How a half-million dollar Kickstarter project can crash and burn - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@Haje/how-a-half-million-dollar-kickstarter-project-can-crash-and-burn-5482d7d33ee1 <comment><USER2> Wow, that sounded so painful, and painfully obvious to anyone who has designed and built hardware. I think lesson 5 should be lesson 0 and re-written:

They wrote:

 _As soon as the Kickstarter money hit our account, we should have hired an experienced hardware product manager._

And it should be:

 _Before contemplating a Kickstarter campaign, we should have hired an experienced hardware product manager and had them price out what such a product would cost to bring to market at various volumes._

Kickstarters work when they are the "D" side of R&D and fail when they start with the "R" side and try to get to "D".

<comment><USER3> Yeah, yet another example of "Gee, hardware is actually hard."

These guys should be crucified. $100 retail means $30 BOM. This is easily a $30 BOM project _provided you supply the labor_.

Yeah, you're going to be working your own 3D printer. Pouring your own silicone rubber for molds. Soldering your own chips. etc.

However, you got $500,000. That's enough to fund two people (one hardware and one software) an entire year and _still_ have $250K left for development.

They didn't learn crap.

<comment><USER4> > provided you supply the labor

That's the #1 lesson. You can't consult away all the challenges, especially not the core of your product. As he found out, no one else is going to give a crap like you will, and if you don't have expertise in that area yourself, you're going to pick the wrong people.

I'm still trying to figure out how the BOM got so high without alarms going off.

<comment><USER5> BOM cost sneaks up on first-time projects. My first big project I was a _fanatic_ about price and I was still shocked how fast it added up.

This is one of the ways an experienced hardware engineer can really turn things around from impossible to affordable- they can handle BOM cost as a major design parameter and drive down cost in ways a novice can't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's actually quite amazing how it feels that the author doesn't really mind that he's failed, and sees it as a learning curve. It almost reads like he's proud that he's blown half a mill, just read the title. This is real people's money. Whether or not it was more expensive than you originally planned, whether or not you feel really bad about it, you should not be allowed to just have another go at it. It makes an absolute joke of the entire concept of crowdfunding.

For a Kickstarter that budgeted 50k, received 300k, and was still nowhere near production, that's just really poor management and people like that shouldn't be in the business of making promises and taking other peoples' money.

<comment><USER7> "you should not be allowed to just have another go at it."

Yes you should. Since when did we get the idea that failing at something (even spectacularly) should preclude you from trying again? Nearly everyone who reads HN has benefited enormously from the mindset that allows entrepreneurs to keep trying.

<comment><USER6> The entrepreneurs you're talking about lose a lot more when they fail in the real world. Networking contacts, trust, even become bankrupt. This company literally just moves on to the next product like it's nothing with no repercussions. Failing at something is fine, being naive and irresponsible with other people's money - without repercussion - is not.

<comment><USER8> > _This company literally just moves on to the next product like it 's nothing > with no repercussions._

You just flatly assert that. Is it actually true? I don't know, but surely they've at least got their reputation, with backers and others, from this failed product.

> _Failing at something is fine, being naive and irresponsible with other > people 's money - without repercussion - is not._

You're failing to acknowledge that kickstarter backers know -- or should know -- the risk. It's their choice to back a particular project.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Not seeing the screamingly obvious trademark problems with using the name 'Red' before launching the Kickstarter is sort of astonishing to me. That sort of naivete would have been a huge red flag from the outset. These days 99% of trademark collisions can be avoided with a Google search and a little time to get familiar with the basic legal issue involved. I mean, you have to call a product something in order to sell it to more than 3 people, and if it has a name it seems like basic common sense that you'd want to avoid overlapping with similarly named products in the same market sector.

<comment><USER10> I saw similar red flags in other places.

"Internally we expected that at worst 20% of people who had signed up to the newsletter would pre-order, and at best 50% of people on the list would convert into sales."

I work for a brand whose customers are fairly passionate about it and those expectations are insane. A little market research would have shown that the 1.5% that they got was right in line with the standard.

<comment><USER11> I think one factor is that people imagine their Kickstarters to be backed by a high percentage of people who visit the page when this probably isn't the case. If Kickstarter provided more lucid 'conversion metrics' to campaign runners, then they would have more realistic expectations of post-campaign sales promotions and this would help them to budget and plan more accurately and soon enough to avoid some problems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Seems crazy to do a project like this with an agency doing the software and hardware design. That's going to be crazy expensive. I would think you need the skills in house to make it affordable.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, my disbelief just kept growing as it became more and more clear that they seem to have completely outsourced the software and hardware. I'm completely astounded, especially given the aggressive price target that was an integral part of their product.

<comment><USER4> This sounds a lot like the Kreyos story — that guy outsourced _everything_ , including the blame. At least this one took responsibility himself. [https://medium.com/@stevekreyos/the-rise-and-fall-of- kreyos-...](https://medium.com/@stevekreyos/the-rise-and-fall-of-kreyos-new- ac4e2d847964)

<comment><USER5> This idea that a product based company can be founded purely on marketing is infuriating. As if _every other part of the business_ (but not marketing) is fungible. It's like the Idea-Guy, come back to haunt us.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > To me, Kickstarter backers aren't just customers. They're our friends. They > are mavens. They represent our most passionate, most ardent and most > enthusiastic customers.

> Yes, that's it. I failed. We failed. It feels horrible, and it's the end of > Ada. But not the end of Triggertrap.

Uh... if I was your "friend" I would be livid that you weren't going bankrupt to sell off every asset you had to pay me back in full.

*Edit - My post was more about the use of the term friendship to absolve the author of guilt. Seems to have been effective This seems like shady business ethics to me.

<comment><USER14> If you are expecting to be paid back in full then you should not be spending your money on Kickstarter!

<comment><USER15> At the time they launched this project the TOS said "deliver the product or offer a full refund".

<comment><USER16> That seems like completely unrealistic terms. How can you afford to pay for a refund if the product fails?

<comment><USER15> Don't ask me. [https://www.kickstarter.com/terms-of- use/oct2012?country=GB](https://www.kickstarter.com/terms-of- use/oct2012?country=GB)

> Kickstarter does not offer refunds. A Project Creator is not required to > grant a Backer's request for a refund unless the Project Creator is unable > or unwilling to fulfill the reward.

> Project Creators are required to fulfill all rewards of their successful > fundraising campaigns or refund any Backer whose reward they do not or > cannot fulfill.

> Project Creators may cancel or refund a Backer's pledge at any time and for > any reason, and if they do so, are not required to fulfill the reward.

That "at any time" para is possibly going to cause problems to the backers.

<comment><USER16> So if you are _successful_ , you are required to fulfill your terms. Or you can back out by refunding money.

But if you fail, you have no such obligation.

<comment><USER17> Yeah but that's not if you succeed at MAKING the product, it's if you succeed at FUNDING.

<comment><USER16> Oh, I see...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Far more lucrative, and easy to screw over customers, become a supplier to the kickstarter projects, rather than start your own KS.

Naiive business people who have suddenly received 100,000s in capital are the easiest to con

<comment><USER5> Ah yes, the old "sell shovels" game. You might be on to something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> If their company isn't folding they need to refund 100% of the money they raised from Kickstarter. There is a clear expectation of Kickstarter being a pre-order system no matter what the fine print says. I bet if the backers sued them they'd get a judgement in their favor.

</comment><comment><USER20> Don't listen to some EE expert tell you the product can't be developed for less than a million. These guys are used to working at big shops that routinely throw that kind of money into the garbage. This product could have shipped, if only they had run the numbers first.

With a cheaper chip, better project management and using a shop like Proto Labs for tooling they could have made it happen. Resourcefulness, not resources. $99 is pretty aggressive, but it could be done with a slim margin.

Run the numbers first, THEN spend the money.

<comment><USER4> Resourcefulness, agreed! I have made consumer products for less, with resourcefulness, careful planning and sweat. Key is to do a bunch of the work yourself. If you don't have those skills and can't learn them, get cofounders who do. Or use the skills you do have as constraints when developing new product ideas. Don't try to do too many new things at once — you're compounding risk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> >the electronics agency claimed that the original microprocessor didn't have enough memory

This sounds like an attempt to pass blame. How could their engineers not know from the datasheet if there was enough memory (presumably program flash)? They had a prototype before the KS campaign. They must have had some way to estimate the space requirements for the final design. Flash is cheap. Bumping up to a bigger memory can't possibly be the main cost driver.

<comment><USER5> Memory == SRAM, not flash. SRAM is not cheap, and if you are not efficient with your SRAM usage you can suddenly find yourself stepping up several entire classes of microprocessor.

<comment><USER21> Embedded applications like this don't need lots of RAM. One has to wonder why such a simple application that boils down to a controlled delay was hard to achieve for them. It seems like they were too focused on a sexy LCD interface driven by god knows what over-engineered software crammed into what should have been a simple device.

Now I see that the prototype was an Arduino, probably implemented within the safe shell of the Arduino libs rather than working with the baremetal AVR. Clearly they were way over their heads from the start.

<comment><USER22> No kidding, this project could have been accomplished with a cheapo PIC. I've basically already built this project...Hmmm, kickstarter idea. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Main question - what led this company to think they could even get close to a $99 price? Did someone give them a misleading estimate early on, or did they just come up with that number out of thin air?

<comment><USER9> Desire; they asked themselves how much they wanted to pay as photography consumers, asked other people if they'd buy into a device at $99, and convinced themselves that it should be easily doable at that price, most likely by deconstructing the marginal (per unit) costs without considering the large fixed costs that allow you to manufacture _anything_ in volume.

