Ask HN: Tell me your pains that you want paid solutions for - <AUTHOR>

Do you have any problems on a day-to-day basis that you just wished there was a product/startup that solved that problem?<p>If so, tell me and who knows...maybe you may get your wish :) <comment><USER2> May I make a suggestion? You are asking the wrong crowd of people.

You are asking a group of highly motivated, highly technical people what problems they have at their dayjob. This is the exact reason we have a hundred to-do lists, time-trackers and project management packages.

I'm not saying there is no room to innovate in the "serving other technical people" field. But if you step outside and talk to someone in some _totally different field_ , I imagine you will not only be solving problems but will be doing so in a less competitive, more lucrative environment.

You would be surprised/aghast at how crude of technical solutions many careers put up with on a day-to-day basis.

<comment><USER3> I agree. Go ask a bunch of moms or business owners what they want. not hackers

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This may sound extremely silly - but I'd love to have a desktop organizer application. Like I could decide to segment my desktop into 4 equal areas: games, pictures, applications, work-related. And then there could be a spot in the middle with an unsorted aspect. I could then click every item in the unsorted category and decide which category if any I wanted them in.

It would also be neat to have options on how many segments you wanted, the size of them, location, that sort of thing.

I'm not saying everyone wants this - maybe this will spur you into thinking of something else innovative. I just think that it's really annoying to drag and drop icons on my desktop as is - and an application could potentially make that easier.

I hope this helps :)

<comment><USER5> <http://www.stardock.com/products/fences/> ?

<comment><USER4> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wish it was this easy ;)

The problem most folks have here is usually finding an idea someone will pay for. It takes being at the right place at the right time and a bit of luck to stumble onto those tough problems that people want to pay money to make go away.

</comment><comment><USER6> I wish there was a tool with an Excel-like front end that let me do modeling coupled with a database backend.

It let me do a lot of what-if questions along with data input, formatting etc.

<comment><USER7> Does this get you what you need? <http://www.microsoft.com/en- us/bi/powerpivot.aspx>

I build the modeling and what-iffing systems for enterprises as a living, and we see some use of this for decentralized modeling. SQL Server Analysis Services does heavy lifting if you have enterprise data to worry about.

<comment><USER6> I'll take a look at it but first glance seems to indicate it's Windows and SQL Server only.

I was hoping for something that I could use on a Mac and let me plug into a variety of backend sources via some mapping utility/connector: MySQL, Oracle, NoSQL, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I want better documentation for all software I use. Just this morning I have spent 3 hours trying to _install_ something. Give me better documentation, make it easy to search.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think you will have a much better chance at success if you solve a problem that you also have.

</comment><comment><USER10> Startup idea brainstorming, research, and market testing :).

Small market for that though.</comment>


U.S. University First to Accept Transfer Credit for Udacity Course - <AUTHOR> http://chronicle.com/article/A-First-for-Udacity-Transfer/134162/

<comment><USER2> This is a pretty huge step toward getting things like Udacity officially certified and accredited. I'd love to see a future where the stigma of getting a degree online could be eliminated.</comment>


The Financial Crisis and the Systemic Failure of Academic Economics - <AUTHOR> http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/papers/Dahlem_Report_EconCrisis021809.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> The authors include some very well known economists as described here: [http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2009/02/26/and-you- think-...](http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2009/02/26/and-you-think-im- ornery-the-dahlem-report/)</comment>


We were wrong - <AUTHOR> http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/we-were-wrong <comment><USER2> Dear fellow HN dwellers,

If you read the writings of the Guide's author and do not recognize that it is misogynistic and advocating sexual assault, you have a problem. That problem is that you are mistaking sexual assault for "taking the first step."

You do not need to resort to pulling out your dick and forcibly placing the woman's hand on it in order to "make a move." There's literally hundreds of other things that aren't sexual assault that you could do before resorting to that.

If you believe that's a reasonable "move" to make, then you not only have no imagination, but your judgment of what's acceptable behavior is way, way off. It doesn't matter if this is a woman who you're behind closed doors with for the first time, that's not a normal, acceptable "move". That kind of thing is for people already in an established, ongoing relationship with a solid foundation of consent.

Without that consent, it is assault.

I strongly urge all of you who "do not see the problem" with the author's writings to do more research into exactly what consent is, and what women (as a whole, obviously it varies from individual to individual) see as acceptable, expected behavior.

If women are loudly saying "This is assault.", you need to take them at their word, because it is their judgment, it is their _consent_ that matters. Not yours.

Sincerely,

A married, 34 year old HNer who is ashamed of this community right now.

EDIT:

I thought this was obvious but _I have already read all the comments in this thread and all the "context" the excusers are providing._ If you think pointing me to that again is refuting my points, then you didn't understand what I wrote.

<comment><USER3> Ask 100 women if they find it romantic to be kissed without being asked or if they want to be asked first. I'm pretty sure the answer is: being kissed, don't ask.

The author writes on reddit:

 _IMPORTANT NOTE ON RESISTANCE: If at any point a girl wants you to stop, she will let you know. If she says "STOP," or "GET AWAY FROM ME," or shoves you away, you know she is not interested. It happens. Stop escalating immediately and say this line: "No problem. I don't want you to do anything you aren't comfortable with." Memorize that line. It is your go-to when faced with resistance. Say it genuinely, without presumption. All master seducers are also masters at making women feel comfortable. You'll be no different. If a woman isn't comfortable, take a break and try again later._

So I really don't see where this is assault by not asking first.

Thing is, if you try to kiss her and she doesn't want it, she'll turn away and that's it.

<comment><USER4> This is such a load of shit. There are so many circumstances in which someone may feel powerless to say something or engage in a resistive act, or may be physically incapable of doing so that the time. Rapists use the justification of lack of "acceptable" resistive force all the time, there is no place for this kind of comment.

<comment><USER5> There's a big difference between "resistive force" and saying no. Anyone can say no, at least in situations in which both partners are of equal power. In situations where one partner has greater power than the other, it's usually illegal for them to be intimate anyways (teacher/student, employer/employee). Also, if you, say, kiss someone without their explicit consent, I think it's pretty obvious when they are not kissing you back/want to stop (actually, I hope - never been in that situation, really, but at least I have lots of passionate kisses as a benchmark).

<comment><USER4> 1) Power imbalance exists in general between men and women, in favor of men

2) Rapists and society at large often blame rape victims for not resisting enough. Rapists do not have a problem with a lack of consent and relying on victims to stop their own assault is completely unacceptable. The kickstarter project in question advocated for physically violating actions to be undertaken by would-be assaulters and put the burden of stopping assault on victims and should this kind of thing should never be supported period.

<comment><USER5> 2) Rapists don't care about Kickstarter banning a seduction manual; they aren't seducing.

1) I don't think so; strength imbalance maybe, but not power imbalance. In fact, when it comes to sex and intimate relationships, women are usually more trained in socializing and have the upper hand in choosing a mate, and are strongly favoured by the courts [1] and the police [2].

[1]: [http://voices.yahoo.com/presumed-fathers-act-man-pay- child-s...](http://voices.yahoo.com/presumed-fathers-act-man-pay-child- support-507695.html) [2]: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlFAd4YdQks](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlFAd4YdQks)

<comment><USER6> Bot of your citations are totally irrelevant to the issue of power imbalance in private settings.

<comment><USER5> Yes, they're only relevant in situations when other parties are called upon to resolve a conflict that started in a private setting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Jesus, seems like an over reaction. Books and guides like this are nothing new, and should be taken in context/used appropriately. A nerd in a club is going to take this brash advice like:

"All the greatest seducers in history could not keep their hands off of women. They aggressively escalated physically with every woman they were flirting with. They began touching them immediately, kept great body language and eye contact, and were shameless in their physicality."

And not go up and rape a woman, but perhaps take a chance and put their hand on the girls shoulder during conversation to show interest, where they might have otherwise oddly looked away from them. Also, there's a huge difference between personal conduct in a night club and in a library.

Anyhow, I'm a nerd with a SO that has never drank and hates night clubs but that's my take. Seems like any other topic and people would be crying free speech and censorship. A guide like this isn't going to turn a normal man into a rapist.

<comment><USER4> > And not go up and rape a woman, but perhaps take a chance and put their hand > on the girls shoulder during conversation to show interest, where they might > have otherwise oddly looked away from them. Also, there's a huge difference > between personal conduct in a night club and in a library.

Touching someone you don't know is a no-no and many people find that form of contact (even in a night club) to be disturbing. Touching someone without their permission is just something you shouldn't be doing.

<comment><USER8> Oh please, we're now comparing touching someone's shoulder in a night club with sexual assault? If you don't want any contact at all with other human beings you probably shouldn't be in a night club.

<comment><USER4> There is a difference between accidental contact from being in public and having someone intentionally do the kind of shit the kickstarter project was advocating. Also, being at a night club is not an automatic invitation to touch someone, saying so is implying that women deserve the unwanted contact put upon them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I won't touch the issue of whether the action was right or wrong here on Hacker News, but I think everyone has to admit that this is a brilliant example of an apology done well.

They do not equivocate (the "sorry you were offended" apology) and they take direct action to fix what their users felt was wrong (new policy made) as well as somewhat atone for the original offense (donation to RAINN). It's also written simply but very skillfully: zero weasel words or anything.

I happen to agree with the action taken, but bravo in any case for the brilliant apology!

<comment><USER10> I don't see it as brilliant, I see it as a giant foot-in-mouth situation (which may be colored by the fact that I don't have a problem with seduction guides in general, and haven't seen the material in question) - until now Kickstarter has been neutral on legal content so if I see something I don't like, well too bad, but now there is a precedent for removing something because somebody finds it offensive, but others like it; so now they either have to issue an apology and retract the next offensive thing (say a t-shirt commemorating the ban on assault weapons) or lose their stance as neutral.

