment>


9 Important Psychology Concepts You Can Use in Your Marketing - <AUTHOR> http://blog.hubspot.com/psychology-marketers-revealing-principles-human-behavior

<comment><USER2> I remember having a similar list for high-school English class. My teacher was a former VP of sales at Montgomery Ward. Suffice it to say, we were taught a cynical interpretation of Emily Dickinson</comment>


Cutting-edge science could make mental illness less of a guessing game - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2016/02/19/brain-hacking-the-minds-biology/ <comment><USER2> As a cancer biologist I feel that the reliance on biomarkers as indicators of biology is a poor way to do science. Biology is about complex, interacting networks; models that attempt to reduce it to a few controlling variables is almost always wrong (as in, the model is insufficiently predictive), and moreover misses the point: we need to understand biology in all of its rich interactions, not pare it down to the math we can handle. Biology is not physics; two or three factor models won't cut it.

<comment><USER3> What would you say is the optimal path for research in psychiatry/psychology?

<comment><USER2> Probably not the best person to ask. I have a limited understanding of psychiatry but still tend to take a dim view of it. I think the brain is substantially more complicated than psychiatric theory suggests, and so I think that the modern science is far away from useful and accurate models. fMRI, for example, is a very gross way of examining brain function and seems to me rather like trying to read source code by examining the number of bits of entropy in a file.

I think that psychology is more useful for understanding the human mind, but even here I wish they would eschew the ersatz methods of science (stats, p-values, controlled studies) and go back to more qualitative descriptions of the psyche; we're not even close to successfully bridging between psychology and biology.

But this is all a lay understanding of the field and probably no better an insight than yours.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> An interesting article however where are the numbers?

A few anecdotes of how it helped some people does really tell us that much.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure why this comment is being down voted. This comment is spot on. As a neuroscientist reading this article I asked the same question.

It is so easy in clinical research to be fooled by randomness and the placebo effect.

<comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps it was my poor grammar.

"does" => "doesn't" does rather flip an argument doesn't it

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The DSM that Psychiatrists use is completely a guessing game. Not "partially" \-- there is nothing that has ever been proven that any mental "illness" exists -- this is important when they tell you that a drug can fix the problem. They say by changing these "chemical imbalances" with a drug, we will solve a problem. But nothing has proven those chemical imbalances are there to begin with.

All we know is that the symptoms are real -- there are other non Psychiatry/Psychology methods for dealing with them -- I would see CCHR for more data.

<comment><USER6> CCHR??? The Scientology front group??? Yeah, _that 's_ a good idea.

<comment><USER5> So, because you disagree with a connection of the group the data is false?

 _That 's_ a great idea. It's also known as _ad hominem_ and is a logical fallacy.</comment></comment></comment>


Cheap Tricks: The Low Cost of Internet Harassment - <AUTHOR> https://www.propublica.org/article/cheap-tricks-the-low-cost-of-internet-harassment <comment><USER2> A simple solution would be to restrict your professional communications to an online "contact me" form, which in itself would require CAPTCHA or some sort of registration. That would require a culture shift within ProPublica--easier to achieve than policing all WordPress installs or all mailing lists.

<comment><USER3> For a reporter, like this author, that barrier would probably be too intrusive for them to be able to do their job.

<comment><USER2> Perhaps. However, we do a similar thing with telephone numbers--to reach most professionals I have to go through a receptionist. The added friction to contact has to be weighed against safety and susceptibility to disruption.

At the very least, a single point of entry to ProPublica's journalists is something the organization can control. It is by scales of magnitude more difficult and intrusive to control spam in the wild.

"Too" intrusive is a question of expediency. In other words, the cost to harassment is low because the price to contact has been set low. Raise the barrier to entry. It will make legitimate contact SLIGHTLY more difficult, but it would also make opportunistic harassment in bulk MUCH more difficult.</comment></comment></comment>


Megaupload to Sue Universal, Joins Fight Against SOPA - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-to-sue-universal-joins-fight-against-sopa-111212/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter <comment><USER2> I find it particularly curious that this was taken down. It was supposed to be something that the music industry is smart enough to understand for the "attack that you need to sit out for now" that it is - instead, they took the bait and went into attack mode themselves.

The reaction, of course, shows how disgustingly superior (to logic and reason, really) the industry perceives itself - basically everything that an artist creates and is related to the profit of the music industry must fit into a narrow idea of control. When they produce music that sells, the industry wants control. When it's only an appearance that could funnel traffic to something they can sell, they will allow it, because they know they will have control down the line. But if it is something like the Megaupload case - having the artists create something that does neither, but also seemingly "strengthen the enemy", they are caught outside of their logic.

Now, anybody who isn't with their back to the wall would work with such a situation creatively. But with the media industry, we have a curious case of not _needing_ to get defensive (after all, they still turn record profits), but having bought into the idea that that is the attitude they have to display in order to survive.

It would be interesting to hear precisely how much standing they have on this, really. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the artists that appeared in that clip do have contracts that say - whatever you do, we own, if we don't like it, we will fight it. After all - the industry isn't stupid and they certainly have the access to the best legal defenses you can get these days.

