"I Did a Bad Job" - <AUTHOR> http://blog.ashmokhberi.com/post/2940181809/i-did-a-bad-job

<comment><USER2> This is a really insightful writeup. Thanks.

I just wanted to mention that a lot of things that you did bad, look so only in hindsight. Not that they are not bad, in the sense that you could have done better, but the very same things that now look bad could be construed to be actually 'good' had your startup gone right. Even the startups which do end up successfull do not become so by doing everything right.

For example:

1\. Your co-founder was not committed due to mortgage or family, however he was a great tech guy. And there is a chance that hte startup might have done better, without him spending as much time, in which case you would have duly thanked his technical chops which contributed to startup success.

2\. If you would have been stricter with the goals your co-founder might have bailed early. Had the startup done better, being less strict could have been construed as a good management decision which helped accomodate your co- founders competing personal commitments.

3\. Similarly for setting a deadline - sometimes things just take longer, and your startup might have turned over a good leaf by just trying hard enough. There is really no easy way to know when you have to stop.

Essentially, the point that I am trying to make is that it is extremely hard to figure out what is the real reason for failure, and most such analysis misses the woods for the trees.

However, being able to distinguish correlation from causation is extremely critical as it is the basis on which startups should pivot (or shut down).

<comment><AUTHOR> You have some very good points, which I'm in agreement with. It's impossible to analyse the defining points of failure and come out with the correct answers. But trying to understand what was not working well cumulatively, is a better way of understanding how one problem can stem into many more. Should I have broken the idea down soon enough and got something visible out there, potentially non of the other issues would have arisen or not been so relevant. The same goes for any of the other points I mention.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Lots of people work on startups having a families and a mortage.

That's why I disagree that the choice of co-founder was bad because of these reasons. I think this is a overgeneralization.

Then you state you should manage development better and set better expectations. Well I think this is the main reason in the failure.

Did your co-founder knew exactly what you espected?

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree it is over generalisation, but I feel in my case it was a main causation. He did under stand what my expectations where. However it was more that most of the time he had to work to support his family. He was not in a 9-5 job, he was doing freelance. So its not like he had a defined amount of time he could work. Clients work always came first and consumed most of the time.

<comment><USER3> Well I can fill 14 hours a day with client work too. But when working for your startup you calculate the minimal income you need and only spend the amount of hours on a client to earn it.

The rest of the time is spent on working for your startup. When I was co-owner of a isv our main income in the beginning was consultancy for clients. In addition we developed our product and used the spare money to hire additional developers. The consultancy work made sure we had a minimal paycheck at the end of the month which would pay our mortage and the bills.

Maybe this model is not sustainable anymore with being quick to the market and bead competitors on speed. But it worked in that period of time.

<comment><USER4> This is exactly what I'm doing for my startup and have found it works really well. Although I have to say it helps to have even a small network of contacts who can direct work your way. It's easy to burn through a lot of time just looking for freelance work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The hardest part for me in analyzing past (partial or complete) failures is to make sure that none of those will bite me again. if there was a way to guarantee that you only make every mistake once then that would be progress.

Kudos for being able to look at your own project this ruthless and to try to distill the lessons. If you succeed in never repeating any of the mistakes please tell me how.

As for the write-up: you did a good job.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks I'm glad you appreciated it. It is likely that I will make the same/similar mistakes again, no one can prevent it. I think understanding what mistakes you are likely to make, allows you to watch out for them. While you will still make them, you will be quicker to try and remedy the situation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> One thing not mentioned is: "I did a bad job... selecting the idea". For myself, I've had some stunningly lousy ideas that, at the time, I thought would change the world but looking back I'm glad I never executed on them as they wouldn't have been viable no matter how flawlessly they were executed. I've also had my fair share of ones that I should have executed on but didn't so it goes both ways.

<comment><USER7> I agree. I read the DistinctID idea and immediately had a pit in my stomach: "I hope the technical lead has a really good security background."

Many software projects are, as I like to refer to them, "generalist projects." A good developer can make significant progress and success with these kinds of projects. However, there are some projects that I feel very hesitant about when someone without domain experience is brought on the project. These kinds of projects include, as a brain dump: machine learning, OS/low level systems development, cryptography, distributed systems in challenging environments, and reliability engineering.

I'm not saying a non-expert can't succeed in these areas, just that it makes me antsy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm a terrible programmer [http://blog.kickin-the- darkness.com/2007/09/confessions-of-t...](http://blog.kickin-the- darkness.com/2007/09/confessions-of-terrible-programmer.html) !

<comment><USER9> One thing that seems terribly broken in most IDEs/code-editors is that tiny spelling mistakes can ruin your program. Visual Studio helps out with AutoComplete, in that you can deliberately never fully type a variable/function yourself, always use intellisense to complete things and use the right letter case. Although it's still not completely immune.

When you run a script in Coda, say, first instinct is to look for functional problems, and usually there will be some, so you'll change stuff. But _additionally_ there will be these tiny spelling errors, and failing to fix them right away leads to all sorts of trouble.

How do most folk deal with this? Just get 'better' at not making small mistakes?

<comment><USER10> You get better at not making them - but much more importantly, you get better at realizing what mistakes you're likely to make, so when you make them and something doesn't work as expected, you find and fix the small mistakes very quickly.

You also generally get better at testing and at diagnosis.

It _does_ get better.

<comment><USER11> Yeah you get better. It's like learning to ice skate, maybe... you fall a lot and get a lot of bruises at first but eventually it gets to the point where you don't think about it.

I learned to program before IDEs and I still use Emacs as my primary editor for almost everything. I find the Visual Studio "IntelliSense" type behaviors in most IDEs annoying in the extreme. But I can see how if that's what you started with, you'd come to find it useful.

<comment><USER9> With VS it's almost like testing each individual line though, at least for syntax and spelling. What I did was deliberately type things with as little attention to case/formatting as possible, and then watch to see VS transform it into neatness. Which meant it understood the line as expected.

Can't expect every editor to have the same features, but some sort of 'smart' plugin would that monitored your words and picked up things that were 'probably a mistake' would be useful. Then you could run the plugin every so often. A spelling mistake can be practically invisible because of the way your brain processes things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "I did a bad job" Proofreading this blog post. I'm not usually a pedant, but this post repeatedly made basic grammar errors. It detracted and distracted from what was otherwise a great article.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry if it spoilt the experience. I will try to pay more attention next time.

Thanks for pointing it out. :)

<comment><USER12> The main thing was the frequent use of "where" in place of "were." Another thing that jumped out at me was the omitted words in the introduction. If you'd like me to go back and proofread, I'd be happy to.

Thanks for an insightful article.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you very much for offering. I would really appreciate it, if it will not consume too much of your time.

You can mail me at, me[at] ashmokhberi [dot] com

Thanks very much in advance.

<comment><USER12> Sent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is very helpful and appreciate it.

I think one of the most important skills to have in business and entrepreneurial pursuits is realizing when things aren't going great. You develop the tendency in life to whitewash things, to always think in the positive.

But this isn't always necessarily good. I read a fascinating piece which said that depressed, pessimistic people were actually more accurate in their analysis of some things than happy optimists.

Being able to think/accept that you have room to improve is a good thing. It's when the real improvement/learning takes place.

</comment><comment><USER14> Indeed:

"Our servers are over capacity and certain pages may be temporarily unavailable. We're incredibly sorry for the inconvenience."

<comment><AUTHOR> haha, tumblr is always doing that :)

<comment><USER14> It's back up now - and definitely an insightful read. Thanks for sharing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> You did a bad job? In that post, you analyze perfectly the causes of your failure. If you learn something from that experience, your job wasn't bad, was good. Have success is important, everybody wanna get money and fame, but fail and learn from it is important too.

<comment><USER16> If you don't look back and think you did a bad job, it obviously means you're not improving.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The important fact is "You did a job". Some people never get to do the "job" or "work for themselves". Can you believe that for the first year of my product (infocaptor) I had zero sales. At that I kept feeling, "I did a bad job" doing the following -selecting the market -selecting the coding language -marketing and so on..

But eventually I prevailed. The product is now successful and all the learnings is only going to shorten the path to success for my new product (mockuptiger)

I like to enjoy the journey more than the destination and think financial gain is just a side effect. ofcourse you need mile posts to know that your are going somewhere and these financial gains are excellent mile posts.

So enjoy,live and learn - repeat :)</comment>


We're not going back to normal - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/615370/coronavirus-pandemic-social-distancing-18-months/ <comment><USER2> I hope they get some treatments out there to reduce the social distancing necessary to protect people.</comment>


Ask HN: Entrepreneurs, what productivity/organization system works best for you? - <AUTHOR> e.g. for me I review my notes every Friday, I create a list of the important things to possibly do, then I group them by category and have a misc category, then I schedule time on my calendar for the next week according to those categories. and I also refresh/update my note inboxes each week.
Having my tasks/scheduling out tasks and work types has been game changing for me. I've been doing it for 12+ months now.
What about you? What do you do and if you've tried multiple which one worked best?
And how long has your current system been consistently working for you? <comment><USER2> As for the to-do part, I use a personal kanban implemented with Trello. It's simple, even primitive, but it has been working great so far.

To organize my meetings, my events, I use a CalDAV compatible service (FastMail) which is synchronized with my smartphone.

I work as an independent consultant, and I don't make the distinction between my "personal" time and my "professional" time. So, I use the same calendar for all my stuff.

