Ask HN: How to measure the size of a market? - <AUTHOR>

I have an idea for a mobile app. I have been learning the Android platform recently, hoping for an idea to come along.
Working with a platform such as Android, rather than the web obviously limits the market to owners of Android devices - MUCH smaller than the amount of people with access to a web browser.
The market for the core functionality of my idea is huge - I haven't done the research in terms of numbers (that's today's job, I'm doing it now!) but it's on the news often.
How do I find out how many people are both in the market for my apps functionality, AND have an Android device (or "have an Android device AND would be willing to pay for an app")? Is there anything other than guesswork from combining the numbers of the 2 markets? <comment><USER2> How Big is Our Market? We searched on Google for the word "glove" and the words "ice cream" and obtained these results: • Glove: 14,400,000 results • Ice Cream: 32,60,0000 results How Big Is Our Market? 14,400,000 x 32,60,0000 = 46944,000000000 probable customers What If? If we sold our glove at $9.99... Profits = $4,689,705,6000,000,000,000,000.00 What if we sold our glove at $19.99... Profits = two times previous number

<comment><USER3> why would you take the product of glove and Ice cream, and not sum? just asking.

<comment><USER4> should ask Ali G: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkuOuxRD1Bc>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It is virtually impossible to measure the size of the virtual market. The number of people joining Android on a daily basis is increasing but then along comes WP7 and that may change the rate of growth. Then you have out of those people on Android the percent who share an interest in what you are developing... but the only way to reach those people is by identifying who and where they are. In-app advertisements and forum postings have been mentioned but then even only the select few who may be interested in your subject will click/participate. Yes, you face a virtual impossibility.

In our start-up world you simply cannot predict success on the measuring the size of the market. It's impossible. Think back to 2007 and tell me: What is the size of the market for Fart apps? And it will cost $0.99? My guess? Very, very limited. Huh. Guess I missed the mark on that one. Now, think back to 2005. Tell me, what is the size of the market for people to blog in 140 characters or less? My guess, pretty small. I mean, Facebook can do that. Oops. Missed that one, too. OK, now that Twitter is HUGE what is the size of the market for people willing to pay for it? A ha! Studies show near zero.

So the size of the market willing to pay $0.99 for fart apps is far bigger than that of Twitter. Amazing, eh?

So here's what you do: Go build an MVP, identify some leading influencers who could be interested in it, beta test it out, and gather feedback. That's all you really can do.

</comment><comment><USER6> Find a site or two dedicated to folks in your market. These are usually forums/blogs etc. Since you say your core market is big, finding these should not be an issue.

Buy some ad on those sites that links/shows a poll "Do you own an Android?" or something to that nature.

That'll give you SOME idea. Also, don't forget that with a hot _and_ new product like Android, the numbers are changing literally. Translation: don't depend _too_ much on market size because it may literally change significantly month to month in Android's case.

<comment><AUTHOR> I like the idea generally, and it would probably be the first place I'd look - communities and such. The problem here is that the market isn't one that has necessarily _chosen_ to be a part of the market and wouldn't for the most part be interested in a community/forum/gathering place.

I think a good way to think about what I'm looking at is medication - how many people are on medication? How many of those own Android devices - this is the number I'm looking for. People "on medication" aren't a group like "people who like skiing", and so mostly aren't to be found in online communities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> A survey won't produce enough sample points to be statistically significant. You'd get more statistically reliable numbers using Google Keyword Tool. For example, if you're thinking of making a voip app for the android, GKT shows 9,900 global monthly searches for "voip android," which is a lot lower than the 3.35M that voip searches get and the 13.6M that android searches get. Both are big markets, and I can't imagine "guesswork" that would somehow arrive at 10k by combining the 2 market numbers of 3M and 13M. Google Keyword Tool would be one of the most reliable ways to give you the confidence or warning signs you need to dive in or avoid implementation.

</comment><comment><USER8> This provides the methodology used to calculate the market size for an iPhone app: [http://blog.jwegener.com/2009/08/03/million-dollar-iphone- ap...](http://blog.jwegener.com/2009/08/03/million-dollar-iphone-app-market- sizing/)

Keep in mind Android fragmentation as well: <http://blog.tweetdeck.com/android-ecosystem>

<comment><USER9> <http://www.goldenson.com/?p=140>

besides Adwords, twitter ,adWords, goog trends to put numbers on potential users/buyers/revenue (these are from searching HN on "market size":

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1454221>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1476197>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1581008>

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Build a super simple web survey that's mobile friendly. Spend a few bucks advertising on admob as if you were advertising the app. Collect feedback, gauge interest. Don't forget to collect emails on the last page for those that complete it.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's nice that the app seems you promising but imho there are thousands of apps which are just rolling in the sand, no meaning of their development but on the other hand lots of apps are there developed with really nice idea in mind, which created their own niche. So imho be assure that the app belongs to the category that do create its own niche. and as other comments there are appreciable too.

</comment><comment><USER12> Why not ask you friends and colleagues who have an Android phone? Show them a mockup, what the app will do, ask them for feedback and wether they would pay $xx for it. Watch them cosely and only count those who are competely into it, divide that by the total number of people who asked and you have a rough percentage that you can apply on the number of android users in the U.S or elsewhere.

</comment><comment><USER13> You know that market for this is huge, but not the exact numbers. So, you can test the waters by releasing the app with basic functionality (as a free app?). See how the first few customers respond to it, _listen_ to them and gradually improve your app. You can add some premium features in future and charge for it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, I would have liked to have an idea of the market size before working too much - though the size of the market for the core functionality is huge, I have absolutely no idea about the crossover to those who also own Android devices - it could be almost nonexistant for all I know.

