Facebook fake-news writer: 'I think Donald Trump won because of me' - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/11/17/facebook-fake-news-writer-i-think-donald-trump-is-in-the-white-house-because-of-me/ <comment><USER2> From the article... Nice

"I think Donald Trump is in the White House because of me".

I'm skeptical... then this

"Speaking of Clinton — did you target fake news at her supporters? Or Gary Johnson's, for that matter? (Horner's Facebook picture shows him at a rally for Johnson.)"

"No. I hate Trump."

To be fair the next question somewhat addresses this with some anecdotal info. However at this point I can't take the authors credibility seriously. He sounds like a troll with way too much time on his hands.

"Is that it? You posted on Facebook a couple weeks ago that you had a lot of ideas for satirizing Clinton and other figures, but that "no joke . . . in doing this for six years, the people who clicked ads the most, like it's the cure for cancer, is right-wing Republicans." That makes it sound like you've found targeting conservatives is more profitable."

"Yeah, it is. They don't fact-check."

I think it's fair to say that older people tend to be both a) more conservative on average than younger voters b) more susceptible to click bait and fake news. ie "Forwards from Grandma"

This guy could do so much more with his life.

<comment><USER3> That is basically how I read this article as well. It looks like a fake news author has trolled the Washington Post here.

Most of the fake news that I've seen Democrats post have been a lot like this. Interviews with fake news authors (that are trolling) and posts with fake quotes from Trump are fairly common.

The Republican fake news seemed to be obsessed with the idea that Hillary would be convicted of something.

</comment></comment><comment> hash-set That article reads a bit fake--there's pretty good evidence that people did indeed get paid to cause trouble at Trump rallies.

I'm more than a little bit concerned about the whole "We must stop fake news" bs--news has always been made up. Read about "Yellow Journalism" and how the US got into the Spanish-American war!

The answer to this kind of speech is more speech. If people want to make shit up and put it on the Internet that's fine. It's been happening since day 1 anyways. Did we not just witness the likes of NY Times, Washington Post, CNN, Fox, NBC, basically all US media pretend Hillary Clinton was in the lead of the election and had a 98% chance of winning? Fake news, indeed.

<comment><USER4> There was no pretending? Why do you say that? What they were referencing was based on actual polls. There are plenty of ways those polls can go wrong, or how the winds can shift between polls, and tons of other variables. They do this every single election. Seek Karl Rove's meltdown when Obama won. People seem to be really confused about statistics this election and it's kind of concerning.

>there's pretty good evidence that people did indeed get paid to cause trouble at Trump rallies.

No there isn't, or at least I haven't seen any. What I have seen is the weakest of links between individuals who happen to share the same name. In any city there's bound to be individuals who have the exact same name as you, especially when you come from the same background.

That's not evidence. That's coincidence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'll ask this again, in regards to claims about Facebook "censoring" conservative outlets: If the same publishing organizations continue to post fake news, and Facebook editors keep having to remove those stories from the same publishers: is it really bias at that point?

If conservative outlets are more apt to publish fake news stories than their liberal counterparts, or perhaps liberal publications that post fake news stories ended up trending less often, that still seems like a problem conservatives should want to address. It doesn't like a Facebook or any other medium is really suited to address.

When facebook removed the editorial curators, tons and tons of fake news stories started trending. I personally witnessed this rather unfortunate turn of events on my facebook feed. I saw friends and family share completely bogus articles about "The Wikileaks", emails, general corruption, pay outs from foreign leaders, etc. You name it, there was probably a fake story about it. At one point, there was a story about how Trump's victory caused Ford to resume their F-150 model production in Ohio, instead of mexico. Apparently, people believed that those kind of things could just turn around in less than a week. I suspect that many people knew how ridiculous such a claim is, but they didn't care. It fit the narrative.

My personal experience and something that is echoed in the article, is that the conservative population is far more likely to rabidly flock to any story that fits some perspective that's beneficial to the narrative as a whole. I witnessed one liberal story being circulated that was definitely false, but it was quickly called out and shut down by other left-leaning people. Where as, I've noticed the opposite effect on fake conservative news stories. Those stories are usually meet with reinforcement, regardless of how fake and contrived the story is.

>"His (Trump) followers don't fact-check anything — they'll post everything, believe anything. His campaign manager posted my story about a protester getting paid $3,500 as fact. Like, I made that up. I posted a fake ad on Craigslist."

This indeed did happen. When it was publicly called out (I think it took something like a day), they simply removed the post. There was no apology, there was no correction. It was just removed. But at that point, the damage is done. I'm sure that story stuck with quite a few people.

</comment><comment> guard-of-terra > Nobody fact-checks anything anymore — I mean, that's how Trump got elected

No it's not. You faking news and then making fun of it is how Trump got elected. Everybody is kinda tired with how smart you are, in a dumb way.

Disclaimer: I'm not from the USA.

</comment><comment><USER5> Well, I think this just got news because Trump was/is news during all the campaign.

From the article you can find that many of his fake-news went viral in the past, and probably will keep going in the future. Probably in a more deep research you'll find that many other "mediable" people (or their staff) picked fake news once in a while. Now, it's just interesting to talk about Trump, no matter if you were in favor, against or even is tired of hearing about him.

<comment><USER6> It is sad but a little entertaining how hard media pushes the 'Trump voters got conned' narrative. Almost like angry, little kids who are in incapable of accepting that somebody dares to have a different opinion.

<comment><USER7> The media was covering fake news well before the election.

I suspect that, had Hillary won, we'd have seen the same amount of coverage, but with a tone of "it was a close call".

It has been clear for a long time that large-scale trolling and fake news operations were underway for a long time, and needed to be addressed.

Indeed, I expect that the MSM is being somewhat restrained here, because they don't want to seem like sore losers.

<comment><USER6> I disagree on that because I actually looked into what they classified awhs fake news. In the recent buzzfeed article they classify hyper partisan news as fake news. I actually looked into the raw files. And there was if cause Breitbart listed amongst the fake news. So in the end it is established media trying to claim their ground.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is it common/legal for stock options to never vest? - <AUTHOR> I've worked at a startup based in Manchester, UK for 6 years. The company has grown significantly and could be worth > £50m today if acquired.
Upon reviewing my share options amounting to ~2.5% of the company, I was surprised to learn that there is no vesting schedule. This means that if I leave, I lose all options.
I've never known a share option agreement to work like this. Is this ethical? Can I exercise early to work around this? <comment><USER2> [IANAL]

In the absence of a vesting schedule, I see little legal reason that the options did not vest immediately. The primary reason for a vesting schedule is to prevent immediate vesting of options from occurring.

Lack of a vesting schedule is, in my experience, pretty common among less sophisticated [for some definitions of "sophisticated"] founders. It sounds like this a case where it worked out as well without one since you stayed past a typical vesting period.

That said, exercising and liquidating the options is likely something that should be reviewed by an attorney irrespective of vesting schedules or an immanent intent to leave the company.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your advice. It seems it'll be worth seeking legal advice on this.

<comment><USER2> There's possibly enough money involved to warrant provisionally planning to speak with an accountant based on discussions with the attorney.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I have "phantom" stock options that "vest" (such that they are actually worth something in the event of an acquisition) but both vested and unvested shares are forfeited if I leave the company under any circumstances. So there's one bit of anecdata for you. These were granted initially to a small handful of us near the beginning of the company and since, about a third of the original group have left, forfeiting their shares.

You get what you negotiate, I guess.

</comment><comment><USER4> You should talk to a solicitor about this as soon as possible.

You shouldn't immediately assume unethical conduct or foul play, though. Vesting schedules are still somewhat specific to US startup culture.

Is this a private (Ltd) or public (PLC) limited company? If the former you most likely own those shares right away (but in any case you should definitely have a solicitor review your contracts).

</comment><comment><USER5> You need to talk to a lawyer about this pronto.

No, this is not ethical, nor common.

Legal? Dunno. And that is the question.

<comment><USER6> Make sure to find a lawyer specializing in startups.It's probably best to get the most up to date equity documents the company has as well as the documents you originally signed.

<comment><AUTHOR> How would I go about finding a lawyer with startup experience to help me as an individual? Should I expect to pay large amounts of cash for this?

<comment><USER5> I would benchmark 200 pounds for an initial consult, 1000 pounds for more detailed lookover.

Keep in mind you benchmarked your share value at around 1 million pounds. Don't penny-pinch on this.

As to finding a good lawyer in London, here's a list: [http://mybilliondollarapp.com/best-startup-law-firms-in- lond...](http://mybilliondollarapp.com/best-startup-law-firms-in-london/)

Orrick is a brand name around Silicon Valley, so I'd start there.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ivo Karlovic's Survival and the Key to Aging in Men's Tennis - <AUTHOR> http://www.tennisabstract.com/blog/2019/01/09/ivo-karlovics-survival-and-the-key-to-aging-in-mens-tennis/ <comment><USER2> I wonder why the top players in tennis (Federer, Nadal, Williams) are lasting longer than is traditionally the case?

\- Better nutrition and recovery than previous generations?

\- Unusually dominant top players, resulting in easier matches and less wear?

\- Playing styles that result in less wear and tear?