</comment><comment><USER3> The same thing for me but additionally I use Google Calendar and sync all of my todo and schedule there.</comment>


Down Syndrome heading for extinction in Denmark - <AUTHOR> http://cphpost.dk/news/down-syndrome-heading-for-extinction-in-denmark.html <comment><USER2> Everyone has heard of Down's. The point of the screening is less to detect Down's and more to detect Edward's and Patau's. Both of those are considerably worse than Down's.

Note that for this screening[1] to work you need very good quality abortion services, and stronger women's rights.

Here's a page from the English NHS that explains some of this: [http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/pregnancy-and- baby/pages/screen...](http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/pregnancy-and- baby/pages/screening-amniocentesis-downs-syndrome.aspx#)

This might not be a good thing in the long term. We haven't worked out how to prevent Down's, we're just aborting those babies. And so this "good enough" solution reduces pressure to work on preventative research.

Abortion might be traumatic for some women, especially if they've truggled to become pregnant. (Although I am strongly pro a woman's right to chose, and I recognise that many women don't experience trauma).

</comment><comment><USER3> DS is not extinct, it's just that everyone aborts those children.</comment>


Show HN: Postman/Gherkin tests generator from swagger spec - <AUTHOR> https://gretard.github.io/resttestsgenerator/ <comment><USER2> The sample on the github is a bit counter-intuitive. I understand why it generates it, but the result does not make sense.

You post the same request to the /health endpoint. Normally this returns 200 but in case of an internal server error it can return 500. However, reporting this in Gherkin as:

      Feature: Test service v1.0.0

      Scenario: /health returns: undefined
      Given I have "unauthorized" request
      When I submit to "/health" using "get"
      Then I should receive "200" status code

      Scenario: /health returns: undefined
      Given I have "unauthorized" request
      When I submit to "/health" using "get"
      Then I should receive "500" status code

Is not really expected. How does this work when you have a swagger that has all the possible responses listed? E.g. 200, 400, 401, 404, 405, 406, 500. Which all can occur based upon the input you give and the status of the server.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your comment and taking a look into this :) This makes sense and will need to think how better to separate different request types for different response codes..</comment></comment>


AWS Blog: Amazon Glacier: Archival Storage for One Penny Per GB Per Month - <AUTHOR> http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2012/08/amazon-glacier-offsite-archival-storage-for-one-penny-per-gb-per-month.html

<comment><USER2> Discussion of the official announcement here: <http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=4411536></comment>


Does Math Exist? - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/06/does-math-exist/276680/

<comment><USER2> XKCD comics lose their significance if the @title is not mentioned.

"...an irrational number isn't the extension of an infinite decimal fraction, […] it's a law" (Wittgenstein). It is a law which "yields extensions."

It's a good way to get around the [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/facts/slingshot- argument.h...](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/facts/slingshot- argument.html).

From a Grand Linguistic Sociologist's perspective, "π" and "the U.S. Constitution" might hold very similar roles, given that mathematicians and politicians speak are wont to speak with reverence of their own signs.

Heidegger reminds us that "we are the sign that is not read."</comment>


Show HN: Create a portfolio of the mobile apps you've built - <AUTHOR> http://tapfame.com Tapfame is the easiest way to create a portfolio of all the mobile apps you've worked on.  Once you create a portfolio you will start receiving freelance gigs that businesses and companies post. <comment><USER2> I'm seeing a pattern here (and this is not a criticism of Tapfame, though I'd love to hear their perspective).

There seems to be general agreement that a startup should build something people want. The most common response here (and with similar apps, in recent memory) is people saying they don't want to have to register with another service like Facebook to use it. And yet, people keep building websites that do just that, and indicate that they will not change this.

Is Facebook so big that startups can afford to blow off everyone who doesn't use it? Is integrating with Facebook's identity system so much easier than writing your own that it saves significant development time? Is there a strategic plan to do something unique with Facebook later?

I'm not saying anyone should do product design by surveying users, and I admit I'm not a great product designer, but when potential users all say "I'm not going to use this product because it makes me jump through hoop X" (and X isn't a fundamental component), my response would be to remove X.

<comment><USER3> > _"And yet, people keep building websites that do just that, and indicate > that they will not change this."_

IMO there are two salient points to this:

1 - The people who really, really dislike logging in with Facebook (to the point where they will refuse to participate) are a small but vocal minority. Even in the tech industry itself.

2 - The strong dislike for using Facebook login is many-fold. For most people it comes down to abuse of the Facebook link (e.g., spamming things onto your feed, messaging your friends, being in general awful), and that is a trust issue that can be mitigated with the correct positioning and assurances. The people who are against cross-network authentication on principle (as opposed to some negative artifact of its current implementation) are an even smaller camp, and they're the only ones you're really guaranteed to lose out on.

> _"but when potential users all say "I'm not going to use this product > because it makes me jump through hoop X" (and X isn't a fundamental > component), my response would be to remove X."_

1 - Beware of what your users say, it is not always what they want, or what they would use. People are extraordinarily bad at guessing their own motivations, if you took all feedback literally at face value, you might be screwed. A complaint against X may be actually a complaint against sub- component Y, or the interaction of X with unrelated bit Z.

2 - The benefit here _vastly_ outweighs the objections. The numbers have shown this again, and again, and again, _and again_ , that when given the option to do a one-click signin vs. filling out a form (and giving out your email address, _again_ ), people will overwhelmingly choose the former.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It looks like I have to manually enter each app's URL. I like how easy it was to try Kickfolio - just enter app names. <http://kickfolio.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you know someone there? Would love to chat.

<comment><USER5> They're just querying the app store search API: [http://itunes.apple.com/search?entity=software&term=$APP...](http://itunes.apple.com/search?entity=software&term=$APP_NAME)

This is the same search API that Apple uses for the App Store, and returns the same order and results as Kickfolio. The first result is usually correct, but you could always double check with the developer.

Example: [http://itunes.apple.com/search?entity=software&term=Shar...](http://itunes.apple.com/search?entity=software&term=ShareCal)

<comment><USER6> Nice work! Daniel is pretty much spot on. We run the search term through a regex to see if the user has entered an iTunes URL first (as we accept either search terms or URLs), then we pass the search term to the search API listed above. There is a little magic in sorting the results and a little magic in combining results from the different international stores. We started with that though and it gets great results. There are a couple of (fairly old) Rails gems for it too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like the idea. When I worked at appbackr we thought about something similar.

It would be cool when there is a little more data in the about the performance of the app. I think of it like a dribble for app developers that keeps itself up to date. As we're programmers we don't want to maintain it :)

You should talk to my friends from appmonsta. They have a lot of data around apps. Maybe you can work something out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback and suggestions. Can you shoot me an email satjot at tapfame ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Please provide alternatives to fb login. What are other ways to vet someone's identity or prevent outsourcing firms from creating profiles?

<comment><AUTHOR> Linkedin maybe?

What if we let developers create portfolios without social identies. Then, if they do want to be notified about freelance gigs they would need to connect their Fb/Linkedin.

<comment><USER8> I definitely prefer Linkedin over Facebook.

The multi-stage approach could work. When a developer creates a nice profile it will probably get interest from people seeking freelancers. You can then entice developers to add social identities with something like "123 people were interested in your profile. Verify your identity and contact them today!".

I forget how eLance does the identity verification. iirc it was on the thorough side. Perhaps more work than you want to invest now but perhaps worth it later.

<comment><AUTHOR> noted. thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interesting idea!

Not sure why but I have only read your main headline when I looked at the page for the third time. My attention was completely drawn to anything below that blue-black bar. It has almost camouflage-like properties.

In the featured portfolio all tooltip app names are "App Name".

<comment><USER10> sorry. fixed the "app name" thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Am I the only one seeing the "e" cut off of "you've" on the site? : <https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1634015/photos/tapfame.png>

<comment><AUTHOR> What browser are you using?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'd like to stick Novoda on it but we are a company of developers rather than an individual: http;//www.novoda.com but I can only sign up as an individual on Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER13> You should put up a screenshot on the front page. Also, the demo link just looks like regular text.

</comment><comment><USER14> I dont have a Facebook account. :/

</comment><comment><USER15> has a really nice light feel to it</comment>


How to Poach a Startup Employee - <AUTHOR> http://bigbangtechnology.com/post/how_to_poach_a_startup_employee

<comment><USER2> Another way to poach a startup employee: Write an article on _How to Poach a Startup Employee_ and submit it to Hacker News. Bonus points if it reaches first page.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ironically, we're not hiring. This article, despite its title, is about retention.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I may be crazy, but does the regularity of feedback sessions sound terrible to anyone else? I'm most productive when my supervisor let's me just code for a few days strait. I like getting feedback, but I want to have something significant to get feedback on.

<comment><AUTHOR> How do you feel about pair programming?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Another great idea, which I believe I read about Netflix implementing some time ago, is to always make it a policy to offer everyone the most you can possibly offer them (in terms of complete compensation package) so that when they tell you they have something better you don't get caught up trying to offer them better hours, pay or benefits to get them to stay.

<comment><USER5> I pretty much do this now without thinking of it as a retention policy. The more revenue and funding we get the better everyone does, just seems fair to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> For developers specifically, make sure you allocate enough resources per developer to keep hardware up to date. When your developers inevitably swap stories about their working environment at meetups, it doesn't look good to be the company with the slowest computers and the smallest monitors (speaking from experience).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I wrote this article, and you should read it if you've ever seen a founder get all bent out of shape when one of their employees finds a better job.