I will mention that I have found an app on the Market that doesn some of my idea. There were 4 reviews and 6 ratings. It had 2 stars, and all 4 reviews were about the UI (which was indeed aweful). I wonder if the fact that there is only 1 app currently (that I could find) there is no demand ... or it could be that the demand is just not filled at present.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> i use Google Keyword tool to give me a rough estimate. It's not 100% accurate since the data is a bit dated, but overall it'll give you a rough idea</comment>


Ask HN: What's your favorite "read later" web tool? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I've used Pocket for quite a few years. Previously I don't think there's been much difference between Pocket and competitors, but the new beta of their app has good 'recommended' things for you to read, and lets you follow other users to see the stuff that they 'recommend' \- pretty great way to get interesting content.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, that does sound like it'd make Pocket more useful - both of those last points.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I used to be a heavy Instapaper user with its Kindle digests. Then I used Amazon's bookmarklet to send articles to Kindle. Now I save articles as tasks in Google Inbox because it's easier to see when they are piling up.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice idea about Google tasks.

<comment><USER3> In Inbox, Google makes a little 'card' of the article with an autopreview of the title and occasionally an image. It's helpful for scanning. And you can just click the link without having to open the task details or copy-paste the URL in the title.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I prefer Pocket ([https://getpocket.com/](https://getpocket.com/)). It is clean, it works very well, and it is free. I use it under iOS and OS X.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Had used it a bit a while earlier. Not sure why I stopped. Maybe due to some phone issue. Will try it again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I use Safari's reading list on iOS and OS X.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool. I don't use a Mac though. Linux and Windows.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Expecting a discussion or just a poll?

Anyhow, I prefer pocket. I have a Kobo ereader and it has perfect integration with pocket. Every article I receive on my phone, laptop, tablet or get send via email, I read via the ereader. It just works great.

Perhaps to mention, I am not using any of the tagging features. It just takes more time to categorize than scrolling a list.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the details.

>Expecting a discussion or just a poll?

Hoping for discussions, like what you have done, i.e. not just saying "I like product Foo" but why.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Pocket. I collect all interesting stuff there and read it through once a year on winter holidays.

<comment><USER8> Once a year? Those must be some really interesting posts :)

How many, though?

They have started this new Recommendation thing in the beta version, now this makes sense.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I mean, a "read later" web tool that has the least friction in terms of use? Things like Pocket, etc. Tried a few, not for long, don't know of many; would appreciate hearing experiences of what worked for others.

</comment><comment><USER9> Instapaper - notably because I can highlight and make private annotations on all text. I find it helps to synthesize one's thoughts for discussion and future reference.

</comment><comment><USER10> The unloaded tabs in my browser after it last crashed and bookmarks for things I want to read again.

</comment><comment><USER11> My preferred tool is Evernote. I love its multilevel categorization feature.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've tried Evernote earlier (on mobile), found it seemed buggy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm a big fan of Instapaper (www.instapaper.com) myself.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Will check it out.

<comment><AUTHOR> I did know the name from a while back, but not sure whether I'd tried it earlier or not. Will give it a whirl.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This amazing thing called "bookmarks".

Changed my life tbh

<comment><USER14> Not sure if you are joking but I use bookmarks as my preferred read-later tool.

Firefox helps a lot with sync, open all in tabs, bookmark all and click/drag to reorder links.

I just put the link in "atHome" folder so to read it with more attention at,you guessed, home. The folder "atWork" is reserved for links where I must run some code, test some new library, etc due to more powerful machine. I have another folder "daily", for sites I visit every day (hn, soylentNews, hackaday, etc) and long posts eg with chapters (books, for instance); The folder "Weekly", for low volume sites, basically comics.

This, together with some speed reading, BS skipping and troll detect works very well, to the point Im often run out of things to read.

<comment><USER9> I always felt Firefox's Unsorted Bookmarks was a great inbox for articles to read later or ones you're not sure whether to read yet. I'm kind of surprised that concept hasn't made it Chrome or Safari. Likewise with bookmark tagging.</comment></comment></comment>


Why GNU grep is fast (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-current/2010-August/019310.html <comment><USER2> If you want the very fastest "find strings in files, especially code files", I've become a big fan of ag, "the silver searcher":

[https://github.com/ggreer/the_silver_searcher](https://github.com/ggreer/the_silver_searcher)

In addition to all the tricks applied by GNU grep (such as Boyer-Moore), it also splits work among threads to take advantage of multi-core machines. Integrates with your favorite text editor, too!

</comment><comment><USER3> Obvious questions: 1\. How do you extend Boyer-Moore to arbitrary regexps? 2\. Does "not looking at every byte" really matter when the strings being searched for are typically so short that you're gonna hit every cache line anyway?

<comment><USER4> > Does "not looking at every byte" really matter when the strings being > searched for are typically so short that you're gonna hit every cache line > anyway?

You're not skipping bytes of the search string, you're skipping bytes of the file being searched.

<comment><USER5> Of course, but you can never skip more bytes than the search string is long.

<comment><USER6> But you get to skip those few bites (potentially) very many times.

<comment><USER7> yes, but the point is that on modern CPUs checking those bytes is likely far from the bottleneck and thus skipping them saves you very little time, if any at all.