\- Upcoming generation not as good, so not challenging them?</comment>


Why It's Safe for Founders to Be Nice - <AUTHOR> http://paulgraham.com/safe.html <comment><USER2> I think this depends on the industry (as PG speculated). It works in software and other industries with healthy margins. But in industries with slim margins, you see more cutthroat behavior.

I don't think it's a coincidence that Amazon (for ex) has poor working conditions. Retail has always been a slim-margin business, and most of the companies in it are accused of very similar poor behavior. (I don't mean to pick on Amazon, but it's a recent example. And I know some will say AWS is ok.. but AWS likely has much higher margins than the retail side.. so it does't really change my point.)

Take any industry.. and the chances are the profit margin is a good indicator of the working conditions.

This isn't to mean that those who start retail (or similar low margin) business are mean people.. but I think the lack of profits necessitates cost control and a focus on efficiency... which leads to poor working conditions (since good working conditions cost money) and decisions people will interpret as mean.

<comment><USER3> >I don't think it's a coincidence that Amazon (for ex) has poor working conditions.

I just spent a year and a half working for Amazon, and the recent reports about working conditions were, as far as I could tell, either fabrications, or things that hadn't happened for years.

Working there was great. Yes, I was in the AWS tree, but I also had contact with people in the Retail tree, and didn't perceive any differences there.

Low-wage jobs like fulfillment...I don't know. I'm a developer.

Oh, and did I mention the pay was great? Hard to complain, really.

<comment><USER4> I personally know three people whose stories are much closer to the NYT pieces than your comments, and they've all only left within the past three years, with the most recent exit being about five months ago. I know two others (in Seattle, it's easy to know many people with an Amazon work history) who had a fine experience, one of whom that still works there. I've interviewed for two positions there myself, one that I declined and one that I did not receive an offer for; one was presented as exceptionally competitive, with the HR rep dancing around a few of the NYT-style topics, and one that seemed much more typical and collaborative.

No, I've not worked there, but all of the evidence at my disposal (your comment included), leads me to believe your Amazon experience is highly dependent on where your work group sits in the Amazon network. To shrug off the stories as potential fabrications seems as intellectually dishonest as assuming the stories of extreme treatment are commonplace.

<comment><USER5> People who are treated well by systems will generally defend those systems, even if it means rationalizing acts of injustice or cruelty happening just next door.

At the very least, how much a person is willing to question the hand that feeds them can reveal the strength of their character to others.

<comment><USER6> >how much a person is willing to question the hand that feeds them can reveal the strength of their character to others.

Careful! You are straying into fundamental attribution error territory. Those who bite the hand that feeds them may be in a better position to do so or feel more encouraged by the people they know.

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

<comment><USER5> True. I did not mean to say there is a direct correlation (thus the "can reveal") more that criticizing what one perceives as unjust, despite whatever benefits they receive from it, is often noble (strong character). Or at least noble if that person is fully aware of the consequences of speaking out in what they view as the truth.

Note, I believe that Noble does not always equal smart, where smart equals maximizing good, corporeal outcomes for one's self.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like to read pg's essays (they are what drew me to HN), but this one needs more examination of whether the statement "Obviously one case where it would help to be rapacious is when growth depends on that. What makes startups different is that usually it doesn't" is really true or not. Some of what I have read in news articles linked to from HN suggests that, say, Groupon or Uber or Airbnb or a variety of other startup businesses may all have done things that look rather rapacious to me to raise their growth rate. Some of those companies are still doing well, and some less so, but the companies we hear about here are all doing better than the companies started the same year that we never hear about, so we need to test pg's proposition by looking at startups that fizzle out soon after they are founded. Perhaps the highest level of niceness is found among companies that never gain high growth rate at all.

<comment><USER8> Good point. Airbnb, Uber, etc. certainly didn't go out of their way to be "nice" to taxi commissioners, hotel lobbyists, etc. The new guys felt they had a better way of doing business and rushed it into new markets as fast as they could, tolerating lawsuits and injunctions along the way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> My company budgets a small amount for customer appeasement each month. The funds can be used toward discounts, expedited shipping, upgrades, etc. We can usually start every support response with empathy as opposed to protecting ourselves from loss. The result is a focused work environment, happy customers, no burn-out, no venting, no therapy bills, and a reminder to keep things this way by continuously improving the product(s).

<comment><USER10> This makes so much sense, especially for growing companies. You want viral growth - your next customer is massively more valuable than dollars now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This doesn't apply completely, IMO, to startups with early enterprise deals. If you negotiate those in ways which are "too un-rapacious", you can be starved for capital, be ignored by the customer (because it's insignificant as an expense...), and turn into a consultancy by necessity.

It's not exactly being power-mad, but definitely putting the interests of your company (which, at the time, might just be you!) first in negotiations. Not being a dick, but being assertive, and having a decent BATNA in negotiations (i.e. being willing to walk away).

I'd totally agree with what pg said here for consumer or low-marginal-cost products. Absolutely disagree for professional services. Disagree moderately for the somewhat-marginal-cost world of enterprise deals (or hardware).

I think there's something more to this which has to do with marginal cost, not just growth curve.

<comment><USER12> Fwiw I was doing an enterprisish biz before and am now doing consumer. Maybe matching personality types with these is worth doing.

Also I was stressing about the enterprise side of the biz when I sent this email. The enterprise biz has no chance of growing hyperlinearly because the market is too small and the customers are very hard to reach. (TV stations)

<comment><USER11> My personal sweet spot is well-resourced people with hard problems (but not unique-to-them, or self-created problems), either individuals or large organizations. "Professionals" might be better than Enterprise, since they purchase products themselves rather than through purchasing departments, at least for initial buyers as a startup.

My dream business would be the software/service equivalent of Snap-On Tools. Not Craftsman (home/high-end value), shitty cheap shit from the dollar store, free stuff included with furniture, and also not NASA custom $30k screwdrivers.

<comment><USER13> Sounds like github/gitlab would be a close to what you are describing. Hosted quickbooks. Hosted turbotax for accountants. Payment processing like square for small businesses.

<comment><USER11> None of those are really hard tech problems, though. They can be hard at scale (like FB has hard infrastructure problems at scale), but they are more about domain expertise, initial sales, and having the right mvp and a path to small number of initial sales, IMO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If only most venture capitalists were nice, or were looking for nice founders. In my experience, and I've met probably 250 VCs over 20 years, it's not the case. Especially if they've had a few drinks, when the truth is revealed.

There are exceptions, always. But too many are not really that nice. They'll put on an act to pretend they're nice, but they're not.

<comment><USER15> I would agree with this, people who's primary responsibility is shuffling money around, making deals, and dealing with people who actually produce something as if they are game pieces on a board tend to be a bit different. I wonder if this personality type is drawn to that role, or if it is learned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It seems to be a fairly common pattern for a startup to offer a bunch of stuff for free, or to ask for very little in return. This startup then attracts a bunch of users, and for a while everything's good.

Then the growth starts to slow down. The company needs to continue growing financially, to appease investors and so on, so they start to ratchet up their monetization. User experience and product quality begin to suffer.

By this time the company is usually pretty entrenched, with some combination of having driven all their competitors out of business or by having a strong network effect. Users will want to leave, but they don't have any other viable options.

<comment><USER17> > _It seems to be a fairly common pattern for a startup to offer a bunch of > stuff for free, or to ask for very little in return. This startup then > attracts a bunch of users, and for a while everything 's good._

That's less about being nice and more about business development in a time where people are very hesitant to spend money.

If a startup offers something for _completely_ free, it's never out of altruism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> > Maybe successful people in other industries are; I don't know; but not > startup founders. [1]

I don't understand, "startups" are an industry in their own?

Would a food delivery startup not be in the food service industry? A logistics startup not be in the logistics industry?

<comment><USER19> The startup scene has it's own definition of startup.

Some, but not necessarily all of the following apply:

1) Younger people

2) Educated (can be self taught)

3) College grads or dropped out of college to do a startup

4) Have more to gain than to lose by participating in a startup. (Little assets, [1] not leaving a traditional job but perhaps going from another "startup")

5) Working primarily with other people's money

6) Has the interest and/or money of "angels" "Vc's" or "incubators".

7) Doing something that could get big and stands a high chance of failure. (In other words, not starting an Italian restaurant that's going to be a single location sauce and cheese place)

8) Located or able to travel and possibly relocate to a place that startups are typically. (Silicon Valley, NYC or the other hubs..)

What am I missing? (Please fill in the other things I am almost certainly forgetting).

[1] Unless they have family money or have done a previous startup where they hit the pay window.

<comment><USER20> Those are aspects of startups but not a definition. The best definition I think is Paul Graham's: "Startup = Growth" [[http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html)]. There are many food delivery services that are just local businesses, not startups. The difference is growth, a startup looks to expand to multiple cities, states, and countries.

<comment><USER19> I don't disagree with what you are saying and I probably should have not used the word "definition" in that sentence.

However the reason I used "definition" was because what comes to mind with SCOTUS and porn,[1] that is "we know it when we see it" in a sense that it can't really be defined in the traditional sense and probably never will be.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it)

<comment><USER21> Paul would strongly disagree with the idea that a startup is defined by a random list of traits and that you "know it when you see it". He very clearly defines a startup as a company aiming for (and potentially capable of achieving) a very high rate of growth.

