Managing Pricing - <AUTHOR> http://www.heavybit.com/library/video/2013-07-16-michael-dearing

<comment><USER2> Unrelated... this video player and transcript integration is really, really nice. Did HeavyBit build some or all of it? I see the player is video.js

<comment><USER3> Tim here - Thanks brokentone! Glad you like it. We built a lot of it ourselves with some great tools. The player is video.js and we use popcorn.js to sync the transcripts, outline and player timecode. The video is transcribed and timecoded with Zencaptions and the transcoding is done via Zencoder. Let me know if you've got any other questions. Happy to help. Or better yet, shoot me an email: tim[at]heavybit.com.

Right now we're working out some kinks with V1, but we're hard at work for the next version. Suggestions welcome. :)

<comment><USER4> Great work! Always wondered what the vibe masters were up to ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Kudos to HeavyBit for including the transcript. As a hearing impaired individual, it really helps. I hope it becomes a standard across the industry to include transcripts (or subtitles) with every video.

</comment><comment><USER6> So many great points and takeaways, but I think the following is key:

"What matters is not so much the distance between the cost to produce something and the price to sell it. Focus on, the difference between the price and the perceived value to the end user. The perceived value has to be greater than the price! Don't build a business around cost + margin, build businesses around perceived value."

Focus on the incentive to buy, not the incentive to sell for your business.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Pricing is super hard - I love this framing of the problem but there are so many other good references. I'm also a big fan of Neil Davidson's very brief book "Don't just roll the dice": [http://neildavidson.com/download/dont-just- roll-the-dice/](http://neildavidson.com/download/dont-just-roll-the-dice/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Notes from another pricing workshop by Michael Dearing

[http://yurylifshits.com/post/52854299110/8-pricing- strategie...](http://yurylifshits.com/post/52854299110/8-pricing-strategies- for-startups)

</comment><comment><USER8> Rob Walling of Startups for the Rest of Us discussed the first of a two-part article on SaaS pricing¹ by Richard White of UserVoice in episode 153².

The podcast also covered collecting billing info in episode 179³ and briefly discussed handling credit card expirations in episode 184⁴.

¹ [http://500.co/2013/07/18/the-data-behind-purchasing- behavior...](http://500.co/2013/07/18/the-data-behind-purchasing-behavior-at- uservoice-pricing-for-conversion-part-i/)

² [http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/episodes/episode-153-s...](http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/episodes/episode-153-saas- pricing-tactics)

³ [http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/episodes/episode-179-w...](http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/episodes/episode-179-when- to-ask-your-customers-for-credit-cards)

⁴ [http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/episodes/episode-184](http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/episodes/episode-184)

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm in the process of figuring out a pricing model for a SaaS service right now and I watched this video in full. There's lots of interesting stuff in this, but in the end I am left no better off. _For someone who is actually building a pricing structure now, it has nearly no actual value._

I still do not know how to price my service, do I price per seat, per year based on a random number, per $FROBIT used, or a one time sale?

I know I should price based on value, and my price should be less than the perceived value to my user. But I learnt that in my 10th grade business class.

However, that said it was a very well done presentation, and once someone has a working pricing structure then these tools will be useful improve business outcomes.

<comment><USER10> Hum a few bars about what your SaaS does for whom and I will happily napkin out a pricing structure for you. If you have no clue, for B2B SaaS sold on a low-touch model with the assumption you're not shooting for the VC->IPO track, just copy paste $49/$99/$249 into the bog-standard Three Column SaaS Pricing Page and offer 1 month free with an annual pre-pay.

<comment><USER9> Hi Patrick, wasn't expecting you to respond. But here it goes.

I have a service which identifies which accounts will pay for accounts receivable. IE: collections agencies. Numbers show it can move the needle double to triple digits depending on the account mix.

Right now, I'm planning on a per seat monthly subscription. Customers know how much they'll be charged each month, and I think it lets me focus on the value rather than community unit costs.

EDIT: Just a note, unfortunately, this is a very high touch environment. The upshot being that once a customer chooses you, they _never_ leave. Even if they're being outright abused. (I have stories!)

<comment><USER10> I'm not ordinarily a fan of per-seat pricing but I think it makes sense in this environment, as software adoption will be top-down, the sales process is high-touch, they can build it into per-employee overhead, etc. I'd caution you that, as you likely know, employee turnover in this industry is _insane_ and as a result of that and standard staffing practices the seats in use are going to fluctuate constantly. This isn't totally dissimilar to CS, so you might look at what ZenDesk and the ilk do with regards to floating seats, etc.

If you're really getting X0% to Y00% in per-collector productivity then I say start by asking for for $100 per seat per month, if you're wedded to per-seat pricing. You can price anchor it around "less than a single collector-day" and that leaves plenty on the table for your clients. I'd then start walking the price up (if it is worth $100 a collector it is probably worth $150/$200/$250) until you start losing lots of sales on the pricing question.

If you've got very heterogenous clients number of people on the phones might not capture value as well. You might consider doing N tiers (maybe or maybe not publicly disclosed). I'd be thinking something along the lines of $500 for the mom&pop shops, $2.5k for "real businesses" doing debt collection, and $10k++ custom pricing for large/enterprise accounts. You could have multiple segmentation levers between plans, such as e.g. size of the average receivable, total volume of receivables, type of collection, what data sources you pull in to do the calculations ("Pay more get more!"), etc.

The great thing about high-touch sales is that if you hate how your pricing strategy interacts with any one client you just change it for the next one.

If you'd like to discuss this in more detail non-publicly, email me. I have a weird personal interest in this field and am happy to trade informal consulting on SaaS pricing for war stories.

<comment><USER9> Sent you an email, along with a story about the horrible industry I'm working on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> As an aside, I've got the Dualit toaster he talks so much about, and it's worth every penny. Attractively designed, built like a tank, lifetime warranty, easy to clean, and makes perfect toast.

<comment><USER12> Kudos for owning up to that. I think he may have been joking about owning it himself but then again maybe not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think the following approach is more appropriate, at least for big business: [http://www.rti.com/whitepapers/Dirty_Little_Secret.pdf](http://www.rti.com/whitepapers/Dirty_Little_Secret.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER14> There are also a few quick videos on the Harrison Metal site itself: [http://www.harrisonmetal.com/pricing_1/](http://www.harrisonmetal.com/pricing_1/)

</comment><comment><USER15> Okay, having managed to read most of it (I think -- my eyesight is crap and giving me fits today), for me, I think the important pieces are the bits about psychology -- about intuition and analysis (which I was already familiar with but not in this business related form) and the piece about loss aversion.

I think those are really helpful for me, but more from a marketing or audience relationship point of view. For me, I am pretty clear that monetization will be indirect (like ad income, that kind of thing) so this is not so much about pricing for me.

But my challenge is that initial intuition piece -- that piece I know of as a concept of "in the blink of an eye" what people think, as their first reaction -- tends to be pretty negative. And I have done a lot of retrenching to back out of that negative relationship as much as I can and I currently have a single person with positive interest and relatively little harassment (compared to what it once was). So, for me and the problems I am contemplating, these seem more like marketing ideas. Which is fine. But I am wondering now how I can apply those concepts to that angle and not pricing per se.

But excellent piece. I forwarded it to a couple of people. Thanks for writing it (ugh -- video is a problem for me and the formatting of the transcript is kind of frustrating, FYI).</comment>


"Always on" Microsoft creative director no longer with company. - <AUTHOR> http://www.polygon.com/2013/4/10/4209912/microsoft-creative-director-that-sparked-always-on-controversy-no

<comment><USER2> Assuming he was pushed out to try and save grace with the public;

I'd say a well worded apology would have been a better approach.

Pushing the guy out doesn't really help their public image.

<comment><USER3> Microsoft issued apologies in some places. However they have not communicated on the guy since then.

I think that what's everyone is waiting for is the confirmation on the "always on" subject. And Microsoft silence about it is very worrying.</comment></comment>


VW Needs Hardware Fix for 3M Engines in Diesel Recall - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-22/vw-needs-hardware-fix-for-3-million-engines-in-diesel-recall <comment><USER2> I like how in these articles owners are never mentioned. Will they suck it up quietly?</comment>


Java has become the most popular language for Open source - <AUTHOR> https://www.ohloh.net/languages/compare?measure=commits&percent=true&l0=c&l1=html&l2=java&l3=php&l4=python&l5=ruby&l6=-1&commit=Update

<comment><USER2> I wonder what language would it be when all the cruft is trimmed? Probably C/++ or Python.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not that obvious if you add C++ to the list on the right.

</comment><comment><USER4> More or less it has remain the same.</comment>


Hackers hit D.C. police closed-circuit camera network, city officials disclose - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/hackers-hit-dc-police-closed-circuit-camera-network-city-officials-disclose/2017/01/27/d285a4a4-e4f5-11e6-ba11-63c4b4fb5a63_story.html <comment><USER2> > City officials said ransomware left police cameras unable to record between > Jan. 12 and Jan. 15. The cyberattack affected 123 of 187 network video > recorders in a closed-circuit TV system for public spaces across the city, > the officials said late Friday.

> Sercet Service spokesman Brian Ebert said the safety of the public or > protectees was never jeopardized.

Which implies that we're perfectly safe without these systems.

<comment><USER3> In the short term...

