How Not to Die (2007) - <AUTHOR> http://paulgraham.com/die.html <comment><USER2> Very true what Paul says here.

I have created two companies on my own(backed companied from others). The first one was Hell, nobody believed in us or the idea, everyone believed I was crazy, and after fighting and loosing battles a lot I also(my subconscious mind) started believing it!!(I had trained it in failure)

But then it turns out it was a brilliant idea after all. We were the first surprised to see that in the end it worked even better that what we devised at the start. Everybody loved our product and people that had down played us in the past were telling us how much they "always knew" our idea was going to succeed.

The second time everything was objectively very similar to the first company, but it felt completely different. The experience of success gives you confidence and makes things very easy and even fun.

</comment><comment><USER3> > "If you can just avoid dying, you get rich."

Where "you" == "the founders."

Certainly hard as an employee to hang in there for all the ups and downs and near death experiences after years when "avoiding dying" might look like watching the investors get their pref back and the founders getting a nice new post somewhere else.

<comment><USER4> Yup. If you have funding and employees, "not dying" is an irresponsible attitude to have. If you can't pay people what they deserve, I think you should accept death--and given that good developers have more self-respect than they used to, you might have to accept death anyway.

<comment><USER5> > If you can't pay people what they deserve, I think you should accept death

Sorry but if they "deserve" more money they should find a job where they would be payed that. As an employee it's your own responsibility not to get screwed by your employer. If they decide not to pay you, leave.

The same goes for the employer. It's their responsibility to not "accept death". Accepting death is the mindset that will almost always lead to failure.

<comment><USER4> Life is not an idealized free market where developer hours are a resource to exploit in the short run.

This is true both ethically and professionally. If you screw people, word gets around, and you just alienated all the talent you built a relationship with. It also makes you a bad person.

If you ask loyal employees to stay on for the sake of their equity or the sake of making something great, that's fine, but if you're funded and not delusional about your chances it's unlikely you will be in a position to do this in a fair way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I pretty much wake up every morning and watch motivational videos on YouTube to keep me going.

I'm onto my fourth start-up, third as CTO, and let me tell you start-ups are no walk in the park. The idea that there's even walking involved is so far off what it's really like. It's non-stop sprinting and if it's not, then you're not doing it right and moving too slow. I like the idea of a work/life balance, but when you have to build every little part of a business, it's just not reasonable to get obstinate about it. When and if I make it, I'll be thanking my perseverance.

<comment><USER7> Why does it have to be done at break-neck speed? If it's such a great idea and it happens in 3 years instead of 2 is this a problem? Genuinely curious. I don't understand this start-up culture of long hours.

<comment><USER8> Because it's not about the idea-the idea can (and probably is) shared by multiple companies. Ideas are easy. If you don't execute well AND fast, others will and they will win. This is especially important in startups that require network effects to survive (think social, uber, etc). If you don't build the lead first, others will, and their lead will grow by virtue of being in the lead (and not screwing up).

<comment><USER7> I think a lot of these first to market social things just aren't going to get far. For me Uber is just a messy regulation dodge. Twitter makes no money. They just seem to be trying to establish a monopoly whilst making a loss and then using the (perceived) lock-in to try and monetize before dying in flames.

Where is this tight loop of venture capital funding first to market on services that are easily replicable taking society? My guess is nowhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> In addition to not doing other things, I'd like to suggest adding the idea that one also does not have to burn out or be burned out doing a startup.

<comment><USER10> Indeed. In fact, I think burnout is often one of the causes of failure, either directly, or indirectly through the bad decision making it causes. Building a successful company takes many years. It's a marathon, not a sprint.

<comment><USER11> Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening A poem by Robert Frost

      Whose woods these are I think I know.
      His house is in the village though;
      He will not see me stopping here
      To watch his woods fill up with snow.

      My little horse must think it queer
      To stop without a farmhouse near
      Between the woods and frozen lake
      The darkest evening of the year.

      He gives his harness bells a shake
      To ask if there is some mistake.
      The only other sound's the sweep
      Of easy wind and downy flake.

      The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
      But I have promises to keep,
      And miles to go before I sleep,
      And miles to go before I sleep.

      </comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-- End </comment><comment>----

Oh how I love Robert Frost! This deeply existential and powerfully personal poem is exactly what NOT to do when you are in the throes of startup life.

Sleep! I say sleep. Get that rest and damn that horse. :-)

Edit: I took me 4 years to learn HN carriage returns! :-(

<comment><USER12> I recommend the poems of Edward Thomas, who was a close friend of Frost's until he died in WWI. Their poems were similar in style.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> With the title I was expecting Paul Graham to have written an article on Cryonics and the need for donations to SENS :\

</comment><comment><USER14> I'd love to hear Giles Bowkett do another dramatic reading, for this essay. The first one was an instant classic: [http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2015/06/let-other-95-of- rea...](http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2015/06/let-other-95-of-reality- in.html)</comment>


NASA names headquarters after first Black female engineer Mary W. Jackson - <AUTHOR> https://www.axios.com/nasa-black-female-engineer-headquarters-7e859612-0832-4448-af5c-6a7ad3b64f19.html <comment><USER2> Becoming a NASA engineer in those days must have been extraordinarily challenging. That Mary Jackson, a black woman, succeeded in doing so in a society, and a professional culture (engineering) dominated by white men (nothing against white men, am a white man myself, just pointing out an objective fact, please put your pitchforks away) speaks to her talent and the grit it took to achieve what she achieved.

A well deserved announcement.

<comment><USER3> Probably not to be honest, she deserves the merit she is getting for the work she did. However, the Apollo program in the 60s at it's peak was 4% of the US government budget compared to 0.5% today. The federal government was had a fire hose full of greenbacks aimed at NASA so I'd assume they were hiring huge numbers of engineers directly, and also indirectly through all the aerospace/defense manufacturers who were working on the space program while also simultaneously getting huge contracts for designing ballistic missiles.

NASA has a much smaller budget today so I wouldn't be surprised if you've got to display much more merit in college or your career to get selected as an engineer.

<comment><USER4> I think you are seriously lacking in historical knowledge and context for the general regard and treatment of black professionals in the 60s.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Edit: the article spells this out.

She was the junior of the three starring characters in the movie Hidden Figures.

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

<comment><USER6> I'm not much of a movie watcher but this one is an outstanding one! Highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't already seen it.

<comment> a-wu A great movie indeed however it uses the white savior trope gratuitously. The scene where Kevin Costner's character lets Octavia Spencer's character into the mission control room never happened in real life.

<comment><USER5> Octavia Spenser plays Dorothy Vaughan, the programmer. Katherine Johnson was played by Taraji Henson.

The movie deliberately side steps history in order to tell a story. For example the accomplishments of the three primary characters occurred during unrelated timelines. The three primary characters likely knew each other in passing but in addition to the different timelines they worked in unrelated departments on unrelated projects. Also Katherine Johnson took 3 days to confirm John Glenn's landing coordinates within the week of launch. The movie reduced that to an hour effort holding up launch for dramatic effect. John Glenn really did ask for Johnson to personally verify the numbers though.

There are three supporting characters that are real life figures: Al Harrison played by Kevin Costner, Jim Johnson played by Mahershala Ali, and Olke Krupa who played a fictionalized version of a real engineer mostly accurately depicted as Mary Jackson's real life supervisor. The rest of the supporting cast were largely stereotype figures.

Considering the historical reality I did not take the white characters as white saviors at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've seen negative comments of people claiming this is fruitless and that it pretends to solve racism forever (here and elsewhere).

No one involved in naming this thought that was the case. They are giving overdue recognition.

I can't imagine why people would be negative about this besides feeling threatened.

<comment><USER8> I dont know if feeling threatened but aware this person's contribution was not the reason for the naming but the fact that black people were supressed. It's a generous move but not highly meritocratic. People might have a problem or two with that. I want to remind them we dont live in a meritocratic society anyway and the powerful snatch the merit away like a giant magnet. It will naturally bruise some egos and pump up some other ones and appear to make a bit of justice. The question is, will black americans be treated as second class citizens in 10, 20, 50 years from now?

<comment><USER9> > I want to remind them we dont live in a meritocratic society

The reason I love the sciences is that in general, people are more meritocratic in those circles compared to others. I've found especially in scientific academia that people are far more meritocratic compared to other disciplines. This also applies at science/engineering companies. No, not at all levels (the more business-y you get, the less of a meritocracy it becomes). But usually team-leads, senior engineers, etc. rise because of merit. Always exceptions, but in general. Much more than as an accounting firm where you rise because you know somebody who knows somebody.

Unfortunately, as time goes on, I've seen academic circles in sci&eng, and especially tech companies (and silicone valley in general) become much more interested in stay relevant, keeping up with social trends and movements, and appearing progressive. You see this with all the FAANG companies calmoring to be the first to speak out against some injustice or another, or be the first to take a stand on Their Platform(TM).

And with this, the meritocracy has slowly declined. You don't rise in a company because you're a skilled engineer - you can rise because you're a token minority. Or because you're the most outspoken on a social injustice and can see a way for your company to solve it (sorry, profit from it). You can be rewarded because you were the first (insert random minority here) to solve a problem or do something that plenty of other people had already done. Rather than celebrating scientific advancement, we're now celebrating _the type of people making that advancement_. What next, the first black woman to clone a GitHub repo? Let's name the GitHub HQ after that.