Team composition is literally irrelevant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "As I've written before, one of the things that has surprised me most about startups is how few of the most successful founders are like that. Maybe successful people in other industries are; I don't know; but not startup founders."

I know that "old school" world quite well and have for a long long time. There is a big difference between being, in general, fresh out of school working with your peers of highly motivated and typically educated and skilled people (that you additionally socialize with) vs. being in an environment where you have your own money on the line, no margin for error, and people are constantly doing stupid shit that threatens your livelihood. [1] With all due respect to PG afaik he has never operated in this world. But it is a world that does exist and there is a reason for it as well.

[1] Note I am not talking about the corporate world and obviously goes without saying that there are many people running entrepreneurial companies that aren't like the caricature which PG describes.

</comment><comment><USER22> Maybe founders are nice to Paul Graham but many of them are total douches to their employees. I don't recognize the industry I work in by his description.

<comment><USER23> ummmm basically

the winners are basically amazing to their employees.

non-douchey.

because they're winning.

leading.

making their employees rich

</comment></comment><comment><USER24>
        So if you're a founder, here's a deal you can make
        with yourself that will both make you happy and
        make your company successful. Tell yourself you
        can be as nice as you want, so long as you work
        hard on your growth rate to compensate.

Doesn't this imply that if you have less than a "hyperlinear growth curve" you should be a raging sociopath[1]? Fuck that.

[1] Or, to be precise, "a rapacious, cigar-smoking, table-thumping guy in his fifties who wins by exercising power"

<comment><USER25> Paul's definition of a startup is centered on hyperlinear growth rate. Since his area of expertise is startups, he limited his hypothesis to this group. "Maybe" in other situations niceness doesn't work.

A conversation I had with an institutional investor makes me think niceness works elsewhere too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This seems like an over simplification. Growth is not just the product, but the people executing. A founder who is giving away too much equity and money early may not have the equity and capital to attract all the talent she needs. Maybe she is more understanding about work life balance and doesn't push the team hard enough. But somebody else does, and this is often winner takes all.

</comment><comment><USER27> Generally, people will be nice where they can afford to. I have been to cultures and regions, the developed or more well to do, or having enough resources tend to be more "nicer" toward each other. Competition seems to be get better off peoples niceness. Then seems the meta hacking, when people figure niceness can be a advantage and use it for personal, professional gains.

</comment><comment><USER28> Okay, so "being nice" equates to "offer good value at a fair price", eg don't suck your customers dry. That makes perfect sense.

I do think a little bit of ruthlessness is called for, especially when your most important metric (growth) is coming at the expense of your competitors. Examples abound of this -- and I think that it can be enormously beneficial to study companies that have operated in moral "gray areas", both in how it helped them establish their position in the market, and how it hurt them. (More often than not, the "damage" is a rather superficial PR dent...) Look at Microsoft crushing Netscape, Apple playing hardball with everybody (including their supply chain), AirBNB with Craigslist, then skirting hotel regs, Uber in everything they do. For all these companies, from a consumer perspective, it's hard to argue they don't provide "good value for a fair price," even though their business practices often lead to nerd outrage here on HN.

That being said, a singular strategy of "being nice" (eg, offering good value at a fair price) could be enough for winning customers. Often this seems to happen if your product is so far superior that customers (or users) naturally gravitate towards you. That is how Google got big, and seems to be the modus operandi for social businesses (Facebook, Twitter, etc).

In fact, I think the only place where you can get away with not "being nice" is in extremely bureaucratic customer environments where success is dictated by the skill of your sales team -- the realm of Oracle, government contractors, etc. Those are also very interesting to study, but for different reasons.

</comment><comment><USER29> Being nice is difficult even when you try to remind yourself every day, like i do with a post-it that has been on my desk for a year now "Be smart, honest and thoughtful". As a "startup founder" I do honestly try to be nice through considering those three items as often as possible. Having said that, there are lots of examples I can think of where I have not been nice and need to do better.

Lets face it: Founders are often young, trying to move quickly, less experienced managing stress, and regularly making mistakes due to all of these things. Some of the biggest mistakes you make are under pressure, and its often as simple as saying the wrong thing.

Personally don't know startups are any nicer than the rest of the world, but they are certainly smaller groups of people, which means you tend to form a tighter relationship with your co-workers / employees (like it or not). In my experienced that is what creates the accountability to be nice, provides people with context and understanding when something doesn't go to plan and ultimately gives others the ability to say things like "Yeah they're nice guys/girls, but pretty stressed out most of the time", which if you took away the "nice guys/girls" part of that sentence when referencing the founders you would just be left with someone who you would probably not describe as all that nice.

Relationships can truly make up for a lot and there are benefits for everyone involved. Advice i often give to founder is: If you can, invest in becoming as real of friend to the people who you work with as you possibly can. It really does pay back, especially when things do not go as you had planned.

Edit: Spelling.

</comment><comment><USER30> I think we need to look at this from economic theory point of view. Being nice and being asshole - both have its own cost and ultimately how you should behave depends on what gives you the most gain. The general theory that being nice always works and has zero cost is probably an emotional view.

Sometime back it was in believed that founders ruthless and openly asshole personality often won the business wars. Everyone wanted to be CEOs like Gates, Grove, Bozos, Ellison and Jobs. And it actually worked for them. Despite of them being assholes (as per various well documented anecdotes) they attracted great talents and they pushed people to do seemingly impossible. But surprisingly it didn't worked for vast majority of other founders. I have often thought about this and my theory is that successful "asshole" CEOs had accumulated lots of credit in fame and money. They would frequently be features on covers with giant headline praising them as super humans. This is the credit that shielded them from consequences of being an asshole. Being always nice has a price: You might end up creating environment where mediocre is perceived as being tolerated, transparency gets some hit, the cultural values you want to push doesn't get as much traction as you hoped and you must constantly find creative ways to wordsmith your statements as opposed to just be honest with plain language. As a CEO you want to reduce this price and shortest path to that is just say and do what you think is the right thing regardless of how other person will feel. Obviously doing this has its own cost. The bottom line is that you can pay the cost of being an asshole if you have accumulated tons of media credit by getting featured on cover stories and tons of PR behind you. But otherwise this can sink you.

<comment><USER31> My understanding is that it's considered absolutely fine to be an asshole as long as you keep the money coming in. PR helps, but not as much as profitability and net worth.

If you're an asshole and the wheels come off - see e.g. Ashley Madison, and arguably Jobs Mk 1 - you're shark meat.

<comment><USER13> There was an article back that furthher validated the asshole theory that being an asshole was okay for the greater good of the team. Be nice tobyour employees/team but mean to the enemies. The teams would rally behind the leader attacking the antagonist. Asshole managers brought on the loss of respect from the team and eventual demise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Quoting from Hesse's Siddhartha about a merchant chiding Siddhartha for a rice-deal he did not complete.

"That's all very nice," exclaimed Kamaswami indignantly, "but in fact, you are a merchant after all, one ought to think! Or might you have only travelled for your amusement?"

"Surely," Siddhartha laughed, "surely I have travelled for my amusement. For what else? I have gotten to know people and places, I have received kindness and trust, I have found friendship. Look, my dear, if I had been Kamaswami, I would have travelled back, being annoyed and in a hurry, as soon as I had seen that my purchase had been rendered impossible, and time and money would indeed have been lost. But like this, I've had a few good days, I've learned, had joy, I've neither harmed myself nor others by annoyance and hastiness. And if I'll ever return there again, perhaps to buy an upcoming harvest, or for whatever purpose it might be, friendly people will receive me in a friendly and happy manner, and I will praise myself for not showing any hurry and displeasure at that time."

</comment><comment><USER33> Nothing groundbreaking here, just reframing (yet again) how to think about success so that founders focus hard on growth rate. Good stuff.

Sometimes I wonder if PG is targeting/excluding audiences by speaking in a mathy way.

"If he was bad at extracting money from people, at worst this curve would be some constant multiple less than 1 of what it might have been. But a constant multiple of any curve is exactly the same shape."

This makes perfect sense to a native math speaker but takes some effort for others to digest. I wonder if that is deliberate or just the way he talks.

<comment><USER34> It's a way of writing that targets rational-types, or even nerds.

That's why Hacker News is so good. If you want to discuss business in a more mundane way, there are lots of other spaces for that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> It's always been a pet peeve of mine that people depend on the medium of text so much. My impression is that much of this information could have been better communicated with graphs. Better yet - interactive graphs!

The only real reason why someone would stick to text that I would think of is that they don't have the time, skills or resources to use something else. Maybe pg doesn't _personally_ have these things, but I'm sure that there are tons of designers who would love to help him out.

</comment><comment><USER36> I think this math also explains why equity disputes, often caused by someone wanting 10-50% more, are a waste of effort. Again, it's case of optimizing the weaker multiplier.

</comment><comment><USER37> As much as I enjoy reading Paul Graham's work, this post is quite derivative. This is a specific case of "karma" or general rule "what goes around come around". Not being a douchebag is a virtue in all aspects of life. As some might say, it is practically newtonian.

Of course for a company which has a monopoly in the market these laws don't apply - you don't to have carry about the users nor workers because they have no other place to go.

