Always a starter, never a finisher. - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/u/0/116594037963311275379/posts/5c1Y78Luymg <comment><USER3> My father is an engineer, and he always taught me that there's no such thing as a good job half completed. The problem with his perspective is that it is uni-dimensional, and with good reason: if you half-build a bridge, people are going to be sad. He's an engineer and he's got to finish the bridge.

However, my father didn't decide that a bridge was required, nor did he choose the ideal location for the bridge based on urban planning and geographic surveys. And let's be clear — he's not going to be out in the rain, assembling raw materials into a structure either. His job would start with the design and continue with the project plan, and possibly end as a consultant or one of a team of over-seers. He's not finishing the bridge, but his role was necessary to get the project from where it was to where it needed to be when someone else would take over.

Technical projects are often the same. I'm generalizing, but you see a lot of supporting evidence which suggests that you have your visionary, your architect, your builder and your "last 10%"-ers. One person can be all of these things, but almost never all at once on the same project.

What I learned when I came of age was that I am a Starter. I have good ideas and the ability to rally others to a cause. I've evolved the ability to network and communicate. I've forgiven myself for not being a Finisher, because there are lots of people that hate starting and love to finish. There are loads of people who will never start and hate finishing, but they are the core team during the middle.

I suggest that you stop seeing your inclinations as a problem and start thanking your lucky stars that you have a regular flow of potentially great ideas. The main skill you need to develop is your ability to kill off the bad ones early so that you can focus your passion and evangelism on the winners.

Chances are, if you got bored it wasn't going to turn out well anyhow. Listen to what your subconscious is trying to tell you.

<http://www.humblepied.com/jessica-hische/>

<comment><USER4> > What I learned when I came of age was that I am a Starter.

The more accurate way to put this is "I am not a Finisher". The argument here is that starting and finishing are two equally valuable skills that are somehow equivalent.

A "Starter" is a fairweather friend. It's easy to start things. Most people like starting things. Note this is different from networking and so forth, which is really a separate skill altogether.

Employers, business partners and investors will look at what you've finished and don't care what you've started. When something is 80% done or when times are tough or it's time to soldier on and run the last mile of the marathon, nobody wants the guy around who says "well, I started, that's my skill but I'm done now, I suggest you find a Finisher".

Not being a Finisher isn't a different skill--it's a character flaw.

<comment><USER5> That's not entirely true. I get called on all the time, within my department at Google, to start things. Usually I'm explicitly forbidden from finishing them (even when I want to), either because they're "good enough" unfinished or because they can be handed off to other people who are _not_ good at starting things.

The ability to look at a vaguely specified problem and say "Okay, here's how we're going to attack it, and here's what we need to build to have _something_ that works" is a very valuable skillset, and not everyone has it.

Now, remember that "finished" is not the same as "launched". Usually, my responsibilities continue up to the point where we can get a product into the hands of users and train the people who'll be maintaining it after me. But there's a fairly large role for maintenance programmers, people who are responsible for little tweaks even though the system is mostly working as desired, and if you're a Starter, there's no reason for you to do that work yourself.

<comment><USER6> I think that your job sounds like a prototyper, which to say that your mandate is to develop to a level where others can rebuild it with a point of reference. Hence you're a starter and a finisher.

I have had a similar position.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As is probably common for most HNers, technically feasible ideas pop into my head daily. My mind leisurely constructs state and class diagrams while I'm taking a shower, by the time I dry off, my gameified crowdsourcing quant-bot seems like the most amazing idea ever.

But what about my MMO and a dozen other half formed projects each with their own litter of bastard experimental branches?

I was able to end this cycle with a little technique. Tell _no one_ about your ideas. Not a SINGLE person. Instead, imagine their faces when they actually _see_ it. If you spend four months working on a project in secrecy and then become tempted to move on to something else that you're working on, you'll quickly notice that the burst of endorphins you get as you enumerate the features of your killer app is mostly absent. Suddenly, you realize that you're four months out and now you have to start from scratch before you can talk about how amazing your project is. If you can't help but talk about your projects, then become a hermit (that's what I did).

<comment><USER8> Complete isolation worries me that the idea may not get validated in the first place, and you may waste all that time as a result.

<comment><USER7> Your idea has already achieved validation from you, short of that your work validates itself by existing in a functional state.

Besides, nobody knows what people want. Who would have guessed that the world needed another site to post and comment on photos? Would _you_ validate that idea? Yet Pinterest thrives. Just do it, then tell people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's somehow interesting to me how often this comes up on HN. It's also a problem I tend to have. But if you had asked me 10 years ago based on what I'd casually heard outside of tech, it was _much_ more common for me to encounter and worry about the exact opposite failure case in creative projects: not the person who has 30 half-finished novels, but the person who's spent 30 years writing their Masterpiece Novel that is probably not going to be a masterpiece, but nobody can convince them that they really should be trying out other things instead of sticking with this one project to the bitter end. Basically, not _enough_ experimentation and bouncing around between projects, and too much unwavering fixation on one Big Project that they've tied their ego to.

Curious what the distribution of those two opposite problems is like! Among creative types, it seems that the "stuck with it _too long_ " problem is more prevalent in certain areas, like writing or filmmaking, but not as prevalent among hackers. I suppose one compensation for it being so common for hackers to fall into the "100 unfinished projects" trap is that it's less common to find hackers who fall into the trap of, "I stuck with the first idea I ever got for 20 years because I thought it was my One Big Idea".

<comment><USER10> It's partially because the technology industry moves, while the film or book industry doesn't.

Film and novels derive their quality from their plots. Plots transcend time. Although the tools involved in creating a movie or book may change (improved camera systems), the tools don't impact the plot much. Therefore, a book written thirty years ago can have the same quality as a book written today.

The quality of an application is unable to transcend time. Sure, the idea of creating a website to connect people might, but the quality of an application isn't usually based on the idea, it's based on the implementation. Implementations _cannot_ transcend time; that's why technological masterpieces don't exist. A programmer who locks himself in his room and starts working on "the next Facebook" now won't be very successful in thirty years: when he launches, the whole technological landscape will have changed.

Programmers rarely work on something for too long, because they understand that their products are dependent on technology, which changes over time. What is amazing today is not amazing ten years from now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Just like eating bad food and watching TV, being productive is a habit. Get in the habit and you'll find yourself up early on weekends working on your projects.

The way to feed the habit is with success. To experience successes, I have found:

\- first minimize your goals. The less to do, the faster to succeed. The fastest way to finish a feature is by removing it from the plan.

\- work on one project, maximum two. Any more and you will always jump from a project when it gets hard or to the "not fun part".

<comment><USER12> I think this is the opposite of the solution, the problem isnt doesnt sound like motivation to work, as mentioned they are always working on and excited by 'the next big thing', Its certainly something I relate to.

The problem is 'feeling productive' and 'being productive' are different things, its very easy to be working weekends and nights on your project, its very hard to realise that the chances are the work you are doing wont make a difference to anyone, most importantly yourself.

The second part I agree with, when someone does give a shit what you are working on, 1. You will take the time to make it better, 2. You have already solved the problem of a busy but ineffectual work cycle, move your motivation from 'the next best thing that will be awesome' to 'something that someone other than me cares about right now'

The best way I could recommend to do this is to look at all your projects that are on your plate, pick the one that will take the shortest amount of time for other people to start using and caring, release it tomorrow even if it sucks, start pushing it out to everyone you know, get some feedback and get into a cycle of working off peoples feedback

<comment><USER11> I don't consider "working on something I never released" as being productive though. In my original post when I was talking about habitually being productive I meant habitually shipping & following through on projects till completion, not just habitually working on 'a' project without finishing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I had this problem, and this aproach helped me:

First, indentify if you are stuck. Create metrics if needed ("if I don't advance this cuantitative variable in a week, then I'm _officially_ stuck").

Second, when you are officially stuck, you need to make a formal and conscious decision to stop fully or keep going. Your current projects should have this 2 posible states: _Stoped_ (with an optional of "until X happens") or _Running_.

PS: You also need to _formally determine where the finishing line is_. Otherwise, you'll never finish.

<comment><USER14> +1

I never thought of doing this, but seems like a brilliant idea!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Just a thought... if all you are bringing to the party are the idea and design skills, maybe you are over estimating your contribution to these projects. It's always important to finish stuff as a smaller piece of a large pie is better than 100% of nothing. Perhaps this is the time to really evaluate if giving away more than you're comfortable with will help you achieve your dreams.

If your projects are really worth something, then it really shouldn't be difficult for you to "sell" the idea to potential co-founders on an equity, or part equity, part financial basis. If you cannot even sell it to developers or business people, then the idea is probably not worth pursuing and you should stop immediately, not weeks or months later.

On a side note, if you are spending 4 to 8 months on just design, you are probably doing it wrong. You really need to meet some smart people, work with them, and learn about each others' working habits. Developers won't blindly follow someone who can only design, and bring zero business sense into a venture. You either need to up your skills, get some more funding, find people who can fill all the holes that you can't do, or come up with better ideas.

Most importantly, you do need to learn from your mistakes, or learn how not to repeat the things that have failed you in the past. If you can't get past these relatively simple hurdles and make the same mistake over and over and over again, then you really should just get a job where you are assigned to do only one thing instead - and maybe learn to be happy with that.

</comment><comment><USER16> I have trouble finishing projects sometimes, too. I'm sure everyone does. The only way I've found to overcome it is to build something so simple that I can launch it before that initial endorphin rush subsides.

Once it's out in the world and providing some modicum of value to me and others, I can start deriving joy from fixing that one thing or adding that other small feature that's keeping me from being able to do X.

