An update on YC China - <AUTHOR> https://blog.ycombinator.com/an-update-on-yc-china/ <comment><USER2> Strange optics not to mention the elephant in the room.

I could see them hitting some roadblocks and wanting to try again to get into China, but that would be a reasonable thing to come out and say.

It also would be reasonable to come out and say they've changed their minds due to political climate or some other risks.

Instead its... the new guy is busy?

<comment><USER3> It's understandable it's a touchy subject. Why piss off China if you don't have to? Only something to lose and nothing to gain.

Also this story of a Chinese Stanford professor/investor's "suicide" last year is quite the story. There's a potential safety issue here too. [https://www.forbes.com/sites/arthurherman/2018/12/13/a-death...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/arthurherman/2018/12/13/a-death- in-silicon-valley-with-chinese-characteristics/)

<comment><USER4> If a leader in the field were to say something like "we are withdrawing due to our revulsion at the atrocities commited by the PRC against the Uyghur people" it at least has the potential to start a preference cascade and a mass movement.

<comment><USER5> You first.

<comment><USER6> Mass incarceration and the destruction of Uighur culture is inhuman.

The people of Hong Kong, and their right to live with self-determination, matter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> @YC Leadership: The Chinese Article [1] reads synonymously to: YC China was RENAMED, not aborted. That's highly different from your English statement. LOL: even the website ycchina.com redirects to MiraclePlus. [http://www.ycchina.com/](http://www.ycchina.com/)

They even have the YC logo on their website and claim to have funded Airbnb, Dropbox etc. Be careful to read their whole website. This whole website of MiracleMinus is extremely dishonest. I would be very careful not to be connected too much to dishonest and lack-of-integrity people like Qi.

[1] [https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/SnSsli_ZGo0yI58YD- ddaw](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/SnSsli_ZGo0yI58YD-ddaw)

<comment><USER8> "they even have the YC logo on their website and claim to have funded Airbnb, Dropbox etc. "

YC的创业方法论培养了大量例如Airbnb,Stripe, Dropbox等的明星企业。经过了14年的实战考验,充分证明了其有效性。在中国,我们将YC创业方法论落实到本地企业中,用来服务我们的初创公司。

" YC's entrepreneurial methodology has produced a number of star companies such as Airbnb, Stripe, Dropbox and more. After 14 years of practical tests, it has fully proved its effectiveness. In China, we implement the YC entrepreneurial methodology into local companies to serve our startups."

<comment><USER9> That's pretty disappointing, so they're still actively using the YC name and the YC brand, I recon with YC's approval. I had hoped that after recent Hong Kong videos like this one [1] (not to mention the whole Uighur near-tragedy) any sane company which cherishes some sort of values would have gotten out of China as soon as possible. It seems that in this particular case YC is chasing the local maximum of getting money in the short-run, forgetting about the long-term consequences of what the Chinese government is now doing.

[1] [https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3819595](https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3819595)

<comment><USER10> Companies don't cherish values unless their customers do.

And most people don't know/understand/care what's going on in HK or Xinjiang.

<comment><USER11> Blizzard fans would disagree. A small amount of voices has lead to massive awareness in that community.

<comment><USER12> Also the Blizzard fanbase has put pressure on the company to uphold its own stated principles, which quite frankly Blizzard didn't, and arguably still hasn't upheld.

I'd be surprised if less than 80% of Blizzard's fan base isn't aware of the "Free HK" controversy and doesn't support the notion of freedom in HK to some degree.

<comment><USER13> > I'd be surprised if less than 80% of Blizzard's fan base isn't aware of the > "Free HK" controversy and doesn't support the notion of freedom in HK to > some degree.

I assume you mean 80% of Blizzard's US fan base?

<comment><USER14> They took a hit in EU for it as well. You probably were referring to their sino-servers but they do get a hint of what we see over there. Before Blitzchung they were already facing some PR problems for their bans within OW and WoW for anyone who happened to type anything related to winnie the pooh in chat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For better or worse, it sounds a lot like Qi screwed YC here. Raising 55mn USD, leveraging the YC brand, and keeping all of the profits and upside to himself in China.

On a fairer note, I think YC got to ask: what unfair advantage do we have in this country?

Most of their advantages are network effects in SV and brand-awareness in the western world. Their advantages in the US are MUCH higher than in China, where you'd have to build much from scratch, rebuild the investors' and founders' networks. If Qi was supposed to bring all this -- which he undoubtedly had as ex-COO of Baidu -- why would he need YC at all?

I'm not going into the details of his personality or whether this is a gentleman's move or are the highest standards of honesty and integrity. You shall make your own opinion about Chinese business.

That to say, all of this -- just like any other comment here obviously -- is a hypothesis and nothing less. So take each comment with a huge grain of salt :).

Cheers

<comment><USER15> You got it right. I read the announcement in Chinese on WeChat before any reports were available in English, and had to check other sources to make sure I was not misreading the facts. I attended all YC events in Beijing (May 2018, May 2019, June 2019) and certainly noticed some changes in marketing messages and a declining role of US partners, but never expected this sudden "rebranding" to happen. After leveraging the YC brand to gather resources and attract applicants, this just feels like a shameless takeover.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> OP here (no affiliation with YC in anyway), posted the link because was surprised it wasn't already on HN.

I first got to know about it on WeChat actually. There was an announcement from the official WeChat account of YC China in regard to the split-up (link: [https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/SnSsli_ZGo0yI58YD- ddaw](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/SnSsli_ZGo0yI58YD-ddaw)), though the announcement took a much more positive and exciting tone than its English counterpart. The announcement from YC China talked a lot about 本土化 (which is not to be confused with sinicisation (汉化))。 As someone who has moved back to China recently, I noticed that 本土化 is actually a really big thing in China and it basically means localisation on steroid to become more similar to other products/services in China in every aspect (including HR, internal operations, etc).

Anyway I'm fascinated by all the comments here, none of which discussed the cultural and sociopolitical differences between that of the west and that of China, which I believe is one of the main factors that have enabled the disintegration between YC and YC China.

The Chinese government is one thing. But "the Chinese way" is another thing. And "the Chinese way" actually underlines how the Chinese society works and how the Chinese government functions. To understand "the Chinese way", one has to try to emulate a generalisation of how a Chinese person thinks and acts in this day and age after all these revolutions and wars and pandemonium that have shaped the land and the way people interpret things and interact with one another. Without great knowledge in the modern Chinese history and a good grasp of the contemporary Chinese language and culture (from a none-bias perspective as much as possible), it's extremely difficult to form a proper mental representation of "the Chinese way". The thing is not many Chinese people are aware of this too (since they are already operating under "the Chinese way", emulating it would be like running a meta-circular interpreter - not impossible just highly difficult for an average person). Perhaps this is why people (Chinese and none-Chinese) often resort to understanding China through the lens of the media (i.e. state-sponsored or company-sponsored) and that is akin to looking at a 2d projection of a higher dimension object.

<comment><USER16> It's the same narrative all over again. When no strong arguments are present to defend a viewpoint, the topic suddenly becomes a "cultural" thing. Sounding smart and mysterious. In Russia, it's "the Russian way", in China it is "the Chinese way" etc. It's just BS.

<comment><AUTHOR> What you have just said is very postmodern and the meta-narrative (or meta- sentiment) could be applied to virtually anything. I was merely trying to shift the focus of the heated discussion here as things were getting homogenous and reddit-like.

<comment><USER17> Huh. Claiming that there are no valid outer narrative is postmodern.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is the central problem of the postmodern. It is a framework that inevitably dismisses itself when you go enough meta-level up.

<comment><USER17> I don't see why it dismisses itself. It asks questions, it's just philosophy at that point and the good old epistemological questions. But the first and second order thinking it encourages is a perfectly useful framework.

It helps understand situations vastly different from ours, but it doesn't dismiss your own core values.

It's probably a good postmodern conclusion that truly understanding the Chinese way is impossible without actually being completely in it, but at that point you are again too biased. But that doesn't mean that without a full immersion we can't gain valid insights about it. We can. We are perfectly aware of the big picture, we have seen it hundreds of times by now in various countries (and proto-countries) over the last few thousand years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Personally I was really disappointed when YC opened up shop in China - to me it really revealed a Profits over People approach and was pretty brazen at the time.

Happy to see (for whatever reason) that they're recommitting to communities that (at least on the surface) don't support fascist overtures.

<comment><USER19> Echoing another poster, people and individuals who are Chinese are not their government. You shouldn't equate working with Chinese individuals and talent as a tacit support of their government.

<comment><USER18> You should do more digging into how "doing business in China" works before you make this statement.

<comment><USER20> I really have no idea how "doing business in China" works. I thought I understood it but I still don't...

An interesting thread last year suggested that in some cases companies spent many years "doing business in China" as a form of ... de-escalation to avoid nuclear war, [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17004546](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17004546)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Very disappointing and probably the least honest and transparant update from YC.

<comment><USER22> Even YC is cowed into silence by the might of China. Understandably so, even if somewhat cowardly. Does YC want China to boycott or otherwise disable YC companies? Does YC want to threaten any future relationship with China? No. So they keep mum as to their real reasons.

<comment><USER23> Why disturb waters unnecessarily? YC's statement seems more like "let's wait for a better time" than self-censorship.

If YC truly saw no chance for YC-China in the future, then I don't doubt they would come out and say so. However, that's a pretty strong statement, and I don't think anyone can make such a prediction. There is always a chance for a more serendipitous time in the future.