</comment><comment><USER7> Offer to pay them. /baddumbump

Tell them a 40 work week is normal. /tiff

Tell them they park within 1 mile of the building for free. /baddoom

<comment><AUTHOR> If only that were enough. I don't know where you live, but in TO salary isn't enough.</comment></comment>


Searching for Dark Matter with Cloudant, part 3 - <AUTHOR> https://cloudant.com/blog/searching-for-dark-matter-with-cloudant-part3/

<comment><USER2> So, have you found dark matter yet? :) what's up with that?

<comment><USER3> Ha! That would be a much bigger headline. Well, in a sense, its already been detected, but just not directly detected in a lab, produced by the LHC, or observed via any self-annihilation process. We know something it exists through cosmological observations - so in that sense its been found.

<comment><USER3> .. having said that, there are a few experiments that have data which some have claimed or interpreted as direct evidence for dark matter. but the community is far from agreement on that. in fact, most people are skeptical.</comment></comment></comment>


Drivers Complain Raised Crosswalk Slows Vehicles - <AUTHOR> https://pricetags.ca/2019/01/04/friday-file-drivers-complain-raised-crosswalk-slows-vehicles/ <comment><USER2> I don't think its unreasonable to mark them a little clearer, they are painted red on the road here in my suburb.

[https://www.google.com/maps/@-35.3193446,149.0814324,3a,75y,...](https://www.google.com/maps/@-35.3193446,149.0814324,3a,75y,180.36h,90.46t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1ssK2ZQhQCiYdcBqor2TGF_w!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)

<comment><USER3> This one in Reykjavík does wonders. I hardly ever have a car not stopping when I try to cross there.

[https://firstname.lastname@example.com,-21.9324505,3a,75y,2...](https://firstname.lastname@example.com,-21.9324505,3a,75y,231.32h,72.98t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s0RLratVHg6IZxIMnev2uYQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)

<comment><USER4> At zebra crossings pedestrians have right of way by law so I would hopes so.

<comment><USER5> The law is messier than you would think. At least in WA (where I live) if a pedestrian steps out when it would be unreasonable to expect the car to be capable of stopping (e.g. you step out a foot in front of a car that is going the speed limit and you weren't visible) the driver is not responsible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Going over a speed bump at even 15 miles per hour is a minor annoyance, whether you're a driver or a passenger. I'm not surprised people are complaining about them.

Flashing lights make me feel safer as a pedestrian and are less annoying to me as a driver. I don't know how well they actually work, though.

</comment><comment><USER7> If you don't want people going 35mph down the street, maybe the speed limit shouldn't be 35mph.

Edit: I hate vague traffic signs. "Reduce speed". Ok, I was going 30, now I'm going 20. Is that good enough?

<comment><USER5> Speed limits are pretty ineffective at reducing speed, although they are good at communicating expectations (which is one the issue here). Iirc the green book recommends road narrowing for slowing down drivers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The complaint is damaging vehicles - years ago at college one of the guys on my course trashed his classic MGB's exhaust driving at 5ph in the college car park and sued them to recover the quite large cost.

<comment> village-idiot 5mph is obviously too slow, indicating that perhaps that speed bump was poorly designed. But practically it is impossible to design something that forces cars to slow down without risking vehicular damage. Speed bumps, speed tables, and chicanes all carry the risk of serious consequences should the driver not slow down. Without those consequences some drivers can and would ignore them.

Also worth pointing out that the point of these obstacles is to protect pedestrians. Given the extreme lopsided nature of vehicle to pedestrian crashes, I believe that some risk of vehicular damage is a fair trade to prevent pedestrian fatalities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Every driver that complains when going too fast and damaging his car on such a speed reducer should loose his license for a couple of weeks to get a clear head again.

How bad people are driving is kind of a mirror of the current society. I'm annoyed by people thinking the world belongs only to them. No buddy, other people have the same rights.

<comment><USER9> Did you watch the video? The raised-ness of the crosswalk is practically invisible. This wouldn't be news if it weren't confusing the shit out of all the locals. When's the last time you saw a damn speed bump in the local paper headlines?!

Maybe instead of assuming other people are idiots, just accept that people are people. There's probably a better solution here.

</comment></comment><comment> loup-vaillant Where I live we have a standard sign next to speed bumps:

[https://www.direct- signaletique.com/I-Grande-14093-panneau-r...](https://www.direct- signaletique.com/I-Grande-14093-panneau-ralentisseur-de-type-dos-d- ane-c27.net.jpg)

There, no more problem. From what the reporter said though, it looks like the US doesn't have such a standard sign yet…

<comment><USER3> The sign design in the USA is weird. They really don't like symbols, and prefer to spell things out with weird abbreviations. Instead of an obvious sign like that, you would get a diamond shaped yellow sign with saying "SPEED BUMB" and instead of a standard crosswalk sign you would get the same yellow diamond saying "PED X-ING", and it is by no means consistent what they actually say.

The USA could really use some sign design revision.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> For a second I was confused because I thought "raised" referred to one of these:

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

Those are much safer, but unfortunately also much more expensive.

<comment><USER11> I'd be curious about the safety idea, given that most such pedestrian overpasses involve a couple of stories of stairs on either side. Their real purpose is to allow auto traffic full ownership of the intersection.

<comment><USER10> I've seen ones which have a spiral ramp, not stairs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I mean, as long as the car doesn't bottom out when you're at the speed limit, this is perfectly fine. I live in France, here there are speed bumps where you practically have to stop in order not to ruin your car, even though the speed limit is 30 or higher... that is annoying.

</comment><comment><USER13> To be fair speed bumps to slow a car to 35mph seems like slightly the wrong tool.

Also why does a text based website require a loading animation???

<comment><USER14> > To be fair speed bumps to slow a car to 35mph seems like slightly the wrong > tool

What alternative would you suggest?

As a parent of kids who cross the street to get to school, in my fantasy world, speed limits in school zones are enforced by impounding the offenders' cars.

<comment><USER13> Well I would be aiming for a lower speed for outside a school, and I also wouldn't want to drive over a speed bump at 35mph.

If the aim is to lower to speed to 35mph, speed cameras?

In my fantasy world school drop off points would be 10 minutes walk from the school. But impounding sounds good too :)

<comment><USER15> 35mph is presumably the upper limit, not the lower one. Perhaps the goal is to make cars go even slower than that when going over the crossing.

<comment><USER16> >35mph is presumably the upper limit

Yeah. I'd wager that they will not be pleased when they catch some teenager catching air in his shitbox at 34.9mph.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Xcode 4.4 adds support for Obj-C literals - <AUTHOR> http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/xcode/id497799835?mt=12

<comment><AUTHOR> See <http://clang.llvm.org/docs/ObjectiveCLiterals.html> for more information, but some examples from that page:

      NSNumber *fortyTwo = @42;             // equivalent to [NSNumber numberWithInt:42]
      NSNumber *piDouble = @3.1415926535;   // equivalent to [NSNumber numberWithDouble:3.1415926535]
      NSNumber *yesNumber = @YES;           // equivalent to [NSNumber numberWithBool:YES]
      NSArray *array = @[ @"Hello", NSApp, [NSNumber numberWithInt:42] ];
      NSDictionary *dictionary = @{
          @"name" : NSUserName(),
          @"date" : [NSDate date],
          @"processInfo" : [NSProcessInfo processInfo]
      };

This, especially the NSArray/NSDictionary stuff, should make coding in Obj-C so much faster and more pleasant - well done LLVM team!

PS: Not sure if the object subscripting stuff is supported yet, but that looks awesome too!

<comment><USER2> Subscripting only on OS X not iOS.

<comment><USER3> You can use them on iOS 5.1 by implementing the methods the subscripts map to on NSArray and NSDictionary (as well as mutable) in categories.

For NSArray:

        - (id)objectAtIndexedSubscript:(NSUInteger)index {
            return [self objectAtIndex:index];
        }

NSMutableArray:

        - (void)setObject:(id)object atIndexedSubscript:(NSUInteger)index {
            if (index < self.count){
                if (object)
                    [self replaceObjectAtIndex:index withObject:object];
                else
                    [self removeObjectAtIndex:index];
            } else {
                [self addObject:object];
            }
        }

NSDictionary:

        - (id)objectForKeyedSubscript:(id)key {
            return [self objectForKey:key];
        }

NSMutableDictionary:

        - (void)setObject:(id)object forKeyedSubscript:(id)key {
            [self setObject:object forKey:key];
        }

<comment><USER4> The implementation already exists in iOS 5, you just need to make the compiler happy; a header that declares them is sufficient.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Also see this guide how to use subscripting in Xcode 4.4 [http://petersteinberger.com/blog/2012/using-subscripting- wit...](http://petersteinberger.com/blog/2012/using-subscripting-with- Xcode-4_4-and-iOS-4_3/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Is it possible to downgrade back to 4.4? 4.4.1 seems to crash often now when stepping through my code.