<comment> Ar-Curunir As an actual scientist, no, science is not particularly meritocratic or objective. The current scientific world is highly catered towards people that can afford to devote their 20s and 30s to a low-paying job. Because of in- group dynamics, it also maintains the existing population make-up, which is predominantly white or Asian.

<comment><USER9> Just because you need to sacrifice your prime years in order to succeed, doesn't mean the system isn't meritorious. What isn't meritorious about needing to work hard even if you're talented? Nobody gets a free ride.

If you mean that gifted people should have their livelihood subsidised by the state, then sure, I'm open to exploring merit based scholarships, and society investing more in the sciences and so on. But nobody gets a prize in science without actually putting in the work and achieving something. Though, admittedly we are seeing that less and less. Society in general is becoming less meritorious (participation awards, etc).

<comment> Ar-Curunir The problem is that, in a world where white folks have access to a better social safety net, on average they can afford to sacrifice their 20s and 30s in this pursuit, where others might not have that luxury.

Anyway, I won't waste my time further debating what's obvious gaslighting.

<comment><USER10> This is simply not true. Most people can't afford education but they still take loans and pursue it, even if they have no aptitude for science.

It is indeed gaslighting to talk about "safety nets" when there is a student loan crisis in the country.

<comment><USER4> I believe they are referring to the safety net provided by relative white wealth. Median net worth for white families in America is 10x that of black families.

Which means they are much more likely to be able to get support from home or even a home to move back to if things get tough.

It's a lot easier to take the economic risk of a post-grad or post-doc program when you know there is a family with means to fall back on.

Excessive student loans are not a serious issue relative to what many in poverty face. If you don't make enough money to pay your student loans, then you can defer them indefinitely. Or just not pay them. It might keep you from getting rich. But it's not going to keep you from eating.

<comment> Ar-Curunir Yes that's what I mean by safety net

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> They should have named it after their key man, Wernher von Braun.

<comment><USER12> Well, intent matters.

She wanted humans in space, he wanted them in heaven (early in his career).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is good because it encourages African-Americans, other minority people, and women to pursue engineering. There are so many people who would be great engineers but aren't. They are missing out on good careers. And society is missing out on good engineers.

Renaming buildings is an easy way to help improve things.

<comment><USER14> Asians do very well in America and they didn't need buildings named after them. Why do you think black people need buildings renamed before they start learning calculus, physics, etc?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This woman should be on the front of a limited edition $100 US bill.

<comment><USER16> No offense to Salmon Chase, but the bill denomination your face shows up on is not proportional (even logarithmically) to one's importance or worth as a human being

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> We haven't been to the moon since 1969.

<comment><USER2> There have been six Moon landings. The last happened in 1972.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Strongly disagree. If the overall contribution was close, I'd say give her name to the building but apparently it isn't. Also naming the building after her solves nothing, in fact its obvious why they did it.

Yes, I know as a black woman she had so many things against her, but so did a lot of people back then.</comment>


Apple to the Core: Why Steve Jobs is buying PA Semiconductor - <AUTHOR> http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2008/pulpit_20080425_004775.html

<comment><USER2> Another place where Cringely gets it wrong -- Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) _does_ matter in terms of virtualization. He's getting virtualization mixed up with emulation. Unless you can execute a lot of X86 commands natively, you basically can't virtualize in the manner of VMWare. So a PowerPC based chip will be only able to _emulate_ an X86 operating system in software at a significant performance penalty -- unless you happen to re-implement a lot of X86 in hardware.

Perhaps multi-platform multi core chips will become the norm? Who knows? Probably not Cringely.

<comment><USER3> He also talks a lot about x86 having disadvantages as a CISC that are just wrong. He says:

"If there are instructions that will never be used, why spend the silicon real estate to hard code them? CPUs optimized for OS X would be smaller, cheaper, and use less power than any Intel or AMD alternative simply because they could be simpler overall."

The problem with this statement is that PowerPC is a RISC architecture, and it clearly was insufficient. Despite having tons of unnecessary instructions and backwards compatibility issues, x86 has huge economies of scale which is why very few people buy SPARC or PowerPC anymore. The core of an x86 is a RISC processor anyways, and the complex instructions get translated into micro- instructions for execution. The only way the x86 is going to be upset is from embedded processors or from massively parallel, but it's definitely not going to be from a processor "optimized for OS X", whatever that means.

<comment><USER4> "The problem with this statement is that PowerPC is a RISC architecture, and it clearly was insufficient."

PowerPC's shortcomings had nothing to do with being a RISC processor. After all, you said it yourself: x86 is really RISC at its core anyway.

The "economies of scale" argument has nothing to do with the technical merits of the chip design, it has everything to do with the fact that every PC save PPC Macs has used an x86 chip for decades.

Architecturally, x86 does have disadvantages. It's been designed over the years to maintain backwards compatibility -- meaning it's still living with mistakes that were made decades ago. There are a lot of reasons why its unlikely that Apple will start manufacturing custom chips to run OS X, but none of them are because x86 is a great chip design, or that it would be impossible to design a custom chip that would run OS X well.

<comment><USER3> The economies of scale comment was simply that back before the Pentium Pro, most people thought that RISC was going to take over since it is such a better system, but because Intel is able to sell so many chips it can afford to throw extra engineers at the problem and add things like out of order execution to the x86. Or rather there are much more important things than the ISA's technical merit when considering what is the best chip to use. Plus I don't think that Apple has a chance, or they will have anything to gain by making its own chips for desktops and laptops.

The absurdity of "running OS X well is that OS X is not that special. If he means "running everything better" than it makes sense, because these are general purpose processors, and there is just a small set of instructions that are basically the same for all architectures.

x86 is not the best ISA, but the Core 2 Duo is an excellent chip, and it's hard to make a better chip no matter what ISA you are using.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The author gives 2 reasons for the acquisition:

1\. The short term reason is to force Intel to give Apple price cuts for fear that Apple will make their own chips.

\- I do not think that Intel needs to worry about Apple manufacturing their own PC chips as Apple already went through that phase and AMD already provides the necessary pressure on Intel to lower their prices.

2\. In the future, software and OSes will not be tied down to a specific chip so Apple will start manufacturing their own processors to increase their margins.

\- I think the author is on to something regarding the future of processors but I do not think the PC market will change that drastically. Apple will probably start making their own chips for the iPhone and their new gadgets but I doubt they will do the same for the PC market. Maybe at one point we will see an Apple server.

<comment><USER6> _Apple will probably start making their own chips for the iPhone and their new gadgets but I doubt they will do the same for the PC market._

Agreed. I am an electrical engineer (circuit designer) and Intel is a monster when it comes to fabricating processors (their fabs are super optimized for processors alone, unlike generic fabs). I don't think Apple could do much better costwise by designing and manufacturing their own processers rather than buying Intel (even factoring in Intel's profits). This assumes that AMD continues to exist as competition.

Everyone in the circuits industry is very interested in how Apple will use PA Semi's processors.

</comment></comment><comment> patrickg-zill First, ISA refers to a particular kind of hardware interface. I have never heard ISA refer to the Wintel duopoly.

Second, there actually is a reason to stick with Intel when it comes to fabbing - only Intel and a few other large players can deliver 45nm process. As long as Intel has the lead on process technology their chips will almost always be faster.

Multiple cores - maybe. DSP-like or 3D acceleration in hardware - more likely.

</comment><comment><USER6> It looks like someone who might actually have some insight into this purchase doesn't understand it: <http://www.cnet.com/8301-13512_1-9928659-23.html>

<comment><USER7> I also find it hard to believe that Apple wants to get into the microprocessor business.

Of course, one of the biggest traditional problems with device manufacturers owning a chip supplier is that losing out on other chip customers (who don't want to buy from a competitor) means they lose economies of scale, and Apple probably has enough economies of scale in the device market internally.

Well, I suppose we'll see what the plan is with time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> like a lot of things cringely writes, this strikes me as kind of dubious. on the other hand, i hope it's true.

the fact that apple machines used to have a totally different architecture than PCs felt right, in a psychological way. it drew a clear line in the sand between Us and Them. now that apple machines are pretty much the same under the hood as PCs ... it's sad.

cringely's reasoning sounds specious, but i haven't heard anybody come up with anything better to explain why apple needs a chip company.

<comment><USER6> _the fact that apple machines used to have a totally different architecture than PCs felt right, in a psychological way. it drew a clear line in the sand between Us and Them. now that apple machines are pretty much the same under the hood as PCs ... it's sad._

I'm a bit of an Apple fanboy myself, but I simply don't get this attitude. I want the best processor in my machines. I admit that I have an emotional attachment to my personal computers, but it somehow does not encompass the brand of processor (or hard drive, graphics chip, etc.).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I can't wait till multi cores actually makes a difference. I have way too many of them already.

<comment><USER10> I wonder if it would make sense to have a dedicated core to virtualize any processor/os in order to speed up emulation. A dedicated hardware/software translation engine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think this talk about intel is crap. They wanted PA Semiconductor because Dan Dobberpuhl and his team are incredibly brilliant at design and because he has a strong interest in techniques to lower power.

