Goodbye var: ES6 variable declarations with let and const - <AUTHOR> https://strongloop.com/strongblog/es6-variable-declarations/

<comment><USER2> It's too bad it'll be a long while before these can be used in node modules without a transpiler :-(

<comment><AUTHOR> Or just require devs to use --harmony. I think there are a couple modules that do so... like koa. :)

Of course, since that's basically "experimental" I guess people would think your module is also "experimental". But I think let and const are pretty darn stable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Available in the latest version of Node or only io.js?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's in Node.js v0.12.0, but only with the --harmony flag (and I think you also have to specify --use-strict).</comment></comment>


Ask HN: WhatsApp, Cloudflare, AWS partially down? - <AUTHOR> I'm seeing multiple stuff go down. Anyone else also?<p>Even got a Cloudflare message on HN <comment><USER2> Cloudflare isn't down. If you're seeing an issue please send the error code + MTR to support {at} cloudflare {dot} com.

WhatsApp definitely is/was down though, that's reported in multiple places.</comment>


Did the U.S. plan to drop more than two atomic bombs on Japan? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/magazine/2020/07-08/did-united-states-plan-drop-more-than-two-atomic-bombs-japan <comment><USER2> Re: Not bombing Kyoto, apart from Stimson's personal reasons, I thought this was also an interesting one:

>Postwar political considerations did affect the choice of targets for the atomic bombs. Secretary of War Henry Stimson ordered that the historically and culturally significant city of Kyoto be stricken from the target list. (Stimson was personally familiar with Kyoto; he and his wife had spent part of their honeymoon there.) Truman agreed, according to Stimson, on the grounds that "the bitterness which would be caused by such a wanton act might make it impossible during the long postwar period to reconcile the Japanese to us in that area rather than to the Russians."[0]

[0] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about- the...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-the-atomic- bomb/2015/07/31/32dbc15c-3620-11e5-b673-1df005a0fb28_story.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> For comparison, current Covid-19 deaths in the US are probably roughly comparable to deaths from Little Boy.</comment>


Ask YC: Monitor setup recommendations? - <AUTHOR>

I'm buying a macbook pro (17") tonight and looking to fix up my monitor setup. I currently have an 18 inch monitor and have never even tried a dual monitor setup.<p>I'd like to be able to easily have 2 full size windows open. I'm curious what other people have used and recommend. I'm a little reluctant to shell out the extra 800 bucks for a 30 inch cinema, but also tempted as this is the device I spend most of my time staring into. On the other hand, 2 side by side monitors might accomplish the same thing and I could buy the 23" and set my 18" monitor next to it. I'm wondering if two monitors better than one and if a 30" is worth the expense. Thoughts? <comment><USER2> At home, I have a 15" MacBook Pro with Dell's 30" panel, and I like that setup a lot. The 30" has enough room for all the apps I'm actively using, while things like iChat and iTunes sit on the laptop display off to the side.

I'm also pretty sure there's no way to drive two external monitors from a MacBook Pro. But my previous setup was a Power Mac with dual 20-inchers, and I like the single-large-display setup better, at least on OS X -- there's just more flexibility in sizing and arranging your apps onscreen.

If you're going to go the 30" route, the Dell's worth considering -- it works well and will probably save you 25%+ over the Apple, especially if you can find a coupon code for it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Um, can you use _two_ external monitors with a Macbook Pro?

I have a 20" widescreen and a Macbook, sitting side by side on the monitor arms recommended here:

<http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000959.html>

I find that awesome. The arms are like $200 from Provantage; you can get a 24" widescreen monitor for $300 to $400. That puts you at $500 or $600; buy another arm for $100 and you get to use the 18" monitor too (although, again, I didn't know that worked. Are Macbook Pros even niftier than I thought?)

<comment><AUTHOR> On the 17-inch MacBook Pro: <http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/specs.html>

NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processor with dual-link DVI support and 512MB of GDDR3 memory * Dual display and video mirroring: Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display and up to 2560 by 1600 pixels on an external display, both at millions of colors

But maybe I'm misunderstanding that (as in, maybe it can't drive two external ones)? Can anyone confirm?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm... looks like I AM misunderstanding most likely.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, if you could drive two monitors PLUS the internal monitor I would get the Macbook Pro religion, pronto. But I'm pretty sure you can't. You've got two displays, but one of them is the Macbook Pro's built-in display.

This is one reason why people bother with that big-ass 30" display. The other is that, admittedly, the 30" display is one nice piece of hardware. But pricey.

As it is I plan to buy an iMac, plant it in the center of the desk, and use my monitor arms to put my secondary display to the left and my Macbook to the right. Then I have two computers and three displays. Use Synergy to share mouse and keyboard between the two computers -- I've done that between Mac and Linux before, and I presume it will work from Mac to Mac.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _"... . On the other hand, 2 side by side monitors might accomplish the same thing and I could buy the 23" and set my 18" monitor next to it. I'm wondering if two monitors better than one and if a 30" is worth the expense. Thoughts? ..."_

I've just upgraded my old sony trinitron 17" to _"a"_ new 22" Asus & have thought about some of the q's you have asked. Some things I'd suggest are:

\- if you use double monitors try to make the the same size, ratio

\- check the hardware will realistically support 2xmonitors at max rez

\- check if graphics card has 2 vga ports (eg: NVidia)

\- check OS supports max rez

\- look for tip/tilt egonomics

\- check text rez for reading

\- check if you are getting right monitor for use editing + (heavy dvd usage?, gaming?, colour correctness for graphics?)

\- power consumption. some of the new LCD's are guzzlers

2 x monitors is good for individual apps on 1 screen (1 for code, 1 for browser etc) but I find virtual desktops (Virtual Pages) are just as handy. I'd advise against mixing monitors. I've tried it but the different sizes make it hard (but not impossible) to use.

</comment><comment><USER5> Rands: [http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2007/04/04/more_messy_...](http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2007/04/04/more_messy_thinking.html) and [http://www.flickr.com/photos/rands/2198653768/in/pool- pixelr...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/rands/2198653768/in/pool-pixelrigs/)

Another Atwood: <http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000740.html>

The best I've ever seen is a 30" with a 20" vertical on both sides: [http://www.hanselman.com/blog/content/binary/WindowsLiveWrit...](http://www.hanselman.com/blog/content/binary/WindowsLiveWriter/Howtoadjustyourrearviewmirrorsandwhyyoun_13ABB/monitors%5B5%5D.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER6> At the last place I was working (as an employee) I had 4 displays.

17" laptop display 2 - 24" Dell monitors (I think 24") 1 - 19" LCD

Frankly it was too much. I mostly used the two 24"ers in the middle and used the outriggers for email and other junk like that.

It actually did make it nice to have VS.NET, Flash, FlashDevelop and IE open full screen on a separate monitor, although I lost track of the mouse quite frequently.

In your case, I'd recommend buying the biggest monitor, _with the highest resolution_ you can afford. I'm with Rands on this that the most pixels win.</comment>


Why does Google ignore HTML validation? - <AUTHOR> http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=www.google.com&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0

<comment><USER2> For speed - some elements necessary to validate a web page aren't necessary to display the webpage correctly - hence discarding it results in a slightly faster page load, without any negative effect on user experience (as everything renders correctly)</comment>


A virtual universe - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/nature/videoarchive/universe-simulation/index.html

<comment><USER2> A dupe of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7713586](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7713586).</comment>


Show HN: A read-it-later app to solve Pocket/Instapaper's endless list problem - <AUTHOR> https://dayreads.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hi guys,

I have been working on a side-project for a few months to solve the "ever growing reading list" problem in current read-it-later apps like Pocket or Instapaper.