<comment><USER4> always. Someone watching cameras of people driving isn't going to do anything to "make us safer". It was never about public safety.

<comment><USER2> But it may be about keeping those in power safe from the public.

<comment><USER5> And here we thought that "public safety" was about keeping the public safe, while actually they were talking about keeping themselves safe from the public.

<comment><USER6> In Washington DC, public safety is more focused on the safety of most importantly the president, followed by elected officials like congressmen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > On Jan. 12 D.C. police noticed four camera sites were not functioning > properly and told OCTO. The technology office found two forms of ransomware > in the four recording devices and launched a citywide sweep of the network > where they found more infected sites, said Vemulapalli.

This is interesting, because it suggests (to me) that the systems were note specifically targeted because they were part of the CCTV system but were instead caught up in a broader wholesale ransomware attack on whatever system the attackers could get their hands on?

I'm not sure if an un-targeted attack is more or less concerning than a targeted attack. One could of course make a "they should take more care with purportedly critical systems" statement. But the un-targeted scenario implies that a targeted attack on the system could be much more devastating.

<comment><USER8> If it was targeted and they wanted to disrupt it during the inauguration. I'd think they would've had it lay dormant right up until the inauguration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If cities want to protect their citizens from authoritarian oppression of their residents, they should start dismantling the mass surveillance systems.

Who knows what the next Executive Order will suddenly implement.

<comment><USER10> > If cities want to protect their citizens from authoritarian oppression of > their residents

Why would they want that? They worked hard to reach their current positions, and may have grander ambitions still...

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is it safe to assume all these networks have been pwned by, at a minimum, the Russians, Chinese and Israelis as well as, in all likelihood, a not- insignificant number of tech-savvy criminal syndicates.

<comment><USER7> It sounds pretty plausible. But, I'm not sure what benefit that gives them? The article says the cameras are trained on public spaces. So in principle they (China, Russia, etc.) could get the same information by having an agent just hang out there (yeah, I know, the same can be said for the DC Police). So pwning the CCTV cameras probably doesn't give them access to any sensitive or novel information.

<comment><USER12> If you have access you can probably disrupt or modify things when the need arises (making this kind of system even more pointless for their declared purpose than they already are).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> An under appreciated assumption about building out comprehensive surveillance is that one will never lose control of it.

<comment><USER14> And that a businessman with vested interests could take over it

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> > An investigation into the source of the hack continues, said Vemulapalli, > who said the intrusion was confined to the police CCTV cameras that monitor > public areas and did not extend deeper into D.C. computer networks.

I'm skeptical of this. These types of cameras typically have a cell/LTE internet connection that should be dropping all inbound requests and connect to some sort of a back end via VPN. Its possible that they weren't set up to drop inbound connections from the internet, but it seems much more likely that they were hacked from deeper in the network.

<comment><USER16> > should be dropping all inbound requests

But then they never would've been able to detect the ransomware! How can we make sure our systems are secure if we can't audit them, and how can we audit our systems if we can't SSH in, and how can we meaningfully SSH in if we can only do it from the office and not from employee computers at home? /sarcasm

<comment><USER15> Techs can VPN in from home if nessecary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> You can read more about the CCTV cameras on the MPDC website. It does a decent job explaining why the cameras are useful, which was informative for me and I believe would be informative for other commenters as well.

[https://mpdc.dc.gov/page/mpdcs-closed-circuit-television- cct...](https://mpdc.dc.gov/page/mpdcs-closed-circuit-television-cctv-system#)

</comment><comment><USER18> Anyone else watch Person of Interest and think exactly what I'm thinking?</comment>


Must-See Movies for Entrepreneurs - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.hbr.org/tjan/2010/03/mustsee-movies-for-entrepreneu.html <comment><USER2> A poor list. I would recommend 'Pirates of Silicon Valley' for anyone interested in a dramatisation of the intertwined histories of Apple and Microsoft (honestly, it's better than it sounds...): <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122/>

</comment><comment><USER3> I think a great movie for all entrepreneurs is "Pursuit of Happyness": <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0454921/>

For those that didn't know, it's based on a true story of a homeless black man that became a millionaire entrepreneur: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_gardner>

</comment><comment><USER4> What about Glengarry Ross? "'Cause only one thing counts in this world: get them to sign on the line which is dotted."

<comment><USER5> Great movie about a business subculture... but if your model relies on a bullpen of stressed-out, commissioned salespeople, it might better fit a large mature business, rather than a new venture.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The documentaries "E-Dreams" and "Startup.com" are more relevant to HN: <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0262021/> <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/>

</comment><comment><USER7> Kind'of old, but Start-Up.com <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startup.com> does capture the hubris of dot-com era nicely. Also good lessons on founder friendships and how NOT to sign a term sheet.

<comment><USER8> The scene with the term sheet was my favorite. So revealing.

<comment><USER9> The smartest person was the co-founder who quit early on :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> You don't need to see uplifting stories about people pursuing their dreams, you need to watch movies about kicking ass, like Gladiator or 300. Or maybe you need to watch uplifting stories about people pursuing their dream of kicking a lot of ass.

<comment><USER11> Rocky?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> A recent BBC film/drama called Micro Men chronicled the rise of Sinclair and Acorn and their intense rivalry. They dramatized the recruitment, design, engineering, marketing and financial operations of the two companies. It was a superb production.

</comment><comment><USER13> Forget that list. New list:

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, The Bank Job, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Sneakers, Pirates of Silicon Valley, Into the Wild, In Bruges, Defiance, Blues Brothers 2000, American Gangster, Across the Universe, A Beautiful Mind.

<comment><USER7> Oh, Sneakers. Sleeper-hold issues aside (Busfield was so miss-cast as a heavy) that is one amazing movie.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've heard "Tucker: A Man and His Dream" with Jeff Bridges is good.

</comment><comment><USER15> Back when I was a young lad, I would pop in The Matrix DVD and pretend I was Neo coding away, lasted 3 years until Revolutions came out and killed that dream...

<comment><USER11> You must be mistaken. The Matrix didn't have any sequels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Rounders.

</comment><comment><USER16> how about Objectified <http://www.objectifiedfilm.com/> \- just to get their heads around the importance of design.

<comment><USER9> It's a really good documentary, and I understand what you are saying, but it is for people who already realize the importance of the design.

<comment><USER16> These days, if you are a entrepreneur then you better come to realize the importance of design.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Ugh. 20 years ago this same guy probably would have recommended Kids Incorporated.

Does anybody remember that documentary about suck.com?</comment>


Unilever makes strategic investment in Malaysia's TheLorry - <AUTHOR> https://www.techinasia.com/unilever-strategic-investment-malaysias-thelorry <comment><USER2> Great to see that big corporations are now fueling startups. This is a game changer.</comment>


Why Game Developers Keep Getting Laid Off - <AUTHOR> http://kotaku.com/why-game-developers-keep-getting-laid-off-1583192249 <comment><USER2> This relates only to a particular type of games - the ones that are shipped and forgot, or the ones that need minimum upkeep costs. So, perfectly understandable, and this is (almost) analogous to complaining why some hotel staffs 30 during winter instead of 100 people during the summer season.

As a game company owner myself, I've found a way to do efficient damage control (with regards to morale) on this - announce the "cuts" as early as project pitch! It's not incomprehensible that you know how many people you'll need for the game's upkeep and how many for development stage. Throw an "if game is successful" and "if game is !successful" clause in there, and that way everyone knows what's the playing ground for your game.

I've noticed that these policies of mine have attracted fast-moving employees, the ones that will find it perfectly understandable if I, right now, scrapped every project and said goodbye to everyone. Which, in game industry, is a frequent occurence.

<comment><USER3> Isn't this more or less how movies get made in Hollywood? You're always hired just for a particular project? (Going by memory here, may be way off.)

<comment><USER4> The difference is that Hollywood is up front about it and you sign temporary contract etc. Game companies tend to sign normal employment contracts, promiss long term employment and heaven, exploit you during development and fire you later on (occasionally just before you would collect benefits).

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that game developers did not used to be hired for one project in the past. It is a thing of last years. They used to be hired by company and worked on multiple games there. Bad development practices used to be norm all the time through.

Which does not apply to parent who is up front about the whole thing.

<comment><USER2> Exactly. It's about non-delusional financial projections and transparency of business leadership. So, management.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've worked in the AAA game industry and there are many factors. When you break down the interests of companies this seems like just a product of economic self-interest, financial risk, volatility, and publisher/studio relationships.

But the truth is that the practices of industries are often based on what the employees are willing to take. Employees in the game industry will come back after being fired ... and fired again. They won't quit their job even though they work 80+ hours a week for months on end. In other industries, this would never fly, and practices that assume you can do this to employees would have never caught on, because the employees in (many) other industries won't as consistently take that abuse.

The practices of the gaming industry have, over the years, formed around this fact of nature about the employees. None of it would be this way if employees weren't willing to take the abuse in the first place.

<comment><USER6> But I'm guessing that a lot of these devs are really interested in x genre, but they're working in y genre, so why do they take the abuse? Is there just a huge over supply of game devs?

<comment><USER7> > Is there just a huge over supply of game devs?

Bingo. Too many people think being good at playing games means they are good at making games.

<comment><USER6> Do the ones who are __actually __good at making games get treated better? Is this just at the lower / junior levels?

<comment><USER5> Nope.

