Ask PG: Any new thoughts on single founders + YC? - <AUTHOR> I know YC has always been reluctant to accept single founders, but now that a decent number have come through over the years, I'm wondering if this still stands?  A handful of single founders are accepted with each batch - any new data points here?  Can they succeed alone, or do you still push for finding cofounders? <comment><USER2> I'll answer this based on my experiences:

0\. Having a team where everyone is committed is ideal. It's very difficult to run a company by yourself (beyond a very small operation). Finding a co- founder should not be driven by YC, VCs, etc. A co-founder is about the success of your company. Is it absolutely necessary, no. Does having a good partner greatly increase your chances of success, yes.

1\. Should you settle for a sub-optimal co-founder? No. Starting a company with someone is a long-term commitment. It's like marriage in so many ways, so you should take your time and find the right match to grow your business. On the other hand, don't set your standards so high that you're stuck doing everything on your own forever. Basically, know what characteristics you need in your co-founder so that the company's success is maximized.

Also, put in effort to find the right co-founder. Get out there, talk to people, let people know you're in the market. And don't be afraid to date before marriage. There are many ways to start working together. You can start with a consulting arrangement, then grow to co-founder after verifying that everyone can really work well together.

2\. Should you share equity with someone who joins late? The work you put in before finding a co-founder or getting an investment is not highly relevant. First, think of this as if you're the 2nd co-founder. Would you be ok taking a smaller stake for the next 2, 4, 10 years just because the other person did a few months work before you joined?

Building a company is about the future. That's what everyone is rewarded for. If a late joining co-founder helps grow the startup from a pre-revenue company into a company with millions in monthly revenue then they do deserve to be richly rewarded for their contribution.

3\. Think past YC, past funding. Make decisions that will optimize the value and growth of your company. YC is a 3 month program. You'll be done with it before you know it. Funding is an event. When it's done it's done. Imagine you're now done with YC and you've been funded. What type of co-founder do you need to grow your idea into a large company?

</comment><comment><USER3> Let's say you don't have an _ideal_ co-founder - one who complements your skills and whom you trust implicitly and deeply (like how it's described in this nice Venturehacks piece - [http://venturehacks.wpengine.com/wp- content/uploads/2009/11/...](http://venturehacks.wpengine.com/wp- content/uploads/2009/11/How-to-pick-a-co-founder-Mini.pdf)).

Does it then make sense to bring on board a sub-optimal co-founder, one whose skill sets may be similar to yours, and who may not share that close a friendship or history with you, and whom you cannot blindly trust?

<comment><USER4> This has been a long standing problem of my own. I think finding a true co- founder if you don't already have someone immediately present in your pool is extraordinarily difficult. The sub-optimal thing is especially difficult if you've already started (I'm 8 months in myself), and then it doesn't make sense to divide equity equally any more either, so you effectively end up with a "first employee" rather than a true co-founder.

I don't have an obvious solution to this problem. Looks like pushing forward alone (w/ a few odd employees) is the most likely option.

Also, it's not immediately clear to me that I would have been better off with a co-founder. There are so many value and design decisions to make early on that need to be established, and being able to make those fairly quickly and push forward with the bulk of the effort (first development, now sales) I think was a good position to be in.

That said, it is considerably easier to get in a funk as a single founder working longer hours than anyone else, constantly pushing forward without any discernible support. Having a girlfriend helped me with part of this for awhile -- although I had somewhat minimized working hours because of her, I also avoided any major "slump" periods.

Also, tracking all progress (lines of code written, tickets closed, commits, user adoption) has been great since I have weekly metrics that I'm always seeking to achieve. I think that's been the best way to keep me focused, and also to direct my focus at the most important goal at any given moment.

Also I still have lots of equity to give away -- if anyone reading this wants any, please let me know ;)

<comment><USER5> I have a suspicion that with the rise of YC, at least for a time, there were people searching for a cargo cult co founder. Not someone who meets all the requirements you describe, but a co-founder for the sake of having one because PG said so.

<comment><USER4> This is a bit true for me. I expended a lot of effort looking for a co- founder, even though it was not obviously true that a co-founder would help me with the particular project I was in. To a certain extent, it was Mark Suster's insistence that a co-founder is not necessary and you can just "go it alone" if you have the cojones/stamina that made me say f' it, I'm just going to do it on my own.

Actually, the breaking point was when the "co-founder" I found told me on the day after I arrived in Berlin to work on the project full time that he wouldn't be able to join in. In this case, he had a totally legit reason (his wife was in the hospital with cancer), but it was probably the case that aligning things as far as a "co-founder" was never necessary from the beginning. Either way, it was a bit catastrophic mentally for me for a couple weeks, toying with merging with a different startup in the same space instead of going full stop ahead on my own. Even now loneliness sometimes takes its toll.

Thankfully, in the end I spent a lot more time on product than worrying about finding a new co-founder, and we have a pretty d __* good product now and 30% growth across our KPIs for the last two months. Not really a lot of cash in the bank account, but hell, this is Europe and investors like to sit on their money instead of invest it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I believe it comes down to personality and maturity.

My own experience is with solo success and a few projects with co-founders dying in early prototyping stage.

In short, some of the things people benefit from externally from a co-founder, I learned to internalize.

I have needed to consciously increase my introspection, know when to trust my instincts and when not to and be 100% self-motivating all the time, even when I am feeling low. I don't think 24 year old me could have done this. I don't think I would know when I was wrong or recognize want vs. need fast enough to prevent serious failures from happening. 36 year old me is very good at it. The maturity, willingness to question my choices in a positive manner and self discipline I gained in that time has made it possible for me.

edit: I also think it has allowed me to be a better bootstrapper and avoid the need to seek out seed money. 36 year old me is comfortable with both knowing what should be done, doing it. For example, YC would be worthwhile for me, but I would never change a thing about my plans just to get in.

</comment><comment><USER7> As a single founder who has tried applying to YC before (not everyone is Drew :P ) I think it comes down to already having traction.

Your chances are way better if you're already making money. I won't say that's a surefire way of getting in, but if you can prove that you can make money by already being profitable, I think you might have a decent shot.

There's a reason there is a bit of selection bias towards multiple founders. It's just more feasible.

In the end YC wants to fund people who will have a good likelihood of succeeding.

That being said, I think if you're a single founder in that position, applying for the experience of going through YC rather than the need is a great idea.

</comment><comment><USER8> Yes, we still have a higher bar for single founders, because it will be harder for them.

<comment><USER9> Is there any data to suggest that single founders who overcome the increased difficulty also have greater success than their peers? Or is it like running with rocks in your shoes — unnecessarily painful?

<comment><USER10> It's like being a paper tape Turing machine. Technically, you can do anything in the world. In reality, you're limited by how efficiently you, as an individual, can run back and forth writing zeros and ones.

Being a single founder isn't like building up a muscle that'll make you bigger, faster, stronger—there are world-level parallelism problems you can't accomplish alone (work _and_ fundraise, work _and_ promote, sleep _and_ work).

Perhaps a better title is "single bootstrap'r." All you _really_ need is to build something other people find interesting to get attention to attract validation to pull in other people who share your vision (who, since they are starting right after you, become defacto founders).

The single founder problem is more "Will you accept someone who is capable but hasn't found any smart friends yet?" and less "I can build a $50 million company all by myself. Just give me $100k. Please?"

<comment><USER11> >> The single founder problem is more "Will you accept someone who is capable but hasn't found any smart friends yet?" and less "I can build a $50 million company all by myself. Just give me $100k. Please?"

Exactly!!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is the 20% failure that rate that YC attributes directly to fights between cofounders actually much higher than it should be? Is this simply because YC is forcing people to match up to cross the eligibility threshold?

I'm not sure they even have the information needed to determine this, given the massive incentive they've given people to misrepresent the closeness among their team members.

<comment><USER13> "Is the 20% failure that rate that YC attributes directly to fights between cofounders actually much higher than it should be? Is this simply because YC is forcing people to match up to cross the eligibility threshold?"

I wouldn't be surprised if this puts a forcing function in place that yields a lot of sub-optimal partnerships. If you had a super-trendy hot night club with a height requirement, you'd find a lot of lifts in peoples' shoes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think a large part of identifying a successful leader in a company is to see if he/she has the potential to lead. A leader should be able to excite others around an idea and convince them to follow and devote their time and energy. This is difficult to do early on, specifically if there is no money involved. In not being able to find a co-founder you are basically saying, you can't or you don't want one/need one. If you can't, that might be identified as a negative trait. If you don't want one or feel you don't need one, I would encourage you to reconsider. There is nothing like having someone beside you, you can fully trust, and talk openly with about your problems and frustrations.

Working on a startup is something like swimming in an ocean with a one mattress that's loosing air. You need to swim to an island which is far far away, and although the mattress might have enough air to help you rest from time to time, there is a big chance everything might go wrong. Sure you can do it alone if you try hard enough, but there is a bigger risk of you getting there to late or not getting there at all. With 2 or more co-founders, you have someone beside you can trust, and that might allow you to rest, or plan out a strategy so you all get to you destination sooner than anyone else. Trust me when I tell you, you aren't the only one swimming in the same direction.

I'm sure you can find a handful of companies that had one founder and succeeded, but the odds of them succeeding are just much much smaller and it is a bigger risk most investors want to avoid.

</comment><comment><USER13> I can think of three reasons to not have a co-founder that are not necessarily relevant to the strength of the venture:

(1) The venture is not in an area that's trendy right now, making it something where people who don't share the founder's belief in the idea and vision might be much more reluctant to take the plunge. But that doesn't mean it's a bad vision.