In fairness this seems to be a normal blind spot in many peoples' thinking. When I've discussed film piracy and market economics with people on HN, many people focus on the duplication cost of printing and packaging a blu-ray disc or suchlike in order to argue that films are extremely overpriced, or assume that there is a conspiracy among distributors to obstruct availability of films in order to extort money from consumers. It takes lengthy explanation to clue people into the numerous hidden costs of distribution (eg language- specific marketing materials, soundtrack-dubbing and so on), and that the considerable up-front costs of film production are typically financed by pre- sales agreements, and that most films do _not_ have hyper-lucrative tie-ins like action figures, theme park rides, and worldwide audience anticipation that pretty much guarantees everyone will make a profit.

People tend to focus on the objective and then tell themselves a fairy story about how they're going to get there. I'm not immune. Now when I'm planning a project I try to come up with my best estimates on everything but then I go through and multiply lots of them x 2 because of the things that I don't know I don't know.

<comment><USER4> I think you're largely right in that optimism led to a bunch of unforced errors. Evidence: They thought that they'd get 20% conversion on preorders (probably because it made their numbers line up), when those interested had their expectations set at ~$99 and instead got $350.

But specifically about not rolling in the fixed costs, it's much larger than that. Their BOM alone blew up 3x. Even if you planned poorly up to that point, what you then do is cut. You find the biggest cost drivers and get them down. Find a cheaper way to make a less-polished case. Ship with 40 hours of battery life instead of spending developer-months getting to 400.

Anyway, I really appreciate that he posted this post-mortem. There are too few of these for others to learn from. I hate when someone who obviously loves Kickstarter (and has successfully used it before) is called a scam artist. It may be all the same to a backer, but he's only guilty of mismanagement.

<comment><USER24> Perhaps he should put his vendor quotations online, along with his BOM choices?

I design products for a living and I'm finding it hard to believe that the component BOM for this would be anything over $15.

Additionally, their case is a pretty simple two half-shell design. I can think of 5 vendors off the top of my head who would make the mold for about 5-8K.

I want to take his word about mismanagement but the disclosed details don't add up, unless he really has no product knowledge and is being taken for a ride by his supplier.

<comment><USER4> Yes, project planning docs with hard numbers, for better or worse, would be particularly valuable for others to learn from. Though I suspect that the difference is that the BOM he built early estimates on was composed of optimistic guesses, and the later BOM was compiled and padded by his consultant.

It's not exactly two parts. You've also got the pad for the buttons, perhaps the window over the display, and there appear to be three different body variations, for a total of maybe 8 pieces. Still, $50K is high for Chinese molds.

If you don't understand manufacturing well, you won't be able to effectively design a low-cost product - that's knowledge that should inform your early decisions. For starters, I wouldn't have made several modules - that's essentially making several products at once. Start with the minimum useful product and add modules after you've shipped.

<comment><USER24> I agree. It was very poor project planning. The multiple radio modules doesn't make sense for starters and in fact all but laser could easily be built into the current design for little cost (PIR, Light intensity, sound intensity).

As for the mold (and this is just an exercise at this point) I considered that the window would just be built into the mold and would be parallel to the parting line. The buttons could easily be cap sense buttons, and not membrane. It would only need an inexpensive pad printing operation, which they're doing anyways for branding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> 20% refunds (promised, not yet delivered).

And the company's going to stay in business.

How embarrassing.

<comment><USER12> That's the beauty of Kickstarter. No downside for those who get the money, very limited upside for those who pledge.

<comment><USER26> Why are you singling out Kickstater? You statement holds true for any form of investment.

There seem to be a misconception what Kickstarter is. Their FAQ is clearly explains it is funding. I'm sure if everyone who backs a project would read it, there wouldn't be so many complaints.

<comment><USER27> I wish people stop saying that. Backers are not investors.They are essentially pre-ordering a product,whatever it is. Today the language is vague enough to confuse the "bakers", Kickstarter knows it. What's even more amazing is that no backer has successfully sued Kickstarter for a failed project yet, because one could clearly get the money lost from them directly. They are a store, period.

<comment><USER26> That is your impression. You seem to be relying on word of mouth i.e. the general public representation of what Kickstarter is. Unfortunately that is not accurate.

Simply reading FAQ will shows they are not a store, quoting:

 _At the same time, backers must understand that Kickstarter is not a store. When you back a project, you're helping to create something new — not ordering something that already exists._

you might think they are( a store ), but that doesn't make it true.

<comment><USER28> It actually looks as if there have been some changes to the Kickstarter TOS. For a long time, it seemed to imply that you needed to return the money if you didn't deliver the rewards. (However unrealistic that was--blood from stone and all that.)

Now it seems to explicitly refer to returning _remaining_ funds. ("they offer to return any remaining funds to backers who have not received their reward (in proportion to the amounts pledged), or else explain how those funds will be used to complete the project in some alternate form.)"

Kickstarter has been tiptoeing this line forever between Not-a-store and Not- giving-people-what-they-paid-for-is-a-very-bad-thing.

<comment><USER15> At the time the triggertrap ada completed funding the TOS said full refunds if the product isn't delivered -- according to comments on the kickstarter page.

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/triggertrap/triggertrap...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/triggertrap/triggertrap- redsnap-modular-camera-trigger/comments)

<comment><USER28> Interesting. I _thought_ the terms had changed. While I'm sure not everyone will agree, the new ones seem to make a lot more sense. After all, if you had the money why would you run a Kickstarter (other than for the marketing/feeling out the market) if you were really, truly, personally on the hook to give it all back no matter what? And, if you didn't have the money before the Kickstarter, there's pretty much an inherent risk that things are going to go south as in this case.

I understand Kickstarter wanting to keep the pressure on project creators while minimizing the perceived risk in the eyes of funders, but the current TOS seems to mirror the reality much better than the old one. (Threats of lawsuits and so forth notwithstanding.)

EDIT: Ah. This seems to have happened last fall: [http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/09/kickstarter-tries- to...](http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/09/kickstarter-tries-to-help- creators-who-dont-deliver-with-new-terms/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm guessing this is the trademark he's referring to:

[http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4807:9r4...](http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4807:9r4gt3.3.2)

<comment><USER30> The search link has expired. Could you please provide the query you used?

<comment><USER31> His link works for me right now, but it is these guys: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Digital_Cinema_Camera_Compa...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Digital_Cinema_Camera_Company) [http://www.red.com](http://www.red.com)

They _really_ should have seen it coming. Red is pretty well known, even if you aren't in some sort of camera-related industry.

<comment><USER30> Yup. I wasn't sure if this is what he meant, but if it was this, then indeed, Red is a very known name in camera-related industry. Hell, even I know about this (via HN) and I have absolutely nothing to do with photography.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> For the sake of its customers, Kickstarter needs to be doing a better job of evaluating projects, as it sounds like this project wasn't viable from the outset. This hurts their credibility and makes me wary of funding in the future.

In the "Refunds" breakdown on the Kickstarter page, it shows that they're refunding the remaining 20%, while Kickstarter is keeping the 5% fee. Shouldn't Kickstarter be refunding their cut?

<comment><USER33> Kickstarter did their middle-man job in good faith; why should they be liable?

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> It seems like the take home lesson to all hackers and hobbyists out there:

Hardware is HARD. Fullstop. $500,000 is nothing for even something as 'small' as this.

<comment><USER2> I don't think that is the correct lesson. The lesson is that if you are building a product and you don't already have all the expertise in house to finish the design, then you cannot predict what it should cost.

Building hardware is actually "easier" in some senses than building software because it is so testable. More importantly building to the 'proof of concept' stage, or prototyping, is _essential_ in a hardware design.

I expect that building their device for $500K was eminently doable, with an in house hardware engineer, embedded software engineer, and a mechanical/manufacturing engineer or someone who is really talented and can do all three acceptably well. You don't get their fancy injection molded case, you get something much more boxish, and your controls are simpler.

Perhaps the better lesson is don't assume anything you cannot do yourself but can describe is either easy to do or simple to do.

<comment><USER34> I thought the summary at the end was true though, but I still think that the takeaway for hobbyists and hackers is that getting a hardware device to market is HARD (caps intended). Cloning software is trivial, while getting things from China or wherever is not. If you are a hacker with all 3 skills you mentioned, then you probably can say that it is merely 'tough', but then again, you probably already have a great job with stock options, as you are rare in these fields.

<comment><USER35> In this case the issue is not that it is HARD but that they don't have people with the right experience in their team. Also in pure software projects, you can cover for your mistakes with personal sacrifices and working crazy hours but with hardware, some mistakes really cost money.

<comment><USER5> The idea behind the "hardware is hard" message isn't that hardware is impossible, but to get software engineers starting hardware projects to stop trivializing it. Engineers have a tendency to dismiss all disciplines outside their own as easy, the sort of thing you can pick up in a week if you need.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Kickstarter is a great social experiment.I wouldn't give a cent to any project. But if people looking for some thrill or some desire to make something happen give money,they are free to do so.

Yet I find pathetic people then complaining on kickstarter forums after a scam,what did they expect? there is nothing to expect.Because these consumers are not really protected,and kickstarter itself doesn't give a fuck about them.

On the other hand sooner or later, "backers" need to have a legal status.Donators,investors,consumers whatever, it needs to be regulated, like any other industry. Right now it isn't,but it will, mark my words.

</comment><comment><USER15> This 2012 Gizmodo article talks about their previous kickstarter efforts.