<comment><USER6> [https://developer.apple.com/downloads/index.action?name=Xcod...](https://developer.apple.com/downloads/index.action?name=Xcode)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Sender Policy Framework (SPF) Records – Qualifiers - <AUTHOR> RFC4408 defines the Sender Policy Framework (SPF).
SPF has qualifiers ("-", "~", "+", "?") which are defined as (fail,softfail,pass,neutral) respectively.
There is confusion amongst information online regarding the use of - versus ~.  I need some assistance from an expert.
My assumption is that Google uses ~all instead of -all because their _spf.google.com resolves to a _netblocks host which is a dynamic record (according to Google's website since they use the word 'current' when describing the _netblocks) and, therefore, because of DNS propogation delay the ~ was used as opposed to -.
However, when I look stuff up on SendGrid support, I get examples using - and ~ for the same scenario (same hosts and so forth).  The only difference is - and ~.
My guess is most e-mail clients are properly configured such that ~ softfail pass throughs result in a flagged message indicating that the sender may not be legit.  Is this a safe assumption?  It seems like the big smtp companies made that assumption.
https://support.sendgrid.com/hc/en-us/articles/202517236 <-- says use -
https://sendgrid.com/docs/Glossary/spf.html <-- says use ~
Had to turn to HN because at the end its clear nobody has any idea what they are talking about on the interweb.
Thanks in advance friends. <comment><USER2> It depends on how the server applies the rules, how you do business, and how aggressive you want to be.

If you use external services that send mail on your behalf, and they screw up, hard fails will sometimes get the message flagged.

If you use Google, they rely on spf and DKIM.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I don't think there's a single "correct" answer here, since varying implementations do different things.

I've been using _fail_ with all domains I administer for over 10 years without issue.

What really matters is properly configuring DKIM and DMARC.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the response!</comment></comment>


The Textbroker Solution: Gig work as a freelance writer - <AUTHOR> http://writepay.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-textbroker-solution.html <comment><AUTHOR> In case it isn't obvious, I'm the author of the piece. Some of my writing about homelessness and similar does well here, like this piece from about a month ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22417487](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22417487)

I'm genuinely baffled that people on HN persist in asserting that Write Pay is content marketing for Textbroker or that I'm a shill for them. This isn't the first time someone here has said something like that.

I've been a member of HN more than a decade. My previous handle was briefly on the leader board. I know there are people here who recognize me.

I'm trying to bring solutions to the table in the face of a pandemic. They're solutions I've field tested, so to speak.

I don't know what I need to do to get this taken as seriously as some of my other writing. If anyone has suggestions, shoot me an email.

<comment><USER2> It might be because you use a bunch of different sites for your different writing, which means each one gets evaluated by first impressions and people's first impressions tend to be suspicious. If you had a single unified site/identity like some of the other writers on HN, people might be more likely to recognize you and realize that they know you already, but a site like this seems like a one-off. The name "write pay" probably brings up sketchy associations in people's minds too and there isn't necessarily any trusted association to offset that. Now that you've posted the above, that will probably change. If your main audience is people who need to get paid and didn't know that they can write to do it, that's a great name. But maybe not so much for the audience here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> First, thank you for posting.

Speaking as a publisher who has spent over $5000 on their platform over the past couple of years, TextBroker offers a very valuable service for people who are otherwise shut out of the job market. I took the time to get to know a few of my favorite writers.. here are their stories...

\- Several are working in countries where they cannot get a work permit (cannot support themselves via legal means)

\- I'm almost certain several of my writers have criminal convictions, which blocks you from most white collar jobs.

\- Many of the rest are the victims of age discrimination, where hiring managers "just prefer" to hire younger people or decided that anyone "out of the workforce" a few years must surely be damaged goods.

If you can write passable text, Textbroker really doesn't care who you are. That's huge benefit, in terms of getting access to work and being able to put a gig on your resume.

By the way, they're not the only game in town. Another good option for US writers is Constant Content, which allows you to publish & market pieces in a "catalog" at higher rates. I'm a writer on that platform.

But since people are agitated about the money side, let's talk about that topic.

Are there higher paying freelance writer opportunities? Certainly. Take a look at Problogger or Media bistro. However, get ready to spend unpaid time pitching... and chasing people for payment. (so a bunch of unpaid hours and social stress from pitching, plus the risk of unpaid work)

Upwork is another option, although the competition can get pretty brutal. I've found I can buy content for less on Upwork than Textbroker. Too many people want the same gig. I tried applying to a few gigs as a specialist contractor and was blown out of the water on rates (50% - 80% below what I was asking for). I will say a few folks have found a way to make it work, usually for high end specialty roles.

Where TextBroker excels is as a dumping ground for unused time. Go chase higher paying gigs... and if you can't sell a full book of work, Textbroker gives you a way to recover some of the value of that time.

Also... there are some highly productive ($$/hour) writers on Textbroker. I worked with a few of them to assemble an article on how to level up your earnings at a content mill.

[https://highestpayinggigs.com/freelance- writing/](https://highestpayinggigs.com/freelance-writing/)

It walks through how to go from making minimum wage (as a entry level writer) to about $40 - $50 per hour (between productivity hacking, direct orders, and leveling up the quality rate). And shows you how to recycle your work to build your own websites as a longer term investment.

Is it my life plan? Nah, I'd rather go write software and do data science. But in case of emergency, that is most definitely something on my to-do list....

The part I really admire about TextBroker is the relative openness of their market for people who are otherwise not able to participate in the regular labor market. This includes:

\- Unable to work a traditional 8 hour shift in person

\- Travel / Visa restrictions

\- Criminal Record

\- Lack of "credentials"

\- Socially Awkward / Interview Challenges

\- Ageism / Lifestyle Discrimination

The latter is significant to me personally, since it became very apparent a few years ago that I was an "increasingly undesirable candidate" to many employers due to my age.

It may be illegal, but nobody is enforcing it....

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for this.

I'm medically handicapped. For me, it allows me to work whenever I can manage to get my act together and it means when I go through long periods of being unable to work, I haven't been fired. I've just not earned anything recently, but I can go right back to work.

I had an account with whatever became Upwork. I never made money on it because you have to pitch for an assignment and compete with others. On Textbroker, I just choose something I think I can write. Done.

The other platform also only allowed me to do up to five assignments per month with a free account. To access more, I would need to pay a fee.

I was homeless at the time and I worked very erratically. There is no fee to have an author account with Textbroker. There is no minimum I must work or anything like that.

The flexibility is critical to my ability to make my life work and having some earned income that has gradually improved over time helped me grow healthier and get back into housing.

I know there are other services. But I don't chase my pay and I don't have to negotiate for work or pitch myself and these are huge advantages for me that help make it make sense.

Edit: And that's why I say Textbroker is _nominally_ low paid work. Because it cuts out so much of the unpaid hours freelancers typically spend pitching their work, chasing their pay and even working for free when they can't successfully get the pay they were promised.

If you count those unpaid hours, actual hourly wage is lower for many other avenues than their nominally higher pay rates suggest. Textbroker pays better than it seems to most people.

That's a critical detail and I never know how to really get that point through to people.

<comment><USER4> > That's a critical detail and I never know how to really get that point > through to people.

I haven't had a look at either of these platforms (and have in fact only learned about them just now) but I think you just did.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. That's good feedback and I hope to build on that at some future point.

I very much appreciate the feedback I've gotten from people in this discussion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Textbroker appears to only allow signups from authors in the US.

<comment><AUTHOR> There should be a drop down menu for the US plus nine other countries. On my phone, I found it at the bottom of the page under the word "International."

Direct links:

BR (Portugues): [https://www.textbroker.com.br/](https://www.textbroker.com.br/)

Deutsch: [https://www.textbroker.de/](https://www.textbroker.de/)

Espanol: [https://www.textbroker.es/](https://www.textbroker.es/)

Francais: [https://www.textbroker.fr/](https://www.textbroker.fr/)

Italiano: [https://www.textbroker.it/](https://www.textbroker.it/)

Nederlands: [https://www.textbroker.nl/](https://www.textbroker.nl/)

Polski: [https://www.textbroker.pl/](https://www.textbroker.pl/)

PT (Portugues): [https://www.textbroker.pt/](https://www.textbroker.pt/)

UK: [https://www.textbroker.co.uk/](https://www.textbroker.co.uk/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The only ones earning money on gig works are the platforms.

</comment><comment><USER7> I appreciate this piece as it's another option that some acquaintances can look into to help weather the current economic storm.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you.

Please let them know I welcome questions via email. I'm pretty socially isolated and it actively interferes with figuring out what to write about to inform people on various topics. There would be more content on the site if I had better audience engagement. I don't think well in a vacuum.

<comment><USER7> Will do.

To your point on social isolation and writing: Have you looked into one of those services that track SEO trends? I've found them useful to get a sense of what a specific niche of people are looking for. Think google trends but more targeted.

<comment><AUTHOR> People are usually not looking for the things I talk about. Gig work is vilified. People mostly aren't talking about how to design gig platforms well to benefit the workers. They think that's an oxymoron and insist that gig work is intentionally exploitative.

People mostly aren't talking about how to help the lower classes access remote work. People generally assume that it's out of reach for the underprivileged.

People aren't looking at homelessness the way I look at it. They routinely claim housing issues aren't relevant and it's just a bunch of junkies.

Etc.

<comment><USER8> > "People mostly aren't talking about how to design gig platforms well to > benefit the workers."

that's not entirely true, although certainly under-considered. for instance, the freelancer's union [0] is concerned with worker rights and pay. my last startup (now defunct) also focused on this problem. so there are people who care, but it's difficult to get capitalholders to care.

[0] [https://www.freelancersunion.org/](https://www.freelancersunion.org/)

<comment><USER7> Would you be open to sharing more about your startup?

<comment><USER8> it began as a screening tool for the candidate pipelines of on-demand platforms looking for qualified workers, with the goal of better matching and placing workers with platforms (increasing conversion rates, in the parlance). wonolo[0] is an example of such a business that's still operating.

the wider ambition wes to create a liquid hourly labor marketplace that would bring near real-time bidding for chunks of hourly work (like "we'll pay you $100 for the next 3 hours of your time"). hourly work (not just gig-work, but whole swaths of the service economy) is notoriously opaque, which gives all the leverage to employers, and workers don't have the time or wherewithal to effectively comparison shop to maximize their earnings.

over time, complementary services (training/certification, social networking, insurance, financing, etc.) could also have been added to increase the usefulness of the platform.