</comment><comment><USER38> Paul seems to be missing one key factor: that profit can be reinvested into the company to increase growth. The converse is also true: the lack of profit might cause the founders to slow growth because they cant pay the bills. An example of the former was a talk at startup school IIRC where a founder of Stack Overflow stated how they used a lot of money to scale out their servers into different verticals (and conquer new markets before competitors).

</comment><comment><USER39> It's all to easy for nice founders to turn into full blown sociopaths. Maintaining empathy, integrity, and balance takes alot of work once things grow (or fail).

</comment><comment><USER40> Isn't that just "Be user centric first, be profit centric later"?

I often see companies that once felt "nice" become "un-nice" later on. For example, I recently tried to use AirBnB again after some years of absence. It was horrible. In the old days, it felt like a well spirited user centric place. Now they act like a power-drunk, arrogant and dismissive bully.

</comment><comment><USER41> _The reason startup founders can safely be nice is that making great things is compounded, and rapacity isn 't.

So if you're a founder, here's a deal you can make with yourself that will both make you happy and make your company successful. Tell yourself you can be as nice as you want, so long as you work hard on your growth rate to compensate. Most successful startups make that tradeoff unconsciously. Maybe if you do it consciously you'll do it even better._

This captures why I prefer Silicon Valley to Wall Street. In Wall Street the assumption is zero sum - one dollar either goes to me or you, but not both. In Silicon Valley there is the illusion that you, your employees and your customer can all win. Whether this is true or not, it makes for a healthier work environment, and PG helps explain why it is true for startups. (Nobody at Wall Street grows 5% a week)

</comment><comment><USER42> I don't know, this feels like confirmation bias. When PG talks about founders being "nice", nice to whom? Their VC and advisor? Sure. Customers? Sure, hopefully.

But as we go down the line I'd argue that startups demonstrably aren't "nice": what does Uber pay drivers again? In fact, what startup in the task economy is "nice" to their workers?

When your startup holds meetups at bars, you're not being nice to marginalized groups that don't do well in these settings. When you haven't examined your hiring practices you're not being nice to the people you've "culture-fitted" out of your organization.

I like this vision, and I like the math. I'd just hope founders cast a wider net of niceness.

<comment><USER43> Isn't Uber a bad example? Their drivers have zero leverage because they require very little training and there is a high probability they'll be replaced in 5 years with self driving cars.

But take the IT industry. I just saw a startup offering unlimited Amazon books, unlimited Starbucks coffee, half day Fridays, zero cost health care, and remote work, all in an attempt to attract employees.

I'm not saying the Uber drivers should all go into IT, but there is a shortage of business administrators, educators, and health care workers in this country (and I'm sure lots of other fields).

<comment><USER44> Why is that a bad example? I think it's the perfect example of where you'd have to be nice to pay well.

There's no competitive advantage to paying your drivers well, there's no legal compulsion to pay drivers well, the only reason to pay your drivers well is to be nice.

Your example is bad because the reason all those incentives are offered is because IT workers are in demand and so market forces are forcing employers to offer lots of benefits. Not because they're nice.

<comment><USER45> Under isn't doing it for niceness, but to entice drivers into system ensuring the customers quick service, and driver's a minimum lucrative compensation during the time they are building customer base. It is same as first ride free, to attract people into system. Once you have critical mass of driver's and customers, they'll optimize for profit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I'm glad the math works... but to me, the reasons to be a "nice" founder are not financial. Instead, I believe it to be good because it will guide your decisions in ways that build a positive work environment in which creative, intelligent people want to work. That, in turn, will support the growth that is desired for the business.

Not-nice founders will likely build less friendly work environments, which will build poor performing teams, and slow down growth.

Although I cannot prove this, I have to believe that the added growth from a good working environment will at least balance, if not surpass, growth forced out of non-optimal work environments.

</comment><comment><USER47> Is Linus Torvalds a founder who was too nice by pg's critera?

He created something that people want, made it grow, etc, but he let other people capture the value and did not focus on securing a superlinear financial return for himself.

Just musing that "growth" we are talking about is really the growth of the slice of the pie owned by the equity holders in the startup. Being so nice that you let your users or employees capture the value created by the product and don't get your superlinear return would seem to be too nice as a startup founder.

</comment><comment><USER48> This formula does not take into consideration game theory. How fast you grow also depends on how fast your competitors are growing. Being #1 in an industry, ends up being a massive difference from being #2.

</comment><comment><USER49> _But the foundation of convincing investors is to seem formidable, and since this isn 't a word most people use in conversation much, I should explain what it means. A formidable person is one who seems like they'll get what they want, regardless of whatever obstacles are in the way. Formidable is close to confident, except that someone could be confident and mistaken. Formidable is roughly justifiably confident._

Does Formidable = Nice?

[http://paulgraham.com/convince.html](http://paulgraham.com/convince.html)

</comment><comment><USER50> Even if PG is wrong about the effects of behavior, every startup is still likely to fail. So being mean just means odds are a mean person is likey to wind up failing _and_ an asshole.

</comment><comment><USER51> Meta: Does anyone know more about the "read more" you get on mobile?

[http://imgur.com/ULhi9O2](http://imgur.com/ULhi9O2)

It seems to be JavaScript only so the text is all there ready and downloaded, and hidden with JavaScript.

Is it a page load time thing? Has testing shown that a button like this causes people to be more likely to read the article om mobile? Or something else?

</comment><comment><USER52> Yup, we have to motivated to change the world if it is. Otherwise when we all think about the money, the driver of excellence will become less and less. Same thing happened on me when I am driven to make something to get money. I don't want money so I quit. Now I am creating something that people want, not just creating money

</comment><comment><USER53> If someone could answer, when a startup starts to exponentially gain traffic (and the server costs start going up), how does the startup maintain their servers and purchase new instances (say the startup is running EC2 ones)? Will the startup start taking on debt or will it look for funding or both?

</comment><comment><USER54> It's safe to be nice if your start-up has an exponential growth rate. How many start-ups have an exponential growth rate?

Considering that most start-ups are actually not successful, based on his logic it's better to not be nice.

</comment><comment><USER55> Human nature is selfish by default.

If you want to get it right, before a startup gets successful, predetermine a fixed % of free equity pool to be shared amongst all employees,and include that as a condition when fund raising.

<comment><USER56> Isn't that how most start already? Until every investor and advisor you meet will tell you to stop being stupid and reverse that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> I suppose the leadership team at Uber would be the outlier (at least the media would have us believe)? But then again, perhaps most of them aren't "founders" but hired guns.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's a fascinating essay, but being "nice" isn't exactly the same as under- pricing your product early on to gain traction. In the enterprise space, being cheap may not win you much love at all. Being faster/better/easier is the key.

Even early customers will pay more if you've got a genuinely better solution to their problem. Nice may translate into A+ customer service or features. But saying "I'm cheaper" is often seen as the hallmark of the weaker product, masking later costs and inefficiencies down the road.

</comment><comment><USER58> "to Randall Bennett for being such a nice guy."

Not surprised. The guy is a really that nice.

</comment><comment><USER17> The logic seems chicken-and-egg to me.

> _because so long as he built something good enough to spread by word of > mouth, he 'd have a hyperlinear growth curve._

Startups are not a meritocracy. The marketplace is too crowded, so any startup founder who has an edge will take it. How do you get word of mouth? By "growth hacking" and leveraging privileged personal connections, both of which I've seen happen time and time again from even YC companies.

<comment><USER59> > The marketplace is too crowded, so any startup founder who has an edge will > take it.

That also seems like a good reason to be nice. If you are nice to someone, it puts both you and that person ahead; in a crowded market, that adds up to being the leader of the pack. If you are nasty to someone, it puts both you and your target behind (there is an opportunity cost to being nasty; you're not spending that time being nice). You'll take your target down, but you'll also end up at a disadvantage relative to someone who just stayed out of it.

If you've ever played multiplayer strategy games like FFA Starcraft or Civ 5, you'll notice that the optimal strategy is usually to sit back, turtle up, and work on your infrastructure while everybody else kills each other off. Then when you have an overwhelming force, crush everyone who's left. Players who come out of the gate aggressive usually get taken out or weakened enough that one of the turtles can finish them off, even if they are very skilled.

<comment><USER17> > _You 'll take your target down, but you'll also end up at a disadvantage > relative to someone who just stayed out of it._

This is touching more on game theory and behavioral economics. And we know how the Prisoner's Dilemma is solved. :P

<comment><USER59> The iterated prisoner's dilemma's optimal solution is tit-for-tat, which is a "nice" strategy in that it never defects first. In game-theory tournaments where bots play off an iterated prisoner's dilemma against multiple opponents, the "naughty" strategies get crushed because they eventually encounter a provocable strategy and get caught in a defect loop, running themselves into the ground while the "nice" strategies dominated. This is the situation closest to the startup ecosystem. See eg. _The Evolution of Cooperation_ :

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Cooperation#A...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Cooperation#Axelrod.27s_tournaments)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Bezos is nice...to himself.

</comment><comment><USER61> As an venture investor, I would prefer my startup CEO's to be nice. Easier to manipulate nice.

As an entrepreneur, I've seen many situations where investors dump the founder, all nice and reasonable while they stick the knife.

        There's room at the top they're telling you still
        But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
        If you want to be like the folks on the hill
        - Working Class Hero, John Lennon

In my experience, most people are nice. But be on guard, and remember that execution and results trump everything.

