Copyrighting melodies to avoid accidental infringement [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfXn_ecH5Rw <comment><USER2> Now they need to generate a name for each one, and provide a search engine where you put in an audio clip and get back the copyrighted, named item. Plus the ability to play any of those melodies on line, given the name.

Then, each time a new piece of music appears from a major label, they do the lookup and generate a DMCA takedown request.

<comment><USER3> Names should be easy to choose by diceware. Then you could just have a JS tool to convert strings like A-B-C-G#-A-B-C#-G to and from diceware names. And a HTTP endpoint that synthesizes the music as a gzipped .wav file on demand.

<comment><USER4> I fed four popular song names from 2019 to GPT-2, and it suggested some other song titles in the same genre. A few of them already exist:

B2B, by X Ambassadors (feat. MØ, Alex Clare, Lido, FUSE) .

Saturday Night, by Dot Genesis.

Saturday Night, by Above & Beyond.

Thanks for the Wrecking Ball, by Black Moon.

Best Regards, by Florence + The Machine.

"Fuck You All," by RBE.

Birthday Love, by Notoriously Morbid.

Welcome to the jungle, by Rogue (feat. Mosca).

Nobody and Nobody, by

Stunna (feat. Q-Tip).

Feels Like Summer, by Public Enemy (feat. Public Enemy).

Critical, by Mobb Deep (feat. X-Clan).

Electric, by Josh Wink.

Down, by Aaliyah.

Hip Hop 4 Life, by Quad City DJ's.

Post-9/11, by The Notorious B.I.G.

The Oneness, by 99 Problems (feat. AK-47).

Where Are Ü Now, by Too

All These Things That I've Done, by The 1975.

Triple Poison, by Weezer (feat. Weezer/Beck).

Lionheart, by Usher.

In time, we've come so far

I feel like this approach ought to work well for generating names. Also, lyrics:

Pull me up like you be makin' an '80s comeback

The devil, he stole your soul and he's back like it ain't no fuckin' thing

I'ma turn you on my side with another trend, boom

Heard they wanted to make a video and they could only get me

When they heard I could do and write and everything was under control

Hey, you could say, just listen to this hit I made

Twist the straw, pull the switch and wrap this napkin around it

All I hear is "ice-nine"

It takes a 'dub to make this work, your stage is a den of thieves

Big Ugly gave me a coupon for a high-paying job

\---

I'm not having any luck getting it to write rhyming lyrics yet, but maybe [http://wry.me/sonnetron/](http://wry.me/sonnetron/) would be enough — less evocative, perhaps, but in flawless iambic pentameter with a standard rhyming scheme.

<comment><USER3> Sort of relevant: [https://www.gwern.net/GPT-2#random- samples](https://www.gwern.net/GPT-2#random-samples)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure that purely algorithmically generated music isn't copyrightable. A copyright can only cover "significantly creative" works. One example is David Slater's "Monkey Selfie", the fact that the photo merely exists doesn't make it copyrightable, it matters how it was created. Had he taken the photo himself, it would be copyrightable. In this specific case, it was a computer that created the music, not a human.

<comment><USER6> Lists of facts, where there is no creativity or originality in the arrangement of those facts, are not copyrightable. (See, e.g., _Feist v. Rural_ , U.S. 1991 [0][1] (which found that a telephone directory "white pages" that listed names and phone numbers alphabetically was not copyrightable).

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications,_Inc.,_v._R...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications,_Inc.,_v._Rural_Telephone_Service_Co).

[1] [http://cdn.loc.gov/service/ll/usrep/usrep499/usrep499340/usr...](http://cdn.loc.gov/service/ll/usrep/usrep499/usrep499340/usrep499340.pdf)

Regarding David Slater's "Monkey Selfies", as far as I can tell, no court decided the question of whether the photo was copyrightable or whether the copyright belonged to Slater, only that it could not belong to the monkey.

<comment><USER7> >Lists of facts, where there is no creativity or originality in the arrangement of those facts, are not copyrightable. (See, e.g., Feist v. Rural, U.S. 1991 [0][1] (which found that a telephone directory "white pages" that listed names and phone numbers alphabetically was not copyrightable).

Was there a reason you mentioned this? I don't see the relevance to the surrounding discussion.

<comment><USER6> A listing of all the possible melodies of a certain length is a list of facts. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

<comment><USER7> In don't think anyone mentioned a listing of all possible melodies either, and if you think something they did mention is functionally equivalent, it would help if you made that explicit.

Algorithmically generated music is not such a list, and does not involve publishing such a list, as no one would want that. They typically involve a lot of selection and choices by the author. They're only algorithm-generated on the sense that the Sistine Chapel's ceiling was "brush-generated".

<comment><USER6> My comment was in the context of OP's video. The Youtube description of that video states, "I sat down to talk with Damien Riehl and Noah Rubin about their project to copyright _every possible melody_." (emphasis added)

The video shows that the authors wrote a program to enumerate every possible melody up to a certain size, possibly narrowed by some criteria. A list like that should be as entitled to copyright protection as a list of the first million prime numbers.

Where an algorithm is used as a tool for creativity, I agree that the resulting work should be copyrightable because an algorithm can be like a brush in the hands of an artist. Here, however, that is not the case because the algorithm used simply lists all melodic possibilities and there is no creative input whatsoever.

<comment><USER7> >My comment was in the context of OP's video. The Youtube description of that video states, "I sat down to talk with Damien Riehl and Noah Rubin about their project to copyright every possible melody." (emphasis added)

Your comment was replying to this one:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22301633](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22301633)

which makes no mention of any of those points, so I'm not sure I understand why you thought that was the right place to put your comment, or why the connection would have been clear. I think that would have been better as a top level reply, with the relevant part quoted, as you've done here.

<comment><USER5> FWIW, since it was my comment he was replying to, I understood the relevance and connection just fine. He was supplying additional reasons as to why it was not copyrightable.

<comment><USER7> Good to hear! Not having that context, it just looked like the all-too-common "I'm going to show off my knowledge of the topic despite its dubious relevance".

And yes, I know, "you should watch the video/read the article before commenting and then you'd know the context", but usually it's much easier on everyone for the commenter to just take three seconds to indicate what they're addressing, rather than expect everyone else to blow the ten minutes of their life just for a chance to guess at it.

(For that matter, the title would have been better as "Copyrighting every possible melody...".)

In any case, it was especially confusing since it seemingly had nothing to do with your comment, about algorithmically generated music, which generally refers to something else besides publishing an entire domain (rather than the composer-selected best elements).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> That hard drive is basically just a reduced music version of The Library of Babel: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel)

<comment><USER9> Sort of, but by making it a physical object it's proving that it's not just some intuition-breaking edge case caused by infinite numbers, it's in the realm of normal small human-scale numbers and maybe we need to rethink things when it's trivial to collide by accident.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Here's how you can get it: [http://allthemusic.info/](http://allthemusic.info/)

Here's how they did it: [https://github.com/allthemusicllc/atm- cli](https://github.com/allthemusicllc/atm-cli)

<comment><USER11> Neither of these pages explain how the project works and why a musician would want to use one of the melodies.

<comment><USER12> This isn't a work of utility, at least not for musicians. It is a probe of the legal concepts surrounding copyright law of music. Everyone agrees it is not right to copy another song note for note for the whole song, or to just make "small" changes to it. On the other end, everyone agrees that one can't copy a single note, or a pair of notes.

So considering a court case where party A wins a claim against party B for having the same sequence of four descending notes in roughly similar rhythms, is that really sufficient? These lawyers are essentially creating a thought experiment to help highlight flaws with the existing wording of court rulings concerning music.

<comment><USER13> > On the other end, everyone agrees that one can't copy a single note, or a > pair of notes.

The threshold for copyrightability appears to be zero notes. Mike Batt was sued by the estate of John Cage over his zero-note composition; the claim was that it infringed on Cage's copyright to his composition 4'33", which consists of four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence. Batt ultimately paid six figures' worth of damages in an out-of-court settlement.

Silence is copyrightable.

<comment><USER14> No, it isn't. _Culture_ is copyrightable.

The fallacy in all of these arguments is the inability to distinguish between the defining properties of a specific cultural object, and the cultural field - the set of relationships - it's embedded in.

Batt wasn't sued for a minute of silence, but for using the minute of silence as a cultural signifier. And the Cage estate doesn't own the copyright on silence - it owns the copyright on silence framed within certain applications in certain cultural contexts.

Amateurs and consumers tend to think of cultural artefacts as self-contained objects. So when you sample something you are making a copy of an object - exactly like copying a data structure.

It's just data, isn't it?

No, it isn't. That is 100% not how it works. You're actually sampling a reference to a location inside a global data structure called "culture". The sound is a pointer to that reference, and the reference has a financial value which is related to its cultural notability and influence.

There's more - much more - to it than that, but that's the level at which this issue really operates.

<comment><USER15> > Culture is copyrightable.

From a purely moral perspective this argument just makes the entire situation even worse. Individuals should not be able to own culture. Culture is collective, and culture ought to have the freedom to build on top of itself.

I have never had anyone explain copyright to me in a way that made internally consistent sense, and I have come to believe that the reason for that is because it _doesn 't_ make internally consistent sense. People either give explanations that don't stand up to mechanical scrutiny, or they give explanations that don't stand up to moral scrutiny. Usually both.

