Fatigue Is a Brain-Derived Emotion that Regulates to Ensure Protection (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3323922/ <comment><USER2> My first thought was, "oh, reminds me of the SEAL's 40% rule... so if they're trained to ignore that limit, why don't they get hurt?" Then, in first google result [1], I read this:

"I first met "SEAL" at a 100-mile run in San Diego and I was running this race as part of a six-person relay team with friends and he was running the entire race by himself," Itzler said.

"Who is this guy? I've never seen anything like it. And during the race, I kept an eye on him and around mile 70 — he weighed probably 260 pounds, which is quite large for an ultra runner — he had broken all the small bones in both of his feet and had kidney damage and he finished the race."

So... yeah, this makes Me think maybe I'll try harder at listening to my body (fwiw, I've screwed up arms/hands twice in past decade by pushing through fatigue).

[1] [http://thehustle.co/40-percent-rule-navy-seal-secret- mental-...](http://thehustle.co/40-percent-rule-navy-seal-secret-mental- toughness)

<comment><USER3> Where does this come from in the larger culture? I can see why people who are soldiers or ... athletes at the varsity or pro level might be interested in it but why would anyone want to basically injure themselves as a ... hobby?

I've worked with runners who had serious injury, soccer players who came in with bruises that you'd associate with a severe beating... I'm thinking "geez, it's gonna suck when you're 62." Because when you lose some amount of basic mobility, you lose a lot of the ability to stay healthy when you're older.

Is this because of Mountain Dew commercials and 1980s GI Joe body image stuff?

<comment><USER4> > soccer players who came in with bruises that you'd associate with a severe > beating

I was a lacrosse goalie in high school and didn't have the sense to wear shin pads. If you run your fingers along my shin, you'll feel divots where the bone never regenerated. I too used to walk around with bruises on my legs that you'd associate with a severe beating.

> Is this because of Mountain Dew commercials and 1980s GI Joe body image > stuff?

It's considerably more primal than that. Sports are the modern equivalent to tribal rites of passage. We're not allowed to kill our rivals anymore, so we settle for beating them in a physical sport in order to establish our physical dominance. It's empowering in a way that few things are, especially as a teenager and extra especially if you were bullied throughout elementary school.

<comment><USER3> I was 120 lbs soaking wet when I was 17. The school gently guided me away from sports. Good thing, too. Best coach I ever had.

I graduated high school close to 1980. Sure, there were guys finishing the big game on a broken bone but it seems like there's a lot more emphasis on this now, and it seems more dangerous and higher risk. I have nephews and kids of friends who are electing out of organized sports.

FWIW, I feel lucky - we had basically _one_ bully and he didn't last. Expelled.

I remember in "Brian's Song" where Alex Karrass' character sold cars in the pro football off season.

I dunno; I saw "Bigger, Stronger, Faster" and it gave me pause.

<comment><USER4> When I was 16, I was 130. That's after I spent three years in the weight room every day putting on muscle. I played every sport my school offered at least once, but I played football for 8 years. I never regretted it and I encourage everyone, especially the indoor geeky types, to try out for sports. Any sport. Even historical sword fighting. ;) It's an important experience that fewer kids are getting exposed to in this day and age thanks to helicopter parenting. Not to mention the life long social and health benefits

<comment> saiya-jin there are sports which will cripple your health in long run, almost guaranteed. many contact sports, it football comes to mind. some of my high school classmates are semi-cripples because of it (they can walk around, and that's about it). depression can be seen in their eyes - once you know what having a healthy and strong body means, and then losing it forever.

I've done my share of team/contact sports in my youth. nothing horrible happened apart from few broken fingers, but stuff I do now makes those sports look super boring/borderline idiotic when looking back (ie coach yelling at you like a little girl, running you around 'to break you to unlock your potential'). What I mean - trekking, skiing, climbing, via ferratas, cycling on unpaved roads, a bit of easy ski alpinism and mountaineering.

but I agree that any activity/sport is endlessly better than none, that's for sure

<comment><USER5> > depression can be seen in their eyes - once you know what having a healthy > and strong body means, and then losing it forever.

I've talked to a friend of a friend who basically doesn't fear what normal people fear (e.g. talking to beautiful women, surfing, rock climbing, talking to strangers - he is really successful at sales). I asked him what his biggest fear was. He said it was to his lose health/lose control of his body (e.g. bad accident/paralysis).

We all have fears, and I think, in the end, we all fear mortality. And those who don't have the fears we most have (e.g. talking to beautiful women), fear their mortality/fragility of even the most fit body the most.

<comment><USER6> I never get whats the difference talking to beautiful women compared to anyone else? Im reserved and dont talk people much but there is no difference at all who those people are! Overall talking women is even bit easier as they are less dangerous on average.

<comment><USER7> For me, it's probably a holdover from my teenage years as a socially awkward and horny boy. I'm in my 30s now, but there's weird mental habits and impulses that are still sticking around.

I'm happily married, I don't cheat, I don't want to cheat, I'm really not interested in the "hot woman," but if I end up talking to her under any circumstances, there's a loud chorus of voices in my head screaming "dontfuckitupdontfuckitupdontfuckitup." I push through and get over my initial nerves, because I'm a grown up, but it's awful and annoying and I wish it would go away.

<comment><USER6> Wow, interesting stuff, i cant imagine any situation like that, even if i was operating my kid in life or death surgery i would not have dontfuckitup in my head, am i psychopath?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> 'Protection' might be the goal of physical fatigue, but it doesn't work for intellectual effort - what are you being 'protected from breaking' by not being able to write another line of code? Carpal tunnel? In that case, it looks more like it's about conserving energy or rotating to another task after having spent so much time on one task: "A Meta-Analysis of Blood Glucose Effects on Human Decision Making" [http://www.gwern.net/docs/2016-orquin.pdf](http://www.gwern.net/docs/2016-orquin.pdf) , Orquin & Kurzban 2016 "An opportunity cost model of subjective effort and task performance" [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3856320/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3856320/) , Kurzban et al 2013

<comment><USER9> What about mental fatigue? The more you workout your brain the more it needs to rest. How would you like your brain to tell you that it needs to rest other than feeling fatigue?

I find myself consistently productive over long spans without a burnout effect when I am sleeping at consistent hours, and working for consistent hours a day. When I overwork my productivity becomes inconsistent so I stopped doing that. I learnt it the hard way that late night coding is a short-term investment with negative return in the long run.

My personal theory is that our brains like consistency and adapt/tune to it over time. Just like when you jog every day, if you run for too long one day and too short the other day it cannot adapt/tune itself to a semi-random pattern.

<comment><USER10> I heard different story: there is no such thing as "mental fatigue". The reason why we get tired when doing office work is:

\- our muscles need to support our body while sitting. \- most mental work includes some dose of stress, which is a real reason of fatigue.