The good thing about this hack by Megaupload is that it's a loose-loose for the industry and while they have no shortage of material in that area (it seems like we hear a horribly backwards story like this every month), that steady drip really may end up give us some progressive approaches.

<comment><USER3> I am almost certain the DMCA take-down request was at least semi-automated via tag searches on youtube and rubber stamped by one of their employees. You can see this yourself by submitting a video with tags that contain artists they have on contract.

I am also almost certain that MegaUpload understood this, and their video was specifically engineered to trigger these bots....

<comment><USER4> They can't just use a bot to DMCA stuff, they have to have a lawyer sign off on it. Granted, in practice, I think they pretty much rubber stamp it, but the law says that they're _supposed_ to be acting in good faith. If they're not, well, they have nobody but themselves to blame. I mean, how can they expect YouTube or the government to police their stuff if even they can't get it right?

Copyright infringement hinges on permission. If even they don't know who has their permission to do what, nor even what they actually own, it seems ludicrous to suggest that the government or other companies should be expected to know.

If they're confused here, it's because they thought they owned these people, only to find out that they do not.

<comment><USER5> > _They can't just use a bot to DMCA stuff, they have to have a lawyer sign > off on it._

This is incorrect. Anyone operating with the consent of the rightsholder can send a DMCA take-down request. You do not have to be a lawyer.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Ac...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Copyright_Infringement_L...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Copyright_Infringement_Liability_Limitation_Act)

<comment><USER4> Oops, you're right. You do still have to make that statement under penalty of perjury that has never, to my knowledge, been enforced, about representing the rightsholder and having a good faith belief that something is infringing.

<comment><USER5> Sorry my statement was so terse. After getting some much needed sleep and rereading it, I most certainly could have written it better/nicer.

Bogus DMCA take-down requests from unknown/anonymous/incorrect entities are actually a significant problem. It would be nice if you were right and only lawyers could send such requests (and risk being disbarred for intentionally misrepresenting facts). Sadly, any anonymous nut-job can send DMCA take-down requests for any reason, and like spam, they can get away with it. I've seen no cases where the stated "penalty of perjury" has actually been prosecuted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The camel's back has been broken. Because of the label's stupidity, this trial will un-do a lot of the stuff the labels have been pushing for over the years. It will not only stop the trend of more restrictions dead in its tracks, but also reverse it. Megaupload will bring the necessary attention to the labels' abuses of DMCA and their other proposed bills, and we'll probably going to end up with laws that strengthen our online liberties.

<comment><USER7> It's important that we don't let this happen in a bubble. We have to show that citizens are behind Megaupload (in this case). The recording industry has no qualms on speaking on behalf of public interest, and I can imagine they'll suggest the public would prefer censorship with false positives than to risk "hurting musicians" through piracy.

If there have been other cases where artists have had music taken down by recording labels that did not own copyright, now would be a good time to bring them back to light.

<comment><USER8> While we are fighting the recording companies, why not put pressure on the people that give them power: the artists themselves? UMG is speaking on their behalf, acting on their behalf. If they are going to play the musicians card, why not strike back. It's one thing to hear the music industry wants to silence your speech. It's another thing when your favorite artist supports the same efforts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This isn't an isolated case.

In a similar story Warner Bros abused the DMCA to take down HotFile content that didn't infringe their copyright.

[http://torrentfreak.com/warner-bros-admits-sending- hotfile-f...](http://torrentfreak.com/warner-bros-admits-sending-hotfile- false-takedown-requests-111109/)

Label's and studio's have every right to defend their products. However, they must do it in a responsible way. Stories like this make it difficult for politicians to legislate for more power's when the existing ones are already being abused by those they are set up to protect.

<comment><USER10> This isn't really like that at all.

To be honest I found Warner Bro's mistake, apart from the OSS takedown, to be not that odious, you can't on the one hand have the web industry say that trying to deal with so much infringing content is almost impossible because there's too much of it, and on the other moan that Warner Bros make a few mistakes when trying to deal with that vast amount of infringing content, not on one site but on hundreds of sites.

There's a happy medium somewhere and safe harbour isn't it, for example YouTube knows that hence the auto filtering software they've developed.

Universal's action, however, is pure censorship in a massively misguided attempt to further their own goals. Ultimately it has resulted in utter failure.

<comment><USER11> If I recall correctly, Warner Bros was issuing DMCAs without even cursory research into whether they had rights to the IP or not. The problem isn't even so much that Warner Bros was cutting lawyer fees - fine - but that they weren't held to the minimum of responsibility provided by the DMCA for issuing fraudulent (OK, or at the very least incorrect) notices.

<comment><USER10> If someone puts up a 600mb file called 'Thor (2011)', what do you think it's going to be. Do you need to open and watch it? 10s or 100s of times on 10s or 100s of sites?

On the one hand many sites are making _no_ attempt to stop the flood, pointing at the DMCA, on the other the film and music industry want to legitimately stop these files being shared.

I guess what I'm saying is are they supposed to download and watch every single file?

As that's precisely what the website owners have claimed is something they can't do, but the music/film industry suddenly has to do that on 100s of sites?

It's a rock/hard place scenario.