If they had instead issued a non-apology-apology they would have been of the hock.

<comment><USER11> Agreed. The more dangerous precedent is that they are willing to cave to a vocal group who may or may not be right. Without defending the material, because I frankly can't, I am troubled to see Kickstarter imposing its own value judgements on projects, and even worse than that, now subject themselves to the value judgements of whichever populace can prove to be the most vocal.

<comment><USER12> Private company. They are free to cave in to demands from a vocal minority if they so choose. They are free to ban anything remotely non-religious or atheistic, if they so choose.

If you feel so strongl about it, start your own company that will publish and market products in line with your values, get together with like-minded people to start an advocacy group and most importantly, vote with your dollars and encourage others to do the same.

It is easy to cry Free Speech, but hard to take actions to defend and strengthen it.

<comment><USER10> Nobody is denying Kickstarters rights and I would be the first to defend them if anybody ended up suing them over this, but actions have consequences, even for companies. If they don't cave in to the next offensive project (t-shirt with "I have a gun because I have a small dick") then they will stop being percieved as neutral and will hurt their business with some groups. As a company, they are trying to make as much money as they can, so they should consider the consequences of turning away people, even if they unquestionately have the right to do so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Reading some of the comments on that blog post, I left thinking: Am I a terrible person?

I just don't see what's wrong with this project, and I certainly don't see the link between it and "sexual violence" – where is Kickstarter making this connection? Say what you will about the seduction community, my very brief and infrequent encounters with it have been largely positive and I left thinking that they were a generally respectful, if a little bit misguided, group. There's some of their terms and techniques I don't like, such as "negging", but there's things like that in virtually every community that I don't like.

Certainly not sexually violent.

<comment><USER14> Grabbing a woman's hand and forcing her to touch your exposed penis is, I think, sexual violence by almost any reasonable standard.

<comment><USER15> Actually it's completely context dependant.

The context, which is conveniently being ignored in most of the discussion, is that at this point you are already "fooling around", at which point it might actually be a fairly reasonable thing to do.

It also says "If she says no, stop immediately"

<comment><USER4> What you are describing is still sexual violence. Forcing someone into a form of contact they didn't consent to, even if there has been some other kind of intimate contact, is still sexual violence. A lot of sexual assaults occur in this way.

<comment><USER16> So trying to kiss a girl that you've been out on several dates with is sexual assault?

<comment><USER17> According to what I've gleaned from the folks against this book, you need explicit verbal consent before proceeding with that kiss even if the girl in question has been with you for several years. If not, you may possibly be unwittingly sexually assaulting her because she was too afraid to say no. Even if she kisses you back, she may be doing so out of fear.

So the key takeaway is; you can never be sure if you're raping someone or if you had implied verbal consent so if you don't have explicit verbal consent, stay the hell away from her.

And for you shy people who don't have the courage to ask your partners for verbal consent and never get asked; it's better to be celibate than a potential rapist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> META: I know it's wrong to talk about flagging, but I think it's also important for the community for people to try to bring up good reasons to flag posts.

I read the linked article, I skimmed many of these comments, and hell if I got anything useful at all from them. Dating standards and decisions about misogyny and important topics, but they're also highly subjective. We HN'ers could argue until the cows come home and not accomplish a damned thing. In addition, it's highly emotionally-charged.

A couple commenters tried to take the conversation towards how a company should act in the face of public outrage. Kudos to you guys. You were drowned out, though.

I love talking about controversial topics. Heck, I'll post about the existence of God, the reasons for controlling speech, the relationship between organized religion and societal progress -- I really love good conversations among smart people about important things.

But I got none of this here. Just a bunch of people making speeches to themselves. Which looked like it could go on forever without either the writers or readers gaining much insight. I flag not based on the topic, but on the quality of the comments I see around the posting. So I had to flag it. Sorry.

<comment><USER19> Provided HN is going to remove categories of posts, I've always advocated banning gender discussion from HN. It's just not the forum for it, and it's the same circle of discussion you see on r/politics.

HN is a "cultivated" free speech zone, which is another way to say it's an arbitrarily censored forum where some legitimately objectionable material is filtered away, some good material is lost through false positives, and we _still_ frequently have garbage content and constantly moan about it because the "cultivated" part is supposed to mean we only see gold.

To state plainly what I see in this topic: white men talking about feminism presumptuously. White knighting; "as a man, I..."; mansplaining.

They're all terms I hate because they totally box out men from participation, which is destructive and actually its own topic.

But they apply here.

<comment><USER20> >To state plainly what I see in this topic: white men talking about feminism presumptuously. White knighting; "as a man, I..."; mansplaining.

But how do you know the person you're talking to is male? Or white? The person might be womansplaining instead of mansplaining for all you know.

Are you assuming they must be white and/or male because they disagree with you?

If so, is this because you consider opinions held by people of a certain skin color or biological sex to be innately inferior to others?

Something to think about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I don't respect this. I acknowledge that as it is their playground they can make this kind of judgement call, however I have always believed that freedom of speech also protects the freedom to hate and be a terrible person. There are countless texts, movies, and other 'creative works' which both condone and encourage violence against women, mass murder, torture, and other things I find abhorrent, but I don't get to ban any of them, and that is a _good_ thing.

If your mission is focused on art I would encourage the kickstarter group to go back and re-read the history of banned works of art, and pay attention to which groups were pushing for those bans. I suspect you won't like the company you now keep.

<comment><USER22> Freedom of Speech goes out the window when you start dealing with private enterprise. Kickstarter doesn't have the power to "ban" anything more than you or I. They're just addressing the kind of content they don't want to be promoting, which is totally within their rights.

<comment><USER23> There don't seem to be any direct competitors to kickstarter, so when kickstarter chooses to ban something from their site, they ban it from getting kickstarted. Just because they don't use violence doesn't mean they don't have power, or that their power doesn't come with responsibility.

<comment><USER24> There are lots of competitors to kickstarter, such as [http://www.indiegogo.com/](http://www.indiegogo.com/). Hell, the idea of a kickstarter isn't exactly difficult to replicate: we've seen many, many sites (App.Net and Soylent among them) 'roll their own'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think it's worth reading through the creator's response to the situation: [http://pastebin.com/zwHYzCZe](http://pastebin.com/zwHYzCZe). He claims and reasonably supports that the highlighted excerpts were taken out of context.

<comment><USER26> Definitely. Key part to quote:

> _The gist of the controversial advice is "Don't wait for signs before you > make your move. Let her be the one who rejects your advances. If she says > no, stop immediately and tell her you don't want to do anything that would > make her uncomfortable. Try again at a later time if appropriate or cease > entirely if she is absolutely not interested."_

> _The thing that the commenters on social media are leaving out is that the > advice was taken from a section in the guide offering advice on what to do > AFTER a man has met a cute girl, gotten her phone number, gone on dates, > spent time getting to know her, and now are alone behind closed doors > fooling around. If "Don't wait for signs, make the first move" promotes > sexual assault, then "Kiss the Girl" from The Little Mermaid was a song > about rape._

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Maybe I was raised by a bunch of rabid dogs...

But after reading the cached page... I really don't understand what the creator did wrong?

He was a guy that I a lot of people can identify with, whom is publishing a book about his experiences?

Is seduction intrinsically bad?

<comment><USER28> When the guide is written like a rape manual, yes, yes it is. It features quotes like:

"Pull out your cock and put her hand on it. Remember, she is letting you do this because you have established yourself as a LEADER. Don't ask for permission, GRAB HER HAND, and put it right on your dick."

(from: [http://www.reddit.com/r/seduction/comments/1dvnem/above_the_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/seduction/comments/1dvnem/above_the_game_part_7_physical_escalation_sex/))

The whole thing is disgusting, degrading, and has no place on this earth.

<comment><USER29> At the same time... if this same content was written as fiction, with the viewpoint character/hero accomplishing his goals through these same methods and relaying that same philosophy through dialogue or internal monologue, would it be (as) problematic?

<comment><USER30> Of course it wouldn't. Is that surprising? Fiction is different from a how-to manual and should be treated as such. It's not just the literal words in a particular paragraph, it's also the surrounding context.

<comment><USER29> I agree the context matters, but there's a long history of equivocating the fictional and instructional, on the part of people who try to draw these lines with regards to speech. [1]

I simply don't think the line is as clear-cut, for many of those who were outraged at Kickstarter. I think the company may have inadvertently stepped out onto a PR tight-rope.

[1] Note the use of words like 'murder simulator'/'rape simulator' or the outrage and claims of sexism/homophobia/stereotyping whenever there's a fictional representation of a character or situation that happens to (however briefly) conform to some stereotype.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Great apology. Right to the point, no dodging blame, and an acknowledgement of the debt to society.

Now, that being said, is this not a take on the book "the game", about picking up women? Am I missing something or is Kickstarter now picking and choosing what is "good" content? Obviously they have to do this to some extent, but where is the line drawn?

<comment><USER32> I read "The Game", I was curious. It's less how-to guide than a journalist foray into becoming ingrained into the pick up community. Any behavior by the people in the book is just stating facts about what they did. So while it might be viewed as a beginner guide, it's more of a story than anything else.

I believe this is more akin to a guide to specific actions that you should take that are basically misogynistic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> No, they weren't wrong. They decided not to do a snap judgement on a controversial topic. Let it slip with what little time is left, examine post facto how it got through, tighten the cracks, explain it to the punters. They did everything right except think that they did it 'so wrong'. Making snap judgments on new areas of information can bite you back and make things much worse.

</comment><comment><USER34> For the sake of completion: [http://pastebin.com/zwHYzCZe](http://pastebin.com/zwHYzCZe) This is a statement on the matter by the author, linked in the original Reddit thread.