<comment><USER23> Please do me the courtesy of writing a reply if you're going to downvote. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> While "As we worked to establish YC China, we had a change in leadership. With this, our strategy changed back " does give 50% of the answer as to "why", I'd be great to hear from otherwise transparent YC about why the strategy changed and why it didn't work out.

<comment><USER25> would be good to hear what they plan on doing instead.

YC China was a bet at doing something different. With that gone—and idk if it should have stayed or gone.. sometimes experiments fail—what is YCs plan?

Invite 200, 300, 500, 20,000 companies to SF? maybe it is the best option, but also maybe not the best thing to do. YC Seems stuck in an innovator's dilemma. Reminds me of Apple under Tim Cook. Keeping a good thing going, but nothing innovative.

<comment><USER26> YC has been trying a bunch of things new to them. Not sure how they are working out yet:

* Supporting more hardware specific companies.

* Supporting more biomed device tech companies.

* Scaling online with startup school.

* Trying to scale the number of companies who get accepted into the program.

There is still a lot to figure out in the 'nurture small/young companies' space. That said, each country has its own unique challenges.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> @YC Leadership: The Chinese Article [1] reads synonymously to: YC China was RENAMED, not aborted. That's highly different from your English statement.

LOL: even the website ycchina.co redirects to MiraclePlus. [http://www.ycchina.com/](http://www.ycchina.com/)

[1] [https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/SnSsli_ZGo0yI58YD- ddaw](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/SnSsli_ZGo0yI58YD-ddaw)

<comment><USER27> I don't think there's any contradiction between the two statements. Y Combinator stops their involvement in YC China, turning it into a separate entity. YC China gets renamed MiraclePlus.

The announcement by YC emphasizes the separation from YC China, the announcement by MiraclePlus emphasizes the continuity with YC China.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> My observation is that Qi used the YC brand to help launch his MiraclePlus. After that they part ways. The first batch of startups are very different from regular YC companies.

[https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/KdfV4hF4qz8Ti1XL0i_S3A](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/KdfV4hF4qz8Ti1XL0i_S3A)

<comment><USER29> So form a partnership with US firm, extract IP and know-how, launch a clone in China, and part ways. Sounds like a standard approach.

<comment><USER30> Oh, and the Western "chumps" got "nothing". Is that the story line you are selling here?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I was hoping for a denouncement of China's actions in Hong Kong. One can dream.

<comment><USER32> No need. Even as a hongkonger. Support thanks but normal business sense — that comes the point. I find all these world venture is a bit naive. It is not going to pay in the long term. If want to, why not Russia. At least you are aware and have alarm bell rang.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Interesting that Qi Lu just raised $55m for his "MiraclePlus" last week:

[https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1792939/000179293919...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1792939/000179293919000001/xslFormDX01/primary_doc.xml)

I wonder Qi just decided to just go his own way.

<comment><USER23> > I wonder Qi just decided to just go his own way.

If that's the case, let him say so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I applaud this move. Given the recent history of actions by the Chinese government, investment in China is not ethical.

<comment><USER35> I doubt it's about ethic, it's about the ability to protect your investment on foreign turf, in the current climate.

<comment><USER36> yep, yc can't capture the patents if there's no patent system in place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> US will have a financial war with China soon. So it is wise to cut the tie early.

<comment><USER38> Soon?

<comment><USER37> Maybe already.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I visited Eric Migicovsky's presentation in Hong Kong a year ago dedicated to YC China. He is a founder of Pebble, YC partner, and helped Qi Lu a lot in establishing YC China. Although China VC investments have almost surpassed US, there were only three projects from Great China (Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan) in YC. They wanted to find out how they can bring more local talents to SV.

Unfortunately, it seems they haven't succeeded much. I think the main reason is that Chinese entrepreneurs rarely want to target the international market. They don't really know much about it, they don't have the network and they have a huge domestic market, where they feel much more convenient.

The state of early-stage investment is different in China, compare to US or Europe. You won't find here many events or meetups where angles or early-stage VC connected with entrepreneurs. They don't actually like sharing events of that kind. For example, the largest community of such kind in Shanghai is founded by non-Chinese. The only way to reach a well-known VC fund is your network. A warm introduction helps multiples your chances for fundraising dramatically. Probably YC failed with establishing a good network among early- stage VC funds in China, and moreover, they don't have a strong brand there.

The Chinese market is not mature enough. Maybe in US you eager to make a blue ocean project, but in China entrepreneurs mostly driven by higher returns. China is all about scale - even a bad product may have a huge IRR. However, never underestimate the local competitors. If the company managed to get a series A fundraising and got coverage in media most probably they surpassed 30-40 completely identical companies. Such tight competition brings some innovative ideas - WeChat, Doyin, VipKid. The western world can study these cases. Unfortunately, there's been mostly negative coverage in media about China nowadays. I worked in Chinese startups and in Chinese academia. People are bright, high-skilled, and motivated. There are great visioners like Allen Zhang or Frank Wong. Only a few entrepreneurs take advantage of CCP regulations. Many of them claim that the party negatively affect the investment and business climate in the country.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the intel! This is super great to know. It definitely helped to put things into more perspective. So kudos for that! I saw an interview with Qi the other day (back when it was still YC China) and Qi mentioned about funding ambitious start-ups _that play the long game_ and are in early stage but have little or no connections in China which mean these start-ups would otherwise be ignored by Chinese investors. Do you think Qi's MiraclePlus will continue to do that in the spirit of YC?

I saw an article coverage of YC China's last demoday (17 Nov) and noticed that most start-ups graduated this year have had their angel rounds before entering YC China, which could be due to the reason as you've described - YC China failing to establish a good network among early-stage VC funds in China, thus looking out more for post-angel companies. Or it could also be because there were just too few aspiring early-stage start-ups in China. Perhaps funding early-stage start-ups in China imposes a much higher risk than say in the Valley.

Anyway do you think it would be possible for someone who has okay track record but no direct connections with angels and VCs in China to get their early- stage start-up angel-funded? Will it change a thing if it is an early stage with MVP that has thousands of active users? What about an early stage in artsy-style (i.e. as a small self-publishing media company related to the tech/product being developed) with a self-media WeChat/Weibo account that has tens of thousands of visitors every week?

I'm one of those people that ended up moving back to China and looking to start a blue ocean project here. The early-stage investment landscape in China really is not looking good right now, just wondering how that will change over the next few years (especially in China where things are so fast-paced!) So would also love your opinions on that! Thanks!

<comment><USER39> > I'm one of those people that ended up moving back to China and looking to > start a blue ocean project here.

I assume you're fluent in Chinese, that helps a lot. As for angel-funding without connection, it could be a bit tuff. Also sometimes it helps to go through your current Chinese network and to ask whether someone is envolve or know people who involved in PE and VC. Btw, which city are you based?

> What about an early stage in artsy-style Try to reach > [https://www.parklu.com/](https://www.parklu.com/) or similar KOL companies. > They should be more familiar with the state of the business. But there've > been a lot of media-incubators recently.

>I saw an article coverage of YC China's last demoday (17 Nov) Do you have a link?

P.S. You can reach me in twitter for more questions [https://twitter.com/kidrulit](https://twitter.com/kidrulit)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the pointer! Here is the link of the article coverage: [https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/KdfV4hF4qz8Ti1XL0i_S3A](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/KdfV4hF4qz8Ti1XL0i_S3A) (it's in Chinese though) I'm based in Guangzhou at the moment.

<comment><USER39> Thanks. I can read a little Chinese. Unfortunately, I don't know much about GZ. However, I think in SZ the entrepreneur community is slightly more developed

<comment><AUTHOR> I see. Yeah SZ definitely a more vibrant city. But am stuck in GZ for a while. It's alright. Will figure out something. I'm connecting with people in the contemporary art scene here. They are pretty nice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> The response to this is unfortunate. Consider the run-on effects it will have on other companies that the primary response to YC pulling out of China is negativity. Requiring companies to stake everything on an action like this only serves to discourage any of them from acting.

YC did the right thing here, the comments should reflect that.

<comment><USER41> Maybe it's a bit like the HK extradition bill retraction. Too little, and too late.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I mean theres no place for western companies in China as seen times and times again. This literally happens all the time

<comment><USER37> GM, Tesla and Apple are making tons of money in China now. Even Google and Facebook are making over hundreds of millions of ads money each year from China. Yes, Google and Facebook still have branches in China and make a lot of money.

<comment><USER43> Unlike GM, Tesla and Apple, Facebook is not making money by operating _in_ the Chinese market. Facebook is making money from Chinese advertisers via resellers. It's Chinese capital being exported to Facebook outside of the country, for a service operating entirely outside of China.

Equivalent to an advertiser in China going through a local ad broker that works with the NY Times, to place an ad in the NY Times in a paper sold in NYC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> So YC's own China-version startup effort flopped basically.

It's at an awkward time per se, nobody wants to get serious business started now at current climate, which could be the beginning of a sea change policy from what has been here for the last 3 decades between US and China.

Techstars etc have lots of offices in US and Europe, how about YC expanding to NY, Boston, Austin first? That will help US economy and foster some local startup ecosystem as well.

</comment><comment><USER45> Is MiraclePlus funded by or supported directly or indirectly by YC? Does YC have a stake?

<comment><USER38> I found two things. Business Insider (via Reuters) [0] suggests no. I also found a Chinese post, but I can't read this so maybe someone else can[1]

[0] [https://www.insider.com/silicon-valley-startup-incubator- y-c...](https://www.insider.com/silicon-valley-startup-incubator-y-combinator- closing-china-unit-2019-11)

[1] [https://www.sohu.com/a/351116732_550313](https://www.sohu.com/a/351116732_550313)

<comment><USER46> The Sohu link doesn't talk about the link between YC and Miracle Plus, it's just a brief bio about Qi Lu (he was speaking at that Tsinghua event).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I imagined this was going to happen. Lately PG has been more vocal on twitter regarding Human Rights issues in China.