<comment><USER12> You're still giving the industry way too much credit for being reasonable. This is not a case of 600MB files named "Thor (2011)" that aren't Thor. In the link above, you can see that Warner Bros., having the copyright to the film "The Box" and the Harry Potter films went on to issue takedown notices for:

\- Things that sounded sort of maybe like "The Box", like _"The Box That Changed Britain"_ and _"Cancer Step Outsider of the Box"_ (sic)

\- Portuguese Harry Potter fanfiction unrelated to the films

\- Open-source software that Warner Bros. didn't approve of since it might speed up downloads

\- "URLs" such as _"<http://hotfile.com/contacts.html> and give them the details of where the link wasposted and the link and they will deal to the @sshole who posted the fake."_

Does that really represent a reasonable effort on their part to get it right?

<comment><USER10> Yes, I do agree somewhat, there should have been someone checking the matching as well as some oversight on the employees. I find it odd that someone would get so indignant that they'd take down an OSS piece of software.

But in the end the music/film industry has been asked, with little to no programming skills, to try and regulate the web industry, who's livelihood depends on lots of programming skill.

I think YouTube have moved strategically as they can see where that's ultimately going to end up, with a swing back towards sites doing the filtering.

<comment><USER11> The music/film industry _has not been asked_ to try to regulate the Web industry. Instead, the music/film industry _has demanded_ the right to do whatever the hell they like, with no oversight, no due process, and no hindrance, to ensure their own profits to the exclusion of all other considerations. It's bad for the artists, bad for consumers, extremely bad in terms of collateral damage to the Internet and society alike, and ultimately bad for the music and film industry themselves. Every study done by independent observers, every bit of evidence that is examined by people not being paid for alarmism, every new scandal that comes out, underscores the short-sightedness, venality, and sheer moral failure of the bozos running that show, and yet true to form, Congress continues to lick their spittle for a couple nickels come payday.

It's time they got theirs. Seriously.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It seems to me that the only way to end the labels' dominance over the music industry is to deprive them of their sole revenue source - popular and successful artists.

What services exactly does a label continue to provide, now that the internet has made it much easier for artists to self-promote? I presume that large portion of what the labels used to do can now be done very easily by the artists themselves.

There may be an opening for a tech startup here (maybe there's already one (or more) in this field) to take whatever the labels _still_ need to do and undercut them on price and ease of acceptance (the labels are pretty picky about which artists they take). It seems to me that the labels have spurned a lot of the technological advances that have been made possible over the last decade or two in favor of clinging to an increasingly outdated business model in the hopes of squeezing a final dollar or two out of their musicians.

<comment><USER14> _What services exactly does a label continue to provide, now that the internet has made it much easier for artists to self-promote?_

Promotion.

Artists can self-promote all they want, but they're up against thousands of other artists that are also self-promoting. Labels pay people to listen to artists, work out which ones are actually talented (or, in reality, which ones will make the most money) and focus their promotion on those artists only. The signal to noise ratio is totally different, and they can afford to put far more resources behind this smaller pool of artists. They also have a lot of experience in promotion, which up and coming bands simply don't have.

There isn't a tech startup solution to everything. Maybe you could set up a site that crowdsources this artist selection process but I wouldn't be optimistic- there is no personal reward in listening to hours upon hours of awful music. Maybe you could give those initial listeners a stake in the bands they vote for? That could be an interesting idea.

I've long thought that MySpace might yet have a life as some sort of band- centric site. Since it died a horrible death nothing has really come up to replace it.

<comment><USER15> Tech companies hire PR firms to do their promotion. They don't give the PR firm a cut of all the revenues the company makes, nor do they give them equity necessarily (it does happen but its not the rule).

The 'labels' have no reason to exist, there is however a great market for Artist PR firms. We need that first disruptive one though, where an artist 'signs' with them meaning that they do the promotion but they don't own the music copyright. And as it is a new business model for the music industry it will take some time to work out.

<comment><USER16> In that sense, record labels are like VCs that also provide PR. For the amount of the investment that both labels and tech VCs make, its quite normal in our society to take an equity cut rather than a flat rate. Making the analogy to VCs also relates a lot better to the odds of failure, given that labels lose money on most of the bands they sign. And similarly to founders that don't know how to negotiate for good terms on their funding, many bands are also poor negotiators.

<comment><USER17> The labels don't really provide funding in the same way that VCs do; they essentially provide a very large payday loan. Any VC who demanded the kind of terms record labels do would be run out of the Valley.

The interesting question is, is there room for a real VC industry in music? I think there might be someday, but not in the current market — the existing cartel is so horribly messed up that they'd be pleased as punch to take you down with them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is part of a trend to abandon due process. In some cases it's the government itself, with ICE seizing domains without having to go to trial and prove their case. In this case it's government abdicating their role in due process, telling corporations to do what they will.

This is leading to vigilantism, by the government and by corporations.

<comment><USER19> _This is leading to vigilantism, by the government and by corporations._

This is one the most pointed comments I've heard about copyright litigation and wanton take-down notices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I would be 100% behind this if it weren't for that stupid Kim Dotcom.

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm surprised to learn Megaupload is a Kim dotcom, aka Kimble production.