Dayreads allows you to save articles to your inbox, like a to-do list app, and then create smaller and manageable reading lists for each day of the week.

I have been using this app for quite some time, and it has been helpful in maintaining a reading habit.

Here's a getting started guide: [https://dayreads.help/getting- started](https://dayreads.help/getting-started)

Currently, there are no mobile apps, but there are browser extensions for Chrome/Edge and Firefox.

Hoping to get some feedback from the HN community before I go deeper into this project.</comment>


Ask HN: Why do many software engineers not know data structures and algorithms? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Are you asking why software engineers don't memorize the lookup complexity of various data structures and how to implement (e.g.) sorting algorithms? It seems like asking "Why do many civil engineers not know truss types and stiffness matrices?". That is, there are high-quality repositories of this information that can provide it on-demand and free up cognitive overhead for creative problem solving rather than rote memorization.

</comment><comment><USER3> A lot of programming can be done by piping packages together and routing them to a frontend. I remember a post on AskHN where the OP couldn't even solve basic assignments his GF got in uni yet worked for years as a developer. So the reason is simple: you don't need to know them to get a job. Personally, I think this is a trend that's detrimental to software quality, but apparently demand drives costs up as well as it drives down quality. There are already replies that suggest theory is unnecessary. These people are wrong. I'm sure they wouldn't go to a surgeon that merely learned to operate a surging robot. Btw I don't think you need to get a degree to learn the theory.

<comment> non-entity > Btw I don't think you need to get a degree to learn the theory.

What are your recommendations for doing this? I've started getting into some kernel programming and its slowly helping me enjoy programming again, but I very often find myself getting lost in theory and other thing; however, after running some estimations going back to school is too expensive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Data structures and algorithms were manipulated into a way to give IQ tests that can be studied for. Companies use these as hiring criteria and inflate the worth of memorized data structures and algorithms problems/knowledge. In short, they don't know it because mostly they don't need to, and there are obvious exceptions to that.

</comment><comment><USER5> There are many levels of software engineering where you don't need to know algorithms and data structures to complete a job.

Keep in mind that to many programmers programming is a job, not a devotion so they only want to know what they need to get their job done.

</comment><comment> tony-allan If you are talking about fundamental data structures and algorithms, then these are within the purview of computer science and anyone else who creates libraries, database management systems and the like.

High quality libraries and tools are hard to write and are optimised over a long period of time to provide reliable and fast answers within available resources.

Software engineers use these libraries and tools to solve business and other higher level problems. When they do work on data structures and algorithms, it related to the job at hand rather than needlessly duplicating existing good code.

There is just no need for them to worry about low level detail.

</comment><comment><USER6> For the same reason that so many writers do not know bookbinding.

<comment><USER7> The writer analogy would be grammar rules.

<comment><USER8> And the point still stands.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It is due to the abundance of open-source libraries. To some extent it has removed the incentive for developers to re-implement closed-source libraries and they just want to use the library and get on with their product. The need to look at the intricate data structures or algorithms is always an excercise for the developer reading the technical implementation which is worth looking at but not a hard-requirement in getting the product out there (unless specified). I would say it was essential in the 1990s era (OSes, drivers, etc) but for creating web apps in 2019? I don't think so.

It is highly unlikely that a company asking me to implement a data-structure is actually going to use it or is explicitly using it. Unless they want to improve it in a research paper or fund a proof-of-concept that improves the state-of-the-art. My point here is that we as software engineers should know these DS and algorithms, but to companies who ask such questions in a interview, you should be prepared to use them explicitly.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm my experience they do. They know the cost of using a list instead of a hashmap, know the difference between a bubble sort and a quick sort, know the difference between a binary tree and a linked list. And for 99.9% of the job this is more what you need. I wísh they know more about composition instead of inheritance...

</comment><comment><USER11> As a self taught developer, where should I start with this? I feel like I have gaps in my knowledge and would like to learn more without being overwhelmed. I like the web because it's easy to make things, not because of maths

<comment><USER8> Do you need it for the type of work you want? If not, you probably don't need to learn it.

That being said, if you want to get into CS, I recommend getting a textbook or two about computational complexity (big-O notation) and the theory of computation (nondeterministic finite automata and regular expressions, stack machines, and Turing machines). I liked "Theory of Computation" by Michael Sipser for the second topic (didn't like my textbook for the first), though it's very dense so you may want to look into additional material if you want a gentler introduction.

Honestly, you can probably find everything online. The main things to look for are:

\- big-O notation (how many steps it takes to solve a problem given some input size) \- data structures (linked lists, b-trees, and hash maps are the big ones) \- the list of terms above

Work out some proofs until you feel comfortable with the material.

But it really doesn't matter of you just want to do web stuff. Most of the hard problems have been solved by the standard library or database you use, so unless you want to work on those, you can choose to be ignorant of the inner workings. I'm the type that doesn't like to not understand something, but I have plenty of friends who care more about other things than learning CS/EE stuff that isn't practical to their line of work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Because at least 50% of software work doesn't require knowing them. And of the remaining 50% at least 50% can be done with suboptimal ds/algos. But I agree everyone should know the basics. (Beyond basics is nearly worthless.)

</comment><comment><USER13> I've been traveling around the world earning money as a freelance software developer. I have had no need to use any data structures or algorithms to complete my work.

<comment><USER14> Can you expand on what you do? I can't even imagine a situation where you would not have data structures nor algorithms.

<comment><USER13> So far, I've been paid to ship machine learning tutorial content for an education startup. I got the client through upwork.

Think of all the people that know less about site administration/programming than you. These people would rather spend their time working on their business and pay you to work in it.

It also helps that cost of living in South America/SEA is much lower than the US. I was paying $150/month rent in Medellin, Colombia, for example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Can you expand on what data structures and algorithms specifically you're talking about? And what is your use-case for needing to know these by memory?

</comment><comment><USER16> Because Google. For the number of times I've needed that kind of thing, looking it up when needed is far more efficient than memorizing it.

<comment><USER14> Knowing it exists at all is the long tent in the poll. If I need some way to get my next item based on some form of priority, knowing about heaps and priority queues helps me not build something kinda similar that is objectively worse.

<comment><USER16> Sure, knowing that there's something out there to look for might be helpful. (Might not, too. Googling "how do I remove items from a list by priority" might get you info on priority queues.)

But if I know that "priority queue" is what I'm looking for, I can then totally forget how to implement a priority queue. I can look it up as many times as I'm going to need it in the rest of my career faster than I can memorize it. (And if I need it very many times, I'll memorize it just by using it.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Really? To me it is like being asked about carpenters who don't know what a hammer or a nail is because they use a nailgun to assemble prefab panels.

Last time I checked data structures and algorithms were core CS/SE curriculum at most education levels. Then again, I also have grey hair.

</comment><comment><USER18> Because most of the data structures and algorithms you need are in the standard library.

Because nobody would write a SAT solver if they didn't think they could beat the worst case bounds.</comment>


Show HN: COVID Inc. - <AUTHOR> https://covidinc.io <comment><USER2> A good amount of work has been put into this visualization for sure, and there are certainly significant overlaps with today's situation and that /game/. However, this misses the mark for me in terms of tastefulness.

<comment><USER3> For those missing context, there's a video game called Plague Inc. that has seen an uptick of interest due to the corona virus. I haven't played it personally but I believe this post is a visualization of COVID-19 infection data in the style of that game.

