How Hacker News motivated me to resign my job and launch my own startup - <AUTHOR> http://blog.freshdesk.com/the-freshdesk-story-how-a-simple-comment-on-h-0/#.UDeQC8GPV8E <comment><USER2> You know, I always groan a bit when I read headlines like this. I decided to click through so I could satisfy my pathetic desire to scoff and ended up reading a great story. Very inspiring, and I hope the best for you guys.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's a great story (especially for us outside the U.S.).

It has already been discussed here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2340732>

but it's nice to revisit an old success story :)

</comment><comment><USER4> I'd be interested to know what the overall costs and quality would be for a US startup to move to India for lower operation costs at least for the initial stages. Does anyone have experience with this?

Silicon Valley sounds great, but cost of living and cost of talent makes it seem out of reach at least for the near future.

</comment><comment><USER5> I see you got getmefast to design your website, how much of that design is left in the current version, and how was the overall experience with that company? Thanks

<comment><USER6> We have changed much of the old site design developed by getmefast after we had the bandwidth and resources to have an inhouse team. Our experience was good enough to get started with a website. However for a start just getting some good templates from themeforest may do the job also for a lower cost till you can afford to hire a top notch team.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> As a US/CA resident, i'm always stunned to see how low operating costs can be in India.

</comment><comment><USER8> Nice informative post. I also read your post, "How to incorporate a US Corporation from outside the USA". How is this legal? And how/who do you pay taxes?

<comment><USER6> The US company is a Delaware C Corp and is a legal business entity in the US and pays taxes like any other corporation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I also have hacker news to thank for my entrepreneurial career, I think. There isn't a good story there, I've just been reading it for about 6 years, right about when I was graduating college, and the cult of YC indoctrinated me. Edit: For clarification, year 1 and 2 of hacker news were extremely focused on PG, PG's writings, YC, etc. So when I saw I was indoctrinated it's because the site was nothing but that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Was bitgym funded by YC? Really impressed by your business proposition and your bike hack: <http://blog.bitgym.com/2012/03/our-first-lean-hypothesis/> After 23 blog posts in 2 years, I'm sure there's more where that came from. Would you mind sharing your backstory here? Or a 1 minute rundown via email aaron [at] brownieinmotion [dot] ca. I would be honoured to spotlight bitgym in my book: <http://sellfy.com/p/9j2z> A bit of background: [http://startupframework.tumblr.com/post/29634915106/what- i-l...](http://startupframework.tumblr.com/post/29634915106/what-i-learnt- from-yc) Thanks Alex!

<comment><USER9> We are not associated with or funded by YC, although Sam did fund us personally. I'll shoot you an email.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Congratulations for launching. Welcome to hell! :) And wish you luck.

<comment><USER3> They launched a year ago, the title should say (2011) :)

And they've already raised 10 millon dollars, and a few fights with ZenDesk too :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I learned about the search at the bottom of the page. I have been here 6 months and been so excited with everything I never made it to the bottom to find it.

<comment><USER12> me too never saw it, but i have pinned hnsearch tab :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Good luck! and welcome to the new world!

</comment><comment><USER14> What a funny coincidence, I was just looking at freshdesk yesterday. I really want to place our support software (Kayako), but there just aren't good options out there.

Unfortunately SaaS doesn't work for us, but I wish these guys the best. Looks like they're on the right track and have the right priorities.

<comment><USER15> Interesting, what is the issue with SaaS?

<comment><USER16> Dunno about OP, but some businesses have privacy or legal issues around data that they might want/need to store in these systems.. Things like healthcare info, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> moron indian hairy dark ass. motivate indian ass

</comment><comment><USER15> This is a good, well written, specific story of a startup. Nice job guys. :)

\- Just realized this is from quite while ago.

</comment><comment><USER18> inspiring girish</comment>


The problem with Microsoft is in this office - <AUTHOR> http://lancewiggs.com/2011/04/04/the-problem-with-microsoft-is-in-this-office/

<comment><USER2> A little research shows the photo is not recent. It's being hotlinked from a wordpress.com blog, and a Tineye search shows it's from Time's 2008 TIME 100 ([http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,17337...](http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1733748_1733758_1736191,00.html))

Who knows when it was taken, but it's at _least_ 3 years old.

EDIT: Further Googling confirms the image was taken in 2006: [http://stuartisett.photoshelter.com/gallery- image/PORTFOLIO-...](http://stuartisett.photoshelter.com/gallery- image/PORTFOLIO-Business-Industry/G0000a51N8nlueqs/I0000i6zn1BSIDRM)

<comment><USER3> The comparison photo of Steve Jobs is from 2004 though, so the analogy he is making still holds IMHO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Maybe I'm missing something, but this just comes off as a petty, baseless attack on Ballmer. Was it really necessary for them to explain why their home office is nicer than Ballmer's office at work? Why should I care if his desk or pinboard is ugly?

<comment><AUTHOR> (I wrote the post) It's evidence that Ballmer is not end-user centric.

And yes - I should have said that my office was an example only, and that essentially any reader of this would have a better set-up. Being in a cafe would be a better set-up.

Ballmer is smart, very smart, and with a very sharp business mind. He went straight from Harvard undergrad to Stanford GSB (MBA School), then left after a year to work at Microsoft. He wasa great partner with Bill Gates, but I do not believe he's a product guy, and nor should he be in charge of product development.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Im a bit weary of the "the problem with microsoft is ..." articles.

Micorsoft is in an almost monopoly situation. And they don't have to even try selling their stuff. It's pretty much an opt out model when you buy a computer. They got themselves into some tar with product quality on occasion. Some argue that they got out. I don't know or care - i'm not really using their stuff unless I have to.

Regardless of how much I disagree with their methods, I have to respond to this saying "I wish I had their kind of problems". Something makes me think that so do many of the "the problem with Microsoft" posters. But maybe it's just that the grass is greener on the other side.</comment>


Ask HN: How far would you go to stop spam calls? - <AUTHOR> Would you:
1. port your number into a developer-controlled service (Twilio is most well-known I think)
2. abandon your voice service (close account, port number away, replace voice SIM with a data-only SIM)
3. download a SIP app on your phone, to make/receive calls while in WiFi/LTE
4. abandon texting mostly (could have a browser UI simply enough, maybe with push notifications, but it's not the texting you're used to, if you use it)
If you are ok with all the above, I've been experimenting with this for months. I have two features that make calling work for me:
- a whitelist of caller IDs that are allowed to cause my phone to ring. My family, friends, etc are on this whitelist.
- a "temporary pass" where I let all calls through for a certain time period. I use this when expecting a call from an unknown caller ID soon (deliveries, uber/lyft, etc). <comment><USER2> I don't answer calls I don't recognize, and I'll never call an unfamiliar number just to find out.

The first few seconds of the voice message (or spoofed number call) is all that is needed to know if it was actually important. Spam? Press 7 and move on. No voice message? Clearly not important.

How hard is that?

</comment><comment><USER3> I would personally be fine with never using voice calls again. I am also fine not using Facebook. Unfortunately many things rely on what "every other person you know" does, and that has prevented me from abandoning either one.

</comment><comment><USER4> I use a Nokia 3310 when I'm outside the house. When I'm in, it stays turned off.</comment>


Red Language: Answers to community questions - <AUTHOR> http://www.red-lang.org/2018/01/answers-to-community-questions.html <comment><USER2> For those who (like me) hadn't seen the Red Language before, there's a lot to like there:

[http://www.red-lang.org/p/about.html](http://www.red-lang.org/p/about.html)

Not having a baroque toolchain with fifty dependencies has in itself already persuaded me to give it a try.

<comment><USER3> Welcome to Red @Turing_Machine! Baroque is fine for music, but not for tech. :) It's funny how a certain feature will attract people to Red (and its predecessor Rebol), but then you find so much more inside. I was the same way. When I found Rebol, in 2001, it was the GUI system that hooked me. That's still a great feature, of course, but it's the core language/format itself, the datatypes, `parse`, and more that I miss when using other tools.

<comment><USER4> I've seen you on the Rebol/Red forums...do you get paid to write Rebol?

<comment><USER3> I've made a living using Rebol for 16 years, with other things when I have to. :^)

<comment><USER5> Ha ha, very cool. Then you must know Nick Antonaccio, who has too. Seen his Rebol sites.

<comment><USER4> I love his 60 bazillion sites. I've seen his stuff on lulu as well, but I wished he went into more detail on some of the apps at times. I can mostly follow along, but stuff like rebtris is pretty terse in a way (lot of functionality in one spot).

<comment><USER5> Yes he has many sites. Some overlap among them, but still good. Agreed that more detail would be good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Any plans to run a private NEO blockchain?

After visiting the NEO website I have no idea what it is supposed to be.

[https://neo.org/](https://neo.org/)

</comment><comment><USER7> So how exactly do they plan to make money?

<comment><USER3> From what has been said publicly, the blockchain sub-project will help raise funds to fuel development in the near term. Long term sustainability, and value, will come from building products, services, and tools.