<comment><USER35> Relevant quote from your link:

 _" The thing that the commenters on social media are leaving out is that the advice was taken from a section in the guide offering advice on what to do AFTER a man has met a cute girl, gotten her phone number, gone on dates, spent time getting to know her, and now are alone behind closed doors fooling around. If "Don't wait for signs, make the first move" promotes sexual assault, then "Kiss the Girl" from The Little Mermaid was a song about rape."_

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I'll probably get down voted for this, but reading through what was written, and based on the fact woman LOVE the book, 50 shades of grey. I'm kind of lost as to why on one side everyones offended, and on the other side its what they desire... Yet get offended.

<comment><USER20> It's a power differential thing, I think.

What's most baffling is that...

With feminists: It's ok if women want sex, but not ok for men to want sex.

With fundamentalist conservatives: It's ok if men want sex, but not ok for women to want sex.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> The linked blog post has an update that is really interesting:

[UPDATE: In the opening paragraph of this beast I mentioned a Kickstarter campaign that I am passionate about, that represents everything I like about Kickstarter. But for some reason I am getting bombarded with e-mails from people that think that project and "Above The Game" are connected. And now people are pulling funding for the project I'm pumped for. Because of that, I've removed any mention of them by name.]

Makes you question if any thought was put into the situation by many of the people who are outraged.

</comment><comment><USER38> Has anyone read the actual response from the book author? [http://pastebin.com/zwHYzCZe](http://pastebin.com/zwHYzCZe)

</comment><comment><USER39> Just read this thread, and it applies to my newly learned wonder phrase:

"Tyranny is the suppression of nuance"

Not many people working with the nuance here, are there? Its gotten very black and white , and if you don't agree with one side, you must simply be a sexual predator.

</comment><comment><USER40> I guess to understand this one has to consider that Kickstarter is based in puritan America?

<comment><USER33> I'm not sure where you get that from. Puritans have never been big on the rights of women.

<comment><USER41> Puritans in 1600, no. Puritan America in the 2000's, sex is a very taboo subject, especially when it comes to women.

<comment><USER42> This was clearly, obviously, blatantly not in response to anyones hangups about sex in general. Not wanting to be associated with creepy, rapey stuff written by and for creepy, rapey people is hardly Puritanical, it's more like being a human being.

<comment><USER43> But judging this content as creepy and rapey is quite puritanical.

All this screams about rape for something that sums up to "you're about to have sex? Don't ask her to grab your dick, guide her hand to it".

<comment><USER42> No, it is not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> >> _" the decision had to be made immediately"_.

Kickstarter believes their only choices are "allow to continue unimpeded" or "cancel the project". This incident suggests a third possibility: "flag for review". They could set up a policy which allows them to temporarily suspend a project, placing a short-term hold on project funds so that they do not go either to the creator or get refunded. The review process would need to be fast and transparent, but not so fast as to require snap judgments.

</comment><comment><USER45> I don't think Kickstarter's response to this incident is incorrect.

We're talking about the legitimacy of a single blog post vetoing 686 backers (according to the cached link on the kickstarter post) from what it looks like from the kickstarter post.

I don't think that this response was particularly measured:

-1) Does it only take a single blog post to have kickstarter ban a project?

1a) Can we be certain that the blog post did not take the passage out of context?

1b) Can they be sure that the seduction manual was intentionally promoting the alleged "sexual violence"?

1c) Was there any reasonable attempt to communicate with the author to address the paragraphs in issue?

-2) What number of the kickstarter community reacting negatively to this project?

2a) Was "Sexual violence" the only controversial topic?

2b) Was a specific (kickstarter) clause for violation cited?

2c) Was any law broken because of this project?

3)Can malicious intent be proven?

[1] If you actually look at the link to reddit comment link I don't even see conversation that could be taken as people taking this as "sexual violence" and there is even one comment from a female user (derina585) that recommends changing the language and offering advice.

This reaction to lynch mob the guy is unwarrented and is somehow legitimized by kickstarter's "apology." I think that we need to take a closer look at the information before jumping to conclusions here.

</comment><comment><USER46> Heh. So enslaving sentient organisms for the purposes of entertainment (cockroach robot app) is classed as a "creative work", while teaching teenagers how to pick up women results in outcry?

And no I'm not suggesting some equivalence between women and cockroaches, I'm objecting to their frivolous dismissal of the project on the grounds of it not being a "creative work".

</comment><comment><USER47> What a cesspool of a thread. Why is HN consistently at its worst when gender issues are brought up?

</comment><comment> mkr-hn I see the same quote about stopping if there's any rejection being repeated endlessly in this thread. Treating consent as a simple yes/no ignores the reality of a culture where women are taught to be quiet and compliant, and where they're punished when they don't go along. In a culture where half the population is treated as subservient objects, it's a good idea to seek explicit consent every time.

<comment><USER48> There is no monolithic "culture" of which all humans are members and of which all women are treated as subservient objects. There are in fact many overlapping cultures throughout humankind and there is a staggering array of diversity among them in all kinds of dimensions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Wait, I'm going to sidestep the whole book's ultra-crazy content and ask a kind of really obvious logistic question:

Why the hell was he doing a kickstarter for a book he could easily publish online for 0 money down and only cost him the time to write it and maybe get a copy editor?

The content of this book, and most similar unpopular material, is designed for the internet. That's how 50 Shades of Gray got its start, and there's been underground sex and erotica content for decades online. Doing a kickstarter just seems like a blatant scam or complete laziness, either are an indication that he won't finish the book.

So why the hell was he doing a kickstarter? Idiot.

<comment><USER50> Brilliant actually. Look at all the people talking about his book now.

<comment><USER49> Looked like he already had people talking about it, and this was definitely not planned. It's a stroke of pure luck not genius.

<comment><USER50> The point I was trying to make is that publicity itself is often the reason projects get put up on Kickstarter.

I suspect the author did the Kickstarter project knowing he could effectively publish for free but wanted to generate the buzz that currently comes with having a Kickstarter project. And maybe even to gauge interest. If he wouldn't have been able to raise $2K then it may have been worth dropping the idea altogether.

The negative publicity is the stroke of pure luck. Now he'll make even more because of the free publicity the book is getting now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Here is an entire quote from one of his passages on a reddit thread:

Hi guys. First off, big props to thesacred. I went out with him yesterday and he has tons of game. Looking forward to many scandalous nights with him and others in Tokyo. He skipped the club to go attempt a threesome! Awesome!

Anyway, if you've followed my FR's recently, you've probably seen me mention the Physical Push/Pull (PPP) move I've been using. It's basically where you substitute actual physical pushes and pulls for emotional push/pulls, OR combine them with emotional push/pulls for maximum effect.

I was field testing it as an OPENER in the club yesterday and my GOD did it work. I highly recommend some of you guys try this out, but it's not for the faint of heart.

Example:

[see girl on dancefloor or near bar]

[approach]

[hook her in with your arm] "Aww you're so cute. Come here." [shove her aside HARD, seemingly randomly]

[approach someone else and say hi]

[Turn around. About 75% of the time she'll be staring at you with a huge grin on her face.]

[Walk back over to her.] "You really are so cute, you know that?"

[repeat]

This is one of those "reality destroyer" openers where girls have NO IDEA what just happened. You can open as many sets as you want throughout the club/bar this way and decide which ones you wanna pursue further at your leisure.

I did this yesterday in a dance club.

I re-open a girl by walking up, grabbing her, caveman-ing her against the wall & kissing her. Then I cast her aside and get a drink at the bar. The entire time she is staring like "OMG who is this guy?" (in a good way).

I come back to her with my drink. "Come on, let's go."

I walk her to the corner, escalate kino, smalltalk a bit. Fast forward and guess who is getting a BJ in the dark corner of the club? THIS GUY!

Gentlemen, try this out. It's not only extremely effective but it's hilariously fun. Your friends' jaws will hit the floor when they see you pull this off.

Go and do likewise, gents.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/seduction/comments/f6ve5/fr_tofutofu...](http://www.reddit.com/r/seduction/comments/f6ve5/fr_tofutofus_physical_pushpull_as_an_opener_short/)

</comment><comment><USER52> This book will sell more copies now that it's been banned by Kickstarter.

I'm curious how the funding was going before this, I can't imagine it was getting much traction.

I quantify this as a paranoid over reaction by Kickstarter, if the post wasn't breaking any of their terms of service.

<comment><USER50> Agreed and now about a million more people will have heard about this project that otherwise probably wouldn't have.

This reminds me a little of when The Last Temptation of Christ came out in the late 80's. All the bible-thumpers were screaming about how blasphemous it was and that everyone should boycot it. Which, of course, people being people they did the exact opposite and had to endure what turned out to be a pretty bad film.

<comment><USER53> Also the Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, which due to the protests, banning by all the Islamic countries, the fatwah on the author and associated press (and this was in the days of before the Internet!)just made the sales go through the roof.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Kickstarter should claim safe-harbor as they are a conduit.

This case means they open themselves up to being required to censor every project for every jurisdiction. Kickstarter apparently views the cost of that censorship as much less than the community cost.

Seems unlikely to be the case.

<comment><USER55> I believe they've always censored in a fairly opinionated manner. I'd only be speculating if I tried to say why, but I imagine it's to do with wanting a much more active audience - a site needs to do a lot more to make you give your money than just keep on reading. If their projects list turned people away they'd be in a lot of trouble.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> It's easy to see why there aren't more women in computing with the mountain of rape culture, misogyny, and male privilege on display in these comments.

<comment><USER57> Odd you should say so. My wife is a programmer, and distances herself from the online computing world not because of "misogyny", but because of this insane crowd of privileged people who insist on pretending to be victims in her name.

<comment><USER56> Nice straw-man, since I never claimed to be a victim (I was merely making an observation). Also citing your wife's individual experience is a red herring since she alone does not represent a large sample size.