[0] [https://www.wonolo.com/](https://www.wonolo.com/)

<comment><USER7> Thank you.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Feedbackyard - Audience Feedback and Interaction Toolkit - <AUTHOR>

Audience will scan a QR code and provide feedback. That is it.
You can check the product demo at: http://blog.feedbackyard.com/2013/08/we-are-building-abcdef-of-communication.html
Expecting some feedback from the HN community. <comment><AUTHOR> Here's the direct link to the site: [http://www.feedbackyard.com](http://www.feedbackyard.com)

</comment><comment><USER2> interesting idea</comment>


Ask HN: Which foundations help developers publish FOSS, like GNU or Apache? - <AUTHOR> You can ask these two that your project become a GNU or an Apache project, in which case if they accept you they give you infrastructure like mailing lists, bug trackers, etc., and they can get people to help or even adopt your project after you.<p>Are there any other similar ones? <comment><USER2> For Java related projects we use to have Codehaus. But it it shut down [0] and the repos are now at Github [1].

[0] [https://www.javaworld.com/article/2892227/open-source- tools/...](https://www.javaworld.com/article/2892227/open-source- tools/codehaus-the-once-great-house-of-code-has-fallen.html)

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

(edited: formatting)</comment>


I Can't Code and You Can't Sell Crap [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzoncSjNdvM

<comment><USER2> there's the mistaken notion that only a sales person can run a company. and while in some industries this is true, it isn't always true. in fact even if you look at tech many companies are engineer driven and not sales driven. in fact that was steve jobs critique of where apple went wrong before he took over. the key thing is knowing what you don't know, and then having that ability to find people who do.

<comment><USER3> I agree...somewhat. Sales is the most important thing that has to happen. I don't think that you have to be an engineers OR "A sales person". Many engineers are focused on sales.

<comment><USER2> It depends on how you define sales and who you are selling to: So in a B2B company you can be a soft spoken Bill Gates, but perhaps in a consumer company you need a bit of a showboat like a Steve Jobs. But also some companies don't really "do sales" in the traditional sense — think of a utility or a conglomerate as two examples where sales isn't something you directly manage. Also you have to scale, so the real sales effort could be as much in the HR level of things in terms of doing recruitment as in the actually selling of services or products.</comment></comment></comment>


Picketty Takes on the Ideology of Inequality - <AUTHOR> http://bostonreview.net/class-inequality/marshall-steinbaum-thomas-piketty-takes-ideology-inequality? <comment><USER2> I honestly do not get Piketty.

AT ALL.

To say that "Inequality is neither economic nor technological. It is ideological and political." makes no sense. He is trying to say inequality is not natural, which is the absolute dumbest thing that anybody with a mind could say.

 _EVERY_ animal species has inequality. Insects as well. The mere fact that we have herbivores and carnivores and omnivores mandates this!

Now maybe I am missing something, and ants are really ideological. Who knew!</comment>


I made an ALPR system with Tensorflow and ConvNets (explanation and source) - <AUTHOR> http://matthewearl.github.io/2016/05/06/cnn-anpr/ <comment><USER2> Excellent post. I always love seeing readable breakdowns of machine learning exercizes. I especially appreciate seeing what breaks and how it's fixed. <3!</comment>


Show HN: Urtxt – an api and minimal website for storing plain text files online - <AUTHOR> http://urtxt.org/ <comment><AUTHOR> Last week, I saw a great post on Hacker News showing off a simple plain text twitter clone. The idea was that you pointed your client at plain text files hosted by your friends. To write a new post, you append a new line to the file on your webserver. To read your friends' posts, you get all their URLs and look for new lines. While it was simple and easy to implement for people hosting their own servers, it would be a hassle for many people, myself included, to set up.

<comment><USER2> Interesting! Do you happen to have the link for that project?

<comment><AUTHOR> I was just going through the Show HNs of the past week to find it! It's called twtxt, and you can find it at [https://github.com/buckket/twtxt](https://github.com/buckket/twtxt)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to write a Top Grad School Personal Statement - <AUTHOR>

I'm in the process of applying to grad school. Are there any specific sites or resources you'd recommend for how to write a top grad school essay?<p>Also any tips from the community would be appreciated. <comment><USER2> Assuming you're going into a research program (MSc, PhD) rather than a professional program (MBA, MD, LLB): Focus on research. Admissions decisions at the graduate level are almost always made by individual departments, and the top-of-mind question for the person reading your submission will be "could this be a future co-author?"</comment>


Show HN: Open-source Disqus alternative, with hot-reloading and guest commenting - <AUTHOR> https://demo.souradip.com/chat.html <comment><AUTHOR> I've been working on adding lots of features to Commento, a privacy-first FOSS comments plugin that I'm using on my static-ly hosted blog.

I've submitted all my merge requests upstream, but in the meantime, here's a list of features:

\- Privacy first, one click deploy to launch it on your own free heroku instance (keep it alive all day long with kaffeine ([https://kaffeine.herokuapp.com/)](https://kaffeine.herokuapp.com/\)))

\- WebSocket functionality to get pushed when someone makes a new comment/edits/delete and have it updated without needing to reload the page. I was particularly happy with integrating a DOM-diffing technique (morphdom) into the comment update function :)

\- 11KB of javascript, perfect for keeping your website performance high

\- Anonymous comments can be enabled, and guests can optionally leave their name to their comments without needing to register

\- Upvotes, downvotes, permalinks, nested replies

\- No adverts or any funny business

Source code: [https://github.com/souramoo/commentoplusplus](https://github.com/souramoo/commentoplusplus)

</comment><comment><USER2> This is great. Clean. Simple. No nonsense. WebSockets is a cherry on top!</comment>


Sneaking into the Fortune 500 through the back door - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2997-sneaking-into-the-fortune-500-through-the-back-door <comment><USER2> The comments here are mildly frustrating to me. Core takeaway: despite what you might assume about purchasing rules, no-touch sales can successfully penetrate organizations which have billions of dollars invested in making sales difficult. That is VERY IMPORTANT for your business model because the LTV of an account fo these types of services is fairly high and thry are UTTERLY price insensitive at the dollar amounts we routinely bicker over.

There are copies of BCC bouncing around in the American defense industry. (Long story.) Obviously, when you can spend two million by hitting a button, the difference between $25 and $30 is immaterial.

<comment><USER3> > There are copies of BCC bouncing around in the American defense industry

That is one heck of an achievement. Mind if I ask how that happened?

<comment><USER2> The same way almost all sales of BCC happened: customer wants to play X bingo with users, customer Googles [X bingo cards], customer finds BCC web site, customer pays via credit card. The only reason I'm even consciously aware of this customer is that they really wanted a custom feature built and, because of who they were and what they were doing, I made it happen. (At the risk of stating the obvious, normally $29.95 does _not_ entitle you to getting custom programming done on your behalf.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you look behind the numbers they aren't as impressive as they sound.

GE, for instance, has 287.000 employees, and it only takes one to tick them off in the stat they present here. A product that has some traction, as 37signals does, will almost certainly include a few people in large companies.

They are very good at marketing though...

<comment><USER5> I actually find it impressive still. The reason being that for companies as big as they are to actually allow to use a new product has to go up high a couple of levels, and needs a lot of approval. So if it made it all the way up, and it was approved, even for that "one guy", it means there is a future in the company for the product.

<comment><USER6> That would be true is Basecamp was a $500 a month product, but since the price is so low it falls within being a cost that can be expensed. That expense level is usually a few hundred dollar per month, before it needs approval.

Joel Spolsky wrote a post about this[1]. He had a great point - either price your product under the expense level, or if you prive it higher - go all the way and price it as an enterprise product, since it will involve a chain-of- approval, a sales cycle etc.

The other good example is Atlassian. They prices their products so that they can sneak in as expenses. The founders talk about how with a lot of their customers the bosses do not know that their products are being used. It is a way to sneak into an organization through developer love and being a line-item in an expense report rather than something that is bought and procured.

[1] Camels and Rubber Duckies - [http://joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckies.ht...](http://joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckies.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> After reading the small print, the article reduces to "someone with an email address from company X is using our product, therefore our product is better than their industry standard". (Map this argument to the Fortune 50, 100 and 500 lists.)

</comment><comment><USER8> Reading the title, I almost thought 37signals moved into Fortune's 500.

<comment><USER9> I don't want to be mean - but I hope you're not serious.

<comment><USER8> Well the word sneaked gave me a sneaky feeling which in turn raised my hopes.

<comment><USER10> That's exactly what I thought too. Was about to say, that would be the most epic 'Blog posts', if that's how 37Signals announces they were indeed in the Fortune 500. That would have been awesome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> And I'm sure the people in charge of the F500 IT systems and PCI compliance are super frustrated at these basecamp/campfire implementors. "Just works" can often mean, "ignores some really important organizational rules," or "creates a bunch of new work for someone else." These rules are sometimes in place for a reason. Not all system constraints are waste.

<comment><USER12> In my experience, the biggest problem is that "one size fits all" IT rules don't make sense for many organizations that employ them.