<comment><USER4> Yes, it's precisely that. A recreation of Plague Inc.'s UI, but with real data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My personal wish is that more of these data be presented on a per capita basis. It's great that Australia's numbers are low but Australia (my home country) has half the population of California (where I currently live).

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, the dots are currently generated on a per capita basis, although it not be as visible since we use a log scale. We're working on adding per capita tooltips though!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It just says "please rotate your device", but that doesn't work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey there! For the map to display properly your device needs to be in landscape mode; if you're using the site on a phone, please make sure "auto rotate device" is turned on and try again. Sorry about that :)</comment></comment>


DuckDuckGo Challenges Google on Privacy (With a Billboard) - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/business/2011/01/duckduckgo-google-privacy/

<comment><USER2> Old article is old and the practice of sending search queries to sites via Referrers is on the decline and (almost) over...</comment>


No longer optional: Windows 10 will automatically install over Windows 7/8 - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/30/windows-10-automatic-download-windows-7-8-pc-computers <comment><USER2> from October last year, nothing new

</comment><comment><USER3> An 84 year old friend let Windows 10 install on her Dell laptop. Dell has no video drivers for Windows 10 for the laptop, and the screen no longer works.

This makes me appreciate chromebooks. Learning new things may be rough, but chromebooks are so much more reliable in my experience.</comment>


How to spot a psychopath - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/21/jon-ronson-how-to-spot-a-psychopath?CMP=twt_gu <comment><USER2> The author told a story-like version of this in a This American Life episode: [http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/385/p...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/385/pro-se) (the first section after the prologue)</comment>


Google Treasure Hunt 2008 - <AUTHOR> http://treasurehunt.appspot.com/

<comment><USER2> "Unfortunately, your answer was not correct. Try again landlubber! There will more questions over the coming weeks, and the first person to answer them all correctly will win a prize, so keep trying!"

Am I missing something? It looks have no chance at the prize now but they want me to keep trying? For what? Self flagellation?

<comment><USER3> Since they seem to only have a couple problems up, you can keep trying until you get it, and try to be quicker on the next problems. Or just do it for fun, like problems on Project Euler (www.projecteuler.net for those that don't know).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's legit, the Official Google Blog links to it:

[http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/google-treasure- hunt-...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/google-treasure-hunt- update.html)

It would be have been easy to setup a phishing site since anybody in the beta can host something on appspot.com

</comment><comment><USER5> ugh, i got the path problem, whats the answer for that one?

<comment><USER3> Depends on the size of the grid :)

<comment><USER5> Its a 7 * 3 grid for me, I answered 49 :-( now I'm anxious!

<comment> mark-t You got lucky. Mine was 66x36. I wasted a lot of time googling for a copy of pascal's triangle with 100 rows and eventually gave up and learned how to get big integer support in perl. So, I guess I'm happy I didn't get such a trivial question.

<comment><USER3> The size shouldn't matter once you have a good algorithm for solving it :)

<comment> mark-t Well, I could do his in my head. Actually, no, I have that one memorized.

I had a perfectly good algorithm. It was a memoized recursion. The problem was that my program printed something like blah*10^27 and they were asking for an exact answer.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Director's Cut: On Gödel's first incompleteness theorem - <AUTHOR> https://inference-review.com/article/the-directors-cut <comment><USER2> The logical formulae are outside my learning, at this point in my life, but I do understand the general gist of the theorems from prior exposure and discussion.

If this were my first exposure, the overly florid, 'artsy' presentation would have sent me packing before the end of the first section, thinking "Oh, great, now I'm going to have to unpack his prose before I can even follow the discussion".

</comment><comment><USER3> _...to have the privilege of walking home with Gödel_

Albert Einstein, on why he still went in to work at Princeton.

<comment><USER4> my favorite Gödel, Einstein story is when he was prepped by Einstein for an US immigration hearing, and then told the judge he found some loopholes in the constitution. Was it his character shaping his work, or his work and surrounding shaping (making) him, and if so what shapes a man like Gödel (or Freud, Einstein, Popper, Russel, ...) many others of that time. It seems there was a huge density of brilliant people concentrated in Europe at the time. Hardly anyone who died within the past 30 years will be remembered as those from that generation I'm sure.

Now everyone is writing AI papers which all look identical. Sure academia has changed.

A Contradiction in the U.S. Constitution [https://jeffreykegler.github.io/personal/morgenstern.html](https://jeffreykegler.github.io/personal/morgenstern.html)

Gödel's Loophole [https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2010183](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2010183)

<comment><USER5> The fact that we are overlooking our Einsteins and Gödels says more about us than about them. For a moment in history scientists were looked up to and mythologized. Today they're doing the same work, but they've been put in a different place in society.

<comment><USER3> Examples?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Oh god, just read Nagel and Newman instead!

</comment><comment><USER7> This was awful to read.

</comment><comment><USER8> ah, another generation bites down hard on Gödel, without even a citation of Hofstadter. Too pop-science? Too "overly florid, 'artsy' presentation"? Or just too good, too deep, too wide to make it worth revisiting this topic in a blog post measured in a few pages of printed text?

</comment><comment><USER9> A bit too much inscrutable math here, but something every AI/ML researcher should know by heart.

Imagine today we make the perfect modeling machine for reality.

Now imagine that machine has to model not only reality yesterday, but today, now that we have the machine.

Additionally, it will have to model the fact that humans are going to change their behavior based on the fact that this machine is modeling reality...

[Machine Halts...]

aka, all of these problems below from seemingly different domains are actually isomorphic (aka the same problem in different shapes)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theorems) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucas_critique](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucas_critique) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem)

<comment><USER10> >A bit too much inscrutable math here, but something every AI/ML researcher should know by heart.

If it's inscrutable to you how do you know it's important enough for every AI/ML researcher to understand?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> " _For all natural numbers, m = n if and only if S(m) = S(n)._ "

Hmm, er, ah, ... That's an odd way to put it.

<comment><USER12> The purpose of this is to make the successor function S an injection. That is, it assures us that all natural numbers are the successor to exactly one other natural number, except that zero is first and so it isn't the successor to anything (in the natural numbers). The number line you saw in primary school is fundamental to arithmetic.

Without this rule we might worry that perhaps there can be other numbers between five and six, or that if we all count up from one some of us might never reach a hundred because we inadvertently divert and get to six million early. These concerns seem intuitively nonsensical, but Peano doesn't want to rely on intuition, he wants to use logic.

<comment><USER11> But normally it would be written "For all natural numbers, S(m) = S(n) if and only if m = n."

"if and only if" is symmetric, but English isn't, really.

<comment><USER13> Lucky 10000: "If and only if" [0] is a particular phrase in English with a particular meaning. It is symmetric, so that your version has the same logical content as the original.

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

<comment><USER11> The same logical content, yes, but...

Do you write the Fibonacci function as "n * (n-1) = fib(n)"?

<comment><USER14> I don't know why you think it's backwards.

It makes lots of sense to put "m=n" first. It's giving the definition of equality. "[term] is [definition]".</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


List of Countries by Incarceration Rate - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate <comment><USER2> When you take out the distortion in some of the small countries where population numbers are low (even below 100K), you're looking at a list of totalitarian countries or countries were civil rights have deteriorated most in the last years (i.e. sorted by that).

High incarceration rates most often indicate that governments are only in power by threatening their people or spreading fear. On top of that you see a (most likely) strong effect / high prisoner numbers created by the "commercialization" of putting people into prison - countries where prisons are run as a business.

Guaranteed prisoner numbers or occupancy levels agreed in such contracts (another demonstration that business ethics don't exist anymore) strongly contribute to high numbers and IMHO also express that governments in countries were such contracts / approaches are allowed have completely lost touch to their population.