Buy yourself best chair you can find plus do stress-free, enjoyable work and you can go 16 hours straight, without fatigue. At least that's how I felt about all-weekend-long Quake matches back then when I was living in dormitory.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it depends on the task. Playing Quake doesn't require significant amounts of creativity or learning, in the same way that programming or learning a new language would. We know that the brain needs sleep in order to process new memories, so that may be one factor in mental fatigue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This meshes perfectly with the general view of endurance athletes that performance is largely mental. If fatigue was strictly limited by lactic acid buildup then your state of mind wouldn't make such a dramatic impact.

<comment><USER5> > This meshes perfectly with the general view of endurance athletes that > performance is largely mental.

Most elite endurance athletes do not hit the lactic threshold during their actual races. That is why they train so much - to build their endurance. Once you hit the lactic threshold, your body starts to break down.

<comment><USER12> Enduramce athletes go just bellow lactic threshold most of the time. The body is OK to go above threshold, but only for a limited time. The key is to correctly time usage of that above-threshold capability.

I race MTB. Both quick races and long, 100 miles or even 24h solo events. In a quick <3h race, I just go all-out and stay above threshold most of the time. But I try to time my above-threshold usage in long races. In one of the 24h races, the course had a single climb. I was riding everything but that climb bellow threshold. It would have been very hard to stay bellow threshold on it. While it was just a couple minutes effort above threshold.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Anyone who has gone to the gym after a protracted absence and loss of fitness will have some intuitive understanding of this. Your brain hasn't quite gotten the memo that you're not in the shape you used to be, and it's really easy to over-exert yourself. You feel fine during the workout, then throw up afterward and take much longer to recover.

<comment><USER14> Very true. I learned this the hard way, in my case I ended up with a stress fracture. My mind was actually refusing to get the memo, even when I started feeling pain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Dr. Noakes, the author of this paper, wrote the "Lore of Running", which may be descibed as the bible on running science:

[http://www.humankinetics.com/products/all-products/lore- of-r...](http://www.humankinetics.com/products/all-products/lore-of- running-4th-edition)

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

</comment><comment><USER16> In light of this article, wonder what type of psychological training could be used to complement the typical physical training to improve athletic performance?

<comment><USER17> Maybe something that copies military basic training. It has been decades, but I can still hear my drill instructor yelling, "You aren't tired until I tell you you're tired!" He was right.

<comment><USER18> > I can still hear my drill instructor yelling, "You aren't tired until I tell > you you're tired!" He was right.

I wonder why Rhabdo[1] isn't more prevalent in basic than it is.

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

<comment><USER17> >90% of fatigue in basic (based on a scientific study I just made up in my head) is mentally induced because recruits have a belief of their limits that's short of reality. Part of the drill instructor's responsibility is to demonstrate these limits are just mental by pushing recruits beyond them. Of course, that still leaves the <10% of times when the limits are real and someone gets hurt, but that's just collateral damage, I guess.

<comment><USER19> I wonder if it's really 10%. The instructor most likely doesn't actually know the person's limits. They're setting a baseline and hoping everyone has good enough genetics to meet that baseline. The rest are injured/kicked out/may have actually been filtered out earlier. Remember that the military turns down many people, and that often includes a lot of people who have hidden medical issues or just bad genetics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This also makes sense if you think the evolutionary biology of it: if after a small number of top runners separate from the pack (even if they happen to be the "top" runners of a race by pure luck, and even if their relative order is pure luck), it's better if the 2nd, 3rd runner etc. accept their places at a point and don't push more, because then the top runner will also push more and so on... positive feedback loop until some of them (maybe all!) _die_ of fatigue.

 _Cowardice of the individual might be a huge survival advantage for the species as a whole!_

Without it the species might end up loosing or injuring the fittest of the individuals in stupid competitions. The would be quite detrimental for the species.

(Also going even further from physical performance: If you extend this a bit from "athletic race" to "nuclear arms race" you'd see a similar thing ...but yeah, as an individual player you might "loose" by being coward (although I would not call "staying alive" loosing...).

And an interesting philosophical question would be about the cases where an individual _gains courage by loosing "the feeling of being the same species as the others"_ \- we know that psychopaths ca be quite fearless, and we also know from history that if you train your soldiers to think they are "a superior master race separate from the others" they tend to get quite better at winning battles.)

</comment><comment><USER21> If the claim is that muscles don't fatigue, then I am skeptical.

In college, I took a weightlifting class with a bunch of athletes in it. One day, we did lunges (no weight) around and around, in a line like ants. Nearing the end, my brain thought I was totally fine. I cannot stress that enough. Bam, like a light switch, my legs went from 60% strength to 2% three quarters of the way through the last lap. Had the instructor not caught me, I would have fallen right over.

<comment><USER22> No, I think you are anecdotally supporting the posted article: you worked your muscles to physical exhaustion but you did not feel "fatigue", ergo, the conventional theory that "fatigue" is caused by lactic acid or other muscle chemistry is disproved.

<comment><USER23> What result would disprove the article?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> _" conscious mental decisions made by winners and losers, in both training and competition, are the ultimate determinants of both fatigue and athletic performance."_

A favoutite quote of mine: _" You have to make a sustained 'conscious effort', to win."_

</comment><comment><USER25> I can buy the conclusion except that I believe you can only usually tweak performance in small degrees without actually over-exerting yourself, since the central nervous system _is_ in fact an expert on what you are capable of doing safely.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the point is that you can _keep_ increasing performance in small degrees, so it's kind of like training your brain to allow small incremental performance boosts by saying "see, I didn't get injured or die, so give me another 1% speed". Of course, sometimes this does actually result in injury, so if you want to be safe it's probably best not pushing too far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> "Fatigue makes cowards of us all" is a famous quote supposedly from Vince Lombardi, though it has also attributed to other significant people (as famous quotes often are).

Regardless of the speaker, the overlap with the headline is remarkable.

</comment><comment><USER27> This is an interesting method of building resiliency -- or anti-fragility -- into a complex system without adding complexity via a system of feedback for each component (or some other such cleverness).

(I.E.: Have an overarching "intense activity" timer or measuring device signal that the system is likely to suffer breakdown... just because it probably will.)

The key intelligence here comes from the fact that the human fatigue system evolved alongside the human organism, and thus has millions of years of results built in. As a result it's fairly accurate.

<comment><AUTHOR> I suspect it has been around quite a while in evolutionary terms, and isn't just in humans. All animals need to be careful that they don't overheat, go without water, break a bone, etc. (However if another animal is chasing you, it makes sense to turn off the inhibiting signal). The brain regions involved are common to many animals AFAIK.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm doing rather exhausting martial arts, which includes doing all movements at exact the speed in which the trainer counts.

