AngelList Receives SEC No-Action Letter Two Days After FundersClub - <AUTHOR> http://www.daniellemorrill.com/2013/03/angellist-receives-sec-no-action-letter-days-after-fundersclub/ <comment><USER2> How benevolent the authorities are! Can you imagine starting a business and then beseeching the SEC king David Blass to find out if your business is legal, and announcing with relief a "no action" letter? It cost Angellist and FundersClub a few tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees simply to find out what the ever-shifting law was. Worse, to be a CEO of a startup these days you need to be willing to risk jail time to launch a new product. For had Blass (unelected and likely unfirable due to "career status") ruled the other way, many would consider that a judgment on the legitimacy of the transactions at issue _rather than_ a demonstration of the illegitimacy of the SEC. And FC/Angellist would have had to scramble away post-haste from crowdfunding for fear that disintermediating Blass' banksters meant being fitted for pinstripes.

Go back and read the original TechCrunch article. People actually thought FundersClub might be facing jail time! What brass, what courage you need to start a business today in a regulated space. They took maximum risks, I wish them (and Angellist) maximum reward. I also hope that someday soon Blass is forced to cower in the corner waiting for a ruling by the people who actually produce something, hoping against hope for a "no action" letter, praying that he won't be thrown summarily in jail.

<comment><USER3> What a load...

The SEC exists for a reason. That reason is that the 1920's demonstrated that the financial industry couldn't be trusted to completely regulate itself, and would use information asymmetries to its advantage to bilk investors out of their money. Similar lessons have been learned with regards to the food industry, drug industry, manufacturing industries, etc.

A no-action letter is essentially just a declaratory judgment from the SEC offering an opinion of the legality of a novel course of action. It exists not because the law is ever-shifting, but because the financial industry it regulates is ever-shifting.

For better or worse, engaging in commerce with the public is not a right in the U.S., it's a privilege, and that is by design. That may not be consistent with libertarian capitalist ideology, but it's not libertarian capitalist ideology that's encoded into the Constitution. Rather, the Constitution grants Congress _broad_ power to regulate commerce, and in this case Congress has decided, over and over, that financial services must be regulated and has empowered the SEC to enforce compliance with those regulations.

As an aside, it should be noted that at least in the U.S., the government has always regulated pretty much everything that was commercial in nature and affected more than a handful of people. At the time of the founding, the government (state and federal), regulated land ownership, navigation by water, joint stock corporations, and imports/exports, which were at the time everything that was worth regulating in a country where most people still grew their own food and made their own clothes. They regulated the railroads as they spread and became important, they regulated business trusts by the end of the 19th century, they regulated TV and radio as it became prevalent, and as the corporate entity of choice shifted from business trusts to publicly traded companies, they regulated those too. One can imagine a world where none of these things ever happened, but so far the history of the U.S. has been one where important economic activity has been regulated.

<comment><USER2> Unfortunately there are so many inaccuracies in your comment that almost every sentence is false or embeds an erroneous assumption. I don't have the time to go line by line, but just take this:

      It exists not because the law is ever-shifting, but because
      the financial industry it regulates is ever-shifting.

But the law is indeed ever-shifting. Sarbanes-Oxley? Dodd-Frank? The JOBS act? And those are just the Congressionally authorized ones. The toughest part of dealing with the federal government is the fact that you can't simply read the law to find out what is legal or not. You need to pay a lawyer to determine what interpretations are in vogue with the current batch of regulators, and what's being enforced and what isn't.

      For better or worse, engaging in commerce with the public
      is not a right in the U.S., it's a privilege

Trading is a basic human right. The government exists at our sufferance. And prior to Lochner this was the common understanding. The mission of our time is to escape from people who believe a man's right to engage in commerce is a "privilege" to be "granted" by some unelected regulator.

<comment><USER3> > Jaw-droppingly ahistorical. The Wild West was not characterized by > regulation!

What is the flaw in your reading comprehension? I didn't say "everything" I said "everything" _commercial_ _worth regulating_. Central to my point is the changing scope and nature of the American economy, which seems to go completely over your head in the paragraphs that follow.

> For one thing, the de facto repeal of the Tenth Amendment and expansion of > the Commerce Clause limiting the federal government had not yet happened in > the early US.

The 10th amendment never created limits to the exercise of federal power. All it says is that in the cession of powers by the states represented by the Constitutional agreement, the states retained those they hadn't ceded. If a federal action can, e.g., be justified by any other clause in the Constitution, it is by definition one of the powers that have been ceded.

There has also been no real expansion of the Commerce Clause (Wickard aside-- which is best understood as a World War II case). The definition of the Commerce Power post-Lopez is more or less the same as it was defined in Gibbons v. Ogden in 1824. What's changed is the nature of the economy.

