Gnome Foundation and Groupon product names – Updated - <AUTHOR> https://engineering.groupon.com/2014/misc/gnome-foundation-and-groupon-product-names/#updated <comment><USER2> Hmmm.... This doesn't seem to line up with what Gnome said [0]:

> It was almost inconceivable to us that Groupon, with over $2.5 billion in > annual revenue, a full legal team and a huge engineering staff would not > have heard of the GNOME project, found our trademark registration using a > casual search, or even found our website, but we nevertheless got in touch > with them and asked them to pick another name. Not only did Groupon refuse, > but it has now filed even more trademark applications (the full list of > applications they filed can be found here [1], here [2] and here). To use > the GNOME name for a proprietary software product that is antithetical to > the fundamental ideas of the GNOME community, the free software community > and the GNU project is outrageous.

Yet Groupon says:

> We've been communicating with the Gnome Foundation for months to try to come > to a mutually satisfactory resolution, including alternative branding > options, and we're happy to continue those conversations. And if we can't > come up with a resolution, we'll be glad to look for another name.

If we take the Gnome post as fact it appears Groupon thought they could get away with this then when they saw the (potential) backlash they backed away from their position. This may not be the case but I'm much more inclined to believe Gnome over Groupon

[0] [https://www.gnome.org/groupon/](https://www.gnome.org/groupon/)

[1] [http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=86200190%0A86200193%0A8620...](http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=86200190%0A86200193%0A86200194%0A86200196%0A86200657%0A86200661%0A86200759%0A86200763%0A86200765%0A86227618%0A&caseType=SERIAL_NO&searchType=multiStatus)

[2] [http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=86287930%0A86287935%0A8628...](http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=86287930%0A86287935%0A86287938%0A86287940%0A86287946%0A86287951%0A&caseType=SERIAL_NO&searchType=multiStatus)

[3] [http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=86441913%0A86441922%0A8644...](http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=86441913%0A86441922%0A86441923%0A86441925%0A86441926%0A86441930%0A86441933%0A86441934%0A86441937%0A86441941%0A86441945%0A86441951%0A&caseType=SERIAL_NO&searchType=multiStatus)

<comment><USER3> Either way Groupon made the right decision here imo

<comment><USER4> Yet I do not see Groupon apologising for their behaviour, which was evil.

<comment><USER5> I don't think you can characterize it as being evil. There's also no clear ulterior motive for pushing through with the name, and "capitalizing on the name recognition of the Gnome project" is not a valid hypothesis since that name doesn't mean anything for 99% of Groupon's customers.

It looks more like they were just being a typical stubborn corporation. Some product manager got really attached to the name and they tried to hang on to it as a matter of course, because they're massive and feel they don't have to budge to anything. In the end, they caved to negative publicity, as any company in their position would.

<comment><USER6> You don't say anything that's not exactly right, but you're still missing the point.

They had the opportunity to own up to their mistake and seek the goodwill of the community. They missed that chance. Perhaps not "evil", but certainly worth some continued indignation.

<comment><USER5> _Evil_ was the point, I don't think I missed that. It seems to me _your_ point is I failed to recognize how much indignation this caused, but that wasn't really within the scope of the comment I was replying to. And I'm not trying to debate whether continued indignation is warranted or not.

My suspicion is it'll blow over pretty quickly, though, if for no other reason than there are more pressing issues keeping most open source developers awake as opposed to an already resolved trademark dispute which never even went to court. This was a good day, wasn't it?

<comment><USER4> Whilst GNOME has not fully disclosed the information, which has been disgust for months at Board Meetings, I would stand by the evil comment. Groupon, the massive for profit organisation, made a conscious decision ("Not only did Groupon refuse ...")to basically say FU to GNOME. They then used their position as a major organisation to try and coerce them into an unacceptable situation("alternative branding options") which included filling more trademark applications.

I would, and do, call them bullies and bullies are evil.

<comment><USER5> I see your point, though I would still reserve the word for stuff that is at least an order of magnitude more troubling. Including this comment, I said so three times in different variations, and the fact that we're arguing over this word still means we probably can't arrive at a common definition of what constitutes "1.0 units of evil" which we all agree on.

Barring this common definition, I'd rather talk about the facts of what happened, or even useful speculation and opinions about it, than to discuss labels that have different meanings for every single person reading this.

It's getting a bit unproductive. I'm sorry to have entered this discussion now because it makes me sound like I'm defending behavior that I don't actually support.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> How is it that every time I see any article, blog post, whatever, about Groupon, including posts by Groupon themselves, I find myself feeling kinda like I need a shower? Some of their sliminess gets on me every time I come in contact with anything they do.

It takes incredible chutzpah (and not in a good way) to operate the way they operate. They wanted to trademark "Gnome" for a software product, and expected the GNOME project to just roll over and let it happen! It's as though no one else on the planet even exists or matters, in their estimation.

How is it that so many seemingly reputable investors are involved in this thing again? Groupon should have died on the vine six months into the story, but it didn't, and now we have to deal with their bullshit forever, I guess.

<comment><USER8> Yea, I was wondering where I had heard of Groupon before recently - I assumed that it was due to some of their shady business practices hitting the news - and realized that these were the same guys that sent a recruitment email about a junior Rails dev position to David Heinemeier Hansson.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Groupon lies. However the end result is good either way for GNOME and open source. Now the only question is why was the fastest up voted post in HN history which was Gnome vs Groupon in favor of Gnome moderated to the second page while this Groupon post is at the top of the front page with almost no votes!

Does someone at HN have stock in groupon or something? Either way it's time for a transparent Blockchain based HN/reddit. This moderator bias crap is bs.

<comment><USER10> I want to see any emails before I determine that they were lying. There's no reason to assume bad faith.

<comment><USER11> Except they chose to use the name Gnome which was already being used which is a bad faith move. There's no possible way they didn't know about Gnome - there's photographs of at least one Groupon employee who was also involved in Gnome.

<comment><USER12> There isn't anything inherently wrong with using a name someone is already using. The issue is whether or not the subsequent user's use would cause confusion in the prior user's markets. Heck, the GNOME Foundation themselves are using a name that was already being used. The Lake County Nursery in Perry, Ohio, registered Gnome as a trademark in 1980, and has used it continuously ever since.

The Lake County Nursery's use is in class 031 (Natural agricultural products), and within that class it is in the area of plants.

GNOME Foundation's use is in these classes and areas within those classes:

IC 009 (Electrical and scientific apparatus):

• downloadable computer software tools and libraries used for the development of other software applications

• downloadable computer software development tools

• downloadable computer software for creating and managing a computer desktop

• downloadable computer software for use as a graphical user interface

• downloadable computer software for word processing, database management, and use as a spreadsheet

IC 042 (Computer, scientific & legal):

• computer software development

• computer software design

• computer programming for others

• technical consulting services in the field of computer software licensing of intellectual property

It's pretty clear that none of those are likely to cause confusion in Lake County Nursery's market, so their using a name already in use was fine.

Here are the classes and areas that Groupon was trying to claim the mark for. They include several areas in the same classes GNOME's are in, so concern on the part of the GNOME Foundation is certainly warranted. On the other hand, trademark classes are very broad (e.g., "Electrical and scientific apparatus"), and Groupon's areas within these classes are fairly far from GNOME's areas, so I can see them actually believing that they were far enough apart to not cause confusion. If it went to a hearing, I could see it going either way.