<comment><USER22> I always wondered who owned the mega label sites and why they were never talked about in the mainstream media. Then your comment led me to the following article: [http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20087753-261/the- mystery-m...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20087753-261/the-mystery-man- behind-megaupload-piracy-fight/)

<comment><USER21> Cool. I would opine that a good 50% of the internet money made out there is very unsexy, hidden and underground. The people behind the businesses have absolutely no incentive to draw attention to themselves but occasionally they do slip through the cracks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Money laundry....

=> Hongkong => BVI

<http://imgur.com/a/7fqbg></comment>


ASK HN: What do you think of mind.some.head ? (social network connecting minds and ideas) - <AUTHOR> http://www.mindsomehead.com/?xgi=ddYJifH

<comment><USER2> <http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=head>

Edit: okay, this is just a ning setup.

</comment><comment><USER3> Um, what is it?</comment>


Regex Crossword - <AUTHOR> https://regexcrossword.com/ <comment><USER2> I thought this was kinda neat so I taught a computer how to do it: [https://github.com/lvh/regex- crossword/blob/master/src/lvh/r...](https://github.com/lvh/regex- crossword/blob/master/src/lvh/regex_crossword/logic.clj)

Right now, it works using a logic programming engine (core.logic, essentially miniKanren), generating a bunch of strings that match the regex, and then applying them as constraints.

If I were to improve it, I'd parse the regex, walk the parse tree, and assign constraints that way. (There's already a regex parser in there: that's how the string generation works.) That was my first thought, but that's more complex than what I want to tackle before work :)

Right now there's a bug where if e.g. a regex AB|CD will get applied character-wise, so it might erroneously try AC or BD. The way to fix that is to make sure the answers actually match the regex all the way at the end.

Using a constraint engine has the cool feature that it can show you multiple answers if they exist. (That's not true for my current implementation, because the string generation is randomized, so there's no guarantee it will visit each possible string.)

Someone else has pointed out that there are a lot of clues in the titles, e.g. that the answers are palindromes. That would be easy to add:

        (map (fn [vars] (l/== vars (reverse vars))) (concat rows cols))

(Read: "for each row and col, create a constraint that the row/col must be equal to itself reversed".)

<comment><USER3> A while back I wrote a little Rust library that does exactly what you say: parses a regex to use as a text generator. It was a lot of fun, and really gives you an appreciation for just how much bigger than ASCII matching the regex world can be! Writing a constraint-based solver that uses the generator library sounds like an amusing project as well!

Link: [https://github.com/CryptArchy/regex_generate](https://github.com/CryptArchy/regex_generate)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ah, this brings me back. I remember coming across these a few years ago and spending a ton of time solving them. I wound up taking a crack at writing a regex crossword solver. Suprisingly a solver that used basic constraint satisifcation[0] was enough to solve every problem I threw at it.

The core idea was for each cell, keep track of a list of possible letters that can go there. Initially you start with the full alphabet, and as the solver repeatedly narrows down the list for each cell as it gets closer and closer to completion. To hone in on the solution, the solver would iterate through each regex and see what characters could go in that row or column to match the regex.

For example if you have the regex "(a|b)" against an cell, you can constrain the list of possible values to the cell to just the letters "a" and "b". For a slightly more complex example, if you are matching a regex "(abc|def)", and you know the middle character has to be an "a" or a "b", you know the string in that row or column is "abc". By repeatedly checking each regex, the solver gets closer and closer to the solution until it eventually solves it.

Of course there's a chance the solver will get stuck. As a last resort, you can always resort to backtracking. I wound up finding implementing backtracking wasn't necessary since the approach I mentioned above was enough to solve every puzzle I threw at the solver.

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

<comment><USER5> Not very surprising when you consider that it's a constraint satisfaction problem

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > In order to remember which puzzles you have solved, we need to identify you > in some way.

No, that's a lie. No need for identification in order to save progress, you can use: cookie, browser storage, etc.. for that.

Please be honest about why you are using social media for login. Because when I login with Facebook for example, you can see a large portion of my Facebook profile and depending on the plan you have way more than that.

<comment><USER7> Not everyone has nefarious plans. Some people want to simplify the process for both parties. You have valid points, but there's no need to be so aggressive.

<comment> munk-a I'm not so certain, supporting saving data to a URL hash is pretty trivial to do, much easier than going with SSO integration - so I'm surprised the site doesn't support both at least.

<comment><USER8> URL hashing is annoying. It ends up transferring to someone else if you copy+share the link, and it disappears if you leave the site and come back later.

Better to just save to a cookie.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is a great, fun way to learn! Two points for improvement, in case the creators are reading:

1) It's not clear which flavour/implementation is needed. I was using [https://regex101.com/](https://regex101.com/) to check until the puzzle where /\+ is used, which that site claims is invalid in JS and PHP but OK in Python.

2) It would be great if filling a cell automatically moved you to an adjacent cell, as in most (regular) crossword apps.

<comment><USER10> mentioned in about page [1] that Javascript regex flavor is used

[1] [https://regexcrossword.com/about](https://regexcrossword.com/about)

<comment><USER9> Ah, I missed that. That really compounds the question though: I see that they explicitly recommend regex101, which claims that the clue is invalid JS regex

<comment><USER10> probably they intended the user to choose JS on regex101

not sure about the question you hit a snag, can you post the details here? you might get your doubt cleared

<comment><USER9> One of the clues on Beginner puzzle 4 is /+

Pasting that into regex101, with flavour Ecmascript, yields "Pattern Error" (rightly, since forward slashes enclose patterns, and thus need to be escaped).