> America's defining characteristic from 1776 to 1860 or so was > extraordinarily low levels of government intervention

America's defining characteristic from 1776 to 1860 was extraordinarily low levels of commercial activity that affected any significant number of people. The vast majority of the country was engaged in agrarian activities--what economists would today call the "household economy." What commercial activity that did exist was regulated. Trade via navigable waterways and international trade were the major types of commercial activity that existed, and they were regulated by the federal government from the beginning. Joint stock companies were charted and regulated by the states from before the time of the founding.

The government (between the federal and state governments), taxed what was important at the time: land, international trade, trade in various goods people couldn't make for themselves: sugar, etc.

> You do also realize that there wasn't even an income tax till 1913

You also realize that the income tax as it's currently defined wouldn't even reach most of the economic activity that existed in early America? Income taxes reach market transactions, but before industrialization people didn't depend solely on the market for their daily necessities like we do today. Even today, to the extent that production and consumption happen within a household, no "income" accrues to be taxed. What's happened isn't so much that th

> Can the SEC be trusted to regulate itself?

It doesn't have to be. It's a federal agency, answerable to elected officials.

> You do know what career status is, right?

Do you know what career status is? It allows you to re-enter federal service without taking the necessary civil service exams, and allows you to apply for internal job openings even if you're not currently working with the government. It doesn't do any of the things you claim it does.

> We can trust the SEC to harass Bitcoin, Paypal, and startups. We can also > trust the SEC to be bribed or captured out of "regulating" the financial > markets.

The SEC, like most agencies, exists as a conservative force. They want to preserve the status quo until new things have proven themselves. This is not a bad thing.

> Given the events of the last five years, it is only extraordinary ignorance > or chutzpah that could lead someone to claim that the SEC protects > investors.

It's incredible how people who hold fringe minority viewpoints can convince themselves that everyone else is either ignorant or lying.

> No. This is just a rehash of the conventional wisdom. Without FDR's > regulatory state we would ostensibly be victims of those evil businesses, as > we are incapable of judging product quality on our own.

Information asymmetries, negative externalities, etc, aren't just things I made up. They're real economic concepts and are the reason regulatory states exist. I don't feel compelled to argue with you on positions supported by the large majority of economists in the field.

> Only someone who either (a) profits from the complexity of the regulatory > state or (b) is completely unfamiliar with its workings could fail to be > appalled by the level of corruption and incompetence that is its defining > characteristic.

I got news for you: we all profit from the existence of the regulatory state. My father left a country that had no regulation. It was a libertarian paradise! Get yourself out in the rural areas and pretty much everyone will leave you alone. It sucked. I challenge you to go live in one of these places that has little to no regulation. If you can't find one that is that way but also has an acceptably high standard of living for someone coming from the states, I'll assert that it's not a coincidence.

<comment><USER2>
      Do you know what career status is? It allows you to re-
      enter federal service without taking the necessary civil
      service exams, and allows you to apply for internal job
      openings even if you're not currently working with the
      government. It doesn't do any of the things you claim it
      does.

Career status means _lifetime tenure_. It also means (as you acknowledge) you can work three years at the federal government, leave, and always come back to get a fedguv job without competitive examination, even after _25 years_ out of the service. This is a bug, not a feature - after decades out of a job, federal law nevertheless stipulates that you must be rehired without a serious interview:

<http://www.hhs.gov/careers/jobs/keyterms/index.html>

      After serving three years of substantially continuous
      creditable service, a career conditional employee becomes a
      career employee and gains career tenure. Employees with
      career tenure have permanent reinstatement eligibility and
      may be considered for positions without having to take
      another competitive civil service examination.

As for the fact of lifetime employment, don't take my word for it; note the distinction here between "at-will" (characteristic of the private sector) and "career" (in the federal government):

<http://www.federalhandbooks.com/fedbooks/Personnel.pdf>

      As an employer, the Federal government is unique. In the
      private sector, there are generally two types of
      "appointments" – the "at will" appointment and the
      "contract" appointment. The vast majority of private sector
      employees hired by a company or firm are hired as "at will"
      employees. ... Appointments within the Federal sector,
      however, are a little more complex. When hiring a new
      employee, a Federal department or agency must classify the
      employee's appointment as "career," "career conditional,"
      "temporary," or "term."

And what does "career" mean?

      Permanent employees are generally hired into the Federal
      government under a career-conditional appointment. A
      career-conditional employee must complete three years of
      substantially continuous service before becoming a full
      career employee. This 3-year period is used to determine
      whether or not the Government is able to offer the employee
      a career.

It means "tenure":

      Service Requirement for Career Tenure
      An employee must have 3 years of substantially continuous
      creditable service to become a career employee, i.e. obtain
      career tenure.