Case in point: <http://www.viainstapaper.com>. I wanted to be able to see what people were sharing from Instapaper. I came up with the idea around 11PM on Valentine's Day, and spent an hour prototyping the Twitter search stuff in Ruby. The next afternoon, I slapped a Rails frontend on it, and called it 'launched'[1]. Over the next couple days, I found myself getting annoyed by missing features or nasty bugs, so I'd fix those. Once this subsided, I announced it to the world, and it's been pretty much running on autopilot since.

I wouldn't say it's set the world on fire, but it's gotten me the attention of Marco Arment, Max Linsky (proprietor of Longform.org), and a handful of other people whose opinions I greatly respect.

[1] Hooray again for Heroku, Ruby, Rails, Bootstrap, and all of the other infrastructure that makes it possible to build something like this in just a few hours.

<comment><USER17> Nice little project, thanks for this

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> One of my new years resolution's was to become a finisher. Last year I started a number of projects, I wrote a lot of code. I learned a lot. Nothing saw the light of day.

This year had to be different. I needed something to show for my time. I became a finisher.

To make this change I did 3 things:

1) Reduce the scope on any new product ideas. Simple is best. I will only allow myself a month to work on something. If I am working longer than that and have nothing I can publicly show then the scope has probably buried me and nothing will ever be released.

2) Say F __k it and _quietly_ release the project. Quietly because it isn't 100% finished. There are little problems here and there. I would like to spend weeks tweaking a feature but if I do it without releasing anything I will get bored and start a new idea. Once released I can iterate, improve and add functionality.

3) Tell everyone what I working on as I am doing it. This means I need something to show at the end of it or I will look silly. I then tell people in order of technical expertise about its release. Tech savvy people understand the concept of a beta and even an alpha. Others... not so much.

So far its working. I have already released something this year. Its still a bit iffy but it is improving each week. I am becoming a finisher.

</comment><comment><USER19> The problem is following a "maximizing" strategy, instead of a "satisficing" strategy.

Maximizing means you do things based on what seems like the best possible path. Satisficing is focusing on the minimum requirements to reach your goal.

Never finishing seems to be a combination of maximizing when you don't need to bother, and also failing to identify the true _requirements_ for you. In order for you to start a successful venture, there are a surprisingly large number of fixed requirements:

1) You need a product that people care about

2) That you can charge for

3) With a viable customer acquisition strategy

4) Where 2) × 3) = enough to support you

5) It needs to be something you can actually implement

6) That you can stay excited about for many years

The problem is that maximizers will start maximizing on some handful of these. Often they'll take #5 super seriously and start trying to execute perfectly on their vision, do great design, etc, etc.

But then at some point along the way they start to realize that even if they maximize on that axis, they haven't satisfied one of the core requirements. Indeed, the _can't_ satisfy one of the core requirements. It's a depressing realization, and the only option is to jettison the idea and move on to something else.

Which leads me to my somewhat unexpected conclusion, that the solution to never finishing may well be _not starting_. Which isn't to say that you should twiddle your thumbs and not build stuff. Building stuff is a critical skill that you need to practice.

But just treat your projects like side projects. Don't start running off and thinking you're going to actually start a company until you have a project that you really think can hit all six requirements.

And don't try to maximize any of them. The important thing is to get all six cooking at an _acceptable_ level.

<comment><USER20> Some great observations here that I've learned the hard way myself.

I have concluded differently, however, based on the following lesson I have learned repeatedly in all areas of life: until you _do_ something, you often don't realize all the potential outcomes available. You can easily sit there today and think "ah but how the hell am I going to get customers?" and then choose never to work on your idea. That's OK - if you have something better to work on (where better = some other idea where positive, realistic evaluations of the "viable business" preconditions have been met and the total score beats the score of the current idea you're evaluating).

But if you don't have something better it's STILL a good plan to start working on your idea because (a) you'll learn something (b) you'll probably be (pleasantly) surprised, either because a solution will materialize that you didn't expect (are you really that brilliant and omnipotent that you can predict all outcomes?), OR because it will lead you to thinking of a new idea that doesn't have the same problem (how many successful start-ups switched ideas half-way through implementation?).

For instance, you might end up building product X that generates you 100,000 users but doesn't make much money, even though it doesn't cost much to run. But in the process of building X, you come up with idea Y, which turns out to be a great idea according to the preconditions but only if you have 10,000 users... ah but look, you can probably advertise Y on X and suddenly you're likely to have the users you need for Y to take off. By working on a problem, you unconsciously and implicitly start exploring related problem spaces. By not working on a problem... you can't solve it, or related problems you might not even have noticed yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Consider looking into the symptoms and characteristics of adult ADHD, especially if you ever had episodes of hyperactivity as a child. It's probably not what's going on, but frequently switching jobs (projects) can be a flag. 9 out of 10 adults with it are undiagnosed, and treatment is very effective.

<comment><USER22> Do you think you could provide some links or references? When I read your comment, I immediately thing of overdiagnosing condition these days. I only ask because I Think a lot of people in my generation (I guess that's Gen Y?) jump to the "ADHD" or genuinely think they have something wrong with them, when they are completely normal.

<comment><USER23> Having lots of unfinished projects is common with people with ADHD. We tend to get over the initial excitement of starting something new and lose interest. In order to be actually diagnosed with ADHD you would have to be affected in other ways that seriously impact your life, but this is one "trait cluster" that a lot of people with ADHD share.

[http://add-adhd.lifetips.com/tip/81525/adult-add-adhd/adult-...](http://add- adhd.lifetips.com/tip/81525/adult-add-adhd/adult-adhd-add-self-test/adult-add- adhd-self-test.html)

<comment><USER24> Me too. But I gut up and finish anyway.

While it may be true that most people with ADHD don't finish things, it also true that most people who don't finish things _don't_ have any disorder at all. They just don't finish things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Don't tell people what you are working on before you finish it.

[http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_keep_your_goals_to_you...](http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_keep_your_goals_to_yourself.html)

<comment><USER26> I cannot disagree more. Opening up my ideas to ridicule and critique has been the best thing I've ever done. I don't waste time on the bad ideas, people get behind the good ones, and people see that I'm always doing _something_. I don't have to deal with the "what happened to that project you were working on" question much because my standard answer is "Boy was that a good learning experience! I showed it to X, Y, and Z and they gave me great feedback and inspired a bunch of new ideas that are more interesting. Take a look!"

Sure, I don't finish everything, but the important bit is that the things I fail to finish are less good than the things I do finish. This is the "fail fast" mantra in a slightly larger nutshell.

<comment><USER25> I'm not advocating working on projects in secret. Once you have something even slightly ready, by all means share it.

Incessantly talking about what you're _going_ to do before you've done anything isn't admirable in my books.

<comment><USER27> I think there is merit in your argument; having something more tangible than an idea means a lot more, especially when the op sounds like he is quite open with his ideas and willing to express that initial excitement.

Maybe restraining yourself from this might make you work towards having something more substantial that you can then in turn "show off".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I suffer from this too (approaching 30 now), however in recent years it's improved.

It started by instead of rushing headfirst, instead recording ideas into a text file. It quickly became apparent that revisiting something written mere weeks earlier would reveal it as total crap, uninteresting, or the wrong approach or similar. That file is now just under 1000 lines, only 3 of which are probably worth revisiting later. It also seems the act of recording an idea has a similar sense of reward that comes with working on it.

Another rule is to mercilessly cull anything half started in a fit of excitement: my ~/src shrank from something like 100 directories to just over 30 right now, and half of those are 3rd party. Lose half a night's sleep coding some crap? Recognize it's undirected crap, and rm it first thing in the morning. The effect of this is less wasted work, more stuff getting recorded and enduring review, less distraction and less temptation in future to mkdir super_foo_project ; vim a.c.

I also promised myself to only work on an idea after finishing the previous. Presently my last "big" idea started in 2008 and only needs a few weeks' dedication to finish. In the meantime tens of weekend projects remain unstarted, as they rightly should. When I finally gain the discipline to finish that project, I'll be in much better shape to execute in future.

</comment><comment><USER29> I have serious issues with the number of projects I've started and not finished (so much so, I named my blog after this type of thinking!)

It's important to think of some projects as pure experiments. That their intentional end result was always going to be the information that you learned. Which does feel 'unfinished', don't be hard on yourself for trying & learning through experiments.

Unfinished projects that are far from the real end state you had in mind, need to be addressed. If you often find yourself generally falling out of love with a project after a few weeks work there will be a reason why. It's usually that you a frustrated that you can't achieve the next objective on your own. Note down the obstacle you are facing and what it would take to resolve it. You can keep in mind what's needed, actively work towards it over time instead of feeling bad about it.

We are so often reminded that time is limited that we are conditioned to thinking that we need to build & complete things rapidly and that if we don't, it's a failure.

It's not always possible to just keep pushing forward. You often need things to happen outside of your control. Allow your projects time to wait for what's needed & for situations to change. Revisit them regularly & know what the next step looks like.

</comment><comment><USER30> My 2c.

Unless you make this post disappear somehow it will hurt in the future. Or help if you learn from this - now.

Recognize that the way you finish matters more than its beginning. Spend time considering that.

Find someone much like you, but ready to change. It cancels the guilt, offers empathy.

Submit to regular, voluntary accountability. Be brutally honest.

Got new ideas? Write them down in the moment of inspiration. Writing it down cancels urge.

Once success is established with its reward, pattern is broken.