I understand this is a very difficult decision. I'm not sure if its right or wrong. From the perspective of Human Rights its probably right, but from the perspective of investment its difficult considering China's growth prospects.

I'm torn on the China issue and I personally hope our two countries can work out their differences in a constructive way.

<comment><USER48> As inflammatory as my last statement is going to seem, it's a genuine question, I'm not trying to bait you -

But how does

>investment

Versus

>Human Rights

Equal

>I'm torn on the China issue

Do your morals and conscience have a price tag?

<comment><USER49> This has got to be satire.

>I understand this is a very difficult decision. I'm not sure if its right or wrong. From the perspective of Human Rights its probably right, but from the perspective of investment its difficult considering China's growth prospects.

I can't believe a human being would actually write this. The level of cognitive dissonance would be off the charts.

<comment><USER47> I don't really appreciate that. I would argue I'm pretty well informed on China. I've traveled to China, I've worked with the Chinese for over a decade across various roles, my grandfather helped industrialize China, and I've read many great books on China. Personally I retweeted Hillary Clinton's support of Hong Kong protestors while I was in Beijing, so I put myself at personal risk in doing this.

But lets address your comment directly: "The level of cognitive dissonance would be off the charts." Is it?

One book I recommend is Graham Allison "Destined for War".

[https://www.amazon.com/Destined-War-America-Escape- Thucydide...](https://www.amazon.com/Destined-War-America-Escape-Thucydidess- ebook/dp/B01IAS9FZY)

One question that specifically stands out from his book - is that the West believes in Universal Human Rights. China obviously does not. This is a point of conflict and we have some very difficult questions to address in the future. Suppose China attacks Taiwan. What if China has a second Tiananmen in Hong Kong? Do we sanction China? What if China responds with more violence? What do we do? Do we go to war? This is an obvious point of conflict. And these are questions that we will have to work out in the future.

From the perspective of an investor, these are also difficult decisions. We can see this in how the NBA has responded, and how South Park has responded - each differently. Is it really wise to Balkanize the world if our goal is to encourage China to adopt Human Rights? How would a second cold war help?

Obviously I don't have the answers. But I can recognize the conflict from the perspective of a VC whose goal is to make money.

<comment><USER50> > ...the West believes in Universal Human Rights. China obviously does not.

This is probably a case where more precision is warranted. The CCP and the nearly synonymous PRC government obviously do not believe in Universal Human Rights [1]. However "China" can be interpreted as the Chinese nation/people, and many of them _do_ believe in human rights [see Hong Kong] or have been deliberately kept ignorant of the concepts. It's not like rejection of human rights is part of the national character, or anything.

> Is it really wise to Balkanize the world if our goal is to encourage China > to adopt Human Rights? How would a second cold war help?

The Cold War was basically about containment, and it's an acknowledgment that no good options are available. Recent history has shown that trade and investment don't necessarily lead to liberalization, and military attacks are out of the question. Besides containment, the only option left is acceptance/appeasement.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/world/asia/chinas-new- lea...](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/world/asia/chinas-new-leadership- takes-hard-line-in-secret-memo.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Did some people in the comments forget what happens to Blizzard? It would be better not having a branch in China unless they are 100% sure they can be free from any political issues around China, and we actually don't need to hear "why" from YC.

<comment><USER52> > unless they are 100% sure they can be free from any political issues around > China

Which they can't. There is a price to pay when doing business with/in a bloody dictatorship.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> "MiraclePlus" brings up only "Corn And Callus Dissolving Serum" on the Google SERP.

</comment><comment><USER54> I'm really glad YC is taking a clear stand against China.

I also understand why they are not further ruffling any feathers by phrasing their "update" as such.

It is also a bit disappointing from a patriotic standpoint that the general public reaction to this update is that people are _sad_ YC is withdrawing. Given how much we have all benefited from our nation's world-class innovation economy here, we should at least pay the piper.

</comment><comment><USER55> I would expect more, and more direct language.

Doing business with a fascist state or in a fascist state is deplorable. The message should be loud and clear. China today shares many parallels with Germany in the 1930s. There needs to be open frank opposition because embarrassing them is the only way to stop them until the US is willing to park an aircraft carrier group in HK waters.

<comment><USER56> Virtue signaling doesn't work in business. Should yc do any business in the US which is mired in illegal wars and regime change operation all over the world? What about Saudi arabia? Should silicon valley and traditional media give up the billions in Saudi investment? Every major economic player is evil in some form or another. And the parallel with china isn't nazi Germany. It's with 19th century US.

<comment><USER57> The US certainly has its problems, but I don't think it's fair to draw a moral equivalence with what's happening in China.

<comment><USER58> Chinese citizen here.

I guess you're implying that certain bad things are happening in China. Do you really live in China and see those things happen, or just hear about them from the media?

And is it possible that some of the media in US are inhonest? Just as there're inhonest media in China.

I'm not fighting you on this topic; just don't understand why there's so much hatred towards our country.

<comment><USER59> There is plenty of non US media reporting on the camps in Xinjiang.

Why don't you travel to Xinjiang and do some investigating. If the camps there are really fabricated by the US media, surely the government won't mind you traveling around and filming the suspected sites?

>just don't understand why there's so much hatred towards our country.

I don't hate you or the other people of your country. I'd love to visit someday and relearn some of the Mandarin I learned in college. However, I do hate what your government is doing to the people of Xinjiang. Why wouldn't I be upset about this?

<comment><USER60> There're serious security issues that need to be addressed in Xinjiang. Don't assume it's related to racism. Also, when you use the word `camp` it automatically reminds people of Nazi camps during WWII. They are not the same, on multiple levels.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Even YC got screwed by China. This is an intentional pattern: Lure US money and then use backroom dealings to coordinate an outright theft.

<comment><USER62> source?

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> I'm a Chinese living in mainland China. My old account was suspended because I told the truth about China Communist Party(CCP) below HK event thread (Qi and his team censored it?). I believe you Americans see the essence of CCP from the NBA/South Park/HK event. CCP controls everything in China and they are evil. Doing business in China is helping the dying CCP. So I'm glad to see that YC pull back 'YC China'. We old hundred names welcome you back to China when CCP is dead. Thanks.

<comment><USER64> Your stupid name implies that you are a troll. Pls speak mandarin in front of protesters to support them, but I'm afraid they won't give you the chance to finish a sentence

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> "[We are canning YC China because of the macro political environment]."

</comment><comment><USER66> This is great, brave decision by YC.

</comment><comment><USER67> Not surprised. You can't even visit HN from China without using VPN. I guess there must be some pressure not revealed in the announcement.

</comment><comment><USER68> China's best tech is mostly just stolen American tech so I can understand why they'd want to focus on US startups.

<comment><USER60> This is true 5 years ago. Things have changed.

<comment><USER29> People keep saying that, but I don't really buy it. Scanning barcodes isn't really necessary when you have everybody with a credit card and every local merchant accepts NFC payment. Everybody using crappy unencrypted JS-based WeChat mini-programs instead of an app ecosystem is not an innovation but rather a way to lock and monitor the entire population with no privacy. Same goes for police-state facial recognition.

<comment><USER69> > Scanning barcodes isn't really necessary when you have everybody with a > credit card and every local merchant accepts NFC payment.

The QR codes are quite cool in that anyone with a printer can print them out. I can't pay my friends with my contactless credit card in the same way I can pay a merchant.

Its a different approach with different pros and cons.

<comment><USER29> You can just venmo your friends.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> That's okay. Every great organization needs to experiment, and many of those experiments will not work out.

</comment><comment><USER71> It suprises me that intelligent, reasonable people like Andrew Ng and Sam Altman were willing to help develop and invest in the Chinese Communist Party's AI/ML capabilities helping to create an authoritarian surveillance state used to repress minorities (Uighers, Tibetans, Falun Gong) on a scale not seen since Adolf Hitler.

The CCP and private companies are hand-in-glove. The risks of working with state-owned enterprises are clear. The risks of working with private companies are are also great with "party cells" officially embedded into at least half of private companies.

Fortunately for the free world, China faces massive structural issues to growth over the next 40 years, which the CCP is unable or unwilling to deal with. I highly recommend [1] and [2] to understand the future of the brutal Chinese dictatorship.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/01/17/world/asia/ch...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/01/17/world/asia/china- population-crisis.html)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AvNT3vyzr0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AvNT3vyzr0)

EDIT: Instead of down voting, please articulate why you disagree.

<comment><USER72> Did not downvote, I hate all views equally.

Perhaps it is the enormous cognitive dissonance. Western companies also take military funding and their surveillance systems were always better and more invasive.

The US is using statutes for national security interests to ban Chinese companies for contributing to alledged human rights abuses. Meanwhile we have documented human rights abuses in the West, and a US that does not shy away to cover a trade war and skewed commercial motives with anti-China propaganda.

US companies and agencies surveil outside the US. Capitalism-commercialization gave our rights to the likes of Zuckerberg and Amazon, who will turn your door bell into a police camera.

The Godwin was also a tad unnecessary. Perhaps you are a bit caught up in the heat of the moment. The propaganda machine is definately turning up the heat, so I do not blame you. Try to pose your argument without claiming the moral highground of the "free world". It is never fortunate that an entire country and its people struggles.

Accusing Ng and Altman of helping build a fascist surveillance state is a nasty accusation, which I feel you are not allowed to make.