Edit: Although QA probably gets treated the worst, and many programmers/designers use QA as a way to get their foot in the door.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wouldn't one solution to this problem be telecommuting combined with contract based model. You put a team together for a project, work the project, and let every one know up front that this is a temporary gig, not a permanent job. Like in the movie industry. But the twist is, you embrace a telecommuting model, allowing developers to move from project to project without having to move from house to house.

This would also make it much easier to rehire people who worked for you before, providing continuity to the games, and increasing level of code reuse. I know it's not a steady job, but perhaps it's a fair compromise. Also, this would allow the video game industry to keep older talent, as developers would be able to have a more flexible schedule and live in more family friendly suburban neighborhoods.

Just an idea....

<comment><USER9> Remote contractors are heavily leveraged in the game industry. It's not a solution; it usually makes things worse.

<comment><USER7> I can't see how game devs can work remotely in any practical sense. It can't be easy pushing gigabytes of assets down the Internet.

<comment><USER10> Keep the data on the internet instead of working locally, using tools such as [http://clara.io](http://clara.io).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Layoffs aren't a problem. There will be a new generation of young freshman whom greatest desire is to be a video game developer. The non unionized guys will work 140 hours a week. Have a great salary for someone so young. And get their layoff when they get older and can't stand more this.

<comment><USER12> Spoken like a person who has never so much as sniffed what the world is like in "AAA Game Development".

Imagine what a product like Facebook or Mac OS would look like, if after every major release, 2/3rds or the entire team were laid off, and a fresh batch of bright eager young talent was put in the chairs at a cheaper wage than the last crop, unaware of the doom riding on the horizon.

Do you know why every EA franchise seems to tank over time, until it's eventually killed? Because the people who made it originally are gone, replaced by a bunch of guys who are told "Make it work like the last one, but the market says it needs to be more action-y, so do that too." The people on the new team weren't there the first time around, and so they wind up making a faded copy of a game trying to imitate the predecessor. Eventually the game loses all of the heart, passion, and competency that made it a great game in the first place.

In the software world, we know the benefit of building a strong team. People learn to work with each other, and people learn to work with the product, knowing it inside and out. They're able to make the product the best it can be. That doesn't seem to matter in the world of games to publishers. They see the people who build the games as disposable fodder, because as you say there will always be a new generation whose greatest desire is to be a game developer.

Sure. Publishers don't see layoffs as a problem. It's become part of their business model by now. But from where I sit, you can only disenfranchise so many people, until you've killed your golden goose who makes building the product for you possible in the first place.

And this is directly why we've seen the rise of indie games. Every time they piss one of us off, we slowly start to realize we don't need them anymore.

\-- A laid of game developer, with a foreclosed home.

<comment><USER13> I think you might have misunderstood neves' post. You seem to largely agree with it.

<comment><USER12> "Layoffs aren't a problem."

They are _the_ problem. See Dead Space's decline until it was given the ax. See the constant eb and tide of Need for Speed, as they play developer hot potato with the title. See the rambling incoherent mess that are Medal of Honor and Battlefield, the original marquee warfare titles, that don't even know what kind of game they want to try to imitate anymore because they forgot what they were.

In my mind and experience, these can all be directly attributed to EA's policy of killing everyone at the end of the dev cycle. It's like every sequel is started from scratch, when you have to spin the new team up every time.

But that's ok, because "when they get older and can't stand more this" they'll move on, right? You mean six to twenty-four months older, depending on when they joined the project. If they're lucky, they can parlay that experience in to signing on with another developer. But the constant layoffs mean that not only is your pool of competition for the job full of young bucks fresh out of Guildhall and Full Sail, but also full of desperate people just like you. People who felt safe enough in their so called tenure to dare to do things like try to start families or own homes, to live a life to accompany that dream.

Lay offs and the ideal of living the dream of games are creating an over- saturation in the market that is going to have some dire consequences down the road. We already see this today in real time, as the money continues to consolidate at the top, and developers are left dead in the ditch. Terminal Reality. Lucas Arts. Vigil. Time Gate. Studios with long rich histories, full of talented people who made a lot of great games, many of whom I knew... gone.

Stand here and tell me lay offs are not a problem, when I've had to listen to their pleas of what they're going to do now with no job, and a baby on the way. When another great game is taken from the world, because the focus groups didn't respond the right way, so you all can line up at the unemployment line. Stories and worlds we'll never be able to enjoy, because someone decided that they had enough of trying to live this way, and the dream died with their career.

Explain to me how that is not going to have a long and damaging impact on this industry, when the people who make fun aren't having fun anymore.

<comment><USER4> "Being Indie is even harder, and only a very small fraction of indie devs actually make money."

Only a fraction of big games makes money. Big game studios are falling right and left. The thing is, if you can develop games, you can develop other things too - and those jobs invariably offer much better conditions and pay.

<comment><USER14> > The thing is, if you can develop games, you can develop other things too - > and those jobs invariably offer much better conditions and pay.

Yeah, but I guess you miss something important: people make games because they enjoy doing that instead of social apps or server-side applications. And the fun factor also has value that is not always related to how much you make.

I've seen the same thing in other industries: people with high tech skills quitting and going to a complete different occupation where they actually make less money, just because they see it as a more worthwhile pursuit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> _It 's weirdly common to hear about people getting laid off from the same company more than once—i.e., they get laid off, rehired, and laid off again in a span of two or three years_

It's not too weird. This was how factories used to work on a regular basis. Guys would work for 8 months, get laid off, get unemployment for 2 months and lay around the house bugging their wives, then get called back again. Repeat until retirement. The supply chain techniques have improved so that doesn't happen very much now.

<comment><USER16> Which country/time period? Across much of Europe for much of the 20th century, trying to do that would bring your entire workforce out on strike.

<comment><USER7> That strongly resembles life of an oil-rigger. 6 months hard labour, 6 months vacation, rinse, repeat.

<comment><USER17> The key here is that it's vacation, not being laid off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Game developers keep getting laid off for the same reason game developers generally earn lower salaries and have worse working conditions than other people in this industry: a robust oversupply of potential labor.

These companies can replace their entire development staff regularly. That is, of course, the successful ones can. Developers at smaller places are laid off when their studios are bought by the sharks or fail to achieve any success in the market.

<comment><USER19> Yeah, I had a friend a few years younger than me say he wanted to get into game development. I told him the horror stories that many devs work all the time, get paid little and don't even have time to play games.

His response?

"I don't care. I'll do whatever it takes."

<comment><USER20> This is the key. You wouldn't want to be a game dev for the same reason you wouldn't open a surfboard shop or depend on your band to pay the bills. To much in the way of virtually unpaid competition.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This sounds like like _one of the few_ problems that can really be solved by unionizing workers and moving to long term work contracts... but good luck selling this "socialist" mentality to game developers :)

<comment><USER22> lol. Game studios shut down left and right. Almost every game studio in existence lives project to project. Most live paycheck to paycheck. You can unionize all you want but when there's no money there's no money.

This isn't a tale of fat cats getting rich at the expense of the little man. It's a brutal industry where most games don't ship and most games that do ship still lose money. All of us who work in the industry are mildly insane to do so.

<comment><USER21> so then the problem is more in a pathological game-dev-studio to publisher relationships? or are most studios too small to have a bunch of running projects at the same time?

...because the industry as a whole, on average, surely makes enough money to actually keep people employed even for the short periods when they aren't needed. What the OP describes is simply exploitation.

The only alternative conclusion to draw would be that _the game dev industry attracts more talented programmers than it can support,_ but this sounds like a dubious claim. _I doubt talented programmers are so attracted to game dev_ to actually saturate the sector with cheap and high quality labor...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> >>The average yearly salary for game developers, according to a Gamasutra study, was $84,000 in 2013.

I just got hired as a junior programmer at a large studio(one of the largest in the world in fact) and I make ~$30k a year - wonder where they get their numbers from, or if maybe the market in the US is better(I am in the UK).

<comment><USER24> That's low for any programming job. My first job out of university was $42k.

Where about are you based?

<comment><USER23> I know it's low - and everyone is telling me that "that's how games industry is like". Both me and my girlfriend finished the exact same course at uni, and I got my dream job in games industry, making £18k a year, and she got a job in BT, making £30k a year. It's in the North East of England.

<comment><USER24> I know the North East doesn't demand London salaries but even here in the North West you can get more than £20k as a junior.

I guess it depends on your priorities. Are you learning a lot? Do you enjoy it? etc.

<comment><USER23> I do enjoy it, I get to work on a game that sells millions of copies per year, and I currently have every single devkit(Xbox 360,Xbox One, PS4, Wii, Wii U) right on my desk and I get to work with them,which I always found exciting. So yeah, I am working at my dream job, because I always wanted to get into the games industry. I am just saying that in any other industry, I could literally be making £10k more/year, which means that in a way, I am paying almost a £1000 a month just to have the privilege of working in the games industry.

<comment><USER25> £18k (€22.2k, or 1850 €/month) for a programmer is significantly less than what you'd get in Germany or Austria for the same position. My very first job in the game industry paid almost 50% more than that & that was some years ago.

I believe in Austria the legal minimum (from the Kollektivvertrag) you can get paid as a programmer is 2.1k €/month, 14 times a year (so €29.4k/year) and most people start above that minimum.