<comment><USER10> oh ok, got it

and yeah, agree with you, this should either be escaped or some explanation added regarding delimiters

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I like it as a puzzle, but am concerned that it promotes "cleverness" in writing regexes.

Don't do that people. Just. Don't.

Keep regexes simple and stupid! Remember other people will have to read them someday.

</comment><comment><USER12> I also like this larger hexagonal one: [https://rampion.github.io/RegHex/](https://rampion.github.io/RegHex/)

</comment><comment><USER13> I've made an open-source clone of this as an android app. It needs some onboarding and maybe a guide.

Perhaps I have some time in 2-3 weeks to develop it further, does anybody have advice on what to include?

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.chagemann.r...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.chagemann.regexcrossword)

<comment><USER14> Will you put it on f-droid? I avoid the play store.

<comment><USER13> I will have a look at f-droid! Not sure if it's easy to integrate. Right now I can publish the app to the play store via a gradle task.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Good one. Reminds me of the Regex Golf: [https://alf.nu/RegexGolf](https://alf.nu/RegexGolf)

<comment><USER16> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6941231](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6941231)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I remember this one the first time round!

Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8674039](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8674039)

<comment><USER18> There was an earlier one too: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6056011](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6056011)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is great but I think it would be more interesting the other way round: write regex to capture complex input. Maybe add some steps constraints to up the difficulty.

</comment><comment><USER20> Maybe it's just me but I find it immensely more difficult to solve the ones where the regex is rotated 90 degrees. Something about trying to write a thing left-to-right and mentally match it with a thing reading top-to-bottom is exercising a (clearly untouched) part of my mental pathways. I'd love for the top row to not be rotated it'd be much more fun.

<comment><USER3> On my browser at least there's a pair of arrows to rotate the grid so different equations will be "upright".

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Lots of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy references:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_th...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy)

</comment><comment><USER22> Now I've got 2 problems!

<comment><USER23> :iseewhatyoudidthere:

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm doing the tutorial and having never really understood regex, i just fill in 'A' everytime, and i pass all the tests. Not learning anything though.

<comment><USER25> Not sure how you're managing that, A is the answer to the first tutorial, but doesn't work for the second one.

If you click Validate it'll shake and turn red, though you can skip ahead all you want, you want it to turn green and add a checkmark next to the title.

<comment><USER24> I wasn't entirely truthfull. Still, 4, 6, 7, 8 are all 'A' solutions. I went back over them and googled some words, now I do understand those.

I guess all I showed was that if you don't want to learn, you're not gonna learn.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> as mentioned in about page [1], this site covers Javascript regex flavor

surprised that this resource wasn't mentioned in a recent thread [2] about regex

[1] [https://regexcrossword.com/about](https://regexcrossword.com/about)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20614847](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20614847)

</comment><comment><USER26> I love Regexcrossword. For anybody just learning regex, to to regexcrosswords as soon as you've completed your first tutorial!

After that, keep regex101.com handy for testing and checking your regexes.

</comment><comment><USER27> This is both new to me and exactly up the street of someone I know, so really glad to have come across it!

</comment><comment><USER28> should make the input 1st focus and jump to the next in fewer seconds (or after double enter)

</comment><comment><USER29> I used it to learn regexp a long time ago and then for fun, because, regex are fun!

</comment><comment><USER30> Please add " (2014)" to the end of the title.

</comment><comment><USER31> Nice!

When done, go to [http://alf.nu/RegexGolf](http://alf.nu/RegexGolf) to sharpen up your skill!

</comment><comment><USER23> Aaaaaaaaand there goes my morning</comment>


Ask HN: Is recurring revenue or high upfront payment more attractive? - <AUTHOR> If you could get recurring revenue from abstracted code snippets, would that be more attractive than a higher single payment for non-abstracted code? <comment><USER2> time value of money plus risk of default play into it. Also, how much of it is my primary income versus side income.</comment>


Firefox to block content based on Java, Reader, and Silverlight - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/01/firefox-to-block-content-based-on-java-reader-and-silverlight/

<comment><USER2> I think this was first introduced in version 15 or 16, and I've been using it almost ever since. It was an opt-in feature (had to be enabled manually in about:config [1]), and it wasn't without issue. It was bad enough that I temporarily disabled it for a while until the next time Firefox upgraded.

The problem was that you had to, as the article says, "click" to play content. This was fine on YouTube, Netflix, etc., since there was a very obvious visual cue about how to activate your content [2]. However, not all sites had such obvious cues. SoundCloud, for example, would just silently fail, and I would have to manually disable the feature to get it to play (in practice, I just loaded the URL in Chrome).

Since Firefox 18, this has been much better. Now, there is an area next to the address bar that you can use to enable content, even if there is nothing on the actual page that you can click [3]. When you click this area, a pop-up appears asking which plugins you would like to load, and if you would like to always allow plugins on that site.

This pop-up is hidden for the most part, and isn't trivially discoverable[4] - something Mozilla really needs to work on - but it _does_ pop-up the very first time you encounter a page with blocked content (per Firefox session, it seems), so there is at least _some_ notification that you can unblock content.