IC 009 (Electrical and scientific apparatus):

• computer hardware and software for processing point of sale transactions, payment transactions, voucher redemption, appointment scheduling, customer relationship management, customer location detection and awareness, inventory management, analyzing merchant transactions, and for evaluating and managing information on business performance and customers

• computer application software for mobile phones, smart phones, PC tablets, and electronic tablets for processing point of sale transactions, payment transactions, voucher redemption, appointment scheduling, customer relationship management, customer location detection and awareness, inventory management, analyzing merchant transactions, and for evaluating and managing information on business performance and customers

• computer software and hardware that enables users to send and receive pricing, financial transaction, customer information, and payment processing information directly to and from a mobile device and a cloud-based server

• downloadable mobile computer apparatus software applications that enables users to send and receive pricing, financial transaction and payment processing information directly to and from a mobile device and a cloud-based server

• computer hardware, namely, hand-held computing devices in the nature of credit card processing units consisting of electronic machines for reading credits cards, tablet computers for point of sale transactions, payment calculating machines, and magnetic coded card readers and the software used to operate the aforementioned computer hardware

• contact management software used to organize and retrieve customer contact information

• electronic commerce and transaction application software that allows users to engage in electronic business transactions via a global computer network

• printer software for operating printers and printing. accounting software used to track and present financial information relating to sales

• schedule management software used to organize and retrieve scheduling information

• payment systems and devices, namely, electronic card readers, payment calculating machines, magnetic coded card readers, credit card processing units consisting of electronic machines for reading credits cards, point of sale terminals, and multi-functional computer hardware with payment function

• computer hardware, namely, electronic card readers for electronically readable cards

• tablet stands

IC 035 (Advertising and business):

• providing marketplace information, namely, commercial information on merchants, customers, consumer products, and business events and services

• providing business information in the field of point of sale transactions, payment transactions, voucher redemption, appointment scheduling, customer relationship management, customer location detection and awareness, inventory management, merchant transactions, business performance, and customers

• providing a website featuring ratings, reviews and recommendations on products and services offered by merchants, consumer products, business events and services, and business information related to sale transactions, payment transactions, voucher redemption, appointment scheduling, customer relationship management, customer location detection and awareness, inventory management, merchant transactions, business performance, and customers

• business planning and management for marketing, promoting or advertising the goods and services of others

• marketing, promotional marketing, and advertising services

• administration of a customer loyalty reward program to promote the retail services of others for participants to obtain benefits from purchases of a company's goods and services

• appointment scheduling services

IC 042 (Computer, scientific & legal):

• providing use of cloud-based non-downloadable software for processing point of sale transactions, payment transactions, voucher redemption, appointment scheduling, customer relationship management, customer location detection and awareness, inventory management, analyzing merchant transactions, and for evaluating and managing information on business performance and customers

• providing temporary use of non-downloadable software that enables users to send and receive pricing, financial transaction, customer information, and payment processing information directly to and from a mobile device and a cloud-based server

• software as a service (SAAS) services featuring software that enables users to send and receive pricing, financial transaction, customer information, and payment processing information directly to and from a mobile device and a cloud-based server

• providing use of cloud-based non-downloadable software for payment services, merchant analytics, and for evaluating and managing information on business performance and customers

• technical support services, namely, troubleshooting in the nature of diagnosing computer hardware problems and troubleshooting of computer software problems

• installation and maintenance services for computer software for processing point of sale transactions, payment transactions, voucher redemption, appointment scheduling, customer relationship management, customer location detection and awareness, inventory management, analyzing merchant transactions, and for evaluating and managing information on business performance and customers

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> From the linked post:

> UPDATE: After additional conversations with the open source community and > the Gnome Foundation, we have decided to abandon our pending trademark > applications for "Gnome." We will choose a new name for our product going > forward.

</comment><comment><USER14> In the words of Winston Churchill, more or less:

Groupon will always do the right thing... but only after everything else fails.

</comment><comment><USER15> As a show of good faith, Groupon should write the Gnome Foundation a check for the remaining $12k (currently at $68k)

<comment><USER16> It would be a tax write off for them either way, so a huge PR win, and a small tax win.

<comment><USER17> Maybe this is actually a really sneaky fundraiser for GNOME, sponsored by Groupon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "There is some recent confusion" is such a wonderful euphemism.

</comment><comment><USER19> See [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8590335](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8590335)

<comment><USER20> Thank you. We missed that one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> New trademark under consideration... KDE :)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Interestingly, their largest publicity bump since July was largely negative, at least among those that that would read tech news: [http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=groupon](http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=groupon)

Considering that their <name-TBD> point-of-sale platform was largely targeted at small businesses that assumingly would follow this type of news, I am curious how long it takes for them to rebrand this product and how long they wait to roll it out... if at all.

</comment><comment><USER22> "We love open source at Groupon. We have open sourced a number of projects on Groupon github."

I would have expected some reference to how crucial open source has been, and continues to be, to Groupon's ability to function as a modern internet business. Not a small omission.

</comment><comment><USER23> I hope they rename it to "Washington Redskins".

</comment><comment><USER24> Gnome made more than 60k from this, while Groupon declined their plans. Flawless victory?

<comment><USER25> IANAL but I think it will be nightmare for their accountants.

There should be some safeguards in the law that you cannot easily re purpose solicited donations for a cause.

<comment><USER26> The GNOME folks considered that in their solicitation. From <[http://gnome.org/groupon/>](http://gnome.org/groupon/>):

        If we are able to defend the mark without spending
        this amount, we will use the remaining funds to
        bolster and improve GNOME.

I donated, and I'm pleased that they exhibited such forethought and will still be able to make good use of the funds.</comment></comment></comment>


What if your typical morning was anything but? - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/magicleap/status/722476416630034432 <comment><USER2> This is what, some kind of head's up display? Looks nice I guess, but as someone who has wanted a decent heads up display for ages and ages, I'm not going to get excited about anything without a price tag and at least an initial release. This doesn't even seem to show a prototype of the thing.</comment>


He Disparaged the Police on Facebook, So They Arrested Him - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/07/us/politics/criminal-libel-laws-lawsuit.html <comment><USER2> This is probably an unpopular opinion, and I'd want to think this through more, but I've been feeling recently that libel laws in the U.S. ought to be stronger. We have a massive problem with propagandists (especially on the right, but also the left) using blatant lies to manipulate opinion. The net result is a huge amount of anger & distrust.

The media is a mess. Even mainstream outlets like Fox routinely lie to their viewers. Other countries with stronger libel laws (like the UK) don't have nearly as bad a problem, and I can't help but feel like it's related. Obviously the UK has its own issues but it feels much saner to me.

In this case, accusing a specific police officer of being corrupt with zero evidence IS an awful thing to do. It's different from saying that a department is corrupt, etc. There are tons of examples of police abusing their power but this just doesn't seem like one.

Note that the standard for criminal libel requires the person to know they are lying, and that has to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

<comment><USER3> There is also massive corruption problem in the police force, because citizens don't really have effective ways to "watch the watchers". And stronger libel law will definitely be used against people who criticize the police, rightly or wrongly.

That being said, misinformation is also a huge problem. So maybe we'll have to find other ways to more effectively hold individuals accountable, whether they're abusing institutional power or spreading misinformation.

<comment><USER4> > There is also massive corruption problem in the police force

Is this really true or just the impression given by cherry-picking the worst possible cases nation wide and amplifying them via media?

Define "massive". If you got pulled over, would you be legitimately worried about being tazed or abused?

<comment><USER5> I'd be more likely to believe that the publicly-repeated abuse cases are flukes if the officers involved didn't seem to get off with a slap on the wrist the majority of the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> as a brown guy, i will never have the balls big enough to make comments like this.

<comment><USER7> As a white guy, I mourn that people of color feel that making comments like this requires courage. It shouldn't require courage at all, for anybody, regardless of color or race or religion or gender or _anything_. I mourn that people like you have to be more careful in interactions with police or other authorities. It just stinks.