<comment><USER24> Can English only speakers find jobs in Germany/Austria?

<comment><USER26> Yes! (in Germany)

<comment><USER25> Also in Austria, or most anywhere in western europe for this matter (might be different in a couple of renownedly monolingual countries like Italy or France but definitelly anywhere in the map [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic- speaking_Europe](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic-speaking_Europe)).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Couldn't this problem be solved by a shift to a video game consulting industry ?

In tech companies it's quite common to have a period of 'inter contract' between two missions where you can do trainings or even self training. Is the video game market hostile to this kind of organisation or has it just not been tested yet ?

<comment><USER28> I considered that option too - consultants or freelancers or the like with less rigid contracts - however, the cost for those would be exponentially that of the young easy to hire developers; hourly rates at least twice as high, which doubles if you make them work double hours during crunch hours.

In-house developers work for a flat annual salary, and IIRC most game development companies don't pay overtime whilst demanding devs work overtime during crunch time.

But game dev extortion is a known problem, and the other problem is that people take it. Working in the video game industry is a dream for a lot of people, and they're willing to take a lot of shit for the perceived privilege to work on the things they love.

And the weirdest part? The actual development of a video game is often only a small part of the total cost package; iirc, games like the Call of Duty series cost more in marketing than the actual development.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> It's a strange language when "getting laid" and "getting laid off" mean such different things.

<comment><USER30> Yeah,as a foreigner ,it's hard, never know what to put after a verb to get the right meaning,let's take "to go".

to go on,go back,go off,go around,go by

have a different meaning...that's the most difficult part of the english language imho,now you can use a different verb for each expression,but it wouldnt feel idiomatic.

At the same time,it makes english composable and easy to extend,it cannot work with my language.I wonder if other languages work like that too.

<comment><USER31> Most Germanic languages have constructs similar to English´s phrasal verbs. Learning them, for a foreigner, is really difficult (I know, because I spend most of my time teaching English to Spanish students). I actually just released the Android app I´ve been building to help with this. I didn´t think it was worthy of a Show HN post, but now seems a good time to mention it: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.phrasalver...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.phrasalverbworld)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> The Curt Schilling story has always fascinated me (the video game part, not the baseball one).

I live in Ontario and like a lot of other place, Ontario gives pretty large tax incentives to video game companies. I've interacted a bit with some small video game companies here who basically seem to only exist because of the various tax incentives (both federal and provincial). I've pretty much decided these aren't a good idea, but politicians think video games are cool.

<comment><USER33> I remember when I first herd about him and his company. As an Australian I didn't know who Curt Schilling was so in my mind it was a guy who got a lot of tax benefits and money to build an MMO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> A good friend of mine has worked in the games industry for over a decade now. He worked on the Spore project at EA. It was insane how many hours he put in while on-project. He'd have to answer his phone at _any_ time, and sometimes drop whatever he was doing to trudge back into work. At the end of a three month crunch, he said he'd spend about two weeks just dicking around at work, sort of an informal comp-time system. I remember the "EA spouse" incident, and by the sound of it, my friend was on one of the 'good' teams.

I once asked him why game developers don't get any royalties, since there was a time when that was at least not unheard of. He insisted that it would just cause people to game the system, with lazy people trying to get on the money- making teams. Personally, I fail to see how that's not always the case, everywhere, anyway. I think he's simply drunk the Kool-Aid and bought the line that upper management fed him in order to maximize their profits.

</comment><comment><USER20> >Several of the developers who contacted me for this story said they were fed up with layoff cycles and had left the video game industry entirely. Some told tales of endless relocations and unreasonable hours, and bragged that in their new fields, they were paid more to work less.

Yeah... this isn't exactly news. You work in the gaming industry because you love video games. It's not a career. It's a job you do when you have youth and health and minimum entanglements. When you get married or get older or get just plain sick of working around the clock for not much money then it's time to look around for something more stable and remunerative.

It's ridiculous to compare video game industry jobs with Big Grey Financial Company. If you want comparisons, look at the movie industry, where people get together to work on a project and then all get laid off when it's done.

<comment><USER35> The comparison with the movie industry is obvious, but what about retaining skill and knowledge, which is vital in the software industry?

The tools people use in the movie industry are commodities with relatively slow innovation. People can get by on more or less the same skill set they had 15 years ago, and once the movie has been shot, virtually nobody has gained any new knowledge.

The game industry has to considerably up their game (no pun intended) with every new release. The only way they can keep up the movie-style cycle if a company producing a new game can pick up developers just laid off by someone else.

I doubt if that is sustainable in the long run. At some point hiring new devs with very recent experience will become more expensive than retaining knowledge.

The game industry will always have more dramatic cycles because any company is as successful as their last game, but the current state of affairs just reeks of immaturity.

<comment><USER14> > The comparison with the movie industry is obvious, but what about retaining > skill and knowledge, which is vital in the software industry?

Well at the same time the technologies you used to make the game you worked on 2 years ago are probably going to be obsolete in the new game you'd be hired to work on. There's only a few jobs in the game industry where highly specialized, technical people are valued and retained. And there's a ton of talent pool to pick up fresh people from out there who are decent at what they do - probably more than there are jobs for them.

Look at Mercury Steam, they had no experience doing a AAA game (unless you consider Jericho one of them, but I'd say it was rather average in scope), and yet they managed to convince Konami they could do a reboot of Castlevania and they did it pretty well without much prior experience in the similar genre or scope.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Isn't the bigger issue here that game developers have been underpaid for many years? They are usually exceptional programmers who would be getting much higher salaries (and much better working conditions) elsewhere, so getting laid off would not be such a dramatic experience due to savings etc..

</comment><comment><USER37> _> But inertia is hard to fight. How do you convince a multi-billion-dollar industry to change practices that prioritize short-term profit over long-term morale_

How does it compare to smaller studios, for example those which use crowdfunding (inXile, Larian etc.), or even bigger ones but self sustained, not relying on external publishers such as CD Projekt Red for example? Are their practices better than those of the big and nasty companies like EA and Co.?

<comment><USER38> Obviously, I don't know all of them but CD Projekt is not any different than any other publisher funded (owned or funded on a per project basis) developer I worked for in the decade I spent in gamedev.

There's little incentive in keeping your staff - there is never a shortage of younger people who will work for next to nothing and stay at the office till midnight, doing 80 hour weeks. You'd think that the owners would realise that more senior devs doing 40 hours would be a better ROI but we are talking about people who plan for crunch - it's not done in an emergency, it's planned for, literally, like in a spreadsheet.

<comment><USER37> Are you familiar with CD Projekt Red or you just assume it? From what I've heard about the company they value their developers and in general they are quite different from your typical EA and Co. type of company and have more common sense. For instance they are strongly against any DRM.

<comment><USER38> My friends work there. The games industry is tiny. After 10 years I probably know at least one person in every company in the UK simply because of how often people change companies - including going to a different country they don't even speak the language of. So OK, kudos to CD Projekt for hiring from an international talent pool (and treating them well, helping with the move and all that which is rare in gamedev companies who seldom have rich compensation packages beyond the salary) but they are not some hippie commune and will scale the workforce to whatever they need at the moment.

<comment><USER37> What I meant is, do you know if CDPR are often firing developers to hire new ones just in order to rotate them? Or they value their input and invest in those who work for them?

They had financial difficulties in the past. They wrote how they almost went bust a while ago, while developing the Witcher 2. I don't think that's the subject of this thread.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> If they drive off the hardcore gaming community by adding more and more casual elements like _pay for win_ , double-DRM and dumped down gameplay, the franchise will go downhill.

For example open world games usually center around vehicles to move around vast amount of map-terrain. You can make the driving physics (the central gameplay element) arcady and fun (like GTA San Andreas) or realistic and still fun (like GTA 4 or Mafia 1+2). Or you don't care and get the driving mechanics mediocre like most such games (GTA V, Watch Dogs, Sleeping Dogs, Need for Speed, etc.)

<comment><USER40> I can't understand why this comment has been downvoted. It seems like a controversial but valid opinion. What are the specific objections?

<comment><USER41> It's off-topic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I think developers/designers or any type of creative work that involves using the computer need a union of some sort. Artists have it, Writers have it, why not the tech crowd?

<comment><USER40> I see you have been downvoted, but I've increasingly been of that opinion. I see developers being screwed over all the time by big corporations - as an example, Apple and Google with illegal agreements not to poach each other's workers. A union, IMO, would have helped.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> employment is a scam</comment>


Fee-free payments with the Droplet API (UK only) - <AUTHOR> https://dropletpay.com/blog/fee-free-payments-with-the-droplet-api

<comment><USER2> So how does this work? Someone must be paying for it somehow right?

<comment><AUTHOR> Our business model is based on making revenue from other products which we sell to our merchants. Our core payment service will always be fee-free.

<comment><USER2> Excellent stuff. That's the answer I was looking for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Co-founder here. We're really keen to get UK-based engineers on the beta, so please get in touch if you're interested.

<comment><USER3> You might have some problems with that as a lot of UK-based engineers will have rooted devices! I'm excluded from this because your FAQs say I'm not allowed to install your app on my rooted Android phone.

Also, just a little thing that bothered me: the pins on the map you have on your website don't display the location's details when they're clicked on. It'd be nice to see at a glance the kind of merchants I could use this at.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey! We say 'not allowed' to protect ourselves. A rooted device (thinking iOS here) may have less protection against malware installation and could be a MITM attack vector. It still works, we're just saying it might not be a good idea.