You can read an interview with Dobberpuhl where his interest in low power comes through here: [http://www.acmqueue.org/modules.php?name=Content&pa=show...](http://www.acmqueue.org/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=75)

He's all about low power. Making iPhones that have processors that work great but low power in an essential step to the coming revolution, and will further distance iPhone from it's competitors. Therefore, acquisition. Pressure on Intel is not what this is about. This is much more visionary than that and has to do with continuing to push what is possible with iPhone as far as it can go.

</comment><comment><USER12> Another perspective: [http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/04/24/why-did-apple- buy-p...](http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/04/24/why-did-apple-buy-pa-semi/)</comment>


Window Functions in PostgreSQL - <AUTHOR> http://www.gab.lc/articles/window_functions_postgresql.php <comment><USER2> Window functions are often a good answer to the "why SQL?" question.

Here's a real-world case where I used them lately. Suppose a user has an inbox of messages from other users. I'd like to show the user her latest conversations (aka "message threads"). Ten conversations per page, and I'd like to show the three latest messages per conversation. That's fairly easy with window functions like dense_rank() and row_number() - and it's flippin' fast... just a few milliseconds on a table with thousands of rows and I could probably get it lower than that with some index optimization.

      // "conversations" is a CTE (common table expression)
      // "messages" is the actual table
      // we don't need a CTE here but it's probably the most readable way
      // query is a little hairy because of all the greatest() and least()'s
      WITH conversations
        as (
        select
          row_number() over (partition by greatest(from_id,to_id),
            least(from_id,to_id) order by created_at desc)
            as conversation_message_number,
          max(id) over (partition by greatest(from_id,to_id),
          least(from_id,to_id)) as conversation_latest_message_id,
        mes.*
      from messages mes where 1234 in (mes.to_id, from_id) // 1234 is the member's id
      )

      // get conversations 1 through 10, and get the 3 latest messages
      select
        dense_rank() over (order by conversation_latest_message_id)
          as conversation_number, *
      from conversations
      where (conversation_number between 1 and 10)
        and (conversation_message_number <= 3)

The alternatives are not a lot of fun. You could fairly easily implement this logic in Ruby/Java/whatever but you'd have to pull a _ton_ of rows out of the database and sort them in your app tier, which is kind of ugly performance- wise even if you're not paying the cost of converting each row into a model object w/ ActiveRecord/Hibernate/etc. I'm not familiar with NoSQL implementations but I'm guessing you'd have to pull all those records into your app tier and do it there as well?

<comment><USER3> > You could fairly easily implement this logic in Ruby/Java/whatever but you'd > have to pull a ton of rows out of the database and sort them in your app > tier, which is kind of ugly performance-wise even if you're not paying the > cost of converting each row into a model object w/ > ActiveRecord/Hibernate/etc.

This, a thousand times this. I have done a lot of performance work with a variety of web applications, and this is a common theme - pulling more data into the app tier than you need to.

Putting even a small amount of effort into writing good queries will almost always have a massive performance impact on your application. If performance is at all a concern, this is one of the first places you should start looking - you should be trying to bring over the smallest amount of data from the database as possible.

I've found, though, that a lot of developers have conceptual problems dealing with set-based operations. Not only does it look cleaner (depending on the framework and design) to front-load the application, I think that many developers simply find it much more intuitive to bring the whole dataset in and then filter with some loops and conditionals and then use the 25% of fields they pulled in that actually need to be displayed. If you forced them to push more work onto the database, they'd simply write imperative-looking SQL.

I'm not real sure how to get people to think more in set terms. Once you get there though, well-written SQL is beautiful. Query optimizations for the most part become obvious - though there will always be further optimizations database experts can make because they have a better understanding of the database engine - just try to make sure you're always operating on the smallest possible sets of data to get the desired results. It's often not hard at all to write highly performant queries even if they have huge numbers of joins in large tables. And window functions are a big help when it comes to doing this!

Sorry for the rant - I just see this so much. :)

<comment><USER2>
      I've found, though, that a lot of developers have
      conceptual problems dealing with set-based operations.

Yes! I can't help but think that a lot of people are drawn to NoSQL (or find themselves opposed to SQL for other reasons) simply because they don't understand SQL. As somebody who avoided databases early in his career I definitely understand this.

      well-written SQL is beautiful

Count me as a member of the club that believes this. Not every problem can or should be handled with a relational data store, but for those that do, I don't think the resultant set-based operations could be expressed much more cleanly or succinctly than SQL allows.

<comment><USER4> These NoSQL document stores seem to be a realization of that object database dream of years past. It's not exactly one-to-one (objects to documents) but it gets you there quicker than a relational database could.

I enjoy writing well crafted SQL queries as a currently employed database architect. But I don't find it to be all that elegant. I do think it bridges the gap between lay person and expert by being somewhat readable declarative language. For those programmers out there it offers some procedural aspects, differing from vendor to vendor.

Features like window functions and CTEs have helped to limit the temp tables, derived tables, subqueries, etc required to achieve the desired output. One can now make a much more terse query.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I find that window functions are one of the least used aspects of modern SQL, despite them being incredibly useful. I've used them in T-SQL [1] and PL/SQL [2], as well (MySQL does not do window functions). If you're doing lots of SQL work, get very familiar with the OVER clause. It's a lifesaver.

[1]: [http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/ms189461.aspx](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/ms189461.aspx)

[2]: [http://www.java2s.com/Tutorial/Oracle/0320__Analytical- Funct...](http://www.java2s.com/Tutorial/Oracle/0320__Analytical- Functions/0580__Window-Functions.htm)

</comment><comment><USER6> Whenever I see functions like these and PostgreSQL's JSON functions, I get the feeling that MySQL/MariaDB is not progressing, or not nearly as fast.

For those who have worked with both, do you find the PostgreSQL-only functions and features to be extremely useful or does it not really matter much?

<comment><USER7> It really depends on your needs. I still am kind of in shock that Postgres is willing to add these baroque sorts of features, but still doesn't have an UPSERT.

<comment><USER8> UPSERT is not a simple feature to implement correctly:

[http://www.pgcon.org/2014/schedule/events/661.en.html](http://www.pgcon.org/2014/schedule/events/661.en.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I get the idea that not too many people know how to use window functions, even though they're a slick solution to some potentially messy problems. I've used them several times to deal with duplicate data issues.

Got a table where you want to put a unique index on a column that has some duplicate values? It's a pretty easy fix to use a window query along with group by and having to get a list of rows with duplicate entries for the column and use row_number to assign a unique number to each duplicate. Then, use string concat to tack that number onto the end of the string. Select the new string and the item ID, put it in a CTE, and connect it to an update query to actually change all the names in one query.

Goes kinda like this: with DrawingDupes as (select d.DrawingId, d.RevTag, '_DUPLICATE_' \+ cast((ROW_NUMBER() over (partition by d.Number, d.RevTag, d.UnitId order by d.DrawingId)) as varchar) NewX from (select Number, RevTag, UnitId from Drawing group by Number, RevTag, UnitId having COUNT(*) > 1) t join Drawing d on d.Number = t.Number and d.RevTag = t.RevTag and d.UnitId = t.UnitId) update DrawingDupes set RevTag = RevTag + NewX;

</comment><comment><USER10> Nice writeup, though I would have liked some examples using "partition by". The main gotcha I recall -- and it's somewhat confusing the first time you run across it -- is that things like last_row() don't work as expected without the magic incantation:

over (partition by foo order by blah BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING AND UNBOUNDED FOLLOWING)

This forces the query to evaluate the function over the entire partition, rather then just over the current window. The article does mention this point, but it bears re-iteration.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm a huge fan of window functions, but one restriction surprises me: in Postgres, you can't put a window function into a WHERE clause. Does anyone know if there is a good reason for this, or is it just a bit of missing functionality?

<comment><USER2> I'd love to know this too. I provided an example elsewhere in this discussion of a potentially-complex query I implemented with window functions.

I wanted to do something like returning every row with a row_number between 1 and 3 - but discovered I couldn't put this into the WHERE clause.

The solution I came up with was to define a CTE where one of the columns is the result of the row_number() function, and then I did a SELECT on the CTE that included the WHERE functionality I needed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> cant u use any function as window function (not only 11 ) ? i do alot stuff like sum(1) over(PARTITION BY index1,index2 ORDER by ...) for creating statistics. I wish i had that infos some time before :-)

<comment><USER2> Yes, things like sum() can work on partitions. :)

"Window functions" refer to something a little different... specifically to functions like row_number() and rank() that refer to the position/ordering of rows inside a partition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Thanks for sharing!</comment>


Anger at Kindle pricing victimizes ratings of new Turow bestseller - <AUTHOR> http://www.amazon.com/Innocent-Scott-Turow/product-reviews/0446562424/ref=cm_cr_dp_hist_1?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&filterBy=addOneStar

<comment><USER2> Charlie Stross has done a series of interesting posts "Common Misconceptions About Publishing" at [http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog- static/2010/04/common-m...](http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog- static/2010/04/common-misconceptions-about-pu-1.html)

The take-away is that ink to dead trees is a small part of the cost of publishing a book. Personally I dont believe its only 12 cents. It appears to me that Amazon squeezes the cost of a print book and lets the publishers set the Kindle price.