(2) The founder has had trouble finding a co-founder he/she can trust, who is compatible, and who is available for a venture. In a startup scene full of hucksters and flakes, trust is a legitimate concern.

(3) (Not applicable to YC since YC is bay area only, but...) The founder may be in a place with a much smaller or non-existent startup scene, like a small town or a city/country where this stuff is rarer. In that case co-founders might be pretty hard to come by.

</comment><comment><USER15> Thanks for asking this question. Being a single founder is hard, but doable if you are passionate about what you are building. If you aren't passionate to the extend of being nearly blind with belief, it is impossible to do it alone.

I am guessing that YC may not care that much if you're single or not. I think they evaluate you on your overall chances of success.

<comment><USER6> Those are some very absolute statements. The blinding passionate belief part is really a myth. You just need to be hard working, committed, and effective. All obstacles can be overcome by focus and reason, not religion or belief. You don't even have to like the work, but it does help if you're not a strongly self-motivated person.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> In my case I am software engineer from abroad (english is not native for me) and it won't be easy to get the skills I don't have like being well understood in pitches and make business models.

So I am looking for a cofounder to improve business model and to apply to YC. I am currently developing a chat application made for group chating and easy switch between conversations. The app is named ChatStrum ([http://www.chatstrum.com](http://www.chatstrum.com))

If you are interested in the startup please email me to firstname.lastname@example.com. I also invite you to see a demo of the app: [https://vimeo.com/75747076](https://vimeo.com/75747076)

Javier

</comment><comment><USER17> I recently was talking to a small business advisor regarding combating risk associated with something happening to the CEO. In a single founder organization especially at early stages a broken leg or better yet broke arm can really freeze up production. Its so important for companies to have plans in place for the death or unavailability of a partner, ie. Life insurance buyouts for the partners estate. With a single founder if the plan for implementation isn't documented and/or if the technical capabilities are the sole responsibility of the sole founder an accident could equal the death of a company.

</comment><comment><USER18> It's really odd and kind a funny to me : Investor push toward 1:good product 2:low cost-of-running-company. This I can understand.

Over the years the cost of building a start-up has gone very low, wich is a very very good for everyone involved (founders, investors, society at large).

In the end, One solo-founder vs two-menbers-founders company egals running- cost of the latter being half priced. To me this is a very very good number for early adopter investors.

So yes my oppinion (as a founder) is that inveTstors for startups should run for those solo-founders : This way, they could invest twice the number of startups for the same amount of money.

<comment><USER19> You're ignoring the problems - you get half the bandwidth, you get zero bandwidth if anything goes wrong, most of the costs _aren 't_ halved - tools, servers, services etc still cost the same. Salaries, travel, and so on are, but those aren't very big costs at the start. Buying in marketing or development or whatever is much more expensive than having a founder doing it because founders are really, really cheap.

My first startup was with a co-founder. My current one is as a single founder. Having someone else onboard is definitely better. If there was someone compentent around who shared my vision for Pitcher.io I'd _definitely_ work with them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The biggest issue with single founders isn't what most people think. Its not about getting more work done, or that you can't physically output as much code as two people. Most startups spend lots of "wasted" time going the wrong direction anyway.

The biggest issue for solo founders is the mental toll of a startup. Startups are hard, and you need that second mind to help you pull through the hardest parts. When you have two people, getting through the soul-crushing lows is a little easier because odds are both of you won't be miserable at the same time.

</comment><comment><USER21> I think we should differentiate between (i) single founders who can't find a cofounder and (ii) single founders who don't need a cofounder.

I think case (i) would be a red flag because it means the single founder sucks at selling herself, sucks at networking, or isn't resourceful enough to move to a location where there are more potential candidates.

In case (ii), where the single founder doesn't need a cofounder, that founder also probably doesn't need YC.

<comment><USER22> Well, lets look at that from the perspective of a possible co-founder: I can not find any founder that would resonate with my technological background, skill set and desired professionalism.

When you live in a startup hub, matching people for startups this might be an easier thing to accomplish, but in the in which I live right now..

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> In my, limited, experience having a cofounder is great for checks and balances. Sometimes you really need someone you trust to tell you you're being an idiot.

<comment><USER4> I think you can often simulate this by having a good advisor or two. Make decisions frequently and rapidly, but leave a door open for critique. Presumably you need to document your decisions for this to be optimally effective.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I don't think lacking a partner should prevent you from working on a project, but lacking the right kind of partner can prevent your project from realizing its potential.

I'm an engineer, I could sit in my house and work for months on end making amazing things that never see the light of day. It takes more effort than I have on half of the days out of the year to release things into the wild[1]. I need a co-founder that complements me in this aspect, someone who is very good at pushing things out in front of people and getting attention for it. If I were to pick up another technical person, we'd just do the same things I'm already doing: making things without releasing.

I'm an artist, I can be very creative when it comes to procrastinating important, administrative tasks, i.e. paying taxes and such. I need someone[2] to push me, prod me, maybe even just do it for me. Another technical cofounder isn't going to pick up that slack, they'll want to work on code.

And if I take any of these people on as partners, the only way the project wins is if they're in it for the long haul, if they are as dedicated to it as I am.

So there you go, a very tall order: find someone who does not share your skills but has their own that can help you (so has an increased likelihood that they are not in your social circles[3]), and is committed to the project in the same way you are (this is a slog, just try people out and dump them if they don't work, no hard feelings, just move on). As with all issues of luck, it's about perseverance and riding the waves as they come in.

But the difficulty of finding that person/those people doesn't mean you stop working.

[1] I pay the bills with consulting gigs, so my clients force me to release on that stuff. Also, I'm forcing myself to learn how to build a blogging followership, as an education in marketing.

[2] Not necessarily a cofounder, but an accountant can be expensive. So, I'm paying an accountant for the big things and trying to get better about not procrastinating. "Trying" means "attending coaching sessions", not "talking about trying".

[3] So I'm forcing myself to socialize with non-technical people. I'm not going to any more programmer meetups. I'm instead going to things like CreativeMorning, or just chatting up the local business owners who run their own shops. Really though, the 6-degrees-of-separation rule applies, and it's really more like 4. The more people you get to know, in general, the more likely you'll be connected to everyone, so there is at least a non-zero chance you can find suitable people, if you persevere.

<comment><USER25> Yes, it's true but you need discipline also. Hit me up. I'll be happy to give you some tips about all these.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> If the founder is strong enough, it should not matter IMO.

<comment><USER13> I would say that the bar for "strong enough" is higher for single founders.

The biggest thing is that you have to be a very, very strong self-starter. One of the things a partnership gives you is socially constructed motivation. A single founder has to be able to self-motivate to a degree that most human beings cannot.</comment></comment>


Busting Comcast's $250 installation fee for 105 Mbps - <AUTHOR> http://comcastmyths.tumblr.com/ <comment><USER2> Can confirm.

I work for a telco and we recently upgraded our cable infrastructure to handle 100Mbit (previously 50Mbit was the fastest). All the customer needs is a DOCSIS 3.0 modem, we re-provision in our system and they'll get 100Mbit. They come into our store, swap modems, and they're done.

As for the hilarious/stupid/disappointing things OP was told by sales/tech support/whoever, I can also confirm that. Every day I have conversations with people all over the business who don't know the basics of our business like the difference between Megabit Megabyte, etc. etc.

Our company has also started ripping people off in similar ways (like a $50 fee to downgrade internet speed) and they'll even use the same lies and stupid answers when we as staff question this move. It's a money grab, plan and simple.

<comment><USER3> "Our company has also started ripping people off in similar ways (like a $50 fee to downgrade internet speed) "

Explain why you feel that is a "rip off".

More specifically if this company came to you as an employee (I assume you are an employee) and they said "hey we aren't making money and we need to reduce your salary" how would that fly with you?

Anyway I'm asking a serious question. I'd like to know the exact metrics of how you have come to determine that the company charging $50 to downgrade internet speed is ripping people off. Is it because nobody else does that? Is it because it doesn't cost them anything but a button click to downgrade?

<comment><USER2> It's for a few reasons.

One is, as you mention, because it's nothing more than a button click to downgrade. Less than a 1 minute call with a CSR. How they can justify $50 for that is anyone's guess.

The second is they're saying things like "it's to cover the cost of having CSRs, printing bills, etc." But actually, the $110/mo charge covers that, and always has.

Third is because the company is making plenty of profit, but the parent company wants more, so they're pushing it to do stupid stuff like this.

A large percentage of employees are looking for work elsewhere, it's just unfortunate there are not many options where we live (quite remote)

<comment><USER3> "How they can justify $50 for that"

They don't need to justify. The only reason they would even think about this is if the detriment didn't outweigh the benefit. If perhaps x% of people think that it's a ripoff and 90% don't or don't even know or think everything is a ripoff anyway then why not get the extra revenue?

My guess is that the amount of people that even have any understanding of what is involved is quite small.

"But actually, the $110/mo charge covers that, and always has."

What do you mean "and always has"? Are you saying because they consistently turn a profit then you have decided they have enough to cover their fixed expenses and they shouldn't try to add to the bottom line? Not to mention that off the top with a billion dollar corporation you really don't know what is going on there anyway.

"Third is because the company is making plenty of profit, but the parent company wants more, so they're pushing it to do stupid stuff like this"

In a capitalist system there is really no such thing as "plenty of profit". The mere fact that you feel like it's up to you (or anyone else who makes comments) to decide "ok that's enough" really does not make any sense. I mean you've never seen profitable companies go out of business or bankrupt that at any point in time someone would have said "they make plenty of profit". (We can start with General Motors, Chrysler etc.)