<comment><USER57> I didn't say anything about you or what you claim. Resorting to the logical fallacy fallacy is pretty poor in general, but quite ridiculous when you aren't even using the terms correctly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> A lot of comments are getting into the issue of whether or not seduction stuff is appropriate/misogynistic/etc., which I think is missing the point.

Kickstarter received a _vocal_ outcry against the material. They responded quickly and fairly to remediate the issue. There are tons of times that a business is pressured/advised to stop doing something when that 'something' isn't strictly illegal or immoral. How they respond to those opportunities defines them going forward.

Part of Kickstarter's value proposition now is a certain level of content curation: moving forward, they're much less the 'anything-goes' crowdfunding platform than they used to be. I suspect they're okay with this, given how much they're pushing the social networking aspect of their site (and for good reason -- their stats on how many users went from funding the Veronica Mars or Zach Braff kickstarters to other initiatives were pretty impressive.)

Free enterprise, of course, also dictates that now there's a vacuum for a competitor which has less (or no) qualms about stuff like this.

</comment><comment><USER58> I am a fan of "I'm sorry" posts, though they have become frequent enough to become cliche. When they put a $25K donation behind the apology, then it's a lot more than false humility.

"Fourth, today Kickstarter will donate $25,000 to an anti-sexual violence organization called RAINN. It's an excellent organization that combats exactly the sort of problems our inaction may have encouraged."

Well done!

</comment><comment><USER59> I can't believe I haven't seen a single comment about non-verbal communication. No, a girl doesn't want you to ask for a kiss (it comes off as incredibly lacking in self confidence), but she better be touching you, smiling a lot (at you not just in general), laughing at your jokes, playing with her hair and/or many other things that show you she's saying she wants you to go further.

Everyone here is talking exclusively about verbal communication, but in courting non-verbal communication is the key context. Women are masters of it, but most men are only barely aware of it and that's where most of the problems in these kinds of materials come from and how well authors teach inept men how to read and respond to body language is what really separates a decent "dating" guide from a misogynistic "how to get charged with sexual assault" guide.

The Guide's author is a horrible writer and only makes passing references to reading non-verbal communication, but builds all of his "techniques" upon it. That's why they are all so horrible.

If you're chatting with a girl and she's smiling, playing with her hair and glancing down when you make prolonged eye contact you're probably okay to brush against her arm or touch her shoulder or elbow or even if you're bold pick her up and put her in your lap (but that'd force a girl to immediately decide if she likes you or to reject you).

In contrast if you're talking at a girl and she answers in the minimum length sentences, won't look at you, and has her arms crossed then touching her in anyway is going to make her want to get the hell away form you.

Similarly if you're in your bedroom because she came home with you when you invited her, you've been making out and her shirt is off then opening your pants and putting her hand on your penis probably isn't the smoothest thing, but probably isn't a deal breaker for her at that point either.

Again opposed to you sharing a taxi with her and asking her 10 times if you can come up for coffee/tea/drink then once you're inside her place and pulling your penis out, that's probably going to get you thrown out at the very least if not having the cops called on you.

This guide focuses exclusively on what the guy should "do" which, without a similar guide on how to know how and when to "do" those things, will lead to bad out comes if not sexual assault. It's written from the perspective of an instruction manual for a video game/passive object (the girl), which is a lot of what misogyny is all about, do A then B then C and you save the princess.

</comment><comment> mkr-hn For those who want to see what this book would have looked like, it's a collection and expansion of the author's posts on /r/seduction: [http://www.reddit.com/r/seduction/comments/11piau/above_the_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/seduction/comments/11piau/above_the_game_part_1_primer_on_who_you_will/)

</comment><comment><USER60> So, were they also wrong to allow Cards Against Humanity?

</comment><comment><USER61> Look at all these HNers defending sexual assault.

<comment><USER15> I think you're a murderer.

Anyone who defends you is defending murder.

<comment><USER62> brilliant analogy apart from the bit where this guide actually does advocate sexual assault.

<comment><USER15> According to who? Your opinion? Did you even read the author's defense?

<comment><USER62> Yes of course I have. I have also read the guides on reddit where he tells the reader to sexually assault their partner.

<comment><USER63> Please link to said guide and describe exactly how to navigate to this section.

<comment><USER62> Here you go:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:40tT3ne...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:40tT3neK7egJ:www.reddit.com/r/seduction/comments/1dvnem/above_the_game_part_7_physical_escalation_sex/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk)

Search for 'permission' to find him directly telling the reader not to ask for consent.

<comment><USER63> The chapter linked appears to be called "Physical Escalation and Sex" and seems to be very late in the book.

Consent is assumed in the situation because of all the stuff leading up to it. Like the getting the number, the going out on dates, talking a lot, and finally ending up alone with them in their or your own residence.

Are you sure you've had sexual congress with a woman before? As many other posters are pointing out in this thread, most _real_ women absolutely do not want to be asked for permission every step of the way.

Furthermore, the author includes quite a bit of text about respecting when consent is explicitly withdrawn, which is something I hope we can all agree is a good thing, without getting lost in, "but you should discuss it first". Most people don't, and that's the reality we live in.

<comment><USER62> >Consent is assumed in the situation because of all the stuff leading up to it. Like the getting the number, the going out on dates, talking a lot, and finally ending up alone with them in their or your own residence.

Consent should never be assumed. Just fucking ask. This chapter is explicitly talking about transitioning from a non-sexual to a sexual relationship. Assuming that your partner wants this to happen is a recipe for sexual assault.

<comment><USER63> > Consent should never be assumed. Just fucking ask. This chapter is > explicitly talking about transitioning from a non-sexual to a sexual > relationship. Assuming that your partner wants this to happen is a recipe > for sexual assault.

I think you're mistaken, and I think you're inexperienced with women. Most women absolutely do not want to be asked every step of the way. Many women I have been with have specifically enjoyed it when I have done things such as not ask them but pick them up and place them in my lap, then kiss them.

If someone withdraws their consent, and you do not respect, that makes you a rapist. Consent is typically withdrawn when she says things like "no", which the guide you are calling a rape-manual specifically notes to respect.

You're being disingenuous. No one who already is not a rapist and respects consent, can hear, and read body language is going to continue in the face of withdrawn consent.

Finally, how do you know the "talking a lot" step doesn't establish explicit verbal consent prior to the event?

<comment><USER62> I don't think you've read much PUA material. A lot of it is about trying to have sex with a partner who does not (at least initaially) want to have sex. Escalating physically until they say no, lying and saying you'll stop and then escalating again. Charitably it is about convincing someone to have sex with you, uncharitably it is wearing them down until they give up resisting.

There have been clear descriptions of rape which have been posted by redditors on the PUA subreddit, which the poster apparently did not realise were rape.

<comment><USER63> If consent is not violated, it's not rape. You can't assume that consent is not established... which is what you're doing. Convincing someone they raped their girlfriend or their boyfriend raped them is pretty reprehensible, but I am aware that it goes on.

I don't actually recommend following the lead of these so called Pick Up Artists... but I don't think they were trying to teach anyone to rape. Apparently we should agree to disagree on that point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> This annoys me greatly. Whether or not the book itself was bad, an open platform shouldn't have to apologize for not immediately censoring its users on public outrage. To the contrary, I would have expected an apology if, given the first blush or public outcry, they suspended the account without a proper investigation into it.

</comment><comment><USER65> I made a shirt for all you guys who think the rape, erm, PICK UP ARTISTE, book is totes cool and nbd [http://www.cafepress.com/mf/79293678/i-am-rape- culture_tshir...](http://www.cafepress.com/mf/79293678/i-am-rape- culture_tshirt)

</comment><comment><USER66> How does removing the kickstarter project after funding has taken place work for the backers? Do the backers no longer get their rewards? Does the project creator have no access to the backers information? Will Kickstarter refund the backers out of pocket? Strange situation.

<comment><USER67> The backers shouldn't have a bone with the that project. They should have seen the issue themselves before backing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> I don't think one can fault Kickstarter for this or the Kobe Beef Jerky incident. As the platform grows so will the number of abuse cases. The submission process is a fairly strict filter, but from there the project is more than crowd-funding, it becomes increasingly about crowd-sourcing the due diligence process.

My concern is that a crowd-sourced due diligence process can be slow and requires active participation from the backers. That sense of common responsibility is what's needed to help the company take rapid action and for the community to remain a positive place for funding great ideas. I hope Kickstarter can continue inspiring that proactive participation from its users.

</comment><comment><USER69> You start by saying that if you disagree with you you're a misogynist pig, and any discussion of the merits is wrong. Just think about times you've read other people say that, and try and think it over.

</comment><comment><USER70> He mentions having only 2 options to decide whether to cancel or let the funds go through. Isn't there a third option that they could use in the future, Put a delay on the transfer while you review it?

</comment><comment><USER30> Kickstarter is a private company that can decide what they want to have on their site for whatever reason they want. They have to answer to their customers. If you disagree, don't use Kickstarter.

But the idea that they have to comply with "freedom of speech" or be consistent or anything else doesn't make sense to me. Every store curates it's inventory with whatever rules they deem appropriate. Kickstarter never claimed that any possible piece of content was ok.

</comment><comment><USER4> So many of the comments here are trying to justify this project's content by saying this are things to do when you are with something you've already been dating/wooing. I just want to say that the majority of sexual assaults are perpetrated by someone the victim knows and that ANY kind of intimate contact does not justify further contact that someone has not consented to. Saying otherwise is an attempt to justify rape.

</comment><comment><USER5> A woman has never asked me if I wanted to have sex... Rape? Sexual assault? Come on!

</comment><comment><USER71> It's really quite remarkable how much good will a simple apology can generate. I wish more individuals and organizations recognized this.

</comment><comment><USER72> Why is Kickstarter unable to return the money?