<comment><USER5> Good to know they won't be relying on blockchain alone for funding, at least in the long term.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think Red could find some momentum with blockchain, but I'm not sure how many people will go for yet another ICO, although I'm very ignorant in that area. As long as they keep chugging along I'm happy though. One day I'd love to be able to use Red for nearly all my computing needs.</comment>


Our Vision for Rust and WebAssembly - <AUTHOR> https://rustwasm.github.io/2018/06/25/vision-for-rust-and-wasm.html <comment><USER2> > _So we are writing The Rust and WebAssembly Book._

Awesome! What's there already is looking good. I wonder if it'll turn into an actual paper book some day like the second edition of TRPL did. [0]

On that note, my copy just shipped today (or at least received a tracking number), so get yours now! __*

Alternatively TRPL is also free[1] of course, and there's a somewhat outdated PDF version[2] available. If you're motivated, you can just use that person's scripts to generate an updated copy probably. The advantage of those is that the online and unofficial PDF versions have colorized syntax; the _no starch press_ edition does not last I checked. However, there's no reason not to buy it anyways if you're able. Personally nothing beats paper.

[0] [https://nostarch.com/Rust](https://nostarch.com/Rust)

[1] [https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/](https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/)

[2] [https://github.com/lise-henry/books](https://github.com/lise-henry/books)

 __* = No conflict of interest exists here, Steve is just really nice to me on HN and I love Rust. :)

<comment><USER3> > my copy just shipped today

Hooray! I got to actually hold one last week, it was... wonderful. I am biased though :p

<comment><USER4> The linked nostarch page shows only 13 of 20 chapters as (AVAILABLE NOW). How is the printed book finished already?

<comment><USER3> They just didn't do the final upload; the text was finalized like six weeks ago. The idea was to do it at the same time the physical books shipped. If it's not already fixed, should be done very soon. I've had the PDF in my inbox for a few weeks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> IMHO things like WASM, web vr, and LLVM are all converging this year after years of cool demos, prototypes and gradual progress. Having Rust out there as a first class citizen is awesome. This year we should see the beginning of a minor revolution in front end development, where essentially anything targeting LLVM will be able to compile to WASM, be bundled as an NPM, and be usable in the context of web application for essentially anything done in javascript until now whether it is performance critical algorithms, manipulating the dom, writing to canvas, driving IO via web sockets, dealing with web gl and web vr, audio, etc.

Breaking the monopoly Javascript has had on this space for close to 25 years is a good thing. Perhaps people will continue to use it but it will have to be on merits rather than just merely being the only game in town. In any case looking forward to having more choice in this space.

IMHO, modern JS based frontend development is a combination of tedious, error prone, and backwards. If this honestly is the state of the art, then WTF. happened in the past 20 years.

<comment> grey-area There is one huge change here (as compared to things like the golang wasm port) which makes this more likely to be adopted IMO:

 _Rust compiled to WebAssembly doesn't have a runtime. This results in small .wasm binary sizes that are proportional to the amount of Rust code that is being compiled to WebAssembly. Binary size is of huge importance since the .wasm must be downloaded over the network. The proportionality means you only pay (in code size) for what you use. In turn, that means it is feasible for existing JavaScript code bases to incrementally and partially adopt Rust._

Great to hear they're taking this approach. I do think it'd be nice to have DOM access too though, as then you won't need JS at all - I do think _long term_ the attraction of this is to replace JS as a front-end language, not just augment it, but it's nice they're taking an incremental approach.

<comment><USER3> wasm-bindgen is forward compatible with the host bindings proposal, so once that lands, the DOM stuff will Just Work.

<comment><USER6> Waiting for this !

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > _In the most performance-sensitive contexts, JavaScript hinders rather than > helps. Its dynamic type system and non-deterministic garbage collection > pauses get in the way. Seemingly small code changes can result in drastic > performance regressions if you accidentally wander off the JIT's happy > path._

I'm seeing this repeated more and more as a compelling case for using WASM. I've even repeated it myself. Does anyone know of examples of JS optimized for one VM not performing well in others, leading to a significant cost? I ask this as a Rust/WASM fanboy. Not doubting; just curious. I feel like I've already read a couple anecdotes but can't remember.

<comment><USER8> I haven't done any performance-critical JavaScript for two years now and I know a lot a things have change with Turbofan, but I had been hitting slow paths of V8 so many times … The easiest to avoid were also the most painful when it comes to code organization : exception handling was so slow it was unusable. And it was affecting our ability to use modern JS, because the polyfil for `for of` or `async/await` had to use exception to comply with the spec. As a result we were stuck using ES5.1 for a really long time (because we needed to support mobile browsers, which are (or were at this point, at least) a new kind of IE6.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I would love to do frontend web development but the current high-churn Javascript ecosystem makes me dizzy; this is probably a naive question but will it be possible to do web-development without integrating in the Javascript ecosystem using WebAssembly and Rust someday?

<comment><USER10> Eventually there will be direct binding between WebAssembly and web APIs like that the DOM that will allow you to write performant web apps that circumvent JS entirely. There are already tools that [https://webassembly.studio/](https://webassembly.studio/) that making writing wasm-based apps a reality, albeit still with a binding layer that goes through JS.

However, such applications will still have the same constraints that drive the current JS ecosystem. As such, there's little reason to believe that frameworks like React, Angular, Vue.js, etc. won't have their wasm-based equivalents. And, if anything, I except _more_ churn for quite a few years, as people use the freedom provided by wasm to build a new generation of frameworks in completely different languages. We may look back on the current era of web development as a relatively stable one compared to what's to come.

So if the current churn is what turns you off web development, I wouldn't bet on wasm being a salve.

<comment><USER11> Oh wow, I didn't realize that wasm did _not_ currently have any direct bindings to the DOM. How does it interact with the page then? I saw a demo where they ported UE4 - how does something like that work without DOM access?

<comment><USER3> It calls to JavaScript which manipulates the DOM for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > publish Rust code compiled to WASM on NPM

leftpad-rs.js? :)

<comment><USER13> Assuming you get better performance and less size something like lodash-rs would have been nice.</comment></comment>


Drugs, Body Modifications May Create Second Enlightenment - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/03/etech-second-en.html

<comment><USER2> The hypothetical drug they're talking about isn't hypothetical. It's called Modafinil or Provigil.

And frankly, the thesis of this article is ridiculous. People aren't going to pop Modafinil and be enlightened. It's the internet itself that is causing the next Enlightenment.

<comment><USER3> /upvote</comment></comment>


18 years of Blender open source projects [video] - <AUTHOR> https://fosdem.org/2020/schedule/event/blender/ <comment><USER2> It's always interesting to look at the group behind the pieces of content I've watched _at least_ once a week for basically my entire career.

For the unfamiliar, Blender videos are a staple in the video dev community and certainly the most common insider reference you'll hear. I'd go out on a limb and say anyone that's ever worked on any part of the video stack will almost certainly understand references to Big Buck Bunny, Tears of Steel, etc. For example, the first Demuxed (a conference around video engineering) t-shirt was a reference to Tears of Steel and I've had strangers stop me to comment on it: [https://www.dropbox.com/s/o2wg5wyl3jhxool/t-shirt.png?dl=0](https://www.dropbox.com/s/o2wg5wyl3jhxool/t-shirt.png?dl=0)

<comment><USER3> Big Buck Bunny seems to also get a ton of mileage as a demo for 4K displays. I'm pretty sure I've seen it at Costco a few times.

<comment><USER4> Because its visually vibrant, less boring than panning over flowers and waterfalls and most importantly, freely licensed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Although I appreciate the work of these folks, they seriously need to get themselves a conference speaker: I could not understand anything of what he was saying (candid feedback, please don't misunderstand).

<comment><USER6> Yeah. I was in the auditorium and could understand maybe one in four words. The acoustics there seem to be bad as well, so maybe the recording is better enough to make the guy understandable.

<comment><USER7> The video seems quite good, there's some clipping at the start but I have no trouble understanding what he's saying. He does seem to have a bit of a lisp (or maybe it's the accent), but nothing that I would notice if it weren't pointed out here.

EDIT: Oh I just noticed your sibling comment, disregard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > _CRACKLE_ CAN YOU HEAR ME!?

Yes... I can't now thanks.</comment>


Civil Liberties Expert Argues Snowden Was Wrong - <AUTHOR> http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2016-05-18/civil-liberties-and-national-security-expert-on-edward-snowden-and-the-nsa <comment><USER2> I will spare everyone the click bait: he argues that since the programs were approved by random parts of the government, and not just the product of NSA running on its own, that everything was legal and he had no reason to doubt anything.</comment>


Ask HN: Thoughts on Ethereum? - <AUTHOR> Has anyone used it or developed an app on it? What are your thoughts on the technology? What about on solidity as a contract language? <comment><USER2> I went to a Blockchain conference in NYC and met with some Ethereum advocates there. What struck me was that there was no real security story. I didn't look at it closely enough to find any specific attacks against any specific "smart contracts" but I also didn't see any reason to believe it would be difficult to find them.

Next thing, the DAO hack.

Blockchains have a huge appeal to people who don't understand much about money, software, etc. We got as long as we did without them getting invented because any academic who invented a distributed systems protocol that would not handle an increased workload when you add more nodes would be laughed out of the room.</comment>


The public doesn't trust scientists. This is one scientific reason why - <AUTHOR> http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleID=2109855

<comment><USER2> The article concerns what we can determine about the FDAs process when it find problems in a clinical trial. As an article addressing that issue, it appears (after a brief look) to be pretty decent.

What it isn't good for is figuring out what percentage of clinical trials have problems found in them.