If they're planning on having this feature enabled by default, I really doubt it will be the end of the world for most people. They'll just click the notification, and play through.

[1] Set the value of `plugins.click_to_play` to `true`. If it doesn't exist, create a new Boolean value for it, setting the name/value as above.

[2] <http://i.imgur.com/jhxqoJ9.png>

[3] <http://i.imgur.com/RNXw1JO.png>

[4] Admittedly, this could be because I'm using a non-default theme on my install, so perhaps this is more obvious by default. I haven't checked.

<comment><USER3> > SoundCloud, for example, would just silently fail, and I would have to > manually disable the feature to get it to play

SoundCloud have actually since added a detector, and will warn you saying "It looks like you have a Flash blocker browser setting or extension. Please enable Flash to hear sound." Also, whereas before the Flash element was invisible, now there's a target to click on if you do have Flash content blocked. Very well done actually.

<comment><USER2> > Also, whereas before the Flash element was invisible, now there's a target > to click on if you do have Flash content blocked.

I saw that warning earlier today when I made my comment (note that the screenshot of the enabler pop-up shows SoundCloud as the URL), and thought maybe I had just missed it before.

Alas, I just tried an actual sound page, and the result was as before. I didn't see any "click to play" items, and clicking around the page (on obvious targets like the Play button, and less obvious targets like the progress bar and times) revealed nothing either. Where do you see the new target?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Besides the obvious security benefits, this also makes sense as part of Mozilla's HTML5 campaign. By getting users to think of plugin-based content as "foreign" and "inconvenient," they bolster users' opinions of pure Web-based content. However, by allowing a simple clickthrough, they hopefully prevent users from just getting frustrated and switching to Chrome.

<comment><USER5> The trouble is that many new web technologies, including those that certain groups (particularly Apple, Google and Mozilla) are pushing as "replacements" for older technologies, aren't actually as good as how we used to do things.

For example, HTML5 audio and video work up to a point, but compared to Flash players they are onerous to support because of different data formats and limited in their functionality.

Of course, Flash has other uses, too. It was very annoying recently to find that _none_ of the popular weather services I wanted to check during the recent cold spell here in the UK were fully accessible from my iPad, because they _all_ used Flash for their interactive maps. And it wasn't the weather services I was annoyed with, it was the £500 paperweight that couldn't even do stuff that worked in IE6 on a 10-year-old computer.

Likewise, things like canvas and SVG are fine up to a point, but they offer relatively limited drawing functionality compared to a Flash or Java applet, and the available functionality differs widely across browsers. And of course in Java's case, you can write an applet in several modern JVM-hosted languages that are vastly superior to Javascript for implementing non-trivial visualisations, and with much faster performance than even the best current Javascript engines.

Give up plug-ins and use HTML5 and Javascript. Brought to you by the people who said we should use CSS instead of tables but then couldn't implement trivial grid layouts, or maybe by the guys who said we should use CSS instead of graphics but then complained that everyone's buttons looked like Bootstrap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Mozilla has developed a PDF reader addon for Firefox using javascript. I've been running it for about a week as my default PDF reader. It's been acceptable for my needs.

<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/pdfjs/>

<comment><USER7> Interestingly they are working on a JS version of flash called Shumway[1], so maybe, just maybe future FF (or even Chrome if it works there) will be able to translate Flash to JS, for your iPads and whatnot.

[1]<https://github.com/mozilla/shumway>

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Please tell me this click_to_play can be completely disabled in about:config. The PDF thing is going to be a nightmare for clients of mine who have researchers going to different university, research center and journal sites (repositories) for papers and articles.

Yeah, a user can disable the check for certain sites, but when you have hundreds of such repositories...you get the picture.

<comment><USER9> Firefox 19 has it's own built in PDF viewer. You don't need the Adobe Reader plugin to read PDFs anymore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I never understood the point of having Reader in the browser. It's not like Flash or Java that is fairly common to be inline with other content. Is there some sites that legitimately use embedded PDFs?

I always found it more convenient to open PDFs in stand-alone Reader instead. Sure, it takes one mouse click more, but on the other hand the browser remains usable while the Reader loads and you get full-featured Reader instead of the gimped plugin.

<comment><USER11> The IEEE journal website likes to display PDFs in an iframe. I'm not sure why.

<comment><USER12> As with all other embedded content, I believe that PDF providers sometimes think that they can prevent downloading of the files by serving them to the browser in some weird way. (This probably doesn't describe IEEE, but I certainly have seen sites where, whether the designers intended it or not, I have to go through contortions to download their PDFs.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Firefox needs to become the most well-liked browser again, because it's the best and using it is for the Greater Good.

<comment><USER14> I'd like to know what measure you are comparing FF with other browsers?

<comment><USER13> The fact that it's OSS, addons, customization capability, JS engine, and mostly, privacy/security.

<comment><USER15> All of which are true of Chrome?

<comment><USER16> I think you meant to say Chromium.

<comment><USER17> Depends on the trust you place on Google, as opposed to the whole web. Hence, "mostly".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> And just thinking about businesses who may still be running "fat" business- required (if not critical) webapps in Java and Flash. Upgrades are cost and time prohibitive, and clicking each time a user wants to start may alienate people.