<comment><USER8> You might be surprised. Consider, counting to 2 million by 5 is significantly faster than counting by 1. Especially if you just go ahead and start some prefetching in the memory, I would expect that this can speed things up considerably.

Edit: I should say I would still think things should be benchmarked to really know...

<comment><USER9> (as mentioned by yan below) Ridiculous Fish did these sorts of benchmarks here: [http://ridiculousfish.com/blog/posts/old-age-and- treachery.h...](http://ridiculousfish.com/blog/posts/old-age-and- treachery.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> More required reading on this topic: [http://ridiculousfish.com/blog/posts/old-age-and- treachery.h...](http://ridiculousfish.com/blog/posts/old-age-and- treachery.html)

</comment><comment><USER11> Previous discussion [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6813937](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6813937)

<comment><USER12> Amusingly, the top comment of which is a few of the other times that it has shown up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This has been posted in the past many times.

<comment><USER14> Which is curious. Some content you run into by accident and think needs reposting. But how does one stumble upon this post in 2015? Googling for "why is gnu grep fast" and then not noticing that two of the top four results are submissions to HN?

<comment><USER15> Finding it linked from some other article or blog post, or having it sent to you from someone else and then assuming that a mail thread from 2010 has never been seen on HN before.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Wow.. I had this exact question when I interviewed at a big tech company, then I had to implement it in pseudocode.

<comment><USER17> You were supposed to know why a particular implementation of a tool was fast beforehand? Or they gave you GNU grep and BSD grep to compare?

<comment><USER8> Yeah, this definitely falls into the absurd category of interviewing whiteboard questions. Ridiculously absurd. I have a book with this algorithm detailed in it, and I think I would still have trouble implementing it well.

That or I am just dumb. Very likely.

<comment><USER14> "Let's implement BM" (with some hints/guidance) doesn't seem absurd. It's not much code; handwritten can fit on a piece of paper or two. "Why is GNU grep fast?" would definitely be an absurd question though.

<comment><USER8> I could understand possibly going through sections. Though, really, that form of algorithm coding is so different from what I typically do day to day, that it just seems irrelevant.

I would probably find it fun, provided the hints/guidance were good. Not sure what to expect of it, though. As the sibling post asks, what would be the takeaway?

<comment><USER14> Is the candidate capable of decomposing a problem and analyzing subproblems? Are they capable of integrating subsolutions back into a working whole?

<comment><USER8> The problem really comes down to expectations on your point. For many of us, this would just be knowing that there are good algorithms on doing this.

If you don't already know of this algorithm, finding it is something that took a surprisingly long time to do. Using a field of algorithm design (pushdown automata) that just isn't that widely utilized nowdays. (Well, I suppose your domain may vary in this claim.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> mentioned article about fast string search:

[http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.13....](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.13.9460&rep=rep1&type=pdf)

</comment><comment><USER19> Text processing is actually a pretty neat area, with a lot of practical uses.

A while back I found an out of print book, "Text Algorithms," available for download from the author in PDF and some other formats. It's not cutting edge at this point, but still covers all the basics (like Boyer-Moore) really well. [http://igm.univ-mlv.fr/~mac/REC/B1.html](http://igm.univ- mlv.fr/~mac/REC/B1.html)

<comment><USER20> Awesome, thanks for the books!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've been finding the following very useful for understanding string matching algorithms. It has a bunch of different algorithms for exact string matching, details on them, drawings, descriptions, speed comparisons, and code in C [http://www-igm.univ-mlv.fr/~lecroq/string/index.html](http://www-igm.univ- mlv.fr/~lecroq/string/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER22> This should probably have a (2010) in the title or so

</comment><comment><USER23> Related: [http://www.developingandstuff.com/2013/07/grep-too-slow- tire...](http://www.developingandstuff.com/2013/07/grep-too-slow-tired-of- waiting-for-it.html)

</comment><comment><USER24> On the topic of fast grep-like program there is jrep too: [http://lwn.net/Articles/589009/](http://lwn.net/Articles/589009/)

</comment><comment><USER25> _" The key to making programs fast is to make them do practically nothing. ;-)"_

Very much the case.

</comment><comment><USER26> _lettergram_ could do a faster version that would work without errors the first time.</comment>


Developervms virtual machines are now available for free download - <AUTHOR> https://www.developervms.com

<comment><USER2> no information about the provider ("developerVMs") but they expect me to trust their prepackaged VMs? umm.... given how short a fresh OS install is nowadays, that isn't very convincing.

<comment><USER3> True. Looks abandoned to me. Last updates in 2013.</comment></comment>


Aspects of Plant Intelligence (2003) - <AUTHOR> http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/content/92/1/1.full

<comment><USER2> Ah I remember this paper - there was some pretty amusing back-and-forth sniping that emerged from it (ignoring the slightly more respectful alternative viewpoints and disputations at the time e.g Firn et al [1] and Trewavas' reply [2]).

Several years later Alpi et al [3] took (a 36 author) swipe at the original Trevawas paper linked above and the discussion/field (e.g. [4]) it provoked. Essentially "no you are wrong and we all agree". Then, never one to be deterred by anyone else, Trevawas replied with this letter [5] as did Brenner [6].

All in all it was quite an amusing little academic slapfight.

There was quite a nice New Yorker article talking the general idea of the "plant intelligence" thing if anyone is interested [7].

