Too little to offer for bootstrapped start-up? - <AUTHOR>

We're a super early bootstrapped start-up with 2 founders (husband and wife) trying to build a community online marketplace. We're also very new to HN and loving the lost hours of reading.
We live on Maui and while we're cash poor we're "location rich" and started thinking we have the perfect 'incubator' to work on the project. Our daughter left for college and we converted her room into a guest room. Our son lives in the 'ohana' (in-law) downstairs where my office is along with kitchenette and bathroom.
We work at home and suddenly thought... "aha! what if we offer to move a pair of talented hackers into the ohana to work with us until launching an MVP and/or acquiring seed capital?" (airfare, room, meals, small per-diem and equity in the company)
The question is, does an offer like this seem totally slave-labor lame and offensive, or does it sound like a unique opportunity to work on a project that we plan to take national and then global from a groovy location? We think the latter, but then we live here, so we wake up on Maui every day regardless.
Frustrated by a lack of skills (I'm a designer and wife is a writer; we've both 'dabbled' in tech for years), we're just trying to find unique ways to solve our lack-o-hack problem.
Aloha for your replies, we're grown-ups so we can take a flame or two :) <comment><AUTHOR> After posting this last night, I've been positively (literally) overwhelmed by the feedback both on and off HN. Discretion on some 'harsher' emails definitely appreciated :)

I wanted to revisit and expand on the original topic. I'd posted literally to ask the question hypothetically (no ulterior) of whether the scenario sounded equitable - not to actually try and source talent or 'fish.' That's one reason I was being vague on description... didn't see the need to go into it.

I now see the error of my ways. This is a community for hackers and while we are "idea people" on one level (not hackers), we're not just that... we're also (perhaps) misguided enthusiastic idiots who've also grown a couple profitable businesses along the way... "lifehackers" if you will (problem: earn money, feed family. solution: whatever it takes).

Since there's been a recurring "what's it about" thread I'll expand on this. Firstly, we have someone on board to start protoyping based on my designs; he plans to do so in Rails using an existing framework he's built. He's not in our basement. We're planning to pay him for that service, and are working with him on another job (not the start-up). In other words the post wasn't a 'hacker wanted' plea, but more of a "would it seem out of line" as we consider the prospects of how we could move from payment toward a push (on limited cash) to get something released in exchange for some kind of equity. A potential perk to building a team on limited resources.

One reason we need to consider it is that this guy, like every talented hacker on this board, has other irons in the fire and a career of his own to manage. So start-up may not be his bag, baby.

Who's bag might it be? Tough to say, but a lot of the feedback has been 'get personal already'. So, my name is Andy Johnson, and my wife is Michelle Blaine and we have a start-up company called Chef 52, Inc. Here's a bit about it from the late YC application we submitted if you're interested. It ought to give you the basic overview of the business, name our _potential_ partners (disclaimer: nothing signed in blood yet) and give you a view of both our living room, and 'us' as people.

[http://chef52.posterous.com/chef-52-described-for- ycombinato...](http://chef52.posterous.com/chef-52-described-for-ycombinator)

Don't let the bad hair and casual dress fool you. We bring a lot more to the table than an idea. We have 8 kids (yes, 8) that are alive, healthy and prospering in this world. Food was a critical component to that equation, and we're both passionate 'foodies'. Michelle is a stellar cook and has spent years working in the food industry; initially to support her habit spending years working in the film/TV industry - which she did so very successfully. She's also worked in music licensing and managed to build real value and equity for clients. She's a shrewd business woman, and a loving mother (more of the latter seen on video).

I was a touring musician 'in a past life' and have been passionate about food and cooking since I was a teenager. First because my Dad was an excellent cook so I grew up thinking a man's place WAS in the kitchen. Then in my early 20s as a necessity because my health went down the tubes... rock'n'roll lifestyle perhaps or luck of the draw. But either way, I used food and nutrition as the singular means to regain my health and well-being. Successfully! It was a total trip and changed my lifestyle forever. As a result I've been a vege/pescetarian coming up on about 19 years now.

About 11 years ago, having taught myself several 'creative' software apps and blagged my way into some print-production gigs, I took a job at one of the largest branding agencies in the world, Landor Associates. I spent 4 years forming the foundation to become an expert in digital production as it pertains to brand... This mostly meant font management and consultation, building logo suites for global brands based on initial designs, extending design into brand guidelines and stationery/presentation 'packages' including print mechanicals and digital equivalents (Word/PPT templates), creating interactive PDFs, and very rarely getting to do a little hand coding on HTML 'comps' for clients.

Since leaving Landor I've managed a freelance career as a designer/producer, continued to tour as a musician, wrote a few short film scores, had another baby, moved our family back to Maui (we've been in/out of the islands all our lives), skirted death in a motorcycle accident (and 'mostly' walked away), and hacked together a number of websites with Michelle as a passionate pursuit - sometimes for money... maybe even more than we should've been paid (see "shrewd business woman").

Since leaving film/TV and music licensing, Michelle has continued to raise our family, helped me grow my freelance business into what has become Johnson Beesley (we're a branding agency compiled of free-agents working cooperatively), built a mom-blog following and become a writer for food-buzz (which incidentally came on the heels of her deciding to write about food exclusively). She's also developed a modest following on twitter (@mControl); far more than I have (@johnsonbeesley).

We're friendly, astute, and staunchly creative people. We follow our hearts wherever they take us and let our brains catch up. We love people that surprise us with their kindness and intelligence and often loathe people that fail to surprise us by reaffirming our occasional desire to join what Bill Hicks coined as the "people who hate people club."

Our project, Chef 52, aims to be a culmination of our collective life experience. It represents something we know a lot about - people, friends, family, food, health and self employment.

The latter two are critical to our vision. We believe there's a behavioral change opportunity in this idea that would help people get 'out of the drive thru and back to the table.' We've watched childhood and adult obesity, diabetes, heart disease and all sorts of other nutritional fails claim people's lives. Some who were loved ones. So, we now have an idea that if effectively produced could put a dent in our declining eating habits as a culture (yes, we're doing market research on that too). The self-employment part is obvious. We've been 'without boss' and also location-independent as a result for close to 8 years now. We appreciate the freedom while never forgetting that we've actually been at that "oh crap we've got $7 to our name" point - with kids to feed, clothe and house. But we choose that lifestyle because we believe it's the best path in this single life we have.

<segue> "Single life we have" - we're not religious people, but to call us 'spiritually motivated' would be fair. Not 'crunchy' but a bit hard around the edges. You could call me an enthusiastic aethiest and I'd say that's pretty close to accurate. </segue>

So, that's us in a nutshell, and I felt like it was fair to post this given the personal feedback and time people have taken to express an interest in what started as hypothesis.

Now for some hacker comedy entertainment... Here's a collection of sites that Michelle and I have designed and/or built over the past several years... no 'web applications' but you'll get a sense of both our strengths and shortcomings in this domain. We're not clueless - but certainly not as thorough or knowledgeable as the people we'd like to help us execute the platform to deliver our vision and business:

www.johnsonbeesley.com (WP, not updated in ages) www.halblaine.com (WP with Thesis) www.mommysalad.com (WP with Thesis) www.everkaeo.com (WP with Thesis) www.laurapickering.com (flash, so no iPad ;) www.9fishsurf.com (flash)

We cobbled together a few sites in Joomla for a while around 2007 - but I think they've all gone the way of expired domains. It's safe to say they were crap (more so than what you may think of the above) but were a learning adventure nonetheless.

Thanks for reading, and if any of this makes you think "damn, I might want to work with these people" you can drop a line at ajohnson at johnsonbeesley and mblaine at johnsonbeesley.

Aloha~

</comment><comment><USER2> Personally, I would feel weird living in the same house with my boss. I would also want to have a real legal eagle go over the equity agreements, because I'm a paranoid git about stuff. =)

However, it doesn't seem like slave labor. It does seem like a situation which could turn sour from interpersonal relations. I would advise care in selecting hackers, ideally meeting them in person first.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point! We're early AirBnB adopters so we've had our fair share of awkward experiences - and you're right, the 'fermentation factor' is potentially high; but at least space is somewhat separated (downstairs/upstairs). Skype can be decent, but one never knows. Same feeling re. legal eagle - we're crucial on bullet-proof arrangements prior to any execution.

<comment><USER3> What are your house rules regarding bringing over friends, playing guitar, staying up late, fapping, etc? :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Heres my take. No way.

Well, 23 year old me says sweet, older me says no way. But at 23 I wasn't near equipped to build a product from scratch.

What you really need is a CTO that gets founder equity. But you already have a CTO and it sounds like they don't bring much to the table besides you being comfortable with them. Which is important no doubt about it.

So you've got all the founders you need, but still don't have a means to build the product. Building a product from the ground up for non-founder equity and room and board is ridiculous. If you are competing for people with the skills to build a product from zero to MVP and beyond on a global scale, you must realize these same people have the opportunity to do the same thing somewhere else but for an equity share matching their contribution.

I see you have a few options:

* Pay your hackers market salary minus local COL. (2 month contract I'm guessing would be about 20k per head)

* Outsource the job (Guessing somewhere around 50k)

* Replace your CTO with someone who can commit and build the product. (Free)

* Roll the dice with some go getter looking for an adventure.