Remember when the US had concentration camps for Japanese-Americans? Countries can change even without pressure or backlash (the US did not face any). Can you think of a modern group of people in the US being secluded from participation, facing state racism, and being locked away in ghettos, with no hope of social movement? Would China be justified in boycotting or sanctioning US companies for contributing to ICE, Guantanamo bay, or police violence, or Flynt's water, or Trump's racism?

Freedom of religion gave the US scientology and TV pastors and schools preaching creationism. It gave Europe extremist Salafism and terrorist attacks and people using the Bible to go after immigrants. You have to see China in that context: they see religion as a dangerous memetic virus to indoctronate youthful people into believing something not of their own choice. Countries have a right to make their own laws and their own tactics for improvement and combating extremism.

Edit: you may also receive downvotes from people who hate to hear negative stuff on China, or are paid 50 cents to do so.

<comment><USER71> Comparing Uigher concentration camps to Nazi Germany is valid and accurate, not a frivolous example of Godwin's law.

Your comment has a lot of whataboutism that isn't relevant to the discussion. I'll mention that US presidents have formally apologized several times for Japanese-American internment (which was 75 years ago), and that I would encourage anybody (and any government) to boycott and sanction companies contributing to human rights abuse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> As others have noted, the announcement does not reveal the thinking that went into this decision. But certainly pg and other principals are aware of what's happening in the People's Republic of China under the Xi regime. pg retweeted the following news items about China recently:

[https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1195728248040087552](https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1195728248040087552) _The New York Times @nytimes Nov 16 China has detained up to a million Muslims, a campaign it calls a benevolent and routine effort against the pull of extremism. But 403 pages of Communist Party documents we obtained reveal how officials plotted to carry out a ruthless, coercive clampdown._

[https://twitter.com/CoveringDelta/status/1196491222765965314](https://twitter.com/CoveringDelta/status/1196491222765965314) _Demetri Kofinas @CoveringDelta Nov 18 We 've known for years that governments are interested in developing bioweapons that target specific populations. What I didn't know until this week's episode are the lengths to which the CCP has reportedly gone to obtain the genomic data needed to do it._

[https://twitter.com/nathanattrill/status/1192670115017310208](https://twitter.com/nathanattrill/status/1192670115017310208) _Nathan Attrill 周雷森 @nathanattrill Nov 8 In China, it's possible to pre-book an organ transplant, something that would be impossible under a voluntary donor system – raising suspicions of widespread organ harvesting._

</comment><comment><USER74> would love a postmortem on the whole attempt and the real difficulties that came about.

</comment><comment><USER75> Too much PRC input perhaps?

<comment><USER76> what is PRC?

<comment><USER77> It's the technical name for China. Personally I don't use it; China is not a "people's republic".

<comment><USER78> Technically, there are two governments that claim to be China: the People's Republic of China, and the Republic of China. Both claim to rule Taiwan and mainland China. "China", then, is underspecified, because no one means to claim that the ROC is running concentration camps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> That's to be expected. IMO we should decouple and diversify as quickly as we can. It took Trump to highlight that fact, which tells me the establishment was OK with selling out US of A for a buck as quickly as the Chinese would buy it, sweatshops and concentration camps notwithstanding. It's not like they didn't know. It's just that the right bureaucratic wheels were greased with money at the right times by those who stood to gain from it all.

</comment><comment><USER80> Regardless of the reason YC is putting out, it doesn't look good to have business as usual while mass genocide of a minority is going on nearby.

</comment><comment><USER81> Fuck China

</comment><comment><USER82> Launching in China was a stupid, shamelessly greedy and ultimately embarrassing decision to begin with, but it's good that they've changed course.

To those who have been living under a rock for the past thirty years: The PRC is a genocidal, expansionist ethnostate that tortures and kills those it deems enemies, which is everybody who isn't ethnically Han and supportive of the leader of the Communist Party. YC knew this when it opened an office there.

My real question is - now that you've invited them in and shown them around, will they create a state-owned YCombinator of their own? It'll be interesting to see how elite state-owned venture capital will work.

<comment><USER83> > how elite state-owned venture capital will work

Perhaps something like:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-Q-Tel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-Q- Tel)

[https://www.darpa.mil/work-with-us/commitment-to-small- busin...](https://www.darpa.mil/work-with-us/commitment-to-small-businesses)

[https://arsenalgrowth.com/](https://arsenalgrowth.com/)

[https://www.welcomeurope.com/european-subsidies-sector- Innov...](https://www.welcomeurope.com/european-subsidies-sector- Innovation.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER84> I was wondering why one of the fastest upvoted articles on HN, ever, was on second page. Now i know, and of course. YC , like other tech firms want to keep their business interest in China come to fruition.

Surely they must account for too many anti-votes coming from a single region?

<comment><USER85> Not sure what we're being accused of here. To rattle off some things in the general vicinity: we didn't touch this story, other than to _remove_ the flamewar penalty that HN's software put on it. That's not because the software got it wrong—it got it right. But we moderate HN less, not more, when YC or a YC-funded startup is involved: [https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20moderate%20less%20not%20more%20yc&sort=byDate&type=comment).

Re "want to keep their business interest in China come to fruition"—ending one's business interest in China is a strange way to do that. How devious they must be!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> MiraclePlus offers $200,000 for 5%, is the OG YCombinator gonna match that?</comment>


Sega Nomad clone from RetroBit - <AUTHOR> http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2019/01/looks_like_retro-bit_is_resurrecting_segas_switch-like_handheld_the_nomad <comment><USER2> The controllers are nice but its desperately lacking in Saturn Analog controller, NiGHTS just isnt the same without it</comment>


Medium is Winning - <AUTHOR> http://m50d.github.io/2014/01/11/medium-is-winning.html <comment><USER2> I wish I could read that article, but full-width sentences and tiny typeface are painful. The beautiful large typography and layout of Medium is one reason it's winning, despite its sometimes laughable content.

<comment><USER3> In Chrome, the "Zoom In" command is in the View menu.

Zoomed in by two increments (125%), the font size and margins of the article become reasonably close to the Medium gold standard. Hopefully this may help you finish reading the article.</mildsarcasm>

<comment><USER2> I already browse at 125%. It takes 200% to get to a comfortable readable level, and that doesn't address full width sentences. Too much effort for a wall of text.

Typography matters.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you don't like reading text at that width, why's your browser that width? Surely you don't want to have 2/3 of your screen blank white.

<comment> mkr-hn You can put a lot of stuff in the other 2/3\. Stuff that readers will enjoy. I keep a top post widget on my own blog. People seem to like it, and I know I like having easy access to more stuff from a writer whose words I didn't mind reading. The aversion to criticism you've shown in this thread makes me think I won't want to see anything else from you, so maybe it's for the better in your case.

<comment><AUTHOR> > You can put a lot of stuff in the other 2/3\. Stuff that readers will enjoy. > I keep a top post widget on my own blog. People seem to like it, and I know > I like having easy access to more stuff from a writer whose words I didn't > mind reading

I found that kind of stuff offputting. It was one of the things I really noticed when thinking about why I preferred to read on Medium: there are a few social things at the end and those very subtle comment things, but for most of the time while one's reading it really is 2/3 blank white. (I sometimes use clearly to make medium wider - didn't want to complicate the post by mentioning that).

> The aversion to criticism you've shown in this thread makes me think I won't > want to see anything else from you, so maybe it's for the better in your > case.

Sorry to hear that. I was pleasantly surprised the post made the front page, pleased to see 7 comments... and then it turned out none of them were engaging with my words, they were all just complaining about the presentation (and worse, they're all the same complaints, and ones I've seen before. I don't know what I'm supposed to do about this (given that I'm happy with the design and disagree with those complaints) - I doubt people would read a FAQ).

Which I guess is what I get for writing a post on the subject of presentation, but it was still pretty disappointing.

<comment> mkr-hn Presentation is everything. It's not just a cliche they put in business books and MBA lectures. Screen-width text is fine if you only want it read by people with the patience to use third party tools for an unknown author.

<comment><AUTHOR> I prefer full-width; I find it more readable, and I wish more sites would use it. Given that, it would feel hypocritical to not use full-width text on my own site.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hey imm, could you just really quickly replace your stylesheet with this?

header h1 { margin-bottom:3px; margin-top:3px; }

nav a { padding-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-right: 10px; }

h1 a { text-decoration:none; color:black; }

h1 a:hover { font-weight:bold; font-size:105%; text-decoration:underline; }

body { padding:20px; font-size:120%; }

p, li { max-width:800px; }

li { margin-bottom:6px; }

small { font-size:75%; }

<comment><AUTHOR> You misspell my name, you talk down to me, you didn't even take a superficial look at my source or you'd realize the stylesheet is external, part of strapdownjs. No.

<comment><USER5> Wow. Try this next time:

> Hey, thanks! I didn't write the css, and I can't change it, but I appreciate > you trying to help :)

<comment><AUTHOR> "could you just really quickly" is a long way from a sincere attempt to help.

<comment> mkr-hn Only if you have an ego that shatters at the lightest feedback.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Your stupid website can't display plain old text in a reasonable format without JavaScript. Go fix your stupid site.

<comment><USER7> [http://i.imgur.com/kc7IXPj.png](http://i.imgur.com/kc7IXPj.png)

Using a long-forgotten element to disable line breaking is pointlessly painful, but isn't as bad as some people get when they think every text processing tool runs javascript. The author sounded clued-in enough to know CSS, I don't know why he would think that doing it all in javascript isn't strictly worse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I dislike Medium disabling pinchzoom for mobile devices (user-scalable="no"). I have no idea why they think this is a good idea.