[1] - [http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/content/93/4/345](http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/content/93/4/345)

[2] - [http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/content/93/4/353.long](http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/content/93/4/353.long)

[3] - [http://web1.sssup.it/pubblicazioni/ugov_files/302981_2007_23...](http://web1.sssup.it/pubblicazioni/ugov_files/302981_2007_2330.pdf)

[4] - [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1360138506...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1360138506001646)

[5] - [http://www.linv.org/images/about_pdf/Trends%202007%20Trewava...](http://www.linv.org/images/about_pdf/Trends%202007%20Trewavas.pdf)

[6] - [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1360138507...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1360138507001367)

[7] - [http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/23/the- intelligent...](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/23/the-intelligent- plant)

</comment><comment><USER3> Also of note: trees strategize by game theoretic rules. See the chapter on communication in the amazing "Natural History of Trees" [http://www.amazon.com/The-Tree-Natural-History- Matter/dp/030...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Tree-Natural-History- Matter/dp/0307395391)

</comment><comment><USER4> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_intelligence#Plant_intel...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_intelligence#Plant_intelligence)

There is a Wikipedia article on this which may provide some wider information.

</comment><comment><USER5> I can't remember where I read (might have been on here) that there is a taboo in botany against publishing results about plant intelligence because some guy wrote this book and tinhats started taking it seriously: [http://www.amazon.com/The-Secret-Life-Plants- Fascinating/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Secret-Life-Plants- Fascinating/dp/0060915870)

also related: [http://conspiracyofwords.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/01/hubb...](http://conspiracyofwords.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/01/hubbard_emeter.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER6> This is an excellent presentation in the same thread.

[http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/what-plants-talk- abo...](http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/what-plants-talk-about/video- full-episode/8243/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Plants do not have intelligence. This article directly compares plant "behavior" with that of animals, including comparisons with neurobiology.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_perception_(physiology)#C...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_perception_\(physiology\)#Comparison_to_neurobiology)

<comment><USER8> Define intelligence.</comment></comment>


Show HN: A random generator for redirecting to your landing page using Ethereum - <AUTHOR> https://startuptwister.com/home <comment><AUTHOR> Having trouble to generate early traction for our main project [1], we decided to design a side project marketing hack. This traction hack resulted in StartupTwister [2].

The idea behind StartupTwister is to register the landing page of your startup in an Ethereum smart contract [3]. The main page of StartupTwister [4] randomly redirects to one of the registered landing pages in order to generate early tration. The landing pages currently registered on StartupTwister can be found here [5]. The first 25 pages were registered by ourselves for illustration purposes. You can register your landing page in the respective Ethereum smart contract here [6]. Neither a login is required nor do you have to provide your email address.

The price of registering your landing page is determined by supply and demand via an auction system implemented on Ethereum. The auction system is based on a Dutch auction with Harberger taxes. More information about the auction system can be found at the bottom of [6].

[1] [https://turtle.community](https://turtle.community) [2] [https://startuptwister.com/home](https://startuptwister.com/home) [3] [https://etherscan.io/address/0xE1f01D1f7791aD4A45ccA7697b155...](https://etherscan.io/address/0xE1f01D1f7791aD4A45ccA7697b15538Bb2A7B8Eb) [4] [https://startuptwister.com](https://startuptwister.com) [5] [https://startuptwister.com/shuffle](https://startuptwister.com/shuffle) [6] [https://startuptwister.com/register](https://startuptwister.com/register)

</comment><comment><USER2> Simple question: Why?

In detail: Why should I pay for someone redirected ramdomly to my site when visiting another homepage? Why would a visitor of startuptwister want to be rediected randomly? Why the need for Ethereum?

Seems to me as an overcomplicated, weird solution to a discovery problem that is much better handled without the "random" factor.

<comment><USER3> The point is that you have a tool for getting very early feedback for an idea/landing page you want to showcase and do not have to provide an MVP, like in the case of Show HN.

Further more, registering your page on startuptwister, you contribute to the popularity of your site and all others listed, there. It will provide some network effect, if it is used frequently.</comment></comment>


How to Stop Superhuman A.I. Before It Stops Us (NY Times, Russell) - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/search <comment><AUTHOR> Oops, the correct URL is [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/08/opinion/artificial- intell...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/08/opinion/artificial- intelligence.html?searchResultPosition=3)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> NY Times Opinion by Stuart Russell at Berkeley. The key is to make it both smart and beneficial.

</comment><comment><USER2> I think you the URL</comment>


Ask HN: Too many concepts/ideas. What to do? - <AUTHOR>

I have prototyped many projects in the past, but right now I have found myself with too many ideas I'd like to pursue. What's my next step? Figuring out which one I want to do most? That's really difficult...should I just pick one? <comment><USER2> Write down all of the ideas, so at the very least they are not lost forever, in case you should get some time to come back and work on them. I can't tell you how many ideas I will have during some idle moments of the day or when I wake up in the middle of the night, but don't bother to write them down and end up losing them.

If you are wondering which to implement, my suggestion would be to see if one really sticks out as cool to _you_. Don't worry about making something to get a lot of money/girls/ice cream (I know, that was first on your list of desires wasn't it...). If you have several ideas and they all excite you... Before I finish let me emphasize this point -- they all excite you. You are a lot less likely to finish or even make significant head way if you don't care about the idea. Now back to your regularly scheduled post. ... talk to your friends, see which one they get excited about.

Not always, but typically if you have a good idea, it should only take a few sentences (at most a paragraph) to get others excited about the idea. This isn't 100% perfect, but it is a nice rule of thumb.

If all else fails, just pick one. One thing all good programmers, from the Knuths to the Zawinskis of the world, have in common is they all program/read code constantly.