"A large percentage of employees are looking for work elsewhere, it's just unfortunate there are not many options"

I'm unclear what the amount of employees looking for work matters with respect to what they charge. Are you implying that things like this make employees want to leave? I somehow doubt that.

<comment><USER4> > The mere fact that you feel like it's up to you (or anyone else who makes > comments) to decide "ok that's enough" really does not make any sense.

Actually it does. Consumers are allowed to make decisions about purchases on any grounds they choose, including whether they feel that a company is taking too much profit, or that the company is violating some ethical standard.

Consumers are also free to call for boycotts or otherwise persuade others to not purchase products. If we think that a company should be transparent and justify their pricing so that it's proportional to costs, then that's what we think. If we think that companies shouldn't exploit the technical ignorance of consumers, then that's what we think.

In a capitalist system, we're free to debate these questions, make purchasing decisions based on them and start competing companies to serve dissatisfied consumers. If we have more technical knowledge, preventing non-technical consumers from being exploited by sharing information with them is an ethical good. Most advocates of free markets argue that these capacities make the system work.

The only thing that wouldn't be permitted in a pure capitalist system is if these ethical claims translated into a demand for government intervention, which no one has done so far. Even so, it's easy to argue that these arbitrary fees are a market failure caused by information asymmetry between Comcast and consumers and could require government intervention. The issue is not the price. It's that Comcast is misrepresenting the charge as technically necessary, which could be seen as discouraging consumers from evaluating competitors (assuming they exist) by implying that there are technical rather than business decisions behind the charge.

<comment><USER3> All of what you are saying I agree with.

I guess it just bothers me that the crowd of people who try and influence others (and yes you are correct that this is fully their right) either have no skin in the game (in other words they only have one interest in mind) and additionally may not really fully understand how business operates.

I guess I just react very viscerally to things being worded "ripoff" because it's so easy for people to throw that around and pass judgement.

To me "ripoff" means take advantage and you could argue that in business there is a fine line between what is acceptable in terms of "taking advantage" and what is not. And you know what each of us has a different line. (It's just like religion and cheating on your taxes. Anyone who does more is "really religious" anyone who steals more is "a big crook").

Everyone draws the line at a different place. There are many people who believe that YC takes advantage of young people. You know all those "should I go to Harvard or to YC" would be seen by many people as totally taking advantage of someone (and may or may not be depending on the circumstances of the particular individual and what the particular person with the opinion really knows about YC).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I had a related experience: Had 105 Mbps but called to try and lower our bill with Comcast. Were told we'd keep the same service, but bill would be roughly $50 cheaper. Next day when doing a speed test, turns out that our 105 Mbps service had been downgraded to 30 Mbps.

Called to complain / change it to 105 Mbps and had multiple customer service people try and tell me that we'd have to pay a $250 fee to have someone come out and make sure that we could handle 105 Mbps service, even though 36 hours earlier we had the faster service.

Finally managed to convince a service rep that we had it the day before so we obviously were equipped to handle it - only wasted ~3 hours of my life.

</comment><comment><USER6> I worked at TCI prior to the certification of Docsis 1.0. Back then if you wanted to go from 512k to 1M we would "roll a truck" because we needed to check that your signal was good enough that you would not only get service, but that we wouldn't go broke every time it rained and the signal would degrade.

Basically you needed to have 20% better signal than was needed for the service so that you wouldn't fall off-line when something created a small amount of interference.

I suspect Comcast is doing something similar. Not really charging to do the "install" but charging to certify that you have enough signal for the service.

It can also be that they want to check if they need to pull a new cable to the edge of your house, or upgrade the Amplifier at the "block".

You probably can convince them to not do all of these things, but your service may suffer in the long run.

Back in the day we would do "no SLA" installs and if your cable went out it was yours to deal with. When your choice was that or a modem, lots of time you took that rather than having a 33.6k connection.

<comment><USER7> I thought that can be done remotely? On one of my old ISPs I could change _every_ setting on the modem on the company's website. It was quite scary, actually, how little privacy I had in this regard. They could easily check the signal strength to the modem that way...

<comment><USER8> It absolutely can be done remotely. Every one of these modems does SNMP, exports _everything_ it has in the way of statistics, and they can read it remotely

The modems are nowadays configured to only allow requests from certain ip space with certain passwords because you could actually accomplish a lot in the docsis 1.0 days by messing around with SNMP.

<comment><USER9> Depending on the modem manufacturer, you can still poison them with your own locally-loaded TFTP configuration file to override the speed configured from your cable provider.

Disclaimer: The FBI was cracking down on people who were doing this.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=tftp+hack+cable+modem](https://www.google.com/search?q=tftp+hack+cable+modem)

<comment><USER8> Yes, and you could JTAG flash a bunch of them even after this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> On a side note, what do you do at 105mbps that you cannot do at 50mbps?

Unless maybe you have a multi user household.

I pay $50 for 5mbps. It's highway robbery.

<comment><USER11> _On a side note, what do you do at 105mbps that you cannot do at 50mbps?_

Me, years ago: What will I do with this massive 40 MB hard drive?

Me, years ago: What will I do with this massive 4 GB hard drive?

Me, fewer years ago: What will I do with this massive 40 GB hard drive?

Me, today: This 2 TB hard drive is almost full. How much are 4 TB drives going for?

Me, years ago: Wow! The Internet speeds at college are _so fast_.

Me, upon every Internet bandwidth increase: I don't _need_ it to be this fast. . . but it sure is nice!

What will I do at 105 that can't do at 50? I don't know yet. That's the point. Almost no one does. 640 kb isn't enough for anybody.

<comment><USER12> The examples you're giving are mostly about stored data. We're able to foresee why you may need more, photos, videos, etc. On bandwidth, it's harder to imagine. With 50, you can stream multiple HD videos. What would 105 would give me? I don't know. May be Google Fiber subscribers can provide some insight since they have access to much more.

<comment><USER13> You answered your own question. How does the data get on those high capacity disks? The faster your pipe, the more content you can fill quickly / easily.

<comment><USER12> In my case it does not provide a compelling case. With 50mb, it is plenty fast and do not feel need for faster. backup of my content does not seem to require more bandwidth either for PCs. I use both Backblaze and Dropbox, and they both work in the background etc, again 50mb is plenty.

Thinking more about this, I think I may need more bandwidth if I were consuming more real-time high volume data. May be the upcoming virtual reality apps (Occulus, etc.) will be the next jump in bandwidth requirements.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's not exactly the crime of the century to want to charge you a fee for upgrading service.

<comment><USER15> Don't you find that it should be at least somewhat commensurate with the work required though? $250 to set the value for speed rating from 50 to 105Mbps on the backend service menu and then reboot the router; doesn't that seem a little bit like they might be playing on peoples lac of knowledge of the systems involved?

<comment><USER3> "Don't you find that it should be at least somewhat commensurate with the work required though?"

Business doesn't work that way. You make hay when the sun shines.

And there are cases when you can't charge. Because of things your competitors are doing.

In a restaurant they don't charge you for napkins and water although they could. (Actually they do charge for premium water but that's a fairly recent invention).

The idea of business is to make money.

It's not up to anyone to decide how much profit is "enough" for comcast to make. If they could simply charge more per month without games they would.

Sometimes it's easy sometimes it's hard.

Take airlines. They would like to charge you more for a ticket but if they do you might not book the ticket. Better to be able to advertise a cheap price plus extras than an all inclusive price without extras. Why? Because people are not rational buyers (generally) who can figure in all the things and the "total cost of ownership" as they say with cars.

"doesn't that seem a little bit like they might be playing on peoples lac of knowledge of the systems involved?"

Well of course they are. But so what?

There are many times when companies take features out of a product just so they can make different tiers and charge premiums.

Take web hosting. Take companies who sell people extra disk space that they will never use and don't know they don't even need at all. There are many examples of this in business.

<comment><USER16> ...and this is why the last mile needs to become a regulated utility. Whose place is it to say Comcast is making too much profit? Mine, as their former customer.

<comment><USER17> That's a rather large non sequitur you're wielding there. You had your say when you cancelled on them.

<comment><USER9> Seems like it works just fine for my natural gas, electric, and water/sewer utilities. The last mile is well on its way to being the next one to be regulated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Comcast charged me a "wireless setup fee"[1] when the technician came over to setup my new connection. The problem is: he didn't touch my personal wireless router nor was there any mention of the wifi fee on the receipt when he left.

After some time on the phone, I was able to get my monthly cable modem fee removed (seemly forever) but they tried to sneak it back into my bill recently.

I wish we had more options for ISPs in america.

[1] Not sure of the exact name or cost but it was around $75-$90.

</comment><comment><USER19> Related... Recently Comcast claimed that they did an "internal audit" and found that I was not charged a monthly fee for the modem I rent from them.

The only wrinkle is that I provided my own modem.

Then they insisted that I "prove" that I purchased a modem, I suggested that if they charge me for something that they have to proof that they sold me said service.

Anyway, I haven't heard back since. Waiting for the next bill. Has anybody else experienced this, seems like a scam to me.

</comment><comment><USER20> Bit of a different experience here: Cox Cable recently performed the same upgrade, but instead of charging me $250 for an installation, they instead decided to inject JS and HTML into every non-https site I visited (wel, once every hour or so) with a reminder that I've been upgraded to a new tier at no additional cost, but I need to buy a DOCSIS3.0 router.