You're right about the map pins. Hooking our public site up to the merchant data API is in the to-do list, we'll get to it. :)

<comment><USER3> Awesome!

Psst, this would be ideal for taxis! ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Title says "free-free", rather than "fee-free" :) looks awesome Will, hope it goes well

<comment><AUTHOR> _edits_ ooops, thanks! :D</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Personal Relocation Research Services - <AUTHOR> When I search for the term, I basically come up with moving companies. So, I am failing to find research services for this space. Am I just searching the wrong phrase?
I see questions on the internet fairly often regarding "help me pick a spot to move." Are there research services in this space already?
If not, do you have any thoughts on developing a price point, etc?
Thanks. <comment><USER2> I'm not sure that this help, but here is a quote from [https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/05/12/strategy- letter-i-...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/05/12/strategy-letter-i-ben- and-jerrys-vs-amazon/)

> _If your new star programmer isn't getting a lot of work done because they > are busy setting up their new house and relocating, hire a high class > relocation service to do it for them._

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, but that isn't at all what I am talking about. I am talking about a research service, not a moving service.

If you have ever participated on Metafilter's AskMe, it is fairly common for people to post a question along the lines of "I have this list of criteria for where I want to live. What cities match it?"

Of course, AskMe is a free service. Answers are provided by bored people hanging out online who like answering questions. It is incredibly common for people to answer such questions with "Oh, you should move to (city I live in currently or have lived in)."

But I have a certificate in GIS and I am a former military wife. I have done a lot of moving and I am good at this kind of research based on actual objective data and stated criteria.

I use sites like City Data and Best Places to do some of my research and I know of sites that will let you fill out a form and get a list of cities spit back at you, such as this (which may be dead): [http://www.findyourspot.com](http://www.findyourspot.com)

But I do not know of any service that will do custom research for you and give you, say, three cities that fit your criteria as closely as possible.

I enjoy doing this kind of research. I would like to create a paid service to do this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Not sure if this exists. I wouldnt think to even look for such a thing. I would assume most people move for work, other than software engineers.

Not sure about price, I do have some thoughts about marketing however.

You will need to assure people that you have their best interests at heart. That you aren't pushing people to places that give you the best commission, like people think about job recruiters.

You would also need to convince people that you are an expert on a variety of subjects. Local culture, schools, job availability for a given career, weather, house price. Just to name a few.

I might start out with a cheap app, where they can enter basic preferences: job or jobs they work, if schools are important, house price range/ratio of salary to house, rural vs city. Then I would upsell them to consulting services where you address things like culture, ways that the location is different from where you are, etc.

Sorry if I couldn't be more help.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks.

Based on firsthand personal experience of doing this sort of research for myself, I am thinking of posting a questionnaire and a price for finding X number of cities or metro areas that fit.

Here is my completely empty website: [http://personalizedrelocationresearch.blogspot.com](http://personalizedrelocationresearch.blogspot.com)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I did write a thank you note today aimed at folks who replied here:

[http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2017/04/grumpily- sto...](http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2017/04/grumpily-stomps-off- ftw.html)</comment>


U.S. Steps Up Probe Of Hiring In Tech - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304703104575174293867620832.html

<comment><USER2> > Skilled computer scientists with some management responsibilities, for > instance, often make base salaries of $180,000 to $210,000.

Really? Where? Is that in USD?

<comment><USER3> I don't think this is rare at big companies especially when taking into account stock grants and bonuses. With stock grants engineer salaries can reach the lower end of this range from what I have seen.

<comment><USER4> It says _base_ though. (Apparently I should be sorting out a raise!)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a duplicate of: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1255097></comment>


PSA: Please visit the /newest page - <AUTHOR>

Right now so few people visit the newest page that it is somewhat random what content will actually make it to the front page.  I personally have had the same content submitted at different times be ignored once, then live on the front page for eighteen hours after being posted again.  Also, it takes so few votes to make it to the front page (2-6), that it is easy for people to game by having a handful of friends upvote their post.
When you're browsing please take a minute or two to visit the new page, click through a few links, and upvote what seems relevant and interesting to you.
http://news.ycombinator.com/newest <comment><USER2> I quit going to /newest once I lost my flagging privileges [0]. I found value in flagging spam, but once I could no longer do that, my contribution to the community was solely voting on stories that had already hit the front page.

[0] You lose flagging privileges permanently if you flag often in a short period of time. There was some major story in which there were 20+ dupes of every story (maybe Snowden's first day or two IIRC). I lost my flagging privileges after flagging too many duplicates.

So be careful about flagging in /newest

<comment><USER3> Does the flag option just gray out or what happens

<comment><USER2> It's just not there anymore.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I also stopped going to /newest after I lost flagging privileges (on that day where 25 NSA stories were on the front page at once, as well as filling every slot on the /newest page).

Shame, since I used to enjoy the occasional spam flagging / new story upvoting session. Now that I can't actually offer any help there, it's not really worth going back.

<comment><USER2> How unexpected - I just noticed today that my flagging privileges have been unceremoniously returned. I'm assuming that it's because of this thread but that may not be true. Did you get yours back perchance?

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Funny - I thought the "new" link up in the top menu took you to /new/ and that you were telling us about an even newer page. Where's my coffee...

</comment><comment><USER5> The HN voting ring detector is so strict, I doubt people successfully game the system consistently.

<comment><USER6> It happens all the time, I'd go far as hazarding a guess that the majority of the non-generic articles that get to the front page are gamed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hey, you're not alone :)

</comment><comment><USER8> The irony is that almost no one will read this.</comment>


Feeling the Pressure to Drink for Work - <AUTHOR> http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/01/feeling-the-pressure-to-drink-for-work/?src=rechp

<comment><USER2> I drink very little and the effect of that on other people is quite marked. It's seems to be seen as some sort of judgement of people if you drink nothing or very little compared to them.</comment>


Apple up, Android flat in smartphone growth - <AUTHOR> http://www.loopinsight.com/2011/06/30/apple-up-android-flat-in-smartphone-growth/ <comment><USER2> Nielson's data: [http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/in-us- smar...](http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/in-us-smartphones- now-majority-of-new-cellphone-purchases/)

Nielson's analysis is equally bad. FTA, "Android share of recent acquirers flattened in 2011; Apple is now driving smartphone growth." This is simply not true. Android is still grabbing the largest portion of new smartphone users.

<comment><USER3> The analysis and wording are misleading, but I find it hard to believe that no one identifies the Verizon iPhone launch as a motivator for these numbers. There's a clear stall in new smartphone user iPhone purchases that starts right after WSJ announced the Verizon iPhone launch. There's also a clear spike when the Verizon iPhone launch occurred.

I guess you could say Apple's departments handling marketing and Verizon launch details are driving smartphone adoption.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This: <http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/?p=28237>

Is a lot more helpful. There's still a lot of market to cover, so it's not like iOS and Android are cannibalizing each others sales yet.

<comment><USER5> The difference between the titles is very interesting: "Apple up, Android flat in smartphone growth" vs the original "_In US_, Smartphones Now Majority of New Cellphone Purchases". Yes, the US market is big, but not the only one. [http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/06/andy- rubin-500000-and...](http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/06/andy- rubin-500000-android-activations-daily/)

<comment><USER6> The big story, IMO, looking at the charts is that smartphone growth all-up stalled (flat between Q1 and Q2). Maybe the first Q2Q stall in growth in years.

I'd like to know why people aren't getting smartphones? Is the cost of the data plans? If so, I think we may see growth in this market segment slow down a lot faster than some people expect.

<comment><USER7> I think that's because they are selling them as pocket computers, and a lot of people don't care about having another computer. Those who did already got them.

<comment><USER8> Actually, my experience is that a lot of people are getting smartphones that hate their computer and rarely use it, and just want a good phone.

My mother got an iPhone, not because she wanted lots of apps, but because the user interface was simple enough to understand and use for making phone calls, and because she never figured out the T9 stuff. I was quite surprised when I discovered that she'd figured out how to use Safari on her own.

Some other friends got an iPhone after buying and iPod touch for watching videos and listening to music while commuting, and gradually discovered that it was pointless carrying around two devices.

So the potential market is very big IMO, and only limited to how far down the price can be pushed. Of course, there will always be a big market for "non"-smartphones, as these will get cheaper as well and reach even more people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The number I care about (which I haven't been able to find, not that I looked very hard) is how many unique (per user) app installations there were per month for each platform. The number of users is only useful if users of all platforms install apps at the same rate, which my intuition says is not true.

Many android phones are sold as "the nice phone that you can get with your 2-year contract" as opposed to an item that the owner sought out explicitly, so they're less likely to explore the full potential of the device.

</comment><comment><USER10> It will be interesting to see what happens on the next iPhone refresh. AT&T is offering the 3gs for "free" with a 2 year contract. If Apple has a replacement that can fit that slot for both AT&T and Verizon, then it will probably do some significant things to the iPhone market share (and seriously accelerate the iPod lines decreasing numbers).

<comment><USER11> Yes, that's definitely the sweet spot. It's hard for Android to sell "cheaper than free". ("free" is far from "free", but it sounds good).