<comment><AUTHOR> Super informative, and noted on the 23 yo "me," djb. I've had similar experiences in music (touring the country in a van post-25 years old starts to look pretty aggravating).

I'm about to supplement this thread because I feel the information shared has gone beyond the scenario question (which wasn't meant to carry any ulterior motive but simply help us ascertain what value that might hold in trying to hire a team).

That said, because of some of the talent that has responded with a 'I want to know more' proposition, I want to address that as a blanket comment.

-Aloha

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> To answer your question, while it's not an offer I'd likely take up, I don't think it's slave-labor lame or offensive, so long as you make things clear as to the exact terms of the arrangement. Nobody is forcing anything to do anything, so IMO the only time you'd be in the wrong was if you misled anybody.

However, I'd like to encourage you to "shop local". While it doesn't appear to be the case, there are a lot of talented devs available locally. I'm part of a fledgling makerspace on O'ahu, and in the past few months I've met a ton of developers that came out of the woodwork. Did you know we had a startup weekend here? Our makerspace also had two teams participate in node knockout.

I can't speak for Maui, but I'm sure the situation is the same (and you guys have a more mature makerspace, why not join up and start networking?).

If you need any help networking (I can get you in touch with alohastartups.com), or are open to an alternate proposal, feel free to contact me (firstname.lastname@example.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> Mahalo Shuzchen, the CTO I mentioned in another reply (a Rails guy) is on O'ahu. We've been working with him to try and find local hackers to work with; no cash is the prevailing 'fail' but we'd love to hook up with locals - I grew up on Kauai and our daughter (who's empty room is mentioned) was born on Maui. Was telling a SCORE guy here (also on TechHui) that we'd love nothing more to keep it local and stay brick and mortar here too. Any help appreciated; I'll email now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Most people including myself care most about _what_ it is we are building and why. Working on meaningful and/or technically or socially interesting problems will go a long way for most here I think.

I personally despise freelance work. Yet I spend countless hours working on my own projects which don't net me a dime.

So with that in mind, what do you want to build?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Jade. "Yes I spend countless hours..." Exactly how we got here! Just emailed you at gmail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It is not offensive, as long as you offer meaningful amounts of equity (it sounds like you are at the idea stage and are basically looking for cofounders, and you should probably offer cofounder-size stakes and use the same care you would take in selecting a cofounder.)

Good people have an enormous number of opportunities right now. The risk you run is that you'll attract only people that aren't very good, and not realize it, since it doesn't sound like you have a strong enough tech background to put them through a solid tech interview. So my advice is to find a friend of a friend who has been through the full cycle of hiring engineers and shipping a successful project, and have them vet your choices.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Geoff, solid advice.

Forgot to mention in post that we have an acting CTO/senior advisor that has held that role at several other companies (and currently employed as such) that would help us identify/vet the pair. He's interested but unwilling/unable to leave his job and he already lives in Hawaii! ;) But, he's going to basically 'donate' an hour a day to review code and help shape strategy, and is interested in coming on board for salary/equity if we can find seed.

We're still struggling with what constitutes fair equity. Obviously x% of 0 is still null. So on the one hand giving over founders share is attractive; on the flipside, we're trying to offer some cash/benefits up front to hackers while bootstrapping; wouldn't founder equity also include founder 'stakes' (no pay, doing it for the love/risk, etc.)?

<comment><USER8> "But, he's going to basically 'donate' an hour a day to review code and help shape strategy, and is interested in coming on board for salary/equity if we can find seed."

My beef here is that the people who do the least amount of work or, in the case of you and your wife, have the least amount of tech-related skills, would be running the show. If I'm working all day on _your_ startup, the last thing I want is to have that day end with a CTO looking over my shoulders and criticizing my code, especially when that CTO obviously lacks the same amount of commitment that I have. It'd be even more grating if that CTO would then come on full time and essentially jump over me and my colleagues who have done all the work, both in salary and title.

Also, you'd have to be able to prove that you are actually an interesting founder to work with and have skills (if not coding, something else) that will be an asset for the company in the long run. Nobody wants an "idea man" as his/her boss.

Lastly, if you work 12 hours a day, whether you do so in Hawaii or in Siberia doesn't really matter all that much. If you only expect your coders to work for 4-5 hours a day, now that's something else.

Coding-for-space isn't offensive, it just isn't all that appealing.

<comment><AUTHOR> This feedback is exactly why I posted - and thanks for the scenario. We def bring a lot more to the table than ideas (UI design, proven branding and marketing knowledge/experience; enough skills to jump in wherever needed and whenever needed - "Hey, write me some CSS for that page while I tweak xyz..." "OK, done.") - and the site is admittedly more of a marketing play then a tech play (words of another hacker that's reviewed materials to date). That said, super valid points re. someone 'hopscotching' and well spotted on 12hour days in Siberia. That said, I work about 16 on average and still enjoy the view (and weather) a lot more in those down hours - so surely environment carries some equity. No mai tais in Russia... good Vodka though!

<comment><USER8> "the site is admittedly more of a marketing play then a tech play" — that could actually be an advantage if it means you chiefly need coders for a couple of months to get things started, rather than a multi-year commitment. Makes it look more like a vacation.

<comment><AUTHOR> "Makes it look more like a vacation." True assuming an MVP in exchange for a short vacation sounds fair; and effectively that was our thought - spend the time to get it launched here, then go home.

BUT, equity in exchange would be restricted stock options with vesting clauses - so longer commitment required beyond an MVP. If we had e.g., 1/2+ the cash to pay a team for 6 weeks full-time that _might_ be fair w/no equity and a 'paid vacation' on reduced salary; but I personally wouldn't go for that... not without an extra month of no-work live-in included anyway!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Actually I think this is a fabulous idea. Obviously hackers would need to believe in what you two are doing, but I am under the impression many hackers just like some freedom. They like to live in exotic and beautiful places (ahem..Maui), they are comfortable with living expenses paid (ahem..airfare, room, food) and a bit of cash for the rainy day fund.

There are a lot of freelance hackers and a lot of people who would jump at the idea. Naturally, it depends what your idea is and how big the pay and equity are, but this is cool and creative.

I have been to Hawaii and if I new how to properly program I'd be on board! Good luck

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the validation 'doc' :) We're hoping to find that right pair.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Have you tried to learn basic web development? If you have time, invest a few weeks either way. I don't think you're being unfair if you're offering free housing, fair equity and free food. It is more than what most cofounders offer one another. However you have to find people who are passionate enough about your idea to make it their own and have a good working relationship with.

<comment><AUTHOR> totally agreed abbasmehdi "find people who are..." and thanks for the comment.

regarding basic web development: we've built several sites over the last 10 years, but have never learned to hack in a language (e.g. RoR); just bits of code as needed and lots of 'wysiwyg' manipulation.

we're basically trying to build a web application and think given our current jobs and lives it would take us a year or longer (much, much longer!) to acquire that sort of skill set, so we think best handled by experts (or experts in training).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Depending on the details of the offer, it's reasonable.

Please make sure there are clear written agreements drawn up by a startup- experienced lawyer before any work starts. The right lawyer will be able to help you figure out correct amounts of equity and proper vesting for this unusual situation.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks wpietri, and excellent advice. Have some beginning docs and trying to schedule meeting with a couple Hawaiian start-up lawyers

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> _The question is, does an offer like this seem totally slave-labor lame and offensive, or does it sound like a unique opportunity to work on a project that we plan to take national and then global from a groovy location?_

Heh, I am already an underpaid slave. And in perennially-grimdark Sweden to boot. I get no vitamin D outside of pills and the main high point of the week is paying out your ass for overpriced alcoholic painkillers on Saturday night.

Maybe to overpaid snotty Americans your offer sounds bad, to me it sound totally bad ass :)

</comment><comment><USER12> This sounds great to me! That said, I'm a 20yo finance undergrad who merely dabbles - like yourself - in tech and web technologies and probably am not a useful _hacker_ per se (at least as far as programming goes!).

Your offer appeals to me as a great opportunity, but I'm obviously not who you're after.

</comment><comment><USER13> Sounds interesting, but what is it that you're looking to build. I'd be interested if and only if I knew what I would be doing. People need to believe in what you're looking to build, and that would directly influence their choice. Visions need to be aligned to build a company.

Good luck though!

</comment><comment><USER14> You would be very interested in the TropicalMBA.com || They've done something fairly similar with several talented people. Not necessarily developers per se, but they've had some really interesting success stories come out of it. I think they're on their 9th intern in about 2 years. Good stuff.

</comment><comment><USER15> Though it may or may not be intentional, it would probably help a lot if you updated you HN profile to include your email address (the email address used to sign up is never shown). I'm not sure I can really help, but if you want, contact me through email (address in my profile).

</comment><comment><USER16> Building a marketplace is _hard_. You'd want to prove that you are capable of being scrappy and still build a community. Once you've got that, then you will have a better pick of developers because at least you have some proof of traction.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks teyc. By scrappy do you mean it could be cobbled but the idea/marketing would trump poorly executed code?