For example, I've worked for two ISPs in which engineers are responsible for larger networks than the IT department is, yet the engineers are still not allowed to, say, install a new version of Java on their own machines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Fortune 500 tools suck. They are purchased by the bosses to be used by the employees. Even worse, they are often poorly developed in-house as opposed to buying the leading product on the market(wtf?). It shouldn't be a surprise then that 1/3 of these employees then use illegal sofware- not to be rebels, but because they actually want to do good work.

</comment><comment><USER14> There is a more subtle and generic message here: your product might sneak outside the target market despite best efforts. Be prepared to pivot. 37s actually has a huge opportunity if they choose to take it.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think this is a bit misleading. They say it "is being used at", but that could easily mean that an external consultant or contractor is the one paying for the product and then adding a Fortune 500 guy to the project. Basecamp is nice for running smaller projects (maybe up to 50 people) and for sharing between employees from different companies. But it is too simple and un- extendable for running larger Fortune 500 projects.</comment>


Ask HN: How would you pay for a Dev Bootcamp type class? - <AUTHOR>

Hey everyone. I was recently accepted into the coding dojo boot camp in Mountain View, CA. This is great news but now I need to find a way to pay for it. I have saved up around $1500 but the class itself is $7500 and I live in Ann Arbor so I would have to move out there for the summer which is a whole lot more money. I set up an indiegogo campaign (http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/coding-dojo-tuition if you wanted to help) which raised $300 so far (from my family). I was just wondering what you all would do if you were in my situation. Any and all advice is greatly appreciated. <comment><USER2> I know how you feel, There is a similar program in Seattle, codefellows.org. These programs aren't designed for poor people. The best thing I can tell you is to borrow the money from a bank or student loans. Borrowing $7000 is a good investment when you're getting payed $85k or above in the future. Definitely worth trying that out. Good luck to you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I actually saw that school on the Internet somewhere. I might just take out the loan but before I do I am hoping to get accepted into App Academy which doesn't charge you until you get a job.

<comment><USER2> So you've signed up for two different bootcamps because I thought you mentioned that you've been accepted already.</comment></comment></comment>


Sins of Commissions - <AUTHOR> http://www.inc.com/magazine/20081001/how-hard-could-it-be-sins-of-commissions.html

<comment><USER2> I once read and author who claimed that goldbricking, malingering and sabotage were really just market effects. When employers pay too little or working conditions are too harsh, employees naturally find ways to remedy the problem. There seems to be a similar mechanism, here.

The pinnacle of this has to be the competitive incentive programs used at certain large software firms. In a competitive review system, the best policy is to passively sabotage your coworkers. This is robust even in the case where you are the rare superstar who has all the knowledge (in which case you simply hoard your knowledge). Those that try to be stars simply attract more coworker subversion. The countervailing factor is the general misery caused by this system. Employees will continue to sabotage until the work environment is as bad as they are willing to tolerate at the prevailing pay level. Thus, the only guaranteed result of a competitive review system seems to be maximally low morale and the majority of employee effort spent on gaming the system.

The late W. Edwards Deming (one of my heroes) proposed that the solution to this (in a manufacturing context) was to have a collective reward system (e.g., profit sharing), and to treat high and low performers as special cases. High performers should be examined to see if their techniques can be generalized across the organization, and low performers are examined to see if their performance is a result of the system or (rarely) a cause idiosyncratic to the low performer.

Many of the software types I've spoken to balk at such a method being applied to their organizations, because "creating software is not a production line process." This seems specious to me.

Have any of you if you've worked in a software house that had a reward system in place like the one Deming advocates?

</comment><comment><USER3> So wait... incentive systems _never_ work, they will _always_ be gamed.

But Joel's incentive system will be fine because Joel tells his employees not to game it.

Ah, Joel.

<comment><USER4> He also says they'll enforce it, and that most of the time, the systems are not enforced, which leads to the problem the article is based on.

<comment><USER5> The problem with enforcement is, it doesn't scale. In Joel's case, Joel and Michael are the ones monitoring the sales department (probably not more than a few guys) and Joel's interests are perfectly aligned with the company, so that's fine. But the second there's a layer of management in between, the Sales Manager (who is also getting paid on commission)has an incentive to let the sales people cheat as much as he is capable of hiding from the higher-ups. So I guess the approach is: use incentives, but only if the sales team has to report directly to people who own equity in the company?

I mean, I guess you could set up a system where you track each sales person's stats to make sure that their customer return vs exit ratio (or some other metric) doesn't fall below company average, and maybe that's what you have to do, but all that is is a better approximation of proper incentives. How much overhead is necessary until you have it right, and how much is that overhead going to cost you?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Amazing. There are three anecdotes that form this article. In all three the "employees will game incentive programs" element is pure speculation by the author.

Obviously he is paid a commission by the anecdote and thus makes them up thereby subverting his employers best laid plan.

</comment><comment><USER7> How about paying employees directly for debugging the incentive plans: Pay them for reporting how such a plan could be subverted, and then adjust the plan accordingly.

</comment><comment><USER7> That's why you need mathematician versed in mechanism design (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanism_design>).

</comment><comment><USER8> I enjoyed the article except for 2 things. The link in Joel's RSS has an affiliate code, and they made me click on a link to go to page 2. Both of these suggest the kind of incentives he's railing against.

<comment><USER5> Wait, I'm not sure that's right. Are you suggesting Amazon shouldn't have an affiliate program?

<comment><USER8> I'm suggesting that affiliate programs are the kind of incentive he's complaining about. And the artificial need to click to page 2 is even moreso - i'ts a direct attempt to inflate page views while reducing the quality of the customer experience.

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure that's right.

Amazon Affiliates: get people to buy something they wouldn't have otherwise considered buying. I'm reading a book review and thinking about buying it, perhaps. But if I can be referred and the entire process takes two clicks, I'm much more likely to do it. Why pay? To give reviewers motivation to it; plus, that's the marketplace. You think Barnes & Noble don't have an affiliate program?

Affiliate code for inc: That's a tougher one. I doubt Joel actually gets paid for the viewers he brings to Inc, more likely there for traffic purposes. Paid affiliates to news sites kind of scare me, yeah.

2nd page: yeah, as a reader I LOATH this, especially now that NYTimes.com has removed the 'single page' button. Not really an incentive issue, though, is it? More of a trade-off between making money and pissing off the audience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The problem in both cited cases was that the employee had the ability to give discounts. This is shocking. At most major retailers, only supervisors have that ability, and even there, they show up in audit forms that someone would see.

Neither is really a case of an incentive being gamed so much as lax security procedures. Simple auditing can sniff those out, and they're clearly violations of company rules over which the employee can be disciplined and probably fired, as per Joel's incentive plan.

On the whole, not a very good article.

</comment><comment><USER10> AKA why you shouldn't evaluate testers based on the number of bugs fixed and developers based on the lines of code written (though I know places that still do both those things).

</comment><comment><USER11> The story at the start of the article doesn't hold water with me.

If you went into a store and picked up a paid of $49.99 trainers (let's assume no sales tax), and you had this trick pulled at the register, but were then signing a receipt with $50.98 written on it, you're going to notice! Unless you're the sort of person who never looks at price tags or understands what the total should be, how would you fall for this?

</comment><comment><USER12> _But anyway, back to Austin, the Harvard professor. His point is that incentive plans based on measuring performance always backfire. Not sometimes. Always._

Always?!?

Normally, I like Joel's writings, but I have to say this is the _dumbest_ thing I've ever read on hn.

I guess that's why Austin's a Harvard professor earning a living on the bequests of people who know how to implement incentive systems.</comment>


Ask HN: Is (2013) necessary? - <AUTHOR>

I appreciate when older articles are explicitly dated: Bored people quit (2011), Citizen Kubrick (2004)<p>But it's only 4 months into 2014, does an article from 2013 need to be explicitly called out? Do you find it helpful or hurtful? <comment><USER2> HN front page tends to concern itself with recently published news. It's a fair point that something doesn't have to be just-printed to be relevant, but I personally visit the front page and new page to stay up-to-date with what's new, and I appreciate the indicator of something that's not.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't find it hurtful.

</comment><comment><USER4> This particular article is called "why delphi wont die" so i would say what year it was is very relevant.(even if 4-12 months)

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't see a problem. When I see an article that has stood the test of time, I am more likely to read it.</comment>


Ask HN: Teaching others to code - <AUTHOR>

I have a handful of non-techy friends who have said they'd really enjoy learning to write code. Every one of these guys/gals runs windows as their primary OS, so I usually send them to the "try ruby in your browser" page and run through the tutorials with them.
With _why's disappearance, I've been unable to find a suitable replacement for that awesome application.
Can anyone recommend something similar? And while I'm at it, what resources have you all found helpful for those starting out? <comment><USER2> JavaScript is often a fairly good replacement. You can try it in your browser anyway, and you can do fairly impressive stuff with fairly little effort. It's pretty trivial to put together an HTML page that grabs JQuery off the AJAX libraries API and has a text field and submit button that evals the code and executes it immediately on the page.

</comment><comment><USER3> Okay, it's nowhere near as immediate or as cool as Try Ruby, but.. I answered the question by writing a book, Beginning Ruby - [http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Ruby-Novice-Professional- Sec...](http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Ruby-Novice-Professional- Second/dp/1430223634/) ( _not_ an affiliate link). Ah well, I had to try!

I sense, though, your question is looking for something more immediate to get over the "why bother?" hump with people who claim to want to do something but if it requires more than an ounce of effort could give up easily. In which case.. I'd recommend Microsoft's Small Basic: <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/devlabs/cc950524.aspx>

</comment><comment><USER4> Get a linode slice and tell them to download putty. I made the switch to linux after a LONG time of just programming on windows (VBA activated excel sheets, more complicated than it sounds) and that is how I did it. I now program in Ubuntu, but when you are first starting out typing "ruby helloworld.rb" in putty is not too daunting.