<comment><USER6> I get your sentiment, but like all color folks who say to white folks, " you just don't understand what it means to be colored in everyday life." But you should not be ashamed to be white.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Just because he was arrested for criminal libel doesn't mean he will be convicted of it.

The article does a good job of presenting a high level overview of criminal libel: what it is, what the arguments around it are, and so forth. Read the whole thing.

<comment><USER9> > _Just because he was arrested for criminal libel doesn 't mean he will be > convicted of it._

Doesn't matter. Can still lose money (e.g. by taking time off of his work) and can still be harassed (even after the case ends), and can still have his life made a living hell by casual police and friends activity.

<comment><USER8> He also has prior arrests for similar problems, including a libel suit where he was convicted for wrongfully disparaging a life coaching business.

I'm not convinced of his innocence here.</comment></comment></comment>


An Excerpt from They Thought They Were Free the Germans, 1933-45 - <AUTHOR> http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html <comment><USER2> First, they were a search company. You could finally locate things reasonably on the internet. Before long, what we know exists on the internet is determined by one company.

Later on, they offered email services. It's a great service except that there's no privacy. Ads and searches get even more targetted, but we get free email, right?

Now, they offer a nice place to park your data, a suite of office tools, phones, video streaming, ... Everything so convenient - how did we ever exist without all of this?

Their latest project? Taking sides in a partisan election. After all, they can probably do the best opposition research and get out the vote research since they have access to everyone's data. So helpful.</comment>


How Economists Rode Maths to Become Our Era's Astronomers - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/how-economists-rode-maths-to-become-our-era-s-astrologers <comment><USER2> I'm not an economist, but I'm currently studying economics as a hobby.

It's very hard to start debunking this myth perpetuated by Alan Jay Levinovitz because there is so many layers of math envy, overgeneralization, misunderstanding and misinformation.

Firstly, he is arguing mostly against finance sector, not against academic economics. We should make clear separation between money making economics where economists working in fiance sector for profits. Finance sector is large part of marketing funds and strategies and mathiness is good way to sell. Academic research shows that it's very hard to beat index in long term and you should be very skeptical. Secondly, we should separate economic policies, economic politics from academic economics.

Economics uses math and models as way of thinking. There are no economic models that capture all important variables, but modeling is the only way to see trough ideologies and have good discussions. Economics can do what Levinovitz wants it to do only if it becomes psychohistory in Isaac Asimov's Foundation universe.

For a good example of how current top 10 cited economist used math and models well, look at the work of Daron Acemoglu [http://economics.mit.edu/faculty/acemoglu/paper](http://economics.mit.edu/faculty/acemoglu/paper)

</comment><comment><USER3> Astrologers!</comment>


Flipboard for Video - <AUTHOR> http://www.onxylo.com

<comment><USER2> I love this, do you/they have an iOS app or Android app coming?</comment>


Tumblr transmits your Gmail/Hotmail/Yahoo password in the clear - <AUTHOR> http://mccammon.org/keith/2010/08/02/tumblr-sharing-your-passwords-with-the-world-since-2010/

<comment><USER2> Re [2], it doesn't matter if a form's action posts to an https link. Using an unencrypted HTML form to post to an encrypted post handler is a security anti- pattern. Attackers will simply intercept the form render instead of the post, alter the form, and insert themselves in the middle of the transaction. This attack is no harder than intercepting the POST itself.

Don't _ever_ give your Google Mail password to another company. Even if they "encrypt" it on the wire, you can never be sure they're not storing it insecurely on the back end. Please take this from someone who spends his days beating up other people's applications: everyone screws up something.

<comment><USER3> This is yet another comment that reminds me of what in my mind is a related problem. I encounter more and more sites, including major ones, that include insecurely delivered (<http://>) assets into their secured pages (<https://>). My understanding is that this is another vector to get at e.g. forms and cookies, or basically anything on the page; by intercepting the insecure asset, you can inject yourself into the secure parent page.

I always wonder "what's up with that"? Is it that the particular assets don't lend themselves to injection, or an assumption that items delivered from a server under their control can't or won't be intercepted? If the latter, particularly once the traffic hits an unsecured wireless segment, I'd be inclined to say all bets are off.

EDIT: Nit: HN linkified the bare protocol designations.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thomas: Wholeheartedly agree. Thus, [1].

I probably should have made this very clear: While the lack of encryption is maddening, the very worst part is that Tumblr isn't performing this data pull properly (and Google does provide a proper and relatively safe mechanism for doing what they're doing--it's used by Facebook, LinkedIn and anyone else with a need, API key and good conscience).

</comment><comment><USER4> While I wasn't a huge fan of the tone here ("They really don't give a shit, huh?"), it does seem like something that needs to be brought to everyone's attention.

<comment><AUTHOR> That probably wasn't the most appropriate means of expressing my opinion. Apologies.

<comment><USER4> Hey, at least the substance is there... if this situation is as you characterized it, I see it as a rather massive breach of trust on the part of Tumblr. The tone might be regrettable, but that's a minor concern.</comment></comment></comment>


Semantic Advertising = Long Tail Monetization - <AUTHOR> http://blog.hakia.com/?p=385

<comment><USER2> There's an assumption in this blog post that underpins a lot of semantic web stuff, even the biggies like Powerset: that people can, will and prefer to type out "correct" semantic queries versus simply throwing a few keywords into Google. Granted keyword searching is a bit of a skill and individual searches can often take some massaging to get the right info, but I'm not sure that everybody prefers to type out full questions instead.

On a related tangent: has anyone here ever had one of the semantic web search startups actually answer a question they had? I mean a real question, not a demo one cooked up to show off tailored results. I haven't, I even gave Powerset a try the last time I genuinely had a question - "are dogs carnivores?" - retarded example I know but I genuinely couldn't remember. Here's the results:

<http://www.powerset.com/explore/go/are-dogs-carnivores%3F>

Useless. Interestingly, the older mainstream search engines had no problem answering the question right in their search results - both Ask and Google even suggested various questions in a drop down and auto completed my query.

ask: <http://tinyurl.com/4wu9z4>

google: <http://tinyurl.com/543t7h></comment>


IE6 Needs Your Help - <AUTHOR> http://www.saveie6.com/

<comment><USER2> C'mon guys, duplicating duplicates? Really? <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=542177> broken submission filters + an influx of noobs = :( user

</comment><comment><USER3> Between this is not real. It was a April fools' joke. Check out here <http://aprilfoolsdayontheweb.com/2009.html>

</comment><comment> onreact-com LOL. Great satire. "Often I am amazed at the pure Salvador Dahli-esque features of IE6. For years I have been trying to achieve the random div placements in any other browser and failed miserably."

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes it needs help. But why would someone wanna save something that's a hell for dev and designers ?</comment>


Why is my TI-99/4A in Black and White? - <AUTHOR> http://www.pagetable.com/?p=672 <comment><USER2> Taking the time to isolate the problem and repair the crystal on a 30-year-old computer, when you could as easily have used an emulator or picked up another one on eBay, just because it's more fun to fix it yourself - that's pretty much the definition of a hacker, right there.

</comment><comment><USER3> "I'm no expert but that looks like a horizontal sync pulse followed by a colorburst to me. But there was still no color on the TV."