Always choose what is right at every step.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your input here, your comment is actually very helpful. I realise that if I don't learn from it now, the post could come back to haunt me. But that's just it, it holds me accountable, which is the motivation I need to sort it out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> In my experience starters are the norm and finishers are less common. I personally am a finisher, it drives me insane to leave a project incomplete. People who are "starters" I find tend to view themselves more as idea people who are maybe not great at execution - and that is true sometimes. But there is a fine line between a starter who is a creative genius -vs- a starter who is lazy and dumps all the annoying finishing tasks onto somebody else's plate. There are also starters who organize things so that it's easy to finish them, and there are starters who leave gigantic messes and problems with no consideration about the finish work necessary.

I have a great partner in music who is very creative but has trouble finishing things. The two of us make a great team. But, there will be times where I get mad and make him do some finish work. Just because I like finishing things doesn't mean I never have any creative ideas and want to do all the boring, dull cleanup work all the time!

</comment><comment><USER32> I wish G+ had more descriptive links, like

[http://plus.google.com/Daniel_Meade/Always_a_starter_never_a...](http://plus.google.com/Daniel_Meade/Always_a_starter_never_a_finisher)

<comment><USER33> Google doesn't need to care about SEO ;)

<comment><USER34> It could be more useful outside of SEO purposes, though. Pretty links allow people to guess the content of a page by looking at the browser's status bar when the link is hovered. It becomes especially important if the link text itself is not descriptive enough ("click here").

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> A cofounder helps with that, because they can call you out on it, and the embarrassment is sometimes enough motivation to finish a project.

</comment><comment><USER36> I think you're all missing the obvious solution. He should tell all of us what he is working on and where he is stuck.

Think of the collective brainpower on here, surely someone will be able to point him to a solution. Or the consensus should tell him that the problem he is facing has no known solution.

He wrote the entire post without even hinting at the idea. Is he afraid that we will find some flaw with it?

<comment><AUTHOR> The problem comes down to programming, I decided to leave it from the post as the post is more about the situation. I know I'm not alone with this problem, and any non-specific advise offered to me from writing this post may also help others.

<comment><USER37> Programming? You can outsource parts of that, via elance.com or similar services, if you don't know how to program yourself.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very true. Unfortunately, for the time being at least, my budget doesn't allow for this to happen, however cheap it may be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> i had a similar problem: I worked on several projects parallel, had sheet after sheet with notes of "awesome" ideas, was interested in everything, read photography-blogs to recipe-sites, listened to podcasts and so on.

I lacked focus and once I shut off everything I realized that I didn't really need to know all that stuff, it cluttered my mind. With my projects, once I hit the first wall I prefered to start a new project or do something different than spending some time on fixing my problem with the other project.

so what helped for me? I tried to create an environment at home where I could focus: there is only 1 book on the nightstand and I'd rather not read one night because I'm not in the mood for this particular book than starting a new one as I once did.

I plan my meals for 1 week with the supplies I have and I only go shopping once a week, this prevents me from coming home, not knowing what to eat, losing time and energy on something trivial because once I had a problem with one project I suddenly found myself shopping at the supermarket in order to try out a new recipe I just read about on some forum.

So I just sit there and do my stuff and it has worked wonders. I write down which parts I want to have finished by the end of the week and even if I don't meet my goals I'm still going to bed satisfied because I know I couldn't have done better that day and I'm eager to get out of bed on sunday because I know exactly the night before what I will be working on the next day. And interesting enough, once I finished some small projects I suddenly was able to dismiss 90% of my ideas as not worth doing

The only book I've read on this subject is "self discipline in 10 days" and it helped me with getting back my focus. Once I snap out of my workflow and my mind starts wandering I use my "inner voice" to remind me that I have to focus and it works :)

</comment><comment><USER39> Here's how I overcame it - I put my own money on the line. I hired artists and writers for my recent project, even though I was easily capable of doing it myself. If you pay a grand out of pocket though suddenly it keeps things in perspective. You can tell yourself, "If I move on from this then I'll have just thrown that money away." It's more motivating than you think.

</comment><comment><USER40> A lot of what you wrote hit home; I feel like I could have wrote that post myself. So, having ADHD myself, I gotta be that guy who asks the patently absurd but obvious question – have you ever been tested/diagnosed for adult ADHD? And in no way am I asking rhetorically.

You see, ADHD - or more specifically, ADHD/PI [1] - is commonly overlooked, with only 10% formally diagnosed [2]. ADHD/PI is sorta special because you're not the kid shouting out in class or having problems sitting still. To the average person, you'd just be suffering from depression or lack of sleep, etc. Cycles of started projects with nothing to show for is definitely a symptom of ADHD/PI, but of course, not a formal diagnosis.

Imposter's Syndrome [3] is something I think most ADHD/PI suffers can sympathize with. When we look at others execute tasks, we can say, "Ya, I could do that. I understand how that works." Execution is a whole other matter. Programming/Design is such an attractive gamut for someone with ADHD/PI because there is always something new to learn, or a better way of doing it, but the incredible need to execute can only be seen far, far away.

ADHD/PI doesn't represent a huge percentage of the population in general. But in our circles, I believe the percentage to be quite high. Anecdotally, 1/3 in the arts/marketing/web have strongly associated symptoms of ADHD/PI. Let me be clear: I am not suggesting that as much as 1/3 of people working in these fields have ADHD or ADHD/PI. Just that, in a sea of introverted people - <USER2> many are actually suffering with attention deficits and not knowing?

My over-arching point here is - it's important to get diagnosed. Even if you choose not to take prescription medication to treat it, at least you'll have awareness. And with that, you can identify with yourself a lot better.

EDIT: ADHD/PI is so different from what people would consider traditional ADHD symptoms that it has been suggested it should be considered a completely separate condition [4].

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADHD_predominantly_inattentive>

[2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adult_attention_deficit_hyperac...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adult_attention_deficit_hyperactivity_disorder#Epidemiology)

[3] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome>

[4] [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1093/clipsy.8.4.489/ab...](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1093/clipsy.8.4.489/abstract;jsessionid=FC8A72374244C2DEE9F0AD2E53B91D79.d01t04)

</comment><comment><USER41> This post gives me an opportunity to highlight the major beef I have with the "ideas don't matter, execution is everything" crowd. It's simply false. The idea, and the vision of the world the idea leads to, are what can get you through these moments. If you are working on a project that you don't truly, deeply care about for some reason, you will throw in the towel early. This is part of the reason I'm skeptical the recent YC experiment to bring on idealess founders -- to me, if you're unable to show that you _can_ be passionate about an idea (faking it doesn't count) you're unlikely to find one that will get you through these cloudy days.

The best idea is to build something you want yourself. The next best type of idea is something you know you will be unable to rest until what sits in your mind becomes reality.

</comment><comment><USER42> Two things. First, plan out your milestones ahead of time. It's a lot easier to keep your enthusiasm up if you break the project down into smaller projects and just concentrate on the next milestone.

Second, if you're going to do something that requires expertise you don't have, then you need to have a plan to deal with that from day one. Either you're going to get someone to help (with equity, perhaps, if this is a startup), or you develop the expertise yourself. Don't put six months into something thinking the solution for this part will fall from the sky.

Planning. That's it, in a nutshell. Planning is the key step to finishing _any_ project, personal or professional.

</comment><comment><USER43> One of the responses includes:

"There is always another part of the project you could be working on - even if it's mindnumbingly boring (like adding i18n)."

That, to me, sounds like a poor suggestion for this kind of problem. Anything that doesn't get you traction with your project, so that any users start yabbering for tweaks and progress to keep you motivated, are likely to be a mistake.

If the problem is that you're a front end developer running up against back end problems, then you need to be spotting this well in advance or else you're wasting time.

</comment><comment><USER44> Interesting comment, "start your day as a producer". I've seen this around before, but I'm not sure what it means.

How would it work? Would you wake up, and have _one_ hour to produce something? Would it be related to your project? Writing a blog post about your project? Or is that beating around the bush, and actually not producing anything worthwhile?

Does the thing that you produce, have to mean anything? Or does it only have to mean something to you?

I only ask, because I'm exactly like this guy, and I only want to better myself.

<comment><USER45> The first things you do in the morning seem to 'set the tone' for the rest of the day. E. g., have you ever noticed how the first song you listen to often sticks with you for hours? So instead of firing up HN or Reddit right after you woke up, start your day with something that requires _your output_ \- this doesn't have to be an essay, but could be as quick as:

\- writing that uncomfortable email that's been lingering on your todo list \- _begin_ to write your next blog post \- not a coder myself, but I would assume that this all applies to writing code / fixing/finding bugs, too.

On a related note, the _last_ thing you do before you sleep can also have a very positive effect on your next day's productivity. I find that going to through / defining the top 3 goals for the day after helps me structure my work and be more motivated to pick up directly on those todos right after I get up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> You must finish something at the beginning and end of the day. Make sure you divide tasks in a way that your first and last tasks does not last for long.

</comment><comment><USER47> Its good to finishes projects, but its also important to realize that some projects can't ever be finished, or may not be worth the effort of completing them. That's not to say one should drop a project when it gets hard or to think your self out of completing it, but more to the idea of being reasonable about expectations while still trying your hardest.

</comment><comment><USER24> If you never finish you are never taught the gut wrenching lesson that the last 10% really is 90% of the work. Even for an MVP.

</comment><comment><USER48> You need a partner or an advisor. Someone else who you feel you can't give up on. At least that's what has worked for me.