<comment><USER9> It is to avoid the 300 ms lag waiting for a second touch to zoom.

<comment><USER8> Why would a text content site care about a 300 msec click delay?

</comment></comment></comment><comment> vezzy-fnord I'm not a big fan of Medium's hip UI, to be fair. I also find their options to be awkwardly placed. It took me a while to figure out where the "sign out" button was when I first used it, for instance.

</comment><comment><USER10> [Warn: a bit promotional]

I'd like to have your opinion on Theneeds [1]. It can't be compared to Medium as we're not for blogging, but we do a lot of personalization/recommendation.

At signup you select your interests and we build personalized streams of curated content mixed with user generated one. Then, we learn from your activity to get smarted about what really matters to you.

Moreover, we have a newsletter (default daily, but you can change the frequency) where we recommend you 8 news across your interests.

[1] [http://www.theneeds.com](http://www.theneeds.com)

<comment><USER11> not sure if it's just me but clicking the windows store link opens the store app's "home screen" instead of your app's download screen.

<comment><USER10> Thanks a lot for the feedback.

I guess you mean for Windows 8? Which market are you in? As the app is only available in the US + a few others (eng speaking).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> [This is also a bit promotional]

Although I do think Medium is doing a great job of letting you discover some good reading material, I often find it a bit confusing too.

Not too long I co-created [http://thetechblock.com](http://thetechblock.com) out of similar frustration of not being able to find good tech-related articles. Reddit often doesn't show the stuff we find, Techmeme is very Silicon Valley oriented and HN can get a bit noisy. Feel free to let me know what you guys think.

</comment><comment><USER13> Holy readability, batman.

</comment><comment><USER14> "So it's ironic that, despite all these established old-media recommendation engines, there was nothing for one of my favourite media - online articles."

Prismatic[0] comes to mind.

[0]: [http://getprismatic.com](http://getprismatic.com)</comment>


At the Solstice, in Praise of Darkness - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/opinion/sunday/solstice-praise-for-darkness.html <comment><USER2> The first thing I did when I bought my house out in the country was to have the power company remove the security lights. Now it feels quiet and dark at night instead of feeling like a parking lot.

<comment><USER3> I feel like someone should send you a thank-you note or something. Fortunately I can't see my neighbors' floodlights from my house, but they certainly impinge on the darkness whenever I go for a walk. Rural security lights are a plague.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I took a lovely stroll across the farm last night. Completely cloudy so no stars, just a very faint glow. It was even nicer because my idiot dog is finally listening to me when I tell her not to menace the cattle. (I think one of the cows may have administered a little well-deserved spanking recently.)

</comment><comment><USER4> I was born on the winter solstice, and there's something about that stillness in the darkness that I love—people are on holiday, and you have the space to linger over your thoughts.

</comment><comment><USER5> Beautiful! The author has a great voice. I've always loved the dark, ever since I was young. I'm greatly anticipating the spring, but in the mean time I relish in the dark; spending time with family, friends and loved ones.

<comment><USER6> As I allergy sufferer I hate the approaching of Spring since it means about two months of hiding indoors waiting for the first hot days of summer to kill the grass and end all the pernicious pollination. Thus I have learned to embrace the long winters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Greetings from 60 degrees northern latitude. When I woke up at 9 a.m. today, it was still dark. The sunrise is at 9.24 am and sunset is 3.11 pm. At midday when the sun is at its highest, it's barely above the treeline, 6.5 degrees above the horizon.

On top of that, the sky is completely overcast with thick clouds this time of year and they either absorb all light or emit darkness.

But I'm not complaining, we've had _hours_ of sunlight in December. _Hours!_ A few years ago there was only 20 minutes in the whole month, that was a bit dark.

But come summer solstice, it's payback time. Living with the midnight sun is magical.

A shout out to all the northern dwellers of HN!

<comment><USER8> >But I'm not complaining, we've had hours of sunlight in December. Hours! A few years ago there was only 20 minutes in the whole month, that was a bit dark.

Why does the # of hours of darkness vary year to year?

Is it something like an atmospheric effect of solar refraction through the atmosphere during dusk with a dependence on weather-patterns?

<comment><USER7> It's the relentless overcast cloud cover. By sunlight, I mean actual sun visible. I should have said _sunshine_.

There's very little difference in the number of day/night hours, only the little variations where our calendars don't match the motions of the heavens.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I grew up at about 40 degrees northern latitude. I've been living in the Philippines temporarily for the past two years, and the only time I get homesick is at Christmas and the winter solstice. I'm now about 10 degrees above the equator, and it's _just not the same_ at all. Essentially the sun rises and sets here the same time every day as far as anyone notices (even though there is a slight variation).

There something about an obvious solstice that makes you physically, psychologically, and spiritually more aware that time moves inevitably on.

</comment><comment><USER10> I love the height of winter, and the cozy feeling it's companying darkness brings. Where I live we only get 4 hours of sunlight in December, cut even shorter most of the time due to clouds.

</comment><comment><USER11> I adore seeing the stars, but I do not enjoy the night. Multi-week observatory shifts in grad school burned away a lot of my earlier warm feelings for all things nocturnal.</comment>


Paul Goodman: America's classic bad teacher (2012) - vezzy-fnord http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/culture/2012/11/paul-goodman-americas-classic-bad-teacher <comment><AUTHOR> It seems that the author think that sometime young people need to broke the social rules or experiment something new (perhaps not socially allowed) in order to grow up, to construct their own identity.</comment>


Terry Tao: The "no self-defeating object" argument - <AUTHOR> http://terrytao.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/the-no-self-defeating-object-argument/

<comment><USER2> Interesting how this post shows a connection between logical paradoxes, the Halting Problem and Quines.

The reasoning that proves you cannot assign a true/false value to the statement "This sentence is false." is used to show that for a computer program "feeding the source code for that program into the program itself (or some slight modification thereof)" will create a logical contradiction.

Cool stuff.

<comment><AUTHOR> _Cool stuff._

He has two more follow ups that I thought I'd post if someone was interested. This man is an amazing writer and truly a genius of our generation.

[http://terrytao.wordpress.com/2010/10/18/the-no-self- defeati...](http://terrytao.wordpress.com/2010/10/18/the-no-self-defeating- object-argument-revisited/)

[http://terrytao.wordpress.com/2010/11/02/the-no-self- defeati...](http://terrytao.wordpress.com/2010/11/02/the-no-self-defeating- object-argument-and-the-vagueness-paradox/)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What should I do with the domain linuxtablet.com - <AUTHOR> I picked it up recently and want to build some sort of news site for the linux tablet devices. <comment><USER2> 301 redirect to [https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/surface](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface)

<comment><AUTHOR> I may be old fashioned, but as someone who went through the dotcom crash I will never buy Microsoft.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> 1\. Article with list of linux tablet devices.

2\. collection of notes around each device for installing. What works / what doesn't.

3\. ...profit?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, that's sort of what I'm thinking. I guess I need a good review site for linux tablets.</comment></comment>


So you told me you want to run Windows on a Calculator - <AUTHOR> https://www.imbushuo.net/blog/archives/725 <comment><USER3> The calculator market is controlled by TI. They push textbook makers to be TI- specific. TI is constrained largely by test security requirements, which vary a bit. For example in France TI had to add a blinking LED to indicate test mode, which disables some features. The ACT prohibits an algebra system, but the SAT allows it.

If not for that, and the disinterest TI has in doing cool stuff, imagine what could be done.

Architecturally, the calculator could be a PC with SVGA. It could run a clone CPU with features as recent as the Pentium III era without needing a patent license, though 8088 is adequate and it is likely that TI could get good pricing from AMD or Intel. Putting all the non-volatile storage in a MicroSD card that sticks out above the screen would allow some test security; if that gets pulled out then the calculator reboots into the built-in software.

</comment><comment><USER4> > Sarah has summarized ARMv7 architectural requirements for running Windows. > The requirements have changed a bit across years, so here is my new summary > on this:

      System processor: ARMv7-A compatible processor with VFPv3+VFP HalfPrec, VFPv4 is also okay
      Memory: At least 256MB of RAM (can probably do less)
      Peripherals:
          - System timer (either architectural or vendor-specific)
          - ARM Generic Interrupt Controller (GIC) or Broadcom Interrupt Controller on BCM2835/2836/2837, both CPU and
      Distributor Interface. GICv2 or higher is required if GIC is present and declared.
          - <USER2>
          - Supported UART, either NS16550, BCM283x or some vendor-specific IP (in the case of Qualcomm and NXP)
          - Firmware: UEFI 2.3 or higher

What an absolutely magnificent and clever hack. I have seen similar ports like this for the Raspberry Pi 3 [0] also running Windows 10 (actual Desktop) and the Nintendo Switch [1] also running Windows too.

This is all due to U-Boot having support for UEFI firmware on ARM devices running ARMv7 and ARMv8 and allowing any other UEFI supporting OSes to reuse these UEFI compatible ARM drivers to load its kernel + the device tree. The moment you see projects like this, make you think about how things work at a low-level.

[0] [https://github.com/WOA-Project/WOA-Deployer-Rpi](https://github.com/WOA- Project/WOA-Deployer-Rpi)

[1] [https://www.windowslatest.com/2019/03/04/developer-tests- win...](https://www.windowslatest.com/2019/03/04/developer-tests- windows-10-on-nintendo-switch/)</comment>


"Because Mike Pall is a robot from the future" - <AUTHOR> http://munificent.github.io/wren/performance.html <comment><USER2> > Doing that using an actual switch confounds the CPU's branch predictor—there > is basically a single branch point for the entire interpreter. That quickly > saturates the predictor and it just gets confused and fails to predict > anything, which leads to more CPU stalls and pipeline flushes.