You're an expert

</comment><comment><USER4> Its funny seeing an article on the 99/4A here on HN :)

I'm too young to have had any experience with the home computer generation. A friend of mine, however, cut his teeth on the 99/4A, and he still has a soft spot for it. So much so that his first big project he ever did with an FPGA was to recreate and expand upon the TMS9918A video chip. He finished it a year or so ago and if anyone is interested in reading about it he documented the whole thing on his site <http://codehackcreate.com/archives/30>

<comment><USER5> The CPU in the 99/4A was interesting. It didn't have registers. It had a "workspace pointer" that pointed to a space in RAM where your "register" slots were. So you could have multiple "workspaces" (sets of registers) and switch among them by simply setting the workspace pointer. Instant new context. Much slower than real registers of course but also quite flexible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have a TI-99/4A somewhere (perhaps in my in-law's basement) and I'm really tempted to dig it out. My first computer was a heavily modified ZX-81, but my first computer with a real keyboard was the TI. Both were amazing platforms for learning, and really the only downside was the use of a cassette recorder for storage. Anyway ... thanks for bringing back some great memories.

As an aside, the inductor isn't so much used to "tune" the frequency of the crystal as it is to make sure the crystal's impedance is matched properly. You can "pull" a crystal's frequency slightly, but you'll also notice the amplitude of the waveform drops significantly as you move away from it's natural resonance.

<comment><USER5> You could get a floppy disk as an add-on (a whopping 90K .. single density 5.25").

I had one back when I was a kid. Learned BASIC of course, and assembly language. There was a little plug-in cartridge called the "Mini Memory" that provided an extra 4K of RAM and an assembler.

The keyboard was small so a lot of the punctuation was accessed with the "FN" modifier key, unfortunately FN-= was an immediate hard reset which was all too easy to hit accidentally. More than once lost a lot of code that way. Taught me to save frequently.

I seem to recall there was some hack (POKE a value into a specific address?) that would disable that....

<comment><USER7> Don't forget the other cool thing about Mini Memory - it has a lithium battery to save your programs in that 4K. It's almost like a tiny SSD!

<comment><USER5> Yeah I did forget about that... as long as your program was less than 4K!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wow this brings back some memories! My first computer was also a TI 99/4A. I got mine brand new in 1982 through a friend that worked at TI. For a while I suffered through the slowness of using a tape recorder for storage but eventually I bought the expansion box for it which added memory and a 160K, single-sided, 5.25" floppy disk. Compared to the tape drive it was a speed demon!

Ahhhh .. the "good old days" of buying a computer magazine with programs listed in Basic and typing them all in. Sometimes having to figure out how to convert them because the version of Basic wasn't the same one. I don't have the 99/4A anymore but I do still have a book that I bought back then to experiment with called, "Projects in Machine Intelligence for Your Home Computer".

</comment><comment><USER9> Google cache: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Awww.p...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Awww.pagetable.com%2F%3Fp%3D672&oq=cache%3Awww.pagetable.com%2F%3Fp%3D672)

<comment><USER10> Another Wordpress blog down by the slightest bit of traffic. They really need to do something about performance...

<comment><USER11> Cheap/misconfigured hosting will cripple any CMS.

<comment><USER12> The error is always "error opening database connection". You should not open any database connection to send back a static block of HTML.

<comment><USER11> >The error is always "error opening database connection". You should not open any database connection to send back a static block of HTML.

What? The message indicates an error connecting to MySQL. WordPress (a CMS) uses MySQL to store its content. If it cannot fetch that content from the DB, you see an error. What were you expecting?

<comment><USER12> I was expecting the page to be cached in RAM. Assembling a page from a database for every request is wasteful of limited computing resources. And doesn't work, as the error message mentions.

<comment><USER11> This isn't a limitation of WordPress. It's a limitation in the stack.

The average WordPress (or any other CMS for that matter) stack doesn't serve pages from RAM.

And even if it did, it could expire, it could be updated, it could become corrupt, the caching server could go down, or have a number of other things go wrong. There would be a call to the DB, the DB could fail and there would STILL be a static html page returned providing information on the error.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I was in a demo the other day where the presenter mentioned "making Mr. Bojangles dance". Immediately I knew exactly where he got it. I asked anyway, he said, "well my first computer was a TI-99/4A". I was ecstatic! So was mine.

<comment><USER7> Oh, wow. Mr. Bojangles was my very first exposure to programming computer graphics and animation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> We had one of those at my high school with the floppy (huge friggin box) and the voice synthesizer. I programmed the thing to say Dakota Sioux (different than Lakota) words[1]. It was quite the toy. Got replaced with a lab of Apple IIe's, but no more speech.

1) trivia: Dakota also has different pronunciation / words depending if a male or female is speaking

</comment><comment><USER15> This reminds me of a time when the 6.5536mhz crystal was perennially out of stock at radio shack because because of an easy tone dialer hack to make a redbox.

<comment><USER7> I remember scoring a 6.49mhz crystal around that time, and feeling pretty elite.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Anyone hazard a guess why crystals go "bad"? I thought they were completely solid-state devices.

<comment><USER9> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_oscillator#Stability_an...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_oscillator#Stability_and_aging)

 _Crystals undergo slow gradual change of frequency with time, known as aging. There are many mechanisms involved. The mounting and contacts may undergo relief of the built-in stresses. Molecules of contamination either from the residual atmosphere, outgassed from the crystal, electrodes or packaging materials, or introduced during sealing the housing can be adsorbed on the crystal surface, changing its mass; this effect is exploited in quartz crystal microbalances. The composition of the crystal can be gradually altered by outgassing, diffusion of atoms of impurities or migrating from the electrodes, or the lattice can be damaged by radiation. Slow chemical reactions may occur on or in the crystal, or on the inner surfaces of the enclosure. Electrode material, e.g. chromium or aluminium, can react with the crystal, creating layers of metal oxide and silicon; these interface layers can undergo changes in time. The pressure in the enclosure can change due to varying atmospheric pressure, temperature, leaks, or outgassing of the materials inside. Factors outside of the crystal itself are e.g. aging of the oscillator circuitry (and e.g. change of capacitances), and drift of parameters of the crystal oven. External atmosphere composition can also influence the aging; hydrogen can diffuse through nickel housing. Helium can cause similar issues when it diffuses through glass enclosures of rubidium standards._

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> My first computer was also a TI-99/4a which was bought for me in 1983 when I was 4. I have many fond memories of that computer.

</comment><comment><USER18> TI finally launched a color version of the TI-84. It's called the TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition; it comes out in Spring 2013[1].

EDIT: This does seem to be off topic. I posted before I read the article (a cardinal sin, I admit) because I could not connect to the site. A second attempt to load the page took about 5 full minutes.

[1]<http://education.ti.com/calculators/products/US/ti-84c/>

<comment><USER19> What has a calculator to do with a home computer from the 80s?

<comment><USER12> The article is down, and TI used a model number in the same series as their massively-popular handheld calculator line. People are probably thinking the article is complaining about the primitive screens that the calculators have.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Site is: 10 Call Clear

<comment><USER21> Site is: Being hosted on aforementioned TI-99/4A

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Site down?

Edit: Up, for me now.

<comment><USER7> Down for me. As a TI-99/4A enthusiast I am quite anxious to read this!

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> My question would be: If you have a computer capable of posting something on the internet, why are you thinking about your TI-99?

<comment><USER7> Because they're cool. And they can play Parsec:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsec_(video_game)>

<comment> T-hawk Major TI-99/4A fan here too. Parsec was the awesomest shootemup of its time by leaps and bounds. Pixel perfect movement and collision detection. I got good enough to roll over the scoreboard. <http://dos486.com/misc/parsec.jpg>

The manual claims the sequence of level colors recycles after 16, but that's incorrect. Every level from about 13 to as far as I've reached somewhere beyond 20 is bright yellow. The manual also claims the game keeps getting harder indefinitely, but that's not true either, nothing really changes past level 4. The only difference is that the asteriod belt continues to lengthen each level, but that's generally a good thing as it's worth so many points.