There were moments where I felt I couldn't proceed and was exhausted. When telling that to my trainer he, correctly, said: well your muscles aren't shaking under load, so you can't be out of energy yet. After a pause of 10 seconds I was able to go on.

In my experience most physical fatigue can be countered by proper, regular and deep breathing during movement. It seems to be an oxygen-distribution problem.

<comment><USER29> never forget that a different conclusion can also come from a different input. Maybe your understanding of fatigue is not the same as the author's. You could already see two definitions when comparing yours with your trainer's, right?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> 2012

<comment><USER31> I don't know why this is down... the article is from 2012.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Is it same for procrastination?

<comment><AUTHOR> Possibly this might explain procrastination:

[https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Maarten_Boksem/publicat...](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Maarten_Boksem/publication/51426280_Mental_fatigue_Costs_and_benefits/links/0f31753a54b2b691ba000000.pdf)

It seems to involve the same brain regions that Noakes identified as being involved in physical fatigue. However rather than protecting against damage, its function appears to be to protect against unnecessary expenditure of energy.</comment></comment>


What If Government Were Like An Ipod? [Scott Adams] - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203716204577014262225551278.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

<comment><USER2> How about this for a new user interface for the government? <http://www.plainsite.org>

</comment><comment><USER3> "What about the citizens who don't have access to the Internet? We could change the constitution to make Internet access a basic right. That feels necessary for a healthy republic in the modern age."

The Pirate Party, who just got 8% of votes in Berlin, Germany, advocates exactly this.</comment>


First space, then auto–now Elon Musk quietly tinkers with education - pow_pp_-1_v https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/06/first-space-then-auto-now-elon-musk-quietly-tinkers-with-education/ <comment><AUTHOR> So, based off the article, I don't agree with the idea of letting children at that age choose to drop topics because they aren't interested.

a) Interest often is triggered as you learn more about the subject.

If the argument is, it is the teachers responsibility to make topics interesting, I'd buy it. But allowing children at that age to drop topics seems like (to me) a disservice to the child

b) There are topics like history, geography, civics that (I believe) every child should learn. School is not just for trade skills, it's for learning to function as a part of the society, and these subjects are indispensable for understanding the larger world.

Having to run an "economy" or work in groups is not a suitable replacement for these "ideas" and skills.

In addition, at the risk of coming across as a traditional disciplinarian, I think there is merit in teaching children the discipline of forcing oneself to learn even when one is not interested in a topic. Ignoring the "it builds character" nonsense, the initial steps in most new things can seem tedious. But learning the basics allows one to explore a much larger world and choose what to develop mastery in.

Allowing such subject choice at such an young age, eliminating large parts of social sciences, etc. deprives children of these vital perspectives and opportunities, IMO. And being comfortable with tedium is important in its own right. That should not be the only thing one learns in a school (and I know that thats unfortunately too common in most schools), but doing away with it altogether is equally counter productive..

Student choice and voice can be incorporated in multiple ways, without eliminating entire subjects altogether..

Plugging one of my mentors here:

[https://www.ted.com/speakers/kiran_sethi](https://www.ted.com/speakers/kiran_sethi)

What she has accomplished I think is a far more valuable contribution.

(Disclosure: I worked with her and designed the school's middle school (primary & middle school) science curriculum. )

Edit: added link to TED talk and subsequent disclaimer.

<comment><USER2> I would much rather drop something i had no interest in and pick up other interests and maybe later pick it up when interest flows there again, than be forced to wade trhough the hopelessness that is to sit a good portion of your day, learning something you hate. Schooling HAS wasted a lot of my lifetime, on things I HATED. Years on, I still resent this. I also dropped out of guitar after 1 week when I was young, but now, having rediscovered it in university, I do it with a renewed appreciation and vigour.I want it now. Now, not then. And that's just fine.

</comment></comment><comment> java-man I wish the next thing he did was a factory to "build" these schools. I am afraid the world's education system is stick in the XIX century...

</comment><comment><USER3> The word quietly needs to be banned from headlines.

</comment><comment><USER4> Sounds pretty dystopian.</comment>


Need advise on compensation for non-technical employee.  H1B Visa-related. - <AUTHOR>

What is a fair compensation package for a non-technical "second" employee for a web start-up?
He's been working on a part-time basis for the last couple months as he finishes his last semester of grad school.  This guy has already shown that he'd be an exceptional asset from a non-technical (web design, brand positioning, social marketing, PR, etc)perspective which is fine because I can focus on the technical side.
Tricky part is that, though he can first exhaust his OPT time (12 months) post graduation (May 2010), he would eventually need an H1B Visa to stay in the US to work.  He offered to pay all H1B processing fees.
The main caveat for sponsoring an H1B is that you have to pay market salary.  This startup has been self-funded so far so I can't pay much though he may be fine with a title that warrants $30k or so.  We would probably generate our first $ in 2-3 months.  A couple investors have offered to provide some funding which may be an option.
Should I pursue this seemingly awesome non-techie second employee even with the H1B hangup?  What would be a fair package in terms of H1B sponsorship, salary, equity, benefits?  Thanks in advance for your time. <comment><USER2> Could you "pay" him market salary using IOUs?</comment>


Cutting Off Burners - <AUTHOR> http://nikcub.appspot.com/cutting-off-burners

<comment><USER2> Yeah or you could just turn all of them down by a third and have them all on, because most food does not need to be seared at the highest possible temperature. I could lead this sorry metaphor further with some guff about how if you want to be able to eat prime steak you need the fullest heat from one burner, but frankly I don't care.</comment>


Finland to lobby EU for abolition of daylight saving time - <AUTHOR> https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/finland_to_lobby_eu_for_abolition_of_daylight_saving_time/10042340 <comment> java-man Always thought that daylight saving time is a cheap way for politicians to produce an impression of "work", while in reality introducing disruptions (sometimes fatal) to a large number of people.

Never understood why people still allow this.</comment>


How to write the perfect pull request - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/blog/1943-how-to-write-the-perfect-pull-request <comment><USER2> > Compare ":sparkles: :sparkles: Looks good :+1: :sparkles: :sparkles:" to > "Looks good."

I see. Lesson learned: don't use emojis, it looks awful.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Use emoji to clarify tone.

Maybe it's just me, but I prefer my github issues not to look like a whatsapp conversation.

<comment><USER2> > look like a whatsapp conversation.

Even my personal/informal chats don't look that bad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Offering and Responding to feedback sections are so bad. Do people working at GitHub really need to basically be told to not be rude to each other, to give useful information and to be professional or at least fake politeness? Are they employing people in early teens with no socialization what so ever? Use emoji, what the hell?!

"Our guidelines suit the way we work, and the culture we want to nurture. We hope you find them useful too.

Happy communicating!"

Ugh...

What a weird place, and I don't mean this in a good way (taking into account all the previous workplace drama they had).

