Announcing TypeScript 3.0 - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/typescript/2018/07/30/announcing-typescript-3-0/ <comment><USER2> More and more projects are adding TypeScript definition files for us, and many are even being written (or rewritten) using TypeScript directly! I honestly think TypeScript is the future of JavaScript. In fact, I can't help but wonder what Microsoft's long term goal is with TS. They're making such _blazingly fast_ progress with it, that I can't help but wonder if this is the "incubation" period of the language, and when it's finally "ready to hatch", they're going to do something big. Almost like this phase of TypeScript's life would traditionally be done inside MS privately, but they wanted to benefit from giving back to the community, from trust building within the community, and from being able to say "we provided the most advances to the JavaScript language out of any contributors by far" and somehow use that as leverage. Maybe they'll make an official TC39 proposal that TypeScript syntax be integrated into JavaScript, complete with a de facto free and open source implementation that browsers and Node.js are free to use to strip types live at compile-time. I just don't get it. They made VS Code, they bought Github, they made TypeScript... where are they going with this? I honestly wonder.

<comment><USER3> Microsoft wants "Developers, Developers, Developers!"

TypeScript makes JavaScript easier & less buggy IMO. The more people developing with TypeScript, the better chance they use Microsoft's other tools. Some of those tools cost money. Some also make deploying with Azure really easy & enjoyable. Azure is their big cash cow.

The more MS tools you use & the better perception of the company you have, the easier it is to find yourself just wanting to stay in their ecosystem.

<comment><USER2> That doesn't seem right. I don't know anyone who uses Azure outside of a .NET- centric programming job. Azure always seemed to be like "hey if you heard good things about AWS and need a place to deploy your code but you've never touched anything outside the Microsoft ecosystem, come try Azure!" I've seen it advertised on Stack Overflow a lot, but I have never even thought of looking into it, for the same reason I have no reason to install Visual Studio.

<comment><USER4> Enterprise doesn't care about this. Enterprise cares about prices.

<comment><USER3> In my experience, enterprises care less about price & more about support, perceived reliability & how they calculate value. I typically see them pay through the nose for inferior products, that are over priced but offer support packages & are billed as an enterprise company. Ironically, the support usually leaves them frustrated as good support is hard to find.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm not a huge JavaScript developer as I prefer to code things in native languages wherever possible but TypeScript is amazing and has brought much- needed sanity to the world of interpreted scripting languages. With Hejlsberg at the helm it has gained some incredible type-related features that even traditional strongly-typed dynamically inferred languages haven't been able to find elegant syntax for.

It started off taking language queues and inspirations from C# and other languages and is now at the point where _they_ are the ones copying back. Impressive stuff, and it's really come a long way since 1.0 which was so much more awkward to use.

<comment><USER6> I'm mainly a C# guy, and have never been a fan of JavaScript (although I concede it has improved dramatically over the last few years).

I've never liked front-end development, but my first Typescript project was something of a revelation for me - a familiar syntax, static types, async/await, automatic fields via some ctor sugar, and a great type system! I really like the way it blends aspects of C# with JavaScript and F# - if you didn't known it had Hejlsberg at the helm, you could easily guess.

<comment><USER2> I think you just solved the mystery I was wondering about... I bet Microsoft's endgame here is to create a new platform. Think about it, they're actually succeeding in getting types added to every single JS package out there, slowly but surely. Eventually, there'll be no more need for the `any` and `unknown` types, which I bet are just transitional. Once all JS in the world is _completely and fully typed_ , they will have enough type information to create a _blazingly fast_ alternative compiler and (minimal) runtime, even faster than C#, maybe even rivaling C or C++. I mean they literally put the guy who made C# in charge of TypeScript and had him working on this language for several years now. I have no idea how they'll avoid the same mistakes they made with UWP, but I honestly bet they're making a new platform even right now as we speak, and that they're going to unveil it in a year or two.

<comment><USER7> Aha! A new platform, brilliant! And better yet, it could be a common runtime, for different languages to inter-operate!

But what would they call it?!

;)

<comment><USER8> Dot jNet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's kind of crazy that Facebook has let TypeScript takes so much market share.

I've been using Flow for so long now. The techno is good, the integration with the code editors is good too, but Flow has a lot of small-but-really-annoying bugs (2235 issues on GitHub right now), the type definitions for third-party libs are meh (you often have to update/fix the definitions by yourself), the team seems extraordinarily unstaffed for such an important project, they don't share the roadmap at all, the priorities are clearly internal first (like improving the performances instead of fixing the bugs) and they don't seem to do much marketing or communication about it.

I wonder what's the future of Flow at this point.

And I'm seriously thinking to move to TS (for pro and personal projects) once create-react-app will work perfectly out-of-the-box with TS.

<comment><USER10> Interesting. I was considering Flow and was going to begin using it by sprinkling it in using their Comment Types[1]. I wanted something that I could use but also make it optional for the other devs. Only because I was just wanted to test it out and not fully commit to making the team use it right away.

[1] [https://flow.org/en/docs/types/comments/](https://flow.org/en/docs/types/comments/)

<comment><USER11> Typescript also supports comment typing via JSDoc. I write complex types in a definition file and use them in JSDoc. Works great. [https://github.com/Microsoft/TypeScript/wiki/JSDoc- support-i...](https://github.com/Microsoft/TypeScript/wiki/JSDoc-support-in- JavaScript)

<comment><USER10> Hold on, TS can typecheck your code just by using your jsdoc annotations?! That's a game changer for me!

<comment><USER12> Yes and it works quite well. Sometimes JSDoc fails to provide enough info about the types though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've been using TypeScript for a while, and one thing I keep wondering about is which polyfills are baked into the compiler. I don't know how I've been able to get this far without understanding it.

Turns out there are none. You have two compiler flags: Target and Lib. Lib determines the syntax and objects/apis you can use: ES2015, 2016, '17, etc, and Target determines which platform it will run on.

But as far as I can tell, setting target does nothing to materially change the output code. It doesn't polyfill. Rather it just causes additional configurations to feed into the Lib compiler argument.

How to Polyfill with Typescript: [https://basarat.gitbooks.io/typescript/content/docs/types/li...](https://basarat.gitbooks.io/typescript/content/docs/types/lib.d.ts.html#polyfill- for-old-javascript-engines)

More on Target: [https://basarat.gitbooks.io/typescript/content/docs/types/li...](https://basarat.gitbooks.io/typescript/content/docs/types/lib.d.ts.html#compiler- target-effect-on-libdts)

<comment><USER14> Typescript _does_ have built-in polyfills. See for yourself.

1\. Goto [http://www.typescriptlang.org/play/](http://www.typescriptlang.org/play/)

2\. Enter the code `function* gen() { yield "foo"; }`

3\. Behold the mighty state machine in the compiled output.

<comment><USER15> Specifically, TS has polyfills for _language_ features (eg iterators), not _library_ features (eg `Array.prototype[Symbol.iterator]`).

<comment><USER16> Exactly what Arnavion said. So if you want to write es-latest with TypeScript but support es5 simply set your target to be es5, import core-js for API polyfills and set lib to your desired es version.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The improved error messages look very nice. Typescript can produce some rather large error messages, and picking out the relevant type mismatch instead of hitting the user with a wall of text is a vast improvement.

<comment><USER18> This is a great update! It often feels impossible to decipher the wall-of-text error messages in TypeScript.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> If I'm going to "upgrade" from JavaScript, why would I specifically choose TypeScript?

Yes, it gives some compile-time-only type safety in certain places, but it doesn't provide _state safety_ like ClojureScript. I'm more worried about state/reference-based bugs creeping into my code versus type related issues, which I'll be checking via unit tests anyway. On top of that, it doesn't protect you from the usual JavaScript pitfalls since it's backwards compatible, including the bad parts.

Or am I missing something here? Is it popular because it lets you directly upgrade existing JavaScript files? I can see that being a big draw. Small and gradual improvement, yeah?

<comment><USER20> What do you mean by "state safety" in ClojureScript?

For example, it couldn't mean atoms/CAS because it's already single-threaded.

Also, you'd consider upgrading to Typescript because static-typing was on your wishlist. ClojureScript isn't really a competitor.

In fact, I ultimately found that "I still want a dynamically-typed language but with some technical improvements" is the weakest reasoning for switching away from Javascript which is why I ended up dropping ClojureScript. Meanwhile I've found something like Elm goes far enough to make the switch more worthwhile (static typing, built-in front-end architecture, etc).

<comment><USER21> You left it too soon. Clojure.spec brings much more than most of the other type systems could deliver.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Am I the only one that thinks "function call<TS extends any[], R>(fn: (...args: TS) => R, ...args: TS): R { return fn(...args); }" looks horrible?

<comment><USER23> "For this function named `call`, the first argument must be a function `fn`, and subsequent arguments must be the type of arguments that `fn` expects. The return value of `call` is the same type as the return value of `fn`."

How would you recommend communicating all that in an extended version of ECMAscript?

<comment><USER24> I like TypeScript's syntax, but I think the way function types are declared is ugly.