<comment><USER17> > _clicking each time_

once, in the navbar, and whitelist the business-required site.

<comment><USER18> Well, but the recent fix to Java was to force the user to click through a prompt from the Java plugin itself; so once the user tells Firefox that yes, I want this dangerous content to run, they get another warning about dangerous content from Java.

If they manage to click through everything correctly and whitelist the site, they're good to go, but I suspect many of my users are going to get at least part of it wrong the first time through.

And of course, the noise about Java security is already breaking things -- for example, a few days ago I got an email from a teacher whose school paid me a $600 for a Java-applet based site subscription... at the same time as their IT department completely uninstalled Java from their school computers.

So now I either have to convince their IT department directly to re-install Java, or refund their money; whoops.

<comment><USER19> I don't think you should have to do neither convincing the IT department nor refunding them. One part of their organization chose to order the Java applet solution from you and another part of their organization chose to uninstall Java. The fact that they ordered a solution that they can't use isn't your fault. If they want you to use your time to work out a solution with the IT department how the applet can be used securely I think they need to pay you for that time (charge per hour for that, if the IT department is stubborn they have to pay more).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Will go ever well when Netflix suddenly stops working.

<comment><USER21> You mean when people click to activate and think nothing of it?

<comment><USER22> Hopefully that won't train people to just click "activate" everywhere.

OTOH hopefully this will convince netflex etc to migrate away from reliance on silverlight and we can have something that works on Linux without a load of wine hacks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> They should block Flash, too.

<comment><USER24> Click-to-play for Flash in Chrome and Firefox would kill flash banners overnight.

<comment><USER7> Somehow the ad industry would manage (gifs, bundled ad in stream, etc.), and killing flash banners is a good thing, those things are annoying.

<comment><USER22> Hellooo animated JS WebGL banners that crash your entire machine..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Chrome's UI works great for this. You can either click-to-play and click a little icon in the url bar to control plugins for that domain. That makes it easy to deal with flash elements used only for sound.

</comment><comment><USER26> It's sad that after all this time the official Java plugin isn't even secure. I mean, we all knew years ago that it wasn't very _useful_ , but it's insecurity just adds insult to injury. The Sun has truly set. :(

<comment><USER18> It's incredibly useful, if you need functionality that's not yet supported in the range of browsers that people use.

I'm pretty sure I can't handle MIDI and audio input, do pitch detection, show animations synched with generated audio, etc. in JavaScript on IE6 (and only parts of that are possible in _any_ browser) -- but I can do it with a Java applet.

Or, I could; my site is obviously starting to suffer from the reliance on Java, and every few days the news seems to get worse.

<comment><USER27> IE6? Man... It's 2013.

<comment><USER18> Not everyone can choose their browser -- either because they're still running Windows 98 and can't afford a new computer, or (more likely) because they're part of a large organization that can't afford to upgrade due to huge past investments in aging tech.

I actually deal a lot more with IE6/7 in my main job (users in the NHS) than for the music theory site, but to my main point above -- there are plenty of audio features that are just now starting to be possible in Chrome (no other browser, yet); that's simply not useful in the context of real, normal-people users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This needs to be done for javascript as well.</comment>


If you got rejected from YC, your life is over - <AUTHOR> http://jessepollak.me/if-you-got-rejected-from-yc-your-life-is-over/ <comment><USER2> I would say that it's more likely your life is over when you get _accepted_ to YC--slaving for peanuts with little chance of success, when the expected value of other opportunities are much higher. It's all a bit exploitative, but in every realm of human endeavor, you see people making huge sacrifices with little chance of success:

* Actors hoping to make it in Hollywood

* Singers hoping to get famous (see: American Idol)

* Bands hoping to sign a record deal

* Restauranteurs hoping to open the hot new restaurant

* Gymnasts hoping for an Olympic medal

* Ballerinas hoping for the starring role

* Drug dealers hoping to one day become the kingpin

99% of these people will strike out, and yet we try. I guess it's built into human nature.

<comment><USER3> The median outcome is low, but the expected value is pretty high for starting a startup.

Mark Zuckerberg is worth $20 billion after 7 years. That's about the same as 25,000 engineers working for 7 years. There aren't any singers or ballerinas with that kind of outcome.

That's part of why seed-stage startup investing exists even though the capital costs for startups are so low. The investors are paying the founders' salaries for a couple years in exchange for a small chance at seeing a huge return. No one invests in ballerinas like that.

<comment><USER4> Expected value is a function of both value and probability. Sure, $20 billion is a lot, but Zuckerberg's success is as likely as winning the state lottery.

Even with Y-Combinator, not _every_ accepted startup raises funding, and dies without a congratulatory TechCrunch post.

<comment><USER3> How come investors give money to startup founders but not state lottery ticket buyers? Isn't their entire job to professionally evaluate these expected values?

Being accepted to YC actually means being funded. With YCVC it's ~$100k.

<comment><USER5> Investors give money to organizations that either they perceive as having a significantly above-average chance of "winning the lottery", or that have basically already "won".