In developed countries there are two diametrically opposite examples to where governments are trending towards in the moment:

The UK currently considering to play catch-up with the US by also privatizing prison "services" and guaranteeing inmate numbers / occupancy levels.

On the other side Sweden that just recently closed 4 prisons because they were not needed anymore.

<comment><USER3> > The UK currently considering to play catch-up with the US by also > privatizing prison "services" and guaranteeing inmate numbers / occupancy > levels

Privately run prisons in the US are not guaranteed inmate numbers or occupancy levels. That's a common misconception due to poor reporting on how the contracts are structured.

What they are actually guaranteed is a minimum payment. For instance, a contract might say that the prison company will take and maintain up to 100 prisoners, and the State will pay them each year the greater of $100k/prisoner or $9m.

This somehow gets reported as the contract guaranteeing that the State will keep a 90% occupancy rate in that prison.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> And the first country I'd even consider worth living in from this list is #42 Uruguay. Do you know what's the irony? I'm a US citizen. And I'm ashamed.

</comment><comment><USER5> Interesting note about North Korea.

>North Korea estimates 150,000 to 200,000 incarcerated, which roughly equals the US imprisonment rate at 600-800 people incarcerated per 100,000

<comment><USER6> Is that including the large gulag-style prison camps?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> And private prisons aren't going to help with this at all. Now we'll have people lobbying for even more prisoners and stricter laws, just to get their business growing.

</comment><comment><USER8> This isn't useful unless you can also compare the crime rates in those countries (does high incarceration reduce crime?) as well as the percentage of drug offenses and the ease of drug import into those countries. I'd also like to see the execution rate for some or these countries. A prisoner is not incarcerated if they're dead.

</comment><comment><USER9> The US should get rid of its Old Testament vengeance mentality. You cannot lock away social problems.

</comment><comment><USER10> I like how the bottom of the list is so mixed. It seems to be extremely prosperous first world nations with so few social problems they get little crime, mixed with nations so poor, they can't afford police to catch criminals or prisons to keep them in.

<comment><USER11> That plus the factors of some localities that just kill people who commit bad enough crimes / allow people to walk on bribes routinely / vigilante justice etc

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's because in the USA justice always prevails.

</comment><comment><USER13> Actual number of prisoners and other details about each country: [http://www.prisonstudies.org/info/worldbrief/wpb_stats.php?a...](http://www.prisonstudies.org/info/worldbrief/wpb_stats.php?area=all&category=wb_poptotal)

Although I think it would be more interesting to look at re-incarceration rate.

</comment><comment><USER14> It would be interesting to see another column on the table with some sort of criminality metric per 100,000 people.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is a bit biased if one is to interpret the incarceration rate as a form of the amount of crime.

Less developed countries look as if they have very little crime. The issue is the justice system cannot cope with the amount of crime or the crime is simply ignored due to corruption, bribery, etc.

<comment><USER16> It's not about crime, it's specifically about incarceration. The US locks people up for a very long time for very minor crimes (particularly if they're black). There's an industry that requires a steady stream of inmates, and they bribe politicians and judges to provide those inmates.

The true crime doesn't come from the inmates, it comes from the people locking them up.

<comment><USER17> Look, I mean... the US justice system has obvious problems. Too many people going to prison, a racial bias, lack of rehabilitation... whatever. You'd be a fool to deny that.

But is this really down to some kind of prison-industrial complex that "bribe[s] politicians and judges to provide inmates"? That seems a little far- fetched.

Let's use Hanlon's razor here - isn't it far more likely that the US incarceration rate is an artefact of endemic inequality, poor education, and a constant desire for politicians to appear "tough on crime"? Do we really need to bring bribes into it?

<comment><USER18> It definitely happens. I can only think of one concrete case off the top of my head, so here:

>The "kids for cash" scandal unfolded in 2008 over judicial kickbacks at the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Two judges, President Judge Mark Ciavarella and Senior Judge Michael Conahan, were accused of accepting money from Robert Mericle, builder of two private, for- profit juvenile facilities, in return for contracting with the facilities and imposing harsh sentences on juveniles brought before their courts to increase the number of inmates in the detention centers.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Certainly looks like a biased list. Look at the bottom of the list and most of them are from Africa where you'd know the crime rates are high. May be, they are not 'punishable offenses' or they get let-off easily.

<comment><USER20> The data is objective -- surely not 100% accurate, like most data -- but only interpretations of it can be biased. There is obviously another important variable: the countries' level of development. Very poor countries have low incarceration rates because they don't have functional police and judicial systems.

But you can compare the USA to the rest of the western world: Europe, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. These countries share very similar societies, values, legal systems, forms of government and levels of economic development. With this simple filter the anomaly becomes clear and bias is harder to claim.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I wonder why the rate is so high in Seychelles.

The only reason I know of the country is because it is used for evading tax in EU, and because I got a job-offer from a company that operates there, but I am a bit surprised of the high number.

</comment><comment><USER22> Seychelles has a small population and a piracy problem, which is probably why they are so high on the list. I don't know much about Saint Kitt's, other than those two no one comes close to the US.

</comment><comment><USER23> What's up in Greenland? It has such a small population that I doubt it's a hub of crime. Maybe Greenlanders live in poverty?

<comment><USER24> They are still in a post colonialism desert walk. They were simply dragged to fast from a traditional hunter gatherer society into the modern industrial age. Denmark kidnapped their children, banned their language, built concrete blocks from them to live in, which were unsuited for their traditional lifestyle, and gave them alcohol to drink. Pretty much the same story as what happened with most aborigines and natives in other colonies.

So of course things got bad. Lots of social issues. It is improving, more and more young people are getting an education, but they have a lot of social issues to deal with yet.

<comment><USER23> I suppose I should have expected as much. :(

Well, I hope things will improve.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Interesting that Italy is only 139 th but we have prisons close to collapse due to overcrowding.

</comment><comment><USER26> Has anyone noticed that one of the most populous countries is near the bottom?

Ranked 216 !!

<comment><USER27> Maybe their justice system doesn't work very well.

<comment><USER16> Or maybe it works very well.

There are different reasons why a country might be low on the list. Maybe they have little crime, maybe they fight crime without locking people up for long periods of time, or maybe they lack the resources to fight crime.

If a country is high on the list, it could be they have insanely high crime, but it could also mean that they punish much harsher than other countries, or crime is not the primary motivation to lock people up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> USA NUMBER ONE!</comment>


One Horrifying Account Of Working At Zynga - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/09/working-at-zynga/ <comment><USER2> The article makes an excellent point: you can really only demand "startup hours" out of your employees if you can offer "startup perks" (i.e. (a) an extremely favorable work environment, (b) interesting work, and (c) the possibility of the big cash-out).

Zynga has never seemed particularly strong at (a) and (b), but compensated with a heaping helping of (c). Now that's gone. If they're going to demand startup hours now, they'll have to get there by pressure and exploitation (which admittedly is nothing new in the gaming industry). There's always been something brutal and antagonistic about that company, and that's probably just going to get worse.

Also:

TechCrunch comment threads have one positive attribute: they make me appreciate the level of discourse here at HN all the more.

<comment><USER3> For some reason I have trouble loading TechCrunch comments, which I guess is a good thing.

On that note, I'm a little surprised they copy and pasted the Quora writeup. Might as well just link to it and call it a day as the rest of the writeup wasn't particularly insightful.