<comment><USER49> Agree 100%. As a solo player I usually abandon ideas before publishing them, I tend to lost the initial excitement of the idea and got tired before even launching the MVP. Having a partner(non-technical for my case) in my current project really helps me to focus and push for the MVP(yes, I'm on early stage and I get easily exhausted by the amount of work a CTO has to do when you are bootstrapping).

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> I've got it too, and so do a lot of people I work with. I wonder if having a lot of half-finished projects is common in the IT world, I think it is.

For me the joy is in figuring out how I would construct stuff, once everything is figured out... the joy is gone. The last step, actually making it, is almost never reached.

</comment><comment><USER51> I see this as a dichotomy between people who are doers vs thinkers/creatives[1]

If you are a thinker/creative and not a doer, you need to align yourself with a doer, in order to make great things happen.

[1] <http://andrewoneverything.com/its-the-music-stupid>

</comment><comment><USER52> You're on a good path when you acknowledge the problem. Overconfidence bias makes us take impossible challenges. Put the big project on hold and do a few small projects with good ROI. And try to partition the big project into smaller ones.

</comment><comment><USER53> Sunk costs are not always fallacies: <http://www.gwern.net/Sunk%20cost> If people like OP engaged in sunk cost fallacy more, they'd be better off.

</comment><comment><USER54> Everyone has an opinion because everyone has been there.

But at the end of the day it's simply: just do it.

And keep talking. Be loud. Let people know what you're doing.

One done thing begets another thing to do.

</comment><comment><USER55> What are you working on? What is your road-block?

</comment><comment><USER56> Made me think of this: <http://xkcd.com/1027/>

</comment><comment><USER57> Maybe you should read this book: The Dip by Seth Godin.

</comment><comment><USER58> Are you competitive?

</comment><comment><USER59> My curse as well.

</comment><comment><USER60> Story of my life</comment>


German Pirate Party Scores Second State Victory - <AUTHOR> http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/german-pirate-party-election-304058 <comment><USER2> For the political hackers: note that these victories are made possible by Germany's proportional representation system, which guarantees seats in parliaments to any party which gets more than 5% of the popular vote across the state/city/whatever. Thus parties with broad but shallow support do get represented in government.

The electoral systems in the UK-derived nations (geographic districts only, first past the post) expressly prohibit such broad-but-shallow movements from ever being represented in government. If the Pirate Party in a U.S. state got the same percent of the vote, they would end up with precisely zero seats in the legislature. Even if they got double that percent of the vote, they would end up with precisely zero seats in the legislature. Triple? Still zero. The U.S. electoral system is an extremely conservative one, which prevents new political movements from ever being heard in government. There are better ones, such as Germany's.

<comment><USER3> The Scottish Parliament actually has an element of PR, so we do get some minority parties with seats:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Parliament#2011_result>

It wouldn't surprise me if we have Pirate Party MSPs in a few years.

[NB Scotland is still very much a part of the UK, at least for a couple of years or so!].

<comment><USER2> Ah, I didn't know Scotland had MMP. Good for you. I was thinking of the U.S., Canada, and UK main parliament.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You should also keep in mind, that the german pirate party isn't only about copyright stuff.

They're also "the only" party in germany that represents the interests of web- centric citizens. While the conservative parties try to regulate the internet in germany more an more (you know, germany has A LOT of regulations, everywhere) the pirate party is a good alternative.

I'm really happy about this movement, even if they don't land a huge hit after a few years, you can see more younger people getting more interest in politics etc.

<comment><USER5> In addition to the things you mentioned, I'm also quite happy about the existence of a party containing many young, inexperienced members in the government. They seem to be reinventing the wheel at least partly out of ignorance of the way things have always been done in German politics, and while that does lead to some chaos within the party, in some cases they're reinventing it for the better.

Even if they don't manage to push through any meaningful changes at all by themselves, their mere presence seems to be enough to shake up the traditional parties, and show them that they need to be more open and inclusive towards the general public, and particularly younger voters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Anti-copyright group ...

The site is called Hollywoodreporter, no surprise.

If anybody ist interested: [http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,823738,00...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,823738,00.html)

The core discourse is about civil liberties and resentment with the old parties.

<comment><USER7> Speaking of reporting, I wonder how long it'll take until the "Pirates board another x" phrase gets retired…

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm from Saarland (the state where the vote was last night), and i voted for the pirate party last night.

They are not an anti copyright group. It's true that they want to see modifications made to overly strict copyright laws and oppose treaties like ACTA, data retention laws, web censorship laws (all of which have been proposed in germany in the last years).

Their core demands are: * Improve overly strict copyright laws * Improve transparency of government (open data, foia , etc) * Improve the educational system to take advantage of the internet and other "new media" in class. * Improve citizen participation in government by having public votes on more issues

They are also about the only party that has some competence when it comes to computers, the internet, etc

So, as a web-centric citizen, it was easy for me to vote for them.

</comment><comment><USER9> Jesus... and all with a "top 10 pirated movies of all time" picture gallery.. what horrible site is that!?

A pretty good article for the germans among us can be found here:

<http://sz-magazin.sueddeutsche.de/texte/anzeigen/36648/>

<comment><USER10> Thanks. That's pretty good. By the way, the Neue Zurcher Zeitung often has an interesting outsider's perspective on events in Germany (e.g. [http://www.nzz.ch/marktplaetze/uebersicht/kaum_gegenwind_fue...](http://www.nzz.ch/marktplaetze/uebersicht/kaum_gegenwind_fuer_die_deutschen_piraten_1.13030905.html)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Anti-copyright group... That and the "everything for free party" are the most common discriptions media and the established parties are trying to pose on the Pirates right now. That and the misinterpretation that an opposition to an attemt to simply block child pornographic sites when you try to access them from germany equals a support of said sites.

They are anew party with some, IMHO interessting fresh approaches. And if we have a party in the parliaments of one of the biggest economies in Europe oppossing the most wierd initiatives from the content industry, well that can only be great!

<comment><USER7> What could probably work out well for them is the opposite of a "fresh approach". In an interview today, one of the new members of parliament said that he sees the PP as representing classical liberalism, as opposed to the FDP's neo-liberalism. That would be something to unite behind, beyond straight-forward internet themes. But we'll have to see whether it's something the whole party can agree on.

In its ideal form, that's something good about the German electoral system. Due to the fact that traditionally most parts need a coalition to form a government, you can have some kind of "mixin" system, i.e. vote for a party because it adds something valuable to the whole effort, not because you could see them govern totally on their own. Especially if the party isn't tied to one particular big sibling, which more and more seems to be the case now.

<comment><USER10> Funny thing is that neo-liberalism actually used to have a different meaning in Germany. That meaning also had a synonym called Ordoliberalism (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordoliberalism>), that didn't change so much in meaning.

Anyway, the Pirateparty also has a substantial social democratic background, so calling their stance social liberalism is probably more sensible. (Using the European meaning of liberalism.)

<comment><USER7> I was basically quoting the terms from the interview. You're right, social liberalism is probably the more appropriate term.

We do seem to like the word "social" here in Germany, even the "right-wing" parties like to use it, albeit not in the strictly socialist sense, of course. No prosperity gospel here. Probably because all the Calvinists ended up somewhere else…

<comment><USER10> Some historians even use the term social-monarchy (as opposed to social- democracy) to describe the last German Empire.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> _Copyright discussions played little role in the Pirate's successful campaign, however. The party instead focused on issues of social and political reform._

Has anyone with real political influence (so, not them for now ;) addresses this issue? I suppose this was relevant before, but with more targeted parties like the Pirates, I think the faults in our election system seem more pronounced.

The reality is that a party like this is doomed to either lose votes for not having a position on anything else besides copyright, privacy and such, or lose votes by alienating the people who disagree with them on other issues.

<comment><USER11> Copyright et al. is just the most well-known program point they. AFAIK the movement started in scandinavia (sweden?) as response to some Pirate Bay issues I forgot about after all the SOPA, ACTA Megaupload stories. Already sorry for being to lacy to look it up right now.

<comment><USER13> Actually, it was started a few months before the police raid on the Pirate Bay raid. Membership exploded at that point though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm from germany, but I'm not sure if I would elect them.

In last months there were so many chances for them, but they missed every one.

For example they organised demonstrations against ACTA, but I never heard anything directly from the pirate party.

<comment><USER15> There are several press releases about ACTA on piratenpartei.de: <http://www.piratenpartei.de/category/pm/>

<comment><USER16> The point is not to just write a press release, it is to get your platform noticed. They missed this opportunity with ACTA and also when our president resigned. Fefe ranted about this in several posts on his blog.

My hunch is they simply lack the political shrewdness required in these matters at the moment, but that also makes them more appealing to me, they are not just playing the same old game (yet).

PS: nice nickname :D

<comment><USER15> I do not expect a party to rant like Fefe does. You can't neglect the fact that the position of the pirate party about ACTA is crystal clear: They don't want it to become reality. They wrote press releases, they organized demonstrations and there are ongoing discussions party-wide.

If you think ACTA is a bad idea I see no reason not to vote for the pirate party - they have done more for the anti-ACTA-movement than any other party. It could have been more but this does not make them unelectable...

Thank you - I like your nickname as well. .)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Is there any particular reason this is happening first in Germany? Just chance?

Is it because Germany has an electoral system that allows it? [but other nations also allow it]

Or, that Germany is technically advanced, and so one of the first nations to have a sufficiently large constituent of web-centric citizens? (echoes of Martin Luther, opposing the establishment with new communications technology) [but other nations are advanced]

</comment><comment><USER18> Note that by being the most net friendly party, the Pirates are the ones you should be voting for if you are part of a startup.</comment>


Late-Stage Adversarial Interoperability - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/12/mint-late-stage-adversarial-interoperability-demonstrates-what-we-had-and-what-we <comment><USER2> > But stories like Mint are rare today, thanks to a sustained, successful > campaign by the companies that owe their own existence to adversarial > interoperability to shut it down, lest someone do unto them as they had done > unto the others.