"Fifty-seven published clinical trials were identified for which an FDA inspection of a trial site had found significant evidence of 1 or more of the following problems: ...." But 57 out of what?

The opening says, "Every year, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) inspects several hundred clinical sites ...." Then it notes that the data were gathered from FDA documents gathered over a period of 5.75 years.

Picking a number out of the air, say the FDA inspects 500 trials each year. We would expect 2875 inspections over 5.75 years, and 57 is less than 2% of that. I would call that a low rate.

OTOH, that "2%" figure is based on some unfounded assumptions. I don't think this article tells us much at all regarding the reliability of scientific publications.

</comment><comment><USER3> > The FDA does not typically notify journals when a site participating in a > published clinical trial receives an OAI inspection, nor does it generally > make any announcement intended to alert the public about the research > misconduct that it finds. The documents the agency discloses tend to be > heavily redacted. As a result, it is usually very difficult, or even > impossible, to determine which published clinical trials are implicated by > the FDA's allegations of research misconduct.

This gives me cause to mistrust the FDA.</comment>


File System vs Core Data: the image cache test - <AUTHOR> http://biasedbit.com/filesystem-vs-coredata-image-cache/

<comment><USER2> I did something similar to this on android but opted for sqlite for metadata and file system for the image. The sqlite data is "master" and the file system is treated as "volatile" as it can be deleted by a user at any time.

Here were my opinions: 1) Using a combination of caching techniques (access time, etags, etc) was easier to manage with a structured store.

2) There was no perceivable latency writing to the database. This could be because of the difference in payload size writing the image to a file instead of into the table.

Some thoughts if people start out in this direction.

</comment><comment><USER3> The author doesn't mention the size of the images that are being stored in the database, but for larger files (~>1MB), it would be interesting to see Lion's/iOS 5's new external binary data storage (-setAllowsExternalBinaryDataStorage:) for Core Data compared as well, as it seems to be pitched as a "best of both worlds" approach.</comment>


Android on x86 devices: the fabled Google OS? - <AUTHOR> http://www.desktopreview.com/default.asp?newsID=584 <comment><AUTHOR> There is some evidence of an unidentified OS being used internally at Google:

<http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3788821>

It would be interesting if it is actually Android. Could be a silver lining for Motorola now that they are focusing on Android single-mindedly:

[http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/11/motorola-laying-off- thron...](http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/11/motorola-laying-off-throngs- focusing-on-android-alone/)</comment>


5 Best VPN Software – 2015 Edition - <AUTHOR> https://www.bestvpn.com/blog/16859/5-best-vpn-software-2015-edition/?nabe=6412130213429248:0

<comment><USER2> I am expecting this tool in the list of best vpn tools and providers of 2015.. [http://www.bestvpnservice.com](http://www.bestvpnservice.com)</comment>


Mistakes Are Embarrassing the Publishing Industry - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/22/business/publishing-books-errors.html <comment><USER2> I'd always assumed publishers _were_ doing this already. If not, whence the whining and chagrin over low rent "bloggers" somehow not being comparable to deal authors and journalists?

I realize this isn't as widely held a view as it was 10-20 years ago, but bloggers used to be looked at with disdain, untrustworthy because of the lack of reputability that came with published materials.

This makes me further question whether there was much gatekeeping at all even before this fake news, post truth era.

<comment><USER3> Most (if not all) large magazines fact check their published material. The New Yorker even fact checks the poetry (seriously!)

<comment><USER4> Do "fact checks" include oversights and misleading premises? Would a fact check have caught the bias in a recent NYT article, for instance?

<comment><USER3> Nope, it's generally a case of looking up things asserted as fact or otherwise independently verifying them. Quotations may also be verified with the interviewee. If I had known that such a job existed when I was in college, my career path would have been very different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This was inevitable and is the culmination of two things:

\- Too much hypothesis-driven science that results in statistically significant, but untrustworthy results. It's easy to find statistically significant data to backup whatever crazy thing your brain comes up with.

\- Too much pseudo-scientifically backed popular press. Popular science is useful for disemminating science that has been solidified through decades of falsiability tests, not last month's papers.

<comment><USER6> Some years ago, when I was working as production editor in New York, I had to manage a manuscript for a book of new-age woo that was trying to pass itself off as pseudo-science (one of these 'quantum magic' type books). Not only was the premise crap, but the author clearly did not understand even basic historical facts about science. I brought this up with the editor, who seemed surprised to be told that the author did not know what she was talking about. I'd guess the editor had not really read the manuscript very closely. I worked with the copyeditor to try to straighten some of it out, but it was pretty much futile.

The NY publishing system is set up so that editors spend most of their day doing tasks unrelated to actually editing their books, of which they have too many. It gets worse as you go up the food chain.

<comment><USER7> Was the book ever published?

<comment><USER6> Yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Add to this Richard Dawkins new book, "Outgrowing God" which is rife with inaccuracies, baseless conjecture about the motivations behind some of the ancients civilizations he talks about (an assyriologist posted a pretty pointed takedown of some of the inaccuracies on twitter [https://twitter.com/GHeathWhyte/status/1175081067943997440](https://twitter.com/GHeathWhyte/status/1175081067943997440)), and theology so bad you would question whether or not he himself has ever actually opened up a Bible.

<comment><USER9> Great... so now I can't trust Richard Dawkins OR the people who review his books.

<comment><USER8> As the twitter thread notes, he seems to have gotten some of his historical information about ancient Mesopotamia from a website called historywiz ([https://www.historywiz.com/flood.htm](https://www.historywiz.com/flood.htm)), which I suppose is good if you are writing a 8th or 9th grade paper on the topic, but not a book.

<comment><USER10> Interesting and informative.

However your previous remark about Richard Dawkins opening up a Bible is a bit worrying.

It is obvious that the missing historical information is not in the Bible, and that remark can be interpreted a bit like the point of view of Jehovah witnesses, that all you need to read is the Bible.

<comment><USER11> I think their statement about Dawkins' apparently having never opened a Bible was in regard to his theological understanding, not historical.

Having read Dawkins, my primary critique of him overall is that he regularly demonstrates a willful ignorance as to what religious people actually believe. He's content to attack straw men and not the propositional truth claims at the heart of religious belief.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> ANPEQ-1 It is always entertaining when the 'newspaper of record' shames other publications for their mistakes and failings.

<comment><USER12> They are working hard to lose the newspaper of record status.

They omitted some critical information last week in the Kavanaugh story and blamed it on editorial process.

 __ _Reporters Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly said in an interview on MSNBC that they wrote in the draft of their Sunday Review piece that a woman who Kavanaugh was said to have exposed himself to while a student at Yale had told others she had no recollection of the alleged incident. Their editors, they say, removed the reference. "It was just sort of. . . in the haste of the editing process," said Pogrebin._ __

Couple more of these and they will be in Buzzfeed level of trustworthiness.

<comment><USER13> > Couple more of these and they will be in Buzzfeed level of trustworthiness.

This is unnecessarily harsh. The New York Times is a massive company with hundreds of journalists and editors.

If every once in a while a journalistic organization makes a mistake, I think it's reasonable to point it out, have them publicly correct the record, and then let it go.

Harping on every honest (if sloppy) mistake as if it is evidence that an organization is totally incompetent or dishonest is something autocrats do to de-legitimize journalism itself. So long as 99% of the time, they don't make mistakes, and so long as they promptly acknowledge and correct the mistakes when they are called out, I think journalism done in good faith (like the work done at The Times) deserves our benefit of the doubt in an era when it is under unprecedented attack by leaders worldwide.

<comment> ANPEQ-1 As a former NYTimes employee, I can assure you that 99% of the work is not done in good faith. It's all activism now, top to bottom. There's a few good eggs granted, but the newspaper has an agenda and uses their pseudo- objectivity/newspaper of record as cover and concealment.

<comment><USER14> Newspapers have always had an agenda. Op-eds particularly have always been a cesspool of political nonsense.

The difference now is the agenda is obvious because more viewpoints are available online, and in the past the agenda would - sometimes - be supported with hard journalism from real sources, including field reporters.

Now there's a lot more newswire and PR copy pasta and Google searching.

<comment> ANPEQ-1 "Newspapers have always had an agenda"

I'm fine with this, so long as they don't insist on their objectivity. Otherwise everything they say must be filtered through an undefined lens that readers either a) don't have time for and are thus victimized by the 'untruth' or b) believe and desire the confirmation bias and are thus victimized by misinformation.

<comment><USER15> "activist with an agenda" or "defender of truth", you can't be both at the same time, yet many journalists think their role should be both.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The Naomi Wolf one is most excruciating listen on radio I've ever heard.

[https://mobile.twitter.com/thymetikon/status/113170257787850...](https://mobile.twitter.com/thymetikon/status/1131702577878503425)

<comment><USER17> Awkward surely, but in this day and age I can at least give her credit for listening and not trying to bluster past it like so many public figures when confronted with inconvenient facts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I have a problem with "news" sources that don't allow commentary on their articles. It seems that many eliminated the comment sections when the articles were too often found to be incorrect and/or pushed a blatant narrative, rather than just reporting the facts.