Copyright does make sense from the perspective of, "we want to incentivize a behavior, so we have arbitrarily decided to artificially monopolize certain things to incentivize it." When you try to break copyright down into something more inherent or natural, the structure falls apart because (I'm convinced) there's nothing there to examine. It's just an incentive structure, and that's the only level we should be discussing it on. It's absurd to claim that any individual has an inherent, moral property right over culture; their only moral right to culture is to participate within it -- ironically, the very right that copyright restricts!

Hacks like music databases don't get around copyright by exploiting its inner mechanisms. The point isn't to out-argue judges, it's to showcase that copyright isn't an internally consistent, naturally occurring right.

> And the Cage estate doesn't own the copyright on silence - it owns the > copyright on silence framed within certain applications in certain cultural > contexts.

Which is similarly bonkers, just with more words added. The Cage estate doesn't own anything: we have temporarily granted them an unnatural monopoly over a certain kind of cultural expression in the hopes that it will somehow posthumously encourage John Cage to write more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> As other commenters have pointed out, this is gimmicky, shallow and clickbaity. All that they did was count from 1 to 68 billion.

Any piece of digital data can be converted to a number, and if we apply their argument then you can be "creative" by just counting numbers.

But we all know that's not true. Once the search space becomes that big, you can't actually "enjoy" any of these melodies. Because you can't listen to all of them in your lifetime, the ones that you WILL hear are going to be awful 99.999 percent of the time.

Hence, the "creative" process is navigating this search space, and figuring out which melodies are catchy. Better yet, trying to figure out how or why our brain decides to like or not like a melody.

<comment><USER17> But is this the entire thrust of their argument? That melodies constitute to smaller component of song to be copyrightable.

Them "copyrighting" every possible melody using a purely numerical method is just a way of showing how absurd some copyrights are. They're abusing the mechanics of the copyright system to demonstrate its flaws.

<comment><USER16> Sure. I've glossed over the fact that this is a legal stunt. But you can read my comment from the perspective of a devil's advocate arguing against them in court.

Their argument in front of a court boils down to - "counting from 1 to 68 billion is creative effort worthy of copyright". My counter argument is that its not. And that its obviously so.

I am not saying copyright law is great in it's current state. I am sure the LETTER OF THE LAW is ambiguous and ever changing for the worse (see Disney). And I am sure THE INTERPRETATION OF THE LAW has been arbitrary in a lot of court cases.

BUT, if you believe in THE SPIRIT OF THE LAW - that a person can reap financial benefits for a certain period of time if they have produced something "uniquely creative".

Then you should agree that this legal stunt doesn't contribute much of anything to the legal debate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Reminds me of this - The Library of Babel. [https://libraryofbabel.info/](https://libraryofbabel.info/)

Pages and pages of permutations of characters that contains every lyric that's existed, every novel, every poem, every word you've said to your mother in correct order.. (amoungst a whole bunch of gibberish)

All this exists here with a url that you can share to re display to book and page to anyone else.

</comment><comment><USER19> The video talks about "are two songs necessarily the same melody" for subtle differences. Thanks the complete joke that was the Dark Horse lawsuit, there's a pretty good chance that: the Dark Horse precedent will have to be overturned, or music copyright (in this form) will end.

This is brilliant.

</comment><comment><USER20> Yes, it's not "creative" so shouldn't be protected by copyright, but still points at a legal problem; we're entering a time in which AI can generate human-level music with as much or as little user input as the user wants, so how can we determine who owns the copyrights if we don't know how much "creativity" was actually involved? (And AI music generation is far easier than AI writing fiction or drawing, though AI is certainly going to come for those too.)

Perhaps there will be only two ways to handle it: 1) Case by case when people file lawsuits or 2) no more copyrightable music? No idea, but we're going to have to figure it out soon...

</comment><comment> default-kramer They mentioned the Marvin Gaye vs Robin Thicke case disparagingly. (I also think it was a terrible outcome.) But their project seems to support the idea that there is no objective measure of how similar two songs are. It follows that we should 1) eliminate music copyright altogether or 2) accept that human jurors will make decisions we disagree with. They might have been going for #1, but that is obviously way too idealistic to gain traction (in the USA at least).

I think that there can be a partially objective measure of song similarity, and that melody is an important component.

</comment><comment><USER21> Copyright requires a creative act. Mechanically enumerating all combinations isn't creative.

<comment><USER22> Legally, that's probably correct. And yet, it points out the absurdity of allowing melodies to be copyrighted in the first place. There just aren't that many of them, especially when one limits to the musically plausible set.

<comment><USER6> The opposing argument would be that there are millions (billions?) of possible melodies, so selecting ones that are particularly pleasing is a significant creative act.

<comment><USER9> Picking out of millions/billions is way too little input to be a creative act. That would let you get a meaningful copyright on a sequence of _two words_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Damien Riehl and Noah Rubin are heroes!

I can't wait until the day comes when we as a species no longer feel the need to claim intellectual property. This shit is so stupid.

<comment><USER23> "Information wants to be free!"

"Please stop giving my personal information to everyone!"

<comment><USER9> Privacy and copyright are completely separate issues.

<comment> dane-pgp The obvious dividing line is, the copyright holder wants their data (creative work) to be spread as widely as possible (to paying customers), whereas someone with a secret potentially wants no one in the world to receive that data.

I don't think anyone is claiming that composers should be forced to publish their songs against their will.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How important is a .com domain name? - <AUTHOR> How important a is .com domain name for a startup, and what would you consider is a reasonable amount to pay for a domain that's on auction or is already owned? <comment><USER3> 5 - 10 years ago it might have mattered more than now. Now I would say .com is not so important; the reason being that most traffic will come from search engines.

If you are going to be wasting time looking for a .com domain i would suggest spending this time instead on seo and marketing on your site / application keywords.

If you look at all the new startups a lot are using .io, .ly, .st etc; im sure if they make it big a number will start looking at .com domains but for the time being its just not viable if the domain is already taken or squatted.

<comment><USER4> I'd add that if you depend on SEO, I'd be careful about the tld I choose. For instance, the .io has only been upgraded recently from country level to general tld by google. Im not sure .ly and .st are currently treated as generic wrt search engine indexing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I agree with lots of the replies here; Something else to consider is your product itself and how it's distributed. For example, releasing a Mobile Web App would probably make the domain name more important than releasing a Native Mobile App. In the case of a Mobile Web App, the domain becomes the distribution channel, and in some ways could be considered a part of the Product. In the case of a Native Mobile App, the domain becomes more of an information source and marketing tool while the Product itself is distributed via App Stores. Right now I'm working on a Native Mobile App for both iOS and Android, so an .io domain was fine with me (bought the .co anyway, the .com is being squatted). On another project, the Product is a Mobile Web App, so having the .com was important.

Ironically, I've found the availability of a domain name to be one of the leading deciding factors in naming a Product. Logically, I would think that the Trademark Status is more important, but 99% of the time the Trademark is Available while the .com is being squatted. Sucks.

I should also note that ICANN is about to roll out the new gTLD's. You can read more about it here: [http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/](http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/) I would expect that over time, the release of new gTLD's will change the perception of a .com being "better" than other domains.

</comment><comment><USER6> It depends on your audience. If your audience is made up primarily of people who didn't grow up with the internet in their lives; then yes, it provides a signal of probity and seriousness, especially if you're wanting them to give you money directly.

The younger your audience the more creative you can be in that respect.

[the above is pure opinion, untainted by actual research]

<comment><USER7> I would have to agree with you. Less tech savvy user are less likely to trust an odd TLD.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I recently took a .co for a new brand I'm launching. The .com was taken by a golf course - - in my first few weeks I've found that people who are active on the Internet don't miss a beat.

As some have noted, .com isn't as critical as it used to be. It all depends on your key demographic, but if it's for a more technical crowd, an io, co or something that has been adopted outside of its home country should be fine. There are a lot of variables to consider though.

Edit: looks like most of us said the same thing. The nice thing about co are some of the offers that go along with it. They're making a conscious effort to build a community around it.

I've got a few domains that use the cctld to complete a word - - this usually leaves people more confused than anything.

<comment><USER9> > I recently took a .co for a new brand I'm launching. The .com was taken by a > golf course - - in my first few weeks I've found that people who are active > on the Internet don't miss a beat.

Not trying to insult you or anything, but how can you be certain of this? You obviously wouldn't have access to any statistics that the golf course has.

You might be doing ok now, but would be doing better with the .com. You just might be missing out on some potential visitors and never know it.

<comment><USER8> A little late to respond -- nonetheless, this is purely based on my initial customers and distributers. Of course the .com would be better, but so far the people I have spoken with haven't had any issues with the .co.

This being said, the scale of this business is small and wouldn't generate enough traffic to show even if I had access to the golf course's stats.

'co' is also part of my brand -- for both instagram, facebook and twitter user IDs. I think this also contributes to the success.

But like you said, there are plenty of unknowns.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _what would you consider is a reasonable amount to pay for a domain that 's on auction or is already owned?_

That's just not a reasonable question to ask without more specifics. Which is more valuable: stocks.com or agfag08u24tji.com?