(Yeah, asteriod belt. Parsec misspells it. Blew me away that I played the game for ten-plus years before I ever noticed.)

Awesomely, Texas Instruments released a number of TI-99 cartridge images as freeware. They're included with several emulator distributions. So you can legally and easily play Parsec and TI Invaders and a couple dozen other TI games. [http://www.harmlesslion.com/cgi- bin/showprog.cgi?search=Clas...](http://www.harmlesslion.com/cgi- bin/showprog.cgi?search=Classic99)

<comment><USER24> > Yeah, asteriod belt

One day in a distant future, a weakly godlike posthuman entity may want to call a feature of its own stellar system The Asteriod Belt. Other posthuman entities will, immediately recognize a fellow TI-99/4A enthusiast and start to play games together.

:-)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


This is Your Brain on Vim - <AUTHOR> http://kevinw.github.com/2010/12/15/this-is-your-brain-on-vim/

<comment><USER2> In case you are planning on reading this and haven't done so yet, be warned there is a lack of any form of meaningful information in this article

<comment> St-Clock Sorry, i'm probably weird, but I could see my vim experience described quite accurately in this post. It was funny and disturbing at the same time.

I particularly enjoyed:

"hjkl movement becomes natural. you mysteriously lose the ability to ice skate"

"oh balls. my .vimrc isn't on the mainframez so all my cool shit is gone when I ssh to edit some configs."

"publishes obligatory blog post about how special and unique setup is"

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Aaagh!

I finished reading that in Firefox, instinctively hit <esc>1w to go back to the top, swore, and found myself typing :prev.

I'm clearly doomed.

<comment><USER4> Get Pentadactyl! (a fork of Vimperator) It adds vim-like navigation to Firefox. Granted, 1w won't work, but a good deal of other shortcuts do. There's a handy shortcut to edit any textbox in Vim also, but I can't recall what it is. I seriously cannot recommend this addon enough; it completely changed my browsing experience.

<http://dactyl.sourceforge.net/pentadactyl/>

Edit: Fixed spelling, added link.

<comment><USER5> I tried switching vimperator for pentadactyl today and found some unpleasant buggy behaviour. Will try again when not so many tabs open and uninstalled it.

Turns out what I use most is 'd' to close tabs and 'u' to unclose them. Most of the rest of vimperator passes me by except when I fight the modal/passthrough/where the hell are my keypresses going moments.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wow, another article about _identifying with a text editor_. It's almost completely devoid of useful information, at that.

Flagged.

I'd like to see an article on using vi's ex mode to its fullest potential - there's a lot of power there, and many people seem completely unaware it exists.

</comment><comment><USER7> If "the road to nowhere" was an article, it would be this article.</comment>


Productive Things to Do When Bored - <AUTHOR> https://tomaslau.com/productive-things-to-do-when-bored/ <comment><USER2> Many of the things listed could be combined into one item: "Browse the internet".</comment>


UK law will allow secret backdoor orders for software, jail for disclosure - <AUTHOR> http://boingboing.net/2015/11/10/uk-government-can-secretly-ord.html <comment><USER2> Can anyone from the UK give us details on the applicability of Canary Warrants[0] in this case? I haven't found so much as a precedence of allowing them in the UK, though Australia has recently curtailed their use.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary)</comment>


Ask HN: Here's my resume.  Any suggestions? - <AUTHOR>

I haven't updated my resume in a while, so I took some time to write a new one.  I tried to keep it succinct and have focused on the bigger skills and accomplishments.  I always feel I do better in interviews than I do on paper, so I thought I would focus on piquing interest than doing a comprehensive study of everything I've worked on or done.
I feel a bit rusty, so any suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Here it is, click the image for the full PDF:
http://opensource.appleseedproject.org/resume/ <comment><USER2> I would rather see more details in your professional experience than the details under each of the skill categories. "Almost everything" under Appleseed project tells me nothing about about what you accomplished, what technical aspects of your skill set was used, and what you may have learned (even if it's your own personal project). Additionally, I hear people talk about 1 page resumes all the time - I rather have a multiple page resume if it's what is required to show me what you know and can do - just don't make it a 13 pager either.

You pass the 2 second rule, where I wanted to keep reading - but in the end, from my point as someone in a hiring position I may not score your resume all to high based on the information I was able to pull from it - no offense intended, and I am sure others have different guidelines when it comes to resume vetting - but that is how it would score with me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I'm considering expanding it to two pages. I don't know if I'd go much farther than that, but I could easily fill two pages with pertinent information.

I could probably do a whole page just on Appleseed, which might be worthwhile. The project extends in so many different directions, that it provides a really solid amalgamation of my capabilities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> When I clicked the image, I got a PDF that only had the logo and vertical divider.

Mac 10.4.11, using Preview 3.0.9

<comment><AUTHOR> That's odd, I'm on OS X 10.6.5 with Preview 5.0.3

I'll try re-uploading it with a more compatible PDF version.

 _EDIT: Re-uploaded with Acrobat 4/PDF 1.3 compatibility._

<comment><USER3> It works now.

Admittedly it's an ancient operating system, but rather some random internet person found out than a potential employer...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not sure if you would want to use it, but I love ceevee.com for making my resume - the format just works for me.</comment>


If Trump kicks out Twitter, there's always Germany - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-twitter-trump-germany/if-trump-kicks-out-twitter-theres-always-germany-idUSKBN2342CM <comment><USER2> It is impossible to run anything like Twitter in Germany without being sued into oblivion for defamation etc and get struck with criminal charges for something a user posted. Germanys equivalent of cease and desist letters (Abmahnungen) make running a big site with user generated content very unattractive.

<comment><USER3> Or accidentally trigger a three-strike rule or infringe some odd sentence in the 300k pages of regulations that concern your business... Europe is not going to have a big tech company (or even mid-sized for that matter) until this legal approach changes in an extreme way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Germany is a startup-friendly? In addition to the free speech issues mentioned above, it makes me giggle a bit when I take a look at their 45% tax rate.

On the other hand, Ireland does look like a sweet destination. Since they probably already have an office there (double Dutch sandwitch?), it wouldn't even be hard to do.

Dreams aside, probably no company is stupid enough to abandon a 330M big market that has plenty of cash to spend.

</comment><comment><USER5> Has there been a thread on HN that discusses the actual EO?

Let's for the sake of discussion ignore that it's some other political figurehead implementing this law, would it be acceptable? Is twitter a news outlet by editing or annotating a persons message and is it correct to say these companies are forming a monopoly/cartel on free speech. Does twitter's size and impact on the general populace mean it needs different rules to operate?

I'm much more interested in the stances and opinions of people regarding the status quo around social media and their function to the people and much less interested in the drama that ensues every time something leaves trump's mouth.

<comment><USER6> > Has there been a thread on HN that discusses the actual EO?

900+ comments and counting[0].

[0][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23342161](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23342161)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> There is a natural ebb and flow to societies and civilizations. Things were happening in Athens, Miletos, Alexandria, Baghdad - the intellectual centers of gravity changed over time as rulers had various levels of enlightenment, religious freedom varied etc.

</comment><comment><USER8> Just a reminder, the 1st Amendment states:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." [1]

Private entities can do what they want.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution)

<comment><USER9> Freedom of Speech does not protect you from the consequences of said free speech.

> Private entities can do what they want.

Private entities can also get sued into oblivion by other private entities that believe they were wronged. Section 230 prevents that in exchange of some conditions and concessions as long as they are followed.

If twitter wants the freedom to do what they want, they will also have to accept the freedom to get sued into oblivion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why is this flagged?