[http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2012/01/triggertrap-the- story/](http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2012/01/triggertrap-the-story/)

</comment><comment><USER36> I've said it before and I'll say it again. Kickstarter is basically Skymall 2.0 with added suspense. Will they actually ship it?! Will it actually work?! Will it actually work well?!

</comment><comment><USER37> The whole system has become so unhealthy for hardware startups. Kickstarter pushes everyone to overpromise and underdeliver, which is precisely the opposite what any good startup should aim for.

</comment><comment><USER38> It would be awesome if they open sourced the hardware. Then hackers could build their own Triggertrap Ada to interface with their mobile app.

<comment><USER22> Well, they are using the audio jack for i/o. Convert audio signal to a logic level voltage, then use that voltage to activate a solid state relay. Camera remotes are normal open momentary switches, and the relay would serve as the switch. The app is pretty much a timer that outputs beeps. Why not make that too?

<comment><USER38> From what I read, it sounded like they already built the thing, they just don't have the means to bring it to production.

Selling kits wouldn't require them to bring it to production, while at the same time letting people experiment and use their app. I don't want to re- create their product, but it would be nice for people who still want the product and are willing to do a little work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> There's a lot to criticize here, but one suggestion I've not seen anyone make is some kind of commitment to backers to make them whole.

This is an ongoing enterprise, so there are any number of ways that might happen. One is just to say, "Look, we don't have the money to pay you back now but we are converting your contributions to loans at interest rate $X and will pay you back when we have the cash, which we expect to be $DATE." Or give people a discount on some future product. Free software updates for life. Something. Otherwise this reads as kind of narcissistic: "It's been so painful for us to spend all your money!"

They also made any number of mistakes that are so large and well-known as to be nearly inexcusable. They were clearly learning on other people's dime, and that's kind of a problem when the product never materializes.

Outsourcing design and development is a terrible mistake for a boutique product. While this was a product management failure, the lack of in-house resources was an even bigger error.

For a $500K budget, zero money should be have been spent on design. Let the engineers decide how it looks. You can make it pretty on the second iteration. The first one will be charmingly ugly, and it will exist. Design people can suck down an astonishing amount of cash arguing about fonts, and that kind of thing makes a difference if you're selling to the mass-market, but for a niche/enthusiast/industrial product? No one cares.

I once worked on an industrial product where a design company burned a huge amount of money on everything from UI layouts (mostly unusable) to icon design, to fonts. I re-did their UI so it could actually be implemented with the development and hardware resources available, added a few icons they had missed, and replaced their pricey commercial font with a free one. Number of complaints about the UI _from the people who had approved the design dollars in the first place_? Zero. No one could tell the difference (I'm sure a designer would have gone spare looking at what I produced, but our customers weren't designers... they almost never are.)

Good design in a mass-market product can be a huge big deal, but hitting that perfect sweet spot the way Apple does so often is incredibly difficult and expensive. The odds of hitting it are so low for a project with limited resources that you're far better off not trying until you've got a shipping product.

</comment><comment><USER4> Here's a pie chart of how the money was spent: [http://petapixel.com/2015/03/02/triggertrap-has-failed- after...](http://petapixel.com/2015/03/02/triggertrap-has-failed-after- raising-nearly-500k-for-the-ada-modular-camera-trigger/)

<comment><USER40> Still not very useful. $135,000 on "staff costs" doesn't say much - did one guy just pay himself $100k for the hell of it? $5,000 on travel expenses, did they expense all their gas for commuting and take a business trip to hawaii? $7,000 for "kickstarter campaign" \- what are they possibly spending $7k on? This is a separate amount from the fee that KS takes. The lack of transparency is dumb.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> As a backer of projects, I'd rather have them slowly make 3D printed / hand- made editions for their backers, than get a % of my money back. But I understand why they don't want to spend any more energy on hardware.

</comment><comment><USER42> Aren't the high costs of injection molding well known?

<comment><USER43> Yes, and it seems clear from the article that this was understood going into the project. They got screwed when their production volume dropped from 50,000+ (viable for injection moulding) to 2,000 (not viable for anything), after it became clear that the product they had designed was not sellable in the market.

<comment><USER44> The whole point of Kickstarter is _supposedly_ to let people fund projects that require a minimum investment to be feasible, without their money going to waste if that minimum isn't met.

If they knew their business model was only viable with 50,000 orders at $99 each, they should have set their target at $5million. Anything else is dishonest and deceptive.

<comment><USER17> I can't understand how these idiots didn't think to use ProtoMold so that their tooling costs would be reasonable.

[http://www.protolabs.com/protomold](http://www.protolabs.com/protomold)

$10k buys you a LOT of tooling there and they'll do the maintenance on it if it starts to wear. Yeah you pay more per part, but who cares if it's a $0.20 or a $0.30 part when you're talking about going from $1 to $0.10 of overhead per part.

This whole thing reeks of massive, gross incompetence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Consider that a "major camera manufacturer" cost this enterprise many thousands of dollars by _sending a letter_.

<comment><USER9> An expense the enterprise could have avoided entirely with a little bit of effort and common sense in advance. Here's the top results for 'trademarks for dummies': [http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/patents-copyrights- tra...](http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/patents-copyrights-trademarks- for-dummies-cheat-sh.html)

I'm not saying they should have spent $$$ on legal advice before setting pen to paper. Trademarks are A Thing in the world of business and not a particularly hard thing to learn about. If you're going to call your product 'Triggertrap Red' you shouldn't be too surprised when you get a letter from 'Red Camera' objecting to the apparent linkage between your product and theirs.

I mean, if you invested some sort of automotive accessory, would you call it the 'Javajosh Lexus'?

<comment><USER45> It's funny that both you and the other commenter assume I'm taking an editorial position on this. I was taken aback by the asymmetry of effort and cost. They hired a "small team of lawyers" to deal with a _letter_. It wasn't a lawsuit. It was a piece of paper with words on it!

Sort of similar to when you launch a big AWS cluster and when you hit "enter" you know you just spent a lot of money.

<comment><USER9> The piece of paper with words on it was created by a bunch of highly paid lawyers to get their attention. If it was a typical demand letter, it probably demand not only that they cease and desist from use of the infringing mark, but that they turn over any and all material employing the infringing mark for destruction, as well as a complete accounting of their financial interest in said mark. I imagine Triggertrap's legal bill was about 10% for the time to explain 'they're right, you're wrong, give it up already' and 90% for the drafting of a reply letter and compliance sufficient to get the injured party to call the matter closed.

Now, that's a lot to ask for in a letter - usually a Trademark C&D goes along the lines of 'stop or I'll sue' \- but in the context of a money-raising campaign, and given the fact that Red Camera company had historically and famously employed the pre-order launch strategy themselves, I think it would have been appropriate to come down on Triggertrap like a ton of bricks. Don't forget that trademark law works on a 'defend it or lose it' basis - if you don't vigorously contest infringement of the mark, then some later infringer can raise a defense of constructive abandonment.

Not a lawyer, but I've long been interested in this subfield of law. Monitoring and defending the mark against potential infringers isn't cost-free either.

<comment><USER45> _> The piece of paper with words on it was created by a bunch of highly paid lawyers to get their attention._

You do know the difference between speculation and knowledge, right? I'm not saying that you're wrong, but I want to point out how much you're reading into this situation. Consider the possibilities: what if that letter was a fake, crafted by an early stage competitor just to waste their valuable time and money? An effective hack, because it's probably not even illegal.

<comment><USER9> Triggertrap's legal team would begin by verifying the provenance of any demand letter. Any letter like that is going to start by introducing itself as being either from a firm's general counsel or (more often) a law firm acting as outside counsel, and it's not hard to verify the sender's legal credentials and client relationship. A fake letter would be easy enough to identify and might even attract criminal penalties. In some states, legitimate but overzealous demand letters can be grounds for civil fraud action by the recipient, eg [http://www.stormoenlaw.com/extortion-risks-from- overzealous-...](http://www.stormoenlaw.com/extortion-risks-from-overzealous- demand-letters.html)

Of course I'm speculating about the contents, but I am familiar with the legal issues, know lawyers who practice in this area, and the camera market, as well as people at Red Camera. I think you overestimate the ease of the 'hack' you're imagining.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I just don't understand this. I read this to mean that they only started looking into the cost of production after they finished R&D...

No matter how you look at it that's pretty retarded.

</comment><comment><USER47> Criminal negligence

</comment><comment><USER48> Please, Please, stop publishing articles in these ridiculous 600 pixel text widths. The other 73% percent of my screen is there for a reason.

<comment><USER49> Have you ever read a newspaper? There's a reason that text is typically contained in columns: readability. Presumably these writers want their content to be read.