There is no value on a .com aside from (a) what the seller will sell it for and (b) what a buyer is willing to pay. You can have all the appraisals in the world but they don't mean anything if the seller won't sell it for that price or the buyer is willing to purchase at any cost.

<comment><USER11> There most certainly can be value attached to a domain outside of what the buyer/seller are negotiating.

The idea that a buyer or seller might ignore the value is irrelevant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It depends. There are a bunch a good tlds besides .com but .com is obviously ideal. I'd start with whatever you can snag then when you gain some traction spend some money for the .com

In terms of cost... It depends how many letters or if its a dictionary domain. 3 letter domains are not cheap. Look for comparable sales.

<comment><USER13> If you want the .com and it is available then I would suggest getting it while you can, otherwise some low life company will acquire and squat on it wanting about $1000.

<comment><AUTHOR> if this puts things into perspective, after some negotiation the asking price is $7500

<comment><USER14> You might lose some of your traffic to the .com name. So it all depends on who your target audience is and how much each lost visitor would cost you.

\- If they are older people, most of them would by default type in .com when they hear a business name. (eg - google.com). So go for the .com

\- If they are from a particular country that has a strong ctld (uk, .de etc), then don't go for the .com, but go for the tld.

\- If they are young and tech savvy. Ignore the .com. Any domain name would be ok as most of them would search and find.

EDIT - And also take into consideration what type of business you are running. If offline business with more offline marketing, then go for the .com. Online marketing, people would click links, so any domain would be ok.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've bought a number of domains aftermarket before - all .com. I think .com is important if you can get it a reasonable price but not at the expense of other more important things centered around building the actual product itself.

If your company grows the .com name only goes up in perceived selling value then...ala Facebook, Dropbox, etc.

A lot of people on HN are used to different extensions because that's the world we live in but the general public is used to .coms so I agree that it depends on your audience but if it's a consumer mass market product, I think .com is important. I've spent up to $5000 on different names and I've always been able to get them for about 30-40% of asking price.

</comment><comment><USER16> I think it spends on the audience - going for like minded tech savvy folk, I don't think it matters that much if they have problems typing/remembering whatever TLD extension they will try other methods to find it.

Now if your audience is more the general public at large. .com is the default for most web browsers to append to non-TLD identified addresses. Or in a search the .com selection may seem more like the logical choice to a neophyte user.

So going for the older generations, try to stick with .com, contemporaries or younger then you probably can diverge from that without problems.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'd say it's not important at all any more. Users will type a web address - <USER2> most - once into their address bar then they only need to type the first letter or two. Sometimes a user will just search in the address bar or directly on Google for your company/product name.</comment>


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Ask HN: What have you learned building a threaded comment system? - <AUTHOR>

I'm building a threaded comment system for a web app I am working on and would like to tap into the community wisdom on best practices for making a comment system that works.
Technical implementation tips are of as  much interest as the (social) mechanics that ensure high quality spam-free discussion.
The main examples I'm drawing from are HN and reddit, but you can only learn so much by reading their source code.
It's been a while since I've seen a thread on this, so I'll ask:
What have you learned building a threaded comment system? <comment><USER2> The one thing I'd love to see more of would be a throw back to the old systems that allowed only a limited amount of upvoting of comments. As in, you can't just go and downvote or upvote as many things as you'd like, but you say, only have 5 per day or something like that.

I've seen this done with issue/bug trackers and it worked really well because then people just didn't go willy-nilly upvoting every feature request or bug, it had to be important to them.</comment>


Sproutcore 2.0 renamed to Ember.js - GitHub - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/emberjs/ember.js <comment><USER2> Confused this with ender for a second... (<http://ender.no.de/>)

</comment><comment><USER3> So Sproutcore 2.0 split into two camps, Ember.js and Amber.js? Someone correct me if I'm wrong, this is confusing.

<comment><USER4> Instead of going with "amber.js" they went with "ember.js"

sproutcore 2.0 = amber.js = ember.js

They're all the same with the final one being the official new name.

<comment><USER3> Ahh thanks so much.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Kind of odd, it was announced as "Amber.js":

<http://yehudakatz.com/2011/12/08/announcing-amber-js/>

<comment><USER6> I'm wondering if there was some kind of copyright/trademark issue at play here.

<comment><USER7> Nope. We just didn't feel good about the naming conflict. See [http://yehudakatz.com/2011/12/12/amber-js-formerly- sproutcor...](http://yehudakatz.com/2011/12/12/amber-js-formerly- sproutcore-2-0-is-now-ember-js/)

<comment><USER8> It's nice to know that some people, even when they have a lot of clout, still choose to play nice. Classy. :-)

(Purely in my personal and unweighty (as it should be) opinion.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> amber.js had a nice feel to it -- ember.js, not so much.

<comment><USER10> What's in a name?

<comment><USER9> Emotive resonance, mental imagery, branding.

<comment><USER11> Ember gives me better vibes. Glow, spark, ignition.

Amber just sits there looking pretty :)

<comment><USER10> Amber also has bugs trapped inside.

<comment><USER12> ember -- flame that burns bugs

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Now I have to return my amber lamps.</comment>


Hitler didn't die in Germany? - <AUTHOR> http://vault.fbi.gov/adolf-hitler/adolf-hitler-part-01-of-04

<comment><USER2> There was reputed to be a secret Nazi submarine base on Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands that operated way after the war finished under the knowledge of Franco, that allowed prominent Nazis to escape to South America. It wouldn't surprise me if he did escape.

<comment><USER3> Göbbels committed suicide with his wife and his five little children. There are photographs publically available of their semi-burnt bodies.

Why wouldn't he also have escaped if the other asshole got out?

ERROR> Conspiracy denied.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Title is missing the (1945) suffix.

</comment><comment><USER5> ...any reason for posting this now? It isn't new. Is HN a new conspiracy theory hideout?

</comment><comment><USER6> Rule of thumb: Question mark in title -> answer is no.

<comment><USER7> Called Betteridge's Law of Headlines: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines)</comment></comment>


How I handle my mail - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jgc.org/2010/09/how-i-handle-my-mail.html <comment><USER2> This site has some nefarious cloudflare thingy on it that tells me that my machine is infected. I am quite sure that is not the case. It will not let me access the website in question unless I enable third party cookies which is something I don't want to do. Please don't use services like cloudflare.

Edit: Why the downvotes? This is what I am seeing: <http://imgur.com/YlLWH.png>

</comment><comment><USER3> Is this just sort of generalized bayesian spam filter? I always thought that if it could learn to label some messages as spam, it would be able to apply any other label as well.

Indeed PG alludes to bayesian text classification being an old an established field (here: <http://paulgraham.com/spamfaq.html> and other posts about spam filtering)

<comment><AUTHOR> Something like that. I've been doing this stuff since 2000: <http://getpopfile.org/>

<comment><USER4> Ahhh, I knew your name was familiar.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> POPFile has an IMAP module that makes something like this pretty easy to set up. You just need to connect POPFile your GMail account, set up some buckets for POPFile, and then tell it how to map those buckets to IMAP folders.

It takes a little time to train the filters, but once that's done, the accuracy is pretty good. My only problem now is coming up with a good labeling system.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, it does, and for power users they can certainly go that way. Although, POPFile doesn't support OAuth for IMAP at this point so you have to trust your configuration with your GMail password.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I started experimenting with something similar (although got nowhere) as a helper for getting back to Inbox-0 from an overflowing inbox.

The concept was fairly similar, go through the inbox and sort it into piles of important, replied, unreplied, deletable, twitter statuses etc, and then the user could deal with archiving/deleting/following up more quickly.

This looks like a much better solution however, something running the whole time and stopping me getting into that mess.

</comment><comment><USER7> It doesn't look like anything that Mutt + Procmail couldn't do, other than the web interface. Is this something Google should consider setting up for Gmail?

</comment><comment><USER8> That sounds pretty awesome. I've got an idea for something kind of similar which I might try, but yours would probably be way better so please do it :)

</comment><comment><USER9> I handle my mail with imapfilter (<http://imapfilter.hellug.gr/#overview>). Can I reuse the machine learning part ?

</comment><comment> brown9-2 Would you be willing to share the details of the algorithm?

<comment><USER10> PDF: <http://www.extravalent.com/polymail-datasheet.pdf>

_naïve Bayesian classifier and an inverse chisquared test_

<comment><AUTHOR> Woah. Congrats on finding that, it's pretty old. The actual classifier I'm using has moved on a bit and I'm currently using logistic regression. Here's a good paper on that: [http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.126...](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.126.5825&rep=rep1&type=pdf)

<comment><USER11> Is the code available for this or is it something you have written yourself?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Wall Street Is Gobbling Up Two-Thirds of Your 401(k) - house9-2 http://wallstreetonparade.com/2013/04/pbs-drops-another-bombshell-wall-street-is-gobbling-up-two-thirds-of-your-401k/ <comment><AUTHOR> Which is why as soon as you get a chance you immediately transfer your 401k into a self managed IRA account, which if you did _nothing_ but put all the money into an S&P 500 index fund you would do better than having these guys pilfer your account over time. Not a big issue for you young folks but it does add up. What is worse is that there is a lot of double dipping that goes on, for example BigBank1 manages the 401k and gets 2% per year for that, and they offer you an investment in XYZ Fund which gets its own 2% management fee on that part of it.