I... I think that's a fair deal better than being charged $250.

</comment><comment><USER21> I was able to avoid the appointment and fee by telling the sales rep that I am a computer scientist and able to handle the installation myself.

</comment><comment><USER22> I can verify this. I just built the house I live in now last year, so I'm the very first person to ever have Comcast / cable installed at my house. I have 105 megabit internet and there is no fee.

I've talked to a couple techs who mentioned it, but the appointment I made there was no such mention of fee nor was I ever charged.

</comment><comment><USER23> Question for folks who have 50 or 105 Mbps connections. Do you really get that speed? I have Century link and am supposed to get 12 Mbps. However, I'm lucky if I get 5 Mbps. Sometimes it slows down to a crawl - 50 to 60 Kbps.

</comment><comment><USER24> Isn't this the same as the $30 "activation fee" that almost all cell phone providers charge? Not for anything but just to add a fee for the hell of it? Because I can fee?

</comment><comment><USER25> These things happen when you have a monopoly on internet providers.

</comment><comment><USER26> "After 10 hours on the phone with customer service, two trips to the local Comcast office and a chat with a rogue technician, the myth has been busted"

So the author spent maybe 12 hours figuring this out? Is his or her time worth more than 20 or so bucks per hour?

<comment><USER27> It doesn't work that way. If you can take any given hour and trade it for a certain amount of money, then you're lucky. I don't know anybody who can take 12 hours and trade them for $240, or say $600 (as you are hinting that this time is worth significantly more than $20/h).

I could get a second job, but that would pay less per hour, would start at a higher (fixed) number of hours, and bring a lot of responsibilities. Plus, it would cut into my precious free time.

Only for hyper-demanded successful freelancers time is completely fungable and arbitrarily tradeable into dollars. The rest of us can't monetarize their free time so easily. And I think a $250 saving for a day's work is pretty good for regular people. Besides, I think there was a bit of hyperbole in the "10 hours"...

<comment><USER2> Thanks for explaining this so well.

I constantly see people misinterpret "opportunity cost" in a situation like this, and you cleared it up nicely.</comment></comment></comment>


DevOps leadership / mentor training – what to do? - <AUTHOR>

I'm the team lead for a small group of operational engineers that work in a fairly high performance DevOps application delivery environment based in Melbourne, Australia.
I'm looking to further improve my communication skills, better utilise empathy and reinforcement on what makes high-performance teams with a focused on delivery and quality.
I've had no formal leadership training and think I'm doing pretty well as is, but I would like to take it to the next step by getting some coaching / mentoring etc...
Most of what I've seen of the generic 'business' / 'manager' courses out there are (in my eyes) exactly what has lead us to the rise of large, lumbering corporations that we now see slowly falling.
I was wondering if anyone knows of, or could recommend a course or mentor available in Australia for a 3-5 day workshop to better hone my skills, provide insight etc...
Thanks in advance, <comment><USER2> First of all, congratulations on making the decision to develop your skills. One of the characteristics of a great leader is having the self awareness to recognize the need for personal development and to make the the time to invest in it. I am not based in Melbourne, but I think you would benefit from a customized leadership development plan. I do these for senior leaders in companies here in the US. The first step is to assess where you are (what are your strengths and the areas in need of development). From that you will get a plan showing where you need to focus to hone and develop your skills, and the strategy and steps to get you there. Contact me if you're interested on my website - [http://dld.bz/d6tj2](http://dld.bz/d6tj2)</comment>


0.0% of Icelanders 25 years or younger believe God created the world - <AUTHOR> http://icelandmag.visir.is/article/00-icelanders-25-years-or-younger-believe-god-created-world-new-poll-reveals <comment><USER2> As other user said in another thread, polls are very sensitive to the exact redaction of the questions, so take this with a grain of salt.

The article has too few details: Was it an online poll, a telephone pool or a street poll?

The data are in [http://sidmennt.is/wp-content/uploads/Lífsskoðanir- Íslending...](http://sidmennt.is/wp-content/uploads/Lífsskoðanir-Íslendinga- Siðmennt.pdf) (linked in the article). I don't read Icelandic, but with some help of Google translator I found that the numbers are in the page 16.

It says that of the persons with less than 25 years old:

Valid answers: 102

* world was created in the Big Bang (Big Bang): 93,9%

* God created the world: 0,0%

* do not know / I have no opinion: 3,0%

* other:3%

It means that 0 out of 102 persons answered that don't believe that God created the word. The title with "0.0%" is misleading because it looks like less than 1 in 1000. (My friends with more statistical background would ever ask for more samples to be happy to write a 0.0%.)

</comment><comment><USER3> A 0.0% result in a survey is a clear indication of a poor poll design.

</comment><comment><USER4> I also read that a lot of Icelanders subscribe to the idea that God kicked off the Big Bang, so the 93% there does contain theists.

Iceland has a relatively low population (~300,000) with the highest internet adoption rate per capita in the world. I wonder if it would be very hard to just poll them all.</comment>


Save Most Time On Hacker News - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/save-most-time-on-hacker-/ipkgfmdigiaolpbhkaklnpibeopcdmge

<comment><USER2> I don't always use Google Chrome, but when I do I want it to be HN-free.</comment>


Amazon's answer to lightweight iPad Air..  - <AUTHOR> http://www.amazon.com/

<comment><USER2> the hardware looks pretty impressive for the price. I'd like to see Linux running on it.</comment>


Trello Desktop for Mac and Windows: Get More Done Without Distractions - <AUTHOR> https://blog.trello.com/trello-desktop-app-for-mac-and-windows <comment><USER2> It actually is an electron app

        λ /Applications/Trello.app/Contents ◆ tree -L 2
        .
        ├── Frameworks
        │   ├── Electron\ Framework.framework
        │   ├── Trello\ Helper\ EH.app
        │   ├── Trello\ Helper\ NP.app
        │   └── Trello\ Helper.app
        ├── Info.plist

Tried it. It's a bit laggy and seems not much different than the website itself.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, extremely disappointed in this.

I've been a heavy Trello advocate since it launched, but the lack of real native clients puts a pretty low ceiling on it's usefulness at scale.

Atlassian has plenty of native developers on their team, not sure why they would take this route...

<comment><USER4> A true native client would be a lot of work. Maintain feature parity without adding new features. Identical UI including all the quirks. Is having a native app going to gain them any users? Maybe for user who can't have a browser installed, but they might not be able to have an internet connection either...

<comment><USER5> I get that, and I understand why they used Electron. But given Electron in this instance is basically a browser for Trello for all intents and purposes I don't see the point of it.

<comment><USER6> I'm slowly shifting from your opinion to a general distrust of user configured browsers for providing a UI to "sensitive"(authed, billing) APIs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I haven't had a chance to download it yet, but my suspicion says it's probably an Electron application. What do you all feel about this practice of taking long-lived web applications and getting them out of a tab and into a desktop shell with a place on the dock/task bar and the ability to Atl/Control-Tab?

<comment><USER8> > What do you all feel about this practice of taking long-lived web > applications and getting them out of a tab and into a desktop shell with a > place on the dock/task bar and the ability to Atl/Control-Tab?

I intentionally do this with Chrome's Tools > More Tools > Add to Desktop > Open as New Window option. Wrapping Spotify Web, Outlook 365 and HipChat into their own "application"s lets me treat them as if they are native apps, but for some reason it uses a lot less resources than the actual native apps.

<comment><USER9> > but for some reason it uses a lot less resources than the actual native > apps.

Because most "actual native apps" now are not native apps but electron or some other HTML + JS + CSS wrapper running an entire separate browser to render the app. By running the web page as separate windows you're effectively getting the same app but sharing the browser overhead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> No Linux version is disappointing, especially considering it's an Electron app. Other than global shortcuts, it doesn't seem to offer much over using the web version as a Chrome app with its own launcher and window.

<comment><USER11> It actually is just another Electron app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> To all of those saying "why not just use the webapp directly?", a global hotkey to add new items is probably the main thing that caused me to not take Trello seriously as a personal task manager. Being able to instantly collect a new task to get it out of my head and worry about it later is a key feature for me.

This app will do that, so I'll seriously think about Trello again.

<comment><USER13> I made one with Auto Hotkey a while back. Works pretty well for the time. I think if I used headless Chrome I could get it to be even a little better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> FWIW - I've been using Trello in a [http://fluidapp.com/](http://fluidapp.com/) and it's been pretty minimal in terms of resource usage and works well.

</comment><comment><USER5> I live in a web browser day to day. I'm constantly in and out of Teamwork, Harvest, Google Drive, Slack, Google Analytics etc etc.

Trello is also a core part of our workflow (we're custom software developers) and so Cmd/Ctrl + T to open a new tab and type in "tre"...<Enter> to load Trello is basically muscle memory at this point.

All of that is to say, what's the need for a "native" app? I say "native" because it's Electron, which isn't really native per se. But still, why??

<comment><USER15> I also live in the browser and prefer everything to be in it, but I do know plenty of people who prefer their desktop apps, especially some windows users.

<comment><USER16> Useful for alt-tab.

<comment><USER17> You can just drag out the tab to popup another window to get a working alt-tab flow

<comment><USER16> I'm on Gnome, different windows of the same application get grouped together. Useful to have the different logo, and separate from the browser.