<comment><USER3> _Personally I dont believe its only 12 cents._

According to "The Insider's Guide to Getting Published" ([http://www.amazon.com/Insiders-Guide-Getting-Published- Manus...](http://www.amazon.com/Insiders-Guide-Getting-Published- Manuscript/dp/0385479360)), a book that sells for $20 costs $2 to produce.

That book is a little dated (1996), but I'd be surprised if the cost structure has changed that much.

The book goes on to explain why it's difficult to make money in traditional publishing, even with those margins.

 _It appears to me that Amazon squeezes the cost of a print book and lets the publishers set the Kindle price._

Not sure about the former, but the latter is definitely true: [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/01/technology/companies/01ama...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/01/technology/companies/01amazonweb.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Oh, this is nothing. You want to be outraged, take a look at the "Intelligent Investor" on Amazon. The kindle edition is 5 DOLLARS more than the printed version. What the what!!!!

</comment><comment><USER5> I've been seeing this a lot recently, and I find it really annoying. The reviews are not the place to voice your pricing concerns; they should be used to review product quality. This sort of abuse completely undermines the usefulness of the system.

<comment><USER6> I have to completely disagree. Amazon.com is a store, not wikipedia, and price is a hugely important factor. If folks are unhappy with the pricing on amazon.com, then amazon.com is exactly the right place for it. In particular, if folks are unhappy with the pricing of a particular item, then the review section for that item is precisely the right place to complain. They are reviewing a product that is being offered for sale. Price is crucial and relevant.

<comment><USER5> Price is relevant in terms of the product value. If you buy a $1000 set of tupperware from Amazon, and they melt in the dishwasher, by all means, give the product a low rating because the item's performance does not justify it's price.

These book reviews are different, though. People are giving 1 star reviews without having read the book, because they don't agree with the price. They are giving 1 star reviews for books that are not available on Kindle. They are not qualified to review the item because they have not used it. Whether or not the complaints are valid, the review section is the wrong venue for voicing them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Price is not a multiple of cost: it is set by the market. Kindle is a closed platform owned by Amazon, and they can charge all the market will bear. That's the downside of closed platforms.

<comment><USER8> Charging what the market will bear is the duty of sellers in a free market. This has nothing to do with a platform being closed or not. Open platforms don't exist outside the market, they compete in same economy that the closed platforms are in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> A lot of the anger seems to come from the fact that an ebook is cheaper to produce and distribute. As if the value of a book is in the wood pulp and ink...

<comment><USER10> I remain unconvinced that anyone but the copy editor and the author are superfluous in the creation of a great work of art.

I will concede that there needs to be someone to run a storefront to sell the art, but his costs should be very, very small when the art is non-corporeal.

<comment><USER11> I agree with you 100%.

That's why I co-founded Fifobooks, which is a new DRM-free ebook marketplace, where _authors_ :

\- retain all the rights to their work

\- maintain full editorial control

\- set the price at which their ebooks are sold (and keep majority of the revenue)

\- there is no fee to publish

<http://fifobooks.com>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Media pricing is currently pathological. Even for printed books the cost of production is relatively minor compared to the total price, and the artists tend to take away a relatively small portion of total revenue.

If a book costs 10x as much to produce or has 1/100th the sales as another book that has almost no effect on the overall pricing.

Unfortunately, consumers now expect books (and CDs and movies) to have flat, wholesale-style pricing. As if they were a commodity. Worse yet we have this bizarre hard back / paper back staged release process for books used to extract profit for in demand books. A model which doesn't work at all for ebooks.

I don't know what the answer is and I suspect that consumers may be too inflexible, at least in the near term, to allow for much price variability on ebooks. If that's the case then we may end up in a very bad situation for authors and new literature in general for a very long time.

<comment><USER13> The hardback/ paperback model is that early adopters are charged more and then the price is brought down later for people who are willing to wait. I don't see why that couldn't work for ebooks if people were willing to accept it.

<comment><USER14> Yes, that's why the publishers do it but they get away with it because many people see a hardback book as being more valuable than a paperback one despite the fact that they both cost about the same to make.

Sure the only people who regularly but hardbacks are early adopters but they don't see themselves as paying extra because they are early adopters they see themselves as paying extra because their buying a better quality hardback book. This is different from a tech early adopter who knows that they are paying extra for the same thing in order to have it first.

Yes it could work if people accepted it but I don't see people accepting it without there being something extra (maybe a forward from the author where the story only version of the book isn't released for a few weeks) that they can justify paying extra for.</comment></comment></comment>


Announcing Briefly: A Python DSL to scale complex mapreduce pipelines - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/bloomreach/briefly <comment><USER2> Another individual who doesn't know what does DSL stand for.

Clever Python API will never be a domain-specific language, since a) Python is not domain-specific and b) API is not a language.</comment>


Instapainting Turns Your Photos Into Hand-Painted Oil Paintings On The Cheap - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/14/instapainting-turns-your-photos-into-hand-painted-oil-paintings-on-the-cheap/ <comment><USER3> If you are using over-seas artists as is suggested in the article it might be nice to be very transparent about where the costs go, how much they get and how it is (hopefully) supporting and not exploiting them :) It would make me and probably others happier about using such a service.

Look at Everlane for an example of a startup that does a great job of this.

<comment><USER4> I don't understand why people think that using inexpensive labor overseas is "exploitation". If they are willing to take the job, that means it's paying more than the other options they have available to them which includes not having a job at all. As long as they aren't being held at gunpoint and aren't actual slaves, how is this exploitation if they are happy to freely take the job?

<comment><USER5> There's a spectrum between slavery and a happy, voluntary decision. Most of us want the floor on how an employer treats its workers slightly above gunpoint.

<comment><USER4> I'd rather the floor be much higher than just slightly above gunpoint. Like you mentioned, there are some people who don't care, and that's sad. Chances are that a voluntarily-working group of people have the floor much higher than "slightly above gunpoint".

Also, you appear to be logged into a 4-day-old throwaway account. Is that intentional?

<comment><USER6> Hunger is not very different from "gunpoint".

You are working "voluntary" only if you have options.

<comment><USER7> Because humans cannot photosynthesize, hunger is a consequence of idleness in a subsistence farming economy. A modern industrialized economy isn't too different along that parameter.

<comment><USER8> > _hunger is a consequence of idleness in a subsistence farming economy_ //

Yeah, 'cause famines and floods and other natural disasters never happen. No- one ever has to sell all their produce to pay for medicine. No, nothing like that; hunger==idleness for sure. /sarc

<comment><USER7> I didn't say that idleness is the only cause of hunger.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I like the labor reducing (and cheapening) idea of printing on the canvas first and then painting on top. This removes the sketching time and eliminates the whole class of problems relating to proportion and perspective.

The idea of shipping canvas in tubes has me less enthused. Most people can't stretch canvas over a frame on their own, so they have to get somebody to do it for them. That person probably isn't very cheap in their locale. This step is potentially done better at the factory.

Next the stretched canvas needs to be framed. Once I have my 12" by 12" canvas stretched and then framed, I wouldn't be surprised that it cost me some multiple of the $53 price. Besides a costing a bundle more than quoted, I had to do some legwork in meatspace to get it wall ready.

The quality of the work has to be good too, otherwise the prestige of a painting will be overshadowed by its gaudiness. Might as well hang the original photograph then.

Overall, not an easy business to get right, but monetization is built in. I hope you succeed.

<comment><USER10> Printing on canvas first seems to limit the artist, though. Not doing that would let them make a dogs head bigger to make the dog's expression the main part of the piece, for example, if you were getting a painting made of a favorite pet and wanted that - or whatever the goal is. The goal of art isn't to look as much like a photo as possible, so printing the photo first doesn't seem a good thing.

<comment><USER8> > _The goal of art isn 't to look as much like a photo as possible_ //

Arguably Instapainting's "artists" aren't making art for Instapainting's customers, they're making photo-style reproduction in paint.

Some artists work to create photorealism; I'd say it's fine to still call it art (but not art that does anything for me besides illicit awe as to the skill involved) despite it being perhaps better described as craft.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Hey guys, if you check it out, I would really love feedback. This was my YC W'11 company Like.fm, now pivoted into this.

<comment><USER12> Looks really cool, I'll probably order, although more cool samples on [https://instapainting.com/gallery](https://instapainting.com/gallery) would make it more enticing to me.

The two on the top look great, the dogs look meh and the baby looks frightening. The dog on your Instagram looks awesome as well.

<comment><USER11> Yea those were early orders where we were still isolating the price-quality ratio. In any case, if you don't like what you get, we'll refund you or ship you another one.

<comment><USER13> My reaction to the examples was "it seems like they don't actually want me to be able to see what the results look like." The pictures are very badly-taken: weird angles, bizarrely limited depth-of-field so most of it is out of focus, too close to see much of the picture, etc.

<comment><USER11> We placed it at the angles so you can see a closeup and also notice the texture in the brush strokes and paint. If you receive a painting and it's not what you expect, we'll refund you 100% plus the return shipping, or send you another painting.