From what I've heard, Haswell's branch predictor makes tricks like this largely obsolete,m (sans support for pre-Haswell or AMD cpus). Not terribly meaningful, but worth keeping in mind that tricks like these will eventually become obsolete.

</comment><comment><USER3> This quote made my day, thanks! And after coming across headlines about Wren before, this post makes me interested.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Any hope that humans can eventually beat robots?

<comment><USER4> No, you can't. Or better: implement cyber ware and or implement computer chips to enhance the brain. Or be a cheaper workforce.</comment></comment>


Auto Corrupt - <AUTHOR> http://www.auto-corrupt.com/ <comment><USER2> I'm having trouble working out what this is/does.</comment>


SMS Short codes – Broadcast your message in bulk - <AUTHOR> http://plivo.com/sms-api/shortcode/?hn <comment><USER2> I don't understand why anyone would use this. I've never been anything but angry when I received a text message from a business. I've never met anyone who likes receiving text messages from businesses.

<comment><USER3> I hear you. We all hate SPAM!

In the US, short-codes are helpful for B2C SMS communication. US has many regulations on using a regular phone number for sending SMS via Applications and APIs.

For starters, a shortcode allows you to send 40 sms/second which is not allowed using a regular phone number.

We have tried to document some of the differences and cases when a shortcode is helpful: [http://plivo.com/faq/shortcode/what-is-the-difference- betwee...](http://plivo.com/faq/shortcode/what-is-the-difference-between-a- short-code-vs-a-long-code/)

<comment><USER4> You haven't answered the question. Why is someone going to be happier to receive SMS from a short number than from a long one?

<comment><USER5> You didn't ask that question, nor did anyone claim that as near as I can see: only that there are clearly usages for sending text messages to users, and that short codes are better in at least some way (such as indicated here: sending large quantities is more easily possible).

That said: I'll bite (in case anyone else reads your message and gets confused); as a user who deals with a bunch of services that send text messages (Bank of America, Equifax, AAA, Google, AT&T, UCSB, Pingdom...) I consider the ones where I get some random long number infuriating if the number isn't at least constant for me (as I can't add it to my address book), unprofessional (it would be as if someone hosted Apple's website on their Geocities account), and even "risky" (as the numbers are usually different for different carriers, and as mentioned even tend to randomly cycle, there's no reasonable way for me to know that it isn't someone playing a prank on me when I get the message; yes: SMS is somewhat spoofable, but replying to a short code, in my understanding, is not subject to those problems).

<comment><USER6> Hipchat is a notable service that seems to pick random phone numbers to send SMS notifications. It can get really confusing when they split notifications over multiple messages, and the carrier drops or delays the first message or two that tell you it's from Hipchat — subsequent messages do not indicate who it is from.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Seems like it works out to be $200 more than Twilio to purchase a random code through Plivo. But if you manage your own lease it's $200 cheaper. I hope I didn't screw up the price comparisons. Might make a difference since it all comes from [http://www.usshortcodes.com](http://www.usshortcodes.com)

A shared short code seems to better for now if you are more price conscious :)

<comment><AUTHOR> That is only for the first quarter. In fact, if you compare the rental fees, Plivo is $300 cheaper per quarter.

If you compare the outbound SMS rate, Plivo is 30-40% cheaper than similar services out there.

Rental-fee: $2700/3 months + (one-time $500)

SMS rate:

0.65 cents/sms (outbound) 0.50 cents/sms (inbound)

Also if you lease a new Short Code before March 31, 2014, we give you $1000 off your first invoice.

<comment><USER8> I have 2 short-codes through twilio and the 30-40% cheaper SMS rate grabbed my attention. I love twilio and never managed to get far when trying to figure out how to go direct to the carriers and get better pricing (and twilio was never interested in price negotiations, in fact I serve mostly non-profits and they wouldn't even give me their non-profit pricing). But with pricing pressure from plivo, maybe I can make some progress.

<comment><USER3> Would love to have you onboard with Plivo. Just for the record, we can port your existing short-codes from other providers at the same price points.

If that sounds interesting, feel free to reach me at email@example.com

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi, DH from Plivo here. We're excited to launch SMS short codes today. Feel free to ask any questions.

<comment><USER9> Why should I use you instead of Twilio?

<comment><AUTHOR> 1.tl;dr

For short codes, our pricing is better. Tech-wise, honestly SMS short codes do not have much room for any difference.

2\. long versions (if you're curious, in general, why someone would choose plivo over others)

[http://vincedasta.com/p/why-i-went-with-plivo/](http://vincedasta.com/p/why- i-went-with-plivo/)

[http://clintberry.com/2012/why-plivo-cloud-is-better-than- tw...](http://clintberry.com/2012/why-plivo-cloud-is-better-than-twilio/)

happy to answer follow-up questions.

<comment><USER9> Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> An open Question regarding short code sms to plivo and anyone else knowledgeable in the space:

Is there a reason why plivo has not implemented the ability for users to register keywords on a shared shared shortcode that plivo owns?

This would allow small apps that use a number of texts that don't justify a separate shortcode to operate under text "mykeyword to 78568" to register

Several sms providers do this, I've always wished someone like plivo or the likes would and I'm not sure what the issue might be? With a shortcode costing over a thousand a month I'd be one user who's sign up for a keyword based shortcode

</comment><comment><USER11> Do I pay when I receive one of these text messages?

<comment><AUTHOR> If you're referring to when you, as a consumer, receive a message from a Short Code in the U.S., you will pay the same amount to receive it as you would with a Long Code (the regular number).

On a related note, this article could be interesting: [http://www.quora.com/Why-do-US-carriers-charge-for- incoming-...](http://www.quora.com/Why-do-US-carriers-charge-for-incoming- calls-and-text-messages)

<comment><USER11> Thanks. That's just what I was wondering. It influences my attitude about receiving bulk messages. I think that I pay less for e-mail, and it has better spam filtering, so that would be my preference.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is there an API for sending text to shortcodes?

<comment><USER13> Plivo and Twilio are two great places to start your texting journey.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Anyone know if the shared short codes would support outgoing MMS images, and what the total pricing would be?</comment>


Show HN: Wired-elements – UI web components with a hand drawn, sketchy look - <AUTHOR> https://wiredjs.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> After working on [http://roughjs.com/](http://roughjs.com/) I thought it would be interesting to create common sketchy UI components that worked like actual controls. Web components seemed liked the obvious tech for that. So, yeah, here's wired-elements.

<comment><USER2> Great job!. What is it based on Canvas or SVG? I had in my initial version of [https://www.mockuptiger.com](https://www.mockuptiger.com) built sketchy components using Canvas. It was interesting and fun.

<comment><AUTHOR> The web components use SVG and are build on lit-element ([https://github.com/Polymer/lit-element](https://github.com/Polymer/lit- element)) as the web-component base.

Rough.js can render to either canvas or SVG.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Looks nice, but I have a bug: The sliders don't work properly, when trying to move them they will always start back at 0. (I'm using Firefox 60).

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep sliders aren't quite baked yet. Should work on chrome. Thanks for reporting. [https://github.com/wiredjs/wired- slider/issues/3](https://github.com/wiredjs/wired-slider/issues/3)

<comment><USER4> FYI, the slider doesn't work at all on Chrome Android.

<comment><USER5> Same on Safari iOS

<comment><AUTHOR> Slider is fixed now.

<comment><USER6> There are still minor issues. The roughness slider disappeared when I slid it all the way to the right (on Firefox 60).

But good work anyway, the results are really nice!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Reminds of the Napkin look and feel for Java Swing apps. I worked on a project where we only demoed the Napkin L&F to our customers until we were feature complete.

The idea was to keep them focused on functionality.

<comment><USER8> For those curious like I was [http://napkinlaf.sourceforge.net/](http://napkinlaf.sourceforge.net/)

<comment><USER9> I love the retro "3 1/2 Floppy (A:)" in the file chooser. Nice touch.

Or was it really that long ago?!?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is fantastic! Very useful to get a concept into the browser and hopefully minimize clients focusing on visual design preferences too early in the process.

<comment><USER11> I hadn't thought of this, but this is an excellent point! You can use this to make a functional mockup for a client/boss/whomever, and by using these they will completely ignore all styling and focus on the functionality.

Heck, I'm even thinking of using it now when we launch a beta, to get the users to focus on the functionality instead of the design. My only fear is that they will want to keep the design!

<comment><USER12> This is why I purchased Balsamiq when I was contracting, even the basic Bootstrap theme, even with bold text saying "ignore everything design related!!" I'd still get comments about button shapes, colors, complaints about shadows and graphics, etc.

Even with more "theme" stuff in a Balsamiq mockup like colors and images clients were able to focus much more on content, layout, and information architecture than design.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> i started working on a react clone of wired from a few months ago - kinda dont have time to continue on it but if anyone wants to take over please do: [https://github.com/sw-yx/react-wired](https://github.com/sw-yx/react-wired)

also preet's designer tool is very very very usable: [https://wiredjs.github.io/designer/](https://wiredjs.github.io/designer/) basically a free balsamiq!

<comment><USER14> These are web components and work fine within React already.

We shouldn't need to port every interesting UI component to every single framework anymore.

<comment><USER13> i know and it was more just an exercise for myself. polymer and react interop still isnt very nice as far as i can tell. calm down :)

<comment><USER15> What could we do better?