<comment><USER19> That's my impression too, specifically with the Guardian. If I'm not mistaken, you used to be able to comment under most articles, then they started to disable comments under articles on "inflammatory" subjects (read: about immigrants etc.) and now you can hardly ever comment. Which makes sense, because o lot of their articles would be just torn to pieces if commenting was allowed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> > But a factual controversy can also be costly, driving down sales and, in > extreme cases, forcing the publisher to recall and destroy finished copies.

Are there examples of this happening? Michael Wolff's book was a bestseller, for example, despite many of the factual disputes coming up prior to its release.

In theory, lack of fact-checking would seriously hurt a traditional media outlet, as it could reduce traffic or subscriptions. For authors, however, it's not exactly the same calculus. Once the book is sold, it's sold (I realize it's a bit more complex than this with advances and returns, my point is that convincing someone to keep paying them monthly isn't a concern). Once they become a best-seller, they'll be able to put "best-seller" in their "About the Author" section. While there's a future credibility argument (which can be partially mitigated by the value of being a "best-selling author"), I'd argue that from a pure "maximize returns from this publication" perspective, there's really only an incentive to fact check things that are so egregious that it could lead to a recall or stop the book from being published in the first place.

This is not a good situation to be in, but the job a publisher is hired to do is to take a manuscript and turn it into something that can be sold in bookstores. I'm not really sure that it _should_ be their role to police this, unless it's published by a media outlet explicitly as journalism.

</comment><comment><USER21> Even in science there is too little due diligence.

I'm nearly done a PhD in mechanical engineering. Recently I was writing the review section of my dissertation and I decided to check one of the most used results in my field, the most common empirical equation for the boundary of the "atomization" regime in the breakup of liquid jets into droplets. This dates back to the late 1970s. Turns out that it's off by a factor of about 4 due to a math error. Out of the hundreds of people to examine this result, I think I'm the only one to notice the error. I spent a fair amount of time checking the literature to make sure I'm not crazy but seems no one noticed the problem.

A result being highly cited is no guarantee that it's correct.

<comment><USER22> Is that "off by a factor of 4" result still "useful"? Can you still create products/devices/things/science with that incorrect result? Even epicycles still allowed reduced-accuracy prediction of the movement of heavenly bodies

<comment><USER21> Yes and no.

The result was a factor of 4 too high (edit: 3.3, to be more precise), which is conservative for certain applications. But for those applications I'd argue that you are typically confident that your device is in the atomization regime _a priori_ and don't need to check.

But it's extremely inaccurate for my application, where you don't want your device to be in the atomization regime. In fact, I only started examining this in more detail because my own experiments clearly contradicted the textbooks, review articles, etc. If someone blindly applied this result then they'd potentially make a bad device.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm intrigued by the claim of "dropped footnotes" (and its passive construction). How exactly were these footnotes dropped? There seems to be an implied blame of the word processing software and I find that rather dubious.

</comment><comment><USER23> I wish there was some mention of major newspapers in this. It seems like a glaring omission. Through all the "fake news" stories in the last years, I have yet to see someone like NYT openly talk about e.g. the gell-mann amnesia effect that the rest of us so openly agree is a thing.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'd settle for spelling and malapropism checks.

<comment><USER25> Yeah, I'm not sure if this is true, but I have the impression the error rates have increased in the last decades, despite spell-check becoming more effective at finding them at low cost.

<comment><USER26> I recently read all of Philip K Dick's novels. Spotted typos in every book. I log typos in my goodreads reviews

In the past it wasn't even the author's fault necessarily. The worst case of this was an anthology of Ursula Leguin, "Five Complete Novels" where I quit recording the typos as there would be multiple per page

<comment><USER27> If the typos are in a legitimate eBook copy, it's because sometimes the people who make the eBook don't have the source file(s), and instead have to OCR a printed book.

If the typos are in the printed book, that's bad.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: An interactive buffer overflow tutorial - <AUTHOR> https://www.codebashing.com/io/lessons/stack_overflow/index.html <comment><USER2> Very cool man. I did not take the complete tutorial, but i love the concept. I think it helps very much to fill the gap in our thinking through.</comment>


The Hardware Renaissance - <AUTHOR> http://paulgraham.com/hw.html <comment><USER2> As I understood it, from having worked at a (successful) startup that sold hardware, the big problem with hardware isn't that it's hard to make. Rather, the two big problems are margin and, worse for a startup, inventory costs. Airbnb can add 1,000 new customers with no infrastructure changes, but for a hardware startup to take on 1,000 new customers, someone will have to finance the inventory, and someone will need to predict the amount of widgets to stock in that inventory, and that gets very expensive quickly.

I don't know how much the inventory issue is mitigated by the fact that YC companies with working offerings seem to be immediately able to conjure up 500k-1MM in funding.

Also, YC's major successes haven't been hardware companies, have they? The last essay I read before this one suggested --- in agreement with the conventional wisdom of VC's --- that a company needs to be Dropbox-successful to move the needle for YC. Not that YC isn't, I'm sure, thrilled to have hardware product companies with traction in their portfolio.

Let me just add a banal point: YC's business strategy is, obviously, "throw everything we can at the wall and see what sticks". If you're considering your first company, that's probably not _your_ best strategy. Even putting aside the big-ticket problems like inventory and margin, there are a lot of other things that suck about hardware: lead times, managing supply chain, QA and managing defects, field recalls, shipping. These problems are so big that major hardware companies have people who don't just have one of those tasks as full-time jobs, but are also famous for being able to deal with them.

<comment><USER3> I'm talking about a new trend. The hardware companies we've funded haven't had time to grow into Dropboxes. But as I wrote, hardware companies are overrepresented among the most promising startups from the summer batch, as far as we can tell this early.

True, hardware involves lots of schleps. But that means good ideas of this type are often lying around in plain sight, while all the other would-be founders are fixated on making the latest mobile social commerce app. (<http://paulgraham.com/schlep.html>)

<comment><USER4> I've sensed a bit of a trend (e.g., with YC startups like BoostedBoards and Double, and popular KickStarter projects like Ouya), but I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the capital requirements and ultimate profitability of these startups as they attempt to scale up into larger businesses. Maybe I just have to shake off naive preconceptions about hardware businesses being hard and difficult-to-pivot.

pg: if possible, I'd love to read your thoughts on how the economics of these businesses might evolve as they attempt to grow, especially as compared to software-only businesses.

<comment><USER5> The path-dependency (or difficulty of pivot) is an interesting angle. Certainly worth considering. Most product needs iteration if not outright pivoting. Perhaps the mitigating factor is that if the product is tangible, the need is also. SW is so powerful, as a concept, that i wonder if SW some startups may suffer from "too many degrees of freedom". Thus the ~inevitvble pivot -- combined with the ability to re-purpose a core of valuable skill-- is almost a more inherent characteristic of SW startup vs HW one. When considered in context of problem solving and product/market fit, &tc.

<comment><USER4> The issue, as I understand it, is not so much path-dependency per se, but the _long lead times_ involved in the manufacture of new hardware at scale. Software has path-dependency too, but changing source code to modify a new software product is faster than changing physical machinery, processes, materials, suppliers, and logistics to modify a new hardware product.

<comment><USER5> This is a good comment, and sheds more light on the subject. The long lead time is a question of agility. This is subtly but importantly different that path-dependency (considered more of a lock-in to an existing technology). The link is that the ways of making the company more agile (investing in specialized manufacturing/prototyping and/or inventory) tend to create a more path-dependent trajectory (or opportunity set). So, perhaps this is better said that HW has _'interial' dependency on initial trajectory_ if not true _path dependency_ per-se. Even provided that the startup is low- capital/outsourcing model. I hope this does some justice to incorporating your point.

<comment><USER6> Nice comment. I think there is indeed an inherent "inertial" in hardware business. A software/website service can have different usage. Users may prefer to use a smaller part of the service, or using the main service for purposes not originally conceived by the creators. In this way there is a chance of pivoting. However a piece of hardware has a very focused usage. All parts are integrated to provide a single function for the user. Also, unlike software, there is no straightforward way to collect real-time data on how a user uses their hardware.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> 15 years ago I did a hardware startup, development was extremely hard and I woved never to do a hardware startup again.

Now I'm not so sure.

Our problem was twofold: First hardware development was not generally something you just did in your sparetime, it was for the big boys. This meant a lot of convoluted processes for dealing with suppliers, expensive and unreliable dev kits and tools, long lead times and all sorts of other hassles.

Second the turnaround time for a prototype was at least two weeks. If you made a small mistake you'd find out two weeks later when your prototype arrived. This adds up quickly and slows you down tremendously. Not because we made a lot of mistakes, but we had to be absolutely sure that something worked before sending it off to be prototyped. No testing a new idea in an afternoon or two.

These things have totally changed with the commodisation of hardware and the looming 3D revolution.

With a makerbot, a raspberry Pi, an arduino and a shelf full of components you're prety much ready to go and can hammer together a working prototype in no time. If you feel cheap you can buy a nice box for your arduino and call it a finished product.

<comment><USER8> > _Second the turnaround time for a prototype was at least two weeks. If you > made a small mistake you'd find out two weeks later when your prototype > arrived._

[Cue Four Yorkshiremen]

Try an fabless IC company: 8-10 week turn times on fabrication, each run was 6 digits $.

<comment><USER9> Indeed. I used to be an ic designer... 2 weeks turnaround would have been hog heaven.

As for money, some of our runs were 7 digits expensive. Very painful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's quite curious how hardware design lost its cachet.