<comment><USER62> _> As an venture investor, I would prefer my startup CEO's to be nice. Easier to manipulate nice._

I doubt it. You don't think you are the only person manipulating such a CEO, do you?

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Nice people give up more equity than they should and trust the people with the money.

If you really want personal success, you need to show strength, not be 'nice'. Otherwise, the only person you will be making successful are the venture capitalists.

I've seen this time and time again: many venture capitalists feel that new founders haven't paid their 'dues' and don't deserve to have a share larger than essentially an employee.

There should be statistics on YC companies: What percentage of founders actually end up making a significant amount of any buyout.

I'm guessing it's a very small percentage...

</comment><comment><USER64> Just be nice in general as a human.

</comment><comment><USER65> Leave it to PG to dismantle the myth of founder as psychopath with clear, succinct reasoning and basic math.</comment>


Cherokee (High Performance Webserver) 1.0 is out - <AUTHOR> http://summit.cherokee-project.com/the-cherokee-web-server-release-1-0-is-officially-out/

<comment><USER2> Cherokee should get more attention. Its gui config might put some hardcore users off at first, but it works well and Cherokee offers a lot of functionality in a nicely constructed package. In addition, it appears to run every bit as fast as nginx in my completely informal testing. Worth a look.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've worked with Apache, nginx, and Cherokee and I think that Cherokee is the best. The authors have worked hard to make it fast and robust. I agree with jonesy that the gui might be a putoff, but I have actually come to enjoy the gui interface and love the elegant simplicity of it.</comment>


Show HN: MySocialHike – Easy way to track your social media metrics - <AUTHOR> https://mysocialhike.com <comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for checking out MySocialHike. With MySocialHike, I am trying to provide an easy way to track your social media metrics. Please drop your thoughts here in comments. Thanks</comment>


Learning Combinatorial Optimization Algorithms Over Graphs - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1704.01665 <comment><USER2> Source code (work in progress?) for the algorithm is available at first author's github [https://github.com/Hanjun-Dai](https://github.com/Hanjun-Dai)</comment>


Tumblr CTO Marco Arment Steps Down - <AUTHOR> http://www.marco.org/1161306109

<comment><USER2> I tried signing up for Tumblr for the first time last week and it took me a few attempts because of page timeouts. I revisited again yesterday and the site was still having problems.

Tumblr reminds me of what Twitter went through - they are growing quickly. Good of Marco to recognize his limitations and step aside.

</comment><comment><USER3> I do wonder what he's going to do next. Instapaper is at that point where it doesn't really need new features, so I hope he doesn't try to overdo it, and instead concentrates on something new.

<comment><USER4> Instapaper should be on Android. Its parsing can also get better, Apple's Reader feature does a better job at grabbing the whole article and just the article (with Instapaper I usually need to first find a print this article link).

It could also become a good way to find new content as Instapaper knows what's being saved and should also know what's really being read.

<comment><USER5> For Android you should try Instafetch. Besides all the known features from Instapaper, he uses his own server to parse the articles. The nice thing about this is that he uses Readability's algorithm to parse them, which results in really nice layout.

<comment><USER4> The advantage of the same app on all the platforms is I don't have to worry about where I added it if I want to read on my Android phone, iPad, or Kindle. If I read it on my phone it should be marked read on the iPad. If I leave off halfway though that should be reflected. Etc etc.

<comment><USER5> Instafetch works with Instapaper's list of articles, so no matter where you add a link (or mark as read), it will be synced with all devices including Android/Instafetch.

Didn't have the chance to test if it remembers where you left reading across devices though.

Anyway, I understand the benefit of having the app from the same provider. My point was that if you need a solution now, you can have it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This thread doesn't have enough of what I expected: congrats and good luck, Marco!

</comment><comment><USER7> If that means more resources for Instapaper, that's a great news.

</comment><comment><USER8> Hopefully the new CTO knows to how to enable SSL on their login page and ecommerce pages.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> According to TechCrunch, he'll be working on Instapaper full-time: <http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/21/marco-arment-instapaper/>

</comment><comment><USER9> Instapaper for Android coming soon... _hope so!_

It's a gift that allows someone to design apps like Tumblr and Instapaper.

</comment><comment><USER10> wondering if it has anything to do with posterous?

<comment><USER11> Doubt it. 4 years in startupland is when your equity traditionally vests, so it's a good time to step back and figure out if you want to take on a new challenge.

<comment><USER12> In general, for startup like this, how big of a % does he going to get from his equity?

<comment><USER13> I think since he's considered a co-founder, it would be a considerable amount.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> In business strategy this is known as The Peter Principle. From Wikipedia, The Peter Principle is the principle that "in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to their level of incompetence".

As Tumblr grew beyond Marco's abilities he became incompetent as a CTO. Great job of him admit this and step down versus having to be laid off.

<comment><USER15> Do you have any arguments to prove this thesis? If not, then you are rightfully downvoted.

<comment><USER16> I think this is somewhat similar to that, yes.

"Tumblr's technical management needs have evolved to require types of experience that I don't have"

That's is essentially exactly what Marco said. Not that he was incompetent exactly, but that he was not suited for what the CTO job at tumblr had become.

I don't think it's the Peter Principle though - he didn't rise to that position. The position changed as tumblr grew.

I agree that it's wise of him to see this and choose to step down; I've seen other companies suffer when the founding engineers were not wise enough to admit that the technicalities of scaling from a medium size site to a truly large one was beyond their experience.</comment></comment></comment>


How do I regain managerial control of my "self-organizing" team? - <AUTHOR> https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/112596/how-do-i-regain-managerial-control-of-my-self-organizing-team <comment><USER2> I sure hope someone higher up in the management hierarchy learns about the events that happened. The person who posted the question states that some managers above him or her are on leave, so people up the food chain might not hear about it.

Obviously as an outsider I don't know the specifics, but if the team overall felt their manager was unilaterally instituting bad policies and further felt intimidated and unable to speak freely about it in front of the manager (as mentioned in some of the comments further down), then the manager probably should be fired.

Being a manager means you work _for_ your direct reports, and facilitate their ability to do their job, while intermediating with other internal stakeholders in a way that protects your team. Unilaterally walking in and saying, "I know y'all do great with your preferred Waterfall approach, but fuck you, here's Scrum" is outrageous. Being a manager does not confer that sort of unilateral dictator behavior to you.

Separately, the Scrum master probably should also be fired for not first trying to transition the conversation of that retro meeting into a feedback meeting, and asking people to think of it more like, "how can we give feedback to the manager, and how can we customize and tailor fit something in Scrum to make you guys happy?" ... and then go talk to the manager privately about it before having meetings with the team that are ostensibly about team policy.

In the best teams I've worked on, we would have team policy meetings and mutually come up with our working agreement about the behavior, attitude, and workflows we expected from ourselves and each other, and we would produce documentation (usually in some version control system, preferably with 'code review' for the team to weigh in on any proposals for policy changes). Treat people like grown ups.

If these people are pulling such a mutiny, there is probably good reason.</comment>


Chuck: An Audio programming language - it's like a dream come true. - <AUTHOR> http://chuck.cs.princeton.edu/ <comment><USER2> ChucK is pretty awesome if you're into audio programming. The syntax is infinitely cleaner than CSound or SuperCollider and I find writing real code more effective than trying to do visual programming with MAX and friends. I _love_ the model for time advancement in multiple "shreds".

The only sad thing is that it's not really managed to make the leap to a community project. It's still mostly a Princeton Sound Lab / Ge Wang (previously there, now at Stanford) project and I'm uncertain, well, sadly, skeptical, that it will ever really fully mature. It's still got some rough edges and there's not been very little progress on it in the year and a half that I've been using it. The couple of times I've submitted patches they've been ignored.

I've written a bunch of useful boilerplate classes and a preprocessor for it to allow includes, if anyone's interested. (These have also been posted to the chuck-users list.)

<comment><USER3> Sorry to sound like a complete amateur, but what can sound programming achieve?

Is it more than just sequencing samples or transforming input with code? Can it create samples? If so, is there any decent documentation on this for the beginner?

<comment><USER2> There's a tutorial here:

<http://chuck.cs.princeton.edu/doc/learn/tutorial.html>

These days synthesizers, samplers and whatnot are naturally just software. If you want to have fine-grained control of how synthesis, sampling or other sound manipulation is done, it's often useful to have a programming environment specifically made for that. The competitors that I mentioned to ChucK in my last comment are the best known environments for such.

I personally use ChucK mostly to process MIDI instructions and reroute them to a separate synthesizer or to send control signals to a sequencer. For instance, in one case I wanted to play a pattern of notes at an increasing tempo stretched to the track's tempo using a specific function of time so that the notes would be in synch / out of synch with the original in a predictable pattern. Doing that was reasonably easy to hook up with ChucK.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Damn, when I thought that I spend more time tweaking knobs than playing music, something like Chuck appears... no! go away! I don't want to play with you and get hooked!

I'm terribly unproductive with music, and this is just one more way of procrastination :). Very cool, though. I can see why writing programs for a standard language makes sense.