No reason this has to require an electron wrapper, you could do it with the 'save to desktop' options, not sure whether any browser actually offers it yet though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Why is this screenshot rendered so badly? [https://blog.trello.com/hs- fs/hubfs/desktop-shortcuts-conden...](https://blog.trello.com/hs- fs/hubfs/desktop-shortcuts-condensed- firstname.lastname@example.com?t=1505320531692&width=647&name=desktop-shortcuts-condensed- firstname.lastname@example.com) From the URL it might have been dynamically resized?

<comment><USER19> Yeah, whatever is doing the resizing isn't doing a great job. You can see the original looks fine if you remove the query string: [https://blog.trello.com/hs-fs/hubfs/desktop-shortcuts- conden...](https://blog.trello.com/hs-fs/hubfs/desktop-shortcuts-condensed- email@example.com)

It's also pretty darn big though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Paws for Trello was acquired by Trello[[http://friendlyfox.es/pawsfortrello/](http://friendlyfox.es/pawsfortrello/)].

</comment><comment><USER21> I love the irony of having the marketing lines "Experience Trello without distractions" and "Native notifications" follow directly each other in the trailer.

<comment><USER22> Well to be fair, the Trello notifications don't distract you from using Trello...

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I've been using ABoards for Trello on Windows 10. Is there any reason to try this instead of ABoards?

[http://abdev.ro/trello/](http://abdev.ro/trello/)

</comment><comment> harisvs-code Linux anyone?

</comment><comment><USER24> Ugh.. Sorry, but an additional app is more of a distraction than a new tab for me.

</comment><comment><USER25> Is it just me or is Trello the most overrated software ever.. stack some lists, group them, color them, collaboration... woo.. could have done that with a google doc.</comment>


Tell HN: We'll pay for you to sue Equifax - <AUTHOR> YC16 company Legalist is paying for you to sue Equifax in small claims court. We'll get you a complaint, filing fees, instructions.
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170914005511/en/Legalist-Pay-Data-Breach-Victims-Sue-Equifax
https://www.legalist.com/equifax/ <comment><USER4> For individuals considering this, note that champerty arrangements are illegal in certain jurisdictions.

If you get hit for that, you're on the hook, not them. That's explicit in their ToS. Have fun, kiddos.

<comment><USER5> IANAL, but isn't champerty permitted (or not prohibited) in almost every state? I don't think there's any remotely recent precedent for state-level champerty statutes (the few that still exist) being enforced in a commercial litigation context, and I think this situation is one in which the plaintiffs (Equifax data breach victims) are already planning to file suit, thus not rising to the level of "champerty and maintenance" being applied to frivolous litigation that such statutes aim to prevent.

<comment><USER4> >IANAL, but isn't champerty permitted (or not prohibited) in almost every state?

Nope.

Third party lending as a broad policy trend has certainly opened up over time, but some states still have the restriction, others have reformed it, others call it a different thing and some have abolished it.

Is the risk substantial in your specific case? Maybe not. Maybe it is. Just know there's a risk there and you're the one eating it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> OK, on the site under the reg info it says to "Verify" you were part of the breach by using Equifax's verification site. Hasn't it already been established that this site is giving (at best) inconsistent results? So if their of-dubious-use tool says I wasn't impacted I have no recourse?

Also, the amounts available in small claims court seems like peanuts compared to my data being "out there" permanently. This is just a general observation-- I'm not impugning Legalist with this statement at all. I guess it may seem like small potatoes weighed against the risks, it's not like everyone impacted by this could get appropriate remuneration for the potential lifelong BS caused by this.

<comment><USER7> What do you think will come out of the class-action lawsuits and how much do you think people will get per capita after the lawyers are paid?

I have a feeling that in small courts you can at least get more than that. PA for example has a max of $12k claim amount.

<comment><USER6> Oh, yes, totally agree that the class action suits will result in a sweet $15 check or something. I guess my poorly phrased lament was just in reflection that even the max payout in small claims doesn't seem like a great result given that this stuff is out there permanently. I read some stats that indicated an average of 330 hours for a person to work through fraud on their credit reports or otherwise clean up an ID theft event.

<comment><USER8> Note that you don't have to file in _small-claims court_. Small-claims court was established as a convenient, easier way to handle dispute of (relatively) smaller amounts.

If you feel that Equifax has caused you, say, USD $100k in damages, you can certainly file a "regular" civil suit against them and ask for that amount.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> AFAIK small claims court are pretty informal, and most do not allow one to be represented (as opposed to advised, which is allowed) by a lawyer. So I imagine you come to the court, and the judge asks you "OK, tell me why you are suing Equifax", and you, being true to the promise to tell the truth and fearing perjury, answer "I've read an ad from a law firm which promised me that I can sue them for free and get money from it, so that's the reason I am here in the court today - just trying to grab some money from this opportunity". I would be surprised if the judge would be overly sympathetic. [1]

And since judges probably have seen pretty much everything under the sun, they probably would get the gist of it even if you don't answer in these exact words. And I am not sure judges would also be sympathetic to "auto-lawsuit" setups where you are allowed t generate lawsuit by filling a form without anybody actually ensuring there's a case. And Legalist seems to be advertising "automatic" support - i.e. without even considering if you actually have the case or not. It's basically automatic lawsuit generator. I don't think it'd make judges happy.

Lawsuit financing may be a great idea - I actually like this approach - <USER2> turning it into opportunistic money-grabbing mill is probably makes more harm than good.

[1] If you don't believe people really answer like that, check this out: [https://wlflegalpulse.com/2017/08/18/food-court-follies- frau...](https://wlflegalpulse.com/2017/08/18/food-court-follies-fraud-suits- fall-apart-after-plaintiffs-candid-admissions-during-discovery/)

<comment><USER5> That's for sure why people participate in class-action lawsuits against big companies like Red Bull, but isn't the whole point that people have had their privacy violated? I can't see a plaintiff showing up to court and not saying something along the lines of "Equifax lost my data and I want to be compensated."

Maybe Plaintiff John Doe isn't going to be able to exhaustively demonstrate quantifiable material damages, but maybe the court hands out a default judgment.

The real opportunistic money-grabbers here are Equifax...they took their own data breach, which is basically historically unprecedented in its scale, and used it as a way to shill one of their own credit score monitoring products. That, IMO, is despicable. If it's easier to sue these guys for their negligence, so be it.

<comment><USER9> > the whole point that people have had their privacy violated?

Possibly, but lawsuits don't work that way - "I feel bad because somebody may potentially have got my info" is not a claim you can make and get damages. There should be legal basis. Now, I'm not a lawyer, and saying US law and caselaw is huge and full of terrors would be an understatement. So maybe one could find some law that justifies it. No idea. But showing up in court and saying "but privacy, your honor!" probably don't work.

> Equifax lost my data and I want to be compensated.

And I want to be a well-hung billionaire with wings. [1] Nobody cares.

> The real opportunistic money-grabbers here are Equifax

There's a lot to be claimed against Equifax. But Equifax being crappy doesn't automatically grant you a victory in court. You have to make a valid legal claim. Granted, small claims courts, as I said, are less formal and allow you more leeway, but even then I doubt that just showing up with script-generated claim and "I feel bad, I want money" would go very well. You are welcome to try and report of course, maybe I'm an idiot and you'd be laughing all the way to the bank instead.

[1] if you recognized the quote, you get 20 bonus points

<comment><USER5> Fair points on the issues of standing — I would assume that a college-educated person with a decent understanding of the relevant case law (gleaned from some of the links below and other MSM articles about the data breach) could stand a decent chance of winning in court. Your mileage may vary, but if a 5 hour time investment could possibly yield a 4-figure settlement, I don't see a problem with filing a case and the worst-case scenario being a loss in court. That being said, since your chances of winning likely increase with how much effort you put into the claim, it's not Legalist that's doing the heavy lifting for you, which also begs the question of why you'd have them file for you in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So, "ambulance chasing" meets "webscale"?

<comment><USER5> Better call Saul!

<comment><USER11> Saul as a service

<comment><USER12> JaaS

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I thought about this, but how do you _prove_ damages? Judges don't like you wasting their time with theoretical losses. The best I could come up with is the cost of credit monitoring ($20 a month) for life.

Does anyone have recommendations for quantifying the damages? Something the judge won't toss out?

Also why does this make us put in the court where we will file? Doesn't it need to be where Equifax is located, and won't it be the same for everyone?

<comment><USER14> I am not a lawyer, this isn't legal advice backed by any level of expertise in the law. But if I had to write a complaint for small claims right now, here's what I'd bring up:

\--

FCRA § 604. states that "any consumer reporting agency may furnish a consumer report under the following circumstances and no other", and lists allowable reasons to dispense a credit report.

FCRA § 607. requires compliance, stating that an agency must "limit the furnishing of consumer reports to the purposes listed under section 604."

FCRA § 616. imposes civil liability for willful noncompliance at a minimum of $1000, even if that is greater than actual damages already sustained.

(a) In general. Any person who willfully fails to comply with any requirement imposed under this title with respect to any consumer is liable to that consumer in an amount equal to the sum of

 _.. <snip>.._

(B) in the case of liability of a natural person for obtaining a consumer report under false pretenses or knowingly without a permissible purpose, actual damages sustained by the consumer as a result of the failure or $1,000, whichever is greater;

 _.. <snip>.._

(2) such amount of punitive damages as the court may allow;

\--

This suggests to me that you will be able to seek "actual damages sustained by the consumer as a result of the failure or $1,000, whichever is greater", plus any punitive damages the court awards (I do not believe this is generally done in small claims). You would need to demonstrate that the failure to safeguard your information was willful.