<comment><USER13> i don't know. wanna try putting up a codesandbox to use wired-elements in a react app? would love to learn. sorry i dont know your affiliation with the polymer project or react-polymer. it just didnt seem usable when i looked at it

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I like it. The thing that I'm asking myself now is why do I like it (and other "humanized" drawings) ? I've always preferred accuracy over ambiguity, clean minimization over unnecessary clutter, shouldn't I prefer clean straight lines over something a human can draw on a sheet of paper? I'd never want to read a book written in human handwriting, so why is this appealing to me? Is it perhaps because the lack of optimization of the diagram contrasts and brings out the simplicity of the idea being conveyed? I could bring up some theories but can't say for sure.

<comment><USER17> Personal anecdote alert. Last year at work I had to design some process diagrams. I enjoy this sort of thing, but I was finding it very hard to get past that initial hurdle.

I found, by accident I think, Visio's 'hand-drawn' template - and everything changed. Suddenly my nit-picky perfectionist mind could get past the fact that these diagrams, which I was in the process of drafting, weren't perfect. The edges didn't align, the connecting lines weren't all on exactly the same horizontal, the boxes weren't all exactly the same width.

I'm not kidding, I finished it within an hour. When it was done, I switched back to 'square boxes and round circles' mode, lined everything up, and was done.

It was a revelation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> That's brilliant! One suggestion I have is to prevent rerendering when changing states, e.g. when checking a checkbox, draw a checkmark without changing the shape of the actual box it's in, or when selecting a dropdown item, to not change the edges of the dropdown even if the label displayed in it changes. Probably a lot more work though :)

<comment><USER19> Each component should generate a random seed on construction, and use that same seed for its entire lifetime.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's actually simpler than that. Most of the time it should not re-render at all. Should only re-render when the size has changed - at which point one needs to recompute anyway. I was just lazy and rendering every time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is amazing, I love the sketched feel to it. I started an open source project in the fall, PaperCSS, that's in the same category as wiredJS. PaperCSS is like if someone quickly drew the page with a marker, whereas this is as if someone sketched it all with a pencil. Happy to see less clean lines on the internet :)

[http://github.com/papercss/papercss](http://github.com/papercss/papercss)

<comment><USER21> Not to be confused with paperjs, a /completely/ different js library.

[http://paperjs.org/](http://paperjs.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I used Sketchy theme from Bootswatch for a game I did last week for a contest.

[https://bootswatch.com/sketchy/](https://bootswatch.com/sketchy/)

[https://github.com/kay-is/startup-clix](https://github.com/kay-is/startup- clix)

</comment><comment><USER23> Nice.

I still drool over the Drawing Board theme from Classic Mac OS.

[http://fileasylum.weebly.com/uploads/1/0/2/9/1029074/2682747...](http://fileasylum.weebly.com/uploads/1/0/2/9/1029074/2682747.gif)

<comment><USER24> I'd definitely pay to use this theme in web and mobile apps

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Really nice project. Not sure what's the use case but good fun project. Will use someday. :)

<comment><USER26> the balsamiq wireframing software is stylized like this, and i think it suits the wireframing context very nicely [https://balsamiq.com/](https://balsamiq.com/)

that's just one specific use case, but it's one where i think this sketchy style fits really nicely with the context

<comment><USER27> Came here to mention Balsamiq. Used it for years and made by rather nice people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I tried to build an svg and web component app about three years ago and just had a devil of a time with compatibility. Are web components a thing again? I sure hope so.

<comment><AUTHOR> Mostly there. Firefox still needs a polyfill and some issues working with react

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Oh wow this gave me some flashbacks to using Balsamiq.

[https://balsamiq.com/](https://balsamiq.com/)

</comment><comment><USER30> What is the use-case for this? I read and agree that writing HTML or JavaScript is too costly for wireframes and this is why wireframe tools are handy, because you can cheaply sketch out plans or ideas. But this is in JS, so "drawing" with this would be costly.

I can see that it can be used for the fun look, but other than that, what's the point of this framework?

<comment> ctrl-j I work for an organization that nitpicks about how things look instead of actual functionality.

I've taken to style things like this because it helps them remember "this is just a placeholder" and focus on the actual application logic.

My sketchy stuff isn't as polished as this, but if this is just drop-in, it could be useful.

<comment><USER31> That's a really good point, I never thought of that

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Nice! This would be super cool when applied to some nice diagramming libraries like Mermaid and Markdeep.

[https://github.com/knsv/mermaid](https://github.com/knsv/mermaid)

[https://casual-effects.com/markdeep](https://casual-effects.com/markdeep)

<comment><AUTHOR> Might I plug in my other project: [http://roughjs.com/](http://roughjs.com/) which is a generic drawing library for drawing sketchy shapes. I believe people have already tried merging it with some diagramming tools.

<comment><USER32> Very cool! Thanks for making these.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> For the checkbox: Every time you click on the same one, the image changes. How do you achieve this apparent randomness?

<comment><AUTHOR> The shapes are calculated with randomness at every render. i.e. it's not a single image that I turn on or off. It calculates and draws it every time it changes.

<comment><USER33> Did you do statistical analysis of the distributions of the shapes and pixels?

/just kidding.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I wonder if there's something comparable for LaTeX / Beamer. That would be very useful for my presentations.

<comment><AUTHOR> Theres a stand alone drawing library roughjs.com that might be useful for more generic drawings. I believe people have used it with reveal.js to use them in presentations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I am not a designer but THIS IS SO AWESOME

</comment><comment><USER36> This is great. By the way, if anyone is interested in a library like rough js but for iOS/tvOS apps, I made one called rough cocoa [https://github.com/nickshillingford/Rough- Cocoa](https://github.com/nickshillingford/Rough-Cocoa)

</comment><comment><USER37> This is really rad! It's fun just to refresh a couple times and see the randomness at work. Nice job!

</comment><comment><USER38> Reminds me of back when people used to make hand-drawn controls in Adobe Flash! Good memories. Nice work.

<comment><USER39> Flash was a wonderful era for the web. It's sad that nothing equivalent ever really came along to replace it.

<comment><USER40> I am looking forward to WebAssembly as the Flash revival.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Sliders don't seem to be movable with Chrome for Android. Nicely done, though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep. Doesn't work with touch events properly at the moment. Work in progress!

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I really like the look, very nice job on that.

Is there any particular reason though why you didn't follow the aria standards for the controls? None of these controls can be used by a keyboard, and a screen-reader sees them only as text.

<comment><AUTHOR> I do plan to make them more accessible. Wanted to get to a preview build first and then evolve. Thanks for the input.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Love it! can't wait to incorporate into my project www.stretchsketch.com currently old fashioned jquery/javascript/html/SVG. Polymer is becoming a very strong candidate when introducing a new framework.

</comment><comment><USER44> Has someone tried these with React? An initial test didn't work for me: [https://codesandbox.io/s/pp4q7kw9q7](https://codesandbox.io/s/pp4q7kw9q7)

<comment><AUTHOR> Working now: [https://stackblitz.com/edit/wired-elements- react?file=index....](https://stackblitz.com/edit/wired-elements- react?file=index.js)

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Awesome!

Also, I chuckled at part of the GitHub org description, a "fun sketchy look."

</comment><comment><USER46> This is fantastic! I'll have to take a look at the licensing, id love to implement this on [https://framestr.com](https://framestr.com) as an available form skin.

<comment><USER47> Your website looks fantastic. I'm just beginning web development and am new to HN. It appears I cannot PM you. May I ask, is that an in-house design? I would love to know what frameworks you may be using. What your website looks like is what I ultimately want to be able to create by the end of my web development aspirations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Reminds me of

[https://github.com/tsx/shireframe](https://github.com/tsx/shireframe)

Which if author is not aware, he could use as inspiration.

</comment><comment><USER49> I love it. I am a Designer and its on my list to re-design my portfolio site, which i want to look like a wireframe. I will definitely explore this.

</comment><comment><USER50> Love this. I wonder if there would be a way to add some randomisation to the font without replacing it with generated images.

<comment><AUTHOR> The web page is using a hand written styles google fonts. Variable fonts may be a way to randomize the font at every render.

</comment></comment><comment> ryan-allen This is great! I like the aesthetic, I'd happily use a web-app that was made with these components.

</comment><comment><USER51>
      The elements are drawn with enough randomness that no two renderings will be exactly the same — just like two separate hand-drawn shapes.

Awesome, but why go through all that trouble if the text is going to be the same? I know typography is another degree or two of complexity, but I think that would make this particular feature complete.

<comment><AUTHOR> Designing a variable font that does that would be the best solution for that. Variable fonts still have to go before accepted on all browsers.

As for the randomness uniqueness, it was a bonus that came out of the algorithms I was using to draw shapes.

<comment><USER51> Thanks. I didn't even know variable fonts were a thing. Perhaps someone will submit a pull request for the issue I just added.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> PaperCSS looks a bit better imho and they are also working on set of react components.

<comment><USER20> Thank you for the kind words on PaperCSS! We'd love some help making the React components.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> What is the font type that is used in this blog? Is it available for free use?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes: [https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Gloria+Hallelujah](https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Gloria+Hallelujah)

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> I had this idea but using a module to apply it to material components.

</comment><comment><USER55> This is very cool, but why is it called "Wired"?

<comment><AUTHOR> I was thinking of wireframes

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Slider handle doesn't work on Chrome Android 66.0

<comment><AUTHOR> Slider is fixed now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Lovely work. If my devs end up using this, I'll surely ask them to contribute to your repo :)

</comment><comment><USER58> As always, accessibility is the last thing people care about.