Imagine that you want to write some music that can be reproduced anywhere with any hardware. Kind of like sheet music for orchestral works. This may be the only way. Right now, we have problems to reproduce analog synthesizers from the 50's-70's. For example, Bernard Hermann 'It's alive II" soundtrack has a great synth lead (together with an orchestral arrangement). If some orchestra wanted to play that work live in say 100 years, good luck finding a working synth to reproduce that sound exactly. Of course, software replicates anything, but it may never be the same thing. On the other hand, a violin is the same as a violin 100 years ago (I hope).

Things like Chuck fix this problem. You can write electronic music that is 100% reproductible 100 years from now.

<comment><USER5> You're wrong about the violin. You still have to tune it in a certain way to get the same sound. The temperature and body structure and wood and all that affect the sound. So sheet music and knowing the scales is really the best we have. For synth stuff it would be nice to get exact formulas for how the synths produce the sound, but I guess that's considered a trade secret?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is fucking stupid stupid stupid. I have the same complaint for it as I have for Processing. The code should document itself and should not be cryptic.

Right from the tutorial:

        // connect sine oscillator to D/A convertor (sound card)
        SinOsc s => dac;
        // allow 2 seconds to pass
        2::second => now;

Why not something like:

       SineOscillator connectTo: digitalToAnalogConverter.
       2 seconds wait.

Why do programmers continue to create cryptic-looking languages? Saving a few characters doesn't buy you anything except confusion.

Like look at the functions: <http://chuck.cs.princeton.edu/doc/language/func.html>

Why should a sound/audio engineer be concerned with the return type of a function? Have one simple rule: every function returns something. Static typing makes sense for optimization but I would expect at least some minimal level of inference.

Yet another language designed for creative work that's hindered by the illogical mind of a programmer.

<comment><USER6> I agree. Every program seemed to have a few "while (true)" lines, often with comments above them like "// infinite time loop" :(

And another example for your earlier point:

// print out the shred id <<< me.id(); >>>;

<comment><USER5> If you know you're going to have infinite time loops, you might as well make a new control structure and call it `loopForever` or whatever.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There are similar things. Here's a lisp-based one,

<http://commonmusic.sourceforge.net/doc/cm.html>

</comment><comment><USER8> I was hoping for a programming language for writing software using only a microphone and speakers.

</comment><comment><USER9> Great video on Chuck here: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rpk461T6l4>

</comment><comment><USER10> The term "strongly-timed" is amusing. Too bad it doesn't really mean anything.

<comment><USER2> If you've worked in music programming languages it does. One of the major problems with the widespread visual programming environments (Max, Reaktor) is that they mix signal flow and time flow in often unclear ways.

In ChucK you have different "shreds" (threads) where you advance time explicitly by doing something like:

      1::second => now;

That makes the flow of time between different elements very clear and in theory (though not always in practice) it's sample accurate between different shreds. Durations are an ordinal type in ChucK, so you can also do something like:

      1::minute / beatsPerMinute => dur beatLength;

And then do:

      for(0 => int i; i < 4; i++)
      {
        spork ~ snare();
        beatLength => now;
      }

Where "snare()" is a function that plays a snare drum sample and "spork ~" spawns a new shred to play that sample (where time is advanced independantly).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> How does this compare to Pd (Pure Data) and Max? It's "real code"?

<comment><USER12> Yes - more like supercollider than connecting boxes.

<comment><USER2> And unlike SuperCollider, the syntax isn't shite.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you advertise your new service/app? - <AUTHOR>

What have you tried and what worked and what didn't? How would a new service present a face to the world? <comment><USER2> Create a Udemy course, with a use case that would clearly need and leverage your app. Offer that course for free on communities like HN, Reddit, etc. Works very well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Noted. Thanks, although I can't easily figure out a way to connect a Udemy course to my non-existing service/app. I guess some services will work better than others with this method. However this is something I'd never thought of, and I think it's brilliant in a way.</comment></comment>


Was dennis ritchie more important than steve jobs - <AUTHOR> http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/was-dennis-ritchie-more-important-than-steve-jobs/

<comment><AUTHOR> Dennis Ritchie eventually became the head of Lucent Technologies' Software System Research Department before retiring in 2007; he never led a multi billion-dollar corporation, sought the public eye, or had his every utterance scrutinized and re-scrutinized. Ritchie was by all accounts a quiet, modest man with a strong work ethic and dry sense of humor. But the legacy of his work played a key role in spawning the technological revolution of the last forty years — including technology on which Apple went on to build its fortune.

Conversely, Steve Jobs was never an engineer. Instead, his legacy lies in democratizing technology, bringing it out of the realm of engineers and programmers and into people's classrooms, living rooms, pockets, and lives. Jobs literally created technology for the rest of us.

Who wins? We all do. And now, it's too late to personally thank either of them

</comment><comment><USER2> Who was more valuable, the tool maker or the tool user? The tool user created value, but the tool maker made it possible. And do we need to consider the parents of each, for their part? These are probably well discussed in philosophy. My answer is that the civilization that produced the tool maker and the tool user is more important, because of interdependencies, comparisons of great contributors is problematic.</comment>


The Ultimate Women in Science Reading List: 150 Essential Titles - <AUTHOR> https://womenyoushouldknow.net/ultimate-women-in-science-reading-list/ <comment><USER2> Just a list of Amazon affiliate links (wo054-20).</comment>


Collection of Useful CSS Snippets - <AUTHOR> https://atomiks.github.io/30-seconds-of-css/ <comment><USER2> Most of them are oldies, but >goldies<.

Tooltips are my favourite CSS-"trick". I've seen countless developers implement those with javascript, which is redundant if you know proper css selectors.

On the other hand I don't find myself using the clearfix ( actually I ditched floats for layouts, long time ago ), css triangles ( usually some unicode arrow or an image ), gradients / animations and shadows are out of the current trend ( everything is flat / material these days ).

<comment><USER3> You can make sure the tooltip flips position to avoid going off the edge of the screen using just CSS?

<comment><USER2> You can position the tooltip on the left, right, top, bottom in the markup with a class name. This way if the tooltip is in the header you can use e.g. `tooltip-bottom`.

Having 10kb tooltip library for doing this automatically is a bit of an overkill for me [1].

1 : [https://atomiks.github.io/tippyjs/](https://atomiks.github.io/tippyjs/)

<comment><USER4> >Having 10kb tooltip library for doing this automatically is a bit of an overkill for me

Of course, but I hardly see how that's comparable to writing a React class "ToolTip" which is smart enough to know where the side of the screen is, and comes with the ability to use JS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> FYI for "System Font Stack" \- There is no "-windows-system" CSS declaration, so this is why the list of fonts is long... it includes each windows font. More is explained here, as well as an alternative way to load the fonts using @font-face:

[https://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/system-font-stack/](https://css- tricks.com/snippets/css/system-font-stack/)

<comment><USER6> i had never heard of this "trick" before today. why does this exist? i thought `font-family: sans` was meant to give you your OS or browser's default sans- serif font. why do something so elaborate?

<comment><USER7> The default sans-serif font in Firefox for Mac is Helvetica, but the default font for macOS is San Francisco. If you want to have your page use a system- looking font, particularly if you're building an Electron app like Slack, you might want to get past the browser defaults and instead use the system defaults.

I used macOS fonts in my example, but this applies to every platform.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Recently I was wondering how they created that click animation in material design. So i made my own and you can check the code here [https://github.com/ibudiallo/buttons](https://github.com/ibudiallo/buttons)

Note that it works without js, but js allows to position the button press effect right under the mouse.

</comment><comment><USER9> On one hand, great, useful, and very pretty. On the other hand this reinforces the use of such antiquated and hacky concepts as clearfixes, or floats for layout.

Also, the ellipsis truncation is very tricky to pull off. The parent element needs to be a block if I remember correctly.

</comment><comment><USER10> Truncate text has a huge caveat in that it doesn't work fully for multi line text.

<comment><USER11> I find I need an explicit width to make it work as expected

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> As an aside. I recently found [https://www.caniuse.com/](https://www.caniuse.com/) and find it super helpful as I get back into frontend development.

It gives you a clear picture of how well the different browsers support a given piece of web technology.

</comment><comment><USER13> The pretty text underline ([https://atomiks.github.io/30-seconds-of- css/#pretty-text-und...](https://atomiks.github.io/30-seconds-of-css/#pretty- text-underline)) looks pretty awful on Chrome 63.0.3239.132 (Official Build) (64-bit).

I like this!

<comment><USER14> The pretty text underline came out really bad on Win10 + Firefox 58.0.2, as well.

<comment><USER15> Looks good using Firefox on Ubuntu, until you select the text: [https://screenshots.firefox.com/YM46qCrVR3IA0Qar/atomiks.git...](https://screenshots.firefox.com/YM46qCrVR3IA0Qar/atomiks.github.io)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Popout menus are often created with Javascript with a delay of a second or two before they disappear, such that slower users can move their mouse from a tall element, over non-menu space, onto a menu item.

With the CSS popout menu, the menu disappears instantly, making navigation more difficult.

<comment><USER17> You can fix that with css transitions

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Horizontal and vertical centering - needs a height on the parent which is omitted from the example.

<comment><USER19> This always irks me.

People provide a CSS example but omit that the parent needs to be position relative, only works with absolute positioning (which it isn't set to in the example), only certain element types, or that the tree needs a higher z-index than the sibling or it won't work.