<comment><USER50> Newspapers can't be responsive.</comment></comment></comment>


Legal Advice: dealing with unpaid consulting fees with a NYC startup  - <AUTHOR>

Hi guys,
My apologies for using a throwaway account, but for potential legal reasons, I thought it best not to use my real name or contact details.
I started consulting with a startup in NYC earlier this year. A few months later, due to some of the ownership's other businesses having problems, they gave the entire company their contractually obligated notice. That's life, it happens. We were asked to stay on for a bit longer, finalizing a few projects and were told there would be no issues with getting our final checks as we knew the company had more than enough money in the bank account to pay everybody many times over and we had never had any issues with getting paid.
Weeks after leaving, not only haven't I received payment, I still have not received any response to my emails from their management requesting payment or a date when payment would be submitted. A few of my co-workers managed to get in touch with the ownership, but they also haven't received any payment. After talking with some of my former co-workers, I have learned that the executive team is still working for the company and getting paid and the owner is claiming that some sort of legal issues are preventing him from paying the rest of us. I haven't been able to find out yet what sort of legal issues these are, but I have never heard of any legal issues that allows some people to be paid while others aren't.
If they simply ran out of money or something and treated me like a human in response, I'd probably have dropped this by now. But refusing to even respond to any of my attempts to contact them really angered me and I wish to pursue all legal means of getting paid AND receiving damages. This isn't a situation where the company has no money, this is a situation where some millionaires are trying to con average working people out of their money.
I would sincerely appreciate any free legal advice anybody might have about how to deal with not getting paid consulting fees in NYC. I have a group of co-workers that are also in this boat and willing to pursue legal action, if this helps. I have never been in this situation and would love some guidance.
PS: If anybody in New York City is hiring, a few of my co-workers are currently on the market; including a very talented backend engineer that builds highly-scalable systems, a front-end engineer that is an expert in Javascript, and an all-around great graphic designer that is a whiz with Photoshop. If anybody is hiring and is looking for some great guys in those areas, I'd be happy to forward you their information. You can reach me at email@example.com.
Thank you. <comment><USER2> Were you getting paid W-2 or 1099 reported wages?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the reply. This was 1099 which is very standard as a consultant. I don't know if this makes a difference legally though.

<comment><USER2> It does, or at least in the state of Virgina there's an agency that will go after employers who stiff their W-2 employees (speaking from experience).

As 1099 contractors, I suspect your only option is to sue, which might be practical depending on your small claims court system.

One other option for leverage is to look at the way you were employed and see if there's much of a chance that per Section 1706 you really should have been classified and paid as W-2 employees. In that case you can threaten to drop a dime on the company by contacting the IRS, which will not be amused.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Popular OSS that became its maintainers day-job? - <AUTHOR> After the demise of Cyanogen, I'm wondering what open source projects grew into paying, full time jobs for its maintainers? <comment><USER2> Vue.

 _' The Vue.js patreon campaign now has over $8,000 monthly pledge from the community and sponsors. It is absolutely amazing to be able to work full-time on an open source project that I am genuinely passionate about, and for that I am forever grateful to all the supporters.'_

[1] [https://medium.com/the-vue-point/the-state-of- vue-1655e10a34...](https://medium.com/the-vue-point/the-state-of- vue-1655e10a340a#.f23h1kktl)

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice one, and relevant since I was just reading this HN post:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13263852](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13263852)

There are a lot of nice events/history going on around front-end frameworks like Vue, React, etc. - the Inferno creator being hired by FB, React Fiber coming soon, Angular 2 being so different, Vue growing right alongside React as a competitor/peer.

It's a good time to know javascript.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Sidekiq by Mike Perham

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good one. I love that using free Sidekiq works just fine and that Pro is nice-to-have but not essential.</comment></comment>


Building a Hacker News clone in Django - Part 1 (Screencast) - <AUTHOR> http://arunrocks.com/blog/2013/05/29/building-a-hacker-news-clone-in-django-part-1/ <comment><USER2> Is there any kind of streaming service like Twitch.tv but for programmers?

Maybe it's weird... but I really like watching other people writing a project (Like in the Ludum Dare), I like to see how they tackle the design, how they work, what cool tricks they use, etc.

You can even interact with them via chat, and not only help but also ask questions about what they are doing... is great for people who are still learning.

Any?

<comment><USER3> This would be so great. It's really difficult to get a good video stream for displaying text, and often the only recourse is to go for super high quality, which is killer if you have limited upload rates.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, my upload speed is about 0.5Mb so I guess I can stream at 640x480 :P

Although many people seem to do fine for the Ludum Dare.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Maybe this is a nitpick but I'd revise the opening sentance: "There is no better way to learn something than to watch someone else do it".

I think we can all agree that when it comes to programming the _best_ way to learn it is to actually program.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi! This is the author. I was pretty sure that someone would point this out and I completely agree.

But, even Programming has to be taught. Among the many ways to learn programming, I think the best approach is to demonstrate how a good progammer programs and explain the thought process.

<comment><USER5> I gotta say, this looks like it was copied from tutsplus. But hey, if it helps people, who cares. I don't.

<comment><USER6> yeah is copied from tutsplus :-/ the only difference being its distributed for free

<comment><USER7> Rubs me the wrong way where people don't give the necessary credit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Cool! Doing this from scratch is great for learning.

I wrote the same article and demo a month ago, albiet a more comprehensive and complete approach using Mezzanine (a Django based CMS). The article focuses on how most of the features needed for something like this come out of the box with Mezzanine:

[http://blog.jupo.org/2013/04/30/building-social-apps-with- me...](http://blog.jupo.org/2013/04/30/building-social-apps-with-mezzanine- drum/)

<comment><USER9> Probably worth noting that stephen_mcd is the author of Mezzanine.

I really like some aspects of Mezzanine, and I've used it on a couple of projects with success. But I don't like Grappelli much, I prefer django- admintools so for this reason alone I prefer FeinCMS or Ella.

<comment><USER8> Mezzanine intentionally works fine without Grappelli, just remove it from your project settings :-)

<comment><USER9> Will do, thanks.

Never understood why Grappelli removes the button click from admin actions!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> neat, and a nice clean demo of django.

myself, i wrote a HN clone one afternoon (when HN was down for several hours) using flask. since i'm the only user, i feed it with twitter. what i did was set up a twitter account - @hacktweetnews - and have it follow most of the top twitter users from the HN community [1] and then score it reddit-like. no votes aside from what people post as duplicates, no comments - so it definitely lacks the full features you have, but then again it's just me. however, like your django example, it was super easy to set up in a framework. yours is definitely far more feature-filled!

1\. [http://talkfast.org/2010/07/28/twitter-users-most- followed-b...](http://talkfast.org/2010/07/28/twitter-users-most-followed-by- readers-of-hacker-news/)

</comment><comment><USER11> That's great - coming from Rails I was always curious learning Python and especially see how Django differs from Rails. Will definitely watch this..

</comment><comment><USER12> Curious. I was watching a screencast from Tuts+ Premium the other day that was meant to teach Django to beginners, by building a Hacker News clone.

[1] <https://tutsplus.com/course/django-unchained/>

</comment><comment><USER13> This is pretty interesting. Looking for 2nd part!

</comment><comment><USER14> I built something similar with Rails as a 'hacker news for poker' and open sourced the code, if anybody wants to play around with it (or use it). Pull requests welcomed :)

<https://github.com/wilfra/theplayr> (live site: <http://theplayr.com>)

</comment><comment><USER15> How does this compare to 2scoops of django(1)? I bought it but it seems like that's the book after this one. If so, how come you put that one out first? It would be nice if these books came out in order of skill

1) <https://django.2scoops.org>

<comment><USER16> Disclaimer: I'm one of the authors of Two Scoops of Django.

This screencast looks awesome! Okay, now to your questions:

First, the screencast for creating a HN/Reddit clone is a tutorial. It's a good place to start when developing in Django, or as a reinforcement for the existing tutorial.

Second, Two Scoops of Django came out first because we (me and Audrey Roy) wrote it first. Arun Ravindran, who is making this tutorial, is a separate person and completely unaffiliated with us.

<comment><USER17> I'm not affiliated with either party, but I wanted to chime in and say that I HIGHLY recommend two scoops for anybody looking to learn Django, expecially if you found this screencast helpful and are looking for something more to supplement it. There's so much to learn in that book that I can pretty much consider it required reading for serious prospective Django developers. Thanks Pydanny/Audrey! You guys did an amazing job!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Isn't the more interesting aspect of HN how it scales? Simply writing a few models, views and templates is certainly a nice exercise but only a first step.

Not to mention getting the audience, but that's not really a technical problem.

<comment><USER19> I think this is more of a Django tutorial than anything.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Printing'@'Home? - <AUTHOR> Hey all,
I have a 3D printer (a simple little Creality Ender 3 Pro), and I would love to put it to good use somehow and help my fellow human beings in need; possibly printing parts for a ventilator during this coronavirus pandemic.
Are there any good sources available to match supply (i.e. people with printers) with demand (i.e. hospitals needing ventilators)? <comment><USER2> Most people are printing masks frames using house filters for the filter and face shield frames using overhead transparencies for shields.

I'm my area a local maker group has coordinated with the local hospital to print and distribute face shields. We have about 25 makers printing them now.

I would check local maker groups or contact your local hospital to see what they're accepting.</comment>


Hyperlapse makes first-person videos smooth and speedy - <AUTHOR> http://news.microsoft.com/features/microsoft-hyperlapse-makes-first-person-videos-smooth-and-speedy/

<comment><USER2> How does this differ from the app released by Instagram last year with the exact same name that appears to do the same thing ?

[https://hyperlapse.instagram.com](https://hyperlapse.instagram.com)

[http://blog.instagram.com/post/95829278497/hyperlapse- from-i...](http://blog.instagram.com/post/95829278497/hyperlapse-from- instagram)

[https://itunes.apple.com/app/id740146917](https://itunes.apple.com/app/id740146917)

<comment><USER3> Microsoft published a research paper about this technology before the Instagram app was released. I believe the Instagram app was a hack week project developed based on the MS research paper.

<comment><USER4> [http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/redmond/projects/hype...](http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/redmond/projects/hyperlapse/igcomp/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How it works, from the creators, back in August[1]:

Standard video stabilization crops out the pixels on the periphery to create consistent frame-to-frame smoothness. But when applied to greatly sped up video, it fails to compensate for the wildly shaking motion.