If you have a function from A to B, you have to declare its type as

        type MyFunction = (arg1: A) => B

instead of

        type MyFunction = A => B

Here's that syntax applied to the example from GP:

        function call<TS extends any[], R>(fn: (...args: TS) => R, ...args: TS): R { return fn(...args); }

vs.

        function call<TS extends any[], R>(fn: ...TS => R, ...args: TS): R { return fn(...args); }

<comment><USER25> The syntax is probably meant to differentiate between a function expression and a function type declaration.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> "The question is not whether JavaScript is broken. The question is whether it is broken enough to merit being replaced by something else." ~ Anders Hejlsberg

"Big JavaScript codebases tend to become read-only." ~ Anders Hejlsberg

Anders Hejlsberg and Lars Bak: TypeScript, JavaScript, and Dart [https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Anders- Hejlsberg-...](https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Anders-Hejlsberg- and-Lars-Bak-TypeScript-JavaScript-and-Dart)

</comment><comment><USER27> It would be great if there was a way to use the type information from within the code, ie. without type erasure.

Often we find that we create a nice model in TS, only to handle a lot of switching on types in the runtime. This is sometimes a smell but sometimes unavoidable, unless type information can be present in the runtime.

<comment><USER28> That's probably unlikely to happen, as it falls out of line with the design goals of TS, but check out io-ts[0] for a library approach to this problem.

[0] [https://github.com/gcanti/io-ts](https://github.com/gcanti/io-ts)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> While I have already encountered scenarios where the "Extracting and spreading parameter lists with tuples" would have been helpful, this feels more like a duct-tape hack instead of properly tackling overloads. I can see arguments against TS doing that much magic, but the current situation when dealing with overloaded functions (which you can do just fine in vanilla JS) is also not really approachable.

Also, unknown is a great addition.

EDIT: Just checked out their roadmap and while not exactly what I had in mind, Variadic Kinds is there and way more interesting: [https://github.com/Microsoft/TypeScript/issues/5453](https://github.com/Microsoft/TypeScript/issues/5453)

</comment><comment><USER30> I'm particularly excited about project references. We have quite a few small web apps that use the client/server/shared structure and the default Angular webpack configuration does not like relative references (i.e. referencing ../shared from client). I'm hoping this resolves the issue of having to install the shared project as a module or ejecting the webpack configuration.

</comment><comment><USER31> We're working on converting EnvKey's[1] babel/ES6 codebase to TypeScript. It has been a true pleasure so far and has already brought gains in safety and productivity. I've never worked with a type system that is so intuitive and so rarely violates the principle of least surprise. It's amazingly easy to pick up, and also easy to gradually introduce it to existing js code in an iterative fashion. Color me impressed!

A few questions for TS veterans:

\- With babel, we used the module-resolver plugin to set a custom root for absolute imports. In TS, it seems relative imports (import x from '../../../i-hate-life') are the norm, which turns ugly fast. How are folks dealing with this? Or aren't they?

\- Our codebase uses Ramda heavily for FP, and it can be hard to get TS to play nicely sometimes. Any tips on how to most effectively do Ramda/FP in TS?

\- Am I missing out by not switching to VSCode? I'm using ST3 currently and it works, but there's no fancy intellisense. Are the benefits worth picking up a new editor for?

1 - [https://www.envkey.com](https://www.envkey.com)

<comment><USER32> The best option right now for keeping relative imports clean is using the `paths` compiler option to create aliases. This works most of the time but in some cases typescript won't rewrite paths in the javascript output so modules can't be resolved at runtime, so you'll need to use webpack or another tool in your build script to rewrite them.

See: [https://decembersoft.com/posts/say-goodbye-to-relative- paths...](https://decembersoft.com/posts/say-goodbye-to-relative-paths-in- typescript-imports/)

<comment><USER31> Cool, that looks like it could work for client-side code that gets run through webpack, but what about for a node-friendly library?

<comment><USER24> I use tsconfig's `paths` in combination with the `require-rewrite` npm module ([https://github.com/IUnknown68/require- rewrite](https://github.com/IUnknown68/require-rewrite)).

Here's an example:

        // tsconfig.json
        ...
        "paths": {
            "#src/*": ["src/*"],
        }
        ...

        // package.json
        ...
        "requireRewrite": {
            "map": [
                 [
                    "#src/",
                    "dist/src/"
                 ],
            ]
        }
        ...

        // src/path1/x.ts
        import { X } from '#src/path2/y.ts`

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> How well does Typescript play with existing node packages? Last I checked you need to do some work extra work (typings?) to get it working. That's the biggest reason I've not yet switched over to typescript.

<comment><USER34> It's not the best. I had to trawl through a bunch of documentation and filter out old info (modules became namespaces? I think?), and try different formats for the typings file. Tbh there should be a FAQ that is just: Help, the compiler is complaining about a package, how do I fix it? Also, why do I need to clone the DefinitelyTyped repo and make a PR to add a typing file? Why can't I just make an NPM package?

These are all nitpicks in light of the amazing achievement that is typechecking JavaScript. But I wouldn't mind a little more ergonomics for package typing.

<comment><USER35> It's hopefully getting easier. Many libraries increasingly just pack their own definitions, which really is the best case. `npm install package` and done.

Writing a temporary definition file to just make something work is as easy as a one-liner in most cases now (make a .d.ts file somewhere in your project and add: `declare module 'module-name'` and/or `declare module 'module-name/*'`, depending on how the module is supposed to be used).

> Also, why do I need to clone the DefinitelyTyped repo and make a PR to add a > typing file? Why can't I just make an NPM package?

It is possible. DefinitelyTyped is a publishing infrastructure bottleneck for sure. But it's a useful infrastructure bottleneck in doing somewhat minimal gatekeeping of the `@types` namespace on NPM and keeping it from filling with garbage. (I was a somewhat vocal critic of it before NPM @types, but I've mellowed again on it, partly because it is shrinking slowly in some areas as more NPM libraries adopt types directly. Some of my favorite contributions are PRs to remove types in DT because a library added their own directly to their NPM packages.)

Though a baked-in default in Typescript, @types is only semi-magic. The configuration knob is called typeRoots [1]. You can't configure a recursive search path like `@types` with it, but you can use it for experimenting with non-DefinitelyTyped types packages. (DT itself uses typeRoots internally for all of its testing.)

[1] [https://www.typescriptlang.org/docs/handbook/tsconfig- json.h...](https://www.typescriptlang.org/docs/handbook/tsconfig-json.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Looking forward to the day that TypeScript no longer needs to compile into JavaScript, and is natively supported by all major browsers.

A bit like Objective-C and C++ got free of their initial compilation model.

<comment><USER37> That would suck, because then we would be forever forced to use ancient versions, because 2% of our customers are on Windows 95.

A much better model would be a progressive enhancement, where we can deliver optional types that browsers can then use if they understand them. That way there will also be a reason to upgrade for users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I've been waiting for TypeScript to solve the problem of param destructuring, but surely this is not it?

Param destructuring is one of the absolute best features of ES2015. TypeScript breaks it.

Reading this page I can't actually tell if param destructuring is even being addressed but I can see alot of at first glance weird and obtuse looking code.

Not an obvious up front win.

<comment><USER16> Parameter destructuring works. `funcName({ param1, param2 }: { param1: number; param2: string; }) { ... }`

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> > _So what have we done since? What, apart from new ECMAScript features like > the long-await-ed async /await, generators, and object rest/spread brought > us to TypeScript 3.0?_

Wait, Typescript didn't have async/await and generators until this release???!!!

<comment><USER40> They're talking about all the releases they've done since 2.0. Await/async support was added in v2.1: [https://github.com/Microsoft/TypeScript/wiki/Roadmap#21-dece...](https://github.com/Microsoft/TypeScript/wiki/Roadmap#21-december-2016)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I would like to thank the Javascript community for finally clearing up the whole "JS is not Java" debacle by just throwing in the towel and becoming Java, even if they call it Typescript now. JS sure is such a modern language, you can tell because its always changing. Time to go build me some applets, sorry, SPAs!

</comment><comment><USER42> Still haven't even used Typescript. What's the draw?

<comment><USER30> Most people that care about Typescript are JavaScript developers who desire more structure and safety. It can't do anything that JavaScript itself can't do. The article itself has a great description of the benefits in the first paragraph.

<comment><USER42> I'm familiar with it and have used FlowType which I believe has similar qualities. Just didn't feel worth the effort if you're building for throwawayability. So I'm still left wondering what's the draw.

<comment><USER43> If you're familiar with it, you might want to consider sharing your thoughts on it rather having people waste their time explaining something to you that you're already familiar with. Otherwise, your inquiry doesn't come off as genuine.

> Just didn't feel worth the effort if you're building for throwawayability.

Now that's a legitimate point. If you're building for throwawayability, then TypeScript and FlowType are probably not worth _your_ effort. For other people, modeling things with types helps them move faster even for throwawayability.

Personally, I tend to code first, use type inferencing first, and then annotate later. However, I also tend to use a lot of reflection as well to help me prototype things quicker. If I've found the types I've wanted after I've explored the domain space, I'll then annotate afterward to lock them in.