</comment><comment> a-dub I just wish that GitHub would hold onto force push history and produce diffs across them so they can be audited easily.

<comment><USER5> Or have an option to mark a project FF only, with a public statement how long this option has been switched on.

Atlassian Stash has FF only as a config, and for most projects it makes quite a bit of sense!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> A little ironic to see this on github given:

[https://github.com/torvalds/linux/pull/17#issuecomment-56546...](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/pull/17#issuecomment-5654674)

But perhaps these issues have been fixed now?

<comment><USER7> Not everyone agrees with Linus. It's kind of silly to bring that up in a mostly unrelated thread about Github suggesting tips for working within their own PR system.</comment></comment>


Netflix Makes a Statement in India with "Sacred Games" - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/prospero/2018/07/19/netflix-makes-a-statement-in-india-with-sacred-games <comment><USER2> I'm from Btown. With its latest Indian content, Netflix has really made a statement about what it can do with original content made for this market. Consciously working with the best in Bollywood and giving them creative freedom that the internet provides (traditionally censor board in India is conservative and absurd).

Amazon Prime too has made strides in acquiring and producing content for the Indian market. But both have clearly taken a different stance in doing so. Amazon is quick to acquire bollywood movies for Prime and from Netflix's latest content, it appears that they have potential to replace bollywood bangers.

<comment><USER3> I hate consuming movies on Amazon Prime Video in India. Their self-censorship is worse than the Censor board.

Just one of my recent experiences - A well made movie "Shahid" \- There's a scene where the two guys are in jail having a chat. An entire line just gets censored and Shahid's shocked reaction means the scene was important.

I then found the movie on Netflix. The line they censored was - "This country doesn't give a shit about it's minority". Wtf?! Are we that insecure that we need to Censor stuff like that.

That's just one example, it's almost impossible to watch Shahid and other similar movies on Amazon. Which is weird because they are on the Internet, they don't have a Censor body governing their content!

<comment><USER4> Other examples of Amazon self-censoring despite the govt saying they are not considering censoring online content.

* Pixelated nudity in shows like Californication and The Man In The High Castle and films like Watchmen and The Godfather

* The Grand Tour had an episode which involved animal carcasses. All of it was removed.

My $0.02 on this difference between Amazon and Netflix. This is Netflix's primary business, while Video is an afterthought for Amazon compared to the retail business. A boycott of their retail business would be catastrophic, whereas a few people canceling their subscription over self-censorship is a non-issue.

Amazon can also potentially be shaken down for protection money. It would work like this. "Hi, we're from this political party and we're considering making these videos a major issue. Meanwhile, would you consider making a donation to our election campaign?"

<comment><USER5> Let me get this straight. It's not catastrophic for Netflix if people boycott them for showing nudity but it's catastrophic for Amazon if people stopped watchiny Amazon prime video?

<comment><USER6> No he is saying that Amazon doesn't really care much about their video business and therefore are fine with decreasing it's competitiveness via censorship if it decreases the risk of boycotts on is primary businesses.

Whereas if Netflix becomes less competitive in it's video business they lose everything. So taking risks by not censoring can make more sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Most bollywood fare needs to cater to the masses (a large chunk of whom are semi-literate) in order to make money. Netflix's audience is by nature literate and middle-class with a decent internet connection at home. They can happily switch between Hindi, English and don't mind reading subtitles for Marathi if they don't already speak it.

Kudos to them for recognizing this market at the very least and attempting a show like this. I binged watched the show in 3 days and while it was interesting and wildy different from normal bollywood fare, I did not find it ultra amazing or anything compared to, say AGOT for example.

<comment><USER8> I had the same feeling. Nothing awesome about the show. One thing I have begun to dislike with Netflix in general is most of their shows are extreme. Either too violent and dark or way too silly. I cannot watch them just for the sake of time pass or enjoyment without having negative emotions that sometimes lasts for days. Nowadays, even with a Netflix account, 99% of my TV is YouTube. Still I decided to watch Sacred Games since its based on India. Violence and sex on it were not something we would see in an Indian TV show, but overall entertainment value was lacking. The RAW officers were too simple. I find it hard to believe that this is how they operate. Also, its strange that some Indians think showing sex scenes as progressive. I don't want to see sex in regular movie. If I want to watch sex, I will go and watch porn. If one wants to see violence and gore, there are plenty of other websites. Please don't bring it to the masses in the name of progressiveness. Before anybody labels me as Taliban, I fully support public nudity. But sex scenes in these shows and movies are not real. Nudity in movies is a cheap way to get the audience. Make a mediocre show, sprinkle some sex scenes and violence here and there, profit.

<comment><AUTHOR> You hit the nail on the head about Netflix. There is so much low quality content on it that it makes me eye everything they offer skeptically. There are so many great movies out there, why are none of them available on Netflix or Prime?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've watched a couple modern Indian films recently, and the characters switch effortlessly between English and Hindi, sometimes in mid-sentence. More than once I even saw one character ask a question in Hindi and the other quote them in English: for example, (in Hindi:) 'Aren't I the smartest guy in the world?'; (in English:) 'No, you aren't "the smartest guy in the world".'.

I've been wondering: What is the subtext, what are the implications, of using English or of switching languages? There must be some and I'm missing the subtleties.

EDIT: clarification

<comment><USER10> Very common among bilingual speakers.

It's called "code switching"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code- switching](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching)

It's hilarious watching my wife's aunts talk. They grew up in Hyderabad in a Sindhi household but emigrated to UK. They effortlessly switch between Telugu, Hindi, Sindhi, and English in the same conversation.

<comment><USER11> The characters in Anna Karenina speak French in some parts (at least in my English copy of the book). I don't know why but it clearly meant something for that conversation to be in French. It's there something the story is trying to say when they switch between Hindi and English on that show?

<comment><USER12> For the Russian aristocracy in the 18th and 19th centuries, French was often their everyday language. Russian was only used to communicate with servants. The sprinkling of French phrases through Tolstoy is meant to evoke this aristocratic world, it doesn't necessarily mean that the phrases which Tolstoy sets in French are somehow more important than the dialogue he presets in Russian.

<comment><USER13> AFAIK, in 19th century, esp. after the Napoleonic invasion of Russia it wasn't as hardcore as that. Aristocracy spoke a fair amount of Russian among themselves, but still mixed in a lot of French (and IIRC some accidental Latin).

I could be wrong though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Unfortunately I don't think it will last. Indian government + its agencies are very conservative and I'm sure they will be making attempts at censoring Netflix in India.

<comment><USER15> I bet the spending power of non-India Indians in the rest of the world is huge.

<comment><USER2> "non-India Indians" are called NRIs (non-resident Indians).

And you're right, in the list of ethnic groups in USA by household income, Indian Americans rank number 1 _.

_[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_United_States_by_household_income)

<comment><USER15> Does NRI apply to people without Indian citizenship?