<comment><USER4> The writeup on Quora seems to have been deleted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Oh, I see, it's the developer's fault for going to a studio and letting them mistreat him so that he could try and hold onto his job. "Quit, and go do great things." Yes, because everyone who works for a scrappy startup and gets acquired has a huge nest egg, right? It's not like starting a company is hard?

Commentary on this stuff is utterly ridiculous sometimes. It's like it's coming from people who don't live in the real world.

The OP describes 12 hour days, 7 days a week with lots of broken promises and obvious failures to address issues, and all a Zynga employee can come up with in response is that it's an "exaggeration" and that it would be more appropriate to call the results "disappointing". So does that mean the employee isn't wrong and his team was abused and given little opportunity to rest after a long pre-launch crunch, and that Zynga staffers only 'slightly' lied about future value of stock to encourage people to overwork themselves? Maybe he only lost 5 pounds due to stress and malnutrition instead of 15 pounds? That's okay, right?

Someone whose employer is acquired doesn't exactly have any easy choices here either. He probably wasn't planning on working for Zynga, and suddenly being told that you're now a Zynga employee doesn't give you much time to find a job - and job hunting in games isn't easy in general. It's only natural to at least try and make the new job work.

<comment><USER6> It's not like there are no other jobs in the software field right now. If he was being mistreated at GM and is only qualified to work in a factory that's one thing. There are more software jobs than qualified workers right now. Quit, go get a job at a company that isn't the scum of the earth.

<comment><USER7> Quitting and getting a job at a company "that isn't the scum of the earth" is easy. Getting an opportunity to do great things is hard. Blue-sky R&D is dead, and very few people ever end up with the money to own their lives instead of renting them from a boss.

People work for the Zyngas of the world because they expect to be able to do great things after the big payday, but that rarely pans out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Nice to hear Schap's style hasn't changed much. I don't want to sound too much like a whiner, because I'm writing this from my boats on the tropical island where I live now, but I was the first programmer to quit from his first company when he gave me the royal butt-chewing treatment for daring to take two hours off to visit friends on Independence Day 1996. He paid me $24K per year, with zero stock options or advancement opportunities, to work from 11am-2am every day of the week, to write a certain Super Nintendo game. There's worse I could say, but again, the point isn't to whine. Nobody has to put up with that.

<comment><USER9> I you write more about these experiences, I would be eager to read them.

<comment><USER8> It wouldn't be particularly good karma to dish dirt here on hackernews, and my prior description pretty much says it all. Fortunately I was only 18, and only stayed in that environment for about 3 months before quitting without notice (on July 5th, as it happened), while many of those who did stick with it and who succeeded in that environment, remain virgins to this day. It's all about which lifestyle suits you, I suppose. I can tell you that Schap once asked me how I liked Orlando, because it was where I could continue to live as long as I did good work for him (I lived there 13 years after I quit, before moving to the tropics).

<comment><USER9> Your discretion is admirable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is blogspam. Original is here: [http://www.quora.com/Zynga-Stock-Price- Collapse-Summer-2012/...](http://www.quora.com/Zynga-Stock-Price-Collapse- Summer-2012/How-do-Zynga-employees-feel-about-the-companys-summer-2012-stock- price-drop/answers/1435680)

<comment><USER11> It appears that the original answer has been deleted

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> And let this be a lesson to ALL. Never EVER work > 9-6 hours. Only on occasional crazy deploys. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow rarely comes, and enough horror stories show that. Don't be stupid.

If your employer sees your problems and genuinely needs the hrs and does everything in their power to assist u, that's different. I heard of crazy google stories followed by how google spent time and effort making their people happy.

<comment><USER5> I agree with the rule about never working crunch hours - it's helped me a lot to stick to it - but I know a lot of people who simply don't have that option: If they don't work those crunch hours, they get fired. I've only had the benefit of being able to do it due to job security, and not everyone has that. I have to imagine that would apply to most Zynga employees based on what I know about how that company runs.

<comment><USER9> Getting fired for refusing to work insane hours? Win-win!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Wow some of the comments on that page are horrifying, and incredibly hostile.

 _"Ex Zynga employee is just a spoiled little brat with no common sense."_

 _"wow what a spoiled douche."_

 _"Is this supposed to make us feel bad?"_

 _"You played the startup game and you lost."_

<comment><USER14> Comments on TechCrunch are only a half step above the comments on YouTube.

<comment><USER15> thank you for copying and pasting this insightful comment everywhere.

<comment><USER14> ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Really? There's a techcrunch article about a quora post?

Fuck this shit. This isn't journalism.

<comment><USER10> Quoth the guidelines:

"Please submit the original source. If a blog post reports on something they found on another site, submit the latter."

If only the moderators actually enforced this anymore.

<comment><USER17> ...or the readers aggressively flagged bad entries.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I work long hours because I love what I do and I work with great people. Not because I'm expecting to get rich. I feel fortunate to be writing code, and making a difference and advancing a product. I'm immensely proud to think of myself as part of 'product.' I am grateful for the opportunities I have been giving and the faith others have placed in me.

I also love learning, and I get to learn something new pretty much every day. That's something a lot of people don't get in their line of work. I don't take it for granted.

Some people just need to grow up a little and think about their life. Every moment I spend at work is a moment I don't spend with my wife and daughter, so I am sure to spend it on something that is worth it for them and myself. A flash game that annoys me on Facebook isn't it, but there are people who thoroughly enjoy playing those games and others who love making them, that isn't me, but that's someone and I hope they find that work rewarding. I couldn't, so I don't do that work.

</comment><comment><USER19> This type of stuff happened leading up to the bubble. Somehow the knowledge didn't successfully transfer from the people burned then to those getting burned now. Fuckedcompany.com sure tried.

<comment><USER20> Sadly, fuckcompany.com is ... fucked.

<comment><USER21> Pud did turn the best/worst of FuckedCompany into a book ([http://www.amazon.com/Fd-Companies-Spectacular-Dot-Com- Flame...](http://www.amazon.com/Fd-Companies-Spectacular-Dot-Com- Flameouts/dp/0743228626)) after the site ended, at least. It's a useful artifact of the era.

<comment><USER22> I just received that yesterday - can confirm it is an awesome read. Pud certainly doesn't pull any punches.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This reminds me of the EA spouse article [<http://ea- spouse.livejournal.com/274.html>] which was regarding conditions 8+ years ago at EA. I thought the games industry had progressed since then - obviously not.

</comment><comment><USER23> I don't understand people that bitch and moan about working long hours in the software industry, especially games. You can leave whenever you want, its a free will state. Would you have been bitching and moaning if all this happened yet you made millions? You lost so you cry? Seriously, been there done that, learned my lesson at EA, moved on and made sure I don't put myself in the same situation again. No one is putting a gun to your head.

<comment><USER24> You're right that no one is forcing the people to work the long hours. However imo programmers and gamers are often naive. Spending high school and college working alone or with friends of a similar mind-set can prevent someone from seeing the "real world" aka MBA-types who prefer making money to advancing interesting technology. So while no one is forcing the employees to work themselves into the ground there's still something to be said about cunning non-technical leadership taking advantage of 18-22 year old naive programmers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Question.

Suppose you work at Zynga, and you're at the bottom-to-lower end of the hierarchy. Nobody with a C-title knows the name of your manager.

You're stuck working 10 hour days forever. What's the expected value on your equity? You obviously have some minuscule fraction. Are people really killing themselves over a $100k bonus?

Is this all based on the "pre-Facebook IPO" world where tech stocks were expected to triple in price over six months?

<comment><USER18> A $100K bonus could shave off a decade from a home loan. Even in the bay area. I'd work hard for that, but I would also have to like where I work even without the bonus.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Maybe someone can answer this. When negotiating equity, couldn't you red line the lockout period provision? Or is this set by law? If it is by law, how are executives getting around it?