Ever heard of the Douglas Factors, CFR Part 432, or CFR Part 752? These basically make it impossible to fire someone as you need to (a) prepare a "Proposal Notice to Remove", (b) wait 90 days or more for the employee's response, and (c) are subject to having your firing decision "mitigated" by the Douglas Factors (i.e. overturned). This doesn't include (d) the substantial ostracism you yourself will face within the federal government for the capital crime of trying to actually fire a tenured employee.

      Proposal Notice to Remove

      Each agency has a "culture" that defines the amount of
      information and documentation that will go into a proposal
      notice. At a minimum, your notice will state which
      regulation the action is being taken under, specify what
      critical performance element(s) the employee failed to
      meet, cite the evidence of unacceptable performance, and
      discuss the opportunity period (or the lack of one). The
      notice will also explain to the employee the time allowed
      for a written and/or oral response. Ask your human
      resources specialist for some samples of other performance-
      based notices to get a sense of what your agency requires.

      The regulations require that an employee receive a decision
      in Part 432 actions within 30 days of the expiration of the
      30-day notice period. This provision automatically gives
      you a 60-day period of time in which to work. Additionally,
      the Office of Personnel Management has issued regulations
      that give agencies the discretion to extend the initial 30-
      day notice period by another 30 days, so you are actually
      working within a 90-day timeframe. However, there are
      always those situations where even more time will be
      needed, perhaps because the employee has asked for a
      lengthy extension to prepare a response or the deciding
      official cannot gather and analyze all the information
      needed within the 90 days allowed. 5 CFR Part 432 lists six
      reasons that commonly cause delay and allows agencies to
      extend the notice period if those conditions exist.

Wow, six reasons that "commonly cause delay" and 90 days for the employee to "respond" when you try to terminate them. That response invariably involves mitigation via the Douglas Factors:

      However, reduction in the agency-selected penalty, known as
      mitigation, is a possibility in any action taken under Part
      752. Therefore, you will need to explain in any decision
      notice, and possibly in a proposal notice as well, what
      factors led you to believe that your chosen action
      (suspension, demotion, or removal) was the right one. Most
      supervisors who have taken any kind of adverse action
      against an employee have been told about the Douglas
      factors. This is a reference to a decision by the Merit
      Systems Protection Board that listed 12 factors that might
      be taken into consideration when deciding on the
      appropriate penalty in any adverse action. Your human
      resources office will be able to provide you with a copy of
      these factors.

And your HR office will also tell you that the Douglas Factors make it essentially impossible to fire someone. So that SEC bureaucrat has lifetime employment while they watch porn.

[http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal- eye/2010/04/new_sec...](http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal- eye/2010/04/new_sec_porn_bust_details_rele_1.html)

      None of the Securities and Exchange Commission employees
      caught using government computers to view pornographic
      images has been fired, according to the agency.

I give you the SEC, ladies and gentlemen! Perhaps now you may start to realize that the SEC is just safety theater, that no one can "protect" you from bad investments other than yourself.

      They're real economic concepts and are the reason
      regulatory states exist.

The reason regulatory states exist is given by public choice theory. So long as we're talking economists, I give you Nobel Laureates Gordon Tullock, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, and James Buchanan. Principal/agent problems and misaligned incentives systematically bedevil all public regulation; only private systems (e.g. Google rankings, eBay reputation, Amazon reviews) actually work.

I thought it was important to show that career status does indeed mean tenure, and I don't have time to do this kind of exegesis on all your other statements here, but as for this:

      we all profit from the existence of the regulatory state

No, we don't. The details matter. What fraction of people who think regulations are good in the abstract can name a single federal regulation? How many of them know that regulators can't be fired? How many of them have actually run a business in a regulated industry? Regulatory agencies are solely PR. They are about scaring people into the extraordinarily counterintuitive idea that some guy 3000 miles away in DC who surfs porn at work actually has Warren-Buffett-level judgment about the market, and is protecting you from making bad investments. Think for yourself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I just received confirmation from Naval Ravikant, AngelList CEO, with the following statement:

We didn't really announce this since a lot of it seems like behind-the-scenes inside baseball. It lets us know the legal boundaries of what's possible in the space and will inform our future products, but right now we're happy with the SecondMarket partnership - SM vets investors for sophistication, companies for background, and provides Broker-Dealer level protection and compliance.

The /Invest feature on AngelList is working well so far. We do curate the opportunities to those with a high-quality lead investor, and to date we've announced 7 fundings, 14 are closed or in closing, 18 are currently open for Accrediteds, adding about one per day. We've received over $6M in commitments in the last Quarter in 915 separate transactions. We have 12,000 Accrediteds on AngelList, and via our SecondMarket Partnership, can reach another 20,000.

Unlike others in the space, we don't think we can pick the winners - rather, it's a more open approach for any company with a high-quality lead investor. We also don't view it as a money-maker for AngelList - more of a community service. We also think it makes sense to augment it with our base service of introducing high-quality companies to sophisticated investors (VCs, Seed Funds, Professional Angels) - we currently drive 500-700 of those introductions per week, and drive about $10M / month there.