<comment><USER2> Nope, strictly speaking NRI is a tax status of people who are Indian citizens but do not reside in India.

Foreign citizens who descent from Indian origin are called PIO i.e. person of Indian origin

<comment><USER16> In banking/government terms, yes, but in general terms NRI is used much wider to describe a person of Indian origin. At least in West India.

<comment><USER15> Does "Desi" work in this case? Is it offensive for a white guy to say?

<comment><USER2> It might be interesting to know that the Sanskrit word "desi" itself just means country

<comment><USER15> Many words starting with n and with gs in them are just color descriptions. Shortened versions of Japanese and Pakistani are offensive in some countries but not others. The Thai word for Indian is "visitor" as in "not from here, will go home soon". Plenty of words with innocuous meanings pick up offensive meanings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Scared Games is awesome. There's also another original documentary series Netflix recently launched which is 'Wild Wild Country' and its based on cult Indian figure Osho and the time he spent in Oregon. It's worth watching too.

<comment><USER18> I watched recently similar documentary on youtube - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gwx9nqknu-c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gwx9nqknu-c)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's not just 'Sacred Games'. Other Netflix originals like 'Lust Stories' are breaking the Bollywood mould and telling stories that are too taboo for Bollywood. Great job, Netflix!

<comment><USER20> To be honest, its less about being a Taboo (see films like Chameli, Chandni Bar, Fashion) have tried telling taboo stories. Its the censor board which is so inconsistent that it doesn't even make sense. This platform helps them bypass it and its working, and its also being accepted by the viewers . Win- Win-Win

<comment><USER21> Maybe I'm biased coming from (North) American culture but I'm always amazed at the level of government intervention Indians tolerate. Every time I read about the regulatory landscape there it blows my mind (ie, hearing how a truck delivering something across the country needs to stop 8 times in every county they pass to make sure they have proper paperwork). It's always terribly excessive and almost illogical by design (arbitrary laws to give abitrary power to the individuals impementing it).

<comment><USER22> I think they're mostly being careful. In polite, educated society Netflix's content isn't going to cause any problems, but in some places there is a real danger to public order from broadcast media.

"Fake news" has resulted in the deaths of dozens of people in India this year[1]. I think reasonable people should value free and uncensored media, but I also think reasonable people can disagree on the degree to which that freedom should be valued relative to public safety. It's certainly ugly to think "only people who can afford Netflix can be trusted to watch controversial content and not kill each other" though.

1: [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia- india-44897714](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-44897714)

<comment><USER21> My response is the potential for abuse and the natural growth in scale and scope of oversight negates the utility of such control of media. I'd bet a thousand dollars for every violent act prevented through censure there were 100 arbitrary, social, or overly careful controls that had little real benefit to society.

If America took this advice they'd have banned goth music and violent video games in a 'think of the children' antiviolence bullshit narrative.

Not to mention the idea you can regulate your way out of 'fake news' (even ignoring the massive cost to culture, political freedom, and spread of knowledge) is ridiculous and naive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> In a world where state backed religions and religion backed states exists. Where the funds and man power set aside for religious expansion in the organised religions is more than the defence budgets of many countries. Censorship and reflection of bias is important.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV5eE3SENo0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV5eE3SENo0)

Takes a good look at bias and dishonesty in Bollywood. Netflix can also fall victim to "moles" just like the BBC.

<comment><USER24> Did you just try to make an argument for why censorship is important? Because don't see anything.

It's amazing how the conservative Hindu majority of India has been convinced that they're in danger of unseen forces.

<comment><USER25> Precisely. It is not just that. The Hindu right wing have been sold narrative - a version of history where they are told that they are denied their "right" place in history - at the very top of all world cultures, only because of the pesky minorities. So they should subjugate the minorities and cast them to the fringes so that the "great" Hindu nation can rise again.

<comment><USER26> This comment just reeks of bias. How come the admins dont boot such hate spreaders from HN

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I have to say, this article's writing did a good job of getting me interested in the material.

</comment><comment><USER28> Most of the series has unforced graphic scenes and vulgarity. It's just gangs of wassrypur set in Mumbai with more vulgarity because it was produced for Netflix.

</comment><comment><USER26> The series is gross, vulgar and has unwanted scenes of violence. Depictions of India far from reality.Avoidable.

</comment><comment><USER29> Never thought I would see stuff like this on HN. [https://imgur.com/a/BlfhrPv](https://imgur.com/a/BlfhrPv)

<comment><USER2> I agree with you, I was surprised to see this on the front page as well. I guess it's because this is Netflix's [being a California tech company] first real effort to enter the Indian market. Hence it implies the consequences this launch could have on its position [and Prime's too] in the Indian market as it establishes itself in a country with a [relatively] mature entertainment / cinema industry.

Now that it's here, it's good for you to have commented here expressing your concern.

However, the comments you've linked surprise me even more as they represent pure hate. I'm curious to know which forum they are from, anyone?

<comment><USER29> Btw I was referring to the vitriolic comments.

They are from HN only. Were visible till I logged in. I guess mods removed it and the logged out views are cached

<comment><USER2> Thanks for clarifying; it wasn't clear to me what you were referring to.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Malaysia Resists China's Investments, Fearing 'Colonialism' - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/20/world/asia/china-malaysia.html <comment><USER2> The Chinese government deployed a similar tactic in Sri Lanka, building a sea part that is unnecessary, with easy loans, which Sri Lanka defaulted on, leading to China taking ownership. It then deployed a submarine to the port, alarming both Sri Lanka and India.

Source: [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/world/asia/china-sri- lank...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/world/asia/china-sri-lanka- port.html)

<comment><USER3> > _leading to China taking ownership. It then deployed a submarine to the > port, alarming both Sri Lanka and India._

"Bigger pile of money" diplomacy meets "bigger gun" diplomacy. It shoudn't be surprising. We did the same thing under the Monroe Doctrine. But it's been long enough that many in the West have forgotten about it.

<comment><USER4> With China, US taxpayer money is on line too. Take a closer look at Pakistan's case. China promised $42B investments, Pakistan's CAD widened. Pakistan seeks $15B bailout from IMF, which US has opposed as it will just go to Chinese. So a very tumultuous future ahead, this colonialism adventure of China will bring.

Severe pain for India, as Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar have Chinese presence now, just a matter of time when the boots land. String of pearls, as it is called.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What Mathatir said is "Fair Trade over Free Trade", instead of fear.

A country as wealthy as China can quickly take over most of the assets in Malaysia, which is another form of colonialization.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm curious if there's a precedent for countries with strong (and balanced) economic ties going to war.

With sanctions and protectionism, I wonder if the barriers to war are actually reduced.

<comment><USER7> That was the argument before WWI.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I would argue it's not colonialism, these countries can always say no, it just depends on political will and strength. That's not really China's fault or concern.