</comment><comment><USER73> I wish there was a moderate MRA group, that wasn't full of hateful idiots.

<comment> super-serial Go to Japan. Gender roles are ingrained into the culture and women are naturally feminine.

A lot of MRA groups seem to fight the hate with more hate... maybe these guys just need a change of scenery.

<comment><USER74> What do you mean by "naturally feminine"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> Women are sensitive, fragile, inferior creatures who require constant, vigilant protection from honorable men.

If it becomes necessary to take a few quotes out of context in our noble quest to protect the fairer sex, so be it.

Kudos to Kickstarter for adhering to feminist principles.

> _The thing that the commenters on social media are leaving out is that the > advice was taken from a section in the guide offering advice on what to do > AFTER a man has met a cute girl, gotten her phone number, gone on dates, > spent time getting to know her, and now are alone behind closed doors > fooling around. If "Don't wait for signs, make the first move" promotes > sexual assault, then "Kiss the Girl" from The Little Mermaid was a song > about rape._

[http://pastebin.com/zwHYzCZe](http://pastebin.com/zwHYzCZe)

<comment><USER76> EDIT: Apparently the OP was being sarcastic, and I failed to read deep enough into the ASCII characters. But if he hadn't been sarcastic, I would've still said what I said below.

What the hell? I had to read this over 6 times to make sure I was understanding it correctly.

"Women are sensitive, fragile, inferior creatures who require constant, vigilant protection from honorable men."

That right there ladies and gentlemen, is the thinking that permeates and sustains misogyny throughout our world.

I understand that the original poster had good intentions, but the way is high and his eyes are definitely upon the ground.

Women are not sensitive, fragil, or inferior. Please avoid false blanket statements like this.

<comment><USER8> Hint: sarcasm

<comment><USER76> Ah, pretty poorly worded sarcasm there.

<comment><USER8> Subtle sarcasm is the best sarcasm, IMHO.

<comment><USER33> Not in text. There are too few cues available to avoid Poe's law.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Debian Virtualization: LXC Network Isolation - <AUTHOR> http://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/08/25/debian-virtualization-lxc-network-isolation/ <comment><USER2> Its much easier to just start using ipv6 once you start assigning interfaces to VMs and lxc boxes.

Although there are still a few services on ipv4 only. Github I am looking at you.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's a pretty easy thing to do with libvirt. I usually create a nginx vhost that routes websites to different virtual machines.

These virtual machines usually run one application are managed by puppet and are sometimes located on different subnets.

</comment><comment><USER4> I believe Docker creates a bridge network as well for LXC

</comment><comment><USER5> The _network setup_ graphic here is misleading in that the actual delineation between the network resources on the guest and host is something that occurs through _network namespaces_ , and has nothing to do with the IP addressing pictured.

The bridge layer here is dubious. The author routes from that elsewhere at layer3 using iptables, though in practice other people often join a real network interface to the same bridge as guests to grant external connectivity, resulting in a proxy-ARP type situation. In IMHO there's little point in using bridges in either case ... it's better to just do iptables from the guest _veth_ interface directly. Why? Unexpected Layer2 interactions at the bridging device, either between host and guest or between multiple guests are avoided. In addition, uptime is _instant_ versus _sometimes delayed_ (depending upon spanning tree configuration and other such ancient ethernetty-cruft). Finally, by keeping in-container connectivity assumptions at layer 3 you ensure greater portability to alternative virtualization platforms and/or cloud-based providers.

In short, great to see more people experimenting with LXC, but consider not doing the connectivity this way.</comment>


Sutro's new site - <AUTHOR> http://sutro-research.com We've taken a month off since our last big project - and are back looking for our next consulting client. Ideally a greenfield project in the 1-6 month range.<p>I'd appreciate feedback on our new site, as well as any leads. Thanks to all in advance! <comment><AUTHOR> From Sutro:

We've taken a month off since our last big project - and are back looking for our next consulting client. Ideally a greenfield project in the 1-6 month range.

I'd appreciate feedback on our new site, as well as any leads. Thanks to all in advance!</comment>


A Python interface to AFL, allowing for easy injection of test cases - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/shellphish/fuzzer <comment><USER2> Nice! Just added to [https://github.com/realpython/list-of-python-api- wrappers](https://github.com/realpython/list-of-python-api-wrappers)

</comment><comment><USER3> No docs?

<comment><USER4> You're supposed to just know how to use it, apparently. Looking at the code the comments aren't that helpful either, focusing on explaining what the next bit of code is doing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What does it have to do with Australian Rules Football?

<comment><USER6> I'll assume you're kidding, but surely there is someone who doesn't know and will find it useful --

AFL = American Fuzzy Lop [http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/afl/](http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/afl/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_fuzzy_lop_(fuzzer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_fuzzy_lop_\(fuzzer\))

A tool which helps to find interesting and exploitable bugs in compiled programs.</comment></comment>


OVH CEO: Unlike Amazon, Google, "we will never be in competition with you" - <AUTHOR> http://www.datacenterdynamics.com/content-tracks/colo-cloud/ovh-ceo-unlike-amazon-google-we-will-never-be-in-competition-with-you/99939.fullarticle <comment><USER2> Important notes about OVH:

-I'm a customer for about ~2 years.

-I was "just" using OVH object storage, and was considering other OVH services.

-I'm all about "cheap,cheap,cheap"

-OVH is super-cheap, which is good.

-I want OVH to "win". OVH doesn't want to "win". Because..

-OVH is super-confusing. Interface, website, billing, everything.

-website uses esoteric design conventions. A European thing? I don't know.

-feels as if they went the extra mile _to_ make it confusing. Defies belief!

-they have separate websites for different countries, which use different login credentials.

-they have "OVH credits". Why???

-they use OpenStack (Yay!). Unforuntely, they have a confusing implementation of OpenStack dashboard, AND on a separate site, with separate credentials.

Bottom line: I'm a tech-savvy guy who can absorb some pretty bad UX, but OVH made me cringe. Seriously, I do not exaggerate. Anytime I need to log on to OVH, I get an uneasy feeling. So, I _gladly_ paid extra and switched. I use DigitalOcean now. It's not as cheap. Digital Oceans's UX is good, but not _amazing_. But believe you me, it is BREATHE OF FRESH AIR compared to OVH. Update: may post a video if you guys want me to. Let me know!

<comment><USER3> I use OVH's So You Start line and I think my biggest complaint is that they don't allow automatic renewal. Every monthly renewal means manually keying in my card number every month. The only alternative is to pre-pay in 3, 6, or 12 months in advance. It is the only online service I use that doesn't handle auto-renewal.

<comment><USER4> Ask them to update your account to the newest version. I assure you they handle automatic renewals and they handle them very strictly - I'm getting emails blasted to both main and optional email account at the first time there is a card decline.

Here some screen shoots from minutes ago:

Exhibit 1: huge yellow sticker to tell me to switch to auto-pay, which I actually don't want to for some of my clients.

Exhibit 2: both bills for servers setup as autopay.

Actually the option to pay in advance is a blessing and as far as I know, only known to me provider that does that. Last December where I was for $35,000 in taxes, I was able to significantly lower that down for purchasing OVH services for 12 months in advance. OVH rocks!!

[1] [https://ibb.co/enhmen](https://ibb.co/enhmen)

[2] [https://ibb.co/nGGJs7](https://ibb.co/nGGJs7)

<comment><USER3> That's OVH, which uses a different control panel than their SoYouStart division. I just submitted a ticket with them asking if autorenew was possible and they replied right away confirming that autorenew is not possible, unfortunately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I run [https://wtfismyip.com](https://wtfismyip.com) on OVH. Egress bandwidth exceeds 8TB a month, which on AWS could cost ~$1000/month, not including the cost of the beefy EC2 instance I would need.

For some bandwidth heavy use cases, OVH makes a lot more sense than AWS. In my case it was $150/month versus $2000/month (bandwidth + EC2).

<comment><USER6> AWS bandwidth costs are obscene. They compete on price so well on most other fronts, but for some reason they just completely overcharge on bandwidth. It makes using them without a CDN cost prohibitive and drives a lot of use cases away from them.

<comment><USER7> What's the best cdn right now? Cloudfront is just expensive as hell.

<comment><USER6> Alright, I'll go through the list.

* Cloudfront would be great for the North America and Europe they only charged for the bandwidth (those prices are reasonable), but charging for the HTTP request (and the huge premium on HTTPS). The bandwidth prices outside of those areas are absolutely awful though.

* Akamai makes Cloudfront look cheap.

* Cloudflare has ethical concerns that keep me away from them.

* Fastly is susceptible to DDoS's against the origin in some interesting ways.

* Limelight was great but then Goldman Sachs bought and destroyed them.

* EdgeCast was by far my favorite, but then they got bought by Verizon. Assuming Verizon hasn't fucked it up then they're definitely worth checking out, as their reporting tools were amazing and their performance was literally the best (my information is a few years out of date though on this one).

* If you want to serve people in China you will need to pay a China based (government owned) CDN or your traffic will get blocked for no reason once you get large enough. Conveniently enough one of their sales people will reach out to you about a day or two before the block goes into effect.

* MaxCDN isn't bad, but I haven't seen their higher tier prices (above 25TB) so I can't comment on that. Their South America and Asia coverage is pretty bad though- nothing in India, only one datacenter in Brazil for all of South America (with another being built, but also in Brazil), no Africa, no Middle East. If you're starting english only this isn't the worst, but eventually you'll need to go to a multiple CDN solution for broad coverage.

<comment><USER8> What are the ethical concerns with Cloudflare?

<comment><USER9> Some people are against Cloudflare's vast internet dominance with their "free" CDN which proxies all content, but proxying content of a zone is no different from any of the other CDNs storing your content for you.