This invites the question of whether there are any consumer-data-friendly financial services out there.

I'm a fan of both the FSF and FireFox, as both seem relatively less rapacious than the alternatives.

This was a great article.

Aside: [https://eff.org/join](https://eff.org/join) is confusing. Can I join if I buy something?

<comment><USER3> The EU has a requirement for companies to share financial data about consumers if the consumer requests it. It's designed to support services like Mint.

[https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/25/psd2-europes-banks-brace- for...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/25/psd2-europes-banks-brace-for-new-eu- data-sharing-rules.html)

<comment><USER4> And because this is a rule about something the banks have to enable, it gets to build in the security design you'd actually want as well. Since your bank has to help make this possible, it knows this is "Useful Spend Monitor Inc." calling the API on behalf of greglindahl and thus is allowed to see greglindahl's balance and recent transaction list but isn't allowed to create a new transfer authority for Mr A. Nigerian-Fraudster when they "somehow" get the credentials from Useful Spend Monitor Inc.

That's never going to happen for services built out of scraping Internet Explorer sessions or similar shenanigans.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The downside of such adversarial interoperability is that it reduces security, because the scrapping systems need the user's credentials to login. I'm not going to give any third party my banking credentials, and I have 2FA turned on every site as well.

I suppose if the scrapping is done by the user's browser via say, a timed service worker or something, and the credentials never leave the user's browser, it would be ok, but the idea of a bank of headless (IE!) browsers with a database of millions of users bank credentials sends a shudder down my spine.

<comment><USER6> Similarly, recaptcha prevents this as well. Recaptcha primarily checks that it's running on a real browser on the correct website using botguard. Then it might give you the CAPTCHA challenge to prove you are human. It's not possible to solve the CAPTCHA challenge without first passing botguard.

A good example of this is discord. Alternative clients aren't very popular since you need to pass recaptcha to login. The currently available clients require you to copy cookies out of your browser.

<comment><USER7> The Discord plugin for Pidgin doesn't require copying cookies:

[https://github.com/EionRobb/purple- discord/](https://github.com/EionRobb/purple-discord/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The response to Cambridge Analytica set out a clear social contract: to allow users to share their data with a 3rd party is to take responsibility for what the 3rd party does with it. Users cannot be trusted to read consent screens or make their own decisions about authorization. And even if they can, they don't have the consent of others involved in the data (whether friends on social media, or counterparties to bank transactions).

Companies taking steps to block interoperability is an outcome of the righteous campaign that this community fought and won. Comments here should be celebrating.

<comment><USER9> But was Cambridge Analytica really adversarial? If they used the data without the knowledge or specific consent of FB, the latter should not be blamed in principle. (And that was no the case) Although being pretty against FB's practices and business model, I have to admit that the mainstream backlash against it have been largely "politically" motivated (as in, more partisanship than ideology). So likely FB would be bashed for this specific reason anyway.

I'm open to the idea that there should be a way to interoperate without the consent or responsibility of the primary operator and no way of preventing it by them. Though I don't know about the oughts, but nowadays the desire to integrate and annotate your finance seems quaint in the light of possible data weaponization and profiling. (And institutions are trying to do it whether you like it or not, my bank does try to sort my transactions "intelligently", no thanks). I'd say _I_ would want to do it at home on paper if at all, but people probably[0] should be able to do these thing and others if they want.

[0] Unless there is a legitimate case to be made that they endanger freedom of others.

<comment><USER8> Facebook published an API for third party apps to access data with user consent, and Cambridge Analytica used it. The outrage indicates that a belief that there should not have been such an API. Or at least that users were not competent to consent and that Facebook should have been controlling which 3rd parties they could share with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Adversarial interoperability" is what happens when you decide to abandon consent as a governing principle for interoperating, because it prevents progress. People complain when unicorns do this.

Even if you had consent in principle, you'd still have to agree to terms for interoperating. In particular, what price and who pays? Or does neither side pay? Consider ISP's and peering agreements.

Even some open source projects will grumble if Amazon uses their software following the terms that are right there in the license agreement. There seems to be an implicit "shadow agreement" that if you use their software to make money, you should give something back. (But that's not what the license says.)

<comment><USER11> > "Adversarial interoperability" is what happens when you decide to abandon > consent as a governing principle for interoperating, because it prevents > progress.

Whose consent is needed?

Open source projects who grumble about amazon created a model where their consent was not required. This is where the ideals of open source don't meed the desires of the VCs paying for the work. It's possible to have a stable business supporting and serving open source but it is hard to do something to meed VC returns on investment with open source.

The problem is in the financial model and whose consent is required in that.

When it comes to finances things are a little different because the business model is different and so are the regulations. It's also not about open source but about data control.

There is the whole idea of interoperating, too. The financial organizations often do not see a benefit to their income by interoperating with their competitors.

It might be useful to look at how competitors can come together to collaborate in open source in a way that helps raise all those involved.

<comment><USER10> Well, typically you need consent from the service being used. If you look at how the "robots.txt" standard works, consent is assumed even for basic web crawling by search engines. (At least for legitimate businesses; many crawlers do ignore robots.txt.)

<comment><USER12> That document should not be considered legally binding. It is not a contract.

Robots.txt is not even really a standard, best it was is a draft, set to expire on January 2nd next year.

The purpose of the file was to preserve performance, not to hide anything. It targets crawlers not API calls.

Consent of a non-single person business entity takes months at the very least, if it ever happens. It's easier for them to deny (incl. lawyers) and intimidate than compete and handle support tickets. Welcome to capitalism.

<comment><USER10> In practice, the crawlers that read robots.txt don't do adversarial interoperability. If a website doesn't want to be in Google's index, they can opt out, and no lawyers are needed to do that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't understand why there aren't popular _client-side_ tools that do this sort of thing. Not only is that hugely better for security (no third party sees your credentials or your data), it's much harder to distinguish from automated centralized scraping.

Mint apparently was able to get some users to install browser extensions. I believe RECAP and Sci-Hub work this way too. So why do trusted-third-party scrapers remain popular?

<comment><USER14> Users hate installing software and investors are used to immediate up to the minute metrics.

<comment><USER15> I think hating installing software is actually pretty prudent these days. Look at how mobile app publishers act towards personal data, now think about the fact that desktop computer software has almost no restriction on what it can do with a user's files. We're basically stuck just hoping that any app we install is respecting our privacy.

<comment><USER16> The problem is the alternative is giving your bank credentials and other sensitive personal information directly to a third party.

At least when the software is on your computer it's possible to analyze it to see what it's doing with your information. Once it leaves your computer into the possession of a third party, it's no longer even within your power to observe what they're doing with it.

<comment><USER15> I'm not sure I agree. On the one hand, once you provide data to a web service, that piece of data is permanently out of your control. On the other hand, once you're running untrusted code on your computer, _all_ of your data is potentially permanently out of your control if you ever reconnect to the internet.

As for analyzing software, even for software devs that's impractical. It's not enough to run it under some kind of process spy to see what it's doing because the malicious behaviour might be time limited or otherwise triggered unpredictably, so you really need to decompile and reverse engineer the program to figure out what files it can read and what it does with them. Not gonna happen. A better option is to spin up a fresh VM to run untrusted code on, but even that's cumbersome.

<comment><USER16> Decompiling the program is arduous but it is possible. You only need one person to do it and expose the nefarious activity to destroy their reputation, which acts as a deterrent.

Another option is to restrict its network activity. If it can't communicate with the developer then it can't send your information to them.

You could also merely _log_ its network activity, maybe using some hooks into any crypto library it links against so you can see the plaintext. That wouldn't prevent it from doing something bad, but it would at least allow you to detect it after the fact and then everyone would know to stop trusting that developer, and you get the deterrent without investing as much time and effort.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > Imagine if an adversarial interoperator were to enter the market today with > a tool that auto-piloted its users through the big tax-prep companies' sites > to get them to Free File tools that would actually work for them (as opposed > to tricking them into expensive upgrades, often by letting them get all the > way to the end of the process before revealing that something about the > user's tax situation makes them ineligible for that specific Free File > product).

Sounds like [https://simpletax.ca](https://simpletax.ca)

<comment><USER18> Canadian taxes were/are simplified, APIs exist to login and fetch T4s and other services, and while it could be simplified further (particularly for corporate taxes and provincial incorporation, PEPPOL E-Invoicing and open banking legislation, etc.), the current state of things in Canada is pretty straightforward, including a relatively open program so developers can write and validate their independent tax software with the CRA. By comparison, when similar simplifications were attempted in the US, they generally failed due to lobbying efforts from Intuit and others. And my understanding is that in Canada, provinces try to harmonize more with the CRA, with the exception of Quebec primarily, while in the US states create many different tax situations, in part because there are more U.S. states than Canadian provinces.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> this is somewhat off topic... but can you imagine how much money mint's data is worth? I once read this story about a guy who worked in the fraud department for citibank(?) and he had access to all the transactions. He used that live data to see that purchases at Chipotle(?) were down X percent and shorted the stock before they released their quarterly earnings report. He got thrown in jail and I don't remember exactly why. He wasn't really entitled to that data.

However, Mint/Intuit certainly obtains that data legally. They could make trades on that information, couldn't they? That is essentially like printing money. Maybe they already do and it is just a secret? Idk.