<comment><USER13> that makes sense, but the way it's presented looks more like someone just doesn't know how to take a picture. Including full shots of each and calling the closeups out as detail views would help a lot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It would be much more interesting if this became a market to those artists abroad instead of a interface that obfuscates which artist made your painting. The reason here is taste and style. It would be great if I could look over the work of those that do this kind of work, but introduce their own personal style into the process, that way you can get your painting converted, but also have it done in a style that you like.

<comment><USER15> Your painting was masterfully crafted by @child_laborer_29871!

<comment><USER4> Somehow painting doesn't seem like a dangerous job where one can lose limbs or life like working in a factory. The ability to have a job and put food on the table for the family is probably a better option for everyone than starving or begging. (To be fair, I've never been to China, so I could be mistaken.)

<comment><USER16> Oil paints and solvents can be pretty toxic! So it can be dangerous if the working conditions are bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is good idea. I can imagine this becoming go to website for my lot of gifts. Few suggestions...

1\. You probably want to advertise more clearly and strongly on what is the turn around time because "insta" is bit misleading. Right now it is in grey font tucked away in between.

2\. Your site can become a contact point between artists and customers who want to commission a portraits. Artists can upload their pricing and portfolio and customers can choose the one to commission.

3\. It would great to have option for painting on a greeting card. Hand painted greeting cards would be very special.

<comment><USER18> Regarding points 2 and 3, check out Artists&Clients [1] – it's exactly what you're suggesting, and I (founder/dev) commission greeting cards on it myself :)

[1]: [https://artistsnclients.com](https://artistsnclients.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> On the one hand, I applaud the creative business model here....

On the other hand, being practically married to a woman who is a classically trained fine artist who already has a difficult enough time making a living from her work, it saddens me that the consequence of this is further diminishing her ability to make that living.

This causes a reduced perception of the skill involved in actually creating original works. And it reduces the already small market for original artwork.

<comment><USER20> The horse buggy drivers felt that way too. I'm sure they managed to retrain and find a new profession.

Historically, artists have always had to have a patron sponsor them in order to pursue their artistic inclinations. While it's hard for male artists to find this today, chances are that your wife already has access to guaranteed patronage if she's not in the mood to learn a more economically relevant skill set.

<comment><USER19> I find your comparison to be ridiculous and frankly, quite ignorant.

You are right about patron sponsorship of artists though. And thankfully, she has developed her skill to a point where she is not reliant on selling her work exclusively for income (in fact, she is an entrepreneur who has opened her own private studio for teaching).

The fact remains though; while I appreciate the low-cost nature of the "product". I hope anyone who buys one of these realizes that it is not a real work of art (outside of the virtue of the original photograph) and that there is in fact real (and more) value and real (and much, much more) skill that goes into making true original oil paintings.

<comment><USER7> I doubt that anyone who has their face painted into Dogs Playing Poker is under the impression that they're purchasing "Fine Art."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is an amazing idea and sounds pretty affordable at less than 50 bucks. I wish it was posted on HN last month so I could have ordered something for Valentine's day. :-)

Anyway, best of luck with this venture!

</comment><comment><USER22> I've used:

[http://www.chinaoilpainting.com/portrait.htm](http://www.chinaoilpainting.com/portrait.htm)

in the past with great success. They have the ability to take your photo and incorporate it into other scenes.

The prices are about the same and shipping took about two weeks.

What is the shipping turnaround time on instapainting?

<comment><USER11> Actually our prices are quite a bit lower...

We can also do 2 weeks, however due to uncertain demand, we aren't making that guarantee yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I tried this service and was surprised with how well it turned out. The artist even hand-delivered it to me, although I don't think they do that for everyone.

</comment><comment><USER24> Would it be legal to send a photo of a famous piece of art from hundreds of years ago to one of these services. On one hand the painting would be in public domain. But I wonder if some anti-forging laws would be an issue?

<comment><USER25> It would be forgery (fraud, whatever) if you mis-represented it as an original, but if you wanted something that looked like a famous piece of art, you should be in the clear.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Killer business idea: Build one app for every top Photoshop plugin out there.

<comment> vezzy-fnord This goes far beyond just applying a Photoshop filter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is fascinating and I would totally consider doing this. One thing that I would like would be examples in the gallery that show the source image along with the hand-painted output, so I can get real sense of how my picture will look as a hand-painted image.

[https://github.com/blog/817-behold-image-view- modes](https://github.com/blog/817-behold-image-view-modes)

</comment><comment><USER27> I like the idea, but something doesn't feel right. The paintings look _just_ like the photos, no emotion, no feeling, simply an output of the input. I don't really see the point. You may as well apply a Photoshop filter to your image and print it out on canvas. It would be a lot cheaper and have about as much Art™ bound up in it.

<comment><USER28> They look better in person. You can fault them for the customer-provided images, but the actual translation from image to painting looks good in person.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Chris:

This looks like an interesting business model. Good luck to you!

Perhaps you might want to consider providing an option to buy the printed, but unpainted canvas for people who might want to try their hands at making their own.

<comment><USER11> That's a good idea. We don't have that at the moment because lots of places already do prints. Perhaps a print with colors mixed for you to paint yourself?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> i wonder what it would cost to replace the painters with robots

this is basically color-by-numbers, no?

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5pQnq...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5pQnq74JEGw)

</comment><comment><USER31> Interesting, but does this scale?

Could a robot (CNC machine) paint it faster and cheaper?

</comment><comment><USER32> The images on [https://instapainting.com/market](https://instapainting.com/market) don't load for me. FYI.

</comment><comment><USER33> twenty years ago I was looking into franchises and this came up - there was an army of Chinese painters willing to take a photo and convert it into oils - <USER2> couple of hundred pounds if I remember rightly - it was a big and sophisticated operation then.

I said no as I had no idea who would work for me and no idea how to sell. or scared of selling I guess.

but if I was a decent artist I guess a nice sit down job beats most options.

</comment><comment><USER34> The "View more pictures " link is a little weird. You expect to be able to click the box but you have to click like under...

<comment><USER11> Fixed!

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Reminds me of pixelist: [http://www.pixeli.st/](http://www.pixeli.st/)

<comment><USER11> We're basically the same, except we have a gallery of licensed art to choose from as well, and we are much cheaper and faster.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Amazing that it took until YC '11 for someone to implement _Hackers and Painters_.

</comment><comment><USER37> Congrats Chris!

</comment><comment><USER38> I look for something like this.... Thanks for sharing valuable post...</comment>


Review my startup - Groove: Real Time Customer Service and Support  - <AUTHOR> http://www.groovehq.com/

<comment><USER2> The design of the site looks really good, and I think there's definitely a need for this. Right now I don't think there are many good (and affordable) tools to manage different support channels. I have tried other options like Hootsuite or Assistly before, and they just didn't work that well. There's an opportunity for something that is fast, functional, and isn't a nightmare to set up.

The biggest question in my mind is "how much does it cost?!" This is really the most important part. Why sign up to try something out if you don't know if you can afford it in the first place? I hate it when companies hide the pricing info behind a wall.

Also, it would be really great if you could have a working demo that people can play with, because the descriptions look great and all, but it's hard to tell how well it actually works without something to play with.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! Re: pricing-When we launch in late August to the public with pricing it will be $15/user/agent. Hope this helps :) If you want in on the beta let me know.

Cheers,

Alex

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've been looking to add chat/support/knowledge base to one of my consumer facing sites now for a month or two, and out of everything I've looked at/tested, I'm most excited for this. I tested out assist.ly, and while powerful, it just seemed like overkill. Olark was a bit expensive in my opinion and missed the support features, and there were a ton of other ones which were all in the gaps.

LOVE the iPhone app side of it, can't wait to test that (I'm assuming you know the link on the main page doesn't go to the app store, but my search didn't list it either, so I presume it isn't published yet)

Looks like it has some great potential, congrats. The only thing I can say negative is when I type groove in the url it will auto bring me to grooveshark, so I'll be forced to type out the whole url ;-)

</comment><comment><USER4> 1.) Very nicely designed site. Not sure about the beach theme (what's the connection) ?

2.) Chrome downloads a .wav file for the customer chat widget you have embedded. This happens every time I come back to the landing page. You should look into that. I'm on Windows 7 running Chrome 12.0.7

3.) I know you're in BETA, but one of my pet peeves are services like this, where you have no idea of what the pricing structure is going to be. It might just be me, but I'd much rather you have outline some basic pricing info and have to change it when you launch, then have nothing at all.

4.) Would love to have seen a few full page screenshots.

Best of luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome feedback! Thanks for taking the time to review Groove :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The landing page design is really pleasing, but I'm curious -- why the nautical theme? I don't necessarily think of the ocean when I think of the word "groove". I absolutely dig the retro vibe, though. One last design thought: Your "Contact Us" and "Log In" buttons at the top-right are very low- contrast. I'm red-green colorblind, which is pretty common, and I find them hard to read (although I'm not sure that's why). If you just used a darker gray for the text, I think it would solve the problem without taking away from your calls to action.</comment>


States are looking to jam T-Mobile and Sprint's proposed $26.5B merger - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/11/states-are-looking-to-jam-t-mobile-and-sprints-proposed-26-5-billion-merger/ <comment><USER2> While I'm usually wary of giant corporate mergers like this, the fact that they are 3rd and 4th leads me to believe it would actually position them to better compete against Verizon and AT&T in a way that would be good for consumers.