When I was in Computer Engineering at Waterloo (class of '98), many of my classmates were vying for coop jobs in FPGA, ASIC or board-level design. I happened to be one of the lucky ones and it set me on a path to a career in ASIC verification.

Today when I look around at my industry, it's downright shocking how little young blood there is around. The youngest ASIC guy I've met in the last 6 or 7 years had a Master's and three years experience - and we all regarded him as the newbie.

Only in the last few months have we seen the occasional new-grad's resume cross our threshold. I'd not yet call it a trend, but I hope it becomes one. We have horrible languages, horrible libraries, horrible tools - a huge, shaky mess of infrastructure built on technologies stretched far beyond what they were originally built for - and it's so deeply entrenched that few of my colleagues seem to recognize it. We really need a new generation of fresh perspectives to shake us all up.

Let's hope it is indeed a new renaissance that Mr. Graham heralds.

<comment><USER11> I have a friend who has been trying to convince me that it is feasible to create a language that can let a general purpose programmer write useful software and "compile" it down to a FPGA to run really, really fast. (He has a lot of specific thoughts that I won't share about what such a language should look like.)

In principle he thinks that it should be possible to compile such a language down to an ASIC representation, but that would only make sense for very high volume runs. (He's specifically interested in software to run financial models, so those would not be high volume runs.)

He makes sense to me, but I have no idea what practical difficulties there would be. But does something like this sound doable in principle from your point of view?

<comment><USER10> There are a number of solutions that do that kind of thing _to a degree_ \- and they are improving. For certain types of designs, you can actually compile fairly unrestricted C and C++ into gates that are faster and lower gate-count than hand-coded Verilog designs. Your friend's domain might well be one of them.

I think you need some specialized knowledge to use this existing generation of tools, but having never used such tools, I couldn't quantify that.

I'm also not sure how well these tools perform on arbitrary hardware designs.

But no - I certainly don't think he's out to lunch.

<comment><USER11> The problem is that C and C++ do not implicitly parallelize well. To get maximum bang for the bunk you want to extract lots of parallelism. Which requires a different kind of language.

The interesting flip side is that if you design for easy parallelism, you are better able to take advantage of multiple cores in standard CPUs. Also you can then turn it around and also distribute the same program across a cluster of commodity hardware on the cloud.

But yes, the toolchain matters. A lot.

<comment><USER12> > maximum bang for the bunk

That ranks up with "rear-window defrogger" and "string-loaded door" in my collection of amusing typos ...

<comment><USER11> Oops.

I will have to look for an opportunity to use it on purpose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13>
      "And in particular, don't be deterred from applying to Y
       Combinator with a hardware idea, because we're especially
       interested in hardware startups."

How are you planning on funding hardware startups? From your site:

      "Usually $11,000 + $3000 per founder. So $17,000 for two
       founders, $20,000 for three or more. Occasionally we
       invest more. The goal is usually to give you enough
       money to build an impressive prototype or version 1,
       which you can then use to get further funding."

A real hardware startup would require at least an order of magnitude more money than this. Unless they walk in with all the required tools, you could burn $20K just in software licenses (Solidworks, Altium Designer, Xilinx Foundation, Keil, etc.) and not have much left for other stuff. Heck, my DSO alone cost me about $20K. The computer I am typing this on probably has $50K in hardware and licenses on it.

I could personally consider the idea of presenting a hardware startup to YC, but I would need to know that this is not about (with the utmost respect) finding a few starving 20-year-olds that will kill themselves for a $20K investment. From my vantage point, if you are not throwing $250K+ into a hardware startup it just isn't going to happen. Of course there are exceptions to every rule. Then again, this ain't my first rodeo.

Now, if the idea is to throw some money at a project to cobble-together a smoke-and-mirrors prototype and then go raise a few million, well, for the right project this could work.

Again, I say the above with respect for what you do. I have done a lot of hardware/software/multidisciplinary development. It's very different from pure software web/mobile startups. Very different.

<comment><USER14> This is an important point and needs to be addressed. $20k doesn't go very far at all in the hardware startup world.

That said, it is possible to be frugal--to a point. My team and I try to use inexpensive solutions where we can. We're using Rhino instead of SolidWorks (OK until we need the hardcore simulation functionality), KiCAD instead of Altium (same, until we need the simulation), MikroElektronika's C compiler for ARM rather than Keil, MeshCAM rather than Mastercam, a cobbled together kit CNC mill rather than "real" mill, a Chinese-made laser cutter rather than an Epilog, and a wide array of machine shop equipment sourced from Craigslist.

Our product also touches biotech, so we have outrageous reagent costs too. We still have shell out for antibodies, fluorescent probes, proper biosafety lab space, etc.

I'd love to see YCombinator comment on accepting biotech/healthcare companies.

<comment><USER13> As you said, to a point. In my experience some of the approaches to frugality can quickly become counterproductive and eat away critically needed development clock cycles.

Here's an concrete example: I made due for years with cobbled-together CNC equipment of various kinds. I bought an old Bridgeport CNC mill really cheap. Within a month of use the spindle transmission had to be rebuilt. It did not have an automatic tool changer or tool probing. After that I took a Bridgeport knee mill and converted it to CNC. No tool changer or tool probe. It did OK. Both of these represented HUGE time drains and detracted from the main mission in major ways.

Later on I decided to do it right and leased a Haas VF6-SS. If I remember correctly the lease ran about $2,000 per month. Best decision I ever made. All of a sudden CNC was not a research project. The thing just worked and it could work 24/7 if required. It had an automatic tool changer and automatic tool probing. When properly married to Solidworks and a CAM program the setup was smooth as silk. This improvement in productivity was well worth the $2,000 per month and other costs (tooling, setup, training) in that it quickly returned everyone to being focused on what we were actually trying to design rather. It also opened-up design possibilities that did not exist before this machine arrived due to what was lacking on the cobbled-up machines (fourth axis being one example).

That's not to say that I am not for being frugal and creative whenever possible. For example, we used the CNC machine to manufacture custom assembly tooling that would have cost tens of thousands of dollars to purchase. We also made our own sub-table for the machine and saved tons of money.

<comment><USER14> Thanks for the recollection. I'd love to have the space/budget to lease a Haas machine. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "We know there's room for the next Steve Jobs"

I'm not sure if hardware hackers want to be Steve Jobs... they want to be Woz!

"Woz soon followed with the machine that made the company, the Apple II. He single-handedly designed all its hardware and software—an extraordinary feat even for the time. And what's more, he did it all while working at his day job at Hewlett-Packard"

<http://www.foundersatwork.com/steve-wozniak.html>

<comment><USER16> But investors would much rather fund Jobs than Woz.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> If pg is correct and hardware startups are making a renaissance then we can expect to see startups soon that sell shovels for hardware startups. For web startups we see shovel-style products that help with customer support, A/B testing, virtualized servers and so on.

In the same way we can expect startups to pop up that make life easier for hardware startups. For instance startups that make prototyping hardware easier. Or that simplify shipping goods all across the globe. Or startups that make it easier to find the right suppliers and get good deals with them.

Pretty exciting!

<comment><USER3> We've funded several.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Don't know why hardware is suddenly rising like a phoenix? One word: Apple.

Apple used to talk about ease of use and "computer for the rest of us", and they still throw some of that into every presentation, but it's no longer the lead. After Steve Jobs rejoined Apple, it was all about the look and feel of the hardware, not ease of use of the software. "Look, candy colors!" "Look how small! Feel how light! Look at those curves! Oooh, you can never be too thin. Did I mention thin? I meant thinnest!"

Then the small, thin, candy-colored devices emerged, and they made Apple the most valuable company in the world, with the media hanging on its every move. And what are they talking about, the software? No, silly, a Windows machine can do anything a Mac can do. Apple wouldn't be so successful without the full package of hardware, software, and services, but it's the HARDWARE more than anything else that everyone talks about.

This has given Google, Microsoft, Samsung, and other big companies serious Apple envy, which shows up in their "strategies". How can it not affect small startups as well? It's the environment these little companies are born into.

</comment><comment><USER19> _And in particular, don't be deterred from applying to Y Combinator with a hardware idea, because we're especially interested in hardware startups._

This is great news. I felt a bit old and stupid at Startup school, because I want to make hardware (albeit for a niche rather than a mass market), but anyone I talked to seemed to find the idea weird and most of the concepts from the stage were along the lines that software - particularly internet software - was, is, and ever shall be the sole basis of a successful startup. It was a relief at the end of the day to hear Joel Spolsky discuss the viability and possible desirability of building a nice little $10m company in just as much detail as building a $1b one.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm still struggling to understand the logistics of starting a hardware company.

Let's say I have an idea for a portable mini-fridge. What kind of engineers do I need to contract to design it? Where do I find them? Do I need approval, testing? What kind of regulations do I need to follow? And finally how do I get it manufactured? Do I actually need to go to China and meet with factories?

I wish someone would put together a step by step guide for these kinds of questions.

<comment><USER21> Regulations differ across different industries and most have an industry association that you can become a part of to do research. Manufacturing is very old-hat in North America.

Truly rapid prototyping is bringing costs down, like a great dev framework cuts dev time down.

There are many possible paths to succeeding in manufacturing, one size does not fit all. It largely depends on A) what you're trying to build; and B) who you're going to sell it to.