I wouldn't be at all surprised if there's a bunch of people out there offering to loan money to people who have already won the lottery. :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It sucks to get rejected, but things are hardly over.

I got rejected 3 years ago. Shortly after I realized I didn't need an incubator. Since then I've created a few dozen startups even sold a few of them.

I'm sure there are people in your network that got into YC. PG has office hours with YC alumni, if you really wanted to meet him you could tag along during one of those meetings.

Not knocking PG, but there are tonnes of people with similar experience. If you really want to find a mentor like PG you can definitely find one if you work hard enough.

<comment><USER7> "A few dozen startups" in 3 years?

Are you sure these are startups and not just side projects? Was there any expectation that these would actually grow into larger companies, or were they just part-time mostly self running websites? Not any new business or website is a startup; a startup is specifically one that seeks a scalable business model, that can expand into a much bigger business with more investment, rather than something that is going to be limited by the output of of or a small number of people.

So, I'd be curious about what you are considering a startup such that you have created a few dozen in 3 years.

<comment><USER6> @lambda actually I'm writing a book about the startups I started.

For me a startup is a team you get together to deliver a service to customers. Team + Logo + MVP + Deck.

I have a gift for getting a group together to tackle a problem. Often times we discover that the problem is not big enough and dispand.

In the 3 years, I started 3 companies that made it to customer phase.

1) Printsites2Go, a shopify for printers

2) 360 Data Solutions, Big data analytics in China

3) General Skin, Korean cosmetics for the masses

Ones that didn't make it to the paying customer phase:

4) KDD mining (Yukon prospecting)

5) Noble Earth LTD (Plastic to oil conversion)

6) Shame Buy (Anonymous buying of goods you are afraid to have shipped to you)

7) 6M Development (Real estate in Niagara)

8) RepairMutt (Home based bug tracker)

9) Like Follow Me (Selling of likes and follows)

10) Samurai Print (Large format print for sellers)

11) Miss Mary Books (English trainer online for HK students)

12) Hungry Joes (Facebook app development team)

13) Defyent (My contracting company, since 2007)

I didn't include my contracts... too many to count.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Great post Jesse, As someone who has been both accepted and rejected by YC I can say this is absolutely the truth, I made it to YC in one batch but I've been rejected both before that and since, I was always under the impression past founders had better chances of making it when applying again but that certainly isn't the case with me.

That said, I'm an entrepreneur, its what I do and if a YC rejection letter stopped me I would've probably quit before I ever got started multiple times.

I'm not a hugely successful guy, but I've had a seven figure exit without taking outside funding and I'm raising capital now for a new startup without the YC name behind it and that's going just fine.

The most important thing you have in your startup is DRIVE. If you believe you know where you're headed its not a matter of IF you can convince someone else to join you(this goes for VC's or employees) its WHEN you convince them to join you.

At my first company I sold cars on the weekends to make payroll, and if I had to do that again tomorrow to keep this new company running I would.

Not everyone succeeds because they're the best at something, a lot of people make it because they're the most stubborn at it.

</comment><comment><USER9> First, Sweet moustache.

Second, If one rejection letter is all it takes to derail you, you probably should not be in the biz.

YC is not the arbiter of success, you are, and getting rejected probably just means that you need to polish things up and spend more time on the product. I'm glad you didn't stop, looks like you guys are doing just fine.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> From the YC rejection email: (I know it too well)

> _Another reason you shouldn 't take this personally is that we know we make > lots of mistakes._

> _If you do, we 'd appreciate it if you'd send us an email telling us about > it; we want to learn from our mistakes._

For me, those two lines are extremely motivating.

</comment><comment><USER11> >Your company will never ever ever ever be successful. Never Ever.

You've got some broken links in this one, such as [http://jessepollak.me/if- you-got-rejected-from-yc-your-life-...](http://jessepollak.me/if-you-got- rejected-from-yc-your-life-is-over/snapchat.com)

</comment><comment><USER12> Good post. For some reason people have trouble matching their understanding with their emotions. People who get rejected _understand_ that their life isn't over, but they still _feel_ like it is. Reducto ad absurdum ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum)) arguments like this often help to bring your emotions up to speed with your understanding.

</comment><comment><USER13> My intention for YC would be different from yours but you didn't start your project for YC, didn't you ? I guess that you started to working on it with motivation to achieve your goal or prove your concept besides becoming rich.

I got a rejection letter yesterday but I don't give up my idea until I prove the concept or I consider it's worthless. It's ok even though that YC rejects my concept.

So don't throw that away.

</comment><comment><USER14> I remember an interesting tidbit that I heard from the YC ambassador at a Commonwealth Club event. He said most companies in the history of the world never went though YC. I look at YC like college; It's an opportunity, not a guarantee.

</comment><comment><USER15> Mehh...

Given that the overwhelming majority of YC applicants are young people and that the majority of successful startups are founded by people over 35yo, I would say that getting rejected from YC means that your life is just beginning. Now you are free to go get a real job, to learn about a real industry or two, and to acquire all the skills that you need to make a real success. And when you are 40 or 50 years old, then you can make a real go at it.

<comment><USER16> If you follow the links, it becomes obvious that the post is sarcastic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> TL;DR - don't give up

</comment><comment><USER18> complete waste of time this article ;|</comment>