<comment><USER4> It is also important to note that the JOBS act, that will allow crowdfunding to be legal, was created largely due to Naval's work.

He talked about this recently on an long-ish interview: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2htl-O1oDcI>

The clip where he talks about it: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugDyaVLPj3w>

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I recommend actually reading the letter (it's only a few pages), specifically pages 3-4 which highlight the characteristics of the company the SEC considered important deciding to grant the no-action letter.

</comment><comment><USER5> > While being first makes for great PR, FundersClub can expect AngelList will > be the first of many competitors to emerge now that its business model has > been validated.

I'm fairly ignorant to the legalities of securities (for better or for worse), but how does this validate a business model? Doesn't this really just mean that _one dynamic_ of the business model has been validated--i.e. the SEC thinks you're legit?

<comment><USER6> I read that as "Because FundersClub has validated the business model," not because of the SEC approval.

<comment><USER7> I have no idea if FundersClub is wildly profitable or not, but I thought that "validating a business model" meant the model was profitable, not just legal.

<comment><USER6> In common terms, "validating the business model" can be as simple as other people going after the same idea as you. While that doesn't necessarily make it a profitable idea, it does make it feel more like an obvious idea whose time has come.

Even in the case of copycats, if the idea has legs enough to spawn copycats, that may also speak to its viability. Groupon is a great example of this. Despite Groupon's own troubles, it has spawned a number of copycats that appear to be doing quite well.

In short, validation doesn't necessarily mean profits. It could mean high signup rates with the later potential to monetize (ala Twitter), or it could mean copycats, or it could mean (of course) profits.

<comment><USER7> I'm not trying to have a back-and-forth but I think you are confusing business ideas and business models. Many potentially great businesses (high sign up rates, etc.) struggle to find a valid business model.

<comment><USER6> For what it's worth, I don't actually disagree. I was speaking hypothetically. The point was only that many people consider competition as a validation of a business model, and don't necessarily wait for profit (the only _real_ validation) to act as that actual validation.

In a lot of cases, this is valid. If you're a Venture Capitalist, for example, if you're waiting for a business to become profitable on its own, then you're not getting terms that are nearly as good as if you'd acted earlier. So even amongst those in the know, "validation" can be seen as something far less than absolute dollar terms, and may still be a valid rung on the ladder of decision making.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's worth noting that these letters do not waive the requirements of applicable money transmission laws.

<comment><USER9> Is it really worth noting? Of course they don't waive other laws. AngelList doesn't have a pass for murder, either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Good piece Danielle.</comment>


Show HN: Xmysql – One command to serve REST APIs for any MySql database - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/o1lab/xmysql <comment><USER2> Similar but with Go and for Postgres if you are looking for something like that. Used it in the past and works well for some quick prototyping: [https://postgres.rest/](https://postgres.rest/)

<comment><USER3> Or take it all the way to production with postgrest. [https://postgrest.com/](https://postgrest.com/)

<comment><USER4> There is no java client lib?

(At least it's not mentioned in the docs)

<comment><USER3> Why would you need a java client lib? It's a tool to create a http server from your postgres schema. You can then use your normal http client library.

Though postgrest does support openapi (previously swagger), so you can use the swagger generator to emit a java client library. [https://editor.swagger.io/](https://editor.swagger.io/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Reminds of ArrestDB[0]. A one-file PHP "plug-n-play" RESTful API for SQLite, MySQL and PostgreSQL databases. ArrestDB provides a REST API that maps directly to your database stucture with no configuation.

[0]: [https://github.com/alixaxel/ArrestDB](https://github.com/alixaxel/ArrestDB)

<comment><USER6> Which also seems to have no permission system and because of that is of very limited use.

<comment><USER7> Checkout daptin[1] if you are looking for a full-fledged solution.

[1] [https://github.com/daptin/daptin](https://github.com/daptin/daptin)

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the hint, looks interesting!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Postgrest does the same thing for Postgres [https://postgrest.com/](https://postgrest.com/)

</comment><comment><USER9> I don't get it; this doesn't seem to offer anything more than say, having a raw sql query in a post body, that gets thrown against the db. Except this looks a lot more annoying to write

I'm imagining auth and permissions and such will still primarily be handled by the db in either case

<comment><USER10> I suppose the use case is for when it's not practical or desirable to do the legwork of setting up a full connection, with libraries and everything.

You could imagine a "(web)serverless" web app with Javascript querying the DB directly over REST. Or embedded devices saving telemetry directly in a DB.

<comment><USER9> Im still suggesting the webapp exists, just in the form of webapp.com/db, to which you POST with the field query=SELECT%20*%20FROM%20table

So the one page takes any arbitrary query, and forwards the query on the client's behalf, and returns the dataset to the client.