<comment><USER15> I think you'd also have to demonstrate that Equifax "furnished your consumer report".

If I have $1000 in cash stolen from my house by someone not authorized to work in the US, I'm not liable for an employer violation for not filling out an I-9 form...

<comment><USER14> _" The term 'consumer report' means any written, oral, or other communication of any information by a consumer reporting agency bearing on a consumer's credit worthiness, credit standing, credit capacity, character, general reputation, personal characteristics, or mode of living which is used or expected to be used or collected in whole or in part for the purpose of serving as a factor in establishing the consumer's eligibility for [credit]."_

It's a fairly broad definition. Per press release, Equifax made a data communication of this info to someone who did not show a permissible purpose under § 604.

I would argue that Equifax had months to patch CVE-2017-5638, but they did not. Their web application continued furnishing parts of my consumer report to anyone capable of running [https://github.com/mazen160/struts- pwn](https://github.com/mazen160/struts-pwn).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> What's in this for Legalist?

From their home page:

> All legal bills covered.

> Litigation is expensive. Whether it's attorney's fees or that expert witness > report you need to prove damages, litigation costs can add up. When you're > backed by Legalist, you don't have to worry about unexpected legal expenses. > Focus on growing your business, and we'll take care of it.

I'm always skeptical of assurances like this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Litigation finance is like a contingency arrangement - if you file the case and the judge dismisses it, there's no risk to you. But if you do file the case and win $1000, we'll recover alongside you.

<comment><USER17> FYI - when you dodge the question this way, you look as bad as equifax. What is in it for you? Do you take a percentage of the judgement?

I'll probably end up paying a lawyer to advise me on the best way to get back at Equifax. But, I'm not going to do business with you because you're shady and won't disclose your interest in this case.

<comment><USER18> _What is in it for you? Do you take a percentage of the judgement?_

Just because you don't know how lawyerin' works is no excuse to be insulting. They take a contingency, like every other friggin' lawyer on the planet. (No financial interest, don't know the founders from Adam, yada, yada)

<comment><USER19> > take a contingency, like every other friggin' lawyer on the planet.

Actually, there are countries where lawyers don't (and legally can not) take contingency fees.

Not allowed to advertise, either.

<comment><USER18> Admittedly that is a U. S.-centric viewpoint incorrectly extrapolated to the world. I'm calling"literary license". Thanks for the correction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm not a lawyer, but don't you have to prove that you've suffered material losses to prevail in court? I'm not sure you're entitled to anything just because you've been put at risk for identity theft.

<comment><USER6> This can be another service! You pay me some bitcoin to commit ID theft. I do it, create havok all up in your business. Voila! Damage done, now go and sue.

Money to be made all around on this deal.

Seriously, though, IANAL but I think you're right, I've read a couple other statements to that effect, that you'd have a hard time suing for the _potential_ for trouble. And would a judge require you to _prove_ an ID Theft was the result of the Equifax breach or just one of the other, smaller breaches?

<comment><USER21> I'd recommend one of the more privacy-oriented coins, like Monero :p

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I submitted my data but I'm getting an "unknown request" on the URL [https://www.legalist.com/equifax-sent/](https://www.legalist.com/equifax- sent/)

Also, it's unclear what court you're supposed to file in. I did some research and, at least in New York, you're supposed to file a claim where the defendant does business. I put my local county small claims court in (New York County Civil Court), but I'm not sure if that was right. Maybe because Equifax is such a big company doing business everywhere I can file in my local court? Otherwise it looks like I would need to file in Atlanta, where their headquarters is.

</comment><comment><USER23> Pretty interesting article discussing the ability to achieve "standing" in court related to a data breach that doesn't immediately result in a loss:

[https://www.massbar.org/publications/lawyers- journal/2016/no...](https://www.massbar.org/publications/lawyers- journal/2016/novemberdecember/section-review-health-law-2)

</comment><comment><USER24> Any options for previous US residents who are now out of the country?

BTW, what are you giving up when you sue Equifax and win? Does winning absolve Equifax of any liability or need to help you in case of future identity theft?

</comment><comment><USER5> Saw this earlier this morning: [http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41257576](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41257576)

These guys should be, at the very least, fined by the government for how blatantly careless they were with consumers' PII. I can't believe the credit bureau oligopoly in the United States is this technologically incompetent, but I suppose it's not surprising given the lack of economic incentive to innovate. Hefty fines / settlement payouts should do the trick...

</comment><comment><USER25> is the only way to find out if you're affected still that dodgy equifaxsecurity2017.com site? What happened to those accusations of random output?

would love to be able to use legalist but I'm not even sure if I'm a victim

<comment><USER26> Basically if you're an adult who lives in the US, you are affected.

<comment><USER27> > _Basically if you 're an adult who lives in the US, you are affected._

How do you prove this in court?

"Your honor, I gave a Dark Web hacker some bitcoin and they said I was definitely affected."

<comment><USER26> The funny thing is, the Legalist form to apply here: [https://www.legalist.com/equifax/#apply- form](https://www.legalist.com/equifax/#apply-form)

points to the Equifax page here: [https://www.equifaxsecurity2017.com/potential- impact/](https://www.equifaxsecurity2017.com/potential-impact/)

As far as I remember, you could enter any random information into their form and it will say you were affected. That is the proof that Legalist is asking to provide the basis for the suit.

<comment><USER5> I've had friends enter information into that form and it said they weren't affected. AFAIK the Equifax backend is complete garbage and they've been very careful to disclaim a positive match by saying your information is "potentially impacted." Seems like they have no idea of knowing/proving whether someone actually has your specific information, but can check whether your information resided at one point on the specific server/database that was compromised?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is terrible advice. In litigation you only get one bite at the apple - <USER3> you sue in SC court and win $100, it extinguishes your ability to sue again for new damages. And let's face it, our real damages aren't apparent yet.

Also, SC is probably your worst option, as far as ROI goes. If you want a more strategic sense of your legal options, check out:

[http://myradvocate.com/new- blog/2017/9/10/5vpvo8j70gnergoci4...](http://myradvocate.com/new- blog/2017/9/10/5vpvo8j70gnergoci432n4grj2017p)

</comment><comment><USER29> I am a Equifax data leak victim.

How do I know Legalist is dependable and trustworthy so that my personal information is NOT going to be leaked by Legalist again in the future for the second time?

And small claim court filling fee is only less than $100 (in my state it's $35, appeal is $250 refundable). And maximum claim amount in small claim court in my state is $3000.

Is it worthy for me to trust another 3rd party with my sensitive information to get at most 3k (in reality it will be much less and there is also the fee from Legalist).

I personally don't think this is a useful service AT ALL.

<comment><USER5> Also a victim. I personally would rather get a 4-figure settlement in small claims court instead of a $5 check in five years from a class action.

IANAL, but it doesn't look like Legalist is handling any information that you wouldn't be making publicly available in a court filing were you to do this yourself. As someone who doesn't have the time or diligence to do all this myself, I actually find this pretty useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Off-topic (but somewhat related, perhaps?) question for any of you who and submitted the form (no cheating, please!):

 _What type of SSL certificate -- DV or EV -- did the Legalist web site have, if any?_

I'm just interested in {whether|how many of} you bothered to look before submitting your information.

(I'm asking because I was reminded of a recent HN discussion about DV/EV certificates and this seemed as good of a "test case" as any.)

<comment><USER5> I'd be interested in reading that discussion if you have it handy. I've been looking into SSL recently for some personal sites and the easiest method has been a combination of GitHub pages / Cloudflare. I might be mistaken, but aren't EV certs just a cash grab by the issuing authorities?

<comment><USER8> > _I 'd be interested in reading that discussion if you have it handy._

Sure. It was a discussion [0] of an article by Troy Hunt entitled "On the Perceived Value of EV Certs, Commercial CAs, Phishing and Let's Encrypt" [1].

(There have been a few other recent discussions [2,3] that also mentioned EV that you might be interested in.)

> _I 've been looking into SSL recently for some personal sites and the > easiest method has been a combination of GitHub pages / Cloudflare._

That seems to be a pretty common setup (for "easy"), as well as static sites on AWS S3, etc.

Most of my sites run WordPress on my own (physical) servers so I can't personally comment on those methods.

> _...aren 't EV certs just a cash grab by the issuing authorities?_

That seems to be the popular opinion (at least here on HN), though I can understand the desire to use EV over DV in certain situations.

[0]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14805233](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14805233)

[1]: [https://www.troyhunt.com/on-the-perceived-value-ev-certs- cas...](https://www.troyhunt.com/on-the-perceived-value-ev-certs-cas-phishing- lets-encrypt/)

[2]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14749565](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14749565)

[3]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15221119](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15221119)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The least Equifax should do is stop charging for monitoring changes, freezing and unfreezing our records.

<comment><USER9> Fees for freezing/unfreezing sound like a scam - it literally costs them zero to do this (since they have already made the system for doing it) and given the rampant fraud for which they have little protection - they should just make it easy and free. I am generally very laissez-faire person, but this is one of the cases where I'd probably be grudgingly ok with some regulation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is terrible advice. In litigation you only get one bite at the apple. Do you want to file a claim now for a few hundred dollars in SC court, or wait until you actually have real damages to cover? If you file and win now, you're out of luck with your future damages.

<comment><USER5> My knowledge of identity theft is admittedly limited to TV documentaries...but if your identity is stolen five years from now and the fraudsters rack up thousands of dollars in loans and bills under your name, is there a way for you to link that crime to the Equifax hack? I could see a lawyer making the very shaky argument that John Doe could have had their personal information hacked elsewhere and that there's no evidence connecting the thieves to Equifax.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> How much is legalist recommending we take Equifax to small claims court for? $500? 1k?