For example, if you're going to sell to consumers you're most likely going to have to come up with capital to cover your manufacturing costs before you have a single unit sold.

If you're selling to businesses you might be able to get a Letter of Intent or a Letter of Credit and then get a bridge loan to cover the costs. If I were building a manufacturing company, this is probably the route I would take.

Like software though, you need the right people. Good mechanical engineers are as rare as good software engineers and the programs they use in their craft are far more expensive (SolidWorks, etc.). You'll also probably need an Electrical Engineer. It's kind of like the difference between front-end/back- end devs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The trend towards more hardware-product startups in the sf bay area is real and there is more evidence than just the increase and quality of yc hardware companies that pg wrote about. There are new hardware focused incubators (like Lemnos Labs), more hardware hackathons, and there's been growth in the sensor and hardware meetups for the past couple years.

However, it's possible that innovation in hardware technologies is out of reach of startups. I'm differentiating here between hardware-tech and hardware-product startups. Of course there are hardware startups that are attempting to bring new technology to market (go Integrated Plasmonics, and 3Scan!). Interestingly, a good indicator of whether a startup is developing an innovative technology is that Peter Thiel is invested in it--many of his fund- ees are slaving away in labs scattered around SF. The failure modes of these hardware-tech companies will be more interesting than the hardware-product startups. These companies may take a much longer time to develop tech, then the product using that tech, and then fail, because the market they try to disrupt with their technology may be disrupted by other technologies with better economics--energy tech is full of these sorts of baby elephant skeletons. Still, successful investment in real hardware innovation that wins leads to companies like the next GE, Intel, or AT&T so it makes sense for investors with deep enough pockets to aim for these.

Hardware products that simply integrate existing commodity components (like Blossom Coffee) have a pretty well understood binary risk profile, they either they hit or they don't. The new hardware renaissance PG is observing is based on the reduced cost of production, and new ways to crowd fund these sorts of companies: things you might prototype in TechShop (shared tools space) and sell via Kickstarter.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'd suggest that there is a huge opening for a startup that does manufacturing process. This company could earn money by selling its process to others, and dogfooding its own product in a few lucrative niches.

For example, the company might start by pulling all the open source EDA, CAD, CNC, and similar, software into a cohesive whole. It would then bring in one of the open source ERP systems and integrate it with the engineering toolchain. Keeping on doing this for every part of the process: ordering, inventory, manufacturing/robotics, testing, sales, distribution, support, financials. The idea is to (as nearly as possible) completely automate the process of scaling hardware based business from a prototype to a product. Achieve this goal and hardware becomes as easy to scale as software.

I've been building hardware for the last 30 years, and invariably most of the work goes into making the process run smoothly (ie. designing the process) rather than designing the product.

</comment><comment><USER24> I think it's fascinating how much money people are willing to pay for hardware compared to software. It's hard to convince people to pay _anything_ for software, but these kickstarter projects are getting lots of people to pay hundreds of dollars for hardware.

<comment><USER5> _it's fascinating how much money people are willing to pay for hardware_

\-- Sometimes there are social resons for this.

Tangibility. Evident complexity. Somthing to show off/talk about. You can sell art-work to hang on the wall for a much higher price than a digital file only, etc. (Software's intangibility and ease of replication in these cases are not per-se advantages.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Toys, toys, toys!

It's all about toys!

I want to see iPhone controlled toy tanks with cameras and laser sensors, so me and my brother can kill each other without moving away from our desks.

I want to see usb telescopes, microscopes, thermometers, stethoscopes so my kids can play scientists.

I want to see more e-toys so kids grow more interested in technology.

</comment><comment><USER26> Patents. That is what is stopping hardware. Go ahead and try to have something listed in Best Buy without having an army of lawyers breathing down your neck.

Every. Single. Hardware. Startup. I know, has either gone bankrupt due to lawsuits, or hasn't ever reached product market fit.

</comment><comment><USER27> BTW the "applying" link is 404.

It's linking to <[http://ycombinator.com/apply>](http://ycombinator.com/apply>); instead of <[http://ycombinator.com/apply.html>](http://ycombinator.com/apply.html>).

<comment><USER3> Fixed, thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> "So if the ease of shipping hardware even approached the ease of shipping software, we'd see a lot more hardware startups."

So what kind of startup can facilitate that change?

<comment><USER29> I'm a software guy at a hardware company so I know a little about this. From my perspective I think there's room for a startup that acts as a kind of project manager for the actual "making the physical stuff" part of a hardware company. A group of people that knows the companies who do make circuit boards, design the enclosures, produce the plastics, get FCC/UL/etc. signoff if needed, all that kind of thing. It's all well and good to have a great idea for some piece of hardware but you're going to get screwed on price and timelines if you don't know the right companies to make the stuff for you and it's a pretty complicated process.

<comment><USER30> There is a company called Dragon Innovation who do just this: [http://www.wired.com/design/2012/06/dragon-innovations- manuf...](http://www.wired.com/design/2012/06/dragon-innovations- manufacturing-in-china/)

There is also an interesting podcast on the process: [http://theamphour.com/the-amp-hour-113-sudden- sinoamerican-s...](http://theamphour.com/the-amp-hour-113-sudden-sinoamerican- synthesis/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Actually, I did bootstrap a hardware product: www.growguard.net. Agree, it's not the best looking product, but engineering, designing and puting it in manufacturing cost less than 5k!

A couple of years ago, I was the CTO and cofounder of another hw startup (FTTH space), we did get this thing off teh ground for less than 300k and it is now doing very well and one of the top-3 in it's niche

<comment><USER32> It looks really cool, and I'm extremely impressed that you did it for less than 5k.

I think I found an interesting problem to solve, and while I'm looking at software-only solutions, I believe that it would be better solved by (simple) hardware.

Your post gives me some encouragement to try it out :) (not right now, but I think I'll be in position to do it next year).

Edit: I see you had both a "Show HN" and a blog post, it's a shame I didn't see them earlier and they didn't get traction here.

Show HN:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4474132>

Blog Post:

[http://hwstartup.wordpress.com/2012/09/07/how-i- sold-2000-of...](http://hwstartup.wordpress.com/2012/09/07/how-i-sold-2000-of- my-electronics-in-one-day/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I think Shenzhen is more the hardware SV than the bay area. Or more "Designed in California, Made in China". Look at this article by bunnie huang illustrating this fact:

Akihabara, Eat Your Heart Out <http://www.bunniestudios.com/wordpress/?p=147>

</comment><comment><USER34> I find these essays really refreshing not only because of their content, but because they're evidence of someone searching for points of uncertainty and investigating them. PG seems to be always looking for what does not make sense and trying to figure it out.

</comment><comment><USER35> pg didn't mention China but I think the increasing ease of accessing Chinese manufacturing is hardware's AWS equivalent.

</comment><comment><USER36> This is a good read with some great points... more and more people are coming into the fold and realizing what you can do with platforms like the Arduino in the space of physical/embedded computing. _This_ is where real innovation is happening. Coming from a software dev background, I picked up an Arduino about a year and a half ago - and it is _awesome_...it's just so much fun...it's like the feeling you get when you make a great web app but times 100 because it's a _real physical thing_ that moves, senses the world around it and lights up (or whatever). Even if you don't believe it's the "next big thing", if you are a sofware dev, you should get into it because it's so much fun and it makes you better developer when you learn about things about digital logic like shift registers.

<editorial_hyperbole> I really think the culmination of all this will be what I see as the next logical step after "mobility" in computing (i.e. the idea that you "take your computer everywhere with you"): "ubiquity" - or, in other words, the idea that _everything_ around you - the table you are sitting at in your restaurant, the walls in your office, things that farm your food and control your air conditioner, are computers..and perhaps the most exceiting thing is that this next revolution will (hopefully) be ushered in and controlled by startups. Exciting times. </editorial_hyperbole>

</comment><comment><USER37> It seems like the unification of hardware and software (as Apple has done) is where a lot of real value lies. I'd love to see more startups selling innovative hardware/software products.

<comment><USER38> I agree. If you're not scared of designing hardware and you have been exposed to software, it puts you in a position where you can build a physical object and also program its behavior. You can begin product level design just as a big player like Apple does with its large dedicated teams. With the advent of SOCs, its possible to do most of the hardware side of the design at the chip level. So if you can combine SOC design with high level programming (if needed) you have everything you need to holistically design a gadget. Can one person do this? Yes, I think so. As designers, with the kind of support we are now getting from SOC design tools and software development tools, the only thing missing is your product level idea and your desire to execute it. If you do this a few times, it almost becomes as simple as writing software. This is why I agree why with Paul, we truly are at the threshold of a renaissance in hardware product design.

<comment><USER39> If you're doing something approaching consumer hardware, no, one person can't do this (until someone does, of course). Being good at the quadrant of hard/soft and design/engineering takes a da Vinci, and he didn't mass produce any of it. Apple still had to hire an industrial designer to put a case on Woz's work. But two people, yes. :)

<comment><USER38> If you start a startup based on a hardware gadget idea, you can do the initial design of both the hardware and the software and then as you grow you can farm out parts of the process. I am not suggesting you would build a whole gadget all by yourself, but rather that you can conceptualize and drill down into the initial stages of the design enough that you can get your company started with a hardware idea.