<comment><USER3> Let them invest to compete, instead of merging. Merging will only make things worse.

<comment><USER4> How do you figure? If they merge, we get three main market leaders all competing head to head.

If they don't, Sprint tanks, and we still have three main market leaders, however two will remain significantly ahead of the third. Keeping in mind that the two that are ahead are now playing the monopoly game and buying into other industries (see AT&T and Time Warner or AT&T and DirecTV or Verizon and Yahoo, etc)

<comment><USER5> Break up Verizon and AT&T.

<comment><USER6> We then need to _keep_ them broken up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This makes no sense to me. There is no reasonable reality where Sprint becomes a healthy competitive force in the US as a standalone business.

<comment><USER8> Instead of approving this merger, is there another way the government could encourage competition? Perhaps break up the larger carriers or some how promote new upstart competition?

Your statement sounds correct but I don't exactly like the reality.

<comment><USER9> Manage the cell tower infrastructure and spectrum themselves through a non profit GSE (government sponsored entity) (think ISO grid operators for electric grids) and make every commercial provider an MVNO stakeholder. Similar to a municipality owning the last mile fiber to the house, and any provider can provide you service with a quick patch cable or VLAN change at the central office/colo facility.

Running a nationwide cellular network is expensive and complicated AF. You have to provide a level playing field if you want to enable competition without needing hundreds of millions of dollars to start up.

<comment><USER10> Competition between carriers has partly driven the widespread availability of coverage. Several carriers compete on the basis of their coverage. A government-funded entity seems highly unlikely to provide optimal coverage, or to do so in a cost-efficient manner.

<comment><USER11> I'm not categorically against government-run solutions. But the cellular market isn't so obviously broken that a government-run system has any hope of being better. U.S. market concentration in cellular is less than for shipping, ecommerce, and soft drinks, and a lot less than for mobile operating systems, search, or social media. Verizon and AT&T's combined market share of about 68% is about the same as Apple and Samsung's combined share of the U.S. smart phone market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What's the thinking here? Stopping the merger of the two insignificant players would only shield the major players from real competition.

</comment><comment><USER13> ATT & Verizon have impressive lobbies.

<comment><USER14> My hunch is they would welcome the merger

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I left Sprint because I hated their guts. I went to T-Mobile.

</comment><comment><USER16> The real answer to this is to break up AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast while blocking the T-Mobile/Sprint merger.

This will probably help net neutrality slightly since T-Mobile and Sprint gotta duke it out offering more network throughout to customers while AT&T and VZW compete over speed... the four sort of forcing each other to sort of almost make something which appears neutral (it's not).

Unless there are no gigantic telecoms or there's way more government intervention in these markets (common carrier status anyone?) there will be no point in things like this against the bottom tier national providers.

</comment><comment><USER17> At this point I'm just rooting for them to get together. They're like star- crossed lovers: Romeo Corp and Juliet Inc.

</comment><comment><USER18> "The lawsuitm" typo

</comment><comment><USER19> The problems facing the US in competing with China are structural.

No Amount of mergers between giant monopolies is gong to fix structural problems.

On a cynical level, it maybe that "China" is used as an excuse to push through a merger for profits, but lets assume some innocence.

The execs. realize how costly 5G is going to be, and the only way they know to borrow that amount of money is increasing their underlying capital assets.

The problem is that Huawei became successful in 5G through massive government investment, currency arbitrage ( supported by the US ), cheaper land, cheaper engineer, ...

Just a side note, have a look at how Huawei operates. They build a giant 60,000 engineer city for their employees !

Is the US ready to create a giant 60,000 engineer city to compete in 5g ? where engineers are paid a fat salary with low rent ? ( in PPP terms )

5G maybe the reason why the US has to finally confront the structural reasons why they have become so uncompetitive in electronic hardware in relation to East Asia.

<comment><USER20> Let's not forget that our government is mostly run by people with law degrees while china has a large amount of technocrats. Making it much harder to get state-scale large engineering and software projects going in the U.S..

<comment><USER21> We have had a leader being a technocrat/rich businessman only once before in US history. That was Herbert Hoover. Now Trump. Neither have done anything amazing for business and/or innovation.

<comment><USER22> The list of Trump's attempted businesses is hilariously sad (except the Fraud which is just sad). Don't even get me started on his Snazzle Snacks pyramid scheme.

<comment><USER23> Or Trump: The Game</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why is everyone so busy? (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/news/christmas-specials/21636612-time-poverty-problem-partly-perception-and-partly-distribution-why <comment><USER3> I recommend people watch Japan A story of love and hate ([http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x56bwzc](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x56bwzc)) which, aside from being a great look at Japan, epitomizes the absurdity of exchanging our time for a salary that increasingly fails to cover the cost to live and leaves us without free time. 30,000 Japanese kill themselves each year due to work related stress.

Great quote from the doc:

Naoki:"You (the West) game me this f*cking Capitalist system 100 years ago..."

Cameramen: "And now you're rich"

Naoki: "Is this rich...is this a good system?"

I hope - and expect - that one day offices are viewed in the same way we view the factories of the early industrial age: prisons of drudgery and misery.

I'm not naive, civilization and its innumerable benefits (like actually being able to live past 65) has a cost. But the notion that sitting in traffic each morning to reach a room where one stares into a screen for 9 hours - <USER2> day, for 40 odd years - is desirable is the greatest con capitalism has ever pulled.

<comment><USER4> On the money. Fuck the 9-5 corporate work life.

I've been doing this everyday for 12 years..and I'm about to blow my brains out.

I encourage everyone to find one thing they love and find a way to do it everyday for the rest of your life.

<comment><USER5> A bit too radical, lots of people enjoy having a job and stability that it brings.

Entrepreneurship is romanticised by entreporn on Medium.

Essentially there is no black and white answer, everyone should just do what gives him/her meaning.

<comment><USER6> I think it's interesting that:

> I encourage everyone to find one thing they love and find a way to do it > everyday for the rest of your life.

...is translated to entrepreneurship, when that doesn't have to be a given. I'm still struggling with the alternative possibilities, but I just wanted to point that out.

That said I do agree with your conclusion. It's the path to get there that can keep me up at night, and perhaps not framing it purely in terms of being employed or self-employed might help (not saying that that's what you were saying, btw).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm of the opinion that the root of the problem is inflation (but I'm open to correction).

My thinking is that we're constantly being pushed to work harder because no business today can reach a successful steady-state -- it must keep growing. The reason businesses must keep growing is that investors demand it. Investors demand it because they believe that wealth sitting around not making more wealth is a waste. Inflation, I believe, is a big component of this view. What would happen if we keep inflation near-zero? Is slow growth really a bad thing?

<comment><USER8> I agree that there are likely negative social consequences from inflation, but the idea that inflation is the reason a business can't reach a steady-state because of inflation seems to ignore Red Queen[1] like affects.

Something I've noticed a lot in tech is that companies will spend a huge amount of money to push new features that aren't core to the business and to launch new products that frequently fail. I've always viewed these as attempting to prevent competition from emerging rather than trying to compensate for inflation.

<comment><USER9> You forgot to include the link you were going to reference.

<comment><USER10> This is the reference AFAIK: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen%27s_race](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen%27s_race)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> As long as there are marginal gains to be made from working an extra hour I don't see this changing. Imagine if one country decided to change from a 40 hour work week to a 20 hour work week. If this decreases their GDP from producing less output, then they become economically weaker, their standard of living in terms of purchasing power is diminished, and the tax base is decreased. I think the biggest reason we don't see more leisure time is the same reason wild animals don't see much leisure time: competition. At the international level, countries which produce more are more powerful, and at the domestic level other things being equal an individual who produces more will command a higher income, which translates to gaining a bigger slice of the economic pie and the additional power that confers. I suspect many of the people on hacker news could easily live on half the income they make, but we choose not to, because we prefer the extra affordances of working full time or more.

<comment><USER12> It's just people being wired to compare their lives with other's. Humans evolved in small groups with hierarchies where your "rank" compared to others could mean the difference between life and death. Not so much these days, but the habit is still there.

Luckily, we also evolved big brains that let us override almost any instinct and with a bit of effort we can be perfectly happy with any slice of the pie.

P.S. I'm somebody that gave up a large fraction of my salary to be able to work part time and travel the country. It's been worth it so far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> My last job, I had so much more free time. I finished at 4 each day and sometimes took 3 hour lunches. Someone would text me in another city and ask if I could come through and meet them. I would often just walk out of work (it wasn't a problem) and go meet them. If it meant that I didn't get back to the office that day, so be it.

There was lots of time spent with friends and family, it was great.

My current job, I eat lunch at my desk and spend so much less time with friends and family. A couple of months ago I was working from 8AM to 3:30AM, then was back to the office for 8AM the following day.

I make more money now, but I was so much happier before.

I often think about just quitting work and taking a year or two off, just do me things and figure stuff out. What I want from life, what my prioritie are etc.