Last but not least, good luck. If you feel like it, show us the results or (if we are really lucky) the code.

Happy hacking, pwp

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd do like this.

For each idea is the idea easy to make it real? Yes? Do it now No? Analyze more (give point on difficulty, probability of success, enjoyment doing it, etc...)

Once you only have _hard_ project, take the one with most point, start doing it. Only one at a time. Learn from your mistake for the next project.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I appreciate the comments. After thinking about it myself, I have decided I am going to write a list of successful startups/companies that I admire and why. Perhaps this will give me insight into which idea I would like to succeed the most/gravitate towards.

</comment><comment><USER4> You should pick the one that you think can (and hopefully will) be the best fit with what are your plans forr the future. Where do you see in 2-5-10 years from now? Choose the best ideea you have right know, and start working on it, don't stop, be restless and fight for what you want in life!</comment>


2048 3D using CSS 3D transforms with full touch and mouse support - <AUTHOR> http://sujeetgholap.github.io/2048-3D/

<comment><USER2> And yet we don't have 3-plane chess?</comment>


We Wanted Safer Banks, We Got More Inequality - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-08-06/inequality-why-bank-rules-and-fed-rates-hurt-middle-class <comment><USER3> The main claim is from a financial industry consultant quoted in the article:

 _" As the country becomes more unequal, there are fewer middle class customers. That means middle class bank products become unprofitable, and banks follow the money. And banking regulations make it worse because the capital requirements imposed after the banking crisis make it a lot more expensive for banks to do a startup small-business loan than go into wealth management. Startup loans are riskier than wealth management, of course, but the capital costs have become prohibitive, and banks don't lose money on purpose."_

Wait, what? I doubt this is the main or even a top-three _cause_ of income and wealth inequality in the US.

Other factors strike me as potentially far more important causes of inequality, including increasing automation of labor, winner-take-all markets, concentration of corporate and market power, minimal antitrust regulation... to name a few.

The banking industry wants fewer regulations and lower capital requirements, as usual. This seems to be its latest rationalization for them.

<comment><USER4> One of the biggest contributors to income inequality is a lack of economic mobility. Maybe that sounds like a tautology - the difference between rich and poor solidifies the more difficult that it becomes for poor people to turn into rich people.

To oversimplify, easy access to capital can allow a poor person to turn a great idea that solves real problems and a strong work ethic into a sustainable business that pulls him out into the middle class or higher. Without access to capital, the poor man is beholden to whichever employers are in his area, and whatever is on offer from them - odds are, it won't be enough to allow the poor man to send his children to private school.

<comment><USER5> To elaborate, easy access to capital is what allows those employers in his area to actually hire him. That profitable restaurant down the road, owned not by a Wall Street mogul but by a passionate middle-class entrepreneur, needs capital to renovate a second dining room, and if it doesn't get it, it's not going to be able to hire servers for that new capacity. It's going to stagnate, maybe remain a profitable small restaurant, but never have a chance to become a multi-location or multi-state job-creation engine. And this is where the "middle class bank products" come in. Anything that artificially discourages banks from making the purely-economic decision to finance that owner to expand the business - and there's always the tantalizing option to just cater to silver-plattered large-business loans and wealthy clients instead - is going to slow growth and make general inequality in the area that much worse. There's a shrinking middle class of businesses just as there is of individuals.

Now, sure, the economic decision to finance this person should not be based on the idea that you could make subprime loans and repackage them to unwitting buyers. But there are perhaps middle grounds from a regulatory perspective. And there are also opportunities to address non-regulatory aspects that discourage capital sources from lending/investing; my company Belstone builds software to allow lower-middle-market investment bankers, the advocates for medium-sized businesses in the capital markets (who have the same dynamics described above), to close deals on behalf of their clients more efficiently, to support more businesses and more job growth. None of these efforts on its own is a panacea, but we have to try everything we can to move the needle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> core-questions > What I am saying is that now some lenders — banks — are under rules so tough > they can't support equality-enhancing mortgages

What is an equality-enhancing mortgage? My guess is that it's akin to an equal opportunity / affirmative action campaign. The thing is, actuarial tables aren't oppressive - they're merely reflective of reality. If a particular group presents a higher risk profile than another, the only sane course of action is to be more restrictive when lending to members of that group.

The alternative is for banks to give out easy money again like in the leadup to 2008 and that didn't work out well. I'm sorry that some people can't get mortgages but the answer is not to aggregate out their financial problems onto those of us who do, in fact, pay our bills.

<comment><USER6> Equality-enhancing mortgages WERE subprime mortgages. Congress pushed the banks into doing them in the early 2000s to extend credit to marginalized populations!

oh man, here we go again! I wonder if Y Combinator will fund my Collateralized Equality Enhanced Swap

<comment><USER7> > Congress pushed the banks into doing them in the early 2000s to extend > credit to marginalized populations!

...but didn't push banks to lever the loans 10x, securitize, sell and repeat over and over again. Fault for those days lied in a lot of places, and sub- prime mortgages aren't inherently a bad thing.

<comment><USER6> > and sub-prime mortgages aren't inherently a bad thing.

Correct.

> ...but didn't push banks to lever the loans 10x, securitize, sell and repeat > over and over again.

Yeah, but I'm not going to pretend like I wouldn't. Worst case scenario is that my failed bets get paid out by the future productivity of the entire working population, and the distressed assets get transferred to the balance sheets of special purpose vehicles also funded by taxpayers.