Hyperlapse reconstructs how a camera moves throughout a video, as well as its distance and angle in relation to what's happening in each frame. Then it plots out a smoother camera path and stitches pixels from multiple video frames to rebuild the scene and expand the field of view.

[1][http://blogs.microsoft.com/next/2014/08/11/hyperlapse- siggra...](http://blogs.microsoft.com/next/2014/08/11/hyperlapse-siggra..).

<comment><USER6> For some reason, I find the demonstration in this article far more convincing than the ones in the posted article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Note that the app appears to be based on this recent research paper: [http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/redmond/projects/hype...](http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/redmond/projects/hyperlapserealtime/hyperlapse.pdf)

Not to be confused with the hyperlapse paper from 2014 that was instead using a very computationally heavy structure from motion pipeline. Quoting the 2015 paper: "Our approach resides in between the Instagram approach and that of Kopf et al [the 2014 paper]".

</comment><comment><USER8> Here's a quick real-world demo I made in Amsterdam today: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO4-LBGejqw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO4-LBGejqw)

<comment><USER9> I easily get motion sickness from first person games, but I've never had a problem with video before.

This made me get a tickle in my throat just two seconds in. Definitely very uncomfortable to watch.

<comment><USER10> I don't usually get motion sickness from first person games, but I got a headache just watching the video. Twice since I showed it to a coworker.

<comment><USER11> Wow, I just had the same issue, and I'm also rarely affected by this stuff..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is from 6 years ago, and I still haven't seen anything as good: [http://createdigitalmotion.com/2009/06/magical-3d-warping- te...](http://createdigitalmotion.com/2009/06/magical-3d-warping-techniques- steadies-your-videos/)

<comment><USER13> That's totally different though. That's strictly image stabilization and it crops the image down. Microsoft's goal is smooth, fast video playback.

If you took the image stabilization you linked and sped it up the end result would be garbage. Different techniques for different goals.

<comment><USER14> In addition to cropping the frame, it warps the image to map each frame to a set of points calculated to fit a simulated camera following a line, parabola, or a filtered version of the original camera path. When sped up, the end result is not "garbage" at all because it's a path along a perfect line/parabola.

You can 2x the video on Youtube to see for yourself. The major drawback is cropping and computation time, which is where Microsoft's technique excels.

<comment><USER13> This isn't about a small 2x speedup. This is about 10x. Big difference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Here's discussion from back when the research was published. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8160571](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8160571) It's amazing that the performance problems were addressed to make this look good on a phone!

<comment><USER16> At first I was amazed they'd managed to get it to run on a phone too, but it seems this new one uses quite a different technique which gets nowhere near as smooth results.

The new technique is described here: [http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/redmond/projects/hype...](http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/redmond/projects/hyperlapserealtime/hyperlapse.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> For those who are new to this technology: If you have ever taken timelapses while moving (or long videos that you want to speed up), you would have seen how jittery and frustratingly bad they look. Usual remedy for this involved either using bulky stabilization hardware or half backed motion stabilization algorithms. This thing is completely different and takes whole stabilization game to next level.

In essence, it would remove frames that produces really big sudden movements or it would "re-shape" it to make it consistent or smoother and it does all that with some very deep algorithms. Ultimately your long timelapse or fast video shows up as if there was done with expensive stabilization and great care. My only complain is why iOS is being left out :(.

For much better demonstration of how cool this is: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOpwHaQnRSY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOpwHaQnRSY)

</comment><comment><USER18> The level of complexity introduced by moving the camera AND the scene is remarkable.

Very different from the work of Keith Loutit and Tony Leech where a stationary camera is key.

[http://www.keithloutit.com/](http://www.keithloutit.com/) [https://vimeo.com/11445353/](https://vimeo.com/11445353/)

Filming everything in motion and then calculating stability is an interesting problem.

Well done to Microsoft and Instagram for attempting it.

edit: fixed links

</comment><comment><USER19> I had to try, with some downhill skiing footage I took a few weeks ago. It works well with the stabilizing[1], but screws up the FOV. The footage fed to the Hyperlapse program had even more details vertically than the first clip in my video[2]. Maybe it's too much motion skiing down, or it is unable to process the stuff too far away?

[1]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CvzPyQF7fA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CvzPyQF7fA) [2]: [http://imgur.com/w1mLrM6](http://imgur.com/w1mLrM6) (not the same frame in both pictures, but you get the idea)

<comment><USER20> From your video, it looks like the vertical stabilization is almost perfect but the horizontal stabilization is really not working..

<comment><USER21> I think the horizontal stabilization is working fine the lines in the snow snake back and forth a lot and maaaats is slaloming back and forth making it look jumpy where it isn't.

This is probably a pretty hard video to do since so much of the field is just plain white snow.

<comment><USER19> Yeah, you are probably right. And compared to other videos with hyperlapse, there are no close reference points here. No buildings or trees, just mountains far, far away, which may be hard to extrapolate anything from.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is it related to Microsoft's Photosynth v3? [https://photosynth.net/preview](https://photosynth.net/preview)

<comment><USER15> The same people, at least Johannes Kopf and Richard Szeliski, were on both projects. So I wouldn't be surprised if there is some overlap in techniques. But Photosynth (and Microsoft's first hyperlapse research) is focused on making a 3D model using pieces of photos to recreate a scene, while the new Hyperlapse app just picks frames from a video.

<comment><USER23> If you read the detailed technology link posted elsewhere in the HN comments, you can see that this is a different manifestation of the same technology. They are calculating the camera position individually for each frame, then mapping a new (smoother) POV through the scene and re-rendering appropriately. The frames in the final video may include data from more than one source frame so that the POV can pan smoothly without cropping.

<comment><USER15> That's the older version that I mentioned. This is the link for the new realtime version: [http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/redmond/projects/hype...](http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/redmond/projects/hyperlapserealtime/)

 _We develop a dynamic programming algorithm, inspired by dynamic-time-warping (DTW) algorithms, that selects frames from the input video that both best match a desired target speed-up and result in the smoothest possible camera motion in the resulting hyperlapse video. Once an optimal set of frames is selected, our method performs 2D video stabilization to create a smoothed camera path from which we render the resulting hyper-lapse._

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm excited that I can use Hyperlapse via Azure without a Windows computer. It will be the reason that I finally create an Azure account.

<comment><USER25> Disclaimer: PM on Azure Media Services who brought Hyperlapse on board.

This is great to hear! Feel free to reach out if you have any questions adsolank at microsoft dot com

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> .apk please anyone.. Does it support images/video from your library? would like to try with ARC Welder in Chrome, using my DSLR shots

<comment><USER27> What do you mean? You can download the Windows desktop version here: [http://research.microsoft.com/en- US/downloads/b199c523-bcd9-...](http://research.microsoft.com/en- US/downloads/b199c523-bcd9-4a1f-b58b-af75bd5c621c/default.aspx)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Unfortunately, I can't download it for my android phone, only a few are supported. But it's great that MS is releasing on platforms other than windows. Even though right now, the Windows phone market is tiny, the more they open up their products, the more awareness they will gain for their platform.

</comment><comment><USER29> So the "Picking the right frames" section indicates that the tech is mostly selecting and ordering _already existing_ frames. My question is does it also _add_ frames that it generates? Or is the entire algorithm about selecting the right frames?

<comment><USER30> They describe their algorithm in the video at the bottom of this page:

[http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/redmond/projects/hype...](http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/redmond/projects/hyperlapse/igcomp/)

It says the hyperlapse is constructed from selecting the right frames and doing a projection onto the proxy geometry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> The smoothed footage looks great. I'm excited for sensor technology advance so that we can have a global shutter (as opposed to rolling shutter) in our consumer devices. Once we have that, I'd imagine stabilized footage could be almost imperceptible.

</comment><comment><USER32> Problem: share hours of dull video content nobody wants to see.

Solution: play it back at 30x speed.

</comment><comment><USER5> Previous discussion on HN (August 2011): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8160571](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8160571)

<comment><USER33> I think you meant 2014.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> why is it smooth _and_ speedy?

wouldn't the 3d extraction + reconstruction for smoothness alone be super cool?

edit: Or do they need so much redundancy and variety in the images that they need to have an "oversampled" source?

</comment><comment><USER35> Wasn't this was open sourced like a year ago on HN?

</comment><comment><USER36> what kind of pathway would lead to doing something like this? is this something only MS/PhD would get to work on?

</comment><comment><USER37> Does anybody have an APK? I don't want a Google Plus account and it seems like a troublesome procedure to try this.

<comment><USER38> [https://cdn.fbsbx.com/hphotos- xfp1/v/t59.2708-21/11253139_10...](https://cdn.fbsbx.com/hphotos- xfp1/v/t59.2708-21/11253139_10206879288129321_1211397065_n.zip/Hyperlapse- Mobile_1.0.9.zip?oh=b1a90199f3197116f3ca30e4681d501c&oe=5556C33D&dl=1)

<comment><USER37> Thanks, but "Sorry, something went wrong." :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Microsoft should consider uploading to Vine :)</comment>


Mediocre talent in Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/08/04/bay-area-hiring-stiff-competition-for-mediocre-talent.html <comment><USER2> Most of the people are mediocre. Just because they work in hyped companies (Uber,Google,Facebook whatever) does not mean they are the top 10%.

And even being in top 10% does not directly translate into being able to create an extraordinary product.

There are hundreds of thousands talented people that did not buy into hype or are not too ambitious to even attempt the amazingly tiring interviews at these companies.

</comment><comment><USER3> The author is chasing 'name brand' employees.