In Canada where the rule is 3 year contracts (and thus free is even more expensive than in the States), I've seen low-end Androids for $0 with 3 year contract, no data plan required and 2 phones + a PS3 for 2 three year contracts.

<comment><USER12> > In Canada where the rule is 3 year contracts (and thus free is even more > expensive than in the States), I've seen low-end Androids for $0 with 3 year > contract, no data plan required and 2 phones + a PS3 for 2 three year > contracts.

True, but Canada has a strangely high iOS adoption rate and carriers are just doing whatever the hell they can to increase that existing 9% of Canadian smartphone users that own Androids. I think it's because they can negotiate better with the individual Android device makers than they can negotiate with Apple or even RIM.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Smartphone statistics are pretty unhelpful when it comes to evaluating iOS because they don't factor in the 100+ million iPads & iPod touches out there. It helps to remember this when reading arguments about the App Store & the Android Market, because it's often forgotten or dismissed.

</comment><comment><USER13> i like Android. Sprint and T-Mobile are already swamped with Android phones. There's no room for growth there. the iPhone is already the best selling smartphone on Verizon after only 4-5 months. [http://allthingsd.com/20110622/whats-the-top-selling- phone-a...](http://allthingsd.com/20110622/whats-the-top-selling-phone-at- verizon-and-att/)

Android should go after AT&T fast.

<comment><USER14> Well of course it's the best selling phone. Apple bets the entire platform on a single phone; Android has a panoply of options competing against each other. If the iPhone were being consistently outsold by any one of the various Android models, that would be a sign that something was going seriously wrong for Apple.

That article merely demonstrates that statistics will tell you anything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I could tell that Android's growth had stalled when people stopped posting nigh-weekly updates of Android's market share on HN.

</comment><comment><USER16> Apple up, Android flat and Microsoft Nowhere in smartphone growth.

</comment><comment><USER17> seems somewhat false..went form 450,000 daily activations in May to 500,000 daily activations in June daily..

<comment><USER18> My understanding is that that rate does not exceed the overall growth of the market, though. So Android activations are growing in absolute numbers, but their portion of "all smartphones sold" is not.</comment></comment>


100 years of celebrating women - <AUTHOR> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/100-years-of-celebrating-women.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FMKuf+%28Official+Google+Blog%29 <comment><USER3> In Soviet Union it was called "International Women's Day". I can't recall, but I don't think it was a public holiday. Anyway, that was the day when you could see a huge amount of men buying flowers for their wifes, mothers, and other women they love :)

Only when I emigrated I found out that it's not so international as I thought it is. The wikipedia page

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Women%27s_Day>

lists all the countries where this day is an official holiday, and it's a bit funny. There's Russia and most of former USSR members, there are some USSR "satellites" or best friends, and also some African countries.

<comment><USER4> I remember having a conversation with some friends related to the benefits of having a Women's day vs just Mothers' day (as they do in US). I prefered Women's day as Mothers' presumes that unless a woman is a mother, she doesn't deserve to be celebrated. Of course I don't see a reason not to have both.

If we are talking about "fairness" the next question is "What about Men's day?" In ex Soviet Union there was Army Day (February the 23rd). Since all men had to serve in the Army that day became the de facto "Men's Day". As service in the Army became volunatry (at least in the country I am from), people just started celebrating that day as Men's Day and disassosiated it from the "army" completely.

<comment><USER5> _I prefered Women's day as Mothers' presumes that unless a woman is a mother, she doesn't deserve to be celebrated._

If a woman works she is celebrated via labor day. If she fights she is celebrated via veterans day. If a woman neither works nor fights nor is a mother, why exactly does she deserve to be celebrated? (the same applies to men too).

<comment><USER4> Because throughout history and even today their rights and voices are suppressed. Even in America they couldn't vote up until 1920s.

It seems as long as there is memory of that oppression, and as long as there are still glass ceilings, or places in the world were women are still oppressed because of their geneder it is worth celebrating this day.

> why exactly does she deserve to be celebrated?

Well we didn't need much reason beyond their gender to oppress them all those years (and still do) so it seems we can at least acknowledge their struggle and suffering if nothing else. Or are you worried about reverse discrimination? "Can't celebrate too much now, they'll get cocky and we'll have to set them in their place again"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Stuff like the maps Pegwoman feature frustrates me. The world would be a better place if, instead of letting Pegwoman join Pegman for a day, it was a gender-neutral 'peg person' (or someing shorter - Peggle? Peggy?) to start with.

The fact that one day of Pegwoman is thought of as a /good/ thing just highlights the problem. Highlighting the problem is not a /bad/ thing - <USER2> not a solution though.

<comment><USER7> And what would a gender-neutral 'peg person' look like?

Probably like pegman. For whatever reason we tend to see homo-sapien-like figures as male, unless they have some specific female markers (I believe).

<comment><USER8> Sources? Biologically, the default state for human embryos is female after all, look up Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome.

<comment><USER7> More a general observation than an attempt to state a fact.

Consider the features which would inform a guess of gender based on only a silhouette:

Skirt, Long hair, Breasts, High heels?

I can only seem to think of attributes whose presence would make me guess Female, and absence would make me guess Male.

I'm open to suggestions of the shape of an androgynous figure, perhaps this is a case of me projecting my though process onto others incorrectly.

<comment><USER9> How about a beard, or some more primary markers?

<comment><USER10> It's not clear you can see a beard in a silhouette.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Chrome 28 arrives with Blink, rich notifications for apps - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/google/2013/07/09/chrome-28-arrives-with-rich-notifications-for-apps-and-extensions-on-windows-mac-and-linux-coming-soon/

<comment><USER2> Every time Firefox introduces a cool new feature, they emphasize how it's standard, or being put into the standardization process, and how every web developer will be able to use it.

Chrome? Not so much. And it isn't just that this news article left something out — the official Chrome blog[1] never hints that this feature will ever work on anything but Chrome.

To me it's uncomfortable how much Google's tactics with Chrome resemble Microsoft's "embrace and extend" from the late 90s. They seem to want everyone to make Chrome apps, not web apps. If that happens, ultimately we all suffer from the loss of an open web.

[1] [http://chrome.blogspot.com/2013/05/richer-notifications- comi...](http://chrome.blogspot.com/2013/05/richer-notifications-coming-to- chrome.html)

<comment><USER3> Part of this communication difference is that the Chrome blog's audience is users, people who aren't concerned with web standards.

The Chromium blog, however, is where the developer story is told. Chrome 28's was covered the same time as the post you link: [http://blog.chromium.org/2013/05/chrome-28-beta-more- immersi...](http://blog.chromium.org/2013/05/chrome-28-beta-more-immersive- web.html) Here, the W3C standard fullscreen API was covered for Android as well as the web standards WebGL and WebRTC being available through about:flags. Then CSP, @supports, Custom Elements.. all standard stuff.

Mozilla does a great job communicating the web standards story of the features they're working on. This definitely inspired the Chrome team when we released Blink, so we worked on [http://chromestatus.com](http://chromestatus.com) to capture the full cross-browser standardization story and give everyone a means to shame Chrome if we're implementing something for the web platform that doesn't have cross-vendor buy in.

There is a lot of exciting APIs available in Chrome Apps but it's certainly not slowing down on the web platform side of things. I would definitely recommend you check out the "Intent to Implement/Ship" threads [1] on blink- dev. Here you can see the activity and discussions around compatibility risk, standardization and responsibly adding new features to the platform.

[1] [https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!topicsearch...](https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!topicsearchin/blink- dev/subject$3Aintent) or spreadsheeted here [http://goo.gl/loaQ5](http://goo.gl/loaQ5)

<comment><USER4> That's great and all, but you didn't address the issue. We're discussing this new notification system that will only ever work properly on Chrome. The latest posts on that chromium blog are even worse:

      1) Richer access to Google services and better OS
         integration in Chrome packaged apps
      -  Identity API - Google only
      -  In App Payments API - Google Wallet only
      -  Analytics API - Google Analytics only
      -  Native Messaging API - The problem we are discussing

      2) Dart - obviously a way to create a two-tier web with
         Chrome being the only option for performance. (You can
         bet it will be incredibly difficult for other browsers
         to package/integrate the Dart VM easily).

Your roundabout answer to this question leaves me very concerned for the future of the web if Google actually thinks this isn't a problem. I do believe it's looking like the only responsible option for an open web is to ditch Chrome and try my best to lower Chrome market share.

We're going to look back on this in 5 years and kick ourselves over letting Google do this. I hate to say it, but Google is now the biggest threat to an open web.

<comment><USER5> >Dart - obviously a way to create a two-tier web with Chrome being the only option for performance. (You can bet it will be incredibly difficult for other browsers to package/integrate the Dart VM easily).

Doesn't the same logic apply to Mozilla's asm.js?

<comment><USER6> asm.js was implemented very quickly, in about a month, and V8 is already implementing optimizations for it (though without "use asm").

<comment><USER7> It's not an optimization for asm.js if you ignore the "use asm". It's just javascript then.

<comment><USER8> Which is what asm.js is mostly. Subset of javascript.

<comment><USER9> No, it's an IR that happens to have an identical representation in JavaScript. But that clever hack gets muddy already with things like Math.imul. And it's going to diverge far more given the demand for e.g. threading, sync primitives, shared memory, and vectored operations. I honestly don't see how asm.js can be made into anything beyond its current demo state without major changes to the JavaScript language and APIs.