And I get to keep all the performance fees.

<comment><USER8> If "I would screw over my entire society in exchange for performance fees" isn't the definition of immoral, what is? Why would you do that?

<comment><USER9> Ask those that did, and did not go to prison. Our society rewards greed over conscience.

<comment><USER10> Unfortunately, that behavior was not against the law at the time. Even more unfortunately, that behavior is still not really against the law.

<comment><USER11> A lot of actual crimes occurred then that were not prosecuted. Sarbanes-Oxley violations, for one obvious example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Observation: Housing is not affordable (for any but the rich).

Hypothesis: Basic market theory suggests that the need for housing is probably inelastic (everyone needs it, can't do without it), therefore if housing is to become more affordable an increase in supply must happen.

Prediction: If additional housing were encouraged (near where jobs are actually located) prices would eventually stabilize at sustainable levels.

Prediction 2: non-inflated housing prices will also lower the cost of living in those areas, creating a net benefit for members of society (which are not of the rent-seeking classes).

Testing: Please vote according to the above logic.

Results: To be determined.

<comment><USER13> One big problem with this is that people vote their incentives. If you're a homeowner in San Francisco, are you really going to vote to halve the price of your home and immediately put your mortgage underwater?

People voting themselves higher house prices through using local zoning laws to create housing shortages is a _national_ crisis. We need something pretty dramatic, like congress using the interstate commerce clause to ensure the free movement of labor via banning states and local municipalities from enacting their own zoning. Or a national land-value tax.

<comment><USER14> Could not agree with this more. I live in SF and the difficulty in building new housing is so outrageous. To make the housing prices in SF lower, supply must increase. While it makes sense for voters in a locality to have control/say in the environment around them, the ability of homeowners to control land they do not own and prevent new construction and shift the burden to other districts and public transportation is extremely flawed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Seems like the second idea (interest rates should be higher) contradicts the first (it should be easier for banks to make loans to small business). Higher interest rates would tend to discourage loans.

Edit: I guess the idea is to increase supply and reduce demand?

<comment><USER16> It would discourage people from taking loans, but why would it discourage banks from making them? In fact, higher interest rates would mean that the cost of liquid capital, a bank's main equipment for making money, were suddenly more productive, right?

<comment><USER17> Wouldn't it be pointless to make something that nobody buy?

<comment><USER18> Clearly high interest rates in the 80s didn't prevent banks from making loans. Lets talk about the inverse of of what you're suggesting - perhaps the lack of ROI on loans is preventing banks from doing what they're supposed to be doing - lending to small businesses.

<comment><USER19> How does a low interest rate prevent a bank from making a loan to a small business?

A low interest rate is not a federally mandated cap on interest it is an increase in supply which drives down the cost. Which should increase ROI.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> If you're looking at banking regulation for causes for inequality, you're looking at the wrong place.

The article pointed out the gulf widened at the 1980s. That should be more than enough hints as to how to fix it.

There's no political will though.

<comment> swagasaurus-rex I'm not sharp enough to take the hint. What is the proper way to fix it?

<comment><USER21> Unions [1].

[1] [https://www.epi.org/news/union-membership-declines- inequalit...](https://www.epi.org/news/union-membership-declines-inequality- rises/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> "KP: I'm not blaming the banks. I'm blaming the unintended consequences of the rules. I think the rules unduly penalize equality-enhancing financial services."

(1) Bankers (rich people) lobby to have Glass–Steagall taken out back and shot in the head.

(2) Banks go nuts with financial wizardry leading to a housing bubble.

(3) Bubble bursts which ends up ruining the lives of millions, mostly lower and middle class folk. Nation enters into the worst recession since the Great One.

(4) Banks are bailed out with taxpayer money because banks have somehow become "too big to fail".

(5) Some regulations placed belatedly and half-heartedly on banks because of (1-4)

(6) Hardly anyone rich loses their shirt and hardly anyone is locked up† and some make out like bandits.

(7) Wall Street salaries and bonuses through the roof.

(8) Gov Regulations (along with Fed quantitative easing – the Fed is kind of a collection of banks, no?) exacerbate income and wealth inequality. Where did the Secretary of the Treasury at the time of the crisis, Hank Paulson, work beforehand?‡

(9) Banking policy "expert" Karen Petrou says "I'm not blaming the banks"

(0) In the words of Ace Ventura, "Allllrighty then!"

† [https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-07-26/why-no- on...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-07-26/why-no-one-went-to- jail-in-the-financial-crisis)

‡ "Before becoming Treasury Secretary, he was required to liquidate all of his stock holdings in Goldman Sachs, valued at over $600 million in 2006, in order to comply with conflict-of-interest regulations. Because of a tax provision passed under President George H.W. Bush, Paulson was not subject to capital gains tax. This saved him between $36 and $50 million in taxes."

<comment><USER19> You'll have to explain 8.

From first principles it makes sense that reducing the price of capital would help workers, and hurt capital owners.

And all the research I've seen backs up this intuition and show that a loose monetary policy helps inequality.

<comment><USER23> QE 'printed' roughly 3 Trillion dollars out of nothing, including at least 1.7T that went to buying Mortgage Backed Securities from banks whose original mortgage borrowers were never going to be able to pay off those mortgages. That had the effect of raising house prices for everyone, while turning debts of many that were never going to be repaid into the profits for the banks who aggregated these bad loans. Yves Smith over at the Naked Capitalism blog has called it 'the greatest upward transfer of wealth in history.'