His premise is essentially that, by circular reasoning, all the good engineers are at big companies, and, since Google and Facebook are paying too much, you are better off poaching from a "downmarket" brand, like Microsoft and Amazon, instead of actually being invested in your hiring process. Or, heaven forbid, fostering development of your existing employees.

<comment><USER4> I've seen a lot of evidence that medium-nothing companies are either unwilling or unable to promote from within.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The most insightful comment IMO was this:

> Once everything becomes "epic," nothing less will do, so hype ends up > everywhere.

When everybody's special, nobody's special. In Silicon Valley, "epic" and synonyms have been so overused that they now encompass even the truly mediocre. Merely being there is considered evidence of success, being elsewhere is treated as evidence of failure. Whatever this article's particular failings might be, at least it helps to highlight the hubris that drives the endless hype.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I found the article premise pretty convincing. If I want top talent, I usually try to find a software engineer from Eastern Europe.

</comment><comment><USER6> Very true.

I hope this comment thread gets all those comments from the other thread where engineers should get paid $1m+ a year.

Hahaha.

</comment><comment><USER7> haha he can take the Amazon "talent". we in the bay can stick with Google, Facebook, Uber, Airbnb, and Stanford talent.

<comment><USER8> Surprisingly, it's pretty true. Amazon talent is pretty bad.

<comment><USER9> It is my opinion that most of us are mediocre. It's how we apply ourselves that really matters.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Okay, all plausible, until the last paragraph.

> Instead, here in Seattle, I work with amazing people -- who came from > Amazon, Boeing, Microsoft and other area startups.

Hold the phone, did the author just call _Microsoft_ , Amazon, and fucking _Boeing_ __startups __?? The Valley really did get to him, didn 't it.

<comment><USER11> It's just a non-optimally worded sentence. He means people who came from Amazon, Boeing, Microsoft, and -- in addition to those people -- also people who come from Seattle-area startups (such as [https://www.rover.com/](https://www.rover.com/), to pick one at random).</comment></comment>


The Texas Instruments 99/4: World's First 16-Bit Computer - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/history/the-texas-instruments-994-worlds-first-16bit-computer <comment><USER2> It was't the world's first 16bit computer. See:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16-bit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16-bit)

Maybe it was the first 16bit HOME computer... as mentioned in the text.

<comment><USER3> Hi -- I'm one of the editor's at IEEE Spectrum. You're absolutely correct: as the article does make clear, it was the first 16-bit HOME computer. We should have been more specific in the headline, our bad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The Basic was slow for several reasons. 1\. Double interpretation: As other already pointed out, the interpreter was written in an interpreted language, a kind of byte code if you prefer. 2\. GROM routines: What added to the pain was that a lot of the routines necessary for the program were not in ROM but in TI specific GROM. All the "CALL something" (CALL CHAR, CALL HCHAR, CALL VCHAR, CALL SOUND, etc.) commands were GROM routines. GROM were a kind of serial ROMS that only TI manufactured (one of the reasons third parties had such a struggle with that machine). 3\. VRAM: the worst offender why TI-BASIC (and TI-EXTENDED-BASIC) were so slow was that the basic console only had a wopping 256 bytes of memory. Yes, you read it right, the CPU only had 256 bytes of fast 16 bit memory. This memory was used by the system and were not accessible to the programmer. So where was the BASIC code then? It was stored in the video RAM and the CPU had no direct way to read and write to it. It always had to go through the TMS9918 video chip. This has 2 consequences, it was obviously slow and it clogged the video RAM. So unless one bought the 32K RAM expansion (which was outrageously expensive) or the mini-memory module (but then no Extended Basic was possible) it was impossible to use the graphic modes, making that incredibly advanced graphic chip a dud.

It's probably the strangest machine (aka f..d up) of the home computer era.

</comment><comment><USER5> My parents got one of these when I was 7... It was a TI/994A, actually. I have fond memories of playing Parsec on it! I also taught myself Basic...

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsec_(video_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsec_\(video_game\))

<comment><USER6> i think TI basic was much easier than comodore basic; (still it really needed that extension cartridge)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI_BASIC_(TI_99/4A)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI_BASIC_\(TI_99/4A\))

Also it turns out that the interpreter was slow because it was written in an interpreted language, but it was good enough for simple games because they had built-in sprites.

Interesting that they have emulators/simulators for it.

[http://www.99er.net/emul.shtml](http://www.99er.net/emul.shtml) [http://www.99er.net/win994a.shtml](http://www.99er.net/win994a.shtml)

<comment><USER7> No idea if this is true, but the meme was that you could only write BASIC for the TI99, assembly was forbidden somehow. For the most part, hackers avoided this system like the plague, despite all the advertisements starring Bill Cosby.

<comment><USER8> 100% not true. There was an editor/assembler cartridge that let you program in ASM.

<comment><USER9> Your other option was the Mini Memory cartridge, which added a scaled down version of Editor/Assembler as well as 8K of RAM and a battery backup.

It was an economical way to dabble in assembly without springing for the 32K RAM expansion and disk system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> My first computer! I was 6. Started with TI invaders and ended up playing with assembly with minimemory a couple years later. Not unlike the Amiga, this machine was so in advance on its time for example with its hardware sprites.

This thing alone sparked my entire career.

If there are original TI engineers in the audience, it would be amazing to get a kind of AMA.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hi Folks -- Stephen Cass here, one of the editors at IEEE Spectrum. Rather than replying to a bunch of comments individually, let me say here that the folks pointing out it wasn't the first ever 16-bit computer are absolutely correct. As the article quickly makes clear, it was the first 16-bit HOME computer: we should have been more precise in the headline, and that's our bad.

Speaking personally, I really loved having this article in Spectrum and reading everyone's comments, as I too was a 99/4A O.G. from the 1980s, (the machine was my first computer before I moved onto the BBC Micro). And word, yes, the system was squirrely, but I did at least learn to count in hex in my head trying to turn user-defined characters into poor-man's sprites in TI- BASIC

</comment><comment><USER11> Here's a don't-miss article on the internal politics and strategy behind TI's early personal computing efforts:

[https://books.google.ca/books?id=wy4EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA63&lpg=PA...](https://books.google.ca/books?id=wy4EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA63&lpg=PA63&dq=ti+99/4a+lawsuit&source=bl&ots=vWNx4mFFgg&sig=jkeSAPUwPQCTPoBj- AJy2d3lYtA&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=ti%2099%2F4a%20lawsuit&f=false)

The rest of that magazine issue is pretty interesting too, including the interview with Ann Winblad, fresh off her $15M exit. ("The male mystique was killed for me at age 2.")

</comment><comment><USER12> Our school had one with pretty much everything in the way of expansions. It took up a lot of space on the table. I loved the voice synthesizer module which I fiddle around enough with to make it speak Dakota (Sioux) with a passable tone.

</comment><comment><USER13> It may have been the first 16-bit home computer, but it certainly wasn't the first 16-bit computer. Or even the first 16-bit computer with a CPU on one chip.

And there were many, many bit-sliced 16-bit computers that predated it by years. Like the AYK-14: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/AYK-14](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/AYK-14)

<comment><USER14> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whirlwind_I](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whirlwind_I)

Whirlwind, circa 1950, was probably the 1st 16-bit computer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I love the TI-99/4A but what about the SuperPet 9000? It had a second 16-bit CPU you could use (the 6809) in _the same address space_ as the 8-bit 6502 CPU!

[http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=675](http://www.old- computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=675)

<comment><USER16> The 6809 was an 8 bit cpu (albeit an advanced one).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This was my first computer. I remember the huge RF modulator that came with it to hook up to my TV. I didn't get any games until quite a bit later (TI Invaders) I spent many hours trying to program tic-tac-toe from a book I got from the library.

<comment> T-hawk The RF modulator is huge because it's also the power supply. Yet another odd quirk of this machine's design.

<comment><USER17> Oh wow, thanks for that! I've often thought of picking up one of these machines again... but I quickly realize that I'd really have little to do with it other than boot it up, and look at it. I think I'm probably more suited for an emulator.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The most enduring memory from TI-99 wasn't the games like MunchMan and Parsec. Instead, it was a specific oddity of the TI-BASIC language.

In the free TI-BASIC (built into ROM), the language had no boolean operators like "OR", "AND". Instead, what programmers did was use math tricks to simulate those booleans ... something like this:

Simulate "OR" boolean:

      IF (X=3) + (Y=5) THEN

Simulate "AND" boolean:

      IF (X=3) * (Y=5) THEN

As a child, it was extremely confusing to read those lines of code. _Why in the world are we adding or multiplying nonsense like that?!?_ It turns out the programmers took advantage of any value greater than 0 as "TRUE", and 0 as false. Therefore, if either side evaluated to 0, multiplying the conditions would be FALSE.

However, you paid $100 extra for TI EXTENDED BASIC cartridge[1], that language had extra fancy features like the keywords "AND" and "OR". No more workarounds using "+" and "* " operators. That was progress in 1980s.

That early lesson in "inherent complexity" has affected how I view arguments today about "language simplicity". Not having things like "AND" "OR" makes the _language syntax 's formal specification_ simpler on a superficial level but it ends up making it more complex in user code.

[1] [https://www.google.com/search?q=ti+extended+basic+cartridge&...](https://www.google.com/search?q=ti+extended+basic+cartridge&source=lnms&tbm=isch)

<comment><USER9> I've always heard that TI-BASIC conformed to a "strict ANSI BASIC" standard, whereas almost everyone else licensed Microsoft's version of BASIC.

Maybe that's why?