<comment><USER6> Those changes would benefit regular JavaScript as well, so it's not a divergence. Regular JavaScript developers are already asking for SIMD (and that's why Dart is implementing it, after all). They were asking for more predictable math operations, and Math.imul is good for that. Threading too. Changes made for asm.js lift all boats.

The parent comment said that asm.js was a subset of JavaScript. You said "no", but none of the things you said contradict that. asm.js is, right now, a subset of JavaScript. Which, of course, is its entire raison d'être.

<comment><USER9> My statement was correct. It's not JavaScript, which is why you use a keyword to switch to a different compiler mode. It's a clever hack to use an equivalent subset of JavaScript as an IR (accepting a few polyfills). However, it's not exactly honest to frame it as "just JavaScript."

What really does worry me is the ugly things that will be necessary to make asm.js genuinely viable as a platform. Yes, some proposals will have general utility for JavaScript, but many will not. And some will be downright dangerous. For example, how are you going to address pthreads compatibility, which e.g. Epic is saying they need?

<comment><USER10> > My statement was correct. It's not JavaScript, which is why you use a > keyword to switch to a different compiler mode.

I'm afraid your statement really wasn't correct. asm.js is both syntactically and semantically JavaScript. OdinMonkey is a pure optimization; any observable divergence in behavior (other than timing, which of course all engines are allowed to do) is a bug that will be fixed. The fact that SpiderMonkey uses a prolog directive (not a keyword), which is also of course valid ECMAScript, to trigger a different kind of optimization does not change the fact that it is a valid implementation of JavaScript.

<comment><USER9> I'm sorry if I'm coming across negatively. It's not my intent. And please don't presume that my concerns about asm.js are in any way tied to projects that other people in Google/Chrome work on, or that I'm entirely supportive of them. That said, I am curious if you really are committing to to future versions of asm.js not using any divergent APIs or observable divergent behavior from JavaScript as used on the web?

<comment><USER10> Diverging from JS would require standardization, but it's too early to consider something like that. I don't know what our ultimate plan for threads will be or where asm.js will eventually end up; there are plenty more discussions to be had.

<comment><USER9> Thanks, that's a bit of helpful context. I appreciate that it's too early to say where exactly asm.js will go. I'm just afraid of private APIs or other divergence from JavaScript in order to mainstream asm.js. Sorry if that apprehension came across as overly negative.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I seriously thought that Chrome was re-implementing the <blink> tag from the headline.

<comment> cupcake-unicorn Haha, that was my first thought too. Some kind of retro revival!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> One more thing that is coming (back) with Chrome 28 is packaged apps - stand- alone browser-based applications with access to file/network APIs (think Mozilla Prism/Fluid.app). I'm surprised they didn't mention it.

<comment> jarek-foksa If you use Chrome 28 then packaged apps are still not listed or searchable on Chrome Web Store. I don't think there were many changes since Chrome 27 in this field (especially on Linux).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Legitimately excited to see Blink-based Chrome released. However, Chrome 28 _still_ does not support un-prefixed CSS transitions, transforms, and animations. What gives?? [http://www.chromium.org/blink#vendor- prefixes](http://www.chromium.org/blink#vendor-prefixes)

<comment><USER14> We're working through the prefixed features we inherited from WebKit:

[https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!searchin/bl...](https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!searchin/blink- dev/unprefix)

Our approach is (1) to avoid adding new prefixed APIs and (2) to unprefix APIs when we're confident we're not going to cause compatibility problems.

<comment><USER13> Given that the standard is well-locked down on those bits of CSS3, why not support the un-prefixed version? I'm not saying you have to stop supporting the prefixed version - I know that would cause all manner of compat issues.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> As the site has currently some problems, I can't read the article.

When is Chrome 28 arriving? I'm using Firefox and Chrome on my Mac. And today I've updated Flash for all browsers, except Chrome. The Flash plugin in Chrome is old now and needs an update. But no new Chrome there. :-(

Flash will bring Chrome down. They even have their own Flash bugs they don't fix as fast as Adobe(!).

<comment><USER14> Chrome 28 is available now on the stable channel:

[http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2013/07/stable- chan...](http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2013/07/stable-channel- update.html)

The update is rolling out gradually. If you would like to make sure you're on the latest version, you can select "About Google Chrome" from the "Chrome" menu on Mac. That will take you to a page that shows you which version you're running and checks for updates.

As the release blog mentions, the Flash update is rolling out via the component updater, which updates Flash independently of the rest of Chrome.

<comment><USER15> I know about "About Google Chrome". It's still version 27. And it's still an old version of Flash.

Here are the current versions of Flash: [http://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/](http://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/)

<comment><USER14> I just tested this on my laptop (which I keep on the stable channel). For some reason, I needed to reload the page to trigger the update check.

After the update to Chrome 28, I still had Flash 11.7. The blog post says that Flash 11.8.800.97 (the latest version) is rolling out via the component updater. I don't think there's any UI to trigger a component update, but it should happen naturally by itself.

<comment><USER15> Found it! Not the updater, but how I can use the more recent version.

In chrome://plugins/ (+ "Details") I can choose between Chrome's Flash and the "normal" Flash.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Can't help but notice that the --disable-new-menu-style switch no longer works, which is terrible news if you hate Superfluous Google Whitespace as much as I do.

<comment><USER17> I've been considering switching back to Firefox lately and this may be enough to push me over the edge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> … at least it isn't <blink> ?

</comment><comment><USER19> Blink seems to be slower at rendering stuff than the original engine for me. I see the transparency effect when scrolling very quickly.

<comment><USER20> It _is_ the same engine, just renamed. Chromium has been using a fork of WebKit for quite a while now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> $34,901.1 is nothing to Google.

</comment><comment> mkr-hn Am I the only one who assumed <blink> was making a comeback when they read the title?

<comment><USER22> For only 1 second, then I remembered reading about the Blink project.

<comment><USER23> For a second I misread it as Bling and thought that was Microsoft's search engine.... lol. [I just woke up]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Dear Google, Please integrate Mr. Jingles to Chrome. KTHXBAI.</comment>


Ranting about Gnome Shell Extension Writing - <AUTHOR> I like Gnome a lot.
The idea you can customize the shell using JS is just awesome, but... Nothing seems to work.
I'm reading the intro[1], where it first advocates the use of the Gnome Builder IDE
Fine, it's standard and should be easy. But it fails mysteriously after hogging yout CPU and provides you with unanswearable questions like:
> Rerun phase build > Ignore and continue to install > GIve up on module
Then the tutorial completely fotgrts about that and start speaking of Setting Up Eclipse, yeah.
Then they explain you it is not JS you'll be writing, bug kinda...
> const Workspace = new Lang.Class({ >    Name: 'Workspace', > >    _init : function(metaWorkspace, >monitorIndex) { >        // When dragging a window, we use this >slot for reserve space. >        this._reservedSlot = null; >        this.metaWorkspace = metaWorkspace; >etc...
WHich honestly kinda rebukes me after page 2.
Then you need to learn a C API (JS my friends?)
> Clutter is a C programming API that allows you to create simple but visually appealing and engaging user interfaces.
>  It works by transforming the c program API in general files(xml or custom files) allowing us to easily write a binding in another program language that can interpret it.
Please kill me now.
I wish we could have an atom plugin like ecosystem for desktop development. They seem to be heading towards not that different but with fundamentally different choices/constraints.
Again, please don't take this as easy criticism, just the first impressions of a dev willing to do cool stuff.
And Gnome guys, if you read me, please talk to the guys at Atom. Their thing is practically a JS OS and learning curve is close to zero.
[1]https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GnomeShell/Extensions/StepByStepTutorial <comment><USER2> I really love(d) gnome since the days of Gnome 2. After gnome 3 got forced on me, I installed a bunch of extensions and made it Just Right for me. After the first apt-get update, half of my extensions were broken. Then I switched to another DE, six months later came back and got the same result. Some time later I tried again and got the same result. To me, it feels that extensions are a second class citizen: extensions are the devs excuse to "hey, if you don't like our interface you can modify it with extensions", but all the burden of keeping your extension working is on maintainers, not Gnome: in practice there's no guarantee an extension will keep working over time.

In the end I feld like I was a person who keeps giving second chances to an abusive relationship. I finally had the courage to cut the relationship with Gnome forever after many reconciliation attempts.

Gnome is the desktop environment that has the most money being injected into (through Red Hat), and this was supposed to mean it's one of the best DEs. But I really can't get past its UI paradigm and concluded extensions are not a viable thing.

I am now a happy Cinnamon user.</comment>


Ask HN: Why did you start programming? - <AUTHOR>

I'd love to hear why you started programming. It would be especially interesting to see how many people had similar reasons. Me? I was inspired by a Foxtrot cartoon. <comment><USER3> I started out writing perl scripts to download porn. Clicking through to every page of various free galleries and manually saving things was hard work, so I figured there had to be some way to make the computer do that for me.

Still makes me proud just thinking about it.