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Reading the analysis of unintended side-effects reminds me of programming, and contemplating how my system might fail.

</comment><comment><USER9> The article starts out with a "correlation causes causation" argument, and the unsubstantiated claim that the biggest driver of inequality is banking regulation. Then it implies that business financing matters to the 50-90 percentile of earners. Bullshit detected!

</comment><comment><USER25> I'm inclined to see this as correlation, not causation. Where is the powerful coupling between <10 years of tighter bank lending standards and income inequality?

<comment><USER26> How would bank lending standards affect income, wouldn't it be much more likely to affect wealth?

<comment><USER10> In many, not all but many, parts of the country, mortgages are about the same as or cheaper than rent. And, usually they don't go up every year, and they come with pretty large tax breaks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> > predatory lending

I've often wondered just what people are talking about when they use that term.

<comment><USER28> Lending to people who will likely default, often by misleading them about the terms of the mortgage. You could also look at it from the other end and say that the people receiving the loans are predatory borrowers: people who can't afford to own the home they want but are taking advantage of lax lending standards to get one.

<comment><USER29> Setting oneself up to be prey is not generally considered predatory - <USER2> faking it, as anglerfish do, is.

<comment><USER28> In this case they are preying on the lenders, who don't really care because they are passing off the risk to someone else.

<comment><USER29> The issue is really who gets eaten. While the lender, or whoever ends up holding the loan, might get burned, it is very unusual for the borrower of a predatory loan to end up better off for it.

<comment><USER27> If I loan you money, and you don't pay it back, how do I gain?

<comment><USER29> As I said, the lender might get burned.

OP appeared to be talking about trying to take advantage of predatory lenders, and my point is that the borrower would usually be harmed more by attempting to do so than the lender, whose business model can typically accommodate a fairly high default rate.

Consider balloon mortgages, which are structured to encourage the borrower to pay all the interest, then, if they default on the final payment, the lender repossesses the property. In the lead-up to 2008, when prices all around were rising rapidly, repossession could look almost as attractive a proposition as getting the principal back, or possibly more so, and it made it easy to sell the risk in the secondary market.

<comment><USER27> My mortgage documents say that if my house is repossessed due to non-payment, and the lender sells the house, any value received that is in excess of the amount owed acrues to me, not the lender.

There is no advantage to the lender in repossessing the house in a rising housing market.

<comment><USER29> In the post I was replying to, you were asking about whether there is a downside for the lender. As I mentioned, there are scenarios in which the lender does badly, but in this one, the lender gets what it wants, a stream of interest income followed by the return of principal. The borrower has, in effect, and probably inadvertently, flipped the house, but if you were doing that intentionally, you would be much better off selling the property rather than allowing it to be repossessed. Of course, someone facing a balloon payment he cannot afford is probably best advised to sell before repossession, but if that is not the situation he wanted to be in, it is likely a pyrrhic outcome at best.

I suppose someone intending to flip a property might prefer a balloon mortgage if it has lower payments - financing flips is not something I know anything about - but that would seem to be a win-win situation, at least up to questions of risk. The important question with regard to so-called predatory lending is how things usually work out in practice.

<comment><USER27> I am not seeing how a lender is better off lending money to people who cannot pay it back.

<comment><USER29> A lender who makes an unsecured or insufficiently-secured loan to a person who makes no attempt to pay interest or return the principal, and has exhausted all means to collect on the debt, is indeed worse off than if he had kept the loaned amount in a risk-free asset (unless, perhaps, there is some compensating tax advantage, though I wouldn't know anything about that, and it seems unlikely that such opportunities would be widely available.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I think "whack-a-mole" might best describe the proclivity for regulation to fix unintended side-effects of previous regulation, causing more unintended side-effects. Or maybe "the cure is worse than the disease?"

Being on a very small governmental body, I witnessed first-hand the tendency to want to "do something" when confronted with a potential problem - And it did come to pass several times that we enacted policy that later seemed to have made the original situation worse or caused another flare-up in issues that had not existed before.

My experience is it can be very difficult to enact good public policy... And frequently an efficient (unfettered) capitalist market will come up with a solution more elegant than what we could contemplate.

I am left thinking this is a basic truism...

<comment><USER31> i think your concern about unintended side-effects is very valid, but i disagree with your conclusion.

in most cases, we need more innovative approaches to policy development rather than defaulting to a market as the only alternative.

as an example off the top of my head: using a faster, instrumented, and iterative approach to policy design, as startups are encouraged to do. or, cultivate new methods for finding better, more effective policies quickly (like design sprints, for example).

<comment><USER32> > as an example off the top of my head: using a faster, instrumented, and > iterative approach to policy design, as startups are encouraged to do. or, > cultivate new methods for finding better, more effective policies quickly > (like design sprints, for example).

the resulting regulatory uncertainty would probably be worse than bad regulations.

<comment><USER31> yes, that's possible, but the regulatory environment is already uncertain, and trending toward less certainty, due to increased partisanship and the ping- ponging between ideological extremes (accelerated by the money pouring into politics).

so if citizens & businesses knew that regulations were generally going to trend toward more fairness, the regulatory environment would be less uncertain (the cone of future possibilities narrows, even if the path was entirely a random walk).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Freedom is a double edge sword. Some people use their freedom to elevate themselves, others are free to fail. In the West we treat an disinclination to handle freedom responsibly as either a moral failing (the right) or reject the possibility that failing to handle freedom can have anything to do with one's character at all and thus inequality must be blamed on external forces (the left). The truth is it is not necessarily a moral failing to handle freedom irresponsibility and handling freedom irresponsibly very likely has a lot to do with someone's personality.