Of course we are assuming you are not scared oh hardware(chip) design and you have a background in software. So it would require someone comfortable with both software and hardware. A lot of the students studying Electrical Engineering take up jobs as software engineers. These kinds of people would fit the bill.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> This is great that PG is talking Hardware Startups - I seem to remember him being less than enthusiastic before, but either way I'm glad that he's seeing a lot of the same things we on the ground are seeing.

A few months back I announced on HN that I started a <http://www.reddit.com/r/hwstartups>, so I wanted to mention that we're growing a pretty good community over there as well.

</comment><comment><USER41> I am surprised there was no mention of the Rapsberry Pi. Open sourcing hardware and allowing one to build their own "widget" is a game changer. You don't have to know about board layouts anymore, you now have a product/package ready for production that is $25/$35 that has HDMI, 2 usb (easy wifi enabled), ethernet, and audio. Just build software and put on SD card.

There are a TON of software products you can build off of this and sell.

</comment><comment><USER42> Time to resurrect and rethink hardware Lisp Machines as a servers of content like this site?)

Hardware machines are much better than Virtual ones..)

</comment><comment><USER43> One of these hardware startups would grow into an YC of its own. If a hardware incubator can solve the problems of inventory, distribution and shipping, it would pump out products at a much faster rate, with a higher chance of success. You don't doubt Apple's newest product for a reason.

</comment><comment><USER44> I have the funny impression that, before, hardware was taken for granted, i.e., people bought the Comodoer64 to code in BASIC.

Now seems that software is taken for granted, e.g., you download TCP/IP Arduino implementations to connect your circuits to a LAN.

</comment><comment><USER45> Did anyone else find the bottom line about the (250 word) piece being reviewed by 7+ folks a bit excessive? Honest question. Just feels like a very heavy burden to meet before getting public word out on an idea.

</comment><comment><USER46> _Physical things are great. They just haven't been as great a way to start a rapidly growing business as software._

The same issue applied to software not all that long ago. As with software, the wide availability of consumer-level, cheap or even free tools to make stuff is driving a renaissance for hardware.

And with so _much_ hardware hacking then, as with software, some will see explosive growth.

It's good to see in my mind because hardware can be infinitely more important/useful than software.

</comment><comment><USER47> I am just glad YC is realising the potential of HW companies. Being a Hardware Engineer, I have been feeling out of place in Silicon Valley Startup Scenes.

Hope that trend changes soon.

</comment><comment><USER48> People have mentioned lead times in this thread. Just so I can calibrate my expectations - what do people reading HN consider to be a "long lead time" for hardware?

</comment><comment><USER49> Amazon Web Services has been an integral part in opening up the web to the glut of software startups we've seen over the past 10 years.

Fulfillment by Amazon[1] could be a big part of the rise of hardware startups.

Couple 3D printing with a logisitics powerhouse like Amazon, and hardware could be as easy to deploy as a webapp soon.

1\. [http://www.amazonservices.com/content/fulfillment-by- amazon....](http://www.amazonservices.com/content/fulfillment-by-amazon.htm)

</comment><comment><USER6> Difficulties of a hardware startup, compared to a software one, is mainly of storage, selling channels and after-sales services. The inability to iterate quickly is also one of its problem.

Unless someone come up with a solution for these problems, I don't see a renaissance of hardware in the form of many startups (but can be in other forms, since now Win 8 is encouraging hardware creativity)

</comment><comment><USER50> Coincidentally, HN's own robg just posted his new hardware startup here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4689244>

Personally I think the biofeedback thing sounds very cool. I ordered a biofeedback device from some outfit a few years ago and never came close to getting the thing to work.

</comment><comment><USER51> > And one of most conspicuous trends in the last batch was the large number of > hardware startups.

OT, but please be kind to a learner of the english language: should that sentence be "one of _the_ most conspicuous" or there is some rule by which the article can be used or not in this form?

<comment><USER52> Looks like a typographical error to me, a native speaker of the American flavor of English. You are correct that the article is required here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I'm not sure 8% is really indicative of any trend, also I think the sample size is way too small to draw any kind of conclusions. And no examples of what this 8% are up to, at least in broad terms?

If you look at the bigger picture, rather than the little world of YC you'll see lots of hw in medical, aviation, military, communications etc etc.

Saying that the number of companies that would be attracted to YC for money has risen from X to 8% doesn't really speak of any trend.

There are some examples from kickstarter that spring to mind, like for example, Brydge (bluetooth keyboard/speakers for iPad) and the game controller world has its fair share of hw innovation (like Connect for example) but real hw innovation is out of reach of startups, you need chip fab plants and cross disciplinary skills that are expensive and locked up in the big company r&d departments. The real companies doing hw are not going to YC for money, they go to their boss.

<comment><USER54> >real hw innovation is out of reach of startups, you need chip fab plants

That's a bit hyperbolic. Even Apple doesn't fab their own silicon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> It's impossible to bootstrap a hardware company. You need capital, otherwise you'll never get out of the tar pit that is small-scale production. So hardware companies will always be much harder than software companies, if only for this reason.

</comment><comment><USER56> Good observation. On top of that, it may be nice to find a solution where you can easily monitor data flowing out of electronic devices in real time. Certainly a lot of software products you can build on top of the coming hardware era.

</comment><comment><USER57> This article serves as a perfectly timed confirmation of my plan for what I'll do next, once I've achieved everything I can where I am right now.

I've been planning to apply to YC and start a hardware-focused startup in the home-automation space.

</comment><comment><USER58> pg, do you have a quantified list of hardware startup business models that you can share? For example, as a startup, what are the realistic sales & distribution channels that we can model, financially?

What we're worried about is designing the wrong product at the wrong price for what seems like a limited set of distribution channels with some rather onerous fixed costs and low margins -- certainly compared to software/SaaS sales. How do you wade through that swamp?

</comment><comment><USER59> What would be the advantages of applying to YC rather than Lemonos or a hardware specific incubator? I would think initial pool of capital is the biggest hindrance.

</comment><comment><USER60> PG, thoughts on this?

"How I Plan to Bootstrap Aspiring Hardware Engineers"

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4691108>

</comment><comment><USER61> Which would be the companies mentioned in the essay? I have tried to search for a list of yc companies, but the sites I've found were quite outdated.

<comment><USER62> Double and BoostBoards come to mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> The interesting question is in which industries will we see the first Twilios, Stripes and Clevers for hardware? Home automation? Cars? Health?

</comment><comment><USER64> I think it may eventually boiled down to <http://www.aliexpress.com/>

</comment><comment><USER65> Great, now I've got to learn electrical and mechanical engineering. Where's the Rails for hardware?!

<comment><USER36> It's called Arduino.

<comment><USER66> Well, a train is the most likely place to learn about the combination of electrical and mechanical engineering that is found on rails. The Arduino isn't a bad place to expose new people to electronics though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> How about combining hardware gadgets with the SaaS model? Will HaaS be big in the future?

</comment><comment><USER68> Now I need to learn design of PCB...

</comment><comment><USER69> Spot on PG. I think we are qualified to add value to this discussion here. We have bootstrapped our plug device (TonidoPlug) couple of years back. Lot of people ridiculed and cautioned us when we have started. Now it is one of the top rated NAS product in amazon without any recognizable brand name. We have built the entire software stack around it. Now, We OEM our software stack to other Consumer Electronic companies. We have done all without any external investments. Also there are fundamental changes happening in the industry that will aid provide impetus to the growth story. 41% of CE sales are done via online now. So we don't need to pay hefty margins required by Best Buy OR other brick and mortar companies. We can sell directly to end customers and pay the amazon sales tax :)

Also many CE companies (Exception of Apple) stopped innovating or don't have access to the exceptional software skills. Typically they buy units from Taiwan ODMs, buy software stack from companies like us, put their brand and sell to their existing channels(Staple, Best Buy). There is no value addition provided by these companies in the entire supply chain except their distribution. Now even the distribution is coming under attack because of the direct sales model. For instance we ship units to more than 75 countries.This situation is so true when you take a look at home networking products (Consumer Routers, NAS, DVRs). You can do a heck a lot of innovation there and people use it daily.

Now we are sitting with exceptional know-how, ODM relationships, a software stack that can run on all the embedded device (Routers, DVRs to NAS products) and mobile apps on all the popular mobile OS'es. In couple of years we can challenge the incumbents and build a company that can generate 50-100 million in sales and challenge the incumbents. Even if the margins are tight, we can still make at least 20% net margin. We are ready to accept investment from YC if PG is interested.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for your sharing. You sell through online channels? How do you deal with storage and after sales services?

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> at the Dublin websummit an hardware startup (smartthings) won the competition, confirming the tendency.</comment>


Two Asteroids Zipping Past Earth Today - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2010/09/neo-watch-two-asteroids-zipping-past-earth-today.html? <comment><USER2> I can see why it is fascinating to keep an eye on these things but we 'need' to keep an eye on them just as much as we need to keep an eye out for invading aliens.

We'll know it when it happens, trust me on that one.

Until then it doesn't matter. If and when it happens we'll be dealing with the aftermath long before we'll be able to have a handle on what we can do about the event itself.

You could even argue that this is one of the few cases where foreknowledge would not help at all, especially not in the case of a very near miss (or is that a near hit ;) ).

<comment><USER3> > We'll know it when it happens, trust me on that one.

But wouldn't it be nice to know it before a giant tsunami wipes out the whole pacific coastline?