<comment><USER4> May be. TI BASIC was also limited in a lot of other ways. It didn't have ELSE and the THEN clause didn't allow for anything other than a line number as jump destination. Only one statement per line. So doing something as simple as 10 IF a=1 THEN v=10 ELSE v=50 would have to be written as 10 IF a=1 THEN 40 20 LET v=50 30 GOTO 50 40 LET v=10 50 ...

This was IMHO the worst restriction of that BASIC.

The only feature on the plus side of that BASIC was that it used the BCD floating format they also used in their calculator. So 13 digits precision with numeric range of 10^-99 to 10^99. When I switched later to the Apple II, I was shocked at the ridicule binary floating point format that couldn't even add 2 simple numbers correctly :-)

The TI-EXTENDED BASIC was an absolute must if you wanted to do serious programming. It enabled the sprites, had fancy stuff like named subroutines (that could even be called recursively) and a lot of restriction of the original BASIC were lifted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> My school had a 4A (which was pretty unusual in France back then) and it was the first time I touched a computer for programming.

2 friends and I were the only ones in school interested in it so we basically were in the "computer room" every lunch break :) We didn't have any recording device so it was just programming little stuff that will disappear at the end of the session. Had really great times !

I was 12. It was 33 years ago. Still developing.

</comment><comment><USER20> My first computer was the 4A. I still have the ti-basic programming manual.

When I was 11 I used it to create fully-leveled NPC characters for dungeons and dragons.

</comment><comment><USER21> I had one of these as a child in the '80s. My family had it hooked up to a black and white TV and I didn't know it could do color until seeing screenshots online in the early 2000s.

</comment><comment><USER22> Something interesting that I learned recently is that the Manchester 'Baby' machine was a 32-bit computer, back in 1948.

</comment><comment><USER23> There was a good article recently in El Reg about the TI community that still exists: [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/27/community_builds_ar...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/27/community_builds_around_ti_99_4a/)

</comment><comment><USER9> I wouldn't ordinarily pimp my own (poorly made) video, it's not even monetized, but I have the only TI-99/4 demonstration on YouTube if you're interested:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBgxOaUU7lQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBgxOaUU7lQ)

<comment><USER24> I'm sorry, but I genuinely don't understand what you mean. There are thousands of videos of people demonstrating use of this computer. Is there a specific property of a demonstration you are looking for?

<comment><USER9> The TI-99/4? Not that I've seen. 4A, yes. Maybe I'm in some kind of filter bubble, but I've searched far and wide for another demonstration of the 4.

Can't imagine there are thousands of videos of the 4 since there were barely thousands of them sold.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Didn't TI also had a dispute about the first microprocessor ? something internal they didn't really market or .. I forgot.

ps: I always loved the 99 design, especially with the side modules. Reminds me of old analog Meridian hifi modules

</comment><comment><USER9> As an owner I can attest to the terribleness of the keyboard. I've used most of the bad chicklet keyboards out there - ZX, PCjr, Atari 400... this takes the cake.

<comment><USER26> I remember the Atari and TI being about the same level of horribleness. With the ZX and PCjr being unimaginably worse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> 3 Mhz in 1981, very nice.

The games (Alpine, ...) I've looked up on YT look like C64 basic games though. Why was that?</comment>


Datomic 0.1.3007 Released - <AUTHOR> https://groups.google.com/d/topic/datomic/ZM9UcUwrBsA/discussion

<comment><USER2> Datomic looks quite cool, but I have to admit I don't fully understand its niche yet. Is anybody using it for anything already? If so, what are your experiences? Is this something that you'd use as (e.g.) the backend of a web app or more for data warehousing type of work?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a distributed real-time database with lock-free transactions so writes are fast. You can use it for a Web app or analytics -- the query engine and datastore are de-coupled from the transactor.</comment></comment>


Companies spend on technology, not workers - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/10/business/10capital.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

<comment><USER2> _Culling the résumés takes three days. Then he must make time to interview applicants, and spend $150 for each drug test._

I can think of a way that this company could save $150 per interviewed applicant. Can anyone else spot it?

What does recreational drug use outside of work have to do with plastics manufacture? Do the plastics feel different if the engineer had a joint two weeks earlier?

<comment><USER3> I think he's hiring (or not hiring) operators and technicians and the fact that there's a safety training program involved hints at some danger in the workplace. In that position I would also prefer someone with a clean drug test although I would still worry that they show up stoned on their first day and get their arm into the extruder or whatever.

<comment><USER4> I've never touched anything stronger than weed, and I haven't even been near that in a long time - but if an employer (new or current) asked me to take a drug test, unless they had a justifiable reason for believing I specifically was on drugs, then I'd refuse on principle.

<comment><USER3> An individual's principles are just the same as a company's policies. You might feel better about yourself refusing a drug test but you might miss out on an otherwise good job. It may not be a problem for a small company but a larger company that has to hire lots of manual labor, where drugs and alcohol are definitely a problem, cannot treat you differently so they have to insist on the drug test.

Current employers insisting on a drug test is definitely more problematic, though, if there's no reason to suspect a problem it seems unreasonable to insist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> No, they spend on both, keeping in mind the benefits they'll get from each.

Why do people expect companies to throw money around just because someone needs a job? It's not a company's mission to create jobs. It's to make money. Sometimes that means creating jobs, but that's a side-effect, not a primary goal.

<comment><USER6> You're correct, but we do need to evaluate what society's role is in dealing with this recent bust. The fact that we can suddenly be as productive as 3 years ago but with 7 million fewer jobs says quite a number of things, but the fact remains that 7 million people who were previously productive contributing members of society suddenly aren't, mostly through no direct fault of their own. What, if anything, should we be doing for these people? Retraining? Handouts?

<comment><USER3> You used the word "productive" twice in your posting, once in the economic sense, once in the sense that most people feel "productive" when they go to work every day. Therein lays the problem - so many pre-recession jobs were simply unnecessary.

The US now has to come to terms with structural unemployment, which is something European nations have been struggling with for decades.

<comment><USER6> "so many pre-recession jobs were simply unnecessary."

Well, they can be looked at as unneccessary now, but at the time they weren't considered to be (otherwise they wouldn't have existed then, as they currently don't now).

It's not as if employers just suddenly "wised up" 3 years ago and said "hey, I don't need any of you - you've been 100% unproductive the past several years, so I will simply lay you off now". Employers are acting as much in their self- interest now as they did 3, 5 and 10 years ago.

<comment><USER3> In an ideal world what you say is true. Unfortunately, employers don't necessarily know what's the "wise" thing to do. Take the housing boom: from a contractor's point of view it was good business to build many times more houses than the historical aggregate demand. In reality those houses were completely unnecessary: short term gain, long term damage.

Same story for the dot-com (and probably the current) bubble. Employers are notoriously bad at accurately forecasting how many jobs they can actually sustain. And in a downturn it's easy to squeeze more productivity out of fewer employees because it's easier to retain overworked employees.

<comment><USER6> I think people are picking and choosing what time perspective to use (not necessarily you, but I've heard this sort of thing before).

We can look at job situations 5 years ago and say they were unnecessary, although at the time it wasn't judged to be.

Then we look at now and say the unemployed currently are dead weight. If we weren't good judges of the situation 5 years ago, why are we any better (collectively) now?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Behind every piece of technology is a human.

> _"You don't have to train machines," Mr. Mishek observes._

This is such an overgeneralized comment. What specific business processes are these "machines" replacing? Where's the ROI comparison?

I'm taking this article with a grain of salt.

</comment><comment><USER8> You get rich in a gold rush selling shovels.

<comment><USER9> I've heard it described as the 'pick and pan' strategy</comment></comment>


10-Year Treasury Constant Maturity Minus 3-Month Treasury Constant Maturity - <AUTHOR> https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/T10Y3M <comment><USER2> For context, this has happened before, prior to recessions, as shown here: [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=mtiz](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=mtiz)

However, this is the first time this kind of yield inversion has occurred right after the Fed announced plans to stop reducing its balance sheet, which grew to _unprecedented_ levels in response to the financial crisis. You can see the enormous impact that the Fed's balance sheet growth had on the monetary base here: [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=lIdk](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=lIdk)

Until recently, the Fed had been reducing its balance sheet by up to $54B/month; it announced plans to stop.[a][b] How and to what degree has this impacted yields?

As additional context, consider that the yield inversion has occurred during a rise in import tariffs, trading restrictions, and public threats between the US and China (and now Mexico too). So far, the economic impact of these trading spats _on the US economy_ has been small.[c] Could the recent yield inversion be caused more by a global flight to safety. in conjunction to the Fed's actions, than the actual risk of a US recession?

Is it even possible to answer these questions with certainty? I'd be leery of any predictions for the US economy based solely on this recent inversion of the yield curve.

[a] [https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttren...](https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttrends.htm)

[b] [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fed- balancesheet/fed-...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fed- balancesheet/fed-announces-plan-to-end-balance-sheet-runoff-in-september- idUSKCN1R12QA)

[c] [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/07/us/politics/trump- tariff-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/07/us/politics/trump-tariff-china- economy.html)

<comment><USER3> > How and to what degree has this impacted yields? Is it even possible to > answer this question with certainty?

To reduce its balance sheet, the Fed has rolled down assets, allowing them to mature. By choosing to not reinvest the principal from these matured assets, they reduce the size of the balance sheet. My understanding is that the reinvestment occurs in longer dated securities, which would put flattening pressure on the curve. Estimates indicate a reduction of these purchases would raise 10y yields 40-60bps [0]. All other things being equal, this would lead to steepening of the yield curve.