As with anything, YMMV.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Upvoted because they mentioned Vue.</comment>


Google Drive seems to be down - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Handful of google products are down. [http://www.google.com/appsstatus#hl=en&v=status](http://www.google.com/appsstatus#hl=en&v=status)

        10/9/15, 4:10 PM
        Our team is continuing to investigate this issue. We will
        provide an update by 10/9/15, 5:10 PM with more information
        about this problem. Thank you for your patience.

</comment><comment><USER3> It just came back up for me. Literally one refresh didn't work, and the next 3 did. It is being sluggish though, and it's a pretty big deal seeing as my company drank the google kool-aid and is now firmly tied into it...

</comment><comment><USER4> Yeah this is killing me!!! In DC and my drive went down in the middle of working... better solution?

</comment><comment><USER5> Yep documents and sheets from the last few days are inaccesible. Previous documents are fine.

<comment><USER6> I used Google Drive/Docs yesterday to do some homework filesharing/editing.

Also just tried to get into Drive and Docs and was able to just fine.

I live in US - so maybe a location-based issue?

<comment><USER7> I experienced the issue here in Hungary too.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Would it be possible to deep learn cosmic background radiation? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> What exactly are you asking?

Could a NN be trained on some parts of the map and then tested on the rest? Sure, but why?

<comment><AUTHOR> could it just learn from the cosmic radiation to further understand it.

<comment><USER2> That's not how deep learning works as I understand. Training and testing a NN on CBR would give you, at best, a NN with weights that was really good at recognizing parts of the CBR. Would you be inspecting the arrangement of weights and netowork? Would you look at other data trying to find hidden instances of parts of CBR? In pop music or old paintings?!

Or, maybe you could expand on what you mean by learn and understand in this instance.</comment></comment></comment>


Social Media Giants Duck for Cover as Washington Grows 'Fed Up' - <AUTHOR> https://news.yahoo.com/social-media-giants-duck-cover-080000482.html <comment><USER2> Just so you can be forewarned about yahoo.com's editorial practice, here the title of another story linked to from that one:

Viral video of person licking airplane toilet seat disgusts the internet: 'I'm deeply concerned'</comment>


AWS Introduces Amazon Linux WorkSpaces - <AUTHOR> https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/06/aws-introduces-amazon-linux-workspaces/ <comment><USER2> I'm surprised it's taken this long to achieve a Linux-distro WorkSpaces, but I'm pleased it's now available regardless.

Outside of rolling your own EC2 instance and configuring your own PCoIP services (Teradici protocol managers and similar), it's a very manual and intensive process for managing the service.

I'll be happy to give this a crack over the weekend.

</comment><comment><USER3> Anyone know what linux desktop they are using?

<comment><USER4> It is based on MATE. Here is a screenshot: [https://www.cbronline.com/wp- content/uploads/2018/06/Amazon-...](https://www.cbronline.com/wp- content/uploads/2018/06/Amazon-WorkSpaces-Linux-Desktop.png)</comment></comment>


Implementing Pure Functions (in D) - <AUTHOR> http://drdobbs.com/blogs/tools/230700070 <comment><USER2> Informative. Anybody know what the status of D is? Have people started using it in their projects hobby or even commercial?

<comment><USER3> I've played around with it and bought Alexandrescu's book. It's an elegant language and in theory easier than C++ to work with (faster compilation times, better error messages, more concise and expressive syntax). But the tooling and library support is not too good. There is also a fractured community over the move from D 1.0 to 2.0, which broke compatibility. I really do hope it becomes mainstream though - it addresses in a straight-forward way many C++ headaches that you have to be a C++ expert and/or contortionist (such as Alexandrescu) to solve. It really just needs a killer app or library to drive adoption.

<comment><USER4> I had the same reaction upon reading Alexandrescu's recent book - he really won me over.</comment></comment></comment>


Seriously, is Netflix cooking up its own cloud service for huge files? - <AUTHOR> http://observer.com/2017/06/netflix-open-connect-content-prediction/ <comment><USER2> I thought they were just using their new method for selecting different bitrates on the fly. The application polls you hardware and bitrate and changes the codec .

<comment><AUTHOR> I get this (mostly) but it also seems like there could be a larger plan

The company is going to need another new vertical to keep getting bigger. It's got a LOT of competitors out there now in the VOD space.</comment></comment>


Wow, the things that people will do for money: "I Do Anything" - <AUTHOR> http://atlanta.craigslist.org/atl/crs/2202170274.html

<comment><USER2> This made my day...When I need a theme song I know exactly where to turn too.</comment>


Entrepreneur First Thinks It Can Grab The Talent Long Before YC - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/entrepreneur-first-thinks-it-can-grab-the-talent-long-before-yc/ <comment> UK-AL Start ups used to be for scrappy guys, the people who dropped out or had a winding career path.

Now its become a popular option its turned into selection system like a Goldman sachs graduate recruitment program. Precisely because its those type of people running these things.

Fundamentally i'm not sure they have the same character as the previous entrepreneurs. Those guys specifically chose to take the risky untrodden path. That said something about their personality. That could be the piece that makes a successful entrepreneur.

Its not like that anymore, so the people choosing to do it are a different breed. They are more like people who go to work for investment banks now.

<comment><USER2> Why do young founders participate in these accelerators? Aside from the (arguably small) amount of money, I think that participation gives them the feeling of "permission" to actually create the business they want.

I wonder how many realize that they could build the same business just as well on their own (assuming proper willpower, and all.)

<comment><USER3> Although not a quick read, the go-to analysis of this is "Entrepreneurs Are the New Labor" [^1].

On this theory, the balance of power has shifted to investors, who prefer founders from an institution. And perhaps a certain generation of young adults welcomes this sort of structure more than others might.

Which isn't to say that incubators don't have great value for many people. They do. But they're not the only way to go about starting many businesses, you're correct.

[^1]: [http://www.forbes.com/sites/venkateshrao/2012/09/03/entrepre...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/venkateshrao/2012/09/03/entrepreneurs- are-the-new-labor-part-i/)

<comment><USER4> TL;DR? See [http://www.slideshare.net/vgururao/usc- annenberg](http://www.slideshare.net/vgururao/usc-annenberg) (slide 7 in particular)

On a related point, am I the only one who notices the language coming out of the Silicon Valley ecosystem (the war for talent, the need to identify star performers) and is reminded of Malcolm Gladwell's assessment of Enron's corporate culture ([http://gladwell.com/the-talent- myth/](http://gladwell.com/the-talent-myth/))?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This seems so… retarded. "YC 'zigs', so we're going to 'out-zig' them?" Seriously?

Someone should try 'zagging' and seek older people with this kind of enthusiasm to develop startups. With their real-world experience and domain knowledge, I bet the kinds of companies experienced people create would be a lot more interesting. And, in aggregate, more successful.

-old(er) and cranky entrepreneur.

<comment><USER6> I see this reply all the time

I feel like there is undue offense being taken here

I'm not sure that older entrepreneurs are fertile ground for accelerators

not because older enterpreneurs are worse than young enterprenuers (the opposite is probably almost obviously true), but more because the types of funding that most accelerators are giving out can't really complete with what most 30+ year old can self fund

someone who's been making a programmer's salary for 10+ years, probably doesn't need the relative pittances that accelerators throw out,

they've also probably built a personal network such that what what accelerators provide isn't all that valuable

<comment><USER5> I disagree on all counts. You're making generalities that can be falsified. And no one has done the homework to figure out what's really going on.

It is possible for an older entrepreneur to not have the kind of funding you're suggesting. I'm one.

It is possible that an older entrepreneur had the kind of career that didn't encourage the development of a network of connections useful for building a business. This is (mostly) also true for me.

I count myself lucky - I'm part of an incredible program that provides me with a basic living expense (my wife makes up the rest), and access to advisors, lawyers, bookkeepers, marketers, sales people and negotiators to teach me the knowledge and skills that I lack. I could not have gotten this far on my own.

But the point I was making is that there seems to be such a focus on getting young people (what's next? high school grads?) that there's a much richer, more experienced field of opportunity being ignored.

Or at least underreported on HN :-)

<comment><USER6> I don't want to make this personal

everyone is diffent, there are people all over all sorts of these spectrums

also I too have experienced annoyance at marketing targeted at a population I'm not a member of

that said, if you simply look at it from a "who is it easy to add value too?" perspective

the younger you skew these things, the easier it is to add value

or inversely, the older you skew, the harder it is to add value

you have diminishing returns to covering a few months living expenses and bring in a group of contacts

that represents a good (deal/value add) for virtually all 22(?) year olds, the older you make your target, the increasing smaller percentage of people for whom that represents a good (deal/value add)

<comment><USER5> It's a good argument. You're right - it is easier to add value to the 22yo demographic.

I just don't think it's particularly wise. :))

<comment><USER6> fair enough,

best of luck with your startup, that's an impressive undertaking at any age as far as I'm concerned

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I believe that the founders of EF have not set out with the idea of it being a 'pre-accelerator,' leeching talent before YC or banks can get their hands on it. I do think they solving a genuine problem in the supporting startup ecosystem, particularly in the UK.