</comment><comment><USER20> papergov.com -> adversarial interop for government websites :)</comment>


Get Ready for Limitless Domain Names  - <AUTHOR> http://www.inquisitr.com/1286/get-ready-for-limitless-domain-names/

<comment><USER2> Perhaps the title should be "Get Ready for Limitless Domain Names! ...Assuming You Have Limitless Cash"?

$100,000 to half a million per name, says the article. Yeah, I'm not getting one of those any time soon.

<comment><USER3> 100k to 500k per TLD, not name, right?

<comment><USER4> Correct, for custom toplevel domains.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I suggest we call them _vanity TLDs_.

(I Googled it and it returned results. I thought I was being original :().</comment>


What it's like to build software used by 2M+ SEOs - <AUTHOR> http://www.link-assistant.com/news/seo-powersuite-story.html <comment><AUTHOR> A story by the founder of SEO PowerSuite about how the product grew from an idea to 2,000,000 users. Fascinating read.</comment>


Dwolla Partners With mFoundry, Bringing Real-Time Payment To 800+ Banks - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/10/dwolla-partners-with-mfoundry-bringing-real-time-p2p-mobile-payment-capabilities-to-800-u-s-banks/

<comment><USER2> mFoundry's business is essentially "get advanced mobile apps for your bank on every platform", with ~30-day turn around.

I used to code mFoundry's platform and mobile apps, and I can tell you that this deal is a potential game changer for dwolla. mFoundry has amassed prolific channels to banks, and they've been able to drag banks big and small into the future of mobile banking. More importantly, their solution is now laughably combatible with the different software that powers most banks, so integration is relatively simple. If they're able to offer payment over dwolla as turnkey as their other integrations, and dwolla's fees are cheaper than ACH, this single deal will make dwolla huge.

</comment><comment><USER3> Has anyone had success using Dwolla? I love what they are doing and I tried to get behind them, but adoption rate is nil. If the sign up process was less of a pain I would feel better getting clients on board. It seems like they are just winning tiny battles like this just to stay in the press.

<comment><USER4> I have used it, and it works exactly as advertised. The only think I didn't like is that it put something on my facebook feed about paying somebody, which was gross. I can see why they are trying to get more exposure, but that was a bad move.

Other than that, it's just what it says on the tin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wish Bitpay or BitInstant would partner with mFoundry!</comment>


Proposal: a Volition Tax - <AUTHOR> http://quant.am/politics/2016/08/27/proposal-a-volition-tax.html <comment><USER2> I love the concept. However the variability in budget sizes due to changing tax payer whims strikes me as a challenge for administrators to plan for.

Eg. How do you set multi year goals when there is an annual 5% variability due to this program?</comment>


Ask HN: Increased HD failures after Taiwan floods? - <AUTHOR>

Hello,
one of the side-effects of the massive floods in Thailand last October was a shortage in hard drives. HD prices went up as stocks dwindled.
The plants cleaned up and restarted production but such bootstrap events often brings with them elevated failure rates. In electronics manufacturing it normally takes anywhere from 6 months to 2 years before quality is back on track.
According to a Google study(1), HD failures are most notable in the first 3 months of usage.
My question: did you encounter abnormal HD failures in the past months for new drives in your professional/home setups?
Thanks!
(1) http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/research.google.com/en//archive/disk_failures.pdf <comment><USER2> Taiwan, Thailand, Tokio - same thing, right?

As for the question: not yet. First, I suppose the drives I'd buy _right now_ , especially in prebuilt computers, might still be antediluvian (given the latency between manufacture, assembly and retail - I'll check the S/Ns on my new computer when I get to it); second, even if they were, most of my early HD failures (two out of three - not very many data points, there) were somewhere around the 1 year mark, so this wouldn't manifest yet.

So, there's a lot of variables in play here - IMNSHO saying that drives failing _now_ are result of last October's flood would smell of the post-hoc fallacy: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc></comment>


Introducing the FreeBSD Test Suite - <AUTHOR> http://julipedia.meroh.net/2013/12/introducing-freebsd-test-suite.html

<comment><USER2> For background, this is essentially the NetBSD test infrastructure ported to FreeBSD. But it needs a lot more tests to be fully useful. Getting decent test coverage for an OS (userspace and kernel) is pretty hard...

<comment><USER3> Not exactly. NetBSD is still using the deprecated ATF tools in its test suite while in FreeBSD I went straight to their replacement, Kyua.

Also, because FreeBSD uses Kyua, its test infrastructure can be composed of test programs of various kinds (including legacy test programs and TAP- compliant test programs) and not only ATF-based test programs. This is something that NetBSD cannot do yet.

Note that NetBSD does have Kyua in the base system (optionally), but moving the continuous testing systems over from the ATF tools is a stuck project. The reason is that Kyua needs some more work to make that a reasonable migration for the people that run such machines. In particular, the generation of reports needs much improvement as well as the collection of results from various hosts. See [http://wiki.netbsd.org/kyua/import/](http://wiki.netbsd.org/kyua/import/) for some details.

However, because FreeBSD needn't be tied to the deprecated tools, and because I am the one setting things up from scratch, I am using this project as a playground for the new framework. Doing this deployment in a major project quickly surfaces all kind of big issues that need addressing -- and is certainly a boost in willpower to fix them :-)

(Yes: an eventual goal is to also move NetBSD over to Kyua but that will have to wait until Kyua proves itself "good enough" on FreeBSD's land. Homogenizing the two systems will have the nice result of simplifying the sharing of tests!)

<comment><USER2> Yes I saw your talk at Eurobsdcon, need to talk to you sometime about adding tests written in Lua to Kyua...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I didn't see it in article, but Kyua is supposed to be pronounced "queue-ay" (QA). Now you know.

Edit: Ha! I see Julio adjusted his stance on this:

The name is Kyua, which is just a play on the pronounciation of the Q.A. acronym. Originally, my intention was to pronounce Kyua as Q.A., but in reality this never happened. Today, just read the name as your instinct would: "Kyu-ah".[1]

Oh well. Now we all know the backstory, and we can all talk like learned experts to others.

[1] [http://wiki.netbsd.org/kyua/](http://wiki.netbsd.org/kyua/)

<comment><USER3> Yes I did :) I found myself and everybody else never reading it like Q.A... so, well, just use the more natural pronunciation!

<comment><USER5> Reminds me of the scene from the Tom Hanks movie _The Wonders_ where the band is originally cute with the spelling, Oneders, and an emcee introduces them as the Oh-Nee-Ders.

For the opposite effect, does anyone else find themselves pronouncing _gnu_ (the animal) with a hard G, a la GNU?

<comment><USER4> guh-new vs. new (referring to wildebeest) is something I remember from days before rms' GNU even existed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Could anyone give some backstory to Joe Web Developer over here? What does it mean to test an OS? Are these unit tests, or is it more like installing the FreeBSD on hardware or a VM and verifying behavior?</comment>


How I Became a Keynesian  - <AUTHOR> http://www.tnr.com/print/article/how-i-became-keynesian <comment><USER2> _When it takes the form of hoarding, the link between saving and promoting economic activity is broken, or at least frayed._

Hate to comment on something submitted so many times, but the above use of "hoarding" no longer applies. There was a time when people actually took physical money or gold and hoarded it...hid it away. With the gold standard, this amounted to a drop in the money supply. Such deflation has well- understood problems. It isn't possible now. When you "hoard" money in your BAC account, BAC loans it out at anywhere from 5 to 25 percent interest and life goes on. This isn't the 1930s.

<comment><USER3> Everyone here who fancies themselves as an economic pundit seriously needs to read Economics in One Lesson:

""Saving," in short, in the modem world, is only another form of spending. The usual difference is that the money is turned over to someone else to spend on means to increase production. So far as giving employment is concerned, Benjamin's "saving" and spending combined give as much as Alvin's spending alone, and put as much money in circulation. The chief difference is that the employment provided by Alvin's spending can be seen by anyone with one eye; but it is necessary to look a little more carefully, and to think a moment, to recognize that every dollar of Benjamin's saving gives as much employment as every dollar that Alvin throws around."

<http://jim.com/econ/chap24p1.html>

<comment><USER4> That's not completely true.

Spending increases the velocity of money ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocity_of_money> ) which can, in the short term, increase employment.

<comment><USER3> Saving/investment also increases employment as the borrowers use it to increase their capital (buy more machinery etc), which needs extra employment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Already submitted twice before, most recently here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=863344>

A little background on the author in this comment:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=863705>

<comment><USER6> I'm curious, as I have only recently started contributing here -- how tolerant is HN with reposts?

<comment><USER7> As far as I understand, unless they are years apart or circumstances have changed remarkably enough to warrant a new discussion on the same topic, reposts are generally avoided. In the cases where a repost is warranted, a comment with a link to the old discussion would be appreciated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's funny to hear people refer to themselves as Keynesian, Neo-classical, or even Austrian like one school actually has all or even most of the answers. It's more than possible that current economic theory is much like current physics in that there are many theories that work part of the time (quantum physics vs. relatively) but universal theories elude us. I'd doubt there's a physicist who's only a Quantumist...</comment>


BigchainDB – A scalable blockchain database - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/bigchaindb/bigchaindb <comment><USER2> Why use Python rather than a statically-typed language? This thing looks like it will become a resource gobbling beast that runs very slowly

<comment><USER3> Hi, it's Trent here, CTO at BigchainDB.

Summary: Python isn't the bottleneck yet, and if it becomes one, C will become the last 1%.