<comment><USER8> When did business success become such a problem? The basic CDN model is the same with all CDNs that are pull-first reverse proxies, but they clearly offer much better features for less cost which is why so many use them. There's nothing stopping other companies from doing the same but most are still nothing more than some nginx servers running in a few colos.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is a nice PR bit, but I wonder if it really matters?

I would be very reluctant to do a startup centered on, say, GMail or Amazon Marketplace as a platform. If you get too successful, it's too easy for them to say, "Hey, here's a proven high-value business for us to get into." And then they have my customer right there, so I'm screwed. (An example that comes to mind is Swype. They invented the swipeable virtual keyboard and made a great product. So great that Google added the feature to their own Android keyboard. And then released it for free on iOS, too.)

But I'm not worried at all about using their infrastructure services, because it doesn't give them much in way of competitive advantage. Netflix, for example, has a lot of their stuff running in AWS. Amazon has Prime Movies + TV as a direct competitor, but I don't think Netflix really cares. I as a consumer sure don't; from my perspective Netflix and Amazon are completely separate.

<comment><USER11> You can't discount first mover advantage. From your own example, Swype had immense mind and market share for many years, even after Google, Microsoft and others released their own alternatives. They were eventually bought out for over $100 million.

<comment><USER12> Eventually, I get a new phone. I'm certainly not going to go after Swype if Gboard has its only USP built right in (and better overall integration)

<comment><USER13> Pretty much this.

I used Swype for a while. IIRC they were not helping themselves : you had to reinstall the app after a while because it would automatically stop working.

I also personally disliked how the keyboard looked with swype.

When the default keyboard started having this feature, there was no point in installing this bothersome app anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I used to have a server with them however the UI was ...beyond words. It was impossible for me to renew my subscription because the site was throwing a JS error. Has this improved? Their offering was very good bang for buck I've seen.

<comment><USER15> Yeah their UI is beyond useless.

Their support is beyond useless.

Can't even cancel my servers, but everything else was great.

Ended up having to use their API to cancel the server, since support wouldn't cancel the server for me - here is an actual email they sent me: [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DY2rWiLU8AA_mKt.jpg:large](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DY2rWiLU8AA_mKt.jpg:large)

<comment><USER16> It's weird because in every article I see about DigitalOcean, there's people saying "DO is stupid, they're overpriced, everyone should use OVH", yet in every article I see about OVH there are people complaining that OVH has some serious customer support and UX problems.

<comment><USER17> It probably depends on how much you interact with them (by choice or luck). My interactions (via Kimsufi) have been: creating a server once, then paying them four times a year. So far that's been flawless :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think it's safe to say that Amazon's ambition is unlimited at this point in time. I fully expect them to jump into commercial banking in the near future

<comment><USER19> So there are fairly strong regulations on what other things a bank can do. I can't remember exactly what it entails. It's possible Amazon could get around that with holding company structure or something, but I'm not sure.

I agree with your general point though, maybe just not the bank part.

Edit1: It's not reg W, damn I cannot remember which section describes this. There's too many bank regs in the US.

Edit2: ok 12 CFR 225.21 &238.51 we're closer: [https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/12/225.21](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/12/225.21)

Bank or bank holding can't own anything other than other fin, ag, or family stuff.

I'm still at sure to what extent this would stop Amazon from starting their own bank. (IANAL, but this was explained to me years ago by an expert on us federal banking regulation so I have hazy memories of it)

Aaaand I just wasted 15 minutes of my morning looking through the CFR on banking regulation, time to stop reading hackernews.

<comment><USER20> > wasted 15 minutes

I used to work in a securities firm owned by a bank holding company in a role requiring being registered as a securities principal (legally responsible to supervise). It _still_ took me several minutes to remember which regulations to look up.

Amazon doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of working around these regulations with the current administration. Trump hates Bezos. With a moderate Republican in power, they might be able to lobby their way to creating the precise loophole they needed (which would require legislation).

<comment><USER21> Didn't Walmart try to buy itself some sort of bank back in 2006 or so? I have a vague recollection of the venture and it not going Walmart's way.

<comment><USER19> Yup 2005: [https://mobile.nytimes.com/2007/03/17/business/17bank.htm](https://mobile.nytimes.com/2007/03/17/business/17bank.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> As a European, I am sometimes shocked that people in the bay don't know about OVH.

AWS, Azure and GCloud are all so good at Marketing themselves that a lot of people don't even hear about alternatives.

I used a lot OVH both for private reasons and pushed it into my company.

It is by far the cheapest (by a factor of 3-4* in my case), and it is shockingly easy to get to talk to core engineers in case you have any real issue.

The founder Octave Klaba is also a character. A Huge geek, that lives for OVH.

<comment><USER23> > As a European, I am sometimes shocked that people in the bay don't know > about OVH.

Where would you get that impression? OVH is clearly well known in the tech world of the bay area / SV. They've been regularly discussed on HN for at least ~5+ years that I'm aware of.

One problem has been that they only have one North America location and it's in Canada (not necessarily ideal depending on what you're doing and where you're located in the US).

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Indeed, OVH UI is slow and bulky. I moved to Hetzner for a lot of things. Even cheaper, had one server issue, but quickly fixed by their support ( a bios to upgrade ), their UX is simple but efficient. Any other opinion on them?

<comment><USER25> I use Hetzner, I like their server range and prices, but I am annoyed I pay almost as much for a block of IPs as I do a single server.

(I run a bunch of virtual machines, each with a real public IP exposed.)

<comment><USER26> For IPv4? This really does reflect reality - IPV4 addresses should cost WAY more than things like servers we can just keep making.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I wish there was a website that collected all of the times a company promised to "never do x" and then changed their word. Companies break promises all of the time. It's impossible to predict what they or anyone else will do in a few years.

</comment><comment><USER28> With Kubernetes now being mature and fairly easy to install, you can have essentially your own AWS for peanuts using OVH. I absolutely see no reason why paying such a premium to use "conventional" cloud providers when you can have your own portable infrastructure nowadays.

<comment><USER11> Kubernetes only does service orchestration, which is a very small part of what AWS offers overall. You still have to manage servers/NAS/networking hardware, ISP contracts, CDN, edge caches, geo-distribution and more.

<comment><USER28> I think there is a niche where it is too expensive to use AWS and it is impossible to do with traditional hosting. You can do well with Flannel, Rook and edge servers as nginx reverse proxies with caching. You need to write scripts once (or use ready made recipes) and management isn't too hard - definitely doable for one man project if you set your expectations right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I've been a customer of theirs for years. Till now I still have to manually key in my credit card details to renew my servers every few months. So yeh, their CEO's probably right.

<comment><USER30> OVH has auto-renew though?

<comment><USER31> Up until early this year autorenew existed in the UI for Canadian servers but didn't do anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> We run 1K node ClickHouse cluster on top of OVH. In BigQuery, we had a latency of 10-50s per query and it was costing us 400K per month.

ClickHouse costs us 100K per month, all deployed on OVH. 100-200ms query latency.

<comment><USER8> Why $400k for BigQuery? It has flat-rate billing starting at 40k/month for unlimited queries.

Also your other comment mentioned 50TB across 1000 Clickhouse nodes, why so little data per node?

<comment><USER33> > It has flat-rate billing starting at 40k/month for unlimited queries.

plus storage costs?

<comment><USER8> 50TB of data is about $500/month on BigQuery. $0.02/GB for new data, then $0.01 after 90 days of being unchanged.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> So what can we gleam from this?

OVH aren't about to start selling books or buy supermarket chains? Quelle surprise.

Having AWS in the hosting market means that right now, it's become a cottage industry for anyone else other than the big names in tech. Meanwhile these big names in tech know that they can make money from their platforms.

They simply can't compete on the same level and now they've decided that's what makes them unique in the industry...

What should a hosting business to do in 2018?

<comment><USER35> > OVH aren't about to start selling books or buy supermarket chains? Quelle > surprise.

I think they're more talking about companies hosting on AWS, e.g. Amazon Video is a competitor to Netflix

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> OVH won't do anything even slightly advanced, no BGP support, no firewall beyond the very basic stuff and everything about OVH is super confusing. It is like they got together and decided to make up nonconventional names to common network terms to piss everyone off. OVH is pretty cheap, but very basic. Plus good luck trying to understand an overage bill.

</comment><comment><USER37> Just yesterday I looked into some performance articles about cloud providers and OVH wasn't in the top tier

</comment><comment><USER38> I was just listening to a Software Engineering Radio podcast from 2015 where they were interviewing the guy who moved Netflix to AWS. He said that by being on the best cloud provider (AWS), Netflix was neutralizing the advantage that Amazon Prime Video had by being on the best cloud provider.

On the other hand, Dropbox had to leave AWS because they would never be able to be a storage solution at a lower price and pay AWS fees...

</comment><comment><USER39> Any such (low cost) provider offers a great hosted kubernetes experience?

<comment><USER40> Maybe OpenShift online? [https://www.openshift.com/pricing/index.html](https://www.openshift.com/pricing/index.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Cached: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lgD1qCr...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lgD1qCrWMA4J:www.datacenterdynamics.com/content- tracks/colo-cloud/ovh-ceo-unlike-amazon-google-we-will-never-be-in- competition-with-you/99939.fullarticle+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

</comment><comment><USER42> I'm not going to do anything you can do. Better? because i have no budget to compete with these giants yet.!

</comment><comment><USER43> I work for a very large bank and our management refuses to use AWS as we see it as a potential competitor. So we ended up using a cloud provider that sucks. So it seems that this opinion expressed by OVH CEO is shared by a lot of senior management.

</comment><comment><USER44> I thought the sentence would be "we'll never charge for bandwidth" which is equally important.

*charge until a point. I don't expect them to go cloudflare.

</comment><comment><USER45> This will be the undoing of the Giants. Lack of trust.

</comment><comment><USER46> That's what they all say at first.