</comment><comment><USER32> The website says: "File suit and repay Legalist only if your case is successful."

Do I owe legalist their fee if I win, but am unable to collect from Equifax?

<comment><AUTHOR> Legalist is repaid only in the event you recover money directly!

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> The website makes no mention of the "complaint" promised in the OP. Is this just litigation finance, or litigation support as well?

</comment><comment><USER34> From what I understand, there isn't any financial risk for someone using this? I.e. since their payment is contingent on you winning?

</comment><comment><USER35> Got a 500 Error after applying

<comment><USER36> Hey eknight15, I'm the CTO @ Legalist. mind shooting me the console logs? christian @ legalist . com

<comment><USER35> Nothing in console [https://imgur.com/a/mXUIC](https://imgur.com/a/mXUIC)

It takes me to /equifax-sent/ but title is 500 Error

<comment><USER37> I'm getting the same problem

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I get 500 too. And there is no console log at all...

<comment><USER36> For those getting 500 errors, the issue should now be fixed!</comment></comment>


5 Handy Vim Plugins You May Never Have Heard About - <AUTHOR> https://yanis.blog/5-awesome-vim-plugins-you-may-never-have-heard-about/ <comment><USER2> buftabline seems handy, so you don't have to reopen the buffer list regularly. For some reason I never use tab either, so I guess the tabline can be used for something else.</comment>


New Zealand earthquake rips a new fault line across the world - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1309194/New-Zealand-earthquake-rips-new-fault-line-world--moving-earth-11ft-right.html

<comment><USER2> Much more local coverage here for anyone interested: <http://www.nzherald.co.nz/></comment>


How to create advertising that sells - <AUTHOR> http://copyranter.blogspot.com/2010/10/young-creatives-put-down-your-fcking.html

<comment><USER2> I had seen this before in Ogilvy's book "Ogilvy on Advertising". I had not however, seen the blog copyranter which is very informative and damn funny. Thank you for posting this.</comment>


Why you would need 5G? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@manumish/notes-5g-what-the-heck-it-is-and-why-you-would-need-it-5427535412d6#.4kl603jeu <comment><USER2> Solid post.

> _In the new world, you will take control of your health data — and decide > who you share that data with._

This made me chuckle, because it's utterly unrelated to 5G and entirely a function of laws, terms-of-service, and consumer power. But anyway,

'5G' right now is an idealized target of big-picture requirements like more bandwidth, efficiency, coverage, 'more of everything'. You'll need more actual fiber in the ground to get there [1][2]. But once we do, anything that vomits massive amount of data on the wire is a possible use-case.

Networked cars? Sure. Sensor data, healthcare, IoT? Live video, VR, AR? Yeah. Broadcast, even though we've had non-packet-switched-broadcast-networks- for-a-100-years? Why not, we have capacity!

[1] [http://www.ciena.com/connect/blog/5G-wireless-needs-fiber- an...](http://www.ciena.com/connect/blog/5G-wireless-needs-fiber-and-lots-of- it.html)

[2] [https://backchannel.com/the-next-generation-of- wireless-5g-i...](https://backchannel.com/the-next-generation-of- wireless-5g-is-all-hype-1790239b8ca8)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for sharing these link. I agree on your points. It will take a huge effort, more actual fiber in the ground everywhere</comment></comment>


It may not feel like anything to be an alien - <AUTHOR> http://www.kurzweilai.net/it-may-not-feel-like-anything-to-be-an-alien <comment><USER2> I really don't get Kurzweil's claim to fame. I have never found any of his writing worthwhile. Kevin Kelly on the other hand writes some good stuff (Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World).</comment>


Gogs – A simple, stable and extensible self-hosted Git service - <AUTHOR> https://gogs.io/ <comment><USER2> [https://gitea.io/en-us/](https://gitea.io/en-us/) is a fork with some additional functionality and more open to outside contribution[1]

[1] [https://blog.gitea.io/2016/12/welcome-to- gitea/](https://blog.gitea.io/2016/12/welcome-to-gitea/)

<comment><USER3> Yeah, it was disappointing to see that the author of Gogs considers stuff like deleting branches and doing squash and merges outside the scope of what Gogs should do. Much happier after moving to Gitea.

<comment> black-tea That's great imo. I strongly dislike these things being much more than "viewers" for the underlying git repo. Deleting branches and especially merging and squashing should be done with git. Double especially squashing... I hate to think of the mess that could cause when attempting it with a Web frontend.

<comment><USER4> It's just git underneath.. And it's not going to do any mess. If it cannot perform an operation (like merging with conflicts), then it is going to tell you about it and you have to do it manually. But why restrict such functionalities that are very convenient ?

I don't think that `git push --delete <remote_name> <branch_name>` is very easy to remember so I prefer doing it via the web interface.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll self-host a service." Now they have two problems.

<comment><USER6> There's variety of reasons to self-host. Having in internal git service can be nice if your connectivity is bad or spotty. An extreme case of that would be an airgapped network. Company policy might require that code does not leave the company network. You might legal be compelled to have full control over your code and where it goes (think: code under export restrictions).

All of these people self-host and it solves a problem for them.

<comment><USER7> > There's variety of reasons to self-host. Having in internal git service can > be nice if your connectivity is bad or spotty.

It's also hard to justify routing traffic through different continents if all you want to do is share a repository with someone sitting at a desk right next to you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> How is it painless? I've been using gitlab since v7 and looking at the install instructions of gogs remind me of gitlab a lot.

I recently got rid of my personal gitlab because it's too painful to operate. I only need a simple ssh user with a directory for my own purposes.

Gitlab is only necessary at work where we are an entire team using it.

<comment><USER9> Having set up both, Gogs is _much_ easier to set up than gitlab, and I don't know how the install instructions are similar. Gogs' are, from [https://gogs.io/docs/installation/install_from_binary](https://gogs.io/docs/installation/install_from_binary), essentially "download and run". The binary build they provide even has sqlite3 support out of the box, so you don't even need to install a database if you're only working with a small group. Also, gogs is far more performant than gitlab, and will happily run on an older raspberry pi.

<comment><USER8> First of all the page you linked is not the page linked from the landing page. [https://gogs.io/docs/installation](https://gogs.io/docs/installation)

I've always avoided the docker setup because I want control of where my database is and such details.

But yeah all I see when I look at the install instructions are the same steps as gitlab requires, unless you use Docker.

It would be possible for them to make a simpler package for simple users where they'd use sqlite for example. This can easily be upgraded to Postgres/MariaDB.

I like the ROOT setting because that means I can easily adopt gogs on my existing personal git server which simply uses a gitrepos directory in a home directory on a closet server.

So hypothetically were they to use a default database setting, and a default ROOT setting, you could have a working gogs setup with just two package manager commands, one to add the repo and one to install the package. That's painless!

Advanced step can be to create a mysql database and import your sqlite data.

<comment><USER10> Hello, Community Advocate from GitLab here.

I would love to share this little piece of information about GitLab installation with everyone.

Since there was a little confusion mentioning GitLab installation, I would love to clarify that our installation page [1] offers many different approaches. Before the installation process, please make sure that you read our Installation doc [2].

The Omnibus package may be the best choice installation since it is quicker to install, easier to upgrade, and it contains features to enhance reliability not found in other methods [2].

[1] [https://about.gitlab.com/install/](https://about.gitlab.com/install/)

[2] [https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/install/](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/install/)

[3] Other official installation methods are via Docker, Kubernetes, Google Cloud Platform etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The truly painful thing about using gogs has been the inability to search issues. Maddening once you get past a trivial number of issues and just want to know if someone's reported a bug.

<comment><USER12> According to [https://docs.gitea.io/en- us/comparison/](https://docs.gitea.io/en-us/comparison/) , it looks like this is implemented in the Gitea fork.

<comment><USER13> It is. I run it for some personal projects and it does search issues.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Previous discussion from 2 1/2 years ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11374003](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11374003) (183 comments)

Full list of discussions about Gogs: [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=gogs&sort=byPopularity&prefix&...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=gogs&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

</comment><comment><USER15> I understand we could change the repo explorer functionnality since it's based on GIT but why keep the issues and wiki tied to this GIT service ? Why don't we have independent issues management, GIT stuff and wiki solutions that could be plugged into a webpage with basic URL support to link between git updates and bug reports ?

</comment><comment><USER16> IMO both of these are the wrong way to go about having a git web ui, a simple hook could generate html partials and with a bit of javascript stream the fragments when required. Bugs/todos should also be under source control and would be handled better again by a hook.</comment>


A Hacker from South Africa Rescued the First NASA Computer in Space (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/a-hacker-from-south-africa-just-rescued-the-first-nasa-computer-in-space <comment><USER2> It's a good story, but the Gemini Guidance Computer seems to have predated the AGC to space by a year.

Check out the NASA history at:

[https://history.nasa.gov/computers/contents.html](https://history.nasa.gov/computers/contents.html)

<comment><USER3> The GGC consisted of discrete components, not integrated circuits, which was the point made in the video.

> The [GGC] machine consisted of discrete components, not integrated circuits. > However, circuit modules that held the components were somewhat > interchangeable. They were plugged into one of five interconnection.....