</comment><comment><USER11> For sure there are better jurisdictions who would receive them very well.

</comment><comment><USER12> The key and broader issue here is that Twitter has become a global channel for official governmental communication.

As such Twitter should come up with a clear and transparent policy on this (have they?). It's not specific to Trump.

IMHO, tweets by heads of states should not be subjected to any moderation, and perhaps replies should not be allowed.

Now, what someone tweets in one country may be an offence in another country so it is possible that Twitter might still have to make certain tweets by heads of states unavailable in some other countries.

This is not a simple issue but it will only grow.

<comment><USER13> Why use a medium like twitter at all when replies aren't allowed? That would be classical unidirectional top down broadcast.

Can surf the *.gov for that, or watch tv.

Or ist that the full spectrum dominance across all channels?

MLM?

<comment><USER12> Replies to official tweets don't really serve any purpose apart from creating a buzz or polemic, i.e. to spread in a viral way but rarely for constructive reasons.

Those tweets are unidirectional top down broadcasts in practice but they reach many more people than the official government website and they do it almost instantly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Just be prepared to throw out any tweet that comes close to Holocaust denial or uses Nazi symbols. Well, that's actually not so bad IMO but the American style "free speech" advocates would be foaming.

What does "relocate" include? I mean, Twitter's infrastructure is not tight to the US and will already be spread all over the globe. So, only the address of the HQ?

</comment><comment><USER15> > "Here you are free to criticize the government as well as to fight fake > news. We have a great startup and tech ecosystem, your company would be a > perfect fit and I will open any doors for you!"

As if that's not the case in the US? Trump's threats don't hold any water and, if we're being honest, our legal restrictions on speech are less stringent than Germany's.

<comment><USER16> The US's restrictions on speech are indeed less stringent than in Germany.

However representatives could make a law that says communication platforms deemed to be significant parts of political communication need to not control the conversation.

<comment><USER17> The mood is going entirely in the other direction in Europe though, i.e. they want platforms to police speech even more. That's certainly true in Germany, also in France, and I'm sure other European countries.

There is no equivalent to the US when it comes to freedom of speech.

<comment><USER16> We agree with each other. I think you may have accidentally misread the comment you're replying to.

<comment><USER17> Yes, it was not clear which representatives you were talking about.

<comment><USER16> Ah sorry, I should have specified House of Representatives

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Leaving aside all the free speech and German laws, does anyone really believe that Germany or any European nation aside from Russia will harbor anyone in the cross-hairs of the current US establishment? Angering the US will potentially leave the door wide open for Uncle Putin for the Rush B(erlin).

No European country lifted a single finger in the defense of Snowden or Assange when they were in the cross-hairs of the US. No one will do it for twitter, especially when they could just let twitter die and move in to fill the void themselves.

</comment><comment><USER18> God I love the dunning-kruger view of Germany as the last bastion of internet liberty, it's utterly wrong - Germany has so many laws restricting online speech that you (and the service hosting your content) can be sued just for mentioning someone by name in a disparaging context, nothing like the CDA 230 protections exists there in the first place.

Doesn't it seem odd to anyone that despite having some of the best hackers in the world come from it Germany has zero world-scale content platforms ?

<comment><USER19> Germany strongly respects individual privacy (perhaps because many Germans remember the Gestapo) but they don't have the same notions of free speech rights that Americans do.

<comment><USER20> > Germany strongly respects individual privacy

Citation needed. Germany is a mess on that topic. On the one hand, we have ridiculous things like "police stations can't have cameras monitoring the sidewalk next to them because of privacy concerns", on the other hand we're obligated by law to inform the government when we move (with heavy fines if you do not comply immediately), and the data will be shared with our state media so they can collect their its-not-a-tax-media-tax, and political parties so they can send you ads (at least you can reject this, but it's opt-out, not opt-in).

As with many things in Germany, many things about privacy are missing the forest for the trees. We'll enforce with furious diligence things that are irrelevant, while you can't buy SIM cards anonymously and they're pushing for laws that might outlaw VPN services, there are regular pushes for removing "anonymity" from the internet etc.

<comment><USER21> I feel this is a big difference between the US and Europe in many cases with the difference being the US system is scared to actually face the questions. It's all conventions and traditions that has become culture and unchangeable, with some arcane bench of judges making modern interpretations on 1700's thoughts, sometimes for the better, sometimes separate but equal. Ridiculous to trust an institution like that to make progress in a society.

This leading to privacy by mostly convention, but then everyone builds systems to circumvent it in inefficient ways. I.e. SSN and similar.

Instead of simply acknowledging that the government is going to get that information no matter what, and it is a requirement to actually govern a modern society. Which then forces you to have to face the discussion regarding what it entails and limit it's uses.

<comment><USER20> > Ridiculous to trust an institution like that to make progress in a society.

Imho "making progress" is not the task of any court. Their job is to apply the laws to cases; want to make progress towards some goal? Change the laws, change the constitution.

> Which then forces you to have to face the discussion regarding what it > entails and limit it's uses.

Which, of course, isn't happening. We have accepted (as if anybody ever asked us) that it's required to govern a "modern society", and now we have the police tapping whatever info source they can get away with. The courts will, in some cases at least, rule that they may not (but we don't have "fruit of the poisonous tree", so if they illegally search your house, they may still use whatever they find against you), but they're normalizing the overreach.

And it's not a political-side-thing either. The conservatives want to use it to fight islamic terrorists and the last three remaining communist revolutionaries, the progressives want to use it to fight racism, sexism and conservatives. Our main stream media (which is _much_ more bundled up than in the US or UK) will generally urge for respecting privacy, but will also generally falter in any crisis and get in line. There are very few private NGOs that are holding the state's feet to the fire.

Setting things up so you can "govern a modern society" efficiently isn't all good. I'd take an inefficient administration that keeps its nose out of my business over an efficient administration any day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Trump is not going to kick out Twitter.

Trump is a smart man. He has trouble handling the coronavirus so the best thing he can do is shift focus.

I think this article adds nothing. In fact, if you take a closer look it just says: 'Trump threatened to close Twitter and Thomas Jarzombek invites Twitter to Berlin.'.

</comment><comment><USER23> A joke, indeed, seeing as German and other European politicians want the same thing as Trump, for platforms to moderate the users' content.

<comment><USER3> Trump wants the oppsite actually - platforms not to moderate it. Not that it is any of his business this way or the other.

<comment><USER6> More to the point - when the only options for a platform hosting any user provided content are to shut down to avoid liability or not moderate anything, platforms choosing the latter will become overwhelmed with extremist and right-wing speech, pushing the Overton window towards the cultural normalization of alt-right and white supremacist ideology.

Which is the _actual_ goal.

<comment><USER17> Why do you think they would become overwhelmed with this type of content in particular?

<comment><USER6> Show me an unmoderated forum, or any "free speech" alternative forum where that hasn't become the case.

<comment><USER17> If most places ban a certain type of content, it's likely that you will find more of that content in the few places where it's allowed.

I'm questioning the idea that if all platforms were to be less restrictive, that particular type of content would become "overwhelming".

Some communities are more active online than others but generally I would expect the distribution of opinions expressed online to reflect the actual distribution of opinions actually held by the population.

<comment><USER6> >I would expect the distribution of opinions expressed online to reflect the actual distribution of opinions actually held by the population.

You're assuming most people are tolerant of racist and bigoted content and don't mind seeing a constant stream of it, but when the Nazis show up, their discourse tends to drive everyone else away if they aren't banned. That's why they tend to take over communities where, _in theory_ all sorts of opinions are welcome.