I spent a year at MIT and it was hard to avoid people that were working on cool ideas and starting up. Students chose most of their classes, and each class generally had a culture of creating something in a project. As a result, a lot of students would experience working on building something cool with a variety of people. That, combined with a very supportive environment, meant that it was much more accessible to startup if you wanted to.

In the UK (or at least Cambridge) there are fewer people considering creating a startup. The UK university system also places more focus on end-of-year exams rather than project work. It's harder to come across finding the right combination of people, ideas and motivations that is needed to create a startup. Most 'entrepreneurial' societies tend to be full of the bullshitty types and smartest people default to jobs in finance or consulting.

So it's partly bringing together smart people, partly the legitimacy of not feeling the need to go into a corporate job ourselves, that I think make ideas like EF broadly work. That being said, the model still has its problems. Forming teams with people you've no prior experience of only works in a handful of cases. Thankfully the programme is long enough to try several combinations of teams. Even so, I believe all the people that have gone through it but haven't ended up continuing with a company (like me) still value the contacts and learning experience thoroughly.

 _Disclaimer: I 've just finished EF as part of their 2013 cohort._

<comment><USER7> Demonstrating an ability to do projects is one of the things MIT looks for in undergraduate applications. Almost certainly one of the things that put mine over the top.

And, yeah, doing projects, in class _or outside_ , is a big part of what MIT is about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> So this looks like a bait for fresh graduates, because more seasoned professionals know that good jobs are hard to come by. I'm a software engineer, I live 50 miles north off London and I'm looking for a job there. My spam folder receives a daily dose of "LAMP developers needed", ".NET engineers", "Fontend jQuery wizzard" and other similar offers that I'm less than excited about, but jobs with leading technologies that I work with and want to continue working with (Scala, AngularJS, etc) are nowhere to be found. What does Enterpreneur First think they can fix here?

<comment><USER9> You are not alone, but there are two or three fixes I can think of

\- Start up your own startup

\- work for a startup (silicon roundabout does an email list) I get the impression (and thats about all) that there are a lot of startups who would like experienced London developers to build them their MVP - price is probably the issue.

\- Why just stick to London - everyone _says_ Remote is possible :-)

Sorry not really answering the question - I just don't think the traditional apply for a job via a recruiter thing works anymore. I just am not sure what is replacing it.

<comment><USER10> Could you link me to the mailing list for the Roundabout? I've joined a Meetup or two, but haven't found this list.

<comment><USER9> email@example.com

seems the right one

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Having experienced first-hand the hiring competition of Big Co's, I started recruiting second and third year Comp. Sci. students for internships. You have to invest a lot more time and effort in training and mentorship, but it pays to build a solid working relationship before they are recruited by the corporate competition (Amazon, Facebook). I have had some good results, but it is hard to scale. Other activities that make it easier to hire is to regularly speak about interesting topics at your local university and demo interesting projects. Deliver value, and others will follow.

</comment><comment><USER12> This reminds me of nothing so much as the Harvard (any selective college, really) model of recruitment: try to admit a pool of people you think stand a good chance of huge success later. (The university model's step two is "when they get it, ask them for money and hope they remember you fondly", which seems to work OK but I imagine will be replaced with "when they're admitted, make them promise to give you money later" by these guys.)

Fundamentally, you have the options of selecting for demonstrated achievement and selecting for potential. You can assess potential much earlier, so it really is a good way to scoop other people looking for the same thing.

It's also less accurate. But there's got to be a business model in there somewhere.

</comment><comment><USER13> _His view is that there will be two accelerators left in the world – YC and the few that manage to survive on investing in startups created by the people who didn't take it into YC._

It seems strange that he's focusing on YC if he's based in the UK? I'd imagine that YC has very limited reach in the UK. My understanding is that the startup ecosystem in the UK and Europe is still very underdeveloped (i.e. lots of opportunities for funds) so worrying about competition on a different continent seems unnecessary

<comment><USER10> It's funny that you're commenting on HN, which is just one of the tools YC uses to capture a global mindshare. Aspiring entrepreneurs around the world now know about YC's track record, so it is kind of hard to justify choosing say Techstars UK or Techpeaks if you also get admitted to YC. The startup ecosystem is indeed not as mature in UK/Europe as it in the Valley, but not for lack of informed, aspiring entrepreneurs, but lack of accelerators and funds that are as reputed as YC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Jake Lodwick (Vimeo co-founder) was doing this with Elepath. I interviewed with them about 2 years ago and he was building the team before he had a product goal.

Honestly, with the amount of start-ups pivoting into new spaces when their original business plan isn't fully realized, this doesn't seem like a bad plan. Build a team that can execute on ideas -- that seems to be the hard part anyway.

</comment><comment><USER15> Basically the Minor Leagues of YC -> which is fine, but call it what it is.

</comment><comment><USER16> I once read a post from a company's founder who is involved in the business of hiring fresh talents for tech companies.

Basically, what he does is whine and whine about the lack of talent because most fresh graduates want to build a start-up for themselves instead of joining a company.

He tries to convince fresh graduates that they are better of joining established companies because most startups fail anyway. It seems like people distort their values when it comes to self-interest.

I said he does so because he is once the founder of a startup himself. Why would he discourage others from doing the same.

</comment><comment><USER17> YC isn't just about getting the best talent. Some YC founders are clearly very good, others are unimpressive. I've seen the whole spectrum.

YC could pick its crowd at random (not to imply that it does; it doesn't) and it would still work. A few bozos would get in and be likely to fail, but it wouldn't be remarkable considering the statistical noise already in the startup game.

Venture capital is a feudalistic reputation economy, and YC is a case of Paul Graham monetizing his reputation. Just being YC establishes that a startup has real potential and puts it ahead of the teeming masses. Paul Graham wouldn't have to do anything to make YC a winning trade for him and the startups.

Before anyone says I'm being unduly cynical, let me fill out a few of my points. First, Paul Graham earned much of that reputation. He's a good writer, he understands Lisp at a deep level, and his technical chops are strong even by engineer standards and put him ahead of 99% of financiers. Second, I'm sure that YC's picks are better than its rejects. Third, I'm sure he worked really hard on the YC program. My point is only that he doesn't have to. He could pick startups at random, do absolutely nothing, and it'd still work, financially speaking.

Can anyone replicate this? Probably not. Paul Graham deserves credit for carrying the banner. In 2002-4, the mainstream business world had written startups off and people believed there'd never be another 1990s-style tech boom (which was mostly froth, but had a lot of genuine substance). Paul Graham pointed people back to the truths that the dot-bomb-shocked business mainstream was prepared to discard, like (a) that technology really matters, (b) small businesses can be extremely efficient, and (c) smart people require a different management style that most corporations don't get. He deserves a lot of credit for keeping the banner in the air in the gloomy early and mid-2000s. That right move, on his part, is a major reason _why_ he has a monetizeable reputation. Is that feat replicable? Probably not.</comment>


Stop teaching Indians to copy and paste - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/news/stop-teaching-indians-to-copy-and-paste-1.20157 <comment><USER2> How many teachers "love teaching" VS "do teaching as a job"?</comment>


Why Haven't Any Startups Challenged IKEA? - <AUTHOR> https://capitalandgrowth.org/answers/2980987/Are-there-any-startups-that-have-tried-to-copy-IKEAs-business-model <comment><USER2> >"out of the way" location of their warehouses where real estate is relatively cheap

I'm not sure if that is part their strategy...at least in Minnesota they parked themselves in the suburbs, but by no means cheap land.

>Getting customers to 'self serve' in activities that would usually require paid staff i) Having a sales rep show customers furniture in the store

Sales reps of one kind or another exist too.

I wonder if after establishing a name they found a few of these rules no longer apply?</comment>


Ask HN: Anyone has rejected job offer from Google,Facebook,Apple,Amazon?Why? - <AUTHOR>

I am wondering what could be possible reasons to reject job offers from these tech giants ?  Anyone did so ? Why did you reject the offer ? <comment><USER3> An actual offer? No, but I never let things get that far. But I have turned down solicitations from Apple, Google, Microsoft and Amazon (never heard anything from Facebook though).

Why? Well multiple reasons. For Amazon (and to some extent, Microsoft) - <USER2> don't want to live in the Pacific Northwest. Nothing against the area, it looks beautiful, but I live for warm weather.

For Microsoft, in addition to location, I'm an Open Source ideologue, consider Microsoft to the The Evil Empire, and want nothing to do with them.

For Apple, they're another Evil Empire pitching closed-source, locked-down, proprietary products that I want nothing to do with.

For Google, it was much simpler: By the time I heard from them, I was well into starting Fogbeam Labs, and that's my focus right now. I still work a "regular job" during the day, but my overriding passion is to get this company off the ground and make a go of it. I don't see going to work for Google as compatible with that. Plus, GOOG seem (from my outsider's perspective) a bit too big and bureaucratic for my tastes at this point. I'm more of a small company person, unless it's the company I'm running.