Im not sure how the provided api is better than what ive suggested; they seem to me equivalent, but xmysql a lot more annoying to write, and xmysql is doing a lot more work for what looks like no benefit

<comment><USER11> am not sure exactly what operations xmysql allows but in the context of PostgREST (which is similar) the advantage over your method is that it does not allow "any query", thus, you can safely expose this api to the open web, while in the method you propose, i can run this query (i need zero db permissions) and kill your db

SELECT crypt( encode(digest(gen_random_bytes(1024), 'sha512'), 'base64'), gen_salt('bf', 20) ) FROM generate_series(1, 1000000)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> One of the most amazing pieces of software I've worked with recently is Kibana, which is a web-based visualization software that is part of the open- source Elasticsearch stack.

My understanding of why Kibana could be built and become such a powerful visualization tool is because of the easy-to-use and powerful REST APIs that Elasticsearch shipped with out of the box.

Hopefully a REST API like this for MySQL will make it easy to build similar powerful tools around MySQL! It's definitely something that would have helped with the PHP / MySQL applications I built years ago.

<comment><USER13> Have you tried SuperSet?

<comment><USER14> I don't love kibana, but with the ease of dumping structured logs from rsyslog to elasticsearch, it's hard not to use it.

I hadn't heard of SuperSet[1] until this post. Seems pretty interesting. Looks like there's potential for ElasticSearch support[2] as well.

1: [https://github.com/apache/incubator- superset](https://github.com/apache/incubator-superset)

2: [https://github.com/apache/incubator- superset/issues/600#issu...](https://github.com/apache/incubator- superset/issues/600#issuecomment-307960932)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your inputs.

Kibana and superset look awesome. I'll have a look at them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> similar but for GraphQl: [https://github.com/postgraphql/postgraphql](https://github.com/postgraphql/postgraphql)

<comment><USER16> Also related [https://github.com/stems/join- monster](https://github.com/stems/join-monster)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Is there a reason parameter names begin with underscore? Or why the page parameter is abbreviated to "p"? Why is a non-standard syntax used for multiple values rather than just parameter arrays? E.g. instead of:

/api/payments?_fields=customerNumber,checkNumber

why not:

/api/payments?fields[]=customerNumber&fields[]=checkNumber

Kudos for "sort=-{field}" though (I think); any commentary on that design choice? I've used e.g. "sortdir=desc" in the past; not sure which is superior.