> I'd be leery of any predictions of recession in the US based solely on yield > inversion.

Not all yield curve inversions have preceded recessions, but almost all recent recessions have been preceded by yield curve inversions. Yield curve inversions lasting 10 days or longer tend to have more predictive power. The inversion in March did not last that long, for example. On average, a recession follows 14 months after an inversion [1].

[0] [https://www.ft.com/content/828169e8-8902-3d5a-903d-586bf22cc...](https://www.ft.com/content/828169e8-8902-3d5a-903d-586bf22cc35c)

[1] [https://www.advisorperspectives.com/articles/2019/04/01/a-hi...](https://www.advisorperspectives.com/articles/2019/04/01/a-historical- perspective-on-inverted-yield-curves)

<comment><USER4> It looks like a 10Y-3M inversion has predicted each of the last 3 recessions by about a year with no false positives in the last 35 year.

[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=o4ro](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=o4ro)

Of course maybe this time is different...

<comment><USER5> Assuming you use 0 as your magic ball number. Move the magic ball number up just a tiny bit to 0.07 and you would have had a false positive in september 1998. You could also move it down to -0.32 and you would still a 100% success rate, albeit with a sample size of 3...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Given that every reliable trading signal inevitably gets arb'ed away why does everyone and his brother think this one must be rock solid?

<comment><AUTHOR> Someone please correct me if I have misunderstood anything here, but having a better rate for a bond that matures after 3 months, than for one that matures after 10 years, is definitely a bit odd.

<comment><USER3> If you purchase a 3m treasury bill, you will have to roll your capital into another in 3 months. If you expect the Fed to cut rates in the interim, you will receive a lower yield on that bill. The discount on the bill helps compensate for that risk.

<comment><AUTHOR> I suppose the fed could cut rates in the next three months, however currently they are mostly making noises about not moving it up or down. Other people's current predictions on this are all over the place and seem more dependent on what each author would prefer than neccessarily any reality. I can find mainstream articles telling me why the fed must move rates up and others that insist that they must move them down. This makes me suspect that the fed is probably going to remain roughly fixed, at least for a bit.

<comment><USER3> > Other people's current predictions on this are all over the place and seem > more dependent on what each author would prefer than neccessarily any > reality.

Expectations of Fed rate hikes and cuts are reflected in the fed funds futures market, where participants estimate future values of the fed funds rate. Currently, the market implies a 94% chance of at least one rate cut by December [0].

[0] [https://www.cmegroup.com/trading/interest-rates/countdown- to...](https://www.cmegroup.com/trading/interest-rates/countdown-to- fomc.html/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Isn't it the 10Y-2Y which is the famous recession signal?

<comment><USER3> No, 3m-10Y is the best recession signal for the United States.

[0] [https://www.frbsf.org/economic- research/publications/economi...](https://www.frbsf.org/economic- research/publications/economic-letter/2018/august/information-in-yield-curve- about-future-recessions/)

<comment><USER8> They're graphing 10y-3mo here. Is that what you mean? Minus is not commutative.

<comment><USER3> > They're graphing 10y-3mo here. Is that what you mean? Minus is not > commutative.

The synthetic instrument 3m-10y is referred to as a 'curve'. It can be denoted 3m-10y. Convention is such that the value of a curve is long dated tenor minus short dated tenor.

<comment><USER9> Just to expand on this:

One _names_ the spread by denoting the two instruments, by convention first the short dated, then the long dated (for example, 2y/10y or 3m/10y or indeed 3m-10y, where the '-' is a hyphen).

One _computes_ the spread by subtracting the short dated yield from the long dated one (ie, 10y - 3m, where the '-' is a minus).

<comment><USER8> Is that convention documented anywhere? It'd be quite helpful to me.

<comment><USER9> Not that I know of. A lot of financial market conventions and practices are not very well documented, or not easily obtained at any rate. For example, a lot of terms and conventions pertaining to interest rate swaps are available in the 2006 ISDA Definitions (and equivalents for equity, FX, credit, etc.), but they're not available online legally AFAIK (though you might find them).

It contains gems such as this:

> Section 4.11. FRN Convention; Eurodollar Convention. "FRN Convention" or > "Eurodollar Convention" means, in respect of either Payment Dates or Period > End Dates for a Swap Transaction and a party, that the Payment Dates or > Period End Dates of that party will be each day during the Term of the Swap > Transaction that numerically corresponds to the preceding applicable Payment > Date or Period End Date, as the case may be, of that party in the calendar > month that is the specified number of months after the month in which the > preceding applicable Payment Date or Period End Date occurred (or, in the > case of the first applicable Payment Date or the Period End Date, the day > that numerically corresponds to the Effective Date in the calendar month > that is the specified number of months after the month in which the > Effective Date occurred), except that (a) if there is not any such > numerically corresponding day in the calendar month in which a Payment Date > or Period End Date, as the case may be, of that party should occur, then the > Payment Date or Period End Date will be the last day that is a Business Day > in that month, (b) if a Payment Date or Period End Date, as the case may be, > of the party would otherwise fall on a day that is not a Business Day, then > the Payment Date or Period End Date will be the first following day that is > a Business Day unless that day falls in the next calendar month, in which > case the Payment Date or Period End Date will be the first preceding day > that is a Business Day and (c) if the preceding applicable Payment Date or > Period End Date, as the case may be, of that party occurred on the last day > in a calendar month that was a Business Day, then all subsequent applicable > Payment Dates or Period End Dates, as the case may be, of that party prior > to the Termination Date will be the last day that is a Business Day in the > month that is the specified number of months after the month in which the > preceding applicable Payment Date or Period End Date occurred.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Without any sort of annotation or explanation this post isn't really valuable.

That said, with annotation and explanation it would only be incrementally more valuable. TA is like reading tea leaves.

<comment><USER9> This is not technical analysis, this is a macroeconomic indicator. No voodoo here.

<comment><USER10> Call it what you want, it's still people trying to make predictions based on limited signal. As the top comment says, this alone isn't necessarily meaningful.</comment></comment></comment>


Entrepreneurs who lost absolutely everything. How did you spring back up? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I didn't become homeless, but my startup drained all of my cash, and then into debt as I tried to turn it around.

I was forced to go back into consulting. It was a sad time because I felt like failure.

But then 6 months of consulting I met lots of cool, smart people, and also lots of "dead inside" just collecting pay cheques people. Both of these served as positive and negative examples of how to be.

After a couple of weeks he sadness wore off, I learnt the lessons from it, and the entrepreneurial itch kicked in again.

The entrepenurial itch is actually an addiction to progress, once the addiction kicked in again I was back.

If you're suffering from this go meet some people and get perspective, it helped me a lot

<comment><USER3> pretty much the same story here, except for the "renewed entrepreneurial itch".

Over 14 years struggling with my (micro-)consulting company, _all_ the money i made from one project would be spent paying employees and fixed expenses, while trying to sell the next project. Labor lawsuits and taxes piling up, and then ( with roughly USD100,000 in debt with government ) went back to the corporate cubicles. Working a lot less hours, and earning a lot more, with no civil or labor obligations to worry about. Looking forward for the next 4 years to finish paying the debt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You should look at Chris Sacca's story. I am not sure how much of it is real or fake but I assume it is at least rooted in truth.

</comment><comment><USER5> I paid everyone back who was financially out by working and saving for many years.</comment>


Google Ajax API Code Playground - <AUTHOR> http://code.google.com/apis/ajax/playground/?exp=libraries#geo_map

<comment><USER2> It would be a lot more useful if they clearly showed on that page what limitation these API are coming with. For example, do they have 1000 calls per day per IP, do they some guarantees the same API will be there tomorrow, do they are limiting API calls per API user, etc.

I would really liked it if I could pay Google to use the APIs, the same way I pay Amazon for their APIs. Let's say - 1$/N thousands calls or something.

</comment><comment><USER3> I hadn't seen the SVG graphing stuff. Looks pretty cool. Is anyone here using it?

</comment><comment><USER4> definitly not a news. but clearly hacking material. im always amazed with the amount of quality stuff delivered for free by google</comment>


Is `bounce_rate` becoming a meaningless metric? - <AUTHOR> https://www.dealerinspire.com/is-bounce-rate-meaningless/ <comment><AUTHOR> Bounce rate is essentially the ratio of visitors who visited one page. Someone might stay on a page for 30 minutes or so and the visit is interpreted as a bounce. This metric fails to tell whether a page is good or not.

More about meaningless metrics: [https://volument.com/learn/the-broken- metrics](https://volument.com/learn/the-broken-metrics)

<comment><USER2> I tend to push things into tabs to read later. So I'd probably be counted as a bounce fairly often, even if the page was great.</comment></comment>


Javascript QR code scanner - <AUTHOR> http://www.asbjornenge.com/jsqrcode-scanner/

<comment><AUTHOR> Dug up an old hack I had laying around in response to a question on stackoverflow. Makes for a fun demo :-)

<https://github.com/asbjornenge/jsqrcode-scanner></comment>


Is Java A Dead End For Enterprise Application Development? [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://a964.g.akamaitech.net/f/964/714/1h/www.forrester.com/Marketing/Campaign/BinaryContent/0,5983,2249,00.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> Link to the article mentioned in the presentation: [http://blogs.forrester.com/mike_gualtieri/10-11-23-java_is_a...](http://blogs.forrester.com/mike_gualtieri/10-11-23-java_is_a_dead_end_for_enterprise_app_development)

Previous HN entries about the article (no discussion unfortunately):

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1988695>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1935838></comment>