<comment><USER27> There's a law (SEC rule 144) which says that if shares were not bought in an open market, they are locked up for 6 months after the event that makes them liquid (more or less). It's complicated, but generally you're rarely in a position to NOT need to adhere to it, regardless of what your contract says.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> What I find appalling about the Zynga, the Facebook and the Groupon IPO is that people at the top who actually are responsible for the mess can cash out early whereas people at the bottom who have to rely on people at the top who already cashed out themselves. CEOs and founders should have to wait longest to sell their stock. This would protect not only employees who get stock, but also investors who bought stock early on. There would be much higher incentive to build an actually working company instead of having a scammy IPO followed by a quick cash out. It's one thing if a company fails and everyone loses. It's another if everyone loses, but people who are most responsible get many millions.

</comment><comment><USER29> I feel companies with tech cofounder often reward their programmers and workers far better than ones founded by business founders.

This is really terrible for them. A large part of your compensation is stocks, and to lose that suddenly while others cash our must be extremely frustrating. Each person should be able to cash out a percentage of their stock to be fair.

<comment><USER30> I don't think this is true, I have seen tech cofounders being equally vile. The trait is not related with what suit you wear.</comment></comment>


Kugelblitz - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kugelblitz_(astrophysics) <comment><USER2> There is a PBS Spacetime episode describing this. The host is very talented:

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v3hd3AI2CAA](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v3hd3AI2CAA)

</comment><comment><USER3> Went through the article. The "Black hole starship" proposal is particularly interesting.

Reminded me of the ball lightning Tesla used to play around with Mark Train.</comment>


Apple Now Worth More Than Google - <AUTHOR> http://www.macrumors.com/2008/08/13/apple-now-worth-more-than-google/ <comment><USER2> That's rather meaningless, but its interesting to compare the competitors there: Apple, RIM and Nokia.

Apple and RIM seem to be on par - Apple is valued at ~2x compared to RIM, but then its also much bigger company (in terms of revenues, employees, products, operations etc).

Nokia seems a bit weak in this light - they're a behemoth in the cell phone market and yet they operate on much thinner margins and aren't valued that high.

Anyway, I am still kicking myself for not buying RIM stock when I was beta testing the original Pearl. Back then I had a hunch they were undervalued and a septupling of the stock price would have done me well ;)

<comment><USER3> Company valuations are growth bets. Nokia is already holds a huge share of an almost-saturated industry. There isn't much room for growth in their core business area, and they don't have a history of growing into new areas of revenue like some of the other companies on the list (Google and Apple especially).

FWIW, Apple and Google are both overvalued. :)

[edit: I should say _technology_ company valuations are growth bets. Corporations in stable industries are more often valued by earnings, unless something weird is going on (acquisition talk, etc...).]

<comment><USER4>
       FWIW, Apple and Google are both overvalued. :)

Well as you said: 'growth bets'.

Google are a long bet, I reckon. So far they're proven for putting out good products. But to be worth the money they need to monetise at least some of these. Up to now we have one success in that department: Adwords, which is extremely well thought out. But it's still just one point. They may not get another multi-$b cow. Adwords even if they manage to fix content ads, would be pressed to find that much growth (but 100%-200% is not out of the question)

Apple may be justified. There is the old mantra of 'be very good at 2 things' instead of 'be the best at 1 thing.' Apple can do:

1- Software

2- Hardware

3- Marketing / Product Launches

4- Creating Markets & doing deals that put a nice chunk of it in their pockets (Itunes, App store)

Take any 2 and you have a potential player in a lot of markets theat may grow very big.

\- TVish markets (some future apple TV?)

\- bookish markets (Kindle?)

\- thin clients (If the free with internet accesss PCs happen, who better then apple to make them? Nokia?)

\- gaming (could happen?)

\- GPSish markets (you never know where this might go)

\- In-Vehicle stuff (Ipod type thing for music & aircon & stuff in your new BMW?)

You almost expect apple to grab a piece of any consumer electronics that come up. Problem is they seem to be running on momentum. Not sure that'll last forever.

<comment><USER4> To add to that: How many of <http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html> could be cracked by Apple?

I think 1, 2, 17, 27, they do, probably will do or are uniquely positioned to do.

They could have as good a crack as any another half dozen.

Come to think of it: "17. New payment methods" might be one for Google. I mean, the key(s) seem like they might be around millions of users with accounts & easy, frictionless interface. Google checkout's not really changing the word though.

<comment><USER5> It'll take a lot to beat eBay (who owns PayPal) in this space.

> "key(s) seem like they might be around millions of users with accounts & > easy, frictionless interface"

Fwiw, Yahoo & Microsoft both have way more users than Google. But Google probably has most of the early-adopter crowd.

<comment><USER4> Users was probably the wrong term. I meant 'accounts'.

<comment><USER5> That's what I meant. There are actually more Yahoo! accounts and Live accounts than GMail accounts.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: I want to start a clothing company. - <AUTHOR> I can make the website, but don't know where to even begin to get the clothes made well, on the cheap.
I'm male, and want to design male clothes. (Think: t-shirts and tanks.) I would design everything myself (probably with photoshop).
After that - after I get a site up and sketch out my ideas - where do I go? Where can I get the clothes made, for instance? <comment><USER2> I am a large-ish apparel and textile manufacturer in India, and do the majority of my export to the United States. I am pretty well-versed with the kind of market you want to get into. My email is in my profile--get in touch with me and we'll talk. I doubt that I personally can supply you with what you need--we operate on volume--but I know plenty of people who can get you what you need.

A few things to keep in mind, though. I have just typed these in no particular order off the top of my head. I'm going to shy away from offering marketing advice and stick with what I know best.

(1) This is probably the worst time in history to enter this market. Cotton yarn is at all-time highs (70-80% increase over this time last year), and it's hard to get deliveries even if you can pay. The average Joe has no idea how many people between the cotton farmers and the store are struggling to maintain the shelf price of a garment. A great example of this is the fact that everybody in this thread is suggesting that you get your t-shirts from China. This is bad advice--China has increased labor costs and has tremendous yarn shortages for cotton.

(2) The small-volume t-shirt business is all about logistics. Getting t-shirts made and printed is extremely easy (getting them made cheaply is a little more involved). Arranging for the logistics of sizes, colors, styles etc. is complex and expensive if you don't have access to good storage.

(3) Please, please, _please_ don't use CafePress/Zazzle etc. The quality is terrible and their prices are pretty outrageous.

(4) I take it you have very little experience in the industry. I suggest you spend some time doing your homework. I wouldn't worry too much about the chemistry behind dye science, but you should really be familiar with some basic knitted structures, your yarn options, dyeing options and you should have a solid knowledge of your printing options. Look at value-addition treatments to garments.

(5) Get a firm understanding of getting your t-shirts manufactured. If you are looking for poorer quality (but better price), Central America is a good bet. They use cheap dyeing methods and open-ended yarn, but because of some political help, they have amazing prices for USA importers. If you are happy to pay more, then import from Asia. You will not get duty-free garments (think countries like Egypt, Jordan or Kenya if you want duty-free), but you can get excellent quality. You also need to understand the duty structure of importing apparel into the United States.

(6) Most people who export to the United States quote prices for putting the container-packed garments onto the ship. You are then responsible for shipping, insurance, duty and trucking from the port to your DC. Trucking is painfully expensive. Take lead times from various countries into account. I also highly doubt you will be importing even a 20' container's worth of t-shirts in one go, so you need to investigate the route of partial container shipments.