OTOH, myself and one of our other co-founders were talking a few days ago, and we commented that we'd consider an "acquihire" scenario from somebody like Google. So that's one way I might wind up at Google or some other $BIGCORP.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks.</comment></comment>


Tech we lost in 2016: RIP Vine, Meerkat and the headphone jack - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2016/12/23/tech-we-lost-2016/#wE79fHnoniqn <comment><USER2> The headphone jack... didn't see it coming!</comment>


MongoDB and RocksDB: Writing So Fast It Makes Your Head Spin - <AUTHOR> http://blog.parse.com/learn/engineering/mongodb-rocksdb-writing-so-fast-it-makes-your-head-spin/

<comment><USER2> Does MongoDB still sacrifice sanity and reliability for speed? Can't tell from this post.

Also, I inherited a Parse-based project and have been running it for about 2 years. It's insanely inconsistent and unstable. I wonder how much of that is because Parse is solving a pretty difficult engineering problem or because Parse is using MongoDB.</comment>


Wait, you're trying to talk me out of this job? - <AUTHOR> https://www.culturefoundry.com/cultivate/digital-agency-life/wait-youre-trying-to-talk-me-out-of-this-job/ <comment><USER2> Talking about company weaknesses and difficulties the new employee might experience before signing might sound noble. It can be a sign of an open and transparent employer if it is not a cop-out for improving work-life balance and cultivating a toxic environment.

In the worst case, "The Talk" can be used to coerce the employee in doing overtime or extra-contractual tasks because "they have been warned". Even if this is never explicitly stated, this will stay on the employee's mind and is a form of soft coercion.

This might not be the case for the company of the OP, but it is certainly something to be mindful off when implementing in recruiting.

<comment><AUTHOR> Totally get it. A key part of the discussion is (and should be): "here are the warts. And here's what we're doing about it." If the second sentence doesn't happen, then a candidate should take note.</comment></comment>


Programming and Computer Science: an imminent divorce? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.txus.io/2014/10/programming-and-computer-science-an-imminent-divorce/

<comment><USER2> Most of he problems we solve with computers are mundane - from batch programs to update files from data tapes in the 1960s to making a phone UI talk to a CRUD back-end in the present day. This kind of ordinary programming doesn't really require much computer science and never has. However, there will always be more interesting applications (or interesting sub-problems of otherwise mundane applications) that stretch the limitations of current knowledge and technology, and these will benefit from advances in computer science and from developers who keep up with CS research. But it has never been the case that every programmer needed to be a computer scientist.

</comment><comment><USER3> There is a tension to use your time in the best way. Recently someone asked in reddit Haskell what's the best language to learn to obtain some statistics and finance, my answer was R. Computer Science should be related to some field in which you are an expert or know about. One extreme side of the coin is being too pragmatic the other extreme is wasting your time in the hippies things.

The difficulty is putting the real amount of time in research and in getting the tools that will me your goal became a reality, that's a touch problem.</comment>


ICANN races towards regulatory capture: the great .org heist - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.harvard.edu/sj/2019/11/23/a-tale-of-icann-and-regulatory-capture-the-dot-org-heist/ <comment><USER2> Looking at the only two members of "Ethos Capital" (ironic name)

1) CEO: A Harvard MBA with typical PE experience

2) "Chief purpose officer" - Former SVP at ICANN responsible for corporate outreach.

The structure of this stinks. I'd be not at all surprised to learn of some kind of back channel dealing.

Edit: The former (2016) CEO of ICANN registered ethoscapital.com? After ICANN he went to the former PE firm of (1) above. He is certainly involved in this now, even if not named.

Unbelievable. This heist was planned for years with money raised specifically for it. I can't believe this is legal.

<comment><USER3> > I can't believe this is legal.

I doubt that it is. The directors of a non-profit can't wake up one morning and decided to pillage the org's resources for their benefit. They must transact their business at arm's length. Chehadé buys Donuts from Nevett, Nevett turns around and sells dot-org to Chehadé's PE firm. This looks like a kickback scheme.

PIR is headquartered in Virginia, we should be calling and writing to the Attorney General there.

<comment><USER3> I spoke with the operator at the AG's office. This is regulated through the VA Dept of Agriculture and Consumer Services. I was instructed to file an ordinary consumer complaint with VDACS and it will get escalated as appropriate.

<comment><USER4> Any idea _how_ to do this? I googled "VA Dept of Agriculture and Consumer Services consumer complaint", which took me to [https://www.oag.state.va.us/consumer- protection/index.php/fi...](https://www.oag.state.va.us/consumer- protection/index.php/file-a-complaint) \-- but that looks like the AG's office.

<comment><USER5> Peehaps use this form?

[http://www.vdacs.virginia.gov/doc/complaint.docx](http://www.vdacs.virginia.gov/doc/complaint.docx)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is one of those situations that really encapsulates the essence of IP for me: There is something virtual (the .org tld) that comes with legally enforced scarcity and a monopoly that governs it. And some guys realize that you can acquire this monopoly cheaply, and milk it for massive profit, at the expense of millions of people. It's not even like there's some investment that needs to be done, some new fancy tech around tld's that need to be funded - it's just a plain as day money-grab, rent-seeking in its most obvious form.

<comment><USER7> My understanding is that running resolvers at the kind of scale they need to handle attacks is actually difficult and expensive. The registries themselves are just a couple of machines with databases on them.

Maintaining namespaces is just hard and the DNS, with groups of people running TLDs, is the best we've come up with so far. I personally thought namecoin was a creative alternative and I'm a little disappointed it hasn't become more popular but until something like that does we're going to continue seeing things like this.

<comment><USER8> > DNS, with groups of people running TLDs, is the best we've come up with so > far.

Is it? I'm not very familiar with the domain, so I'm actually asking. Generally, I'm very cautious when someone says that current state of affairs is the best we have come up with, because it doesn't acknowledge the inertia to keep things as they are.

<comment><USER9> No, there are properly decentralised domain name projects like namecoin which uses blockchain to control ownership of domains and zone edits in a more secure way.

There are a few other projects that decentralise domains and fix security issues, but our current federated system has become a heavily established billion dollar industry and the people in control of it have no incentive to give up that control.

Any move to a new system will have to come from end users who don't know there are issues, and don't care enough to spend the effort understanding the issue and solution.

<comment><USER10> As if a den of evangelical blockchain shills would run the domain name system any more ethically, responsibly, and transparently than the current bunch of old school shysters running it, if only they'd hand over the reigns of control to the new blockchain shysters and make them God. Slapping the "blockchain" buzzword on everything doesn't solve any problems, it just makes you look like yet another con-man.

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

>A 2015 study found that of the 120,000 domain names registered on Namecoin, only 28 were in use.

An empirical study of Namecoin and lessons for decentralized namespace design

[http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.698...](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.698.4605&rep=rep1&type=pdf)

>Based on all the empirical evidence we present, we are left to conclude that the Namecoin ecosystem is dysfunctional. The vast majority of registered names represent squatting and there is little evidence of a secondary market for names. While there could be many factors that explain the lack of adoption, there appears to be clear room for improvements in the design to minimize squatting and other problems. To this end, in Section 6, we explore the design space of decentralized namespaces and make recommendations.

Why Namecoin Didn't Take Off: A Cautionary Tale

[https://cointelegraph.com/news/why-namecoin-didnt-take- off-a...](https://cointelegraph.com/news/why-namecoin-didnt-take-off-a- cautionary-tale)

>Cointelegraph: You used to be one of Namecoin's biggest cheerleaders. What happened?

>Michael Dean: So here's my opinion, which is really going to get me hated, but I think Namecoin as a decentralized DNS-type system is dead.

>[...] The biggest flaw is the clunky wallet that takes ten minutes to open. The other biggest flaw is that the near-zero expense of registering domains encouraged domain squatting. All the good names are taken. Someone registered every noun in the dictionary as Dot-Bit.

>And these squatters didn't even do it right. When you go to any of these squatted domains, they don't go to a place holder with a page that says "to buy your site in Dot-Bit, email me here and make me an offer." The sites just don't resolve! These people are unclear on the semi-scummy concept of domain squatting. In Namecoin, even that gets done wrong!

>Also, Dot-Bit is actually vulnerable to a hostile takeover from ICANN. If ICANN decided to support Dot-Bit and decide where things would resolve contrary to where the Namecoin wallet was resolving things, and corporate DNS servers sided with the ICANN (which they largely would), it would create consumer confidence chaos with the Namecoin system.

<comment><USER9> You are getting a bit evangelical there.

I'm not an advocate for blockchain it has only one very narrow use case global distributed consensus on ownership of a virtual token that's perfect for money and domain names and nothing else.

I'm sorry if you bought some flim flam mans marketing spin but I only ever look at the tech.

All of these issues with people not using their domains just backs up my argument, that people don't care enough to use it, hell even the squatters don't care enough to use it.

Ultimately ICANN could have given them the TLD but didn't because they have no incentive to give up that control.

Thank you for backing up my argument with links :)

<comment><USER10> >I'm sorry if you bought some flim flam mans marketing spin but I only ever look at the tech.

What made you think I believed any bullshit, or that I'm evangelizing? What company did I endorse? And the links prove you're evangelizing Namecoin as a "properly decentralised domain name project", but it's actually a complete failure, which you conveniently neglected to mention. Your statements are the exact opposite of the truth. Speak for youself, and stop projecting.