But then I worry if you take that long off, how hard would it be to get back to work afterwards? Are employers even going to entertain my CV

<comment><USER14> _I would often just walk out of work_

In one of my previous jobs, while leaving at 5:30 pm (started at 9 am), the CTO asks "half day today?", only half jokingly :(

<comment><USER15> I got in late, so i'm leaving early to make up for it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Because we've been sold the idea that there is someplace else to be, and that we should work as hard as we can to get there.

<comment><USER17> > we've been sold

And believed the sales pitch, which was never true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> There is a lot more bureaucracy built into the systems we have to deal with these days as well (David Gaerber's "Utopia of Rules" is a good read on this).

I have a lot of stuff to do, and was kind of getting on top of it recently. I needed to renew my driving license here in Spain. I needed two appointments (trying to fit them around work). I have been given a temporary license for the time being and am waiting on the new one to be posted. I noticed that the temporary paper has my name spelled wrong, so there is a good chance I will need at least one more appointment just to get that typo fixed when the plastic version comes through.

I guess another factor is the changing nature of jobs. Certainly in IT you need to devote at least some time to keeping up with new tech or you will become obsolete. I find this especially frustrating when a lot of the "new" is just a rehash of stuff from 30 years ago. Its also why I hate fronted work, as the ecosystem is a constantly changing mess.

</comment><comment><USER19> I found this article really interesting and extremely well written. The excerpt below is a literary masterpiece.(other comments complain about paywall but on mobile I got "3 articles free" message. Not sure if they're A/B testing or if they're giving me free stuff because I'm in South Africa and they assume that online payments are hard here)

"Leisure time is now the stuff of myth. Some are cursed with too much. Others find it too costly to enjoy. Many spend their spare moments staring at a screen of some kind, even though doing other things (visiting friends, volunteering at a church) tends to make people happier. Not a few presume they will cash in on all their stored leisure time when they finally retire, whenever that may be. In the meantime, being busy has its rewards. Otherwise why would people go to such trouble?

Alas time, ultimately, is a strange and slippery resource, easily traded, visible only when it passes and often most highly valued when it is gone. No one has ever complained of having too much of it. Instead, most people worry over how it flies, and wonder where it goes. Cruelly, it runs away faster as people get older, as each accumulating year grows less significant, proportionally, but also less vivid. Experiences become less novel and more habitual. The years soon bleed together and end up rushing past, with the most vibrant memories tucked somewhere near the beginning. And of course the more one tries to hold on to something, the swifter it seems to go"

<comment><USER20> I wonder if this author has children. I couldn't read because of paywall. My life came to a slow and boredom was setting in slowly until I had a child. Living through his life makes me feel excited again, not for myself but knowing everything he'll go experience. If anyone reading this has a choice in having kids but hadn't yet, I'd highly recommend it. Yes it's hard and strange at first but worth every moment. Just now I smiled at my 6 Mo old kiddo and he laughed at me. It's moment like this that make me realize what's important in life and one of the reasons I enjoy working for myself from home - even at the cost of much less pay.

<comment><USER21> I feel like the idea of "living through" one's kids has a lot of negative connotations——pushing them to spend hours a day on something they hate, etc. But there is absolutely something to be said for being able to see the world through your kid's eyes. They get so excited about things that are totally mundane to adults. (My one year old yesterday had to stop and examine each little hole in the sidewalk as we walked.) That wonder at the world is certainly infectious.

<comment><USER17> There's beauty in seeing the world through a child's eyes, even as an adult. Where life is wonder. Nature is really great at infecting one with wonder as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > Writing in the first century, Seneca was startled by how little people > seemed to value their lives as they were living them—how busy, terribly > busy, everyone seemed to be, mortal in their fears, immortal in their > desires and wasteful of their time. He noticed how even wealthy people > hustled their lives along, ruing their fortune, anticipating a time in the > future when they would rest.

Living fully in this moment _now_ feels way underrated.

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm not sure their psychological/cultural reasons translate very well to continental europe. The people that surround me in Germany have all the time they want.

Besides that:

> No one has ever complained of having too much of it.

Isn't that just being bored? I'm sure I've heard people complaining about that.

<comment><USER23> I think people who complain about being bored are simply scared of being alone with their thoughts. I don't mind doing "nothing" on a train or bus ride, it gives me time to slow down a little and just think to myself.

I think this "gotta be busybusybusy" thing originated in the US, but it is definitely spreading.

I see way too many people who are way too wrapped up in their careers or are constantly stressing about all the things they "have to do", and they forget to actually enjoy anything, because they're already mentally at the next thing.

I love lazy Saturdays on the couch, and I wouldn't trade them for anything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Honestly it's about ownership of homes and debt levels. If you aren't in massive debt and you own your home, small efforts can easily pay off other costs and you can live a comfortable life. If you lose your job but you own your house and have a small amount of savings (most don't), at least you won't get evicted...

And because wages are so artificially depressed by the suprarich, it takes two jobs to support a life far too often. Noam Chomsky talks about how at the beginning of the industrial revolution the people were skeptical of the 6-9 job that payed a pittance as essentially not much better than chattel slavery, the only difference being you got to go home at night.

This is about class warfare, this is about the oligarchs fucking us all constantly and consistently while we do nothing because the people we expect to do something (the government) are corrupted, blackmailed, coerced, and lobbied into the ground until they break to the oligarchs will (which is why there is truly only one party at the moment, the oligarchs party).

Add on top of that the unconstitutional private banking conglomerate known as the fed and the 16th amendment, and you have a recipe for runaway inflation, devaluation of purchasing power, and increases in poverty, homelessness, and _work hours needed to support the cost of living per area_.

Jackson was a piece of shit when it came to the natives, but that far too often overshadows the importance of his effort to fight the banks. (Also, him beating the brits with marines, sailors, militiamen and pirates is a movie I want to make someday.)

Shades of Smedley Butler if you ask me. Anyone remember that? Oh yeah, they don't teach you in public school that a bunch of facist corporate oligarch banker types tried to attempt a coup on the American government via a Marine Corps general who double-crossed them and reported it all to congress all in ~1933? Oh yeah, they blacked out the names until John Spivak published them.

([https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/McCormack%E2%80%93Dickstein_C...](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/McCormack%E2%80%93Dickstein_Committee#Deleted_Text))

([http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/53/spivak- NewMasses.pd...](http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/53/spivak- NewMasses.pdf))

</comment><comment><USER25> Everywhere Americans look they're pressured to consume more, achieve more, live beyond their means, go into debt (student loans, car loans, home mortgages), and have a family on top of it all while saving for some fabled retirement and college tuition for the kids.

If you unplug and simplify your life, don't bother with pursuing a family, you'll see how disincentivized to be busy you are and how absurdly everyone else appears to be living. But if you pursue all the things your competitors are pursuing, you'll find yourself having to acquire similar levels of resources. There's not enough to go around for _everyone_ to have that amount of excess, hence it must be fought over.

Basically what you have is a non-violent (most of the time) resource competition determining who gets how much of what in what order, where the participants aren't even pursuing a specific quantity - they're just after as much as possible while they're still able, MORE.

edit:

After writing the above, I remembered this short video from the 90s, semi- related. [1]

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCeeTfsm8bk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCeeTfsm8bk)

</comment><comment><USER26> > And lunches now tend to be efficient affairs, devoured at one's desk, with > an eye on the e-mail inbox.

Alternatively, you do go into lunch break, because you have to network with colleagues or business partners.

</comment><comment><USER27> Societies compete with each other like organisms. Successful societies propagate. Primary dimensions of competition are demographics, economics, and military. Thus the history of social organization is necessarily a history of extracting ever-more value from the labor of society's members.

Keynes and others seem to have labored under the delusion that the history of social organization is a history of ever-increasing happiness for society's members.

</comment><comment><USER28> My current guess is that a large part of this is the increase in various amounts of "chores" to manage, and this potentially increases with more wealth. Bills to pay, insurances to get, appointments to make, this or that government obligation to fulfill, monitoring credit report and data breaches, investing money here or there, getting real estate...

\+ other things, like continuous learning, information collection, designing exercise schedules, designing diet systems...

With the persistent threat that if you mess these up there will be trouble.

Related to this, I wonder if the proliferation of these things is why _conscientiousness_ is currently strongly associated with success. I've seen highly intelligent people have significant failures in their lives because they simply couldn't efficiently manage the bureaucracy that it seems it is assumed you can just manage automatically, which very much does not seem to be the case.

In reality, I think the current small (and large) task management load is simply too large for most people to properly handle, and wealth doesn't particularly help with all this because it doesn't directly increase the mental load surface... unless you outsource the work somewhere else...

</comment><comment><USER29> Listen also [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07v07pb](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07v07pb)

</comment><comment><USER30> If 'busy' means that your time is filled with things to do, that -can- be a good thing. My impression is that before technology, media, communications, health, and rising standards of living life was -a lot- more boring.

Every day on the 'net I see that hundreds of people who've not only found specialized, fascinating topics, but finally have someone to talk to about them. Sure beats taking anti-depressants.