I hope I didn't put you off--every industry has challenges. This one is still really fun and exciting, especially if you are new to it. There's a lot to learn.

[edit] I should add: I'd be glad to review your sourced costings for you once you get them from wherever in the world and make sure you aren't getting ripped off, assuming you are willing to share them.

<comment><USER3> After re-reading the question a couple of times, I get the idea that oldmanstan may not know how to sew. There's a step between "sketching the artwork" and "making the garment" -- designing the sloper. As an apparel manufacturer, is this a service you provide, or do most of your customers bring you a set of base patterns?

If not, oldmanstan will probably need someone to take his artwork and turn it into a base pattern. Not that t-shirts and tanks are particularly difficult, but patterns can rapidly become more complicated when elements like pleating, draping, pockets, cuffs, collars, hoods and so forth are part of of the overall design.

To me, this is the absolute most fun part of designing a garment. It's pretty much all I think about -- to me, exciting design is all about clever seam placement. Textiles are a medium. A well-designed garment brings out the best of the fabric. So, oldmanstan, if you want to take a whack at that part, you can email ME, and I'll send you some book recommendations.

<comment><USER4> What books would you recommend to the randomly interested?

<comment><USER3> Here's a book: [http://www.amazon.com/Patternmaking-Comprehensive- Reference-...](http://www.amazon.com/Patternmaking-Comprehensive-Reference- Fashion-Design/dp/0130262439)

And here's a website: <http://vintagesewing.info/>

And a good book on textiles: [http://www.amazon.com/World-Textiles-Visual- Traditional-Tech...](http://www.amazon.com/World-Textiles-Visual-Traditional- Techniques/dp/0500282471)

There are some other books I've read over the years (a couple of them very rare), that I can't seem to find references to. But if you need beyond that, feel free to email me.

<comment><USER4> Very cool, thank you. =)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Y Combinator startup Fabricly should be able to help you out a lot. <http://www.fabricly.com/>

I'm curious what kind of clothes you want to design. Are you thinking about fresh prints or fresh cuts?

<comment><USER6> There's also recently-launched Garmz, which lets users vote on designs before commissioning production. <http://garmz.com/> (disclosure: I personally know one of the founders)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Do you want clothes manufactured, or just printed on?

That is, when you say 'design clothes' do you mean material, cut, and construction, or jut a picture on any old t-shirt or tank?

What contributes to an item of clothing being 'well made', in your eyes?

</comment><comment><USER8> If you live near a place that does screenprinting, they can probably print shirts for you for reasonably cheap. Much cheaper than Cafepress, Zazzle, etc. Except you have to deal with printers and ship them yourself.

</comment><comment><USER9> I once started a t-shirt business in Italy with some friends. It was hard and by the time we were done we made only a little profit. We were doing t-shirts and sweaters, based on some 70' italian b-movie. You could go to some local distributor for t-shirts, starting from brands like Hanes, and then take it to a company who can do the printing and tagging. Basically print or stitch your graphics on the clothes and then replace the original tag with your own ones (that of course you need to get printed somewhere else).

</comment><comment><USER10> Start with Zazzle or Cafe Press. Build a following. Use that to springboard off of and launch your own eCommerce site (look into Pulley by Indie Labs - creators of Big Cartel).

Then try to get the word going like crazy.

</comment><comment><USER11> Assuming your designs are printable, why not test out some of your designs on a community like Threadless? Allows you to "launch early and iterate" and get early "user" feedback with minimal financial risk. It'll allow you to gauge the popularity of different designs without having to actually have the clothes made.

As there's already an established community around Threadless, it might also be a good way to build an initial following for your brand/style.

</comment><comment><USER12> Man,

Think your designs will capture the public? Cool! Then, why not running a beta test on threadless.com?

Put your designs online, see if people are actually liking _wearing_ it. If all goes well, then perhaps you should consider making it all by your own.

If not, then perhaps you would have to understand what was wrong in order to success at the next round.

</comment><comment><USER13> I have a similar, but not the same idea. I found a cool clothing company when I was traveling and I think that their designs would sell here in the states. I've talked with them about importing, but it seems pretty expensive. The bulk discount they would give me on their sticker is only 50% (they sell shirts for about $20 so it would be about US$10 a shirt+shipping). I mean, the quality is good and it is all hand made, but I'm not sure what, if any profit I could make after taking into account shipping and storage (since it is all hand made I assume I'd have large inventory costs to make sure I could handle any unexpected volume). Do you think my idea of bringing the designs here are crazy?

</comment><comment><USER14> Might want to check out <http://www.t-shirtforums.com/> Went here when looking for the best quality blank t-shirts and found a wealth of information.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is may not be the best advice, but I wanted to share my experience. In the end I just broke even.

When I was in high school, at the age of 16 I decided to start a "clothing company." At the time I already had been working part-time on the weekends, so I had been saving up. When I had about $700 saved up I told my mother I wanted to start this business of my own, she encouraged me and gave me $300, so I now had 1K in funding to launch my "business."

I knew with this small amount it would be limiting as to what I could do. At the time it seemed the cheapest thing to do was to only start with t-shirt prints. I headed to several screenprinting shops around town, but it was costly unless you got a bulk of shirts 100+. I did some online research and found this pretty cool screenprinting shop in Auburn, Alabama (I'm in California). Got in touch with them and I was able to work a great deal.

Next, I had to think of a name for my company. This process took a while, I went through probably hundreds of candidates before I chose one the one I felt was right. I think this was the most tedious yet most important step of the process because _it is_ what represents you.

Once I had the name down. It was time to do some designs. To me this part was the easiest since I've been drawing for years and had recently started using Photoshop/Illustrator enough to manipulate it. I did several designs and showed them to friends and family so that they could give me feedback. I especially paid attention to friend's feedback because they were the targeted age group. I must also add that I would constantly look at clothing companies websites just to get an idea what the current "trend" was.

To start off, I just had 3 t-shirt print designs and got 50 t-shirts of each. So that was 150 shirts to start off, if my memory serves correctly it came out to roughly $4 per t-shirt. What helped a lot was that they cut the design fees since I designed the shirts myself with photoshop/illustrator.

As the shirts were being printed across the country. I started promoting it on MySpace (I should note, this was around 2004) and launched a website for it. Also wrote what was the beliefs and life-style that the company represented.

Several of my friends and acquaintances had bands in high school so I talked to them so that we could cross-promote each other. At the time my website design skills were limited to HTML and graphics so I had no idea how to even put an ecommmerce site together.

Nonetheless, once I had the shirts in my hands I started selling them to friends and family for $10 a pop. So I was making about $5 per shirt. Being promoted by friend's bands really helped since I sold several at local band shows. I sold all 150 and went through a couple more batches, but eventually sales dropped and I didn't want to take the time or effort to try to improve it. I decided it was a good experience and ceased it. In the end I cut even and had about 3 dozen shirts left. I gave many away for free and til this day I still have a couple left in my closet for memories.

Also check out <http://shop.johnnycupcakes.com/story/> Johnny's story was really inspirational to me!

</comment><comment><USER16> I recently participated in a fashion startup. There are a number of books you might want to read to get a crash course in the business, one in particular is Fashion for Profit by Frances Harder.

</comment><comment><USER17> I live in China and I have several friends in the clothing business. If you'll give me your email I can probably get you connected.

</comment><comment><USER18> We can directly place orders to Chinese manufacturers at <http://aliexpress.com>

</comment><comment><USER19> I've done this (both designing and manufacturing from scratch, and making t-shirts).