The rope memory modules in the article are programs running on the first IC based computer, if I understand correctly. [https://history.nasa.gov/computers/Ch1-2.html](https://history.nasa.gov/computers/Ch1-2.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> One of his three YouTube videos:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkFy30kxfh4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkFy30kxfh4)

</comment><comment><USER5> [2016]

<comment><USER6> Thanks! Added.</comment></comment>


IncomeClub - <AUTHOR> https://incomeclub.co/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi! I'm Sergey, Founder and CEO at IncomeClub. I came up with the idea of IncomeClub for one great mission: to create a simple, efficient and customer- friendly alternative to traditional fixed income investing systems. Bond investing may not be as sexy as a stock investing. On the other hand, it provides a reliable return. This is your best bet if your financial goals have fixed time horizon. I will try to answer as many questions here as I can.</comment>


"Ticket Bot" Act Passed by Congress; Heads to President - <AUTHOR> http://www.playbill.com/article/ticket-bot-act-passed-by-congress-heads-to-president <comment><USER2> Something about this doesn't seem right.

Isn't ticket scalping just a symptom of some deeper issue? I'm not a US- resident or a concert goer. But based on the gripes I've read, isn't scalping just a natural consequence of the market dominance of a supply-restricting monopolist (one that engages in borderline abusive consumer practices)?

<comment><USER3> Scalping is just arbitrage. The core issue is that the retail price of the tickets is lower than the market price, which is probably high because the supply is limited (and probably artificially so by Ticketmaster et al).

<comment><USER4> This isn't really the whole story. It is only profitable to scalp if prices are kept artificially low by the original vendor. Usually this is because the want to be able to claim they sell out more frequently than they would under regular conditions. If the original vendor optimizes for profit, the problem disappears.

<comment><USER5> Which leads to the next problem: teenagers can no longer afford to see a concert. They take out their frustration on the artist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Step 1 - Get a bunch on foreigners working for you to log in through a US proxy and order the tix manually.

Step 2 - Resell for profit.

Way to go Congress, you've just created a new industry that is marginally less profitable than the old one, and involves hiring foreign people in foreign countries.

<comment><USER7> > _Step 2 - Resell for profit._

From the bill itself:

> _(1) IN GENERAL.—Except as provided in paragraph (2), it shall be unlawful > for any person—_

> _(A) to circumvent a security measure, access control system, or other > technological control or measure on an Internet website or online service > that is used by the ticket issuer to enforce posted event ticket purchasing > limits or to maintain the integrity of posted online ticket purchasing order > rules; or_

> _(B) to sell or offer to sell any event ticket in interstate commerce > obtained in violation of subparagraph (A) if the person selling or offering > to sell the ticket either—_

> _(i) participated directly in or had the ability to control the conduct in > violation of subparagraph (A); or_

> _(ii) knew or should have known that the event ticket was acquired in > violation of subparagraph (A)._

Unless they outsource even the selling to foreign countries, at which point what good are they as a middleman anyway?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Actually enforcing this seems to be a sizeable technical challenge.

<comment><USER9> How so? If you're a scalper how are you going to sell hundreds or thousands of tickets without an easy to find web front?

You don't stop scalpers by "fixing the selling motion", you fix it by putting the people who violate it into jail and/or bankrupt them and make it unprofitable.

<comment><USER8> > You don't stop scalpers by "fixing the selling motion", you fix it by > putting the people who violate it into jail and/or bankrupt them and make it > unprofitable.

That approach seems to have worked so well with the War on Drugs, too, hasn't it?

<comment><USER9> That's about the worst analogy I think you could possibly make. The war on drugs is a failure for a number of reasons, primarily among them because the drugs themselves are illegal, and users are prosecuted. If they simply made the distribution illegal, it would be a huge step forward but not remotely like this.

You don't buy drugs to get into an event that has people checking your entry at the gate. There's no serial number on your drugs. There's no entity you have to go exchange your drugs with for some other item/good/event.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Another solution: "Thank you for purchasing this license to view Hamilton. This is NOT a ticket. This is a non-transferable license to view the performance of Hamilton on 2016-12-21 at 9:00 pm in-person. This license constitutes a contractual agreement between the original purchasing party and the producers of Hamilton. By purchasing this license, the purchasing party agrees to be bound by this license. Only the original purchasing party may use this license to view Hamilton... etc." ;-D

<comment><USER9> So what happens when you can't make the concert? You just eat the entire cost, you can't sell it to a friend?

<comment><USER11> Yep. However, fear not! We'll sell you Concert Ticket Protection Insurance for the low fee of only 15% of the ticket's face value.

<comment><USER10> Exactly! -_-

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> More on solving/bypassing captcha: [https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/may/21/ticket- touts-p...](https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/may/21/ticket-touts- powerful-software-assist-widely-available)

</comment><comment><USER12> Would this legislation apply to bots used to purchase goods and services?

Would these "ticket bots" simply move the bot outside the U.S.?

<comment><USER7> > _Would this legislation apply to bots used to purchase goods and services?_

I'm not a lawyer, but the text is available here: [https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate- bill/318...](https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate- bill/3183/text)

It looks like it's only for tickets to events.

> _Would these "ticket bots" simply move the bot outside the U.S.?_

The bill forbids a person to use such a bot; you can host it in orbit if you want, because it's not the bot itself that's outlawed, but the use of the bot to circumvent purchase limitations.

<comment><USER13> Right, but foreign persons could do it, no?

<comment><USER7> Same as now, yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think this is generally good but I always wonder why sale prices of tickets are much lower than online scalpers can still them for?

<comment><USER15> It's generally bad and a good example of dumb over-regulation. I await stories about the unintended side effects of the BOTS Act in the coming years.

Ticket scalping exists for two reasons:

1) The sorts of people who put on public entertainment in size-limited venues are generally left-leaning and do not like the idea of their audience consisting solely of very rich people. This sentiment is fine, but ...

2) As such events typically take place in big cities and modern populations are very large, demand for these entertainment events then radically outstrips supply, meaning the _actual_ natural market price of the tickets rises very fast. The entertainers have a collective freakout and insist that the tickets are sold far below the correct price for social justice reasons, converting the sales of such tickets into a simple race.

Having deliberately mispriced their tickets, the only way punters can distinguish themselves and get a ticket is by being faster than the other punters. And that's a contest machines will always win.

There are lots of solutions that don't involve Congress. Like, tickets could be allocated through a lottery process where entering requires ID verification. That would make it obvious that getting a ticket is a random process.

<comment><USER16> Both of your points are confabulated, which is unfortunate since I agree with your ultimate conclusion (i.e., that this act's intended goal could be accomplished without legislation).

1) Theater audiences consist largely of _tourists_ , at least in New York. They're spending vacation money, but they're no wealthier than the average American on vacation. Taking out the tourist audience, the city subsidizes the theater district via public school trips (I was the recipient of more than one of these) and other public arts programs.

2) Demand doesn't "radically" outstrip supply, at least not for the vast majority of on-Broadway shows. For most, the two are about equal, and prices reflect this ($30-$50 if you buy at TKTS or reasonably in advance). The _exception_ is blockbusters like Hamilton and The Book Of Mormon (if that's still the case) which are, again, boosted largely by tourist sales.

<comment><USER15> I was talking about the general case where scalping happens, not particular shows in New York. If no scalping is happening for those shows, then I guess you're right that supply and demand balance there.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Memory-Level Parallelism: Intel Skylake versus Intel Cannonlake - <AUTHOR> https://lemire.me/blog/2019/01/01/memory-level-parallelism-intel-skylake-versus-intel-cannonlake/ <comment><USER2> would be nice to see some numbers on chip area of occupied by memory</comment>


Ask HN: Is there a simple HTML 5 boilerplate? - <AUTHOR> The html5 boilerplates are really heavy.
I was looking for just open graph tags, mobile viewport, facebook tags, and favicon things. <comment><USER2> Checkout this one [http://gethead.info/](http://gethead.info/) And pick whatever you need.

</comment><comment><USER3> <!DOCTYPE html>

<meta charset="utf-8">

<title>HTML5</title>

HTML5 boilerplate

</comment>


Russia threatens to block Wikipedia over cannabis page - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/russia-threatens-to-block-wikipedia-over-cannabis-page-10464894.html

<comment><USER2> Is that really necessary? As far as I know they prefer alcohol over there.

</comment><comment><USER3> Russia also blocked Reddit for a day or two over a single post. Can't they filter out single webpages? Is this an HTTPS issue?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup, this seems to be more of the same. And, yes, HTTPS prevents them from filtering out anything below the entire domain. I hadn't actually realised wikipedia was HTTPS-only until now; I'm unsure why we can't have the option of either protocol.

<comment><USER4> Because they want to prevent this situation exactly. You either have to ban Wikipedia in its entirety or let everything be uncensored and anonymous.

In theory there is nothing stopping them from making their own version of Wikipedia. By scraping all the content from the original. But that's a lot of work compared to adding a web page to a block list.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I hope Russia isnt done revolting.</comment>


Nokia Hires Pamela Anderson to Promote the N8 - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2010/09/06/nokia-n8-pamela-anderson/

<comment><USER2> But will this stunt eventually sell more phones?

Perhaps there are some areas in the world that don't unequivocally consider this bad taste?

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm Nokia's complete lack of taste. She is old.</comment>


Paravirtualization With Xen On CentOS 5.3 (x86_64) - <AUTHOR> http://www.howtoforge.com/paravirtualization-with-xen-on-centos-5.3-x86_64 <comment><USER2> Does Howtoforge actually have created content? Every time I see one of their articles I see probably 5 absolutely identical articles on other sites. I'm not sure which way the ripping-off is happening.</comment>