An interesting (but impossible) structure would be 20% of _the return_ which is to say if the overall account went up by 7% then 5.6% goes into the account and 1.4% to the manager, if the account loses value the manager is on the hook for 10% of the loss reducing the account loss.

The current system is the bank always makes money every year on your account the only question is how much. Which isn't good for you.

<comment><USER2> How do you transfer from a 401k to an IRA? I work for a very small company, so my 401k investment choices are limited and expensive. I'd love to have a cheap index fund option.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sadly, you can only roll it over during a 'qualifying event' which is either you leave the company, the company drops the 401k, or reach the minimum age for disbursement. The most common case is people leaving the company.

I've known too many people who change jobs and just leave the 401k they had in their previous job with the company that is still managing the 401k for the old company. There can be (and often are) different rules for former employees that can be (and sometimes are) much more advantageous to the bank. When I left Sun the 401k moved all of the funds into a 'guaranteed interest' fund (aka a bond fund) with a 3% management fee. It was pretty egregious.

<comment><USER2> That's what I thought. My current strategy is to keep an eye on the total size of our account, hoping it gets big enough to add some better options, or big enough to be worth moving to a cheaper provider.

I wonder what it would take to add a brokerage window (self-directed) option?

<comment><USER3> All you can really do is pressure the company into picking a better 401k provider (Vanguard is a good bet).

A self-directed option in a 401k isn't really possible as far as I'm aware, since you're limited to mutual funds. They don't want people "gambling" with their 401k money by betting on individual stocks.

Still, given the tax advantages, you're likely to come out ahead in the long run in a 401k compared to a taxable brokerage account. Just pick the funds with the lowest fees.

<comment><USER4> Self directed options in 401ks are definitely available and if your 401k plan doesn't offer it you should be raising a stink with hr. I'm coming to the conclusion that if your plan doesn't offer it then your company either got screwed by the salesman or are incompetent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Little too hysterical for me.

Yes, you pay a fee to have your funds managed. No, that does not mean "you work for Wall Street", whatever the heck that's supposed to mean.

This is like dropping into the middle of a demented rant. There's no disagreement on the facts here, but there's a lot of smoke and heat, and not much fire.

If you don't like paying to have your funds managed, you have plenty of other options. Use one. I'm not sure this constitutes the end of civilization as we know it.

<comment><USER6> Exactly. ETFs, Index Funds, etc.

Besides, how did they get 2/3 anyways? If I make 7% and 2% goes to someone else, I'm still left with 5%. 5% > 2%. So how does that 2% translate into 66.7%?

<comment><USER7> If you follow the link to the financial calculator mentioned in the article, it's pretty simple.

<http://www.math.com/students/calculators/source/compound.htm>

For example, if you invest $100 for 50 years at 7%, at the end of the 50 years you have $3278.04.

If you invest into a fund that nominally returns 7%, but charges a 2% fee, your net increase is 5%. If you invest $100 for 50 years at 7%, at the end of the 50 years you have $1211.93.

1211.94/3278.04 = 36.97%

Not quite 1/3rd, but close enough for government work. So for the average person who blindly shotguns their 401K selections without considering expense ratios, there are many fund managers living in the Hamptons.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> 2% seems high, but you need to be careful. During bubble-1, the startup I was working ended up soliciting feedback on the option proposed by our payroll company (I believe). Most of the "management fees" on the funds were in the 1-2.5% range. I went to the morning star website and showed what poor ratings this batch of funds got as well as pointed to some fidelity/vanguard funds that were in the < 0.5% range for fees, yet in the same class.

In the end, we ended up with better options. You need to pay attention to these things.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is why checking the fees of the products you buy when you invest is so important. I'm lucky enough to have index fund options at 0.04% and bond fund options at 0.07% in my 401k. That doesn't matter if you don't use them though! I work with some pretty smart people that used to put their 401ks in target funds with fees in excess of 2.0% until I sat them down and worked out the math with them.

If you want to quickly eyeball how your 401k stacks up, Brightscope (<http://www.brightscope.com/>) is pretty useful.

</comment><comment><USER10> On the eve of their IPO, Google held lectures advising the soon-to-be minted millionaires how to avoid the mutual fund management fees. They brought in experts who one after the other advised low fee index funds: [http://www.tradersnarrative.com/the-best-investment- advice-y...](http://www.tradersnarrative.com/the-best-investment-advice-youll- never-get-1550.html)

<comment><USER11> Google did a good job of educating their employees. It's amazing to me how many people are being ripped off by high fees, active management that sucks compared to passive index funds, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Wildly inaccurate. What the article is doing is comparing the 40 year return at 7% to a 40 year return at 7% minus 2% management fees, and noting that your total return in the second case is about half as much as your total return in the second case.

Of course all that tells you is that it's stupid to pay 2% management fees if you can get the same return with lower management fees. That's obvious. Whether you can get the same return by yourself is a separate issue. Now, in the long run, your typical investor is going to get the same return (pre-fees) with active management with 2% fees as he does with an index fund at 0.1% fees, hence he's going to come out ahead using an index fund. But at least in theory what Wall Street is selling you here is better return than what you could make on an index fund.

In a way, it's the same as every other product that drives the modern economy. They're selling you an idea (in this case, that active management will yield higher returns). In reality, its the same cheap Chinese crap everyone else is selling.

<comment><USER13> "in the long run, your typical investor is going to get the same return with active management with 2% fees as he does with an index fund at 0.1% fees."

This point is extremely contentious. Particularly in the long run, there is a lot of data to show that actively managed funds do not beat market indexes. With fees, they come out considerably behind.

<comment><USER14> True, but one thing a financial advisor can do is counsel you through market volatility. Absent this, _many_ unskilled investors will fall into a "buy high, sell low" pattern and end up FAR worse off.

<comment><USER11> Vanguard does an excellent job of reminding their investors to stay the course, invest for the long haul, and not try to time the market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "The revelation of the two-thirds wealth transfer machinery was delivered by none other than John Bogle, the legendary founder of The Vanguard Group, a low-load mutual fund firm, ..." Of course John Bogle will try to sell his low fee index funds. With new products like ETF's and low index mutual funds very few people pay 2% fee. 0.1% to 1% is more realistic.

<comment><USER16> Indeed. On the other hand, John Bogle / Vanguard does offer very good products, so it isn't that bad that he is willing to puff out his chest a bit on this issue.

The important bit here is to look at the fees that you are paying with your 401k plan, and make sure they are acceptable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is fundamentally wrong. The statement assumes the whole of the management fees is being reinvested at 7%, when in reality it is being used by those who have jobs in the financial sector to pay their bills. That is quite literally like taking the price you pay for anything and multiplying it by (1.07)*50 (which is ~30) and claiming that is what they are actually charging you, since you could have otherwise invested that money at 7% and had that much in 50 years. This completely ignores the time value of money. It is equating the value of money today with the value of money fully invested for 50 years.

The more important lesson here is opportunity cost. If you are willing to go out and take the time to invest your money on your own, there are potentially some enormous benefits down the road, but you pay the cost in terms of time spent not working on your day job, not spending time with your kids, etc. I do a lot in rental housing, which has a fair return, but I can tell you right now, there are a lot of days I wish I just accepted whatever return I could get from someone else willing to manage my investments for me and focus on other things.

<comment><USER16> So... why not buy a Vanguard index fund, which is currently charging 0.07% for a management fee?

The difference between a 2% management fee and a 0.05% management fee from Vanguard's Total Stock Market Index... or 0.09% fee from SPY ETFs (+$7/trade from your typical broker).

Run the math, if you are paying 2% fees, you are getting straight up robbed. If your employer doesn't offer low-fee index funds, it would be worth your while to make sure that they get some onto your 401k portfolio.

<comment><USER18> Hmm. Both Google and my fund options page at Vanguard list the Total Stock Market Index as having a 0.17% expense ratio:

<https://www.google.com/finance?q=MUTF:VTSMX>

Are we talking about different things?

<comment><USER16> Yeah, I was talking about VTSAX. VTSMX is a newer product that Vanguard offers. It has a $3000 minimum balance... but a higher expense ratio. If you can afford the $10,000 initial deposit, you should always go VTSAX over VTSMX.

<comment><USER18> Is VTSAX ever available as an option in a 401k plan?

<comment><USER16> Its not on my plan either :-p So don't feel bad about it. My plan is closer to a 0.19% expense ratio.

I hear of people in other jobs who do in fact have VTSAX in their 401k plan, but its obviously on a case-by-case basis, and highly depends on your employer's choices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Can't rollover your 401k ? Become a "qualified investor" and manage it yourself. Buy ETF index funds and pay < 0.3% in fees

<comment><USER20> can you elaborate on this? most of the links i'm finding for self-directed 401ks are spammy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21>
      Smith: Take an account with a $100,000 balance and reduce it by 2 percent a year. At the end of 50 years, that 2 percent annual charge would subtract $63,000 from your account, a loss of 63 percent, leaving you with just a little over $36,000.

Is this math right? It doesn't seem like this is how the calculation would be done.