<comment><USER18> Why not a standard syntax like this:

``` /api/payments?fields=customerNumber&fields=checkNumber ```

You don't need [] to look for multiples.

<comment><USER17> As another commenter mentioned, there isn't really a standard here. I thought "field[]" _was_ a standard, of course — that's the way PHP handles parameter arrays. In contrast, reusing the parameter name without the trailing "[]" does _not_ work (only the last value is provided, as a scalar).

I guess I got my answer :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> pREST is something similar for postgres written in Go. (I haven't tried it) [https://postgres.rest](https://postgres.rest) / [https://github.com/prest/prest](https://github.com/prest/prest)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR>
      xmysql now supports
      + group by
      + group by, order by
      + aggregate
      + single file upload, multiple file upload and download file

<comment><AUTHOR>
      > xmysql now supports
      + where clause on list of resource
      + where clause on list of nested resource

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I couldn't have used this many times over the years. Kudos

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you.

</comment></comment><comment> onion-soup How is this different from sending SQL to a remote MysQL server? It is literally wrapping existing interface with obscure query strings in URL

<comment><USER21> Somewhat less prone to SQL injection attacks (I haven't looked at the code, so I may be wrong, but this does limit what can be queried if implemented correctly.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Ah, NodeJS. Where people write userland SQL clients with string substitution and call it "prepared queries".

</comment><comment><USER23> It's not really REST if there's no link in sight. Why not just call it a HTTP API or a Webservice?

<comment> jbenner-radham What are you referring to when you say "no link in sight" in regards to REST?

<comment><USER24> Basically, instead of having a "User" response built like this:

      User {

        name: "Bob"

        id: 1

      }

You would have something like this:

      User {

        name: "Bob"

        href: "http://www.example.com/api/users/1"

      }

<comment><USER25> This kind of reminds me of hateoas. [1]

[1] [https://spring.io/understanding/HATEOAS](https://spring.io/understanding/HATEOAS)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> no permission system?

<comment><AUTHOR> as mentioned in another comment, the scope of this repo is limited. I will try to make it explicit by having 'when to use' section before. Thank you.</comment></comment>


Hipmunk Further Reduces Agony For Users With Flexible Travel Dates - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/04/hipmunk-further-reduces-agony-for-users-with-flexible-travel-dates/

<comment><USER2> Does anyone know of a similarly good service which works in Europe? I normally use skyscanner.net, but while it does the job, it's one of those headache- inducing websites the articles talks about.

<comment><USER3> It's a huge opportunity waiting to happen. If you add Easyjet and the other discount airlines, and then add trains in for close cities, it would be a huge hit.

For example, I live in Nice and wanted to go to Malta. The ticket was 200 Euros. But I found I could take a train for two hours and go from Marseille via RyanAir for 20 euros.

The same is true for Last Minute deals. Czechs will spend twice as much for, say, a week in Egypt as a German in a city two hours away by train (Prague - Dresden).

<comment><USER2> So true. I needed to go from the Netherlands to Gothenburg, which would be ~200 from Amsterdam. By crossing the border with Germany, taking a Ryanair flight and then a train, I got this down to ~100.

Someone, please build this!

EDIT: And don't forget to add coaches. Whereas they're not that popular, they're dirt cheap.</comment></comment></comment>


From $erverless to Elixir - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/coryodaniel/from-erverless-to-elixir-48752db4d7bc <comment><AUTHOR> tl;dr

Rewrote an #AWS APIGateway & #lambda service that was costing us about $16000 / month in #elixir. Its running in 3 nodes that cost us about $150 / month.

12 million requests / hour with sub-second latency, ~300GB of throughput / day.

If they continued to stay serverless, it would've cost 30K USD per month for API gateway alone.

$3.50/ 1 million requests @ 12 million / hour

$3.5x12x24x30 = $30k

[https://twitter.com/coryodaniel/status/1029414668681469952](https://twitter.com/coryodaniel/status/1029414668681469952)</comment>


Hacker Shows It Doesn't Take $8 Million to Clone Qwiki - <AUTHOR> http://newsgrange.com/hacker-shows-it-doesnt-take-8-million-to-clone-qwiki-just-321-lines-of-html-will-do-the-trick/

<comment><USER2> Qwiki won Runner up for "Best Technical Achievement" at the Crunchies the other night. Fqwiki is a statement meant to illustrate how ridiculously naive we have become with respect to "innovative technology". Neither Fqwiki nor Qwiki belong even remotely in the same league as Google's Self Driving Cars (which won for Best Technical Achievement).

Building a great company is about more than a hacked-up prototype built in six hours and, with luck, Qwiki might achieve this status. At the same time, however, Qwiki is being disingenuous in promoting a nonexistent technological breakthrough that falsely sets expectations for what "technical innovation" actually means.

Misinformed investors and entrepreneurs will only bring us closer to a bubble that may some day pop. Don't let the hype fool you.

Yours,

Banksy The Lucky Stiff

<comment><USER3> I couldn't agree more about the "great company" part. I am 99.9% sure that that Qwiki has more tech behind it than simply going for wikipedia articles. From what I heard at TC Disrupt, they have some content search & discovery tech behind it.

Many "great" companies took off because of good execution, not some huge technology breakthrough.

That said, your Fqwiki is still cool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sigh. Tech startups aren't ever about the tech. That's not the point.

Qwiki isn't about panning around images and playing back TTS. I know that wasn't what the developer was thinking, but I find people making this mistake a lot. Thinking of Facebook as a basic CRUD app you could put together, etc.

<comment><USER5> Exactly. It's not the how it's done... it's the problem being solved and how elegantly the problem is being solved.

<comment><USER6> It really seems to me that Qwiki is a solution I'n search of a problem.

What problem is it really solving? Could you ever imagine yourself paying for Qwiki?