You claimed that Namecoin was "properly decentralised" and "uses blockchain to control ownership of domains and zone edits in a more secure way". Yeah, all 28 domains in use. You're the one evangelizing a spectacular failure.

<comment><USER9> > You claimed that Namecoin was "properly decentralised" and "uses blockchain > to control ownership of domains and zone edits in a more secure way". Yeah, > all 28 domains in use.

Yes that was my argument, we are both in agreement why are you so upset?

<comment><USER10> I'm not at all upset (and you're projecting again) -- I'm being sarcastic, and it whooshed right over your head. Look up: All 28 domains. Why didn't you point out what a failure it was in your argument (which has already been severely downvoted), unless you were being disingenuous when you evangelized Namecoin as a properly decentralised more secure solution, and not a failed improper insecure vulnerable dead dysfunctional boondoggle, as my quotes and citations proved?

<comment><USER9> Read dmos62's comment and my response again.

I mention namecoin as a single example of decentralised dns and mention that there are other projects (thats not advocating or evangelising namecoin).

I then point out the major problem with all of these alternative dns, no one uses them because few have incentive to do so.

You responded by calling me a con-man (sounds reasonable) because I had the audacity to mention a technology in one of the only use case's its good at.

> I'm not at all upset (and you're projecting again) -- I'm being sarcastic, > and it whooshed right over your head.

I got the sarcasm, I got the name calling, it's childish. If I got more upvotes would you consider my words instead of the con-man image you are projecting? I don't think so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Already in 2015, Emily Taylor warned [1] that ICANN could become the Internet's FIFA -- a small organization with great power that doesn't answer to any government. Here we are. A private company run by former ICANN people will be given the right to collect massive rent from a locked-in client base on a public resource.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/21/icann- int...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/21/icann-internet-us- government)

<comment><USER12> It was already obvious in the 2000's the analogy with FIFFA is a good one as its the some of the playbook ICANT are using holding meetings in out of the way places and leveraging small countries to maintain power.

BTW I was a member of poptel who owned the .coop registry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> From a linked source [1]:

> Vint Cerf, former Chairman of the Board of ICANN and founding President of > the Internet Society, said in a statement: "When the Internet Society won > the bid to operate the .ORG registry, it enabled a productive and > sustainable future for the organisation. Public Interest Registry exercised > its stewardship to the benefit of the registrants and the Internet Society's > mission. I am looking forward to supporting Ethos Capital and PIR in any way > I can as they continue to expand the utility of the .ORG top-level domain in > creative and socially responsible ways."

And then an outline of what "expand" might mean in that context:

> Going forward, PIR and Ethos Capital are planning to launch several new > initiatives aimed at promoting and supporting the .ORG Community, including: > Establishing a Stewardship Council that will serve to uphold PIR's core > founding values and provide support through a variety of community programs; > Launching a Community Enablement Fund to support the financing of current > and additional initiatives undertaken by key Internet organisations; and > Expanding a program to award .ORG prizes to promote the success and positive > impact of non-profit organisations.

Which is surely the most transparent flimflam imaginable and which anybody in the business world would interpret as doing absolutely nothing at all. /s I can't wait to see the fabulous prizes /s...

[1] [http://www.domainpulse.com/2019/11/14/pir-eyeing-growth- etho...](http://www.domainpulse.com/2019/11/14/pir-eyeing-growth-ethos- capital-takeover/)

<comment><USER14> What happened here? Did Vint Cerf become a villain?

<comment><USER15> Power Corrupts, sometimes with out the people even knowing they have been corrupted

Most of the time people do not see themselves as the villain, even those committing a fraud find all kinds of way to justify their actions

<comment><USER16> Yes, like politicians that spend their careers compromising on every issue to keep in office, so they can press their serious issue they care about. And find a 20-year career has passed and they never did it.

People live one day, one decision at a time. Without a clear 'mission statement' and a clear knowledge of the risk carried by each decision, we all tend to be very conservative. Which means, support the status quo for now in hope of better change in the future. Which might never come.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It doesn't really matter how benevolent the intentions of Ethos Capital are, the control of a public commons like .ORG has to be held to the highest standards.

With the amount of negative PR already generated by the proposed move, it's hard to see a way forward for ICANN that is untainted.

It is not at all unlike what is captured by the phrase: _justice has to be seen to be done_.

</comment><comment><USER18> Did ICANN ever become a UN agency, or is it still technically under the jurisdiction of the USA? Or really neither, and nothing will probably happen?

<comment><USER19> According to [https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-government-no-longer- contro...](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-government-no-longer- controls-160017929.html) from October 2, 2016

> As of Saturday, October 1, the federal National Telecommunications and > Information Administration no longer exercises control over the Internet > Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)

> Instead, as an autonomous not for profit organization, ICANN will now answer > to international stakeholders across the internet community, including a > governmental advisory committee, a technical committee, industry committee, > internet users, and telecommunications experts.

According to [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICANN](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICANN)

> From its founding to the present, ICANN has been formally organized as a > nonprofit corporation "for charitable and public purposes" under the > California Nonprofit Public Benefit Corporation Law. It is managed by a > 16-member board of directors composed of eight members selected by a > nominating committee on which all the constituencies of ICANN are > represented; six representatives of its Supporting Organizations, sub-groups > that deal with specific sections of the policies under ICANN's purview; an > at-large seat filled by an at-large organization; and the President / CEO, > appointed by the board

> There are currently three supporting organizations: the Generic Names > Supporting Organization (GNSO) deals with policy making on generic top-level > domains (gTLDs); the Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO) > deals with policy making on country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs); the > Address Supporting Organization (ASO) deals with policy making on IP > addresses.

So yes, the State Of California has jurisdiction but no control. AFAIK California has no power to intervene in the internal affairs of any corporation if they keep the law and while this whole thing stinks, I doubt it broke any laws.

<comment><USER15> There are several indications that there could have been laws broken. There is certainly enough for several agencies to start investigations over and at least block the sale until the investigations are completed

<comment><USER19> > There are several indications that there could have been laws broken

which ones you think of

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It seems like this presents an opportunity to establish a decentralized alternative registry, initially populated with _.org_ domains acquired prior to some reasonable point in the past.

</comment><comment><USER21> I can just see the ethos capital whiteboard:

1\. Dot org 2\. Dot net 3\. Dot com 4\. The world!

Dot org will only be the testing ground and only the beginning if they pull it off.

<comment><USER22> Dot com and net will be operated by Verisign at least until 2024 so it's unlikely to happen.

<comment><USER23> > at least until 2024

That's barely over 4 years away.

<comment><USER22> I guess after .org scandal it's will be much harder for ICANN to take control away from Verisign under guise of some anti-monopolistic practices. On other hand they already make tons of money from control of their domain zones and since they are public company they'll less likely try to pull of something ugly.

<comment><USER24> VeriSign wants price caps removed like .ORG managed. They are salivating. Their fingerprints were all over removing price caps for .ORG. Those same lobbyists are still involved now at ICANN in the groups, subverting the public interest. I wrote about it originally here when I made a case for ICANN being captured: [https://reviewsignal.com/blog/2019/06/24/the-case-for- regula...](https://reviewsignal.com/blog/2019/06/24/the-case-for-regulatory- capture-at-icann/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Seize the means of registration. Seriously, why on earth are the domain registries of the world not in the hands of the people? This stuff is far to important to be under the control of cooperations.

<comment><USER26> Which people? There's no "world government" representing us, and having it annexed by the US isn't a great substitute.

<comment><USER27> You could have a council which is voted for and whose positions are immediately revocable by popular demand.

<comment><USER28> This doesn't really work. There are other stakeholders than just "the public", so need to add more to it, and because of this inherent complexity it ends up sucking. (see Athenian Democracy)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I don't understand. Does this mean that my existing .org registration will likely become more expensive at any arbitrary rate, and I have to pay the high fees or lose it? How do I stop this from occurring?

<comment><USER30> You can start here [https://savedotorg.org/](https://savedotorg.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> When you pay $1 billion to buy a 501-c-3... where does the money go? A non- profit has no owners/shareholders.

<comment><USER32> Typically endowment, programmatic expenses, and operational overhead are the big three. You might also see a reserve (emergency) fund or a capital campaign.

If you a interested, in the details of any given 501c3 look for the tax form "990". It's where the 501c3 report income, governance, and expenditure out to the IRS. Any nonprofit worth their salt will have a copy published on their website. They typically run 2, 3 years behind the calendar year, so right now expect 2017.

Example 990: [https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/icann- fy-2017-fo...](https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/icann- fy-2017-form-990-15may18-en.pdf)

<comment><USER31> It's described in that article as "a deal to acquire the 501c3 non-profit" \-- won't the 501c3 no longer exist independently after being acquired by a for- profit? So it won't have any endowments or capital campaigns, and won't file any 990s anymore.

Googling in general, it seems that when 501-c-3's cease to exist, any assets they had end up being donated to some other existing 501c3, as decided by the 501c3 board. (I am sure some amount of bonuses to salaried staff can also happen, but probably not a significant proportion of a $1 billion acquisition price, without seeming illegal).