<comment><USER4> The best thing I heard today :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> A long time ago when Apple was trying to get into the schools, I was in a typing class. Being a shy kid, I didn't get a typewriter in the middle of the class. I got the Apple ][ in the corner to practice typing with. My sister was in high school and was learning typing as well. But her advance class had sequences like 3;4o2.14%. When she finished, it came out to be a picture of something. We now know them as ASCII art. Through my poking around, I learn that I can write for loops on the computer, so instead of typing 10 As, 10 Bs,...I wrote a loop to output the lines. A little more poking around I was outputting the sequences from my sister class and had pictures of things on my screen. That was cool! And the rest, as they say, was history.

</comment><comment><USER6> At my job in the early eighties we had to maintain paper forms of engineering data, and when one value would change due to external reasons, we had to update all the fields by writing the forms over or with whiteout. I hated that, so I taught myself to program the department's mini-computer. Discovered I liked that more than my job, so I quit and went to school.

</comment><comment><USER7> I had to solve a problem with which nobody would/could help me while working at the university help desk. I coded up my own little solution in php (3) and MySql (3). Yeah. I was one of those.

<comment><USER8> I think the hardest part of getting started as a programmer is finding that first paycheck which rewards your work as a coder. If you're serious about building your skills, it can definitely be done! A CS degree can absolutely help get you more money. (And introduce you to different methods of organizing your work).

All that matters is your attitude and your personal ethics. If those are in order, it doesn't matter how you get started.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Back when I had my first computer (an 8 bit micro called an Amstrad - <USER2> the time of the C64 and Vic20) computer magazines used to publish games as entire listings in BASIC ... so by definition if you wanted to play their 'published' game then you had to type the thing in on your computer, debug it and run it (and then save it to a cassette tape for replay later) ... This got me hooked and I went on to develop my own small games, and also a musical (piano keyboard) application when I was 14 yrs old.

</comment><comment><USER10> I wanted to build something that people would love, so I thought I'd startup a business. I realized almost immediately that the grotesque "find a tech co- founder" mating dance wasn't for me, and decided to teach myself to code. Note to people looking for "tech co-founders" and refusing to teach themselves the basics: It wasn't all that freaking hard, people - Jeez.

</comment><comment><USER11> I was frustrated by the low quality of programs I was forced to use regularly and thought I could do better.

</comment><comment> the-come-ons I created a menu based text adventure game about the colonists from England who sailed to America in the 1600s for my history class in middle school. It was created in the basic language built into the TI-83+ calculator. My teacher was extremely impressed and I was awarded an A+.

</comment><comment><USER12> I always wanted to do it, but my dad didn't want me to. He thought that engineers would only be needed to maintain software in the future (this was the mid to late 90's). I eventually took a 100 level CS course as a junior and loved programming ever since.

</comment><comment><USER13> I wanted to create my own website.

<comment><USER14> Same here.. then it got out of control and now it's my career.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I grew up playing playing the first MMORPGs where each level or skill took hours upon hours of repetitive button mashing. Hence, I learned to "macro," and my automation programs gradually grew more and more advanced.

</comment><comment><USER16> I got my first computer at 12 and progressed from building, to tinkering with windows settings to development.

</comment><comment><USER17> I wanted to build the Terminator so I decided to start learning programming.

<comment><USER18> How far has that project come?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Two words: Video Games

</comment><comment><USER20> It's fun

</comment><comment><USER21> Honestly, I just wanted to see what the hype was all about, then see if I could do it. I got a C++ book from a friend and initially looking at the book I ran the other direction. I was in my second year in college then. Then about my third yr in college I decided I would go for change my degree from CIS to B.S Software Engineering. Really to see if I could do it at first, I thought if I could this would streamline me into project management or something of that nature since I wanted to be in tech but not a dev.. Well after taking a few courses in C, javascript, I took Java and I sucked at it at first. Then something weird happen in my Advanced Java 2 class, I got code high one day.(I was working on a calculation project). This lead to a ever-ending search for that feeling over and over again... So I ended up taking the rest of my OO classes including VB and C++ and I decided code high was the coolest thing in the world.. So I decided I would pursue "code high" as career which is dev.. Now I code for a living and I am addicted to dev and sys stuff... I'm that which I said I would never be!! Honestly I just love building things and breaking things...and building them again.

</comment><comment><USER22> When I left school I went to work for a RnD organization and was offered the same job (research assistant) in two departments one was math modeling and one was in the solids transport section

I knew some one from school who was in this section and having to crawl inside of of the pneumatic pipeline transport test rig for 1/2 a mile to unstick a stuck capsule didn't sound fun.

So I chose math modeling.

</comment><comment><USER23> It was around 1996. My brother had a friend who gave us a phone call and say: "hey my 3D engine is lagging on my computer, may I come and test on yours?" Sure... He came and start running this 3D engine: <http://fredbrach.posterous.com/engine4>

It was so fast, I fell in love and started programming.</comment>


Startup idea: Password sharing site? - <AUTHOR>

Working with clients, subcontracting, considering backup support options--in most cases there are at least two parties who really need the possibility of full access to a site/app/server. E.g.: the client should always be able to get to their stuff if needed, even if they don't know what they're doing; the consultant/developer needs access; if the consultant/developer is unavailable, some backup person should be able to get full access in case of emergency. Often this state of affairs persists for months and the need for access may be intermittent.
It's very hard to manage all this well. If you've experienced it, you know just what I mean.
So what about a service where you can store all your login credentials on a per-project basis and grant users access to a project generally or on a time-restricted basis?
Key features: * Users IDed with client certs. * All crypt done on the client--server never sees your passwords ever. * All access logged, and access by your "backup support" (e.g.) could trigger an alert to other project users. * Optional daemon account to whom you can grant access. Runs every day and attempts logging-in (ssh, ftp, http basic at first, later app-specific support) to everything in the account. Alerts everyone if a credential no longer works.
Worth paying for? Stupid idea? Been done already? I value your feedback. <comment><USER2> My gut reaction is that there should be a non-technical solution, rather than a 'password sharing site'.

The concept of 'password' and 'sharing' goes pretty much against what people 'should' be doing with passwords.

I'm not familiar with any systems which don't allow more than one 'super-user' account, so I'm wondering why you wouldn't just have more than one 'super- user'. One account for you (as the main responsible party), and one 'super- user' account to be used in emergency situations only, which can be provided to the site/app/server owner.

Would that not solve the problem you are attempting to address?

<comment><AUTHOR> The phrase "password sharing" was half-serious (and apparently not very effective) view bait--I wouldn't call it that on the public site. :-)

Some reasons multiple superusers aren't enough:

* Superusers can disable or delete each other. Most parties won't need access very often so might not know until it's too late. In many client/consultant relationships you trust, but you verify. (The importance of the login-testing daemon.)

* Being reliably alerted when someone has logged on ranges from difficult to impossible in most systems. For backup/emergency type people, you trust them enough to make it possible for them to have access, but you'd really want to know if they ever used it when you weren't expecting. (And superusers can forge logs.)

* Many systems (like shared hosting accounts) actually don't allow for multiple super-users.

* Independent consultants/free-lancers need an answer to the "what happens if you get hit by a bus/are on vacation/have a power outage" question. 2-4 person federations of independents providing backup service for each other is currently impractical when each has several systems to access. It's bad enough that I have N logins of my own I have to keep track of--having to keep up with a further 2-3N logins (that I have to change periodically if I'm doing right) is way too much overhead. The only current workaround I know of is having the same password for everything, which is extremely poor security.

An important use I didn't consider at first is personal password escrow-- making a way for my various accounts to be accessed in case of personal emergency.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> password escrow:

[http://nsit.uchicago.edu/services/safecomputing/passwords/es...](http://nsit.uchicago.edu/services/safecomputing/passwords/escrow/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting, but not comparable.

<comment><USER3> sure it is comparable. Basic use cases and users are the same. They have a brick and mortar system. Yours is electronic. Comparable like snail mail and email.</comment></comment></comment>


Can A.I. Turn Average Fans into Experts? - <AUTHOR> http://unanimous.ai/swarms-beat-espn/?utm_source=26 <comment><USER2> I'd much rather listen to the average fan's opinion than Stephen A Smith, so I wouldn't be surprised if normal people were able to make better predictions, too.

What I'd like to see is an ESPN where the predictions have some consequence to them - you're gonna call yourself an expert? Prove it.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Regardless, if this is legit, Caesar's Palace should buy these guys.

</comment><comment><USER3> I almost feel like the great performance in picking winners (against the spread, too) buries the lede that UNU amplifies the intelligence of any collection of individuals.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'd go with fans over experts any time.</comment>


What do we do with SMIL? - <AUTHOR> https://birtles.wordpress.com/2015/05/01/what-do-we-do-with-smil/

<comment><USER2> Once upon a time (~2003), it was possible to use SMIL to seamlessly play/edit videos from multiple streaming servers, with pre-buffering of clips so that the composite video stream was continuous. This could be hosted at any HTTP address which returned an SMIL file.

Is a similar capability possible today, with any video player?

<comment><USER3> Funny how old standards are often very capable, SMIL, VRML, SGML but too heavy. Smaller descendants appear and grab the market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _One example, is that even with CSS Animations, CSS Transitions, Web Animations and the Motion Path module, we still couldn't create a font using SVG-in-OpenType where the outlines of the glyphs wiggle._

Uh... I don't think you're helping your case...

<comment><USER5> Yeah, maybe not everyone is excited by moving fonts. How about, you couldn't make animated cartoons (which often rely on animating path data) and embed them as <img>s like you can with animated GIFs?</comment></comment>