<comment><USER5> I could imaging paying for a sponsored link at the end of the presentation or below the presentation if someone was watching a presentation on something relevant to my products/services.

The problem: People generally prefer not to read. Yet, people are curious creatures. If they could quench their curiosity without having to read, they will.

<comment><USER7> _The problem: People generally prefer not to read._

In Mac OS I have keymapped Option-S assigned to the built-in text-to-speech on the fly, so anytime there's text on any page that I want read back to me I can quickly do so with a keystroke.

You know what? I never use it. I generally prefer to read.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I just saw Qwiki for the first time today and watched the Natalie Portman qwiki at <http://www.qwiki.com/q/#Natalie_Portman> and you can count me in as a fan.

The clone (viewable at <http://banksytheluckystiff.github.com/fqwiki/>) definitely does not compare. It's like comparing the first version of Yahoo to today's Google... and Qwiki hasn't even started to improve their product yet.

Obviously the author doesn't care for the qwiki format but they are being short sighted. It could be quiet useful, especially as it improves over time in areas of giving you options in how much depth you want, the voice synthesizer, etc, by providing just enough info in a pleasurable format.

What I do hate about qwiki is their name. It associates them with wiki's/wikipedia in my mind (without knowing what it is) and it personally is a major turn-off.

<comment><USER8> Wow, I watched that video and now hate Qwiki. That's the most useless, annoying way to present information I've ever seen.

<comment><USER5> lol Hate is a pretty strong word. You sure it's appropriate for what you're feeling?

<comment><USER9> Have you ever heard someone say that they "love" an Apple product?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > over really disruptive ones like CloudFlare

CloudFare provides a great value, but how is it 'disruptive'? Seems like that word is becoming utterly meaningless. Being better at something than your competitors just makes you a good competitor it doesn't make you disruptive. Let's only call something 'disruptive' if it's destroyed an entire industry. P2P disrupted the music industry. Google and Wikipedia disrupted the local library.

Just being a new startup with a flashy website doesn't make you automatically 'disruptive' whether you're Qwiki or CloudFlare.

<comment><USER7> What I'm tired about reading are these startups who actually have invented no technology whatsoever, being called innovative technology companies.

Qwiki didn't invent the Text-to-Speech system they're using. And they didn't create any of the content. They made a flash file that plays back audio and video -- a technology they also didn't invent. What is remarkable is that technology investors (even really rich ones like a Facebook co-founder) are investing money into things that aren't even technological innovations at all. It's like even they don't know the difference.

<comment><USER5> <http://www.google.com/search?q=define:technology>

Technology - the practical application of science to commerce or industry

Looks to me like they have applied the knowledge of Text-to-Speech, audio/video playback, content curation, etc. to the practical problem of communicating information.

Innovation is not only doing something new but also using existing knowledge and tools to solve a problem differently.

I'd wager good money that if you gave a random sample of 1000 people the option of either reading a wikipedia page or watching a qwiki, a majority would choose qwiki. If that's not proof that they are solving a problem differently, than we'll just have agree to disagree.

<comment><USER11> Not to sound snarky, but I liked this sentence:

> I'd wager good money that if you gave a random sample of 1000 people the > option of either reading a wikipedia page or watching a qwiki, a majority > would choose qwiki. If that's not proof that they are solving a problem > differently, than we'll just have agree to disagree.

It basically says, "I think Qwiki is solving a problem, and if you don't find my opinion proof enough, then we just can't agree on it."

<comment><USER5> I agree that it's not the most elegant way to state what I was saying. What I meant to say was:

I'd wager good money that if you gave a random sample of 1000 people the option of either reading a wikipedia page or watching a qwiki, a majority would choose qwiki. If you don't think that assumption is a safe assumption, than we'll just have agree to disagree.

<comment> mike-cardwell I'd wager the opposite. People looking up information like to scan well presented text, not watch a slide show.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is disingenuous for several reasons.

1) They just received $8 million in funding to further develop their product. I.e. That money hasn't been spent making it a better product yet.

2) A few hundred lines of markup does not a product make. What about servers, security, user accounts, marketing, documentation, etc?

3) Polishing a product so it looks nice and has very few bugs is a huge amount of work. If he made a slick, bug-free clone I would be impressed.

3.5) ...especially with an automated system like this. It is easy to create something that automatically generates a shoddy result. It can be fiendishly hard to automatically generate something useful often enough for people to rely on you.

<comment><USER13> Not disingenuous at all. Qwiki won an award for technology innovation, the quick demo simply proved that their was nothing special or unique about Qwiki. Re your three points:

1) What does their future development plans have to do with anything? 2) What does server admin, marketing and documentation have to do wtih technological innovation? 3) What does debugging have to do with technological innovation?

<comment><USER12> I was responding to the claim in the title about "cloning" Qwiki. What Banksy did was nowhere near cloning Qwiki.

Turns out that Banksy is just claiming to have built a proof-of-concept showing that the underlying technology is simple. You are right that the three points I made don't have much at all to do with technological innovation. Point granted. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Qwiki's value is no longer in its website because the overall Qwiki site is not too complex, but the value lies within its brand. Winning the TechCrunch award, Qwiki is like TechCrunch/AOL's baby. they talk about it 24/7. Free publicity. 2ndly people know about Qwiki, it is now a person's first instinct when they see a Qwiki type of interactive website. Not everyone knows the site, but for those who does, interactive wiki is forever labeled as "Qwiki". That's something hackers cannot clone.