How costly is it compared to what damage it could generate? How costly would be to avert such a disaster compared to the cost of digging a mile-wide crater in central Europe?

If we knew of a mountain-sized rock headed towards Earth we would be able to prevent a disaster, provided we had an early warning system in place. IIRC, a Delta IV heavy can carry a Tsar-bomba-sized device, plus a booster to put in the correct trajectory. It wouldn't take long to assemble a couple devices like this and try a couple approaches, from deflection to blasting it to small pieces (yes, I would prefer a couple hundred airblasts over a single mountain hitting the surface).

I think the politics of putting a gigaton device on top of a rocket are much more complicated than the engineering.

<comment><USER2> I think you are overestimating our capabilities in terms of logistics and engineering.

That's not to be fatalistic about it, it's just harsh reality that if we knew that a major impact was to take place in 6 months to a years time (which would leave an enormous amount of room for error in terms of things that look really scary but turn out to be misses after all) there would not be much that we'd be able to do about it at all, even if we we could get all the politicians to pull in the same direction for once.

Just imagine, at that distance the difference in trajectory measured versus actual would have be only a fraction of an arc-second to turn an all out disaster in to a spectacular display of fireworks.

So the timeframe within which we can determine with real certainty that there will be a strike _and_ where it will hit is very short, short enough that you could evacuate all you want, you might be sending people in the exact wrong direction.

It's a cosmic crapshoot and the speeds and distances involved are such that we'd need to improve our game considerably before we'll be able to make an accurate prediction.

And then there's the next problem, which would be to convince people that this time the prediction is accurate (see [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080129212723.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080129212723.htm) for a nice example).

Against such forces of nature we are but ants, and all our technological achievements of the moment amount to preciously little. It's possible that in the future we'll be able to do something about this sort of event.

My best bet is that we should spread to multiple places in the solar system first, the galaxy at a later point. After all, we have a single point of failure situation here, all our eggs are in this single basket called 'Earth' and if one of these cosmic freight trains hits us hard enough it could well be game over for humanity.

<comment><USER3> While I agree we would not be able to do anything in a 6 month timeframe, any 100+m rock with large enough impact probability would command much more attention (and better instruments - all of them, most probably) and have much better data than current tracked objects. If we ignore the threats we can do nothing about (the island-sized ones) and focus on the ones we can (mountain and smaller) the picture is much better. While we can do nothing about freight trains, we can deflect (or fragment) golf balls.

Certain extinction is a powerful incentive. Humans put a man on the Moon because a dead president promised that. I certainly imagine a global disaster can focus out attentions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _In general there is one major impact every million years -a mere blink of the eye in geological time._

If the universe is only a few billion years old, how is a million years a "blink of the eye"?

<comment><USER5> Just a convenient turn of phrase, probably.

Assuming the universe is around 14 billion years old, a million years is like comparing a blink to about 70 minutes (average speed of a blink being somewhere between 300ms and 400ms).

Does a blink feel short in comparison to 70 minutes? That's a matter of perception, I guess...

<comment><USER6> Wow, I can't believe we both replied in exactly the same way, including the same damn approximations, simultaneously.

<comment><USER7> Happens once in a million years ;-)

A little spooky it happened on _this_ post, isn't it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Keeping an eye on NEO is extremely important, given the large number of unknown space rocks that lurk in outer space."

So it's important to keep track of the few that we know of, because of the unknown numbers of ones we don't know of? And what if we do track them? What do we do with this information? It's not like we're going to move the things or move the planet out of the way. Tracking NEOs does nothing for us, with maybe the exception of mapping trajectories for deep space probes. How many of those do we launch in a year? And given that we don't know the full implications such an impact would have, isn't the psychological effect on hysterical populations enough of a reason to heed "ignorance is bliss"?

<comment> mike-cardwell If we don't track them, we wont develop better technology to track more of them. The more we track, the more information we have about what's out there. The more information we have, the better decisions we can make about the risks and how to reduce them.

What's the alternative. Ignore the issue until the inevitable happens?</comment></comment>


Unapologetically cheap - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3678-unapologetically-cheap

<comment><USER2> This is definitely the threat that Android poses, particularly to Microsoft.

Apple is used to being a premium brand, but Microsoft has long thought of itself as a mass market brand.

When you're selling an operating system that might add $100 to the price of a product, however, you are selling a premium OS. The real reason Microsoft came out with Windows RT is that they'd like to sell cheap products without eating into the profitable "Windows" business but w/o Windows RT apps, it is the underdog compared to Android.

Today you can get decent Android tablets for $150 or less. At the Rite Aid near me I see off-brand Android tablets and laptops selling for $100. These will be snapped up by price sensitive customers but they also make you "think differently" about computers. At $100 you can afford to stick one on the wall where you had a paper calendar, to stash one in the car, and to take one in places where it might get smashed because it isn't painful to lose one.

In fact, I wish I could pack two or three Android tablets in my backpack and have cut-and-paste working between them; it would be just like having a few books or a few pieces of paper to work with.

</comment><comment><USER3> Well, it's great but some components shouldn't be cheap. Like a camera. Considering it costs a few bucks, throw in an extra dollar and make it great. You should never apologize for the quality of your shots on the phone that you always carry with you.</comment>


Mass protests planned over web NSA spying revelations - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23160309

<comment><USER2> A camera phone is your best protection against police abuse.

Make a 50% mixture of Malox ant-acid and water. If you get hit with OC (not CS), have a friend pour a little into each eye. Spraying it with a squirt bottle on exposed skin offers some relief also.

3M painter's masks make excellent and cheap gas masks. Have it assembled and fit to your head before you leave the house. The OC floats around and often is invisible. DO NOT WEAR CONTACT LENSES!

Put a newspaper in your backpack. If the police start shooting their paint balls, flip your backpack around and wear it on your chest like a breast plate.

Never, ever touch the police as this is a felony assault.

If asked if you have a permit, say yes it is in my pocket and it is a copy of the Constitution.

Solidaridad!!!

<comment><USER3> Nice name & comment combination.

<comment><USER2> I was known in the SEA & PDX occupy as a street medic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> My local (Washington DC) protest has 312 people "going" according to Facebook. With any given Facebook event, I've found there's usually a huge dropoff between those who have RSVP'd and who shows up.

I think the spirit of this is great but "mass protest" might be a _bit_ of a misnomer.

<comment><USER5> The lack of "mass" is going to be a real problem. If you add up the visible numbers of people following their social sites, it is hovering under 25,000 with about 20,000 of that number coming from their subreddit. It would be fine if this was pitched as an ongoing, building movement like OWS or the Tea Party, but the focus is all on a one day protest that currently looks to be ill attended. This could quickly turn into a prototypical slactivism joke.

<comment><USER6> Yep pretty unfortunate...

Its hard to build a large protest using just reddit. You really need large organizations to get behind you, MoveOn, Unions, A.N.S.W.E.R, but all of these groups are of course very quiet because its a democrat in the white house doing this.

If Romney or Bush were in charge, I think the protests would be much greater.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, the last one[0] really had a crappy turnout. We only got enough people together here to fill two buses and travel ~800 miles one way to attend.

It wasn't _just_ Reddit, of course, and obviously it had a couple of fairly well-known media personalities promoting it but the majority of the organizing and attendees I saw was because of Reddit.

[0]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rally_to_Restore_Sanity_and/or_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rally_to_Restore_Sanity_and/or_Fear)

<comment><USER6> Yes the initial idea may have started on reddit, but then comedy central, moveon, afl-cio, and other large democratic groups started promoting it and thats when it got big.

If those groups don't hop on, your just not going to have a big in-person protest.

And the eff is the only group I have seen promoting this

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'd love to see NSA's predictions of participation numbers before they happen, who are the leaders and organizers who will most likely make this happen, and to report once social surges start to occur and then once physical mobilizations start to occur (using phone locations data)..

</comment><comment><USER9> [http://www.restorethefourth.net/protests/new- york/nyc/](http://www.restorethefourth.net/protests/new-york/nyc/) can anyone fix this?

</comment><comment><USER10> People, use this for secure communication & activity coordination:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5983913](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5983913)</comment>


Ask HN: What are the hard truths in your industry that few people agree upon? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> In consulting:

* The story people believe most is the story they tell themselves. Many times, you are there to help them uncover that story, not to do objective analysis.

* Being from out of town makes you seem about 20% smarter. Everyone has something to say about the local solution; everyone's a little impressed when the out-of-town solution notices them.

* Most clients, most of the time, don't want an objectively elegant solution. They want what seems elegant to them.

<comment><USER3> These are fantastic truths.

Additionally higher hourly rates cause clients to second guess you less.</comment></comment>


HN blocking some IPs? - <AUTHOR>

So since about 6 Hours ago I can't access HN through my normal IP, but it's working fine when I go through VPN.<p>Is it related to recent HN downtime? <comment><USER2> There are occasional problems where the page won't load or I get a "gateway error" from CloudFlare. I'm guessing the site is still under attack, and the downtime is an effect of some live updates to the site.</comment>


Samsung Demonstrates New 'Unbreakable' OLED Display Panel - <AUTHOR> https://www.macrumors.com/2018/07/27/samsung-demos-breakable-oled-panel/ <comment><USER2> Challenge accepted. My nieces and nephews could literally destroy a M1 Abrams tank.</comment>