<comment><USER17> OVH has existed for almost twenty years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> title gore

</comment><comment><USER48> Hi is right, but for different reasons he thinks. :)</comment>


Ask HN: How to find developers with NO SKILLs to work for me? - <AUTHOR> I had built 3 startups (3-4M annual revenue before I sold them) and do not have formal education. I developed them on my own, did all marketings, sales, customer service. Later, I hired a few friends and friends of friends and trained them in my style of customer service and marketing then finally sold off the startup. I've never worked as a professional programmer and learned to build everything from the internet. I am easily able to train people in sales and customer service but training someone with no technical education into development is impossible. I was stupid enough to actually try this on some friends who were unemployed and failed. Now, the trouble is that I've no developer friends and the new startup which I want to do requires 2-3 developers to build a prototype. But I don't see why will anyone work for a less skilled person like me? Sure, I can afford to pay them 1.5-2x of what they are currently get paid. But there will be no promotion (what role will I promote them to?), no colleagues to help them out. No limitation on the scope of work. I think people work for more than just money, sure I can provide money and challenging work. Most devs I talked on upwork are not brave enough to build an app from ground-up They don't even show much interest. They want me to break it down into tasks and then they'll implement it. So, what will make you work for a no name,  new company as a developer where the founder is not exceptionally talented or very technically competent and no scope for promotion either? <comment><USER2> You don't need to be a technical genius to start learning about the software development lifecycle. Any professional programmers you speak to will require some sort of business requirements. It is your responsibility, as the business owner, to outline the who/what/when/where of each feature (and leave the 'how' to the experts).

You also need to understand the impact of no defined scope. Typical business plans or MVP requirements will absolutely define a scope. This scope of work should match your best guess for a minimum viable product - based on your market research. This allows you to remain on budget and measure your success.

With a solid business plan, a set of strategic business requirements, a well defined scope, and 2x salary - you will have no problem finding talented developers.

</comment><comment><USER3> It depends mostly on what kind of idea you want to execute on as this will determine the kind of programmers you will need, really low level software requires someone with much more theoretical knowledge and this kind of people are rare in between, and coupled with your lack of tech know how they might most likely not want to work with you. But if it is a basic web app you should find talent interested in working with you.

I will advice you to try to place a lot more emphasis on your earlier success bootstrapping and selling a SaaS company as this can motivate people to want to work for you. Because take it from me you have done and accomplished what a lot of people can not and that is very impressive.

If you are interested I would like to work for you, but I don't know how well that will pan out as I don't know the area of specialty your startup is focusing on and if i am even 'Not Skilled' enough to work with you in those specialties, but at least I will like to get in touch with you if only in some sort of mentorship/advisory role, because building a successful Saas business has sort of always been my dream.

my email is smithmayowa20 at gmail.com I am an African developer in between.

</comment><comment><USER4> >They want me to break it down into tasks and then they'll implement it.

You'd be crazy to do it any other way.

</comment><comment><USER5> I am interested in helping you. Do you have contact information?

</comment><comment><USER6> do you have an email where I can reach out ?</comment>


Germans are Europeans most immune to populism - <AUTHOR> http://www.thelocal.de/20161121/germans-are-europeans-most-immune-to-populism-study <comment><USER2> Makes you wonder if there is a genetic component at play? A lot of the most susceptible Germans died during WW2.</comment>


Developers issue death warrant for IE6 - <AUTHOR> http://www.techradar.com/news/software/applications/developers-issue-death-warrant-for-ie6-539017

<comment><USER2> ".net magazine is supporting a campaign to rid the world of IE6... The magazine a Future publication just like TechRadar"

Cross promotion synthetic news generation at it's finest.

</comment><comment><USER3> In some aspects, had Vista been more successful quicker, we wouldn't be in this IE6 mess... I am hoping IE8 is pushed out quickly to get more users up to date, then you can tell clients they are 2 versions back and need to upgrade for security reasons due to dropped support from Microsoft (typically two version support).

</comment><comment><USER4> Have a look at the revamped Monster.com IE6 is not supported at all by the job search!</comment>


Why are so many would-be terrorists engineers?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1149370.html

<comment><USER2> Why is this so interesting? I'm not denying that it is, but it's posted here and elsewhere quite often, and seemingly from different sources. Are they all secondary sources referencing the same primary source, or do different people keep noticing the same phenomenon?

<comment><USER3> I would almost bet my life it is secondary sources referencing the same single primary source - this sort of thing happens over and over and over. And often can continue on for years/decades popping in and out of popular news, despite being refuted (not saying that this particular observation has been, but could be at some point in the future).</comment></comment>


Show HN: Portable Serverless without the complexity of Kubernetes - <AUTHOR> https://www.openfaas.com/blog/introducing-faasd/ <comment><USER2> _On a Dell XPS with a small, pre-pulled image unpausing an existing function took only 0.19s and a cold start only took 0.39s,_

I really have to question where we have led ourselves when this is touted as performance. We can nowadays render a frame of Crysis in 4k in < .016s (60FPS). But it takes us an order of magnitude to spin up a function in the best case scenario?

We really need to question all of this.

<comment><USER3> They're completely different processes. Frame rendering is highly hardware optimized and mostly happens within the gpu.

<comment><USER2> You're completely discounting all of the game loop code that doesn't run on the gpu.

<comment><USER3> That still runs in memory. A lot of the physics runs in the gpu, too. Compare to the time it takes to load a new level in a game or to load new parts of the city in grand theft auto, or new chunks in Minecraft.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


US Spy Plane Impersonates Malaysian Aircraft to Fly Close to Chinese Airspace - <AUTHOR> https://sputniknews.com/military/202009081080401801-us-spy-plane-impersonates-malaysian-aircraft-to-fly-close-to-chinese-airspace---report/ <comment><USER2> I wanted to make a comment about military being a military and not wanting to expose their identity, but this is using a civilian identity to disguise themselves and not simply turning a transponder off

<comment><USER3> Flying under false hexcodes would appear, by analogy, to be a legitimate ruse: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruse_de_guerre#Legitimate_ruse...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruse_de_guerre#Legitimate_ruses)

On the flip side, the same section directly states that Little Green Men/вежливые люди are also a legitimate ruse, as long as they aren't engaged in combat.

Edit: The reply makes an excellent point. Time to find out what counts as "time of war" these days, as formal declarations seem to have gone out of style, at least in the US, in the mid-twentieth century.

(To the best of my knowledge, not only is Korea a frozen conflict, but also the Chinese Civil War.)

Edit2: my casual surfing has only turned up rules for how to behave once armed hostilities have started. Outside of that case (and assuming the US even considers itself covered by IHL these days), things seem to devolve to "δυνατὰ δὲ οἱ προύχοντες πράσσουσι καὶ οἱ ἀσθενεῖς ξυγχωροῦσιν".

<comment><USER4> ... at time of war?

<comment><USER3> Excellent point. Time to find out what counts as "time of war" these days, as formal declarations seem to have gone out of style, at least in the US, in the mid-twentieth century.

(To the best of my knowledge, not only is Korea a frozen conflict, but also the Chinese Civil War.)

Edit: my casual surfing has only turned up rules for how to behave once armed hostilities have started. Outside of that case (and assuming the US even considers itself covered by IHL these days), things seem to devolve to "δυνατὰ δὲ οἱ προύχοντες πράσσουσι καὶ οἱ ἀσθενεῖς ξυγχωροῦσιν".</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How important is Facebook Connect for startup? - <AUTHOR>

Just curious, to me, FB Connect is just a lazy way for users to register / login, because I see that when user register, using FB Connect, it is just prefill the form (Name, email) while users have to fill in username (if required by the site) and password.
I see that FB Connect can be used as a marketing tool for a startup (wall posting), but even then, wall posting is a user action, if users do not approve the wall posting, it will not be posted.  I can assume that maybe > 50% do not care about the wall posting and will just authorize it anyway.
I do not see the point of having FB Connect, although I sorta see the value of having FB Connect (as another option + user laziness + marketing)
Maybe I am missing something?  Can someone help me understand the added value of FB Connect beside sign up registration, login, and wall posting marketing?
Thanks. <comment><USER2> The value add for using FB connect is that if you do it right you can grow an app from nothing to millions of users a day, and have a top 10 (in their category) iOS & Android app without spending a dime on paid user acquisition.

The caveat is that the whole thing is a bit of a black art to get right. You can't just bolt it on and expect good things to happen, instead you have to build the whole thing inside-out. What I mean is that you start with FB Connect & Wall posts as the core of the app, and then build something that will get people to agree to the posts and have posts that have good viral properties.

(I used to work on viral FB apps up until a couple months ago, and did the above for two apps)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your input. I see the viral point if there is an auto wall post, but if user has to approve wall post, unless there is an incentive (like in game app when user tweet or FB post, they would get golds or coins for the game), I do not see why users would post in their wall unless they are truly a fan to the app/site/marketplace.

I am asking this question as I am trying to decide if I should implement FB connect to the marketplace startup that I am working on. If I do it, it would be for

sign up / registration

login

wall post when user post a listing

wall post when user buy a listing

the only thing that I find it a value is the wall post, but then if user does not authorize it, then it's useless nonetheless (unless I give incentive to post).

<comment><USER2> I could see it as an option for sign up, but you won't get much action from people manually posting things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Basically, from the point of view of visitors, people don't want to create yet another username/password they have to remember and hope that the company they signed up with isn't as incompetent as Adobe, Sony, or LinkedIn.

From the standpoint of the company (leaving aside for the moment privacy concerns of the user), if it has users login in with a social ID, it will get access to their profile information from the identity provider.

The downside of using social login is, of course, that many people are rightly concerned with what is being done with their profile data.

<comment><AUTHOR> I see. Yes, that's what I thought as well, privacy issue.