<comment><USER16> For a marketplace, you have an advantage doing it this way. Initially, there wouldn't be a lot of users. So badly performing code wouldn't necessarily matter so much. If you happen to have a Twitter style growth, FailWhale is a good kind of problem to have.

Look for some of the PHP marketplace scripts. Actually, Dating is a typical marketplace (for people). If you have design skills, you can replace the graphics and text and you should have a semblance of a starter site rather quickly.

Whatever you do, only offer equity on the basis of people delivering working code. Otherwise, you'd have a ton of free lodgers.

<comment><AUTHOR> super helpful teyc, and duly noted. thanks again! =)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I know I personally would consider that, but it really depends on the project and it relies on the fact that I do not have a family to support. Definitely feel free to email me.

</comment><comment><USER3> You would fly someone in from Sweden and pay for their room & board + equity?

Doesn't sound so bad to me. I might know a few people interested in this. Contact me :)

</comment><comment><USER18> I am very interested. I've always wanted to live in Maui. Send me an email. Contact info in my profile.

<comment><AUTHOR> email sent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Also, I'd be interested in hearing what you guys are up to fwiw.

</comment><comment><USER19> Do you have an email address that we can contact you through?

<comment><AUTHOR> sure - ajohnson at johnsonbeesley dot com

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sounds interesting. Drop me a mail. Good Luck!</comment>


Only in Germany: An API with opening hours  - <AUTHOR> http://evatr.bff-online.de/eVatR/xmlrpc/

<comment><USER2> It's not an altogether unreasonable approach to security. It doesn't sit particularly well with geeks, but for complex systems with a high risk of fraud there's a great deal of damage-limitation to be found in only processing transactions when they can be manually monitored. Heuristic intrusion detection is still relatively poor.

For a government-to-business service, the overwhelming majority of legitimate transactions will occur during office hours and few people will be significantly inconvenienced by closing overnight. The risk of an attacker gaining even a few hours of brute-force insight is great, but the rewards from operating 24/7 slight.

While I'd like to be able to do my Companies House filings at 4am, I'm more keen to see my data protected.

<comment><USER3> Right. It'd be nice if everything was 24/7, but we have all manner of systems here in Japan that are only open during certain business hours, and for that matter in the US, too.

The online interface to the Delaware Division of Corporations, for example, only processes certain filings during business hours.

Computer software can be pretty good at flagging activity that falls outside certain parameters, but it still isn't generally good at figuring out what the do about that.

<comment><USER4> You can't pay a car's excise tax in Massachusetts after 11pm. I can't think of a valid reason for that.

<comment><USER5> Maybe they process batch transactions overnight. Maybe they want to reserve a nightly maintenance window.

Or maybe it's an instance of the "12:01" effect where they're scared to do anything too close to midnight. :-)

<comment><USER4> The "12:01" effect is likely part of it[0], but it could also be a daylights saving time thing where they don't want to bother supporting it.

[0] In Boston proper, our street sweeping signs now say "12:01-2:00" or "2:01-4:00".

<comment><USER6> Street cleaning. So glad I don't have to worry about getting towed anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As the examples mentioned here show, opening hours are not altogether uncommon on the web.

Here is another example from Germany: Certain TV shows are deemed not appropriate for kids of a certain age. This results in all broadcasters only being allowed to show them on TV at certain times. If a TV show is, for example, not appropriate for kids younger than twelve it can only be shown between 8pm and 6am.

The consortium of public broadcasters puts much of their content online, including TV shows with age limits. You can only watch those at certain times. Here is an example: [http://mediathek.daserste.de/sendungen_a-z/602916_tatort/746...](http://mediathek.daserste.de/sendungen_a-z/602916_tatort/7466516_-tatort --im-abseits--in-voller-l-nge) (the video should be blocked for another four hours and forty minutes after this link has been posted).

I'm not sure why the public broadcasters do that. The private broadcasters don't seem to but maybe they just don't put any content with age limits online.

<comment><USER8> Does Germany only have one time zone?

<comment><USER9> Yes, CET (UTC+1) and CEST (UTC+2) during summer.

<comment><USER7> In fact all of Western Europe, Southern Europe (minus Portugal, Greece and Turkey), Northern Europe (minus the British Isles, the Baltic states and Finland) and large parts of Eastern Europe (with the eastern border of Poland as the easternmost point) are all in one time zone.

It's still slightly funny that most kids in the world are theoretically able to view the videos at non-approved times. Will nobody think of the (non-CET) children!

<comment><USER10> Not really, Teneriffe is in Spain, Curaçao is in the Netherlands, Kourou is in France but they don't lie in CET.

<comment><USER7> Teneriffe, Curaçao and Kourou are, however, not part of Europe. There! ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Nope. not only in Germany. Here is Israel we have more than one site that "close" for the Sabbath. It's moderately interesting to see how religion and the internet co exist.

<comment><USER12> Yep. Some governmental institutions such as the Israeli Social Security have their websites up during Sabbath (Saturday), but do not accept payments.

Supposedly, because just having the server up does not require any manual labor, but accepting a payments constitutes trade, which is forbidden during Sabbath.

(Nevermind the fact that an institution which entire purpose is to assist those in need is the most non-accessible organization ever - from not having accessible entrances to buildings, to their payments gateway which supports _IE only_. Yes, IE is the ONLY browser officially supported).

<comment><USER13> An Israeli site has a problem that US sites don't. Although a Jew can leave a site running and even accept payments on the sabbath, that is only if non-jews are the ones sending the payment. (Because non-jews are not required to observe the sabbath.)

To accept a payment from a Jew on sabbath would definitely be wrong. So an Israeli site, which can expect that Jews will use it, must shut down on the Sabbath.

Leaving the site running, but not accepting money is probably the compromise they made because a lot of Israelis are secular.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> My friend thought it would be novel to give his personal portfolio site opening hours (with a nice "sorry we're closed!" notification). It was very cool, except GoogleBot only came crawling in the middle of the night.

<comment><USER15> He could always check for the UserAgent :)

<comment><USER16> Google doesn't like that I heard.

<comment><USER17> You could javascript a CLOSED sign as an overlay during certain hours. That way the content is unchanged, and I think it even adds to the flair.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The last passage in english:

Important Note:

With this interface you can confirm the validity of a foreign tax identification number (VAT) between 05:00 and 23:00 daily.

</comment><comment><USER18> Lots of large database sites have long-running reports. I could imagine a site shutting down to freeze the database for a complicated report.

</comment><comment><USER19> Reminded me of the recently announced Free Wifi at Brussels Airport (Belgium), "Open every Fri and Sat from 6 am till 8 pm"

<https://twitter.com/#!/BRUXX_be/status/81621976745127936>

</comment><comment><USER20> So their SLA is between certain hours. Big deal.

I think Companies House in the UK also does office hours for some of their databases.

</comment><comment><USER21> Not really only in Germany. For instance Nordea Denmark closes its online bank between 2 am and 5 am. Probably because they don't have staff at those times to prevent scammers from transferring money out and people rarely need to use banking during those hours.

As someone who sleeps weirdly it has annoyed me once or twice, though.

<comment><USER22> I think that's because they do the actual booking at that time and all of their database operations. Nothing to do with scammers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Now at first I thought the API would return a shop's opening hours. That's not trivial as it sounds in Germany because different lander have different laws requiring shops to close, for instance, on Sundays and weekdays after 8 p.m. That would be neat actually!

Maybe this is in fact an API that requires the manual intervention of a clerk? Or perhaps they have a policiy to shut down the office computers after office hours - in any case, a funny comment on Germany bureaucracy.

</comment><comment><USER24> In the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts we have government websites that are only "open" (meaning, you can perform transactions) during certain hours.

Example: [http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=elwdagencylanding&L=4&L0...](http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=elwdagencylanding&L=4&L0=Home&L1=Government&L2=Departments+and+Divisions+\(EOLWD\)&L3=DUA+QUEST&sid=Elwd)

<comment><USER25> At Tufts, the online course registration is open 9am-6pm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> There is a Dutch extremist Christian newspaper whose site doesn't work on Sunday.

<comment><USER27> See also here: [http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=nl&tl...](http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=nl&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.refdag.nl%2Fzondag)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> In Turkey we had governmental sites running in work-hours :) Nowadays there are not any sites of this kind.

</comment><comment><USER29> I dont think this is joke. Not all system are like Facebook and Twitter, banking systems and many other complex and distributed systems will need to have this compulsary daily downtime until we improve our communication technologies by 10x everywhere.

</comment><comment><USER30> The US Social Security online services are also suspended at night (see right column, operating hours): <http://www.ssa.gov/onlineservices/>

</comment><comment><USER31> The netherlands' chamber of commerce API shuts down at night too, which is why a free alternative had to be created (openkvk.nl) to proof there shouldnt be a need for the shutdown.

</comment><comment><USER32> The Delaware Division of Corporations' web app to file your annual report and pay business entity tax is available between 8:00 am and 11:45 pm Eastern Time daily. Go figure.

</comment><comment><USER33> Not only in Germany. The Social Security online tools have "hours."

No, I'm not joking. I discovered this trying to estimate my mom's benefit late one night.