Again, the US has done similar things in the past, hence the numerous US air force bases scattered around the world. It's simply practical to gain soft power, and then convert that soft power into harder power.

<comment><USER9> > I would argue it's not colonialism, these countries can always say no, it > just depends on political will and strength. That's not really China's fault > or concern.

That is the US's rational for doing the same thing, yes.

It doesn't end well. It results in stuff like the Iranian revolution. Installing and/or supporting "friendly leaders" who then push deals that are against the local national interest results in a great deal of hostility in the long run.

The reason the US is hated isn't that the US is evil. It is the fact the US meddled in the affairs of others more than they should have and then leveraged concessions beyond what the native population wanted. China is repeating that mistake.

> Again, the US has done similar things in the past, hence the numerous US air > force bases scattered around the world. It's simply practical to gain soft > power, and then convert that soft power into harder power.

Practical? Yes. If you are expecting to go to war.

If no war materializes, you've destroyed any chance of popular support in that country indefinitely. China is burning bridges with the native populations in these countries that won't go away in 5 years.

<comment><USER10> >It doesn't end well.

Why not?

>It results in stuff like the Iranian revolution.

Also resulted in the greatest era in human history in terms of peace and prosperity.

>It is the fact the US meddled in the affairs of others more than they should have and then leveraged concessions beyond what the native population wanted.

I think it's hard being at the top and maintaining global order. You get blamed for everything and you get credit for nothing.

<comment><USER9> > Also resulted in the greatest era in human history in terms of peace and > prosperity.

You are confusing Capitalism with foreign policy.

> Why not?

Where do you think all this anti-US violence comes from?

Empires have never fared well once they fell from power with the exception of the British who were geographically isolated and had very powerful allies.

Simply because the bloodshed caused by US foreign policy mostly occurs on foreign soil doesn't mean it will stop just because the US is no longer an empire.

> I think it's hard being at the top and maintaining global order. You get > blamed for everything and you get credit for nothing.

The US actively instigated violent revolutions, torture, and abuses in other countries. Pretending that is "part of maintaining global order" is absurd.

The pillars of what the US is credited for is something half the population actively rebels against (globalism, free trade) and were achieved in spite of the popular will domestically.

Simply because I believe a certain technique should be verboten doesn't mean I ignored credit for the US's successes.

<comment><USER11> > I think it's hard being at the top and maintaining global order. You get > blamed for everything and you get credit for nothing.

Being at the top (say, a superpower in today's world) means you enjoy at least an order of magnitude advantage over any other country in the majority of interactions you might have with them.

If you think of maintaining global order as helping to maintain that lead, then not getting credit for anything really doesn't factor into any of the decision-making calculus.

<comment><USER10> >If you think of maintaining global order as helping to maintain that lead

Except I wouldn't think of it that way. I don't think that's the correct interpretation. I think maintaining global order means you live in the world you want to live in. Americans wanted to spread American ideals of Democracy, free speech and free enterprise. Soviet Union wanted to spread Soviet ideals. I think that's as simple as that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The Malaysian PM was quite conciliatory in his remarks.

[https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/20/asia/china-malaysia- mahathir-...](https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/20/asia/china-malaysia-mahathir- visit-intl/index.html)

<comment><USER13> the missing context is that the previous PM greenlighted projects from China that were v likely greenlighted because of kickbacks to him and his retinue rather than because of the merit and profitability to the country. china, among other things, was simply one of many bogeymen attacked in the election campaign leading up to BN's defeat. mahathir knows better than to turn down good investment money, but the general view of the previous adminstration was that a lot of money was invested in malaysia only to exclusively benefit the chinese.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is going on all over the world currently, from the US to Europe to Asia:

"Doors Slam Shut for China Deals Around the World"

[https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-08-20/doors- sla...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-08-20/doors-slam-shut- for-china-deals-around-the-world)

</comment><comment><USER15> Wow. The most interesting thing I learned is Mahathir is now 93.

</comment><comment><USER16> Every single day, sometimes multiple times a day, there are posts on HN pushing one anti-China narrative or another. Every single day there is a barrage of anti-China armchair experts all too happy to wax poetic about the evils of communism, the CPC and authoritarianism. I have to say, it's becoming more and more of an /r/Worldnews-esque, politically polarised echo-chamber in here and it's a huge turn-off.

I know I'm not the only one who feels this way and I can only imagine the great expert commenters this board is losing because of this.

<comment><USER17> Or maybe China is just really horrible about human rights and there are a lot of articles about it because that is good journalism? This is a NY Times article about an important subject published today, why should this not be on HN?

<comment><USER18> The US is arguably a worse abuser of human rights, internationally if not domestically, and yet every story about the US doesn't devolve into a big discussion about US's human rights abuses. Imagine if every article about the US talked about our hundreds of military bases, the millions dead in the middle east due to US war, the current war in Yemen, and all the dictatorships the US has installed over the years.

<comment><USER19> Did you just argue the US is a worse abuser of human rights than _China_?

<comment><USER18> Yes. Read my comment again. I include both domestic and foreign abuse. People seem to irrationally only pay attention to domestic abuse when discussing human rights violations.

<comment><USER19> I'm not sure the US can compete with this.[1]

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution#Death_toll](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution#Death_toll)

<comment><USER18> If you count death tolls in the Korean war, Vietnam war, and the middle eastern excursions in the last 25 years, you are in the same order of magnitude.

<comment><USER19> Korean War? You mean the one that North Korea started with China's backing?

How is defending South Korea a human rights violation? All those deaths are on NK and China.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Oh great another attempt at the daily China thread on HN.

With both the whatabowtists and the anti-China hawks trying to outplay each other in the moral outrage game.

There are plenty of subreddits for those who like to astroturf about China ranging from anti-China hawks to pro-Beijing trolls.

Sorry for the cynicism, but I really dislike astroturfers.

<comment><USER21> Can you cite specific users making comments which you know or believe to be coming from large organizations acting as if they're simply individuals?

<comment><USER20> Why does astroturfing need to come from a large organization? A bunch of like- minded users could be enough depending on the volume of commenting or voting. They also don't need to be paid and even have centralized management.

I've seen a couple of userames popping on these threads all the time. And China related threads have an odd number of new accounts posting comments in them.

It can be people that have to live anonymously lest they have to deal with dictatorships or it can also be the same group of people posting the same opinions all over again.

As for names, there is two users in this thread that are posting in almost every China-related thread for at least a month or so. I won't particularly point to them, since I'm not sure it goes well with the guidelines

Though it didn't happen on HN, the unidan case on reddit is a good example. The guy basically manipulated voting in a large subreddit on his own by using a number of alternative accounts to upvote his own comments.

Anyway, if that is the direction HN is headed and this is regarded as acceptable, then I'm leaving.