It looks like you mean "I want to design screen prints", rather than design clothes. This is actually pretty easy. Find a local screen-printer, and they'll probably be able to sell you some American Apparel (or Alternative Apparel) blank shirts at wholesale rates, and print your designs onto them. You might make about $10 per garment. It's really, really, really not worth the effort of having tshirts or tanks custom made.

If you want to truly design clothes; each step of this process requires hiring someone, since you probably don't know the skills or industry or have any contacts. Unfortunately, the newer you are at this game, the more people you have to hire, and the less money you can make. In fact, it's almost impossible to make any money at all as a new label unless you do most of the work yourself, and this involves experience and formal schooling, mostly.

You'll need to pay someone to sketch out your designs, and convert those into patterns. You might try doing this yourself, but this is a little like building a house without an architect. Or building a website without knowing HTML.

Next, you will have some samples made up, have the patterns modified so the fit is good (bigger labels actually have people called fit models). You'll need to adjust the pattern for all sizes you want to sell (XS-XXL).

It's best to have your samples made locally so you aren't waiting 6 weeks between revisions. Fit is everything! Once you have a few complete sample lines, you can take them around to local retail buyers and try to sell your line based on these.

You'll have to make sales before you actually have your garments made in bulk, unless you have a bunch of money to throw down the drain. Many people go to the Magic or Project trade shows in Vegas. You rent an (expensive) booth, make appointments with all the buyers, and on the days of the show, they come and make orders. (You don't know the buyers? You'll need to hire an agent) They won't pay you yet.

If you do make orders, now you can get your garments made in bulk in China, or wherever, and hopefully they can be shipped back by the time the orders are due (i.e. in time for the next season).

Something that takes half an hour to make will cost you several dollars in the US or tens of cents in China.

Unless you have a good contact at the other end, the first few runs will be horribly wrong, because people don't pay attention, particularly on new/small clients with low revenue. This happens no matter where you have things made.

Finally, you get your garments shipped, and then you send them off to be dyed, screen-printed, tagged, and packaged.

Then you deliver them to the places you sold to, and then 3 months later they pay you. Note that this is the first time you see any money in this whole process..!

<comment><USER2> You make plenty of generalizations here, and a lot of them are misleading. Nothing personal, but I'll point out where our opinions differ.

I think you had a rough time. Every factory that I am personally in contact with (it's a fair number across several countries) are significantly more professional in sampling, production and payments than what you describe. Sampling done at the place of production, no matter where in the world, should be measured in days.

There are plenty of good agents if you know the right places to look who handle a lot of the details for you. Obviously, the problem is finding the right guy. All your problems of solved issues like fit, patterns etc. are taken care of then. Something like pattern grading can be done in 5 minutes by anybody who has experience to 90% accuracy.

To say that a t-shirt takes a half hour to make is a bit naive. The amount of processing and handling that goes between picking cotton and packing a t-shirt is non-trivial. Even if you want to just limit yourself to the garment process, you are talking about fabric handling, cutting, sorting, stitching, checking and packing. This is a complex procedure.

> Unless you have a good contact at the other end, the first few runs will be > horribly wrong, because people don't pay attention, particularly on > new/small clients with low revenue. _This happens no matter where you have > things made._

[emphasis mine]

This is not true. Again, work with a professional factory, and you should not have this problem.

> Finally, you get your garments shipped, and then you send them off to be > dyed, screen-printed, tagged, and packaged.

Or...use a manufacturer who can do all of that for you. I'll admit that finding a world-class garment laundry outside of California is difficult, but I guarantee you that you can get a lot of the way there for dollars a garment cheaper if you look hard.

> Then you deliver them to the places you sold to, and then 3 months later > they pay you. Note that this is the first time you see any money in this > whole process..!

90 days payment terms is pretty bad. Most of the industry works on 30. Domestic business in a lot of Asia is 10-21 days from delivery. You should look into opening an L/C. The fee is not so bad and you get good security.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Is this idea inspired by the four hour work week book by any chance?

</comment><comment><USER21> > Where can I get the clothes made, for instance?

China.

<comment><USER22> Might want to provide more details than "China."

On the phone:

 _Hello China?_

在中国的东西

 _I'd like to use you're limetless labor pool to build a business_

在中国的东西

 _Can you help with that?_

在中国的东西

 _Um, no?_

在中国的东西

 _Ok, um, bye._

在中国的东西

<comment><USER23> What did you mean that Chinese to say? because it came out along the lines of "at China's stuff."

<comment><USER22> I inserted "Something in Chinese" into Google translate. It's just supposed to be jibberish because the hypothetical caller doesn't speak Chinese.

<comment><USER24> Ah. I was wondering why it read like, "Stuff that's in China"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I find it quite crazy that one would ship clothing half-way around the world when the raw materials and skills /exist reasonably locally. I wonder at what point fuel/transport costs or increasing labour costs are going to eclipse the savings made through labour price differences (some of those price differences are down to immoral practices of course).

Please think of your workforce and make sure they get paid fairly and aren't deprived of safe working conditions ( <http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/business_services/default.aspx> ).

<comment><USER25> Wow, I didn't think that saving non-renewable resources and ensuring people are paid fairly would be so disliked here.

I am disappoint, as the saying goes.</comment></comment>


Mail Pilot drops subscription model, third-party server - <AUTHOR> http://mail-pilot.com/blog/6-major-announcements/ We realized early that nobody would celebrate paying a subscription for an email client and service. Despite this, we logically chose a subscription pricing model to cover recurring server costs and ensure a reliable, long-term email experience. Because we will no longer incur additional recurring server costs, we've completely reevaluated our pricing model to be more convenient and straight-forward for users. <comment><AUTHOR> I'm not seeing any word on their new pricing on the native apps.

 _"We're ecstatic to announce that all new users will only pay a one time fee for each Mail Pilot application that they download, with no recurring costs."_

I was an early adopter and paid the subscription to get access to the beta. However, I ended up being very disappointed in the web app and certainly couldn't see myself paying close to 100/year for it. I had to jump through a few hoops to finally get a refund.

Now, they're actually saying that they recommend you stop using the web app if you move to one of the native iOS apps. Initially, this was a key component for me to even consider that app, that of complete integration across all platforms.

</comment><comment><USER2> Looks like they realized that they'll need to make it a bit more tempting to compete with the Dropbox-owned Mailbox app on iOS, given that Mailbox is free and pretty much duplicates the whole "gesture control, inbox as to-do list, mark messages to be reviewed later and they're hidden until then" idea.</comment>


From one side-hustle to another - <AUTHOR> Hey hustlers,
I created Open Startup List because I found the open startups culture intriguing. Founders that share openly about their marketing efforts, their failures or success, metrics like income and traffic, is just something that we as hustlers can learn a lot from.
I built the initial version of OSL within a week, and put a lot of effort into marketing, added a blog section and grew rapidly.
3 months after, I sold that project and made profit.
This lead me to writing all of my journey's learning, challenges, small victories, and my key takeaways of each phase along the road, from "ideation" to creation, marketing and eventually to selling it on my own.
I called the E-book Start With A Side-Project [1]. I believe that everyone should try to generate some money from their side-projects and I believe my experiences can put people in the right direction.
It's not a "get rich quick" guide. It's my experiences + some actionable advice based on those experiences.
Happy hustling to everyone, and remember - "Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out." Robert Collier
[1] Start With A Side-Project: gum.co/side-project <comment><AUTHOR> You can find the book on Gumroad and on Amazon: 1) gum.co/side-project 2) [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08DN58X4X](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08DN58X4X)</comment>