<comment><AUTHOR> To be honest, I did think about accessibility early on but realized that the main use case was for mockups and it wasn't high on the priority list for that scenario. I do plan to make most of these controls accessible before 1.0 release. Thanks for bringing it up.</comment></comment>


Buildpacks Go Cloud Native - <AUTHOR> https://blog.heroku.com/buildpacks-go-cloud-native <comment><USER2> This is Heroku's post, the HN discussion about the CNCF blog post is at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18131378](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18131378)

Pivotal's post for reference: [https://content.pivotal.io/blog/peace-of-mind- for-developers...](https://content.pivotal.io/blog/peace-of-mind-for- developers-and-operators-buildpacks-is-now-a-cncf-project-welcome-cloud- native-buildpacks)

</comment><comment><USER3> Aren't they just shell scripts? Last time I looked inside one anyway. Heroku makes a big deal about them, but most Unix people have similar things floating around in ~/bin.

<comment><USER2> > _Aren 't they just shell scripts?_

They can be written in any language. I have personally worked on buildpacks written in bash, golang, ruby, python and I forget what else.

> _Heroku makes a big deal about them, but most Unix people have similar > things floating around in ~ /bin._

I don't know that I agree. Could you elaborate a bit?

<comment><USER3> All the ones I've looked at have been shell, as Buildpacks are used to build systems. Python would work too.

They're useful, but they're not an 'invention' or a 'technology' any more than any other bootstrap shell script is.

<comment><USER2> Nothing is new under the sun and any Turing complete system can do what any other Turing complete system can do.

There's more than "can it run a command?" here. For example, I find that vanishly few operators managing fleets with tens of thousands of containers are prepared to go along with "just run this random bash script on the VM; I promise to keep it up to date".

<comment><USER3> Yes, Buildpacks are trusted maintained bash scripts. In that way, as you mention, they're better than random bash scripts. That doesn't make them novel. I know you said nothing is new, and I presume you mean completely new, but there's not a single novel thing about this.

Another poster on this thread is using the term 'invented'. Another is describing them as a 'technology' that needs to be understood. Describing a bootstrap script this way sets an incredibly low bar for DevOps.

<comment><USER4> I think you're dramatically underestimating what a buildpack is.

The Java buildpack is a Ruby application with a modular dependency download/caching subsystem to enable both internet-connected and air-gapped enviroments, hundreds of unit and integration tests, support for runtime injection and configuration modification for TLS certificates, support for several languages including Scala , Groovy, Clojure, support for several package types, several app runtimes, etc. [https://github.com/cloudfoundry/java- buildpack](https://github.com/cloudfoundry/java-buildpack)

The PHP buildpack is a Python application with a modular dependency download/caching subsystem to enable both internet-connected and air-gapped environments, hundreds of unit and integration tests, support for easily configuring many different PHP extensions, libraries and modules, and extension points to customize the container staging behavior. [https://github.com/cloudfoundry/php- buildpack](https://github.com/cloudfoundry/php-buildpack)

For developers, this saves a lot of time, effort, and variance for staging their containers.

For operators, this enables a control point that simplifies CI/CD pipelines dramatically and standardizes a means of containerization across projects.

It might not be for everyone, but I think it's a useful alternative to Dockerfiles.

<comment><USER3> Yep it's a Ruby script that deploys Java. It can run offline. And run tests. And install certs. Nice script.

> For developers, this saves a lot of time, effort, and variance for staging > their containers.

Yes. This is scripting. Scripting is good. Sharing your deploy scripts with others is good too. Stop trying to pretend this is a new technology.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hadn't heard of buildpacks before.

Where do they fit into packaging picture?

How do they compare to (1) VMWare images (2) Docker images (3) Debian packages? And when would you use them instead of one of these.

<comment><USER2> Buildpacks focus on turning sourcecode into a runnable container. Essentially you just throw code at it and It Just Works.

I think the Onsi Haiku is still the best description:

        Here is my source code.
        Run it on the cloud for me.
        I do not care how.

Heroku invented this, it's been picked up by lots of other groups (including for Cloud Foundry -- I've worked on buildpacks for Pivotal in that regard).

> _(1) VMWare images (2) Docker images_

You have to build these yourselves. The boundary is your CI system, Dockerfile etc -- which _you_ have to maintain. Buildpacks provide a curated, managed, easily upgraded system that does this for you.

> _(3) Debian packages?_

These are, in some sense, on the far side of where Buildpacks sit. But also slightly different. A debian package is intended to land in a pluripotent environment, possibly under direct human supervision. A Buildpack is meant to build completely self-contained runnable images, starting from sourcecode.

<comment><USER5> > Buildpacks focus on turning sourcecode into a runnable container

So buildpacks are like Debian source packages?

It's a package of my .c files, and the consumer runs $(CC) to compile and run those and It Just Works?

<comment><USER2> Not quite. The source package has to be packaged by someone, then dpkg knows what to do with it.

A Buildpack instead takes source _as it is_. You use Maven? The relevant buildpacks recognise pom.xml and know what to do. Bundler? Ruby buildpack sees the Gemfile and takes responsibility. And so on.

I as a developer can send the same sourcecode I have in my git repo or on my local filesystem, with no additional effort to prep it. The buildpack does all the work.

Putting it another way: it makes sense to create a debian source package buildpack. There are apt buildpacks in the wild, I expect they'll be revisited.

<comment><USER5> > The source package has to be packaged by someone

Same with buildpack-packager.

But I get the idea. Thanks for explaining!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A polyglot's guide to multiple dispatch (2016) - <AUTHOR> http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2016/a-polyglots-guide-to-multiple-dispatch <comment><USER2> Multiple dispatch is one of the main characteristic features of Julia:

[https://docs.julialang.org/en/stable/manual/methods/](https://docs.julialang.org/en/stable/manual/methods/)

</comment><comment><USER3> TL;DR:

Only in part 3 it does multiple dispatch the comfortable way: by using a language that supports multiple dispatch, Common Lisp

Julia also supports multiple dispatch.

</comment><comment><USER4> One way of getting symmetricity in C++ using the first approach is to do something like this:

if (a->intersect(b)) return; if (b->intersect(a)) return; general_intersect(a, b);

(making the base version return false, and adding return true to any overrides)

This way you would only need to add the Ellipse/HyperFrob specialization to the HyperFrob class.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's C++ only, no Polyglot

<comment><USER6> The examples in other languages are available here. (The subsequent articles in the series): [http://eli.thegreenplace.net/tag/multiple- dispatch](http://eli.thegreenplace.net/tag/multiple-dispatch)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Multiple dispatch is trivial in C++ using overloaded functions, the compiler will select the most specialized version for the supplied parameters without any visitor tricks. The "problem" is that it doesn't play well with polymorphism since it can't trigger specialized overloads for base class pointers/references, I think the real problem is polymorphism.

<comment><USER8> That only works for statically visible options. More, it isn't "multiple dispatch. It is a single one, chosen by the compiler. The article shows how to get the right behavior at runtime. Where there are two dispatches in order to get the right behavior.

<comment><USER7> That's not what multiple dispatch used to mean, it used to be about dispatching on multiple arguments. Like I said, it doesn't cover all bases; but when it works it beats over-engineered bullshit like this.

<comment><USER8> I'd be interested in sources. I can see how method overloading looks like multiple dispatch, but again, it only works on static information.

If you want a collection of items where you call a different overloaded method on each, you are either checking the type of each one manually, or you are doing something like this.

<comment><USER7> Overloading is dispatching based on types of multiple arguments. If someone adds a more specialized overload, it will be called instead of the existing. The problem is dispatching on polymorphic types. As long as you still have your Squares and Circles intact, the right function will be called. And in C++, keeping the concrete types intact as far as possible is a solid strategy.

For your collection example, at some point you need to introduce some kind of polymorphism to get back to concrete types; but once you're back, overloading works just fine again. The best strategy to recover types depends too much on specifics to be formalized.

<comment><USER8> I'm aware of what the difference is. But, and this is really important, you cannot gloss over the static nature of overloaded methods. You say "if someone adds a more specialized overload, it will be called", but that is _only_ true if they recompile.

Generic functions in LISP are another way of doing this. It works at runtime, as well. And that leads to a good article in the elisp manual ([https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/Ge...](https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/Generic- Functions.html)) that shows multiple dispatch being a runtime thing even way back. So, again, I'd be interested to know sources that said multiple dispatch was the same as method overloading.

I think I can see where overloaded methods were likely coopted by single dispatch statically compiled languages. But, honestly, I don't see how "multiple dispatch" would have ever made sense in those cases, either.

<comment><USER7> No one said a recompile wasn't allowed, plenty of things aren't possible in C++ without a recompile. All I'm saying here is that when you don't need polymorphism, which should be most of the time; overloaded functions do the same thing.

<comment><USER8> What folks are saying is that if it is a single dispatch, but based on the parameters, it is not multiple dispatch. Literally count the number of dispatches. If it is a single, it is not multiple.

I'm somewhat goal shifting by pointing out that with this you can get dynamic behavior without a full recompile, but really only a little. The entire point of this behavior is that the link in to the method is statically known to a point that can then do another dispatch where it will go to the correct place.

The visitor pattern is a somewhat ugly way of accomplishing this, true. But it is absolutely more powerful than method overloading.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Donald Trump has no Browser on his phone and does not use any kind of PC - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/matthardigree/status/903774585925107712 <comment><USER2> Original article is "Forceful Chief of Staff Grates on Trump, and the Feeling Is Mutual"

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/01/us/politics/john-kelly- tr...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/01/us/politics/john-kelly-trump.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Trump is the ultimate stress test of childproofing.</comment>