I don't tolerate propaganda or people spreading it. This is on the guidelines: "Please don't use Hacker News primarily for political or ideological battle." A bunch of users forget about that and I won't be around a website that goes into it.

<comment><USER22> _Why does astroturfing need to come from a large organization? A bunch of like-minded users could be enough_

We have an actual word for this: _grassroots_.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


YC Applicants: Q&A with Abby and Ivan Kirigin of Tipjoy - <AUTHOR>

I have recently exchanged Q&A emails with Ivan Kirigin, the founder of tipjoy.com, about his experiences being in the Y Combinator. I want to really thank Ivan and Abby for replying all these questions with depth. I've promised I would share these Q&A with the community so all YC applicants can have a taste and feel of what's to come and more importantly what the application process is like.
I also want to thank Andrew Warner from mixergy.com for helping me and inspiring me to apply for Y Combinator. If you ever need to learn entrepreneurship, his interviews is a great way to learn it from.
Here's the Q&A:
Q: Did you have to assist the financial risks that were involved with both of you in the same business? Isn't it like putting all your eggs in one basket?
The worst case scenario was that we would have to go back to 'regular' jobs. Leaving a job at a big company to start your own company is probably the best reason to leave, and it is important to keep ties with that world so that you can rejoin it if need be. We figured out how much time we had before needing to move forward with this "nuclear option". We just keep aware of our runway so we don't get surprised. Between our savings and our investors, we've been able to be secure.
Q: What was your overall Y Combinator application experience like?
I told Abby about it in summer 2007, saying it might be for college students. She looked it over and thought it was good for any company. We'd been reading lots of Paul Graham's essays and thought YC's approach was exceptionally creative. We edited our application over time, crafting the message and wording a lot. Working through the application like this really helped us refine our idea, our goals, and our vision. It was very valuable. Once we were accepted to the interview, we practiced pitching to a few friends and colleagues.  It was amazing how much our approach to talking about and presenting Tipjoy evolved during those sessions.
The interview was definitely not what we expected. We butted heads with Paul quite a bit. There were some user experience approaches which Abby felt were key to what we were doing. Although the UX approaches don't add up to the entire product, YC's main concern was that we were so passionate about our idea that we might not be willing to alter it if the market demanded. Abby thought we didn't get in. I wasn't sure. Ultimately they must have enjoyed the debate because we were accepted! Working with YC has been an amazing experience.
Q: Besides submitting an application, did you do anything extra to help you get into the interview round with Y Combinator?
We had a demo system live that I'm pretty sure they didn't look at. Making it was a good exercise for us though.
Q: What was your interview experience like? Do you have any advice for the new applicants this year?
Lots of people make the mistake of assuming the interview is a presentation. That's not the format. It's a conversation with maybe a 3-second demo component. They asked a lot of questions right away and that guided the conversation. I'd recommend practicing by pitching to people that understand your market.
Q: When you got funding by Y Combinator, did you have to give up a lot to move to California? How did you feel right before you moved?
We had to move from Arlington, Massachusetts. We had a house, which we kept and eventually moved back into after moving back to Massachusetts. We had a spot in a nursery school for our son, which we also managed to keep.  Really we didn't have to 'give up' anything. Everything that mattered was coming with us.
Once we knew we were moving (of course we accepted YC's offer right away), Abby spent a lot of time getting all the logistics worked out. She found a temporary place for us to live in Mountain View which would work for our family. In addition to our son Luka, we brought our dog and also my mom who came to live with us and take care of our son Luka full-time.  When it came time for the move, my brother helped me drive a carful of stuff across the country. We owe a lot to our family who are always there to help.
We were very excited to move. It felt a bit crazy like a fox, but the opportunity was too big to pass up.
In fact it was great that we were taken out of our normal routine and life in MA. That way we were able to completely focus on building Tipjoy. It was also great to spend several months entrenched in the Valley network.
Taking this leap together has been pretty amazing. Our company and our family are stronger and richer from the experience. <comment><USER2> Me and my co-founder flew out last summer for YC interviews and weren't accepted. This is my advice.

We had been accepted for the interview and for a good two or three weeks we dropped just about everything. Stopped going to class, stopped going to work, and more or less just hacked on the demo. Even in the airport, on the plane and in the hotel we kept hacking. This demo was kicking ass. We also talked a bit about our talking points and plan for the interview.

On the day of, we walked into Y-Combinator, chatted with some of the other applicants about what we all were working on, played with a robot from Anybots that was wandering around, ate some snacks and then went into the interview room. As soon as we entered the room, we greeted everyone , and went to sit down. The plan was to have my co-founder start talking and I'd plug in the laptop and bring up the demo. Before either of us could do anything (literally as soon as the last hand shake was over) we started getting questions thrown at us. I mean _thrown_. This was kind of unexpected, as we thought it'd be more of us talking, presenting, and answering... but for a good solid 10 minutes we were sitting across from 3 people who never let up. As soon as we'd start answering 1 question, we'd get 2 others thrown at us when we were 3 words into our answer. This was at first misleading to me (as it seemed they didn't have time to listen to our answer)... but you quickly realize what questions are being asked and why and how satisfied they were with the previous answers. Generally the sooner they cut you off, the more pleased they seemed with what you said. You only have 10 minutes, so as soon as they hear what they want to, they tended to move along.

We did a quick demo, really quick... measured in seconds but closer to 60 than to 3. We spent weeks working on the demo, and it turned out to potentially be the least significant part of the whole interview. They liked knowing there was a demo, they like seeing it and getting a quick feel for our capabilities and general direction... but that took about 15 seconds for them to get a grasp on, not a 2 minute demo.

We left uncertain of the outcome, but glad we'd just gone through the intense session. We'd never pitched before, and it was good to know that we just walked out of the door having gotten some great experience pitching to the best.

Later that night we got an email from Paul that was really well written and insightful. The gist of the email was that they loved the team, the demo, and the idea but not how we intended to monetize it. We've since refocused on a more specific problem (in the same domain) that we feel we've solved more adequately than anyone in the field. We've also decided to continue bootstrapping for now. The lessons learned are:

1\. You can have the greatest product in the world, but no one will care if you can't talk about it. We should have spent more time preparing for questions than hacking. We aced all of the phone screens, and we wrote everything from scratch so we felt we could easily answer any questions tossed at us. We should have spent more time fielding practice questions.

2\. We should have discussed monetization more. We had a plan, but perhaps it was a little too optimistic. We refused to just say "ads", we wanted real users paying for this and our approach at the time could have used some refinement.

3\. Enjoy the experience. We didn't get accepted, but still learned a great deal. Paul's email is still referenced to this day. The interview inspired us to revisit what we were doing. Looking back a year, I'm much happier with the product we have now. We went back to the drawing board and came out with a much stronger approach and idea.

4\. Apply. Just filling out the application will make you more aware of your startup than you are right now. I guarantee it.