</comment><comment><USER5> <http://utilitymill.com/utility/MetaUtility> Just about the same thing for Python. It would probably be trivial to write another one like _why's with Rails, though</comment>


He Got Greedy: How the U.S. Government Hunted Encryption Programmer Paul Le Roux - <AUTHOR> https://mastermind.atavist.com/he-got-greedy <comment><USER2> Another great, fun write-up by Ratliff. I'm surprised by by a number of things which I'll comment on in a disorganized way. :) One is how often Israeli commandos turn up in these organizations. In parallel, there's their well- known effectiveness plus the risk of Mossad connections that can burn you. Mexican cartels, Colombian, Paul Le Roux... they all buy them up. Cheap, too. I'd like to hear their logic on that.

That he was still producing 200kilos out of thin air was interesting. Operations are still going somewhere with possibly millions moving. Either his that are still running autonomously or others with him just having 3rd parties that can pull a huge transaction at once.

His OPSEC sucks. I mean, I'm amazed that he didn't get caught earlier in some unrelated investigation using his real name and emails on all kinds of shady stuff. Many I know are too paranoid to do that thinking someone would connect dots. He did it and nobody connected dots until piles of high risk crimes added up with benefit of easy tracing. Even police said a little more obfuscation would've thrown them. This means we've overestimated the police's ability to connect dots on suspicious items. Just don't know how much.

Spamhaus says a quarter of stuff came from this company. I read much in INFOSEC but never heard them connect it to something like this. Another "under the radar" aspect that's amazing. Plus, owning a registrar for spam cover is excellent example of subversion at protocol level.

$200-400 million a year could buy tons of INFOSEC and OPSEC. He could've rebranded under a new company to move his name further from the transactions. He could've potentially paid his Israelis to straight up break in and steal/alter records. He could've dropped a few mil strategically in Brazil on key people to spot legal and financial risks along with strats people use to dodge or buy cops. Before he went there. Far as Liberian deal, he should've sent one of his well-paid, experienced people to negotiate that. At his level, he should never leave protection or associate himself with something that's tainted. And when busted, getting immunity to flip is a rational option in his situation but admitting to murders was just stupid.

How about "An arrogant way of living?" Haha.

<comment><USER3> I dunno. My personal opinion is that humans to some extent are innately good, and that it's the broken ones who turn to crime. Furthermore it's the EXTREMELY broken ones that become the crime lords etc. and those people often have massive flaws in their character such as the arrogance you described.

Basically I don't think he could've ever accomplished what he did if he wasn't arrogant and wreckless to his core.

<comment><USER4> > ...it's the broken ones who turn to crime.

If law were derived from universal morals (heh...) then that might be accurate. But due to the relatively arbitrariness of whether or not someone is a criminal, especially with respect to the great variety of countries in which virtually all of HN would be criminals for freely speaking about various topics, I think it's a bit presumption and mean to call those who "turn to" crime as broken.

Additionally, I would posit that many criminals are not "turning to" crime so much as not "turning away." By that, I mean that crime is not sought out, but rather the criminality of their actions is ignored, much like I presume the mindset is of the majority of jaywalkers.

> Furthermore it's the EXTREMELY broken ones that become the crime lords etc. > and those people often have massive flaws in their character such as the > arrogance you described.

Once again, I take issue with the use of broken to describe someone's actions simply on the basis that a group of people disagree with them. "Extremely broken" implies some serious psychological issues, which are not at all requisite for running an illegal enterprise. I would posit that many of the people involved in controlling bootleg DVD sales or knockoff brand name goods are in fact very normal and psychologically uninteresting.

I do agree with the assumption of arrogance, as much like politicians, the drive to control on a grand scale typically requires a decent amount of ego, it's incredibly difficult for an individual to exert control of an empire with humility, although I think it's possible, it's just _very_ unlikely outside of a very peaceful organization, which his was most certainly not. Violent groups of people are difficult to control in a non-Machiavellian manner (I would think impossible, but I haven't given it much thought) and I sincerely disbelieve one could rule in such a manner without a decent ego.

<comment><USER5> >If law were derived from universal morals (heh...) then that might be accurate.

Well, there's a pretty big difference between "I shouldn't get arrested for smoking pot" and "I shouldn't get arrested for murdering rival pot dealers."

Maybe western law is mostly derived from a sensible universal moralism with certain exceptions. That doesn't mean that all criminality is rational or that the OP's opinion that most criminals are irrational is wrong. For every Robin Hood there's hundreds of thousands of street thugs. I think you're overpleading the edge cases here. Many studies have shown your average criminal to be a fairly messed up individual: mental illness, strong personality faults, poor reasoning skills, poor executive control, poor discipline, etc.

<comment><USER2> Alternatively, the law makes a distinction between types of harmful activity that are legal and types that are illegal with interesting results. The kind of very damaging activity smart, disciplined people do that ruins lives is often legal. These are [Wall] street thugs. Then, there's other types of harm the lesser people can pull off that are illegal. There's also stuff they do that doesn't harm other people but is severely illegal.

So, I don't think there's an average criminal given the variety of crimes, levels of harm, and criminals themselves. However, the average criminal on drugs in my area is a working class person who poses no threat to society but smokes weed on occasion. There's also a number of addicts who are similarly not a threat but will receive long sentences. There's also thugs who range from your description to well-educated people who say "screw being someone's b __ __for minimum wage when I can be my own boss for $50k slinging this stuff! " On thugs, similar predatory behavior as many business owners except their type of harm is allowed and affects more people. Even when it's indirect murder.

What's law and what's ethical isn't the same. The law can enforce evil, stop good, and do arbitrary things hard to judge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _" In the early days of RX Limited, employees purchased individual web domains at public sellers like GoDaddy. Later, RX Limited spawned its own domain- selling company, ABSystems—the equivalent of opening a printing press for web addresses. But instead of selling those addresses to others, ABSystems generated them by the thousands, virtually for free, exclusively for RX Limited."_

This guy knew how to scale! Started/bought a domain registrar to generate the so many spammy sites needed to sell all those drugs.

Another unrelated point. He found himself in a career crisis in 2002, and also discovered he was adopted, which according to this series (and some Australian media articles) disturbed him. And there are two distinct career paths before and after it.

Although, I am filled with disgust at his actions, esp. he got people killed. But it also stuns me the amount of "progress" he did in a span of less than a decade from 2002 (assuming by 2011 he was done with it, sort of).

<comment><USER7> I real-life _Breaking Bad_ story.

<comment><USER8> Would make a hell of a film, they'd inevitably screw up the technical accuracy on the computer side unless we could get the Mr Robot director on-board.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _Halfway to the airport, however, Le Roux switched tactics, said Stouch. "He just essentially said he was no longer going to resist and that he would cooperate with our commands." According to the DEA, Le Roux waived his Miranda rights somewhere over the Atlantic and agreed to tell them everything he knew._

What miraculous luck that such a thing would happen, purely of his own free will.

<comment><USER10> Sure, but I would imagine that in such a situation it would be quite rational to choose to coöperate.

<comment><USER11> Please explain.

<comment><USER10> If they know what you're up to and you don't coöperate you still end up behind bars or executed. If you do coöperate, they might let you off the hook somewhat.

<comment><USER11> Understand, but no, even law enforcement, military, etc. are trained to never say anything; this isn't just to protect the greater good either, don't do it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> hacker news is not cool with link shorteners. most link shorteners (bit.ly, et al) are banned here. chances are good that the only reason this particular shortener isn't banned yet is because dang is not aware of it. should be replaced with this article's true url:

[https://mastermind.atavist.com/he-got- greedy](https://mastermind.atavist.com/he-got-greedy)

<comment><USER13> Is it really a link-shortener or just atavist providing a short perma-link? 'atav.st' == atavist.com?

<comment><USER12> it doesn't make any difference, if you think about why hacker news bans link shorteners: there should be one, and ONLY one, canonical URL for every article. if you allow two or more, then there is essentially no way to detect duplicate submissions. so i can pretty much guarantee that it is just a matter of time until atav.st is banned here.

<comment><USER14> > essentially no way to detect duplicate submissions

No, the shortened URL can be followed.

<comment><USER12> ... and once it is followed, it is the true URL that should be displayed, because it contains more useful information for the end user, like the true domain where the article resides, instead of the alphabet soup you get with link shorteners. which, again, is why link shorteners are banned here.

i probably shouldn't engage in arguing pointless minutiae like this. i will refrain after this one.

<comment><USER15> I think it's good to discuss HN social norms when it's appropriate. Your comment added to the discussion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is a very interesting story

<comment><USER17> Edited to protect parent's privacy

<comment><USER18> I assume the original comment you wrote was edited, because this reply makes no sense otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > "He got greedy," Jody continued. "He probably could have closed up shop in > 2006 or 2007, been a rich millionaire, and never have been investigated at > all."

This does seem to be a common thread with highly skilled and intelligent criminals. Their pride convinces them they can keep going when the truth is it is time to pull the ripcord years before they got caught and walk away with all the wealth a person would ever need to live happily ever after.

<comment><USER20> It's the common thread _among those that get caught_. What's to say how many there are that do retire as millionaires before getting caught?