</comment><comment><USER34> As of 2009 when I graduated, Carnegie Mellon's course registration and student management web page shut down after 8:00 PM

Maybe these guys were CMU grads ;)

</comment><comment><USER35> The website for the department of the Ontario Gov't (Canada) which manages corporate filings is also only open during business hours (8-4 Mon-Fri I believe)

</comment><comment><USER36> I've seen the same thing happen with 80% of the state sponsored services online in Mexico, and i think this isn't for security, its pure bureaucracy.

</comment><comment><USER37> I spent a few min reading this thread before I realised it's not an API that provides opening hours of businesses across Germany.

</comment><comment><USER38> WordPress.com's support ticket page used to only be open from 9-5.

</comment><comment><USER39> Not only in Germany: <http://twitpic.com/3jz6fh>

</comment><comment><USER40> To be fair, this might not even have to do with germany, as it queries other countries' VAT registries online, many of which are down for maintainance many hours a day. The weird thing is that, even though there is a system for VAT id interconnectivity (VIES) , there is no central database of numbers. [<http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/vies/>]

<comment><USER41> Do you have any information why these databases are down for such a long time, every day? I can't see a really good technical reason for that right now.

<comment><USER40> A combination of incompetence, byzantine bureaucracy, under qualified personell, uncooperative subsystems and obscure security here in godforsaken greece

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> reminds me of mbank.pl - a polish _internet only_ bank which accepts money transfer orders only from 0800 - 1800 hours and not on weekends.

no, they don't save the order to execute it the next morning. they just print an error message and you have to enter your transfer order during opening hours.

<comment><USER43> wow, I didn't know they do that. In Czech republic this functionality works all the time, I wonder why they behave differently in these two countries.

<comment><USER42> oh no, it's only this one bank. online banking with other banks (haven't tried them all - 3 accounts is enough _cough_ ) works as expected.

it's only ironic because mbank is an internet only bank :)

<comment><USER44> Rudepeklo meant that mbank in Czech republic accepts transfer orders 24/7. I can confirm, the interbank orders will wait till the interbank reconciliation center opens, but internal transfers will be made immediately.

What's more interesting, mbank uses the same backend for pl, cz and sk. I know that it works in cz and sk exactly the way it is supposed to do. Why is pl exception?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Linux users resent being locked out of Windows 8 - <AUTHOR> http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/karnataka/linux-users-resent-being-locked-out-of-windows-8/article4277078.ece

<comment><USER2> A better heading would be "Linux users resent devices being locked into Windows 8"...

As it is simply about SecureBoot.</comment>


System76 Launches Threadripper Workstations - <AUTHOR> https://system76.com/threadripper <comment><USER2> System 76 has pretty good customer support and help entry level folks enter the *nix market, which is cool. Their cases are kinda poop quality tho.

<comment><USER3> Can you elaborate on the specific poop? Do they just not hold up?

<comment><USER4> I have had several S76 Laptops - and all of them, the cases are plastic and very chintzy. Several had screws fall out inside the case and rattle around, but this is all Clevo's fault...

:-(

Their support has been fantastic, and although I switched back to other machines - I still would buy one.

The bang-for-the-buck on the guts was really good (cant comment on the value of this Threadripper box though...)

As an aside; the Michael Dell "How I built this" podcast ep is worth a listen...

<comment><USER5> The case for the Workstations are produced by them so I don't think we learn anything from the Laptops.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As far as ads go, this was the most convincing sell I've seen for a high end computer in a long time. Good job to whoever is doing the marketing.

<comment><USER7> Perhaps to their target market ... I looked at it and thought 'hmmm, 44 seconds to do a simple image transform sounds pretty slow ....'. I assume it was a very high resolution image or thousands of slices or something but without them stating those metrics it was a bit meaningless to me.

edit: OK I downloaded the image and see it's gigantic ... I reckon they should at least hint at that for the folks who are not quite over the threshold of spending the time to do their experiment ...

<comment><USER8> The universe is big..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Or build it yourself and save $2000

<comment><USER10> I just did the math on their entry level model because I didn't believe you, but you're pretty close with that estimate. NewEgg prices:

      Threadripper 3960X - $1400
      16GB 3200 RAM - $70
      256GB NVMe - $70
      RX 550 - $70

= $1600

System76 price = $3700

That said, if you're looking at their higher-end models, I think you still have a fixed ~$2k markup, and so you're looking at something like $10k vs $12k, which isn't a big deal for that sort of customer (does save time, after all).

Side note: I own their AdderWS laptop and am a happy customer.

<comment> TD-Linux You're missing the motherboard, power supply, case, and cooler in that.

<comment><USER10> I don't know why people here assumed that I thought a PC was only composed of the parts I listed (no case? honestly?). I just listed out what I thought would comprise 80% or so of the cost. Maybe it's 70%? GGP's estimate is still not far off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Does anybody here have a Thelio? I'm curious as to whether they got the fan- noise thing sorted out.

</comment><comment><USER12> I bought a System76 workstation last year. Everything about it is great except for one big thing that makes me hate using it: the air cooling is terrible and loud.

My room sounds like a wind tunnel even at idle. The response at the time was to futz around with fan controller firmware and I never got anywhere.

I don't understand why they don't move to liquid cooling.

<comment><USER13> In my experience it is far easier, faster, and more practical to build a silent air-cooled system than a silent water cooled one.

<comment><USER14> Water cooled systems _will_ leak over time, as well. It's just not worth it unless you're purely doing it for the "enthusiast" points and don't mind ending up with a system that's going to take water damage at some point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Highly recommend anyone considering buying/building a system with this chip to watch the LTT review. [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1LaKH5etJoE&t=0s](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1LaKH5etJoE&t=0s)

It's a mostly positive review but brings up some caveats for consideration.

</comment><comment><USER16> Shot that link over to a coworker who was considering building a 3990x. While many parts could be picked up at MicroCenter, very happy to let someone else guarantee a build with a 4.8K cpu/mainboard combo. The early days of getting large memory sets to work with a board were tricky and I wont do that for someone else.

Really wish my TR4 boxes... had a future beyond the current 2xxx series cpu. Figured I would swap out the current 1950x and re-use the same water block, pump, etc on the newer CPU. Hardly worth it for the 2950x, which is more or less the end of the road for the threadripper boards I have.

<comment><USER17> Which water block are you currently using?

There was a design issue with the one EKWB original had, so they're giving out coupons to people who bought them. I found out when I went to look up whether or not the old one would still work with my new 3960X.

(Turns out the answer is: Yes, but only if I limit the max power a bit. Possibly that wouldn't be an issue if I'd ever gotten around to installing the second radiator, but cooling is an issue. Still get 4.3 though.)

<comment><USER16> RayStorm Neo. I figured the pump and XSPC RX480 would carry over. Possibly the water block. Lord knows the 1950x does not need the cooling I have on it.

<comment><USER17> The coolers are compatible in general, so assuming the water block doesn't have any design flaws, you should be fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Any info on how this would stack against a Mac Pro of a similar price?

<comment><USER19> Would run circles around it pretty much. This tops out somewhere around 10K. With Apple you only get a somewhat decent config by that point, and that's if you choose not to buy $400 wheels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I haven't seen what motherboard is used. The storage offered seems to be PCI gen3 only, which I find as weird given the target use and the support in the platform for gen4.

They are generally very thin on spec details. Their cases are spectacular,I'll grant them that.

Just tried the blur motion affect, completed on my machine in 2 minuets and 40 seconds.

<comment><USER21> what cpu are you running?

<comment><USER20> Ryzen 7 3800X

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Can an analogous version of any of these benchmarks be performed on macOS?

</comment><comment><USER23> Odd that the school render doesn't have the letter Ll on the top.

</comment><comment><USER24> [https://www.falcon-nw.com/](https://www.falcon-nw.com/)

Just pay a little more and get a higher quality everything from Falcon NW with a threadripper in their Talon.

</comment><comment><USER25> are they actually selling it just with gigabit ethernet? that's bad

<comment><USER26> My best guess: because its targeted at home users. Not many home users have access to greater than 1 GB access. I _think_ my router can link supports 1 GB, but I dont know because I rarely transfer files between my computer (Wife is Mac, I'm PC/Linux). My comcast DL is only about 150 Mbps. My nearly 8 yr old PC actually has 1 GBs, but its basically unused.

<comment><USER25> at 4000+$, yea, it's definitely not for home users and those few ethusiats that will have this at their home will definitely have 10Gbit

also your 8 year old facebook machine might be ok with 1Gbit but definitely not this 24-64 core beast, people who use these will definitely benefit from 10Gb

it's also not related to internet use as much as connecting it to storage on local network

edit: with the 64 core i'd go as far as saying that it should have a 40Gbit option as well

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Curious - why does it have "Rear Audio - 5 x Audio Jacks"?

<comment><USER28> Just a guess, but 7.1 uses 4 stereo jacks, plus a line in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> A wooden panel? Air-cooled? Really?

</comment><comment><USER30> Maybe Apple will do this for MacBooks in the 2030s. Thats about their pace.