5\. Don't give up just because you weren't accepted. If your idea is any good, you'll have to "ram it down their throats" anyway.

The only major downside is that we currently both have 9-to-5's and it really cuts into productivity. Bootstrapping is hard.

We came out of the process better than we were going into it. We probably won't be applying again this cycle because we're hoping to finally push live what we've been working on. We'll almost definitely pursue investors after the push though, we just don't need the distraction right now.

<comment><USER3> I was accepted for an interview and then funding last summer, but decided not to take it for various reasons. I wrote my advice to someone here on Hacker News, as you did, then expanded on it in a blog post:

[http://www.jperla.com/blog/2008/07/20/ycombinator- applicatio...](http://www.jperla.com/blog/2008/07/20/ycombinator-application- guide/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The demo probably was about 3 seconds. Look at tipjoy.com for 1.5 seconds, and you can tell what it's for and that it's cool and alive. In the other 1.5 seconds you can tip someone 25 cents for their blog entry. It's that easy and obvious.

Practice giving punchy demos. Don't frikkin make us watch you log in. We should be saying oooh at the 2 second mark, aaah at 5 seconds, and wow at 10 seconds. Definitely get all the best bits in the first 10 seconds.

10 seconds may sound flippant. But actual users will have clicked the back button long before if they aren't engaged.

You can practice demoing successful websites. Imagine you were pitching Google or eBay or Tokbox or justin.tv and had 10 seconds to demo. Start logged in. Assume some users won't see the last 5 seconds.

<comment><USER5> This is very good advice and the interview, as short as it was, is very inspiring.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Good stuff. Some more advice from the same folks:

[http://tipjoys2cents.blogspot.com/2008/03/how-to-hack- togeth...](http://tipjoys2cents.blogspot.com/2008/03/how-to-hack-together-y- combinator.html)

[http://tipjoys2cents.blogspot.com/2008/03/yc-applications- ar...](http://tipjoys2cents.blogspot.com/2008/03/yc-applications-are- due-3-questions-to.html)

From others:

[http://leavingcorporate.com/2008/03/24/how-to-get- accepted-f...](http://leavingcorporate.com/2008/03/24/how-to-get-accepted-for- a-y-combinator-interview/)

<http://mattmaroon.com/?p=247>

<comment><USER7> some really good links thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> YC alumni keep amazing me with how much help they're willing to give other entrepreneurs. releasedatez, great interview.

</comment><comment><USER9> Thanks to both releasedatez and Ivan Kirigin for taking the time to post this. Not an amazing amount of substance, but still some interesting bits with a few insight into yc's process.</comment>


It is now illegal to access any foreign website in the Republic of Belarus - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/01/02/it-is-now-illegal-to-access-any-foreign-website-in-the-republic-of-belarus/ <comment><USER2> Belarus is the last stronghold of Soviet style oppression. It's one country needs a lot of hacker support.</comment>


Our Experience with Stripe Atlas - <AUTHOR> https://formcake.com/blog/our-experience-with-stripe-atlas <comment><USER2> I love Stripe. And I agree that Atlas makes incorporation process quite easy.

But when I hear about a SaaS startup being organized as an LLC, I wonder if the founders considered the potential benefits of "qualified small business stock" or QSBS, which is only available in a c-corp.

With QSBS, each founder and investor can supersize their exit proceeds by wiping out at least $10 million in U.S. taxes. (See [https://www.businessinsider.com/qsbs-qualified-small- busines...](https://www.businessinsider.com/qsbs-qualified-small-business- stock-startups-criteria-taxes-2019-12)).

<comment><USER3> Most startups convert from an LLC to a C-Corp when they first formally fundraise.

<comment><USER2> True. But the 5 year holding period doesn't start until conversion to a c-corp. So, plan accordingly.

<comment><USER4> This is true, but starting as an LLC and converting to a C corp does have a potential QSBS benefit, if you are able to meet the 5-year holding period. The QSBS deduction is the greater of $10 million or 10 times your adjusted basis at the time of acquisition of the C corp stock. If you incorporate as a C corp initially, you get the $10 million deduction, at best. If you form as an LLC and only convert to a C corp (and get your C corp stock) at the time of your first financing, your adjusted basis may be significant. If the value of your equity share is, say, $3 million at the time of your first equity round (not unheard of), when you convert to a C corp, you potentially get a QSBS deduction of 10 times that (i.e. $30 million).

Please note that in a conversion from LLC to C corp, you only get the QSBS on the gain over the initial basis. So, in my example above, if you end up selling the shares for $2 million in an exit (when the basis when you received the shares was $3 million), you will get no QSBS deduction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Attempted Stripe Atlas user here. While the product looks great, it doesn't cover all corner cases of business creation, so we ended up not being able to use it. It turns out that following this revelation, we had to scrap the associated Stripe account just to be able to rid ourselves of the "complete your Atlas application" (or similar) at the top of the dashboard too. Just one anecdote.

<comment><USER6> What corner cases did it not cover for you?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Stripe Atlas advertises as a way for non American companies to incorporate, but I had trouble finding more information about what complications to expect as a foreigner who owns an American company

<comment><USER8> +1 to this. I know every case is different, but cases aren't that different. Examples on paying taxes, recurrent costs, important dates won't hurt, and give a better idea of what people is getting into.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I want to second the sentiments here - as a one-person Saas biz, Atlas made it a breeze for me to setup my LLC. Seeing the Visa card with my company name on it inspires me every day (yes I'm still wet behind the ears). I highly recommend Stripe and Atlas.

</comment><comment><USER10> As a non-US person, is there anyway to bill using Stripe without incorporating? I dont mind withholding tax, etc, i just want to be able to bill and track the initial revenues.

AFAIK, Stripe is not available in all-EU countries. Paypal just works in this case.

</comment><comment><USER11> I used to teach middle and high school kids how to code for several years. Two of my students were particularly prodigious programmers who turned their prototype of an idea into a real company making real money thanks to Stripe Atlas. With such an accessible avenue to entrepreneurship we are bound to see many more entrepreneurs.

</comment><comment><USER12> Does anybody know if there's a strict requirement to use Stripe's payment processing when part of Atlas? Or can you still use Adyen, authorize.net and the like?

<comment><USER13> I work at Stripe.

Absolutely not; your company is your company. We'd be thrilled if you used our other services, but feel like we should have to win your business by being the best rather than by lock-in. (We even help people get DUNS numbers to facilitate taking payments via app stores, etc.)

<comment><USER12> Thanks Patrick.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Does Atlas setup vesting for the founders?

<comment><USER13> (I work at Stripe.)

If one uses the founder stock issuance tool for C corps, it assists in setting up 4 year vesting 1 year cliff for all founders.

For needs other than that, we'd recommend speaking to an attorney.</comment></comment>