<comment><USER17> It might be true on some platforms like Facebook, where your network tends to be made up of family and colleagues (so you can't really avoid what your uncle might have to say), but I don't think it's true on social media websites like reddit or twitter, where you can choose which content you follow (subreddit, following certain users, etc.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Yeah, massive taxes on all fronts (employment, corporate & VAT) accompanied by insane beuracracy, GDPR and tons of other pointless regulations... My favourite would be "the right to be forgotten", which is probably 20x more outrageous than Trump's current tantrum.

Surely Twitter would be better off in Germany, that's why today's Europe's literally full of thriving tech giants :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D</comment>


Should I learn Java - <AUTHOR> http://shouldilearnjava.com/

<comment><USER2> Brought to you by the Committee in support of Not Learning Things and Repeating Mistakes.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm really surprised this made it here. I made this site and [http://shouldiusejava.com](http://shouldiusejava.com) entirely as a joke, didn't expect it to go anywhere past the topic of my irc channel.

I really don't hate java. While it's not my favorite language, it definitely has its uses and is awesome for many things. I use it myself for Android programming. No one should take this seriously at all, I was just frustrated with it at the time I did this.

</comment><comment><USER4> I get that it's supposed to be funny but if you want to, for example, do anything on Android, then the answer is most definitely yes.

</comment><comment><USER5> Sorry, but that's just mindboggingly stupid. They could have done something (slightly) more interesting, e.g. xyz.shouldIlearnIt.com and replace the xyz in the answers by whatever the string in the hostname was.

As it stands, this unjustified hate in a particular technology comes across as childish.

<comment><USER6> _As it stands, this unjustified hate in a particular technology comes across as childish._

I think that's the point.</comment></comment>


Why I had it all wrong about Boston's high-tech scene - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-32973_3-57453321-296/why-i-had-it-all-wrong-about-bostons-high-tech-scene/

<comment><AUTHOR> Man those mods like changing titles. I called this "A Comparison of Boston and Silicon Valley With More Depth", which I think is a better summary.</comment>


Ask YC: Finding a co-founder(s) - <AUTHOR> I've been out of school for almost a year and a half now, working as a financial analyst for a large finance/accounting firm in Los Angeles.  I've known for quite some time that I won't be truly happy working for a large company and that entrepreneurship is in my blood (no one in my family works for anyone else).  I also spent two years in college doing sales for a small web services/software company and got a lot of exposure to the development of a SAAS solution and the web as it relates to small-to-mid-size businesses.  I spend a significant portion of my free time researching the web, writing mock business plans, and trying to develop ideas that I have.<p>But the one thing I continue to struggle with is finding someone else who wants to form a startup.  I work with some very smart people, but the problem is, their whole game plan is built around climbing the corporate ladder, whereas mine couldn't be more opposite.  So what is the best strategy for someone like myself to find a trustworthy, hard working partner to form a startup?  I fully respect what programmers/engineers/hackers bring to the table and I feel that I would compliment those skills very well.  I also have a pretty good understanding of the web and wouldn't consider myself one of those "pie-in-the-sky" business types that are responsible for that stereotype.  I'm just a guy looking to build something cool, solve some problems, and maybe make enough to quit my day-job.  Sorry for the long post, but what are your thoughts? <comment><USER2> Restating your problem: the circles I run in now don't have what I am looking for, how can I find what I am looking for? Simple answer: change the circles you run in. Go to the watering hole for the prey you want to take down -- users groups, coworking facilities, and professional networks like workingwithrails and linkedin. Then, do a small test project, then try a harder project together. Expect to go through many before you find the one that fits.

'Just because you've become a young man now (Man, now) There's still some things that you don't understand now (Son, now) Before you ask some girl for her hand now (My son) Keep your freedom for as long as you can now'

My mama told me...'you better shop around' (Shop, shop around) a-whoa-yeah You better (uh-huh) shop around! (Shop, shop around) Uh-uh-uh

<comment><USER3> +1, Gratuitous Musical Interlude

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I found a co-founder by posting on craigslist.

We have very different styles: I am improvisational, creative, always willing to try an idea, in love with writing beautiful code, mostly driven by aesthetics and idealism. He is organized, managerial, skeptical, oriented toward business and negotiation and the world of money, good at researching and finding out how other people have solved a problem, though he still enjoys code.

We have disagreements sometimes, but it's working well. The disagreements have turned out fruitful. That's probably how it should be.

<comment><AUTHOR> How many people did you interview before you found your current co-founder?

<comment><USER4> Three.

The ad I placed was not for a co-founder, but for someone to pair-program with me. At my cube-farm day job at the time, I hadn't found anyone willing to try pair-programming. I missed pairing, and I knew from past experience that I'm way more productive when pairing. I figured that with a pair, I would likely get one of my personal projects done. So I placed an ad looking for a student to pair-program with me on my projects. I offered to pay $15/hour, since the main compensation for a student would be the technical know-how he'd pick up from someone with more experience (I've been coding for roughly 20 years).

After about one session or so, though, $15/hour seemed stupid. It made more sense that we would each have a stake in a product. It's been way better to have someone who takes initiative than a student who waits to be told what to do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wow that story sounds familiar. I was out of school for two years working as a financial analyst before getting accepted in to YC this summer.

Right out of school and six months in to my job I knew I wasn't really cut out for finance and preferred to not work for someone else. I started a business on the side and learned more in 3 months than I did all through college. Fast forward a year. A childhood friend of mine and I began collaborating on an idea I had whenever we had spare time. However, we were eventually faced with a Catch22 situation: we needed more time to work on our startup, but we also needed money to live on (my other side business was making decent money, but not enough to live off of). We were OK with this and planned on doing the startup on the side until it was making money, or at least launched.

On a whim we applied to YC as we figured "why the hell not?" YC accepted us even though I was a non-technical. I'm not exactly sure why as I've never actually asked them, but I will offer some speculation: my partner is a genius and I was extremely familiar with the market we were trying to get in to.

Looking back, if we would have been rejected, I would have learned to code. Even now I plan on doing so (and have already done some) once things are a little less hectic. Obviously, YC has sped up the creation process considerably and we've gotten more done in ~1.5 months than all the previous time combined.

So I guess my advice to you is this: 1\. Start a business on the side if you can 2\. Learn to hack 3\. Follow aaronblohowiak's advice 4\. Forget the mock business plans - I've run/ran 3 small to micro sized businesses and the closest thing I've done to completing a business plan is a YC Summer 08 application. At some point, you have to stop planning and start doing.

Good luck and feel free to email me anytime.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the advice and I couldn't agree more. Ending the planning and beginning the doing is the theme of my day today. Trouble is, since im not a programmer, me "doing" something would consist of market research, putting my ideas on paper (i.e. summary business plans), and trying to network. If I knew that I could turn one of my ideas into even a small reality, then I would have plenty more to do in terms of copywriting, marketing, etc. I just need to either begin an active search for a hacker co-founder, pursue a non-software type of startup, or try to outsource the development.

<comment><USER5> The business you start doesn't necessarily have to be web related - it can be anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The long term answer is to build a hacker network. That's going to be hard.

There is no good short-term answer but here's the only way: asking in the right places (like here) and getting very lucky. Being specific will help:

Do you have actual ideas? Do you bring domain knowledge to the table? Are your ideas niche to that domain? Do you know what type of business you'd want to run (bootstrapped/VC)? How are you going to get funding?

As a programmer, I know several hackers who are looking to start a business in the next year or so. If you had good answers to the above questions, I'd consider putting you in touch with them. Regardless, though, you are going to want to be specific as possible when asking. It's the only way of even having a chance.

Bonus tip: Put your email address in your profile before asking questions like this. You never know who might email you out of the blue.