</comment><comment><USER31> Please hire a graphical designer.</comment>


Wolfram Alpha: 'People Just Need What We Are Doing' - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/05/wolfram-alpha-two/

<comment><USER2> I tend to wolfram it when googling it fails. E.g. when considering buying a new place in Tokyo:

[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=historical+interest+rat...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=historical+interest+rates+in+Japan)

Compare those awesome results to the crap google offers:

[http://www.google.com/search?safari&rls=en&q=histori...](http://www.google.com/search?safari&rls=en&q=historical+interest+rates+in+Japan&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8)

Google is more generally useful, and has changed all of our lives for the better. Nevertheless, Wolfram Alpha is far more useful in certain contexts, in my experience, and not necessarily just for mathy stuff.

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=savings+rate+US> vs <http://www.google.com/search?q=savings+rate+US>

no contest.

I use wolfram exclusively for all my economics homeworks. Google is quite useless for that.

Say I'm crunching mortgage data. The engine needs to hit

[http://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/releases/mortoutst...](http://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/releases/mortoutstand/current.htm)

and calculate totals & graph that. Wolfram does those things. Google doesn't.

</comment><comment><USER4> I like Wolfram Alpha, but despite being way towards the top of the "people most likely to find a use for Wolfram Alpha" list, I've only found a use for Wolfram Alpha a couple of times. I use Google Calculator all the freaking time, and only resort to Wolfram Alpha on the odd occasion that Google Calculator fails me.

Does anyone use it regularly?

<comment><USER5> Yes, I use it regularly. Most common is for the kinds of things you might find in the CIA Factbook, or any number you'd expect to be buried in a Wikipedia page.

The most recent thing I was impressed by was this: <http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=time+to+sunburn>

I also tried creating a widget with WolframAlpha that seemed potentially useful: <http://beeminder.com/agename.html> (ie, getting a probability distribution on a person's age based on their first name)

<comment> T-R The sunburn one is a cool concept, but most of the data I put in tells me that sunburn is unlikely in Phoenix, AZ.

<comment><USER6> Or that a sunburn is unlikely in Miami, Florida (which is where I am).

<comment><USER5> That's because it was night time. :) You can actually include a time and date.

Another handy heuristic: worry about sunburn when your shadow's shorter than you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Most people who've commented about using Wolfram Alpha are just using just its Mathematica backend - calculations, plotting graphs etc. I found this pretty useful while trying to solve some algorithmic coding challenges which involved large numbers. Mathematica works with numbers larger than what either Python or Ruby can support.

But otherwise apart from the Math part, haven't heard any use case yet where the data analysis that Wolfram Alpha does was terribly useful.

<comment><USER8> I find it very useful when dealing with unit conversions and fundamental constants. Google is fine for simple stuff but Alpha really excels when you have extremely complicated combinations of units. This probably doesn't matter much outside of physics but within it Wolfram Alpha is a godsend.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> When I'm planning out my meals I use W|A to calculate calories. It's incredibly useful for this. I love that it not only gives point estimates for fat, sodium, etc., but also plots the distribution of these values: <http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=4oz+turkey+breast> Other than this, very special case, I never use it. And I am a former Mathematica fanatic.

</comment><comment><USER10> "I've been lucky enough to run a company that's been profitable for 23 years, so I developed the habit of doing things that way [..] That's a way of doing business, that if you think about it, computes much better than getting tens of millions in funding for an iPhone app."

</comment><comment><USER11> _But Wolfram is frustrated a bit that users don't know the full power of Wolfram Alpha. "The mental model for when to go to Wolfram Alpha is not fully fleshed out yet," Wolfram says._

This frustration reminds me of Google Wave, a wonderful idea, on the verge of being totally disruptive, but that the average user wouldn't grasp. Hopefully WA can sort that out, otherwise it may just remain a web API to a data-rich Mathematica, which in any case is a nice thing to have.

</comment><comment><USER12> I purchased the Android app, but I find I just don't use it that much. I'm not even sure that it's that the 'mental model' isn't fleshed out yet, it's just that Google got there first. Search, scan, refine. It's how I think now. Maybe there is a space for Alpha at the end of that sequence.

</comment><comment><USER13> Still waiting on W|A to incorporate basic usability improvements I proposed back in 2009:

[http://codingthriller.blogspot.com/2009/05/fixing- wolframalp...](http://codingthriller.blogspot.com/2009/05/fixing- wolframalpha.html)

</comment><comment><USER14> Queries that I have are usually answered by DuckDuckGo/Wikipedia.

</comment><comment><USER15> Running a query on 'linux users' returns, among other things, phone keypad digits for 'l-i-n-u-x', and Scrabble scoring.

Not what I need.

<comment><USER16> It's not a search engine. It's an information engine. Enter what you want, not just two random words with no 'question'.

<comment><USER15> I then asked 'how many people are using Linux?'. It seems to think I'm asking 'how many people use the word 'Linux', as it returns the same result set as my initial query (word definitions and such). I ran the same query again with 'Linux' as an operating system topic, and it tells me that "Development of this topic is under investigation.."

Then it asks me to leave my email address to show interest.</comment></comment></comment>


Here we go again: MSFT and Yahoo Talks Back on - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/24/sources-microsoft-and-yahoo-talks-back-on/

<comment><USER2> You know what would be awesome? A way to ignore submissions from a certain domain or the posters that keep spamming the same domain.

Or at least a means to include multiple sources. SAI doesn't think this is happening.

[http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/5/microsoft_and_yahoo_in_ta...](http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/5/microsoft_and_yahoo_in_talks_again_source_believes_search_only)

<comment><USER3> <http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/25039>

<comment><USER2> This is actually pretty nifty.

<comment><USER3> It is nifty, it's not mine however. It was made by Xichekolas <http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=Xichekolas></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Latticework – Beta Release - <AUTHOR> https://ltcwrk.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> We recently shared the beta of our website, The Latticework. The Latticework is a multidisciplinary resource and community that helps explain and interconnect valuable ideas. Backed by the editor of Poor Charlie's Almanack and Patrick O'Shaughnessy, we're excited to share and iterate on this valuable learning resource.</comment>


IBM opens up Power chips, ARM-style, to take on Chipzilla - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/06/ibm_opens_up_power_chips_armstyle_to_take_on_chipzilla/ <comment><USER2> I'm not quite sure where the news is here. IBM has been licensing the architecture and cores for years (2007 is mentioned[1]).

All I see in the actual announcement[2] is marketing hype (not news) about software that already exists ("open firmware" == U-Boot, "open software" == linux) and hardware that has been licensable for years.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.or/wiki/Power_Architecture#Licensing](http://en.wikipedia.or/wiki/Power_Architecture#Licensing)

[2] [http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/41684.wss](http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/41684.wss)

<comment><USER3> ARM is an "open" architecture—it's fairly easy to roll your own if you have an FPGA and patience to read through arch specifications for a couple months. I would be highly surprised if you could get equivalent documentation for POWER without a significant bit of cash. Not that I blame them, even open standards can cost a couple hundred.

I don't think this would change anything, though, there's not enough gain to justify an architecture switch for either hardware or software people. And that's a damn shame. I cut my teeth on PowerPC and I couldn't imagine a better way, it's a beautiful architecture. Altivec STILL makes intel's vector processing look like a toy.

<comment><USER4> [https://www.power.org/documentation/power-isa- version-2-07/](https://www.power.org/documentation/power-isa-version-2-07/)

BTW, if you want to roll your own ARM you have to negotiate for an architectural license.

<comment><USER3> > BTW, if you want to roll your own ARM you have to negotiate for an > architectural license.

I would hope not for a personal FPGA... that's hilariously unenforcable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "With its embedded Power chip business under assault from makers of ARM and x86 processors"

I didn't know Power chip business still existed.

<comment><USER6> Of course it still exists. They're doing this now because they don't want to be steamrolled by the raging success that is the OpenSPARC project.

<comment><USER7> It is the execution that counts. The world could use a third mass architecture. Especially one that is not too tightly IP locked. The whole web 0.1, 1.0,2.0 came from the fact that PC clones were everywhere.

<comment><USER8> Its not clear if it is third or fourth now. MIPS may be third after ARM.

<comment><USER9> It _really_ depends on whether your counting number of chips or dollars in sales. POWER chips sell at a premium inside high end enterprise systems, while MIPS is embedded in lots of places like handheld consoles and routers for more chips sold but for less money.

<comment><USER10> The high end POWER chips from IBM makes up a miniscule fraction of the overall Power/PPC market in terms of units. PPC sells in comparable unit numbers to MIPS, but mostly from architecture licensees like Freescale.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I would love to see a Rasperry Pi type device with a PPC chip on it, a 603e equivalent for example, or even better, a 7400 series "G4" chip.

<comment><USER12> FWIW: [http://www.ebay.com/sch/Desktops- AllInOnes-/171957/i.html?_s...](http://www.ebay.com/sch/Desktops- AllInOnes-/171957/i.html?_sop=15&_from=R40&_nkw=g4+mini&LH_BIN=1)

Costs more than the Raspberry Pi though.

<comment><USER13> Watch out for used G5s that have leaked their coolant.

<comment><USER12> Just avoid the G5s whatsoever. They're enormous, hot, and very poor value for money because they're the fastest Macs that can run Classic, which means they continue to get bid up by people with legacy software. For the same money you can get a Core 2 Duo which will be superior in every way provided you don't need to run MacOS on it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Strong feeling of deja vu

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

<comment><USER11> There was even a version of Windows NT 4.0 for that. It was great. Then Motorola decided they had no clue what they were doing with computers, IBM gave up and shut the whole thing down.