But from the visitors point of view, if they use one email for all their forums/site/etc, wouldn't it be the same thing? If I am a user who value my privacy, I would not want to sign in via FB, instead I would use one email and one password for all. Easy to remember as well.

That's why I do not see why FB Connect is an important feature.

<comment><USER3> One email, but a user would have to be a fool to use the same password across all the sites. Van Neumann knows we have plenty of those, though.

<comment><AUTHOR> But wouldn't the same user a fool as well using FB connect as a login to all the forums and marketplaces? If one manage to crack his FB account, then go to the apps list, and sure the hacker has access to all of the forums, marketplaces, and other sites that uses FB Connect.

On the other hand, if you use one email and same password across all sites (but different email password), even if the hacker hacks the email, the hacker does not have the access to forums, marketplaces, etc. The hacker would have to hack each individual sites.

<comment><USER3> I suggest a thorough course in security threat analysis and attack surfaces.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Updates for Facebook Notes - <AUTHOR> http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2015/09/updates-for-facebook-notes/ <comment><USER2> Finally, a place in FB for people interested in reading/publishing non-ADHD- length content. I wish this were available a few years back. I deactivated my FB account in July for one month. I found the break from the rampant narcissism so refreshing that I never went back.</comment>


Snowden accepts Venezuela's asylum offer - <AUTHOR> http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/316731/news/world/snowden-agrees-to-asylum-in-venezuela-top-russian-lawmaker

<comment><USER2> The story is inaccurate. I tried submitting the link but HN won't allow me. See here: [http://rt.com/news/snowden-venezuela-asylum- request-844/](http://rt.com/news/snowden-venezuela-asylum-request-844/) "Russian MP deletes tweet claiming Snowden chooses Venezuela for asylum"

</comment><comment><USER3> Strangely enough, the Tweet from @Alexey_Pushkov declaring this has since been deleted ....</comment>


Why Android Could Be Headed for the Laundry Room - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/28/why-android-could-be-headed-for-the-laundry-room/

<comment><USER2> Interesting. That could be the way to beat the iPhone. Instead of attacking head on, go a level down and spread sideways. Apple doesn't like their software to run on devices they don't make. But they can't make every cool device. So even if Apple managed to crush Android on phones, they couldn't crush Android. And as long as Android lived, it would always be poised to creep back onto phones. Or whatever replaces them.

<comment><USER3> I have to think that marketing is a key component. The iPhone has a very particular ecosystem associated with it. The ads are the best example of this. While Android is a great OS (I absolutely love my G1 with Android 1.5), It will be difficult to become as pervasive as the iPhone is without marketing it in some capacity. I know Google has only very recently done tv ads and has traditionally used word of mouth to spread its products, but I think that getting the word out about Android beyond word of mouth is important. As more devices in different form factors come out with Android, I think it would be in Googles and the OHA best interest to market what Android is all about better. If they are unable to do that, the iPhone and other mobile platforms will always be ahead.

<comment><USER4> I think you'll be surprised at what openness can do when it is competing on a level playing field (or close to it). In the second (16 bit) personal computer war, the PC compatible won not because it was better, or cheaper, but because it was more open than Apple, Atari, and Commodore machines. And, you can't get any more open than Open Source. The fact that the OS here is _free_ for manufacturers, and very nearly as good in every way as the iPhone OS, means that manufacturers will do the marketing for Google. They have to market their phones already...Samsung tried to convince us that the Instinct was as awesome as an iPhone, and spent millions doing it. Nobody was fooled because the Instinct is a Windows mobile device, and it actually sucks really hard. But it won't be long before there are a half dozen _really good_ Android phones, and at least some of those manufacturers will push it as hard as the Instinct was pushed. And, in the case of Android phones, consumers won't be deeply disappointed by what they see.

Microsoft didn't have to advertise DOS or Windows very aggressively to beat Apple, Commodore and Atari back in 1985 and 1986 (when the market leader for the next twenty years was being decided and it was all still up in the air) in the market. Their army of OEMs did it for them.

<comment><USER5> But all of those early microcomputers were competing for the extreme market, the nerd market, the early adopters and 16-year-old kids (with rich parents or verrrry successful after-school jobs).

Android can't beat the iPhone that way.

Also, used a G1 much? Android sucks, it's hard to use even for a person who has a clue (aka me), and its touch UI is bizarre.

There's no way a soccer mom will buy one and then buy one for her spoiled tween, unlike with the iPhone.

<comment><USER4> _Also, used a G1 much?_

Yes, I have two of them (developer and standard). I love it. The hardware is kinda crap, but the OS is awesome.

 _But all of those early microcomputers were competing for the extreme market, the nerd market_

1986 was not merely the nerd market. It was also the business market. I think we're sitting at the very same point in history with smart phones (the point at which they become really useful and usable for a whole new class of user).

Anyway, I think we'll just have to agree to disagree. I happen to love Android. It's reliable, fast, and does everything I want it to in a very intuitive manner. But, not only that, I think the fact that Google is enlisting dozens of manufacturers to work on their behalf to establish and grow the platform is an unbeatable strategy, unless Google (and their partners) completely screw it up. Apple can compete with one company making a cool phone. Apple simply can't compete with a dozen companies making cool phones...because history tells me that the dozen standards based companies will be able to make them cheaper, faster, and occasionally better. Apple just can't be everywhere (and in fact, part of their plan has been to remain exclusive to one carrier...people like cool products, but they also like to have choices).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Right now I am using the new IO Developer Conference HTC. Gotta say it is pretty slick. Being a game developer, i can't wait to develop a game for it. Does it compare with the iphone, with apple's brand cachet, accelerometer, and nonstop media attention? No. Still, it's better than my now broken Blackberry, and has the feel of a PSP. Maybe Android has a chance.

I for one, was really hoping that _Microsoft_ came with a handheld competition for the iPod Touch. From what i can see, the Zune HD isn't it. The extent that it lends itself to game development seems to be incredibly lackluster and half-hearted, and i think this is for two reaons: 1) Microsoft doesn't want to officially dilute the xbox brand with a Zune PSP clone because they don't have a mobile game strategy yet (it's Microsoft, it takes time!), and 2) they're still hoping that they can claim some market share in the MP3 market, which seems a horrible plan, but then so did the xbox...</comment>


Ask HN Angels, Incubators: Why not invest in some lifestyle businesses?  - <AUTHOR>

Ask HN Angels, Incubators: Why not invest in some lifestyle businesses? <comment><USER2> Probably because most lifestyle businesses don't ever make more than a certain amount of money and investors are looking for the the most+fastest ROI.</comment>


Decade In Review: Kids born in 2000 on Dial-up, iPods, 9/11 - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/5432681/kids-on-ipods-dial+up-internet-911-britney-spears-and-all-those-old-things

<comment><USER2> I was in Value Village (a thrift store) a couple of years ago rummaging through their vinyl. I found a few albums and brought them to the checkout. The sixteen-year-old cashier looked at the records blankly for a moment and then consulted a note taped to the counter.

She looked back and forth a few times, and then asked me: "Um, are these seven in or twelve in?"

It was all I could do not to burst out laughing. "They're twelve in," I replied.

<comment><USER3> Value Villages are predominately Canadian. It's possible that the records weren't the problem, but that the girl wasn't used to inches.

<comment><USER4> I don't know anyone here that uses centimetres over inches. IT's what we're taught in school and used on legal documents but everyone I talk to always speaks in inches.

<comment><USER3> The only three things I hear referred to in inches are height, woodworking, and paper sizes. Everything else tends to be metric. (23, lived in BC/AB/SK/MB/PQ/NB, your experiences may vary.)

<comment><USER2> In my experience as a lifelong resident of the Centre Of The Universe (that would be Southern Ontario to non-Canadians), we buy butter by the pound, not by the 454-gram-package - no matter what it says on the wrapper.

Also on the cooking theme, oven temperatures are measured in Fahrenheit and recipe quantities are measured in cups, teaspoons and tablespoons.

For weather, summer temperatures are generally measured in Fahrenheit (because it's just not that impressive to say, "Man, it's 40 degrees out!") but winter temperatures are generally measured in Celsius (because it _is_ impressive to say, "Man, it's minus 20 out!").

<comment><USER3> I'll concede defeat on this one. I've heard most of those examples but they never even occurred to me. Other than my grandparents generation, I _never_ hear temperatures in Farenheit. Weird.

<comment><USER2> No worries. Canada is nominally a metrickified country, but the enthusiasm kind of fell off somewhere in the 1980s, and we never progressed much beyond _soft metric_. That is to say, we still extensively use imperial denominations, but expressed in metric terms - like the 454 g bar of butter, or the 341 ml bottle of beer.

Other areas, like home construction, are still exclusively imperial. We use 8 foot 2-by-4 boards, not 2.4 m 5cm-by-10cm boards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Easily findable in many places, quite possibly not literally true as to its provenance, but still enlightening:

<http://www.funny2.com/old.htm></comment>


Show HN: Ink Link a collaborative game of description and depiction - <AUTHOR> https://inklink.xyz <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN! My wife and I worked on this small multiplayer game with a mobile focus. We loved broken picture phone but found the interface challenging to use on mobile so we set out to see if we could achieve a better experience. We hope you'll give it a try with some friends and let us know what you think!

You can play with any number of players (if you just have one player you will get to see all the views, useful for testing but I left it in so people can try it without multiple browsers/players)

It's React on the frontend served by Netlify (who are great!) and Express on the backend served by AWS.</comment>


Basic income: Young California mayor sees value in paying poor to rise up - <AUTHOR> https://apnews.com/90de603473644ad98741a43b3d937043/Young-California-mayor-sees-value-in-paying-poor-to-rise-up <comment><USER2> "Rise up" is a poor choice of words. "Make the most of themselves" would be much better. This isn't about throwing off the shackles of the man.</comment>