I've been working on production apps in Python since 2002, including ones doing large-scale compute running 1000+ machines at once. How: 99% python, 1% C. But the trick is, you only build in the C once you've worked out all the kinks and optimized the big-picture stuff elsewhere. Python is great for not only connecting things, but rapidly iterating on algorithms and building maintainable code.

The AI / ML community has discovered this too: Python is now the most popular language in that community. Despite the heavy compute. How: most of the popular libraries have efficient C (etc) implementations under the hood.

This is exactly the philosophy we've been following at BigchainDB, with success. Python to connect things, iterate quickly in improving algorithms, and ship maintainable code. We haven't got far enough to resort to building our own C libraries yet, though many 3rd party libraries we use are implemented in C.

[EDIT] Based on the comments below, I'll now mention here too: BigchainDB wraps MongoDB, which is written in C++. And, Python 3.5+ (which BDB uses) has gradual typing, which brings many benefits of static typing to Python.

<comment><USER4> That still doesn't encompass the advantages of a statically-typed language...

<comment><USER3> I totally acknowledge that there are pros and cons for both dynamically and statically typed languages. (We could start a 10 page discussion here. But I've been there before, perhaps you have too, how about we save our energy? ;)

<comment><USER5> For the latest and greatest 10 pages about that; just search for the the Hickey 10 year Clojure (rant-ish in places) talk and the Haskell community responding to it.

<comment><USER3> OK! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm unclear how this is any different from a centralized mongodb as a service platform. It seems that it doesn't offer any proof of work related security or consensus building other than a centralized "trust our cluster" policy [1].

[1] [https://docs.bigchaindb.com/en/latest/bft.html](https://docs.bigchaindb.com/en/latest/bft.html)

<comment><USER3> Hi, it's Trent here, I'm CTO at BigchainDB.

BigchainDB targets giving the following benefits beyond traditional database as a service:

1\. decentralized - no single entity controls it, which means tolerant to malicious / Byzantine faults. Benefit: groups that don't necessarily trust each other can share infrastructure.

2\. immutable - which practically speaking means more tamper resistant, e.g. it's append only. Benefit: well-defined provenance for history of assets, data, etc.

3\. assets - you can create and issue assets, where you own them if you have the private key. How: each tx is signed. Benefit: moving around assets on a substrate that no single entity owns or controls. Lower friction in exchanges. And the digital signatures gives cryptographic proof that about who did what.

These are the targets. We're not fully there yet. Most notably, we still need to address some Byzantine faults as our docs ([1] above) mention. This will come in an upcoming release. We are also working on improved scalability while maintaining the security guarantees [2].

Re consensus: BigchainDB has a two-layer consensus, as follows.

* The lower layer directly uses MongoDB's consensus (which it builds on) to agree on whether a transaction should be stored.

* The higher level has federation-style voting on whether a transaction is valid or not.

Our documentation describes this further.

BigchainDB is explicitly not trying to do Bitcoin-style proof of work. PoW solves for an additional problem: (theoretical) anonymity of servers. That additional goal compromises scale. And, in practice you know who's running the servers anyway (ie big Chinese Bitcoin miners), which is why I say "theoretical". BTW I am a fan of Bitcoin, it just has different goals than BigchainDB.

[2] [https://blog.bigchaindb.com/bigchaindb-developer- update-2d32...](https://blog.bigchaindb.com/bigchaindb-developer- update-2d329b055d4a)

<comment><USER7> How is this different from Mysql with sharding+encryption?

<comment><USER3> Neither sharding nor encryption give "decentralized", "immutable", or "assets". E.g. how many sysadmins can MySQL have? (And the answer is 1. Hence, not decentralized.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I find it very amusing that "scalable blockchain database" is the core selling point here. I must be experiencing buzzword fatigue I think. Why would I want to Chuck my boring MySQL installation for this?

<comment><USER3> Hi, it's Trent here, CTO of BigchainDB.

FYI we started working on the precursor to this in 2013 (ascribe). Bitcoin hadn't even hit the mainstream then, let alone blockchain. We didn't build it to mash together buzzwords. We built it because we saw a clear need for it. We had been building on Bitcoin, and (a) didn't scale to meet our needs and (b) was super-hard to use because it didn't act like a database. So we built BigchainDB to address issues (a) and (b).

Obviously, good old "boring" MySQL is incredibly useful for tons of problems. If you're already solving a problem with MySQL, then BigchainDB is not a fit. Don't use it, stick with the thing that's working.

Where it _is_ useful is applications that want at least one of the following benefits:

1\. decentralized, so that >1 orgs can share resources

2\. immutable / tamper resistance, for provenance of ownership of art, spare parts, food, etc

3\. assets, so you can exchange digital goods more readily.

More details here: [https://blog.bigchaindb.com/three-blockchain-benefits- ae3a2a...](https://blog.bigchaindb.com/three-blockchain-benefits-ae3a2a5ab102)

<comment><USER7> My Cassanda db can be "decentralized" too by your definition because I can have it distributed between multiple corporations, where multiple people have read/write access. This is extremely common practice.

<comment><USER3> I'm not defining "decentralized" as simply "distributed between multiple corporations, where multiple people have read/write access".

To be "decentralized", it's key that there are >1 sysadmins (ie runners of server nodes); and bad behavior from some sysadmins does not take the whole system down.

We experimented with a bit with decentralizing Cassandra. From what we saw, it is possible to decentralized it in the way I define it. We also tested other DBs. We chose RethinkDB because we liked their approach to global oplog; and we preferred a document-store interface over a column store interface. Later we added MongoDB support because of customer interest and some technical benefits. (For the record we added this support before Rethink's woes. Glad to see it found a foundation:)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm curious about the choice of python here. If your building a scalable high throughput data store, python seems like an odd choice

<comment><USER3> See the comment "Why use Python rather than..." and my response to it. Cheers,

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I never understood how blockchains could scale.

A global list of hashes that is also append only? This just screams to blow up sooner or later.

<comment><USER11> I know. I think if I read "scalable" and "blockchain" in the same sentence again I'll scream.

Once bitcoin can handle Visa's transaction volume (250M transactions/day) we can talk scale.

EDIT: after reading the comments more, seems the project operates without PoW, which allows it to scale more. I'm curious, then, what differentiates it from something like cockroachdb. It seems to be an append-only, distributed database. How does the bockchain fit in?

<comment><USER3> Hi, it's Trent here, the CTO of blockchain.

> I know. I think if I read "scalable" and "blockchain" in the same sentence > again I'll scream. I acknowledge the hype out there.

FYI we were working on blockchain in 2013; long before the hype. We started encountering massive scale problems in 2014 and working on it in 2015, long before the "scale + blockchain" hype. We started work on this. So we're not doing this because it's some fancy combo of buzzwords, we're doing it because we identified a problem years ago, and have been making steady progress to improve it ever since. It was a surprise to me to see BigchainDB to hit HN front page today, since we've been shipping it since Feb 2016!

> Once bitcoin can handle Visa's transaction volume (250M transactions/day) we > can talk scale. We're not trying to improve Bitcoin. We're building our own > thing. As we continue to improve the technology, it becomes useful to ever- > wider classes of users.

Re CockroachDB: it's a cool technology. The big difference is that it's _distributed_ but not _decentralized_. That is, the compute resources (in this case mainly storage) are spread across many machines; but the control is in the hands of a single entity / sysadmin. Whereas decentralized means the the control is spread across many sysadmins; and even a few rogue sysadmins won't take down the system.

<comment><USER10> Oh I don't think it's a hype thing, I just think I don't understand it :D

As I understood blockchains, they are basically linked lists of hashes, yes?

And the decentralization means, that every node hast this list, not just parts of it, so everyone can always check if the list is consistent.

Also, these lists are append only.

The part were every node has a copy AND the list is append only leads me to something that doesn't scale well. It will always get bigger with every action that is appended AND it will always be multiplied by every node in the network.

I'm probably missing something here, but that is my current state of blockchains, haha.

<comment><USER3> Many people disagree about what blockchain technology is. To me, it' about the characteristics, rather than _how_ they're implemented. I see three characteristics: decentralized, immutable, assets [1].

Under this framing, the "linked list of hashes" is one partial way to achieve immutability. And "every node has this list" is one partial way to get to decentralization is achieved. But that's only part of it. Eg you need to address: what if a node acts badly? And you want a means to create & issue assets.

> every node has a copy AND the list is append only leads me to something that > doesn't scale well.

Correct. That's why there is work to scale better, e.g. via sharding by BigchainDB and by others.

[1] [https://blog.bigchaindb.com/three-blockchain-benefits- ae3a2a...](https://blog.bigchaindb.com/three-blockchain-benefits-ae3a2a5ab102)

<comment><USER10> Does sharding still let you know the "whole truth"?

<comment><USER10> Also, I had the impression that a blockchain is a specific type of data structure.

So, what you are describing seems like a way to accomplish behavior of this kind of data structure with a different one so you may get bettee scaling out of it.

<comment><USER3> As you'll see in my other comments (and articles on it), "blockchain" is better described as a field with a set of related goals for technology artifacts, rather than a specific data structure [1]. I frame it as: it has blockchain characteristics if it's decentralized, immutable, and assets [2].

This is a much healthier framing, because it doesn't constrain the goals to a particular approach (e.g. a particular data structure).

[1] [https://blog.bigchaindb.com/blockchain-as-a- field-47c9f45894...](https://blog.bigchaindb.com/blockchain-as-a- field-47c9f4589418)

[2] [https://blog.bigchaindb.com/three-blockchain-benefits- ae3a2a...](https://blog.bigchaindb.com/three-blockchain-benefits-ae3a2a5ab102)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Some types of data need to be geographically stay in a certain area. For example, European PII data cannot be hosted on servers outside of the EU. That's easy to handle if you're using AWS for example.