<comment><AUTHOR> Point very well taken and I appreciate your advice.

I have several ideas that I feel have potential, but I am open to working with someone elses dream idea just the same (in my opinion it's less about the idea and more about the execution). I boostrap my life and would expect to run a startup in much the same way. Depending on the type of startup, however, VC funding may very well be valuable. I have advanced Excel modeling skills and I build financial models everyday. I have experience working with numerous small to mid size companies and closed $10k-$20k web projects with my clients on a consistent basis while I was a junior/senior in college. I'm obviously not a programmer, but I learned enough to basically run the sales efforts for this company, make us a leader in working with alternative energy clients, and make clients comfortable with sending a $10k check to a small company they had never even heard of before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm in a similar boat, in a way. I'm currently playing with the idea of founding a web service-based company but as I research the technology behind my concept (I would be a non-technical founder) I continuously come across accounts of how difficult it is for people in my situation. If you come across an engineer ready to take the leap into the world of start ups, odds are pretty good they intend to work on their own ideas. If you come across an engineer who's already been in the fray and is ready to do it again, (s)he has no interest in talking to someone like me.

I'm a marketing / biz dev / product dev guy and I can spec a project, help lead a project, manage a team, compose great copy for the site / service / collateral, get the word out through a fair network I've built and market the ____out of it, make use of some contacts to pitch for funding, etc etc. These are the things I've been doing for the past nine years. What I can't do is build the product myself.

It's a tough game, and it's all about networking. I'm talking to friends of friends of friends but little has come of it to this point. So I'll keep at it and be persistent in the hopes that one day soon I'll have a conversation with a skilled engineer looking to lead instead of follow and we'll see eye to eye.

<comment><USER8> Zacharye - Engineer here who might be interested. Send me your email address and we can talk. nick [dot] kleinschmidt [at] gmail.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I get the feeling, from most things I read, that co founders should be someone you've already known for years, not someone you find from one day to the next, so it's sort of a catch-22.

<comment><AUTHOR> You hit the nail on the head. The problem is, most of my peer network are people who see the allure of money in the finance world and want to work their way up the ladder. And the engineers that I know are not yet ready to break out and do something on their own.

<comment><USER10> That's exactly the problem I've had. There's 2-3 people I've worked with in the last 3 years I've approached about getting our nuts out of the corporate lock-box, and none of them have any interest. With two of them, you can tell immediately that the thought of leaving a corporate position for their own enterprise has never even crossed their minds. The other one overestimates the risk involved.

 _sigh_

<comment><USER11> You live in Dallas right? Good luck finding anyone here that hasn't been raised to climb the corporate ladder. I'm still in school, but I also find it pretty depressing to be around so many people that don't like thinking big or taking risks.

<comment><USER10> Yup. It's just in the water, I think. It's starting to get better, particularly in the East parts, like Plano and Richardson. There's an incubator in Richardson, actually - it's called Star Tech Early Ventures (startechev.com). I've been talking with them, but it's not quite the same model as YC, as best I can tell (i.e., their interests are a little more diverse than those of YC, I think - make what you will of that).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> My problem is recognising tallent outside of your core compentencies.

If you can recognise tallent, it's easy enough to pick up people who are on the rebound from bad jobs, or who haven't gotten much paid experience yet. I regularly hire friends of friends, but then I hang out with very technical people who have very technical friends. I've picked up a lot of really good technical people with little experience and paid 'em $15/hr to work for me... most of them leave for better pay after a year or so, but if I was compitent at business, I'd be able to pay them more by then.

My big problem is that if you are incompetent at something, you can't reconise compitence. I am an incompitent business person, so I can't recognise a good sales/businessperson. Even with a good solid technical team, you need business compitency to succeed, and there isn't much of that in my social circle, and even if there was, I wouldn't be able to tell the good from the pretenders.

It sounds like I need to get together with someone like you, but who? I mean, I alrealdy said, I can't tell if someone is a compitent businessperson, and having the wrong CEO is much worse, imo, than having no CEO at all.

<comment><USER2> recognizing talent is one thing that humans are amazingly bad at, as recent HN stories about malcom's new book and the nytimes article about competent vs nice coworkers have suggested.

i dont know if an iterative model can work in staffing.

this is why experience is so valued by companies -- if you've done stuff, then you are able to do stuff (though, maybe you're a big faker who got lucky.)

<comment><USER12> I think recognizing talent in the context of an interview is difficult, but not impossibly so. I think judging how well they work, (do they 'get stuff done') is much more difficult during interviews, unless the person has solo projects. I know working for others, I've recommended several 'smart but useless' people after interviewing. Usually when hiring people I know, though, I know in what ways they are useless, and can hire for positions where I can make up for their weaknesses.

but I don't think it's difficult to judge a person if you have known them for a while, especially if you are the type to talk about technical things in social contexts.

I think the problem appears when you are judging things outside your field, or people you only see for an hour.

<comment><USER2> Yes, agreed. I should have specified the scope limitation to my statement of the interview context.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm a Rails coder, can lead project and define architecture. Getting ready for YC spring 2009. Looking for the business side partners who can sell and promote the hell out of a SaaS idea that will be big time for small and medium businesses. Email address in my profile.

Getting ready for YC spring 2009.

</comment><comment><USER14> If you think it's hard now, just wait until you start the business, it becomes mildly successful, and now you want to bring in someone as a co-founder to help you grow - it's twice as hard then. I'm going through that right now and it's _tough_.

I don't think cofounders need be friends before starting - I think that like- minded people hang around each other so, if you're in an area like the Valley, there are more people of your mindset and you'll find it easier to co-found with a friend. I think co-founding is tough and there are no easy ways of doing it.

<comment><USER15> A post-founding co-founder?

<comment><USER16> We just got one. Co-founder isn't about the title, it's about the state of mind.

Our company started with having a local dev firm doing initial coding, then we got him to do some work on the site on nights. Then he decided he really wanted to give it a shot, and I welcomed him with open arms. He gets a ton of equity and is a co-founder in my mind: there are no secrets, no employer/employee relationship. Yes, I spent a ton of my own cash to get the business off the ground, but it only has a chance at success with a full-time partner. So he's a co-founder in my mind, and publicly.

<comment><USER17> How do you define tons of equity? 40%? 30%?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The best advice I can give is to go out to local industry networking events and turn to groups like HN to join discussions and engage other people. By doing this you're more likely to find someone who is truly like-minded and knowledgeable about the same space you're looking to get into. You're also more likely to find a technical co-founder, which undoubtedly expedites product development because you come from a business background.

</comment><comment><USER19> My friend pointed me to your thread. I am in a very similar situation.

I've been out of school for a little of 2 yrs and work in LA as a mgmt consultant. I've been developing sites for a number of years, and currently run a couple social networking sites and a search engine, among others. Send me an email if you're interested to meet up for coffee or something. My email is dtang4 [at] gmail [dot] com.

Thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sent you a message jond2062 [at] gmail [.] com

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm in the same boat. I am in Product Management and fairly technically oriented, but I wouldn't call myself a real programmer.

Since I have not found people of like mind I have tried to learn enough to try to do something on my own. But not having built a web service in the past, it's not that easy. I would be happy finding a mentor who could point me in the right direction while I learn.

</comment><comment><USER21> Another approach is to hire contractors overseas to build exactly what you'd like. Rentacoder, elance and odesk are great resources.</comment>


New Net Neutrality Rules Rejected By House of Representatives - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2011/04/08/net-neutrality-stalls-in-house/ <comment><USER2> If you want to have a look, had just posted the Huffington Post article here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2425997>

Same info, though.</comment>