<comment><USER15> What is a non-interactive wiki?

<comment><USER16> A euphemism for "web page".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The hype cycle is a beautiful thing when you are on the receiving end. Unfortunately many worthy projects and concepts never get that opportunity.

</comment><comment><USER17> The same thing could of been said about twitter when it first came out. Recreating the feature set would of been very easy, but ultimately the feature set was not what made them successful.

<comment><USER18> No one ever claimed that Twitter was a technological breakthrough, though. People are saying that about Qwiki.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> While I don't find qwiki to be a good way to present data at all and it doesn't add anything for me to say this comes anywhere close is silly, it really proves about as much as someone whipping up a stack overflow clone with a question list with tags, badges and logins over a weekend.

As an aside, qwiki decided it would be good to start spamming out qwiki of the day to my email. Guess that is an opt out rather than an opt in....

</comment><comment><USER20> Anyone here who digs Qwiki's approach to presenting info? I tried it a little bit, found it mind-dumbing, and promptly went back to wikipedia. Anyone found it good for kids maybe?

</comment><comment><USER21> Does anybody have a link to the HN thread where the clone was first submitted? I can't find it, thx

<comment><USER22> This is the article submitted by banksy <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2131563>

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Qwiki is the reason why Burst 2.0 will happen in 2012.</comment>


Star Wars Visual Effects, from AT-ATs to Tauntauns - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIlYk7KQe-s

<comment><AUTHOR> Even though I've got a keen interest in computer graphics I've always found well-done live-action special effects to be more engaging than digital effects. There are movies who don't abuse the seemingly limitless power of computing but in my opinion there are surprisingly few.

Good examples where analog > digital: all the Ray Harryhausen movies, Alien, Aliens, Blade Runner, Terminator, Predator...</comment>


Request: Darken HN text color from #828282 to #717171 - <AUTHOR>

The text you are currently reading is in color #828282 which has a low contrast ratio (http://leaverou.github.io/contrast-ratio/#%23828282-on-rgb%28246%2C%20246%2C%20239%29)<p>Let's be better, let's at least do #717171! (http://leaverou.github.io/contrast-ratio/#%23717171-on-rgb%28246%2C%20246%2C%20239%29) <comment><USER2> You might want to check out some of the many HN enhancement plugins.

<comment><USER3> There are also more generic plugins, like Stylish for FireFox or Chrome, that let you add your own style to any website.</comment></comment>


Extra syntactic sugar for Objective C - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/haleret/icing

<comment><AUTHOR> I got a little bit annoyed with the wordiness of some standard Objective C operations, so I put together this preprocessor and library to make things a little bit easier.</comment>


Jolie – A language for micro services - <AUTHOR> http://www.jolie-lang.org/ <comment><USER2> this looks like a pretty cool abstraction for creating services. the code looks almost declarative</comment>


The Tool Every Web Designer/Developer Should Start Using Immediately - <AUTHOR> http://dailytekk.com/2014/02/10/bugherd-review-the-tool-every-web-designerdeveloper-should-start-using-immediately/ <comment><USER2> We started adding BugHerd to our client projects a few months back and it has single handily changed the way we deal with feedback and bug reports during the build phase.

No other tool we'd tried before (JIRA Capture, UserVoice/Zendesk etc) really worked well for our clients (they worked really well for us, but our non- technical clients generally hated them, and just fell back to sending us emails). The acceptance of BugHerd from clients has been surprisingly good.</comment>


Compliant Method of HDD Mailing - <AUTHOR> What is a good publication for shipping a hard drive to a client? This has possible consumer information. <comment><USER2> You can use the most secure methods following this guide (way overboard for unclassified information, but very useful information): [https://www.cdse.edu/documents/student- guides/IF107-guide.pd...](https://www.cdse.edu/documents/student- guides/IF107-guide.pdf)

Or you can insure that the hard drive is encrypted using BitLocker or LUKS and shipped to the customer's business location. For the hardware token to unlock the drive ship the key on a password protected USB with a different carrier to their business mailbox at the post office. Also insuring that the hard drive is double or triple bubble wrapped with really high quality bubble wrap and inside of the original or alternative plastic hard drive case.

For the key insure it is in one of those secure bubble wrapped mailing packages with secure taping (only way to open it is to cut it open so you can detect tampering).

This way if it is dropped the vibrations never make it to the hard drive, if it is stollen the key to the drive is not in the box and if someone did tamper with any of them it would be very noticeable.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well dang. That's what I was thinking. You said it so well. I will check out the link.

<comment><AUTHOR> I enjoyed the link, great references to regulation. So, i have a hard drive of a server that needs to be encrypted. Could I encrypt the entire device? Or just a partition?

<comment><AUTHOR> So, client just wants the hard drive. Doesnt want it encrypted. So...whatever</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Dial-A-Grue - <AUTHOR> http://dial-a-grue.com/gory/?page_id=2 <comment><USER2> It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.</comment>


SV firms could start protecting immigrant employees by moving them to Canada - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/silicon-valley-h1b-canada-immigrant-employees-2017-2 <comment><USER2> "For $6,000, a company can pay True North to fly the employee to Vancouver, house them for two nights, and have them meet with an immigration expert to sort out gaining residency."

I wonder about the BOS (Bill Of Services) involved.

Tentatively:

1) Air Fares (from WHERE to Vancouver and back) US$ 1,500

2) Hotel and Restaurant (two days/4 meals) US$ 500

3) Consulting Fees (4 hours @ 250/hour) US$ 1,000

4) Local transports/Taxis/etc. US$ 150

Total US$ 2,650, let's round them to 3,000 ...

<comment><USER3> What about getting a Canadian visa to enter into Canada ?</comment></comment>