How can a company comply to these kinds of laws using a distributed system like BigChainDB? Is there a some kind of geo fencing possibility?

<comment><USER3> Hi, it's Trent here, CTO of BigchainDB.

That's a great question. It's surprising how few people are aware of the current German data protection laws (where we're based) and the upcoming EU data protection laws aka GDPR.

There are a few ways to address the issue:

1\. Don't store any PII on the database, rather only use it to link to data that's stored on-premise in many places. The database has permissioning, and therefore acts as (decentralized) access control logic. Have a TOS with proper legal teeth so that if a database user does store PII on the database, they are liable in the real world.

2\. Run an instance of BigchainDB within a region, e.g. within Germany, and comply with the appropriate laws there. Let PII be on the database. But, each node must follow data protection guidelines, similar to how a single centralized entity would, but now do it for each node.

3\. Force encryption of all PII, and pray.

(3) is really a non-option. I stated it because many people are saying "just encrypt". But the problem is quantum computing. In 5-15 years quantum computing will be sufficiently easy to access that any encrypted data that's publicly available can be decrypted. You might say "well let's migrate to quantum-tolerant crypto before then" but that doesn't stop a malicious actor from copying encrypted PII now. You might say "let's use quantum tolerant crypto now" but we've seen with most crypto algorithms that it takes years to harden them. Would you trust _your_ PII with untested crypto algorithms? I wouldn't. In short: putting encrypted PII on public nets is a bad idea. Please, please don't do it.

<comment><USER12> Hi Tent, thanks for your answer. Can you elaborate on #2? Is your suggestion to run a private BigChainDB network of nodes you control?

Also, are suggesting that no sensitive data should ever be stored in a BigChainDB, or I misinterpret #3?

<comment><USER3> Re (2): this would be a group of people or organizations running nodes together. (If it was just nodes you controlled it misses the point of being decentralized.) You could store sensitive data in this setup, _if_ each person/org had the proper data protection setup. This is not easy, however.

> Also, are suggesting that no sensitive data should ever be stored in a > BigChainDB, or I misinterpret #3?

Actually option (2) shows a way to store PII on BigchainDB. But it's not easy. My recommendation is to do (1). And, like my comment before, please please don't do (3) ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> just a suggestion but it might be worth having in your FAQs some technical questions like "why would I want to use this over a SQL alternative?" and "what kind of applications can I build with this?"

<comment><USER3> Hi, thanks for the thoughts.

For "why would I want to use this over a SQL alternative" see [2].

For "what kind of applications can I build with this?" see [1][2][3][4].

Cheers!

[1] [https://www.bigchaindb.com/usecases/](https://www.bigchaindb.com/usecases/)

[2] [https://blog.bigchaindb.com/three-blockchain-benefits- ae3a2a...](https://blog.bigchaindb.com/three-blockchain-benefits-ae3a2a5ab102)

[3] [https://blog.bigchaindb.com/six-blockchain-application- verti...](https://blog.bigchaindb.com/six-blockchain-application- verticals-1-bonus-aa7caa5764e2)

[4] [https://blog.bigchaindb.com/where-does-blockchain- scalabilit...](https://blog.bigchaindb.com/where-does-blockchain-scalability- matter-specific-use-cases-from-digital-art-to-hr-9cf5ad8f7042)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Scaleable BlockChain" is redundant, isn't it? Same with "BlockChain Database"?

The abstract also seems to imply that this in fact IS NOT a blockchain?

<comment><USER15> correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure block chains are not super scalable ATM. bitcoin is blocked at 6 transactions a second and future changes are supposed to improve it to 30? that doesn't seem very scalable to me. I could very well be wrong about the details but the point stands. block chains aren't all that scalable

<comment><USER16> Decentralized blockchains aren't scaleable.

Centralized blockchains on the other hand are easy to scale.

Being centralized kinda defeats the point of them though.... It's better to just have a database.

<comment><USER3> (Hi, it's Trent here, CTO of BigchainDB.)

We can do a lot better than the scale of Bitcoin. And we are. Scale is part of the point. And you don't need to centralize to get scale. We did improve upon the Model T, didn't we? Or, I remember programming with 16K memory on my computer. Technology improves. And it is here too. That's what we do at BigchainDB.

<comment><USER16> Hmm, after skimming the white paper, it seems like what you are doing is you are having your consensus algorithm be that Nodes simply vote on what they believe to be the current blockchain.

How does this solution respond to someone spinning up a thousand nodes, and simply voting for their double spend attack?

In part of the paper it is states that " In a BigchainDB network, the governing organization behind the network controls the member list, so Sybil attacks are not an issue.", which is directly contradictory to your statement that it is decentralized.

A decentralized network has no "governing organization".

<comment><USER3> > How does this solution respond to someone spinning up a thousand nodes, and > simply voting for their double spend attack? This is the classic "Sybil > attack". But I bet you knew that:)

If you have a member list (ie list of public keys) of who can be server nodes, then you can control this. Each member (public key) only gets one vote. So even if that person makes 1000 copies, it's only 1 vote total from that member.

> governing organization behind the network controls the member list, so Sybil > attacks are not an issue.", which is directly contradictory to your > statement that it is decentralized. A decentralized network has no > "governing organization".

Great question. However the control of this organization is decentralized too. Here's how. IPDB is the BigchainDB public net, and foundation to help govern. Net: each server node is run by a "caretaker". Foundation: each caretaker has one vote. They vote to control the member list (list of caretakers), as well as IPDB board. So, it's decentralized: no single entity is controlling it.

There are other ways to curate "member lists" to address Sybil attacks. E.g. Bitcoin's PoW is basically "one electron one vote" on average (assuming everyone has a modern ASIC). In search of block rewards, many players work hard to maximize their electron spend (ie big ASIC farms), which of course eats a lot of power. Or BitShares' PoS is a riff on "one token one vote". There are more. We simplified the problem for IPDB: start with a great initial member list of reputable orgs that deeply care about the future of the internet (Internet Archive, Open Media Foundation, COALA, etc); and give them control from there. Some heavy lifting up-front to set this up allows great gains in efficiency.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> What if I don't need a scalable blockchain, but I need a tamper-proof persistent ledger? Are there tools that are lighter-weight that can help me there?

<comment><USER3> Perhaps you're looking for an append-only logging / messaging system like Apache Kafka? Good to explore what's out there and understand what's possible.

BTW using BigchainDB can feel pretty lightweight: it feels like a DBaaS but you don't have to set up the back end, you just get going. In the following, you'll have a tx on the BigchainDB public net (IPDB) in seconds. And the JS or py code to do it yourself is right there too. [https://www.bigchaindb.com/getstarted/](https://www.bigchaindb.com/getstarted/)</comment></comment>


The Most Easiest Way to Handle Android Runtime Permissions in Kotlin - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/QuickPermissions/QuickPermissions-Kotlin <comment><USER2> I like this approach... also much love to Kotlin ;-)</comment>


A new view of the housing boom and bust - <AUTHOR> http://datatools.urban.org/Features/mortgages-by-race/#5/37.996/-96.570

<comment><USER2> The surge in black/hispanic mortgage applications came from lenders and agents specifically targeting (predatorily) those communities when white applicant numbers sagged. I know this because several friends who were brokers and loan officers at the time have told me this was what they were directed to do. These communities were also recipients, primarily, of sub-prime loans because their credit was bad or had yet to be established, or they were simply driven into these types of loans because they were easier to cram through the system.

So it's a bit disingenuous to think that hispanics and blacks just chose the peak of the market to buy, it's more likely they were the dessert the lending industry gluttonously sought out after gobbling up the poultry dish.</comment>


Jimmy Wales To Silicon Valley: Grow Up And Get Over Your Age Bias - <AUTHOR> http://readwrite.com/2013/09/27/jimmy-wales-to-silicon-valley-grow-up

<comment><USER2> _This bias toward youth often translates into an ageism that is often understood but not overtly spoken. Except by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who noted at a Y Combinator event: "I want to stress the importance of being young and technical. Young people are just smarter. Why are most chess masters under 30?"_

It's very simple, Mark. It's because people over 30 realize there are bigger and more important things in life than playing chess.

</comment><comment><USER2> _TL;DR_ can we get something like a controlled sample and a regression analysis, please? You know, something besides "some of the most successful companies ... are also some of the youngest", "for every Zuckerberg there are dozens of..."

</comment><comment><USER3> Love this article. Shows the disconnect of SV and the acceptance of age discrimination.

</comment><comment><USER4> "According to data compiled by Wadhwa, the average age of a successful entrepreneur in high-growth industries such as computers, health care, and aerospace is 40. Twice as many successful entrepreneurs are over 50 as under 25. A whopping 75% have more than six years of industry experience and 50% have more than 10 years when they create their startup. "

Yeah but the data also says that most chess masters are under 30. And chess is more strongly correlated with success than success.</comment>


Asymmetric Field Reversal Found on the Sun - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120421203959.htm <comment><USER2> Original source: [http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hinode/news/pole- asymmetry...](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hinode/news/pole- asymmetry.html)

What ScienceDaily has added to this: (1) They've removed one of the figures. (2) They've removed links to the Hinode and SOHO websites. (3) They've added lots of largely irrelevant links of their own, all of course to their own site(s).

Please, everyone: stop linking to ScienceDaily and PhysOrg. They do at least usually provide a link to the original source: point at that instead.

<comment><USER3> Let's try an experiment. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3875706></comment></comment>