To the extent that busy means 'paying for all this stuff I have to have': how much of it do I really need? Are we victims of 'have to have' obesity? I'll just gently suggest that, for many in the West, the answer is yes.

</comment><comment><USER23> This "must be busy" mindset and 50+ hour work weeks is so utterly alien and _wrong_ to me, and I'm glad I feel this way.

I would never let a job get in the way of family and social experiences, in the way of _my life_. Relaxation and leisure time is absolutely non-negotiable for me, I would never give up on a concert or culinary experience or anything else for something as mundane as work.

I think this mindset has also gifted me with more patience and more ability to not be bored, compared to most of my peers. Luckily, all of my friends share my mindset, anyone too work-obsessed simply doesn't fit in for long.

I am a slacker, and I enjoy it very much.

<comment><USER31> I am the same as you, alas I cannot afford not to work the hours I do (for which I have copped quite a bit of flack on HN about).

I do wonder why people who can afford to spend time with their family and not work 60-70 hours per week, actually do.

I can only imagine it would be that they really enjoy their work that much, or their in a culture such as here in Japan where you stay until the boss leaves - or else. (Not my situation, I'm a chef, stupid hours in my industry).

<comment><USER32> I'm terrified of letting people into my life, and the biggest reason is I'm afraid they'll cut into my work time. Now, sure, there's probably a bunch of Freudian damage that's gone into this. But however I got this way, I am this way, and I don't mind.

<comment> wu-ikkyu May I ask what you do for work? And how fulfilled you are by it?

<comment><USER32> Game programmer. 8/10 fulfillment and climbing.

<comment> wu-ikkyu How is your relationship with your coworkers?

<comment><USER32> I mostly work alone, as of the past few years. Occasionally take consulting work or contracts. When I do have coworkers, my relationship with them is typically good to very good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> (this is only a very quick and dirty exposition.)

Humans, like every other organism on this Earth, have been shaped by evolution, which has instilled a set of adaptations into them.

Like most other species, there is a competition for mates, reproduction opportunities and resources within the sexes. So, along the ages, humans have acquired a set of adaptations that "maximize" wealth, status, (whether they still work in the current environment as opposed to the ones in which these adaptations evolved is another question). So, in essence, humans who tended to work more, tended to obtain more resources/wealth thereby becoming more attractive reproductive prospects. You also get more opportunities to help fellow tribe members, improving your status within your community etc. In other words, a highly competitive arms race has emerged.

However, only in recent times, intellectual work has become more common, where the size of the input is not proportional to the quality of the output.

There is another dimension to this. Many humans today work in corporate environments where there is an intense competition for advancing in a rigid hierarchical structure. These advances are strongly correlated with income growth, and power and control over many work-related issues, which is strongly related to status. In these environments, it is often difficult to actually measure the output quality and quantity of each human, partly because there is little incentive to do that, partly because people doing the measurement are not the most technically knowledgeable in the field, but mostly because they are humans themselves and thus have their own interests (namely improving their reproductive prospects themselves, so they need to forge allegiances that stabilize their positions etc). Promoting the most capable worker is sometimes outside their interests. So in this environment, many other cues are used to evaluate the worth of employees, many completely unrelated to their capabilities and work. So, marketing oneself becomes an important aspect in this economy.

One clear way to signal to others that you are very dedicated to the company and an important employee is to spend more time at the office than the others. Busyness is a signal of importance/status and value to the company. Of course, people actually interested in performing high quality intellectual work will know that time spent on a task is only one (minor) factor ...

<comment><USER34> what other ways can we use to measure worker's output quality and quantity other than the easily quantifiable factor of "time"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I'm an academic. If I get in 3-4 hours of deep work I'm done for the day and can relax.

</comment><comment><USER36> [http://archive.is/AfhEN](http://archive.is/AfhEN)

<comment><USER37> creepy

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I'm always amazed how I end up seeing long threads from HN users who read an article, but when I click on it, there is a pay wall. Are all those readers subscribers to these news sites?

<comment><USER39> Most of the sites show their content to archiving services. If you go to archive.is and enter the URL, you'll see the content.

<comment><USER40> Thanks, I wasn't aware of this.</comment></comment></comment>


When memmove() fails - <AUTHOR> https://news.realm.io/news/when-memmove-fails <comment><USER2> The actual bug, from the QT bug report:

 _This is due to a bug in the memmove() implementation for overlapping memory on this particular device, which returns dest + n instead of dest. The compiler in turn recognizes memmove() and uses the return value as an optimization instead of saving the dest pointer on the stack._</comment>


How do you manage your closed beta invites? - <AUTHOR>

How do you manage your closed beta invites?
Do you create an individual invite code for everyone who signs up to try your beta? Or have some codes which can be used multiple times (eg works for 10 signups)?
Are there any sites that manage the whole process of people applying for invites, sending out invites, etc? Inviteshare.com is the nearest thing I could find, but it's geared more towards exchanging invites between users. <comment><USER2> So the HackerNews invite code for JamLegend is located in our DB. Our strategy has been the following:

A) Create one invite code, send that to a lot of people. B) From the people who sign up, give each new account an invite code itself, so that person can sign up. You can assign a random string or set a class for 2nd degree invites. C) Repeat step B, and adjust invites accordingly to the amount of growth.

A prerequisite for Step B is making sure that you have invitations built into the system, so that people it won't be ignored.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good suggestions. I also saw on your website that you ask people to twitter @jamlegend or become a fan on facebook, that's a great hack for spreading the word/hype!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> We add custom invite code to each application. For each app, we have an admin site that has a button that allows us to generate a single invite -- a button that says "gimme a ticket". It uses an sqlite table to store all of them. Every time an account is created, it checks if the invite code exists and has been used yet. If it hasn't been used, the form validates and the username of the new user is stored in the ticket table so we can track which invites are used.

Some good features to have for a ticketing system: \- ability to type in an email or set of emails and it automatically sends a different beta code to each address \- ability to have one invite be able to create more than one account (sometimes we send a code to a company and tell them to create a few accounts for their staff, each invite can create X users before it expires) \- have a date expiry on invites so you can toss-out old ones

</comment><comment><USER4> If its already in beta then why do you want to limit the # of people who are actually excited to try out your application? If its not ready for prime time then call it an alpha.

To me Beta is pretty much something that's ready to go prime time, everything works, you spent a few days testing it to make sure you don't crash the system, but you still want to spend some time with a much larger audience testing it to sort out all the missed bugs. Alpha to me is when you just finished coding it up and only did the most basic stuff to check if everything works.

If its an alpha then use the one at a time invite, if its beta set max # of users and use one at a time method if you need to give out some extra invites to more valuable testers

<comment><USER5> One problem with what you're saying is how you define "beta". Everyone defines it differently (What Google considers beta is different than what I would consider beta which is different than what you consider beta.

A larger problem (you're not alone in making this mistake) is trying to lump software development into set, solid stages. Development is more fluid then "OK. we're beta. next up is final release and we're done forever." It's doubtful that you ever stop adding features or making something better. And if that _is_ the case, I'm not entirely sure I'd want to use your product knowing it'll never be improved beyond 1.0.

As for why you might want to limit invites? Maybe you're trying to figure out how much it can scale with what you currently have before you work on it some more? Or maybe you want to try the limited scarcity thing out. Who knows the motivations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> _How do you manage your closed beta invites?_

I'm a luddite: I ask people to send me an email if they want to beta test, and then when I'm ready for more beta testers I go through my inbox, create accounts, and send out emails.

<comment><AUTHOR> That works for 10 to 20 invites, but it wouldn't be fun to scale it to 100's ;)

<comment><USER6> Quite true -- I have an advantage here that for tarsnap I don't want to have hundreds of beta testers yet, since I'm paying for all the storage people use. :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Inviteshare.com is the nearest thing I could find

You might find something if you google for "coupon manager" or something like that.</comment>


Flickr's $25 Fee: A Business Model For User-Generated Video?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/4/flickr_s_25_fee_a_business_model_for_user_generated_video <comment><USER2> Doomed to failure. Business models where you charge for your product instead of for advertising just aren't viable anymore.

</sarcasm></comment>


Tinychat's 12-Way Group Video Chat App For Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/14/coming-soon-tinychats-12-way-group-video-chat-app-for-facebook/

<comment><AUTHOR> So they have finally found a way to do video chat on iPad 1!! (video at 01:13)</comment>


DigitalOcean droplets manager - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/itohnobue/domanager

<comment><USER2> Looks great! I made something similar using Python and Gtk+ targeting Ubuntu ([https://github.com/andrewsomething/digitalocean- indicator](https://github.com/andrewsomething/digitalocean-indicator)).

You might want to consider moving to v2 of the DigitalOcean API. One nice thing you get is OAuth. It makes connecting to the user's account much more friendly.

You should also submit it to the projects page on the DO community site:

[https://www.digitalocean.com/community/projects/](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/projects/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hello people!

If you have time and/or need such application please check out my utility for Digital Ocean droplets management (Windows & Mac OS X). Any feedback highly appreciated :)

Thank you very much in advance!

<comment><USER3> This is pretty cool. I might join as a contributor if you dont mind. PS: You should probably edit the title to Show HN

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! Of course I don't mind and will be glad to get any help :)</comment></comment></comment>