<comment><USER21> And those who don't retire and don't get caught too. Tbh, looking at the how long he lasted heading a global organization and his exploits, it seems not too unlikely that others can just pull it off.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Another absolutely fantastic article on this same guy:

[https://mastermind.atavist.com/he-always-had-a-dark- side](https://mastermind.atavist.com/he-always-had-a-dark-side)

<comment><USER23> they're all part of the same series of articles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Weight of 342 bars of gold would be 4255-kg (9381-lb)...

...find it hard to believe the carrying capacity of an average taxi would support this.

<comment><USER24> In Hong Kong 1 kilo bars are very popular.

From the article:

acquired $30 million in one-kilogram gold bars from Metalor Technologies

<comment><USER11> I have one-kilo as being 35.27-ounces - and an ounce of gold costing roughly $1000 USD. If true, 30 million worth of gold in one-kilo bars would be 850 bars; meaning a lot appear to be missing.

Also, 342 one-kilo bars at $1000 USD an once appears to be worth $1.2 million, not $2 million.

Possible math/logic is flawed, or I'm missing something, but often found people say numbers that if hashed out don't add up.

<comment><USER25> Could be 342 bars of different weights... you can buy a 1 gram bar for example... possibly can buy bars of >1kg too. I know I would do it this way to make later trading easier.

<comment><USER11> It "could" be a sign of factually conflicts, a lack of fact checking, etc.

Just pointing it out, maybe the author will add some clarification; since I assume the did fact checking based on their mentioning that the did on sources, evidence, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> So excited to red this installment. So far, this series has been fantastic. I had no idea who Le Roux was three weeks ago, let alone his shadowy background and connection to tools I have used in the past.

Thank you for the great work.

</comment><comment><USER27> "... Then the arms ship MV Captain Ufuk was intercepted off the coast, Sol told me, the DEA "knew that Le Roux was behind that shipment right away. Because La Plata Trading and Red White and Blue Arms"—companies tied to the shipment—"connected back to ABSystems, and the websites were registered to him. ..."*

quite poor opsec skills obviously not as tech savy as they painted him

</comment><comment><USER28> YES my lunch break is going to rule, reading this. i love this series so far!

</comment><comment><USER29> This has been a fantastic series of articles! I absolutely love this. Evan Ratliff is simply a superb writer in long form journalism.

</comment><comment><USER30> I'm assuming that this submission's headline differs from the original ("He Got Greedy") to make it more useful for HN readers...but I wish it were how other reputable news sites, such as The Washington Post, constructed their linkbaity headlines: `the-short-answer: the linkbait phrase`

As a reader, it makes me no-less interested in the content.

<comment><USER31> If your story's so weak that disclosing basic who / what / where information in the headline kills its value, you don't have a story.

Drives me nuts.

[https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/7juQbQ5B...](https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/7juQbQ5B45X)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Among the most closely-guarded troves of knowledge in the world are those pertaining to organized crime. This stuff is so dramatic and interesting because it is sort of "forbidden knowledge".

I have high hopes for Quora (one of the YC portfolio companies) because they are trying to make accessible this sort of locked-up knowledge.

<comment><USER33> Well, to continue reading, you'll have to log in, however.

<comment><USER32> I can understand how some are uncomfortable with that, but it's not a big deterrent for me (and I suspect most users). There's really some good stuff there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Is this the same Paul Le Roux who wrote the original software that TrueCrypt was based on?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E4M](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E4M)

<comment><USER35> Yes. This is the fifth installment of the series investigating his life. The other episodes mention how his code inspired TrueCrypt.

The title for this submission should really have done a better job at explaining this is a series.

<comment><AUTHOR> The final episode here: [https://mastermind.atavist.com/the-next-big- deal](https://mastermind.atavist.com/the-next-big-deal)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Does anyone know if this is the last installment or how many there will be?

<comment><AUTHOR> There'll be seven in total. So, two more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Yesssss i have been waiting hard for the next part of the story. Ut's totally riveting.

I would pay for more of this!!! [And or for future investigative journalism of this incredible scope]

</comment><comment><USER38> I am fascinated by TruCrypt and Bitcoin -- they had a very big impact on the world but their authors are completely unknown. Are there any other instances of things like that?

<comment><USER39> Did you read the previous articles? Allegedly Paul Le Roux created TrueCrypt (because a domain name is linked to him or something like that). Even if he didn't create TrueCrypt, he definitely created the pre-forked version of it (which he was open about).

It's got me curious as to whether Satoshi was really motivated by being anti- bailout or whether he created it for his own operations just as Paul allegedly created TrueCrypt for his.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Something which confuses me about the pharma sites is that most of the pills being sold seem pretty obscure, yet they clearly managed to earn a fortune

<comment><USER41> [https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/usenixsecurit...](https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/usenixsecurity12/sec12-final204.pdf)

<comment><USER40> "Approximately 100 pharmacies across the country were using that same account number. All of them were predominantly shipping the same three drugs: Fioricet, Ultram, and Soma"

Your article says the Russian sites mostly sold ED pills, which makes more sense to me, but it seems like Le Roux wasn't in that racket.

Maybe I'm just not up to speed on prescription meds, but I would've guessed people would go for recognized things like Vicodin etc. over random muscle relaxers

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I wonder why he was so willing to talk.

<comment><USER43> So that he couldn't be prosecuted for the other crimes he committed. Once he admitted to this main crime they knew about, they said they wouldn't charge him with further crimes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I love this series thus far. So interesting.

</comment><comment><USER45> That story would make a class movie.

</comment><comment><USER45> When is the movie lol

</comment><comment><USER46> Altgeld Garden Drug Co was in the middle of an interesting location... One of two registered... Altgeld Gardens is one of "Chicago Housing Authority's largest housing development."

\---

Altgeld Garden Drug Co., Chicago – pharmacy license (054-003512) revoked and Erskine A. Cartwright III, Chicago – pharmacist license (051-033091) suspended for 30 days followed by probation for two years after information came to the Department's attention that from on or about the Fall of 2006 continuing to on or about the summer of 2007, the pharmacy dispensed a substantial quantity of prescription drugs, including controlled substances, pursuant to orders received electronically issued by physicians for patients who are alleged to have ordered the drugs via the internet. Additionally, the Department was not notified 30 days in advance of the pharmacy's closing. [1]

\----

Street Address: 912 e 131st st, EVERGREEN PARK, Il 60805, US Website Address: RXINFODEPOT.COM^^VIAGRACHEAP.COM Company Email: email@example.com [2]

Now a thrift store: st vincent de paul... Le Roux :-P

\---

email above is associated with C-21 Dabbs & Associates [3]

maps: [https://email@example.com,-87.8476405,3a,50.4y,...](https://email@example.com,-87.8476405,3a,50.4y,88.19h,77.68t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s55dlJbV4C59beOXaBWsY7g!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1)

\----

"Mr. Erskine A. Cartwright entered into rest on Sunday, February 23, 2014" [4]

\---

The other registered location is 974 East 133rd St [5]

\---

re c21 dabbs president - Karen Capriotti, Richton Park – real estate managing broker license (471-015345) automatically revoked for violating the terms of a non-disciplinary order issued by the Department on April 8, 2013. [6]

\---

Erskine A. Cartwright, contributor of excellence to the Xavier University [7]

\---

disciplined in 2011

Probation 01/01/2012 12/31/2013 after information came to Department's attention indicating that from on or about the Fall of 2006 and continuing until on or about the Summer of 2007, the pharmacy dispensed a substantial quantity of prescription drugs, including controlled substances, p ursuant to orders received electronically issued by physiicans for patients who are alleged to have ordered the drugs via the internet; the Department was not notified 30 days in advance of the pharmacy's closing.

Suspension 12/01/2011 12/31/2011 after information came to Department's attention indicating that from on or about the Fall of 2006 and continuing until on or about the Summer of 2007, the pharmacy dispensed a substantial quantity of prescription drugs, including controlled substances, p ursuant to orders received electronically issued by physiicans for patients who are alleged to have ordered the drugs via the internet; the Department was not notified 30 days in advance of the pharmacy's closing. [8]

\---

This just keeps on going.. He was married to Maggie Bell Cheatham Cartwright, mayor of the city of Keysville: [http://augustafuneralnotices.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/03/...](http://augustafuneralnotices.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/03/Erskine-Cartwright-.pdf)

\---

1 [https://www.idfpr.com/Forms/DISCPLN/1112_dis.pdf](https://www.idfpr.com/Forms/DISCPLN/1112_dis.pdf)

2 [http://www.subiz.us/biz-il-58953.html](http://www.subiz.us/biz- il-58953.html)

3 [http://illinois.cevo.us/company/c-21-dabbs-s- associates.html](http://illinois.cevo.us/company/c-21-dabbs-s-associates.html)

4 [http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/augustachronicle/obituary.a...](http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/augustachronicle/obituary.aspx?pid=169870252)

5 [http://www.manta.com/c/mm7dlxl/altgeld-gardens-drug- co](http://www.manta.com/c/mm7dlxl/altgeld-gardens-drug-co)

6 [https://www.idfpr.com/forms/discpln/2013_09dis.pdf](https://www.idfpr.com/forms/discpln/2013_09dis.pdf)

7 [http://www.xula.edu/mediarelations/XUGold_Summer2011.pdf](http://www.xula.edu/mediarelations/XUGold_Summer2011.pdf)

8 [https://www.idfpr.com](https://www.idfpr.com)

</comment><comment><USER47> One of the things that annoys me about the series is we read only anout his botched stuff. None of the successes. He does not look like that big of a fish.</comment>