$1 billion is a pretty big number. Still curious where $1 billion paid to acquire PIR will end up going. Obviously existing 990s for past fiscal years from PIR won't tell us that (even less so existing 990s from ICANN, which I don't think is involved in ownership of PIR or a party to the transaction at all?).

<comment><USER33> Wikipedia has an interesting tidbit:

> In November 2019, the Public Interest Registry (PIR) was sold by its initial > owner, the Internet Society, to investment firm Ethos Capital for an > undisclosed amount. The PIR also announced it would abandon its non-profit > status to become a B Corporation.

So, it seem like they plan to forgo their nonprofit status to became a for- profit company?

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

<comment><USER31> Oh my. So maybe someone's gonna get really rich from that $1 billion? Honestly it just sounds sketchier and sketchier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Nice to see this much interest; sadly it's not clear what to do. Thanks bhickey for the pointers below to the VA AG and IRS.

I'll try to keep that blog post up to date. Today: PIR posted an official response -- low on content, no additional redeeming tidbits. [https://www.keypointsabout.org/](https://www.keypointsabout.org/)

Tellingly, they do not once mention the word "endowment" or derisking [for ISOC]... which seemed like the one plausible argument in favor of this move: ISOC sacrificing the public registry for the rest of its mission.

</comment><comment><USER35> What can we do to stop this?

<comment><USER11> Sign a letter to Internet Society here: [https://savedotorg.org/](https://savedotorg.org/)

Write to news outlets. If this blows up in the mainstream media, public pressure may be too high for them to go ahead with this deal.

<comment><USER36> This comes across as alien language to the average person, I doubt the media finds it a juicy enough story to report on.

<comment><USER37> "Backroom deals at a organisation that used to be governed by the US will probably be used to extort wikipedia for $100000 to keep the address wikipedia.org. The same extortion will be aimed at unicef.org, (add list of common .orgs here)"

That isn't alien language, and whilst not strictly true, it isn't stretching the truth more than the news already does habitually.

<comment><USER38> That isn't alien language and while it isn't strictly true, it captures the issue more sincerely than your typical clickbait. Nicely written.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> ICANN is the biggest legalized mafia today! The domainers (just like Bitcoin junkies) are the worst human material. When it comes to domains, imagine yourself not paying your phone bill on time, and in 30 days it goes on an auction and your competitors buys it and routes all calls to their sales team - that's what GoDaddy and most registrars do today employed by the crooks at ICANN! This has to stop! Don't just stop at .org, wipe out all the assholes at ICANN!

</comment><comment><USER40> Can someone put together a competitive bid and turn `.org` itself into a non- profit corporation? That sounds like the way to go in order to protect `.org` in the future.

<comment><AUTHOR> PIR, the owner of .org, is a non-profit corporation.

<comment><USER30> I think that by being acquired and now having owners and stakeholders, PIR is no longer a non-profit corporation. Their own press-release state they will _consider_ seeking B Corporation certification.

[https://thenew.org/the-internet-society-public-interest- regi...](https://thenew.org/the-internet-society-public-interest-registry-a- new-era-of-opportunity/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> It certainly appears .org has been "lifted".

Maybe a broader look at corruption within ICANN is needed.

<comment><USER24> It's been corrupt for a long time and beholden to registry interests. The fox is watching the hen house and they don't even hide it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> My proposal: assign the management of the old core generic top-level domains to the United Nations. Raise the price to maybe $50 per domain. This will make domain hoarders/squatters unregister millions of domains. Use the money collected for the benefit of mankind (earmark the money).

<comment><USER43> Then you've effectively made it impossible for certain people to buy a domain name. And I wouldn't really trust that UN would be the best beneficiary of such money, it's bureaucratic hell.

<comment><USER42> People that cannot afford $50/year for a .com/.net/.org domain name can choose a cheaper tld. For some poor countries owning such a domain for your business would signal commitment - a good thing.

Yes, UN is a bureaucratic hell but I see no other existing option.

<comment><USER44> Domain names are not a scarce resource, there's no need to put the bar so high. As far as I can tell the current system with the current pricing seems to work just fine, why not continue that way?

<comment><USER38> Because there are structural incentives for people involved to make money from it nefariously - so they will inevitably.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> What questions to ask at the Internet Governance Forum 2019 where the ICANN board is present?

<comment><USER34> This outcome is worse than any of the 'worst-case' scenarios hypothesized by the ICA when they filed their open letter of complaint in May when the price cap was listed. In hindsight, why would ICANN classify .org (with its enormous base and community) the way it does new TLDs?

Would ICANN have any recourse if, after allowing this sale, the established registry dramatically raised prices?

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> We need a NameCoin rewrite, preferably based on Algorand (for energy efficiency). And perhaps a rent-oriented namespace instead of a buying oriented one. If a sybil-free system can be erected, every host would be renting namespace from the public, as it is a burden for the public to have to memorize more complicated strings for their actual favourite sites.

<comment><USER47> What's your opinion on ENS? ([https://ens.domains/](https://ens.domains/))

<comment><USER46> ethereum is based on Proof of Work, so can not be as efficient as consensus algorithms designed to not require PoW (like Algorand, which has the clearest mathematical / algoritmic underpinning / proof under a very strong attack model, if you know of others, I would certainly be interested)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> What questions shall we ask at the IGF?</comment>


Zebrafish used to help save a dying boy - <AUTHOR> https://www.statnews.com/2019/07/01/precision-medicine-zebrafish-helped-save-boys-life/ <comment><USER2> There will always be a disconnect between the need for large sample sizes for rigorous clinical trials and small patient populations for ultra rare diseases. Hopefully, we can begin developing techniques like this one to create a robust, validated approach to treat ultra rare diseases without having to get full phase 1/2/3 FDA approval for each disease case.

<comment><USER3> Their are FDA exceptions for ultra rare diseases. [https://www.fda.gov/industry/developing-products-rare- diseas...](https://www.fda.gov/industry/developing-products-rare-diseases- conditions)

<comment><USER2> Even then that's not fully what would be imo an ideal future. Orphan drugs still require at least a few patients to test on, and these other programs be more focused on providing loopholes to help out people in tough situations (very much needed) - but what I'd like to see is rigorous testing and regulation of a general purpose approach (e.g. FDA approved use of AAV gene therapy in general for any validated rare disease caused by a single knockout mutation without having to regulate each vector).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was expecting something simple like an extract from a zebrafish, but the treatment in the article is so much more than I expected. Definitely hope this sort of thing continues to develop.

</comment><comment><USER5> Paper: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-019-0479-2](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-019-0479-2)

</comment><comment><USER6> This is a complex story told in simple terms. I think the writer has done a tremendous job of making the material accessible.</comment>


Ask HN: Do you pay someone to install self-hosted apps? - <AUTHOR> Last week I set up a self-hosted private analytics app following the project's Github readme, it took me more than 2 hours to get it working properly. I'm not really into devops. I thought it took too long, and maybe I could have hired someone to do it for me.<p>Do you set up all of your self-hosted apps? Do you know if there's a place to hire people to set things up for you? Would you pay for somebody to do that? Is there any security concern? <comment><USER2> I am actually building a self-hosted application and this is a really big question/problem. In a perfect world, you could go to any hosting platform and with one click you should be able to install any software you want (as you do on mobile with apps).

I am trying to find a solution for this, but so far most of my clients have at least some technical knowledge, the rest are a bit afraid, as you mentioned, to waste too much time on trying to install something.

I also talked to some folks at DigitalOcean to ask on an easier way for a developer to install the software for the clients, on the clients own DO account. Unforunately all the solutions they provided were either really complicated or involved access to the clients account, thus imposing a high security risk. I told them it would be really cool if I could send a link to the client that automatically create the server with all the configuration needed, without them having to press any other buttons or run any commands.

Slightly off-topic: What self-hosted analytics app did you install? You could also check out the one I built[0], I focused a lot on making installation as easy as possible.

[0]: [https://www.usertrack.net](https://www.usertrack.net)

<comment> open-source-ux I've asked about installing server apps for non-technical users before on Hacker News - each time hoping there might be some progress on this problem, but unfortunately not.

There are solutions like Bitnami which provide one-click installs for popular apps like WordPress. As you've found out, for a VPS you still need to set-up the VPS first before you can do the 'one-click' install (so not really a 'one- click' solution after all).

The choice of server language also affects the ease of deployment. PHP is the easiest among dynamic languages. For some hosting providers, installation of a server app can be as "simple" as uploading scripts to a folder on a server (for example, using a secure FTP client).

Imagine if installing a web server app was as easy as installing a desktop app. It would unlock countless opportunities for developers. My impression is that developers think it's a non-issue or have simply never thought about it.

If I wanted to be really cynical, I might even suggest that some developers prefer things remain complicated because it makes SaaS solutions much more attractive to customers when the self-hosted alternative is so much more complicated. Unfair?