<comment><USER22> For people on smartphones, here is what tehwebguy wrote:

\--

Smith: Take an account with a $100,000 balance and reduce it by 2 percent a year. At the end of 50 years, that 2 percent annual charge would subtract $63,000 from your account, a loss of 63 percent, leaving you with just a little over $36,000.

Is this math right? It doesn't seem like this is how the calculation would be done.

\--

<comment><USER21> Thanks, I shouldn't have used the double space!

<comment><USER22> You're more than welcome. One of the few good habits I picked up from using reddit on my phone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> One aspect that people stubbornly ignore in discussions of this kind is that nobody, in particular no 401k investor, has all his or her money at the beginning of the 50 year or so investment period. People start with a small amount, then add to that over the years. So each year, the principal grows via compounding and via addition of a certain amount. I am not going to bloat this thread with more math; it's not hard to do it right, and the fact remains that by and large, Wall Street fees are outrageous. I just want to remind everybody that all performance considerations must take into account that a real-life investor's account is subject to deposits (and eventually, withdrawals as well). Ok, self-praise is no recommendation, but I think I have all this pretty much figured out: check out greaterthanzero.com .

</comment><comment><USER24> Bogle has been pushing this for 20 years. While a valid point, it is hardly a scandal nor even news.

Its like someone from Expedia pushing a Frontline piece on how much you could save using their service versus a travel agent.

</comment><comment><USER25> Arithmetic is a "bombshell"?

</comment><comment><USER26> The entire episode in question is available online here: <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/retirement-gamble/>

It delves into a few issues worth understanding beyond fees, such as the difference between a typical Series 7 advisor and an RIA.</comment>


Ask HN: Who "triggered" the biggest stock decline in history? - <AUTHOR> Something like NatGeo Investigation Report on the Facebook stock decline.
---CR
   |
   |,, <comment><USER2> Didn't Facebook break that record the other day? (Seriously, I could have sworn I read that).

<comment><AUTHOR> Twenty Sixth of July but what happened on Twenty Fifth after close. Fan or Not but how? Who triggered it?</comment></comment>


Why Isn't C Memory Safe Yet? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.regehr.org/archives/715

<comment><USER2> The real question is why hasn't a language emerged that is as efficient as C but much safer? Undoubtedly such language is feasible.

<comment><USER3> lua seems to be the closest option

<comment><USER4> Do you have any examples of how Lua is as efficient as C?

<comment><USER3> nothing is going to be efficient as C if you want it to manage the problems of C.

Lua just happens to be the thinnest wrapper i've seen on top of C that offers enough extras to make it worth learning/using over C.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Because then it wouldn't be C?</comment>


Batch of Fifty New Alien Worlds Discovered (largest batch ever) - <AUTHOR> http://news.discovery.com/space/new-batch-of-alien-worlds-revealed-110912.html#mkcpgn=twnws1

<comment><AUTHOR> Astronomers have announced the discovery of 50 (yes, five-zero) exoplanets, the largest group of alien worlds announced at one time. Sixteen of these worlds are "super-Earths" -- exoplanets that possess masses larger than Earth, yet much lower than the gas giants.</comment>


Show HN: Startup quotes in your new tab - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/success-and-startup-quote/igahjgigpakabalcildfclkgijdcakdo <comment><USER2> The 1st one is simply awesome: I never took a day off)</comment>


Ask HN: Evaluate a programmer's ability as a non-developer - <AUTHOR> If you're good at sales and marketing and looking for a technical cofounder or first hire, how can you evaluate the technical person's skill without deep knowledge of the underlying technology/languages? Are there any tests/services out there to help? <comment><USER2> First, accept that you likely can't evaluate that person's skill. Hell, highly skilled people often have trouble evaluating someone else's skill until they've worked together for at least several weeks or months.

Once you've got that idea out of your head, it's time to figure out ways to get shit done while minimizing the risk to yourself/your company. One great way is to start off with contracts, see how things work out and re-evaluate from there. If you have the budget, do a phase two that will require the candidate to hire/supervise another developer to get a task completed.

I'd avoid asking developer friends for help as hurt feelings will tend to spring up out of success or failure. I've learned that when you're starting a company, one good friend is worth one hundred good employees.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great advice, thank you.

<comment><USER2> If you need any help or a sympathetic ear, I used to be obsessed with startups, but then I had a kid. My email is on my profile - feel free to use it as you need!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The best way is to have a developer friend/colleague evaluate the candidate's skill on your behalf. Preferably someone who manages other devs or has had to hire devs previously. There is really no practical way you yourself can make the evaluation.

<comment><USER4> How I imagine this going is that you have a developer friend who supports what you are doing but who isn't at a place in her life where she can quit her job to focus on an early-stage startup. So y'all make an arrangement where you pay her to do interviews.

How should you structure the payment?

<comment><USER3> Sounds about right. If the founder was a good friend of mine, I would just screen devs for free. If it was a friend-of-a-friend type situation, I would bill my normal hourly rate (I am a contractor).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would want to know 1) does this person have some basic competence at building something similar to what we need and 2) more importantly, have they shown initiative, grittiness, and quickness in creating things from scratch before. (In the form of their own projects they have worked on.) Beyond basic competence, those second traits are far more important for a potential cofounder than technical rigor. And a lot of technical people do not have those skills and cannot operate successfully in a self-directed environment.

</comment><comment><USER6> Maybe try asking a technical recruiter for help or if you know any other experienced programmers if they can help with recruitment process. Otherwise you'll simply have to take the persons word. There are technical challenges websites like HackerRank etc that can give you an idea but I'd take them with a grain of salt as a fresh graduate with no experience can ace those.

</comment><comment><USER7> Software development for an original product is one of the highest-risk activities that you can do in business. (It's like buying a bar without permits and expecting to open in a month.)

The best way to reduce that risk is to ask business owners you know, "Who wrote your prototype?"

You need 2 things:

1) Somebody who has, and can, deliver a working product.

2) Somebody you can communicate with when differences arise.

<comment><AUTHOR> If it's a first hire should I be looking for someone really good at the specific stack/language or a generalist who can solve problems and connect with the right talent?

<comment><USER4> If your company focused on building a specific technology that you will then apply to lots of industries, or on taking an existing technology and applying it to a specific business problem?

If the former, then its unlikely you are asking this question since you should be talking with the grad student who is already your cofounder.

So I'm going to assume you are building a startup like zipcar, taking mostly- known technologies and applying them to solve a business problem. In this case, you want someone who knows their particular stack very well (can debug their own package management issues, can choose good libraries, can navigate the docs quickly). You don't need someone who has _contributed_ to developing the language itself.

> and connect with the right talent

I'm not sure there is a large category of person who simultaneously doesn't know their tools well but is well-respected among their contacts in the way that would draw other engineers to want to work with them. Maybe this refers to an engineering manager who hasn't really been doing much programming in the past 3 years?

EDIT: actually yes, someone with engineering management experience who is a bit rusty with programming to any particular stack is probably a good choice—-as long as they previously have been efficient they can pick it back up again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Pay them minimum wage and then give raises until the value they deliver to the business is met. Modern engineering strives to make programmers cogs via automation, doc and testing, so hire another random dev to work on your systems sometimes to validate the work of the first.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think this is sarcastic but also maybe a little bit true?

<comment><USER3> There is nothing true about it. Try hiring devs at min wage and report back what happens...</comment></comment></comment>


Strike Update: When Are My Favorite Shows Coming Back? - <AUTHOR> http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/tv-news/strike-update-when-are-my-favorite-shows-coming-back.php

<comment><USER2> I'm just hoping Battlestar Galactica's last season can be salvaged. I'd hate to see it mucked up forever by something so temporary as a writer's strike.</comment>


Why Sex Differences Matter - <AUTHOR> http://edge.org/memberbio/helena_cronin

<comment><USER2> The real link: [http://edge.org/conversation/why-sex-differences-matter- the-...](http://edge.org/conversation/why-sex-differences-matter-the- darwinian-perspective)

(OP's link goes to the author's bio page.)</comment>


Ask HN: Any suggestions for my URL? - <AUTHOR>

I've been thinking about this for the last few days.  I have some thoughts, but wanted to throw it out there to see if anyone could suggest some neat ideas. www.athletetopia.com <comment><USER2> athletopia.com

<comment><AUTHOR> correct. Any suggestions would be appreciated</comment></comment>


How Being a Student Allowed Me to Meet and Learn from Dozens of Successful CEOs - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/rajatbhageria/2016/03/01/how-being-a-student-allowed-me-to-meet-and-learn-from-dozens-of-successful-ceos/#38d2f56efa48 <comment><USER2> If you're not a student, there is still a good way to learn from other entrepreneurs, it's startup accelerators. We participated in Startup Sauna (it's in Finland) and learned from CEO's of NVidia, Supercell, Yousician and many many more. I'm sure, YCombinator and 500 startups are giving an access to even more great people.</comment>


Ask HN: Need help/advise on a good Windows virtual server hosting company/plan? - <AUTHOR>

I need to host a ASP.NET web-app and am looking for a good Windows 2008 virtual server hosting company. <comment><USER3> Have you considered Amazon AWS? EC2 in particular? They offer Win2008 server images you have complete control over.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have considered AWS but am not sure about persistent storage. I use the disk to store some uploaded files. May be I should transition storing everything in the DB?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've used both ORCSWeb and Rackspace Cloud. I'm very happy with Rackspace Cloud so far (I've been there almost a year).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the suggestions - Isn't Rackspace a little expensive - <USER2> with AWS? Not looked at ORCSWeb yet.