<comment><USER15> All of the RISC chips were dying anyway. Intel was starting to build steam with the Pentium Pro and Pentium II, Wintel servers were getting cheaper and more common, Windows was becoming 'good enough' and Linux started to push the expensive traditional Linuxes off the table.

<comment><USER9> That's really just the standard Innovator's Dilemma effect where low-cost, high-volume products often tend to eat their way up the market. Now that the semi-RISC ARM processor is attacking Intel from the low end it's having the same sort of success as x86 did over MIPS, etc.

<comment><USER16> Cheap Mips and other RISC chips were supposed to replace all the clunky old x86 style processors, so it's one case where the Innovator's Dilemma effect turned out to be wrong.

<comment><USER11> Neither RISC nor CISC won in the end. Intel's current generation processors, like most others of similar performance specifications, break down the incoming instruction stream into micro ops ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro- operation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro-operation)), the units of processing that are actually executed. This renders the difference between CISC and RISC a case of semantics.

Before this, the idea was that RISC was simpler to implement and could be optimized more easily, ultimately be more cost effective. What wasn't factored in was how _good_ Intel is at optimizing, and how hard they'd push their process, beating the RISC side despite all the disadvantages CISC had.

Now it's the GPU that's eating Intel's lunch, high performance floating point code on the CPU is several _orders of magnitude_ slower than a high-end GPU, so Intel's trying to fight back with their "pile of CPUs" strategy ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larrabee_(microarchitecture)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larrabee_\(microarchitecture\))). It's not working out very well so far.

<comment><USER9> In defence of Intel here, if you look at performance per watt GPUs aren't all that far ahead of Intel. It's mostly that every instruction an modern CPU executes is predicted by a branch predictor, makes it's way through several levels of cache, is run through a reorder buffer and register renaming and a reservation station before finally being executed. And all of that takes energy, though it speeds up the rate at which sequential instructions can be issued by the processor quite a bit.

As to RISC vs CISC, well, it's true that x86 instructions are decoded to micro Ops inside a modern processor but the fact that the instruction was complicated does have a cost even for a modern processor. The act of just decoding four instructions in a clock cycle and transforming them into uOps is quite a bit of work, on the same order as finally executing them if they're simple additions or such. And the uOps that make up an instruction have to be completed all together or else when the processor is interrupted by a page fault or such it will resume in an inconsistent state. And the first time you run through a segment of code you can only run one instruction at a time since figuring out where instruction boundaries are is hard, though you can store the location of those boundaries with just another bit per byte when they're in the L1 instruction cache.

On the other hand, complex variable length instructions mean that you don't need as many bytes to express some piece of code both since you're using less bytes per instruction on average and because complex instructions mean you sometimes use fewer of them.

Of course, Intel is the biggest CPU vendor out there and has correspondingly large and brilliant design teams working hand in hand with the most advanced fabs in the industry.

Now, there are many RISC instruction sets that have taken on x86 before, but they all attacked it from the high end, from upmarket. Doing just the opposite of what ARM is doing now. Will it succeed in dethroning x86 from the low end the way x86 did to it's rivals? Who knows. But I think that previous fights don't tell us much about this one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Chipzilla = Intel.

</comment><comment><USER18> The final paragraph sounds like an answer to the AMD/ARM-driven HSA Foundation.

</comment><comment><USER19> I assume this is mostly targeted at the very high-end - servers and super- computers and such.

<comment><USER10> The vast majority of Power Architecture CPU's, by units shipped, go into lower end devices, so I'm not so sure that's the only area they'd target.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Find your perfect (AU/NZ) job - <AUTHOR> https://talenthunch.com <comment><USER2> One has to enter all employment/skills info first without seeing a single job or employer.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, this is bad. It looks like info collection site which doesn't actually have much to offer after signup. I'm not saying it is, but I'm not going to check it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm only the developer of the site, so that doesn't count for much, but it's not an info collection site :)

Internal screenshot here: [https://cl.ly/3X1J3t0f1f1Q](https://cl.ly/3X1J3t0f1f1Q)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is the first release (MVP) of a project I've been thinking about/redesigning/building for a while. Happy to answer any questions.</comment>


Unintentionally funny video instructions for factory resetting GE light bulbs - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=116&v=1BB6wj6RyKo <comment><USER2> They need a button.

<comment><USER3> You sure about that? Think about it for two seconds. Then eight seconds. Then two seconds. Then eight seconds. Then two seconds. Then eight seconds. Then two seconds. Then eight seconds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Could they not just have the user blink it furiously for a few seconds ? Or long press after on ?

<comment><USER5> A small kid may reset your light bulb every day.

I'm not sure about the age, probably 3 years old is the optimal age, so they can understand switches an still not be bored to case havoc with them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Turn off for 2 seconds

</comment><comment><USER7> the upvoted youtube comments are gold</comment>


GIMP development - What's the point? - <AUTHOR> https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gimp-developer-list/2016-September/msg00019.html <comment><USER2> People whining about GIMP not being as good as PS don't appreciate what life was like on Linux before GIMP existed, or how primitive GIMP was when it first came out.

GIMP has advanced leaps and bound over what it once was.

I remember for ages PS fans were complaining about how GIMP had a multiple window layout, and how unnecessarily complex that was, and they wanted a single window layout. So the _volunteers_ who work on GIMP eventually came out with a single window layout.

I'm not a PS user, but I heard that around that time PS changed to a multi- window layout. Whether that's true or not, now I hear complaints from some users that GIMP is not any good because it doesn't have a multi-window layout (not realizing that changing it to multi-window layout is as simple as unchecking "Single-window mode" under the "Windows" menu). Give me a break!

Some people will never be satisfied and will never appreciate the hundreds or thousands of man hours of _free_ work that GIMP developers have poured in to this product.

Could it be improved? Of course! Anything can. Should they strive to make it better? Yes. Feature requests and help are great. But indignant insults coming from people who didn't pay for the development of the product, who don't contribute any of their own time to make it better, and who clearly don't appreciate the massive achievement that GIMP is just take the cake. GIMP developers must have skins of steel to put up with this crap year in and year out.

<comment><USER3> For professional use, how _does_ modern GIMP compare to modern PS?

<comment><USER4> It can't. If you work in the industry you'll be expected to use a specific format (.psd). I'm pretty sure you can't open a file created with the latest version of Photoshop in Gimp. The graphic design industry is one of these industries that have been completely monopolized by a single vendor.

I liked Macromedia approach with Fireworks, which didn't require the software in order to preview what a project looked like since it used PNG format. All Macromedia tools have since then been flushed down the toilets by Adobe. There is something Macromedia achieve with the notion of "community" that Adobe was never able to do.

<comment><USER5> > I'm pretty sure you can't open a file created with the latest version of > Photoshop in Gimp.

I'm pretty sure you can, and you can see all the layers and stuff. Editing though, if I remember correctly, is either extremely limited or non-existent.

Still, when someone gave me a psd I had little hope of opening it at all, yet GIMP displayed it perfectly. That exceeded expectations already, just too bad that I couldn't edit. But then again, it's better than buying an expensive product line just to view a file.

> The graphic design industry is one of these industries that have been > completely monopolized by a single vendor.

Exactly, which is one which is one of the reasons I'm a big fan of GIMP and Paint.NET for when people simply don't need photoshop. They often don't, but ask for it anyway, get used to it and then want to keep using it. This is about adults as well as teens who are still in high school and who might later go on to work as designers, and then can only work with photoshop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sorry to say I don't think GIMP is the best example of a great FLOSS project.

Many other projects are very competitive (or better) than commercial options but GIMP is not even close.

They just released support for 16bit/32bit/c color last year which is needed for so many scenarios.

The unified transform tool mentioned as a highlight is really a pretty simple thing to code.

They are 5-10 years behind what you get in PS for $10/month. It's a killer for any professional have tools that far behind their peers.

The UX has always been poor and unnecessarily complicated. I resent the implication it's the user's fault for not taking time to learn. There are many examples of complex professional systems that prove a decent UX is still possible.

<comment><USER7> Edit: [Deleted]

I'm sorry, but I don't find the tool intuitive. I ran into issues using it. I installed fresh copy and tried steps commenters suggested and it worked well. However this was not my experience a mere two days ago.

<comment><USER2> Cropping is a "HUGE pain"? Are you kidding me?

1\. Rectangle select.

2\. Image -> Crop to selection.

How much simpler can you get?

<comment><USER8> Exactly. I found myself using GIMP for exactly those "quick" scenarios because PS, especially before CS6, was just bulky and overcomplicated.

GIMP: Roughly select something, zoom in to make it pixel-perfect, see the size of the selection in the bottom left, and just drag until it fits your need.

PS? Roughly select something. Figure out the size of the selection. Zoom in. Dig into the menu.. Transform selection? Adjust. What's the size now? .. Nope, thanks. I am done 5 times over in GIMP by the time I did that.

I get that GIMP is not perfect, but some people treat like the PHP of graphics software.