Some previous Ask HNs:

 _How do you handle server install of a web app for customers?_

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13514025](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13514025)

 _Let customers self-install your server product. Why it so difficult?_

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14781420](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14781420)

<comment><USER2> I think it's a bit more complicated because we want to be able to install any app on any hosting. This means that there should be a common one-click-app ecosystem agreed upon by all hosting providers.

Currently each one has its own marketplace (DigitalOcean marketplace, AWS marketplace, etc). A partial solution could be containers, such as Docker, but there still has to be a way to purchase a docker image/container and publish it on any server (currently the Docker container is only public, which makes it harder to deploy private apps).

I think the solution would be to decide on an OS (Ubuntu probably) and create a public container image that could be provided by all hosting provider, which installs:

1) The OS 2) A web-app with a GUI that contains a (public) marketplace and the user can then browse through all the apps on the marketplace and install them in one click on that specific machine.

So, you would go to, let's say, DigitalOcean, you select "New App Server", it provisions a new Ubuntu machine and then you can access the machine in the browser machine-1.myuser.do.com where you see a list of applications that can be installed (which are not DigitalOcean specific, but from a public repository).

> I might even suggest that some developers prefer things remain complicated

I think this is true in many cases, I've seen a lot of "free software" that you can host yourself, but it is way too complicated to set it up yourself, so you end up using their SaaS. I am trying to find better ways to make my application easier to host, but I keep stumpling upon different problems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Don't forget that most Unix-like operating systems and Linux distributions use package managers, typically one installs the package then configures some number of config files to get the thing up and running. Some are working right after the install. The problem with packaging web applications is that most don't take into consideration things like File System Hierarchies and are very difficult to package. If you have any sort of application and want it to be easy to install, make it easy to package (even closed source apps can benefit.) or package it yourself.

Anytime I have to install some software (AWS' agents such as inspector and cloudwatch are particularly bad about this) and I have to extract some tarball or curl into `sh` I cringe. RPM/Apt/etc is right there, ready for you to use! Signature verification, config file handling, etc!

</comment><comment><USER4> Check out cloudron: [https://cloudron.io/](https://cloudron.io/)

<comment><USER2> But this is also that has to be installed, right? Can it install any self- hosted app, or only the ones that are currently supported by it?

<comment><USER5> Co-founder of cloudron here. Cloudron can only install apps that are packaged specifically for it. It is based on Docker and it's easy to package apps - [https://cloudron.io/documentation/custom- apps/tutorial/](https://cloudron.io/documentation/custom-apps/tutorial/) .

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was both paying and getting paid to install self-hosted apps. Some of them at best are time consuming to install. Also you might run into compatibility issues of all kinds

</comment><comment><USER7> If you're using a bare droplet or packaged container they offer, couldn't you just just set up an ansible script? Although, I might be over simplifying your uses.

</comment><comment><USER8> did you check if it had a docker install? there are lots of self-hosted apps you can just install with containers.</comment>


Django CMS version 3.3 has been released - <AUTHOR> https://www.django-cms.org/en/blog/2016/05/27/version-3-3-of-django-cms-released/ <comment><USER2> We recently upgraded one of our sites in development from 3.2 to 3.3. There's a really appreciated level detail orientation in this release; the speed increases also help.

It's a pleasure to see Django CMS mature into something this polished. The stewardship from the OSS developers and Divio is something to be applauded.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Jon!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Anyone got any advice on Django-CMS vs Wagtail vs Mezzanine? We want to build a job site with a blog component. Any reason to choose or not choose any of them?

<comment><USER4> Can't weigh in on Mezzanine, and haven't built a site in any in over a year so things may have changed, but the big difference between Django-CMS and Wagtail come down to how your content is modeled. If you're looking to have a page with a variety of widgets that can be mixed and matched, then Django-CMS is probably more suited. If you've got a structured page where your users are going to be filling in predefined fields and the pages have more consistency then Wagtail is probably better.

The backend of Wagtail is completely geared towards authors, and a lot easier to use in my opinion, and it's got a media library built in. Django-CMS extends the standard django admin backend, may require a third party plugin for a media library, and tends to encourage more frontend editing, so authors will more immediately be able to see how a page looks. It also tends to be more flexible and can do more (which may be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your goals). If you need more control over permissioning, workflows, etc. then django-cms may be a better choice.

I personally love both of them, and would recommend either.

<comment><USER5> I've used both as well and this perfectly crystallizes my thoughts on them. Integrating custom models felt a bit more cumbersome in Wagtail but I've mostly chalked that up to my own experience gap between the two CMSs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I didn't realize it, but Django CMS got OSS CMS of the Year Award from CMS Critic. That's very impressive.

</comment><comment><USER7> We've always had our own hand-rolled CMS in Django (mainly because Django CMS didn't exist when I started).

Last time I looked at Django-CMS I found the UX of the admin to be a bit clunky - especially as something I'd want to give to clients and their staff. (Bear in mind I find Wordpress admin to be unbearably clunky too)

Just too many things on screen that would require an explanation, a "don't touch that or a "you don't need to worry about that".

Has that changed? What are other people's experiences?

<comment><USER8> I've just spent months research different CMS alternatives and I've found vanilla Django to be far more pleasurable to work with than any of the add ons. Most of my clients can't be trusted to pick their own URL structures or deal with unnecessary buttons in the back end. Django gives me full control :)

<comment><USER7> This is one of the other reasons for hand-rolling our CMS - we got to control url structure, page layout, lock down WYSIWYG editing to just the required features (no, you can't have green text!) and countless other things.

The job of a client-facing CMS is NOT to be a flexible general purpose web editor - it's to allow the client to edit their content and enforcing enough constraints that it's hard for them to ruin their nice shiny new web site. :) (if any of my clients are reading - I know you would never do such a thing)

<comment><USER8> Glad to see I'm on the right track :) I spent too long figuring out that WordPress and Drupal are terrible, and then it took a while for me to find Django. Very little written out there about using Django to build brochureware.

If you don't mind me asking, could you write up a list of all the django apps and python packages that help the most in your projects? I'm new to the ecosystem and picking it up as fast as I can but there's only so many hours in the day. Obviously, I've chosen to do this live in the middle of a contract so it's sorta eating me alive.

Also, I'll take this chance make my short pitch: If you're ever looking for some extra hands on a project, I'm currently looking for freelance work. I do full stack. New to django, but very experienced with MVC frameworks and I'm quite excellent with frontend javascript. I can even hold my own when it comes to design and selecting stock photos :) email@example.com

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've been using it for a week or so now. NICE! The speed boost is very noticeable.

<comment><USER10> The speed improvement seems impressive will test soon ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Bummer, getting 403s every time I start a demo. The video looks a little non- intuitive and blackboxy in the way pages are built. Is there a WYSIWYG-esque visual layout concept in Django CMS these days?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it's a temporary cache-related glitch. Can you try deleting your browser cache, or simply trying again?

It's working for me here, anyway...

<comment><USER11> It's a 403 error, so it's probably _unlikely_ it has anything to do with browser cache (but of course possible, though I don't know what Django would need from cookies/webstorage/cache). I did try on another machine in a incognito window and got the same thing 3 times.

<comment><AUTHOR> OK, really sorry about that. We're working on it back here, we can definitely see a caching issue somewhere in the pipeline. Would you try once more in incognito mode?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Sorry if you had any problems with our demos - it turned out that the A/B testing tool we had on the form was sometimes raising a 403 error - we've deactivated it and all is working smoothly now.

</comment><comment><USER12> The CMS evolved so much in the recent years :) love the development

</comment><comment><USER13> How's the security of django compared to other CMS'es?

<comment><AUTHOR> Django takes security extremely seriously: [https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/topics/security/](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/topics/security/).

Any Django application that follows good practices and doesn't do anything daft will inherit those security benefits.

Django doesn't permit overwriting of its own program files for update procedures, for example, which some systems to.

(A CMS is by nature slightly more vulnerable, because of the potential for mishandling user-submitted content.)

<comment><USER13> Nice, I may have to check this out. I'm looking to setup a small site for myself with a blog and security always worries me if I look at things like Wordpress.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> That's a speedy step forward ;)</comment>


Boost Your Productivity - <AUTHOR> http://celestinechua.com/blog/2009/07/boost-your-productivity-in-50-ways/

<comment><USER2> Always nagging at the back of mind in these "lists" is..

#51 quite reading online lists of how to improve your life and just do it

:)

<comment><AUTHOR> haha :) That's true in itself too! What I like about lists though is that it does pack some good tips for immediate application. I used to dislike lists, but changed my mind after I started gleaning great insights from them.</comment></comment>


Since viruses are not a problem on the Mac, does this mean piracy is more of a problem? - <AUTHOR>

Without viruses to scare away users from pirated software, one would expect higher piracy rates on the Mac.  Is this so? <comment><USER2> Not so... Viruses are becoming more and more of an issue on Mac's... Not to mention with a good knowledge of PC viruses, then they aren't really an issue.

</comment><comment><USER3> The premise is beginning to become less and less valid, especially with the recent trojan in pirated copies Photoshop CS4 and iWork '09.

</comment><comment><USER4> wait- viruses scare people away from pirated software on windows? my practical experience doesn't jive with that axiom of your question.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not all people. But probably many of them.</comment></comment>