<comment><USER4> It may very well be - I haven't looked at AWS pricing since their Win2k8 plans came online. ORCS has some high-profile supporters (Hanselman comes to mind), but I had a lot of downtime in the six months I used them.</comment></comment></comment>


Chocolatey and oneget under win 10 (apt-get for windows) - <AUTHOR> finally apt-get for windows that is useable <comment><USER2> Wait is this meant to link somewhere?

<comment><USER3> maybe....

\- [http://www.hanselman.com/blog/AptGetForWindowsOneGetAndChoco...](http://www.hanselman.com/blog/AptGetForWindowsOneGetAndChocolateyOnWindows10.aspx)</comment></comment>


How Cucumber Open Source Maintainers Do Mob Programming - <AUTHOR> https://www.infoq.com/presentations/distributed-teams-remote-collaboration <comment><USER2> The premise of Mob Programming[1] seems ludicrous to me. I can't imagine a scenario where this would be efficient in creating a product. The irony of the concept is that it is sold along "lean and agile principles". Has anyone found success using this model?

1: "All the brilliant people, working on the same thing, at the same time, in the same space, and at the same computer."

<comment><USER3> FWIW, the justification is interesting. From [https://thecuriousdeveloper.com/2013/09/15/get-a-good- start-...](https://thecuriousdeveloper.com/2013/09/15/get-a-good-start-with- mob-programming/)

\---

Why we tried it

When asked to implement a rather big task, like an epic, you're often in a state where you have a pretty good picture of what needs to be done on high level, but on a lower level it can be very fluffy and unclear. Fluffy enough to stand in the way of being able to "slice the cake" in nice, independent, deliverable user stories. Fluffy enough to give us problems if our aim is to have a structured, ordinary sprint backlog prepared, and to burn that backlog down continuously by developing small software increments for a couple of weeks. You know you're in that fluffy state when:

\- Someone asks where a good place to start this epic is and all possible ways you can think of are either intertwined and far from independent steps or just one big mega user story

\- You get a urge to just start coding, hack away for a while and see where you end up

\- You may even wish that you, for a while at least, could forget everything related to user stories, epics, backlogs and burn downs and just do some Programming, Motherfucker [http://programming- motherfucker.com/](http://programming-motherfucker.com/)

\---

Now, _if_ this technique can supposedly solve that critical problem -- and it is critical; I spend >N% of my time in that sate -- we should give it the benefit of the doubt and just try it.

It sounds like the point is to spend a couple hours in an environment where forward progress is always being made every minute, yet freedom has been completely removed.

I think I'd volunteer for that, to be honest. It's so nice working from a designer's mockup rather than trying to design + build the whole app simultaneously. That same feeling might apply here.

It's kind of compelling. But only if everyone actually wants to do it.

Think of how much time we've all wasted fiddling around with design, moving property lists around, exploring new approaches, or throwing in an hour of metaprogramming only to find out it reduced our line count from 150 to 100 and made it quite a lot harder to read.

If you tried to pull any of that during one of these sessions, you'd get called out immediately.

Oh yeah: [http://hackthesystem.com/blog/why-i-hired-a-girl-on- craigsli...](http://hackthesystem.com/blog/why-i-hired-a-girl-on-craigslist- to-slap-me-in-the-face-and-why-it-quadrupled-my-productivity/)

You know, this really should be a thing. I wonder if devs would pay for this? I'd give someone $20/hr to keep me on track. But they'd need to know enough about programming not to be annoying or blatantly mistaken.

<comment><USER4> Mob programming sounds like a goofy nerdy substitute for "getting a meeting room and figuring it out on a whiteboard".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You could add Google marketing tracking and get some insights into who uses it.

</comment><comment><USER6> This may sound a bit snarky, but does anyone here recommend Cucumber tests? I've found they add a lot of overhead to writing without much benefit. Non- technical employees can't really write them either so they be revised by a developer. If that's the case then we're back to where we started.

<comment><USER7> We're heavy users of Cucumber at our development agency. I've never seen non- technical users write Cucumber scenarios either, but we find them very useful for another reason.

The problem with test suites is that, as they grow and age, it becomes harder and harder to understand why tests are testing what they test. When a years old test fails because 5 is not 7, you cannot really fix it unless you understand why it was supposed to equal 7 in the first place.

Cucumber is a way to describe requirements at a higher level of abstraction. They provide rationale on top of mere assertions of behavior. This is worth the small overhead of writing step definitions.

I guess you can get the same by heavily commenting your tests. But you cannot enforce this easily in a team.

<comment><USER8> Nothing is stopping you from using functions with descriptive names without cucumber. Cucumber forces you to write functions (steps) however you can still create bad descriptions just like function names. Cucumber just allows you to define functions using a different syntax than the language your using. I don't see any wins here.

<comment><USER9> That has been my recommendation when people started talking about Cucumber at my compnay. Write a library that has super descriptive names like "EnterTextIntoPriceField(400)" and you get the same benefit Cucumber gives you but you have real programming language if needed.

Our biz people can't write useful requirements so I doubt they can write meaningful Cucumber scripts either.

<comment><USER10> I worked for a very large company that started rolling out cucumber. It didn't go anywhere - Product owners simply did not have the technical ability to write cucumber tests.

I think that they add way too much complexity. It doesn't make sense to try to write technical software tests at such a high level of abstraction.

When you try to test something at a really high level along the lines of "As a user, when I click on X, I want Y to happen" the low level technical ramifications of this can be enormous.

There is a huge amount of underlying complexity which the one-line sentence simply cannot capture and which is prone to change and needs to be tested separately... Probably not in a way that a non-technical manager would understand unfortunately.

Ultimately the tests are not granular enough to be useful as tests for developers and they have too much overhead to be useful as documentation for non managers.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Biggest drop ever expected for PC shipments - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/03/BUT1167QI5.DTL&tsp=1 <comment><USER2> I'm thinking the apparent end of Moore's law as something to do with it, too.

I'm quite content with my Dell Dimension 8300, 2.6Ghz with 512MB RAM bought in 2003. Granted, I don't try to do foolish things like run Vista ;P

Seriously, besides a RAM upgrade and 1 or 2 more monitors I don't see why I'd buy something any more recent because I can already comfortably do everything I want to do.

<comment><USER3> I think you're mostly right. The shelf life of a computer now is a lot higher than it used to be. I built my XP Machine in 2003. It's had some replacements/upgrades during that time...HDD, DVD Burner, more RAM, etc. it's still the same cpu/board and it's still humming along just fine, meeting all my needs.

Unless you're into the latest gaming, I don't see any major reason to shorten the current PC lifespan.

Even with Macs, had they not switched to Intel processors, I'd probably still have my old G4 PowerBook.

<comment><USER4> I'm in the same position as Hexstream, but I'm saving up for a new machine. I was in your position until just this past year when I purchased an HD-capable video camera. Along with my previous audio work, I'm hurting for processing power. Add to that the desire to run multiple instances of virtual machines for application testing and things get really sad.

However, for most day-to-day operations my Dell purchased back in 2003 has served me wonderfully, and should continue to do so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder if the profit will ever recover, or if by the time this economic situation is over, we'll all have learned to love netbooks.

</comment><comment><USER6> Does this mean I can expect a deal if I go laptop shopping in the near future? 'Tis an ill wind that blows no one good.</comment>


Blue Origin – First Flight - <AUTHOR> https://www.blueorigin.com/

<comment><USER2> tl;dr: A competitor to Virgin Galactic (space tourism) using what appears to be a more traditional booster rocket / parachute pod arrangement - except that the booster rocket self-lands after separation. Interesting to see another competitor in the space industry!

<comment><USER3> The self-landing was not performed, it seems: no video coverage, no mention.

They _plan_ the first stage to self-land, though.

<comment><USER4> It was intended to on this test, but it failed. Hydraulic issues (just like SpaceX!). No video, presumably because they thought a nice video of part of they system exploding would be bad press.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Very cool! Seems like they could be a serious competitor to SpaceX, although they are only aiming for sub-orbital flights at the moment.

<comment><USER4> At the moment, true, and Blue Origin is not renowned for their development speed, but suborbital is clearly just a stepping stone for them. Their suborbital booster uses liquid hydrogen as a fuel, which is a very good fuel but so obscenely cold that you don't want to use it unless you really have to. So it's mostly reserved for upper stages where efficiency really matters. (For suborbital a much easier, but less powerful, fuel like alcohol would be fine.)

And given that they already have a much larger methane engine under development, this suborbital stage seems to be an early revenue-generating version of a future second stage of an EELV (Falcon 9/Atlas V) class launch vehicle. And probably, like SpaceX, they will be targeting VTVL recovery.