<comment><USER9> Complaining about php is like complaining about an axe:

Yes, it might hurt incompetent people but the people who master it have a truly nifty tool at their disposal.

<comment><USER10> Complaining about PHP is sanity of someone who learned more than one language.

<comment><USER9> As someone who has coded in c, java, javascript (before it was cool), perl, python, visual basic I still see a clear niche for php even though I don't use it anymore.

<comment><USER11> Indeed. It's just that it's not a good language (like Visual Basic).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Before reading that email, I had a different thought about the title "GIMP development, what's the point?" In a time before touchscreen mobile devices and apps came into the picture, people who were somewhat serious about image editing would use GIMP or a pirated copy of Photoshop. There were also a few other applications, free and paid, with a much more limited set of features (but have improved over time).

With touchscreen devices and apps, image editing, or rather, photo editing, has become more about using different apps for different specific use cases, and using filters and other "preset" tweaks along with additional adjustments if at all necessary. This is nowhere close to the power that GIMP offers for someone who knows how to use it and what can be done with it. But it is adequate for most people and is easy to use. In this respect, the title question could become more widespread as people hear less about GIMP.

After reading the mail and the comments here, another thing that occurred to me about the title is that projects like GIMP, LibreOffice, etc., (and even Linux, GNOME, KDE, etc.) show themselves as phenomenal highlights of what truly free and open source software can be and serve as a great inspiration for others to embark on such really complex and multi-decade work in other areas. _A GIMP developer is contributing to much more than GIMP alone if you look at side effects. It 's a world that couldn't have been imagined several decades ago._

I believe the developers who have contributed to these projects and continue to do so should be extremely proud of their commitment to FLOSS and the amount of work they have put in. Yes, some FLOSS applications may have deficiencies in features, stability, performance and other areas (which many commercial applications do too). But questioning the dedication of developers or asking for the justification of efforts spent by developers who're working with the FLOSS principles is completely missing the point in the overall scheme of things, and worse, missing the benefits enjoyed by and made available to humankind as a whole.

</comment><comment><USER13> I use GIMP exclusively. Last time it allowed me to turn SVG animation into GIF. It literally took few seconds to complete. Many people bitch about GIMP, but like in arcticle, they just trying to hide their laziness to learn new things. I've nothing against them, but one thing, most of them in my circles are using pirate copy of Photoshop instead free GIMP. Some of them arguing about RBG/CMYK missing in GIMP, but most of them does not even know that.

<comment><USER14> Gimp is great if you're not a designer or exclusively a web designer. Otherwise, CMYK is a huge deal as it is the only way to go if you want to print something at a professional printer (not sure about the term).

<comment><USER15> Is there a way to add decent CMYK support to GIMP? Is it technically unfeasible, or is it something the main devs are simply uninterested in?

<comment><USER16> [http://www.gimp.org/docs/userfaq.html#i-do-a-lot-of- desktop-...](http://www.gimp.org/docs/userfaq.html#i-do-a-lot-of-desktop- publishing-related-work-will-you-ever-support-cmyk)

there is however some cmyk support currently if you need it: [https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GIMP/CMYK_support](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GIMP/CMYK_support)

<comment><USER17> Thanks for this. I was very happy to read that they're making non-destructive editing a priority.

> Things like non-destructive editing are required by pretty much all users — > photographers, designers, desktop publishing engineers, and even scientists. > At the same time, CMYK is required only by a small subset of our user base. > We prioritize our work accordingly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Stories about an eloquent, suave believer enlightening a misguided, clearly- in-the-wrong naysayer may sometimes be true, but never very convincing.

> In this case, I opted to give the fireworks/show. My weapons of choice this > time included the unified transform tool, the handle-transform tool, and the > warp transform tool

Which prompts the leering, misinformed troglodyte to consider the error of his ways, to "imagine the possibilities". Ahh, man.

Having used GIMP and Photoshop, the practical point of GIMP development, in my view, is to provide a baseline for other graphic editing software: i.e., your product's quality cannot drop below what GIMP offers.

<comment><USER19> > Having used GIMP and Photoshop, the practical point of GIMP development, in > my view, is to provide a baseline for other graphic editing software: i.e. > your product's quality cannot drop below what GIMP offers.

I think that this is one of the important things that Open Source software does, generally - it provides a steadily rising baseline of functionality that is freely available to everyone.

LibreOffice is another product that's often considered not as good as the leading proprietary product, but as long as it exists and gets better with every release, it will benefit everybody, including Microsoft Office users.

<comment><USER20> I like that perspective. They're the 'Public Option' that keeps the commercial offerings on their toes :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I appreciate GIMP for what it is, and use it on the occasion that I can't quickly do what i need with ImageMagick or pixlr. But I'd gladly pay for Photoshop and other Adobe tools if they compiled natively on linux.

One problem with the characterization implied in [a,b] is that it ignores the impossibility of opening a file correctly and completely that was originally compiled in a tool that's been the industry standard for well beyond my own years (I got started on Photoshop 4 in 1996 - the first Windows release, and before then, Paint Shop Pro).

Literally not a single designer I've worked with in the last 15 years as a professional has ever even considered using GIMP (most don't know it exists). So if they want to send me their "source", it's in a PSD. And said source is going to be huge with layer effects / cropping / transitions, and all sorts of advanced Photoshop-specific things applied.

And I'll open that file in GIMP - I try at least once a year - and it will show maybe 5-10% of the layers and will look nothing like the original. And then I'll fire up Windows in a VM and actually get work done.

As for starting my own projects in GIMP, I fall squarely into group "a", and I feel no shame for it.

        a) User has tried GIMP, but didn't take time to learn enough to get past things that aren't obvious.

        b) User has heard that GIMP is hard to use, and is not an adequate tool for professionals.

<comment><USER21> You blame GIMP for not opening PSDs correctly, but note that it's _not_ an open format and it's not a standard. GIMP developers can do nothing but try to reverse engineer support for it.

<comment><USER22> You can go through a convoluted process to get the documentation for the standard from Adobe (Someone where I used to work did this so we could add support for PSD to a game engine). I'll concede that that's unpalatable, and that it's probably something you need to do regularly as PSD does get updates.

I'll also concede that its considerably easier to open a pdf for display vs for editing, and maybe all the info for the latter isn't there in the docs. Its also not a fun format to work with as its grown organically over many, many years.

All that said, GIMP usually bungs up the colors which makes it pretty unsuitable even for opening a psd for view. This shouldn't be acceptable at all.

(Sorry, I haven't had enough coffee yet to make this into a coherent point instead of a few random thoughts...)

<comment><USER23> _" You can go through a convoluted process to get the documentation for the standard from Adobe"_

I doesn't look complete to me (there's lots of things just marked 'obsolete' that, I guess, one will encounter in the wild, and things like "Macintosh printer record" that I fear you'll have to dig up tech notes from the '80s for), but it seems that has improved a bit, as there is information available for free at adobe.com now, whereas you needed to sign an NDA to get the SDK before: [https://www.adobe.com/devnet- apps/photoshop/fileformatashtml...](https://www.adobe.com/devnet- apps/photoshop/fileformatashtml/) (via [http://www.adobe.com/devnet/photoshop.html](http://www.adobe.com/devnet/photoshop.html))

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> C-Rogers Hey, I'm C.Rogers, the original poster of this thankyou note that's got everyone bashing GIMP against Photoshop... which entirely misses the point of it. People seem hell-bent on comparing GIMP to Photoshop, saying they don't compare. Well, it's easy to say that isn't it? I came from 13+ years of Photoshop experience, with about 7 of those used in the professional world. I've since packed on another near decade using GIMP (at first in conjunction with Photoshop), I have since replaced Photoshop entirely in my professional work, and I use it every day. The biggest thing stopping professionals from using GIMP is the erroneous notion that it can't be used for the same professional tasks as Photoshop. I'm half tempted to start a YouTube channel called GIMP SUCKS, and fill it with screencaptures of my graphics work done entirely in GIMP. That's not just magazine adverts, that's billboards, that's convention booths, it's over 100 new products of my own design, and nearly 20,000 product photos. So please, if you have something specific to complain about, go post a bug report, or a wishlist item like a decent human being. Repeating over and over that GIMP can't replace Photoshop for professional work doesn't make it any more true. Here's some eye-candy for the nay-sayers: [https://goo.gl/UwxEGp](https://goo.gl/UwxEGp)

</comment><comment><USER24> What's the point?

It's a helpful question for narrowing your focus, but at the end of the day, there isn't always one, and it needn't be a lofty philosophical goal.

Did the MDL team need a point to develop Zork? Did Thompson need a business reason to write UNIX? Did the AI lab ever justify extending TECO far beyond its original intent, into the first version of EMACS?

Sometimes, although not all the time, "because I can" is reason enough.

<comment><USER15> "Because I can" is of course a valid reason, but having a better goal is more motivating, especially if it's a team instead of a single person.

I believe GIMP does have a better goal than "just because", and in my mind it is achieving it. I'm not a graphics designer and therefore I have the luxury of not being locked-in with Photoshop's advanced features; therefore all my image manipulations are done using GIMP, Krita and/or Inkscape. I congratulate all those teams on a job well done.