At least on Stackoverflow someone often remarks in a reply about the gotcha/limitation.

<comment><USER20> To be fair, centering with flex doesn't require the parent to have any particular positioning set. The only reason you need to set the width/height is because the centering happens inside 0 size box, which wouldn't happen if your problem is centering something inside existing box.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Looks like inspiration was drawn from 30secondsOfCode repo

[https://30secondsofcode.org/](https://30secondsofcode.org/)

</comment><comment><USER22> This is fantastic. Not only as a collection, but also the techniques used within the collection to apply in other situations.

> Browser Support: 84.6%

The percentage isn't very helpful. If a specific set of browsers are to be supported, even 99% may omit one of them.

</comment><comment><USER23> This is an awesome cheat sheet. I've been struggling with the constant aspect ratio problem!

</comment><comment><USER24> can i use custom css element's defined in some other library in another css? e.g. I have some html say <nav> ...</nav> i have a separate css style.css which would be .nav{ <class defined in the library i am importing> } basically i don't want to spray div/classes everywhere while i am experimenting with which css lib to choose, is there any elegant way to do this?

<comment><USER25> Use libraries that come in Sass form or figure out how you use them in a Sass-y way. In your Sass file (style.scss), write .nav { @extend .lib-nav- thing } and compile a new style.css. You won't have to touch your HTML.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> > Pretty text underline without clipping descending letters.

Isn't this the default behavior?

<comment><USER27> On my machine the "pretty" underlines are conspicuously uglier than the standard ones. This kind of thing is why I hesitate to re-implement standard browser behavior for the sake of improvement. Even if I don't like how underlines look today, I'm not going to implement my own. It will not age as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is awesome - thank you!

</comment><comment><USER29> clearfix example not working in ff

</comment><comment><USER30> I love you

</comment><comment><USER31> Is the link dead for anyone else?

Never mind, local issue with me.

<comment><USER32> Works for me

<comment><USER31> TY

Never mind, local issue with me.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Peer-to-peer chat example built with JavaScript IPFS - <AUTHOR> https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmVUvLMxTEaVBpiQBiBBdnv7ZTwt7pv8BxNhpPCMixuRBT/ <comment><USER2> How does something like this scale? The more hashes there are in IPFS the more latency, or am I misunderstanding?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, there is no global database. You just share hashes that you know about, so no matter how many hashes there is, IPFS will still be the same speed.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hello, I made this! Please try it out and tell me what you think. Annotated source is public here: [https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmVUvLMxTEaVBpiQBiBBdnv7ZTwt7pv8BxNhpPC...](https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmVUvLMxTEaVBpiQBiBBdnv7ZTwt7pv8BxNhpPCMixuRBT/docs/app.html)

<comment><USER3> An insane amount of `NullPointerException` messages are ruining the fun! :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My Browser crashed after a few minutes...FF57 @ Ubuntu 16.04 :(

<comment><USER5> Same here.

Every message (including sign-on/-off) creates a node in the DOM tree that never gets removed. That's about 15-20 per second at the moment, so this might cause the eventual crash.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> very interesting. seems to be handling the load exceptionally well, even if the system messages are interfering right now. latency is quite good to!

there's something I don't understand from skimming the docs: if I want to use IPFS for a project of mine, do I have to deploy a IPFS backend or there's a default I can use? it's said to be peer-to-peer so unless the peer are shared across all projects small implementation may have issues to keep availability.

edit: figured out there's a public gateway and one can also set up a private swarm. sweet!

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, system messages got in the way. Try this version without them: [https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmbZVv9q52znhF9wN6GVi55EJQYq2BR6oeTgzVn...](https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmbZVv9q52znhF9wN6GVi55EJQYq2BR6oeTgzVnLxFC7Uf)

If you want to use IPFS, you can either import IPFS as a library (which this application does, everything is P2P in the browser, by using js-ipfs and including it in the application, you can see it in the annotated source here: [https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmbZVv9q52znhF9wN6GVi55EJQYq2BR6oeTgzVn...](https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmbZVv9q52znhF9wN6GVi55EJQYq2BR6oeTgzVnLxFC7Uf/docs/app.html)) or you can connect to a gateway.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hello again everyone! Seems like a lot more people joined the chat and the system messages are kind of getting into the way. I've released a updated version here: [https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmbZVv9q52znhF9wN6GVi55EJQYq2BR6oeTgzVn...](https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmbZVv9q52znhF9wN6GVi55EJQYq2BR6oeTgzVnLxFC7Uf)

Please try that version instead! If moderators see this message, please update the link!

<comment><USER7> +100 awesome for the annotated source. A lot of these demos get released as minified JS which makes it kinda useless to use them as a guide or hack on them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Exactly what I was thinking and it's much nicer when you can actually learn from the examples!

The annotated source Rhapso is talking about is here: [https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmVUvLMxTEaVBpiQBiBBdnv7ZTwt7pv8BxNhpPC...](https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmVUvLMxTEaVBpiQBiBBdnv7ZTwt7pv8BxNhpPCMixuRBT/docs/app.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Rather than using a discovery server, couldn't you throw in the web3 library and use Ethereum for that purpose? You could keep the discovery server as backup for people not connected to Ethereum nodes, but for those that are you'd be fully decentralized. To keep things cheap you could use Ethereum's event logging rather than actually storing data on chain.

In any case, this is great, I've been looking for something like this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not sure how that would work. You would have to make some transaction on the Ethereum network for other peers to discover you, correct? That kind of makes the barrier to entry a lot harder.

On desktop, it's possible to use mDNS et al, we need something similar for browsers.

Please tell me more how I could use Ethereum for discovery of other peers though, sounds interesting.

<comment><USER8> Yes, so it'd only work for people running things like the Metamask browser plugin. It'd be nifty because it'd be fully decentralized, but for now, using the discovery server as backup would keep it working for everyone else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So you write a chat message, store it on IPFS and then send the hash to the other party? Why don't you just send the message through whatever means you're sending the hash?

This kind of app doesn't seem like a good fit for the whole IPFS idea. The same applies to Orbit.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, you clearly didn't read the annotated source that is linked both from the application and various comments here on this submission.

The chat messages are being sent directly to the other party.

Why is that? I think this app fits very good with IPFS. Same applies to Orbit.

<comment><USER9> So it doesn't use IPFS at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It seems like it's repeating old messages over and over, then eventually crashing.

<comment><USER11> mine didn't crash yet, but the repeating of messages was kind of annoying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> this is really cool, thanks! do you happen to know if / when this will work without a discovery server?

<comment><USER13> You can run an ipfs node locally if you wish

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Just one tiny suggestion, let users create their display name. The hashed names make it a bit unreadable.

<comment><AUTHOR> Already possible, check out the input in the bottom left. Not very obvious, but it's there already.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> IPFS is a protocol for file-sharing, not for file-hosting, right?

<comment><AUTHOR> What is the difference? You can host files on IPFS just as you can share files.</comment></comment>


Estonia to create "data embassies" to protect its digital identity - <AUTHOR> http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/03/estonia-redefines-national-security-digital-age-150318065430514.html

<comment><USER2> Nations distribute gold, cultural information, legal information, and many other aspects of their deepest national functionality, so this is nothing new. Erasing a nation is nothing new as well; take a close look at what happened to the people of Poland during World War II.

Beyond the obvious necessity of restoration if your neighbors are prone to invading, the capability is also preventative -- it increases the long-term cost to the country considering invading.

</comment><comment><USER3> [Spoiler alert!] Reminds me of the plot for Die Hard 4.

The villain is waging damaging cyber-attacks, but his real goal is different: He's trying to force the government to enact on of their own emergency plans, which collects and stores the "digital crown-jewels" into a secret sort-of- offsite backup... One that he knows how to steal.

</comment><comment><USER4> From a bog standard American perspective, this is amazing. I'd love to hear some commentary from an Estonian about this.

<comment><USER5> For starters, it is worth understanding our size. 1.4 million people make it much easier to pull something like this off than, say, 320 million.

The challenges are still considerable. The thing is that this basically means our key information systems must cloud-ready and such a migration triggers a change in the organisation. Which is not the main strength of a government agency. We are also looking at various ways of using cryptography as, to an extent, the control over the hardware must be relinquished.

Overall this is a huge technical challenge driven by basically unique level of government innovation. Basically we a re-inventing what it means to be a country (see also e-residency).

<comment><USER4> That is amazing. :-)</comment></comment></comment>


Omio's Journey to Connect Europe - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesdigitalcovers/2019/07/03/eomios-journey-to-connect-europ/#39d9b22628ad <comment><USER2> So I tried Omio to find a connection between two European cities and it reported 'Your city has no airport' and continues with a nearby airport. Like any other airfare website. Then I selected 'Buses' (I know a combination of buses that works) which resulted in 'No bus connection available'. Same for trains.

So they landed an investment of USD300M plus an article in Forbes for something that many, many others are doing. Respect for their pitching!