This is actually really good news for launch prices, because without a real competitor with reusable vehicles (and none of the incumbents seem capable of this in any reasonable time frame) SpaceX will have no reason to drop prices much below expendable costs (other than benevolence). Blue Origin could probably field a Falcon 9-equivalent in a few years, and even if they don't the prospect should keep SpaceX on their toes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> And all of a sudden Blue Origin looks to be in the lead in the (very long) race to suborbital passenger flights. Scaled/Virgin seemed to be a lock in the beginning, but have been squandering their lead. Until yesterday, I'd have thought underfunded but competent XCOR might beat out VG.

</comment><comment><USER6> For those who aren't aware. Blue Origin is backed by Amazon/Jeff Bezos

</comment><comment><USER7> Sorry, I have to say this: it's very ... phallic.

<comment><USER8> It's a frustrum on top of a fuel tanker. What other shape could it possibly be?</comment></comment>


Show, Don't Tell - <AUTHOR> http://weblog.raganwald.com/2008/05/show-dont-tell.html

<comment><USER2> As a almost total visual thinker, I often get in trouble for taking it too far and basically finishing a project in order to show somebody what my proposal for given project actually is.

<comment><USER3> My thesis supervisor always used to finish projects before submitting grant applications, as it was the only way to put together a reliable estimate on research projects.

The only trouble he had was when the application was bounced as being too large for the funding requested :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> From the article: And hey, that "better search" thingie you were droning on and on about? How much better can searching the Internet really be? Why would anyone care?

We get that quite frequently, so we just keep codin'.

<comment><USER5> Amen. The best way to convince me of your vision of the future is to build it. Rock on!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This was the core lesson of all my creative writing classes.

<comment><USER7> It's something that applies to most art forms. The more you tell somebody what something is, and the less you show them, the more time it takes for them to comprehend it, and therefore the less it actually has an effect.

Of course, in creative writing it's a bit harder, since there are some very good ways of showing people things that have become deeply cliched, and it's considered improper to use those techniques. That's not the case online, unless you consider glossy buttons and rounded edges to be a cliche, which is entirely possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> 1\. Tell them what you're going to show them.

2\. Show them.

3\. Tell them what you just showed them.

</comment><comment><USER9> "The soft over comes the hard, the slow over comes the fast, let your working remain a mystery just show people the result."

_Tao Te Ching_

</comment><comment><USER10> This is what separates good webcomics from bad webcomics, I've noticed lately.

Also, The Darjeeling Limited does a great job of showing instead of telling. And 2001: A Space Odyssey.

</comment><comment><USER11> That had the lowest meaning / words ratio of any programming blog post I've read.

</comment><comment><USER12> A Rush fan?</comment>


A Northwest Pipeline to Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/technology/u-of-washington-a-northwest-pipeline-to-silicon-valley.html?pagewanted=all <comment><USER3> It's funny, because it seems to me that a lot of the talent coming out of UW CSE isn't going to make it into the valley in any meaningful way.

UW CSE is still entirely focused on grades. There's literally no way to include anything but grades in your admission application -- not even recommendation letters. I've talked to some of the admissions faculty, and their argument is that it's unfair to people who are totally new to computer science to deny them on the basis of a lack of prior experience. I totally disagree with this, however -- you're not going to get into a music or acting program without any prior experience, why should you get into a CS program?

From what I've seen, a lot of UW graduates end up getting recruited into a big company (Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Intel, etc). It's by all means a great program, but it seems like they're never going to have someone they can point to as a success like, for example, Harvard, Stanford, or MIT. I think that's the reason why their reputation is a lot more quiet.

FWIW, my co-founder and I have both been rejected from UW CSE (me with an overall 3.8 GPA and several conference papers published as first author while I was still in high school).

<comment><USER4> Wait.

I'm confused reading the admission comments. It seems you get admitted to UW undergrad, and then after two years you apply to the CSE thing. Are you considered undeclared until then? Is there any kind of test or is it entirely based on grades in the initial weeder classes?

That seems like kind of a big risk to people who want to study a specific subject and might not get admitted to it. The'd just have to switch career ambitions or start over at another college with about a one year delay for transferring.

Most state schools I see admit you to a specific major before you matriculate. Then you can change fairly flexibly within your department if you have the right classes and good grades. Elite schools usually admit undeclared students and then have them choose an area of study after a year with no further admission criteria.

Are the UW faculty trying to build an elite program inside a non-elite university? That's an interesting idea, but I don't think I'd want to be the guinea pig who has to suffer for it.

<comment><USER5> First, UW is already mostly an elite university; its very hard to get in these days without the means to also getting into other elite universities like Stanford or UCB.

Second, if all you want to do is make it into UW CSE, it is a risk. I remember the anxiety I went through as an undergrad waiting to here about whether I was excepted into the program or not. I got in, but it was by no means certain (I had 2.9/3.2/3.8 grades for physics, mostly do to me being slow to adjust to high-pressure weed out classes).

I believe most public state schools are like this, they might have a few programs that are very high-quality compared to others, and therefore have to limit supply even after they have accepted students into the general population.

<comment><USER6> > First, UW is already mostly an elite university

UW had a ~58% admit rate in 2011, MIT's was 9.6%, Harvard's was 6.2%, and Stanford was 7.1%. To say "it's very hard to get in these days without the means to also getting into other elite universities" is patently false.

<comment><USER5> Admit rates for private schools are lower since they generally take from a national pool, and the schools are quite popular (lots of noise applications with no chance of getting in). In comparison, UCB has a 21% admit rate from a large state of California and lots of other research schools in competition (UCSD, UCLA, UCD...). UW is only one of two research state schools in Washington, the other being WSU way across the state. Admission is incredibly convoluted: you chance of getting in from the Seattle area is much lower than Eastern Washington, and out of state students have a higher chance than in state (they pay more tuition). This means there are cases (personally known of) where a student is rejected from UW and is accepted into UCB and Stanford (though they have to pay a lot more tuition accordingly).

<comment><USER6> I am very aware of how the process works and how one's chances are based on holistic factors. Regardless, I spent the last year at UW and to say it's an elite school one would need to ignore large swaths of those who attend. I have had the fortune to speak with tens of former and current Stanford attendees while at Google this summer - overwhelmingly their ability to carry on an interesting conversation, make nuanced insights into diverse topics, and otherwise convey the impression that they are learned individuals far exceeds that of your typical UW student. That is not to say that they don't exist - <USER2> could say the same for a handful of UW students - merely that their number is far smaller, and that that greatly impacts the culture.

If you want empirical data, a student in the 25th percentile at MIT has a higher SAT score than someone in the 75th at UW. The SAT has been shown to be a fairly reliable indicator of earning potential.

[1] Estimating the Payoff to Attending a More Selective College, Dale & Krueger

<comment><USER5> UW is still a local state school; you shouldn't expect that students come in with the level of prep as say MIT or Stanford. Its elitness is local and comes mainly from the challenge of getting in, which, for those that bother to try (because they are in the Seattle area), is painful enough! UW also tended to weed students out rather early while I was there; 50% of my friends from the incoming class were gone by the time I hit my sophmore year.

Of course, UW is not as exclusive as UW CSE, but to suggest UW itself is just a so so University is insulting to me.

<comment><USER6> > UW is not as exclusive as UW CSE, but to suggest UW itself is just a so so > University is insulting to me.

I'm sorry you feel that way, I am merely sharing my experiences and impressions of the school, and "so so" is certainly how I would describe it. I had the fortune of attending a fairly elite international school abroad and a highly ranked public high school in Massachusetts. In both places the caliber of student was high, and I was rather disappointed to find university less so. I have my biases, as you yours, but I do believe my argument has some merit.

That said, to call a school "elite" because it is difficult for locals to get in is both disingenuous and inconsistent with your prior statement that it is nearly as competitive as its more widely known and more prestigious competitors. UW continues to care increasingly less about its undergraduate population and view them as a funding source for research as much as valuable contributors to the campus community. Tuition hikes are putting it closer and closer to the cost of attending a private university at the same time class sizes are larger than ever and making it so most fresher could go an entire year without so much as meeting a professor one-on-one.

What most boggles me however, is that Seattleites remain fiercely devoted to the school. In Massachusetts (and New England in general) it's rare to find ten people in a room having gone to the same university, whereas in Seattle it seems the rare occasion for that _not_ to be the case. Is it the lack of viable alternatives for the highly capable wanting to stay close to home?

<comment><USER7> "In both places the caliber of student was high, and I was rather disappointed to find university less so."

I have to say that my experience in a similar situation (many years ago) was similar and I agree.

But in your other comment where you said this:

"tens of former and current Stanford attendees while at Google"

You are taking a group of "Stanford attendees" who ended up with jobs at google. So I'm wondering to what extent that group is representative of Stanford attendees and not google's hiring practices. Was there a difference that you could tell with those working at google who didn't go to Stanford?

<comment><USER6> > But in your other comment where you said this: > "tens of former and current > Stanford attendees while at Google"

I stated that rather poorly. I am interning at Google in Mountain View for the Summer, but not all of the Stanford attendees I have met and spoken with at length are working there, though most at Google are certainly bright.

Regardless of whether they are working at Google, Facebook, hacking away in a SOMA loft, or hunkered down in their parents' garage all of them have been highly intelligent and fun to be around. Whether that's more representative of who I choose to befriend with than the university's admission practices is another question altogether ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This article focuses more on potential employees graduating from UW, but Seattle is a great place to found a startup. In the Valley, everything is pretty crowded, and if you can find real estate, it's not going to be cheap.