<comment><USER24> Oh, of course. It's just that I don't think that "what's the point?" is as significant a question as many believe it is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Surely the 'point' of GIMP development is that the market leading tool (Photoshop) is closed source, not available on Linux, and relies on its dominant market share to make people pay monthly for it?

</comment><comment><USER26> I _LOVE_ GIMP!

GIMP is a great competitor to photoshop. It misses a lot of the shortcuts that photoshop has introduced to make editing easier/quicker but I've always been able to do everything I needed to do even if it takes more steps.

What the opensource community is missing is a sketch alternative. Application developers have moved to it for rapid design and photoshop has taken the backseat.

GIMP is not comparable to sketch. Sketch has changed the way the design world thinks / works.

</comment><comment><USER27> Gimp is wonderful software. It's really amazing all of the work that's been done with it.

I fully respect all of the work developers have put into open source art creation tools/libraries. Blender, Gimp, InkScape, Krita, G'MIC etc. are incredible pieces of software and if more people spent time to explore, celebrate and contribute to these efforts there is no way any commercial product could keep up.

</comment><comment><USER28> There's an excellent book published by No Starch Press that's full of ways to use GIMP. It's excellent because it is as comprehensive as the older Adobe Photoshop books that people used to buy.

<comment><USER29> Here's a link for convenience:

[https://www.nostarch.com/gimp](https://www.nostarch.com/gimp)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> There is a great lesson in this. The temptation to upgrade, improve, add, and tweak is very strong, but putting those things through the "what's the point" test could really help focus on what's important.

</comment><comment><USER31> GIMP is wonderful and I've gotten away without using Photoshop because of it for over 10 years. Sure, I'm not a graphics designer, but GIMP really isn't made for professional graphic designers. I just wish that the plugin community around GIMP didn't slow down so much, and that GEGL would eventually be 100% implemented(meaning actual CMYK, non-destructive filters, etc). I know that GEGL is kinda there, but it's not fully there still after over 6 years. What may give GIMP a huge edge over Photoshop one day is if it can be ported to the browser with Emscripten.

</comment><comment><USER32> I prefer Photoshop for the UI, but boy are those Elsamuko plugins something.

</comment><comment><USER33> A big thanks to the GIMP devs for providing us with a powerful image editor! It's one of my favorite tools on Linux. I'm currently using it for gradient generation and texture editing for a game. Obviously PS is king in this domain, but the "point" is that many people don't need the full corporate lab when the garage workshop will do.

</comment><comment><USER34> I would like to give another try of GIMP later today.

I remember the first time I tried GIMP. The user experience wasn't good. After knowing you had to double click a button to toggle it, I immediately dropped GIMP.

I also had bad experience with gdk as a developer. I remember it didn't have an installer on windows, and it needed so many dependencies. Getting all the required dlls was a huge pain. Whereas Qt is always nice and easy with good documents.

gdk didn't seem to have a native mac backend. It needs XQuartz, which I don't like. I don't want to install X windows on mac, doesn't make sense. The fact that gimp is under gnome worried me.

Doing image processing software is difficult, but making the ui of it should be relatively easier. GIMP might be strong at processing images, but its ui was really messed up I think.

But I will try again to see if there is any improvement.

</comment><comment><USER35> I am a Krita fan. It's taken the throne of all my graphics creation and modification needs. [https://krita.org/en/download/krita- desktop/](https://krita.org/en/download/krita-desktop/)

</comment><comment><USER36> Long time GIMP user here. I use GIMP because my Solaris 10 install came with it, and for no other reason (I also used it on IRIX). Some software is just so bad, that it cannot even be given away for free; GIMP is one such example, as the interface is horrible.

</comment><comment><USER37> I am surprised nobody talked about Text tool and action recording.

I also use Photoshop CS2 (which Abobe started giving away about 3-4 years ago), and oh boy is its Text tool much more advanced. CS2 was released in 2005 and the latest version of Gimp (2.8.10) still cannot compare :( From my point of view, working with text is a pain in Gimp :(

Also, action recording - I think it is a highly valuable feature for anyone who processes at least 1 photo a week. It seems now so inefficient to repeat the same 4-5 steps again and again and again.

</comment><comment><USER38> the point of developing gimp is to eventually change its name.

</comment><comment><USER39> I've used gimp for years and only recently did I discover that Script-Fu is actually an embedded Scheme. Happy day for automation.

<comment><USER40> Yeah, people blab about how Photoshop is better, but can it be programmed in Lisp? Yeah, didn't think so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> "because I know such comments usually come from one of two places"

I would expect such comments to usually come from c) User feels the industry uses Adobe and, even if GIMP matched up feature for feature, it's pointless to learn it. I don't like to think that way myself but I've certainly felt that way at times.

<comment><USER42> Or possibly from d) User has actually attempted to use GIMP in a professional context and found it severely lacking. But that's not something a just-so story can easily answer, so I'm not surprised to see it excluded here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> To be honest, the name is really embarrassing and immature. I've always felt weird when I used it, and I don't like mentioning it in conversation as a result. Krita has momentum and many other advantages, not least of which is an appealing name.

</comment><comment><USER44> Lot of very fancy photographers use GIMP exclusively. It's more about the workflow (and marketing). If you're used to GIMP, you won't find Photoshop all that easy and vice versa.

</comment><comment><USER45> Not sure what he's talking about (Warp stuff) since I'm a GIMP amateur, but he should make a YouTube video of his finest 3-minute GIMP presentation then.

</comment><comment><USER46> Gimp source code is pretty old. Adding stuff like 16/32 bit support is not easy.

On other side Krita is newer, uses QT, is developing faster etc..

</comment><comment><USER47> I'd like to see these features demonstrated too, without meeting a gimp developer. Maybe they could do a better job of that.

<comment><USER2> These are brand new features of the new, unstable, development version of GIMP. There hasn't been a lot of time to make tutorials on them yet. I still found a video tutorial one warp transform tool[1], but it's in German. It looks simple enough not to even need a tutorial, though.

The GIMP team could always use some help in developing tutorials. So if you want to volunteer, I'm sure your help would be appreciated.

[1] - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHWft62sj44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHWft62sj44)

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> GIMP does suffer from a Pied Piper issue. The developer shouldn't have to teach a user how to use his program.

</comment><comment><USER49> gimp has handled all my image processing needs for a two? decade(s) and done it easily, thanks.

</comment><comment><USER50> The GIMP team doesn't seem interested in working with professional designers, and professional designers are too content with Photoshop to work with the GIMP team.

Just use Photoshop. Cowboy up and buy the fucking software.

</comment><comment><USER51> > In such cases I have to push down my annoyance with the tone

Don't. This would have deserved a rude answer.

</comment><comment><USER52> Maybe if he could sit down with every potential user of GIMP I could sympathize. But the truth is when I sit down to do anything in GIMP, my frustration grows and grows. I've spent dozens of hours using it and it still leaves me in agony every time.

</comment><comment><USER53> After all these years GIMP still sucks. They waste time on developing features of low importance, while critical ones are still not solved.

Prime case: opening RAW files. The current suggested workflow is to use a 3rd party plugin UFRaw. Would you like to see the process of installing it on Windows?

[http://ufraw.sourceforge.net/Install.html](http://ufraw.sourceforge.net/Install.html)

(Ctlr+F for "MS-Windows for geeks")

And then I see arrogant posts like that, claiming that GIMP is perfectly capable. It absolutely is not. GIMP will become popular when GIMP developers start thinking about the modern photographer's workflow. Till then people will keep pirating Photoshop.

<comment><USER54> What is critical to you is not to me, and vice versa. E.g. I have never in my life needed to work with RAW files. I have also never in my life needed to manipulate graphics on Windows.

I understand that is frustrating, but this is one of the challenges of open source - the contributors can make choices without caring about attracting customers.

<comment><USER55> Which is absolutely their right--but then they don't get to post smug messages about how people are just too dumb to understand how great their project is.

I see a lot of messages justifying _why_ GIMP meets the needs of so very few, but none of that changes the fact that GIMP seems to meet the needs of very few.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> I haven't used a direct image editor in a very long time and I don't think I'm missing anything.

Digital Fusion is free. Houdini Indie is $200. Nuke is available for linux. These are all node based work flows that don't destroy anything. You don't have to undo because you create a graph of operations without changing your source directly. They aren't useful for painting directly with a tablet, but anything else they do very well at.

<comment><USER57> Did you mean Design Fusion, from Blackmagic?

<comment><USER56> It used to be Digital Fusion before Blackmagic bought it.</comment></comment></comment>


Should owners/operateros of certain web sites need a license? - <AUTHOR>

Take for example, this healthcare provider that has an F rating on the crypto used for the site:
https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=mychartor.providence.org
This server is vulnerable to the POODLE attack against TLS servers. Patching required. Grade set to F.
This server is vulnerable to MITM attacks because it supports insecure renegotiation. Grade set to F.
This server uses SSL 3, which is obsolete and insecure. Grade capped to B.
This server uses RC4 with modern browsers. Grade capped to C.
This healthcare provider clearly should not be allowed on the web as they have no clue about security. <comment><USER2> A license would be silly. However, an organization could be sued for the equivalent of leaving personal identifiable information in the their waiting root, if their website security is horrible enough.</comment>