I expected something like rome2rio.com which for many years already does what these guys are promising but not doing.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have been traveling in Europe for the last month. It is madness. I'm currently waiting to buy a seat reservation for my eurail pass in Paris Gare du Lyon because Paris Gare du nord could not sell the reservation (it's the same damn company). With the eurail pass, you can get on trains for free, but for some trains you need a reservation, and it is impossible to buy the reservation online or even at kiosks, and there is no way to know which trains require reservations. Additionally, some trains sell reservations but they are not required. And this is nuts: some trains allow you to board even when seats are not available, and you just stand in the hall for the duration of the ride or until a seat frees up. And of course there is no way to know how many free seats are available on the train. Sometimes there may be available seats on trains that require reservations, but the train company only allots so many seats for eurail passholders and you are out of luck. So this is how I am spending my time in Paris.</comment>


Streetlight effect - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetlight_effect <comment><USER2> The streetlight at the moment is Edward Snowden, and this is a comprehensive dragnet op to surface his sympathizers, forever suspects as 5th columnists? That it?</comment>


Is Amazon Developing a PayPal Competitor? - <AUTHOR> http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/04/22/is-amazon-developing-a-paypal-competitor.aspx <comment><USER2> This is just sales fluff for Motley Fool.

Put your email in to see the video? Buy their premium report about Amazon? No thanks.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. They even have the annoying thing where if you try to click on the report they hijack your back button.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Don't they already have <https://payments.amazon.com> ?

</comment><comment><USER5> They have been moving towards this for some time now with <http://aws.amazon.com/fps/>.

</comment><comment><USER6> Checkout by Amazon always struck me as very similar to paypal and has been around for years. <https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/business/cba>

</comment><comment><USER7> Content-free, advert laden linkbait.</comment>


Oracle's Ellison: No way a 'normal' person would move to AWS - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/oracles-ellison-no-way-a-normal-person-would-move-to-aws/ <comment><USER2> Oracle is living on borrowed time. They secured vendor lock-in by selling custom solutions to big name industries -- hotels, finance, etc. Now its common knowledge that buying Oracle is selling your soul. There's no way out once you're in. I haven't seen a single startup running on Oracle -- because their pricing is so out of whack when compared with the alternatives that no one in their right mind would launch with Oracle as a dependency. Oracle has been selling the same old stuff for decades with hardly a blip on the innovation radar. Meanwhile open source database engines are being ran in production at scale without a hitch.

Cloud providers are making money not off the database software -- but from managing the infrastructure needed to scale, backup, and secure those databases. They are providing actual value to their customers, rather than asking for a pound of flesh.

If Oracle wants to keep their golden spot in the sun its time they stopped resting on their laurels and started giving their customers a fair shake.

</comment><comment><USER3> Oracle has a false sense of security because they've managed to become the default choice for many huge companies. Most of those companies are looking at AWS and Azure as replacements now. Does Oracle even offer cloud, personal cloud or Paas/Iaas solutions? I don't know, we never bothered to even reach out to ask them. We don't know where we are going, just that it's away from Oracle.

</comment><comment><USER4> Many have already so he was wrong even before speaking. I think Ellison might have a skewed view of "normal".

</comment><comment><USER5> Interesting, seeing AWS supports Oracle's own software (RDS versions of Oracle and MySQL!)

</comment><comment><USER6> Why would anyone listen to this guy?

</comment><comment><USER7> I like being weird.</comment>


Muslims Are Being "Slaughtered on Demand" for Their Organs in China - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@cjwerleman/muslims-are-being-slaughtered-on-demand-for-their-organs-in-china-b502133c725 <comment><USER2> > Now, a new report published in the journal BMC Medical Ethics has revealed > what appears to be China's effort to cover up its harvesting of body parts > from Uyghur Muslim detainees by falsifying organ donation data. It suggests > that more than 90,000 Muslims and other political prisoners are being > executed each year for the purpose of profiting from the sale of their live > organs.

I found the report since the author doesn't link to it. [https://bmcmedethics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s129...](https://bmcmedethics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12910-019-0406-6) There is also another news article about it [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/15/chinese- govern...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/15/chinese-government- may-have-falsified-organ-donation-numbers-study-says)

From the conclusion

"Based on the data we have examined, there is no way of determining the proportion of each of these organ sources, nor of China's total transplant volume. Our analysis of cases of misclassification (see Additional file 6) found that the apparent prisoner donors were up to seven times more numerous than the apparently legitimate voluntary donors"

</comment><comment><USER3> I used to be muslim for the 1st 25 years of my life, and I've never heard this idea that the organ should be halal. Even so, an organ stolen from a fellow human being nulls the "halality" of it</comment>


Identity Crisis: What happens when nobody knows who you are anymore? - <AUTHOR> https://web.archive.org/web/20180817154201/https://www.usvotefoundation.org/identity-crisis <comment><USER2> I think stories like this are a very good argument that the US needs to drastically improve how it issues identification documents and verifies identity.

<comment><AUTHOR> The fact that there's been massive system creep from what was originally an operator's permit (drivers licence), to a general identity document, to now, an internal passport (effectively) and anti-terror security document, and the impacts this has on ordinary citizens, let alone those with no fixed address (itenerant, contract workers, homeless), as well as service standards varying greatly between (and often within) states, means that the weeks- or months- long process can mean a slide into months or years, sometimes a life, of undocumented hell.

All for purposes of little or no benefit to those most directly harmed.

I'd realised this reading an otherwise feel-good story of a homeless man who'd helped a stranded motorist, who returned thee favour:

 _...After moving around the country for a time, he came to Philadelphia a year ago with a job lined up and some money to buy a truck. But soon after the job fell through, leaving Johnny surviving off meager savings._

 _Later, he lost his paperwork, rendering him unable to work. One night on the streets turned into a week, and ultimately a year of homelessness...._

[http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation- world/national/articl...](http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation- world/national/article186044173.html)

This is largely imposed for the benefit of the airline industry.</comment></comment>


Big Amazon AWS announcement coming tomorrow? - <AUTHOR> http://aws.amazon.com/register-livestream-cloud/?ref_=pe_undef

<comment><AUTHOR> Any speculation as to what this could be ?

Scalable, instantly provisionable retail outlets ?</comment>


Ask HN: How to get the flexibilty of containers without the need for another OS? - <AUTHOR> I'm just a little guy who has two saas products as a sideline which make 1/4 of my income. My stack is nginx/php/mysql/jquery on lxc containers on cloud servers.<p>I like my setup but wonder if I could reduce my container experience even further so I don't need another OS on my host. Has anyone got a smaller footprint than my setup but with the flexibilty of containers? <comment><USER2> I don't follow. Lxc is a Linux thing, so you don't need more than one OS, just one Linux host. And if it really is just nginx + php + mysql, then you don't need containers at all and can just use a reverse proxy under nginx and have each app talk to a different database within MySQL. Deployment would just be copying over your code.

I'm really not sure what you're trying to optimize away here.

<comment><AUTHOR> Each container needs managed i.e. packages updated and secured, just like the host. I was wondering if this could be reduced.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You could use a GCP GKE cluster. Then you wouldn't have to worry about anything under Kubernetes and likely have a simple deployment and update process.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I wondered about kubernetes but thought it may be overkill for my situation. I will have a look.

<comment><USER4> I find k8s makes having replicas available very, very tempting. Don't fall into it (I try not to, btw).

For me the good part is beign able to rollback a deployment... if you have a large base.

Also, be careful with what's inside your containers. Even small distros like Alpine have security bugs. Make sure you can upgrade the container with your app on in at least every 2-3 months (less is better, btw).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> \- Illumos/SmartOS has zones

\- FreeBSD has jails

They're both very well integrated into their respective operating systems.</comment>


The story of Timothy Dexter - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Dexter <comment><USER2> >In the second edition Dexter added an extra page which consisted of 13 lines of punctuation marks. Dexter instructed readers to "peper and solt it as they plese".

...zero f*cks given.

</comment><comment><USER3> My mom had this saying from her grandfather which was something like "While a smart guy still contemplates an opportunity, the simple one has already gone there and seized it". Oftentimes because he never thinks about the danger of his action, he just does.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think my favorite part is the ASCII art from 1798: [http://books.google.com/books?id=uboNAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA36#v=...](http://books.google.com/books?id=uboNAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA36#v=onepage&q&f=false)

(Yes, ASCII wasn't around in 1798.)

</comment><comment><USER5> My takeaway from this is that brains are superfluous in business and may even be a hindrance. Actually a bimodal distribution with Dexter on one end and Bezos on the other is more likely to be beneficial.

</comment><comment><USER6> ...And for him, timing was everything. That is my take away.

</comment><comment><USER7> What a great story! I have no idea how this is relevant to HN but I found it hilarious.

<comment><AUTHOR> It really is just a great story... but deep down I think there's some good business lessons here.

Luck matters, but deep down I think his luckiest break was having a great boat captain. The guy found profit in the most unlikeliest of places by improvising.

<comment><USER8> I'd love to read about his story, but I'd wager that he wasn't notable enough; it would be interesting to find his journal.

"August 17th, 1782. The idiot sent us to the West Indies with a boat-load of warming pans. It was only through my ingenuity and hustle that I was able to convince the locals that they would make excellent ladles - we actually managed to turn a profit! I can already imagine the smug look on Dexter's face when we tell him about this. I bet this will inspire him to send something even more idiotic next time, like wool mittens. Note to self, don't show him this journal lest he get any ideas."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Curious

</comment><comment><USER10> what a LAD</comment>