In Seattle, it's a buyers market and you can grab some office space or a hacker house for a lot less.

There are more startup resources in the Valley (accelerators/angels/VCs), but that doesn't mean there is a good amount in the Emerald City. One of them, Madrona Venture Group (<http://www.madrona.com/>), just raised $300M to be invested in startups. There are also a few hacker spaces popping up, such as Surf Incubator (<http://www.surfincubator.com>).

If you want a good place to start your company with less competition and more rain, move to Seattle.

<comment><USER9> I think its a great place to found a startup. I graduated three weeks ago from the U, and chose to stay up in Seattle to launch <http://ziibra.com>

The tech community here is great, and the university is moving towards supporting entre x CS... especially through its CS Entrepreneurship courses.

There's definitely work to do, but the city and the university are moving in the right direction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Although Stanford is considered the Hogwarts of techdom, U.W. has quietly > established itself as the other West Coast nexus of the information economy.

Odd line given that Berkeley is also on the West Coast and is ranked as high as Stanford.

<comment><USER11> > Odd line given that Berkeley is also on the West Coast and is ranked as high > as Stanford.

This is a NYT Technology article, don't expect anything to make sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is it still the case that you need straight As in math and physics to get into CS at UW? It's insane that they crank out psych and english majors by the thousands but keep a lid on CS.

<comment><USER13> They were pretty lenient back in the day for out-of-state students. I got an offer without particularly outstanding grades.

<comment><USER5> I'm sure you mean getting into UW and not getting into UW CSE. UWCSE wouldn't care if you were in/out state, and you would apply in your Sophmore year according to marks you got in your first two years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sorry Pacific Northwest: the NYT Technology section found you. Expect some really weird and disconnected articles about how you have pull in "the IT sector" or "big data" or whatever analysts from obscure hedge funds think is the next thing. Hopefully we can stem the damage before they notice Austin or Boston.

<comment><USER14> I'm a little baffled why the attention is coming now. The Seattle area has been home to Microsoft and Amazon for ages, as well as Valve, Nintendo of America, and many others. Not to mention the sizeable facebook and google campuses which hardly sprouted up over night (google has had a big presence in Seattle for about a decade). On top of that there is also digipen which has been one of the few well regarded trade schools for video game design and engineering in the entire country. And, of course, there is UW.

My working assumption is that the tech press is so massively insular it has a lot of difficulty seeing beyond the silicon valley / NYC scene.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The article is timely. A couple of additional data points:

UW CS had a huge increase in admissions (and yield) for the Ph.D. program this year. IIRC they mentioned the incoming class size is almost twice what they had last year.

Aided by a recent budget increase, the department also hired a massive number of new faculty this year.

</comment><comment><USER16> Glad that Seattle is getting noticed. Wish more Seattle people would stay in Seattle rather than think they need to relocate to SV. Just my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER17> Hank was a co-founder of the first startup I worked at after leaving Microsoft. Great guy, super smart, super friendly.

</comment><comment><USER18> >even if mist and dark skies envelop the scenery for much of the year.

Obviously written by someone who doesn't live in Seattle. Seattle is a beautiful city in a very beautiful location. Today it's sunny, 70 degrees, with spectacular views of the lakes, trees, and snow-capped Olympic mountains.

<comment><USER19> It is, however, undeniably overcast-prone and short-dayed in winter.

I think it's worth it, but it is a legitimate problem for some people.

To fend off uninformed remarks elsewhere in the comments, here's Wikipedia on the climate of Seattle: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle#Climate>

And to fend off uninformed remarks about seasonal affective disorder, which is real but doesn't account for every instance of feeling bad in winter: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_affective_disorder>

<comment><USER20> I like being outside on nice days. On rainy days I enjoy coffee and coding. My winter productivity in Seattle is probably higher than it would be in Palo Alto.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Laying on a hammock across the Puget Sound from Seattle typing this on an iPad. 75 degrees outside. Beautiful. It's not the norm, but it makes it that much more enjoyable when we get it. In fact, we get to experience all four seasons, and I tend to look forward to each as they arrive. I can't speak directly to the start-up environment, but it is a great place to live. The family manufacturing business I work at has been around for 30 years. As always, thre are things that could been done to improve the small-business climate.

<comment><USER22> > In fact, we get to experience all four seasons

I'd say three seasons; there isn't really a proper winter. The average high temp in December (the coldest month) is 45 degrees...</comment></comment>


Crowdtesting: how many $'s is your idea worth? - <AUTHOR> http://customerdevlabs.com/2012/12/02/crowdtesting-using-crowdfunding-kickstarter-test-an-mvp/?s=hn

<comment><USER2> LOVE this concept - super interesting results from the test, too. Thanks for the great write-up!</comment>


Gmail Now Tells You Where Your Email Comes From - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2009/02/11/gmail-location/ <comment><USER2> Already posted:

Here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=476757>

Here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=476641>

Original information here:

[http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/new-in-labs-add- your-l...](http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/new-in-labs-add-your- location-to-your.html)</comment>


Welcome Kat, Yuri, Patrick, and Elizabeth - <AUTHOR> http://blog.ycombinator.com/welcome-kat-yuri-patrick-and-elizabeth <comment><USER2> Not sure if sam or any of the YC team will ever explain this, but how does the partner structure work - really?

Is it like partnerships at a Law/Consulting/iBanking firm?

Are they just paid a salary and a % of the carry?

Given the recent "promotion" to partners, just curious.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't know Elizabeth (sure she's great), but the other three are amazing and always quite helpful.

Kat's been an amazing connector both within the YC community and in supporting applicants. She's connected me with some potential fintech applicants, which I think is a great way to leverage alums.

We met with Yuri a few times before he was a part-time partner and he was quite helpful and encouraging. We're in the enterprise space and he told us to just keep fighting the long-sales-cycle fight. That advice came at a critical moment where we really needed to just keep going through the slog.

I haven't talked to PC much since leaving Stripe but he obviously build a great company and culture there that I really enjoyed. He's going to be an amazing resource for YC companies.

<comment><USER4> Elizabeth is awesome, we're in the life science space and she has always been very helpful. We aren't YC, but has taken phone calls, talked with us at conferences and answered emails.

<comment><USER5> I have to agree, Elizabeth is fantastic. Super nice, easy going, and clearly very intelligent :) Really happy to see that she is getting involved in this, looking forward to seeing how YC picks up science based companies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I remember debating with friends a few years ago about how YC is helping startups. The conversation was mostly about what is more important, "PG time" or "Network effect".

With batches growing more and more, we kind of agreed that PG is not scalable and so that "Network effect" was slowly becoming more what companies were getting out from YC vs the "PG Time" they used to get in earlier batches.

Since, I've seen so many quality folks added to the team, I feel like the "PG Time" (which now is not only PG but all the partners) is becoming again more important than the network effect, and it's amazing.

Founders must be learning SO MUCH now going through YC...

congrats on that!

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't understand how the CEO of a high-growth startup does anything at this level of commitment outside their existing jobs.

I barely understand how CEOs do even the one job.

<comment><USER8> I already spend a lot of time talking to early stage startups (it's really important that we understand them well); this seemed like a good way to formalize that in a way that helps them too.

(That is, my hope is that this is good for Stripe, for YC, and for the startups.)

In general, I'm very leery of distracting time commitments, and I don't sit on any boards or anything like that. I think this is a (pretty rare) example of one that makes sense for all parties.

<comment><USER7> Good point - I hadn't thought about how early stage startups are your customers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Several founders from the most recent batch went out of their way to tell me > how much they've liked working with [Yuri Sagalov].

After 2 years working with Yuri and Weihan at AeroFS, I second that :)

</comment><comment><USER10> As someone who lives outside the U.S, can someone explain what does making him/her a partner means in this context?

<comment><USER11> I think it means they'll get more of a say in the companies YC invests in, and they probably will get to share in the profits of such investments. Much more involvement than other roles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I hadn't realized that Patrick was part of Auctomatic. Huh.

</comment><comment><USER13> The depth and breadth of the YC partner community is astounding. They keep building from strength to strength. I've always viewed the weakness of the model as talent - it's harder to scale people than money. So far they seem to be relieving PG as the bottleneck pretty well. Let's see if they can keep the quantity of good entrepreneurs from being a bottleneck too.

</comment><comment><USER14> Can YC company's get office hours with Patrick?

<comment><USER15> Yes, they can.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm pretty excited about what some of these additions mean for the direction of YC. More enterprise/B2B experience, more bio-tech experience - YC is pretty awesome, so diversifying to more spaces will just make more spaces awesome.

<comment><USER17> It is really awesome, though I'm kind of bummed that they held off on announcing this (or didn't otherwise finalize the details) until after the summer applications were due. As someone working on some bioinformatics tech, that definitely would have persuaded me to apply.*

* And not primarily because of Elizabeth – who I'm sure is fantastic – but more broadly because of what it signals with regards to YC's focus and energy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Congrats all! A stellar batch of folks.

</comment><comment><USER19> Well deserved! YC is better for it.

</comment><comment><USER20> I imagine this expansion will hopefully lead to a larger batch being selected this year as there are more mentors available.

</comment><comment><USER21> Congrats!</comment>