<comment><USER34> What does one's character depend on in your opinion?

<comment><USER33> Generally an interaction between nature and nurture.

<comment><USER34> So, external factors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Expecting downvotes, but looking for ideas-

Serious question, what is the issue with inequality when low income people are overweight and have iphones?

This is obviously a simplification, but in 1 sentence I think I got my point across.

Standard of living is undisputed the best in human history, not even some 1960s era fantasy has overweight humans. This has nothing to do with 'unhealthy' food, this is abundance.

So back to the serious question, what makes inequality bad? Some ideas

>Political inequality

>multi-generational oppression(which doesnt line up with the whole "First generation makes it. 2nd generation maintains it, 3rd generation blows it")

I'm trying to understand the issue with inequality when everyone is living a fantastic by organic life standards.

<comment><USER36> > Serious question, what is the issue with inequality when low income people > are overweight and have iphones?

People is overweight because they can not afford healthy food. Fruits and other healthier food is more expensive than junk food.

Poor people does not have iPhones. They have cheap Android devices that they need to work, keep in contact with family, etc.

> Standard of living is undisputed the best in human history

In the USA you can see a difference of life expectancy based on their economically status. So, people is dying earlier and this can be avoided.

> I'm trying to understand the issue with inequality when everyone is living a > fantastic by organic life standards.

So this is the end of all progress? We are good now, lets stop improving health care, education, etc.? Let people die at 70 even when they could have a more healthy live to be 80? Let a cancer patient die because "on average" society is better and his suffering is just statistics?

Your argument is based in the misconception that things can not improve anymore. That people does not deserve better that what they have now.

You will probably get support in the Amish community, for example. But most of the world moved past that point.

<comment> white-flame > _People is overweight because they can not afford healthy food. Fruits and > other healthier food is more expensive than junk food._

While I agree with the sentiment of your post, the meme quoted above needs to stop. Two bags of Doritos cost as much as a package of raw chicken that can feed a family, not to mention mass quantities of rice, beans, or even potatoes. Fruits and vegetables are very often <1 USD per pound. A single fast food combo meal can hit $10 USD, which can be groceries for one person for a week.

The problem with bad diets emerge from high stress, transportation issues, and lack of food education; not price tags.

<comment><USER37> I just had Burger King at the airport the other day. I could have easily gotten away with spending $3 for an entire meal, with sugar water included. For a meal, that's pretty cheap. Especially if I work a 12 hours shift and don't have time to cook.

Also, I grew up in the midwest, and often fruits and veggies look like they were picked up off the side of a freeway.

Not saying that you're entirely wrong, but neither is the "it's cheaper to eat shitty food" camp. There's probably a happy medium: less sugar, less meat, less stress, better education, better prices...all things that would help.

<comment> white-flame Yes, when I eat fast food, it's always from the value menu. But if you're strapped for cash, $3 per meal on a consistent basis still adds up, compared to <$1 meals prepared at home and ready to grab from the fridge.

Certainly convenience & taste is a factor in these decisions as well, but if the primary pain point is raw cost for your baseline consumption because you have no money to spare, you really should be kitchen-based.

Of course, all of this assumes that one is being financially sensitive, and not just impulse spending without realizing how much is trickling out. Too many people I know who struggle with their meager finances (even if they make similar or more than I do) are entirely too flippant and just go for the $10 combo meal, not realizing how often they're "treating themselves" and how it's adding up against their monthly balance.

<comment><USER10> "compared to <$1 meals prepared at home and ready to grab from the fridge."

They're never "ready to grab". They take time and effort, and do require knowledge to prepare. They also require you to then do the dishes after. For someone who's working multiple jobs, that may be time they just plain don't have.

<comment> white-flame They're ready to grab if you sensibly prepare a bunch of food ahead of time, once or twice a week. Nobody who's strapped for time starts from scratch every meal, and our American fridges are plenty large.

Besides, if I may rant a bit: If you have no money, then time, effort, knowledge, and social currency is what you _have to spend_ to get by. Either you're going to spend those things, or spend money you don't have which will make your immediate future _immediately worse_. This is a situation that sucks to be in, and the only way to have any sense of even partially managing this is discipline. Many of us have grown up in and/or lived through these sorts of situations as adults, and you simply do what you have to and try to be smart about it. _Obviously_ you need to put in time and effort, and do the dishes. But you can buffer things a bit to match your schedule, or establish specific routines, and any little lessening or organization of crunch is a huge affirming step. If you step back for a bit you also see that _maintaining your health_ (including having mental and physical energy) is super important when you have no money and are working hard, and so making food at home hits multiple critically important facets. It does not matter that it takes effort, what matters is that you put forth effort commensurate to what you're facing.

And to position this back to the initial contentious point, it reaffirms my position that it is not an issue of healthy groceries being somehow priced higher, but rather that of stressful life situations that people turn to convenience food (with the time sink of shopping/shorter-prep/cleanup or driving/ordering/waiting at restaurants still intact).

<comment><USER37> I think this is a bit out of touch. People in the situation you're describing are generally coming from a place of desperation, not of careful contemplation. And yes, it would behoove them to plan meals and pinch pennies, but when you and your spouse are working 50+ hours a week _each_ to make ends meet, the type of self-reflection it takes to make those decisions is in very limited supply.

I've not been in a working-poor situation since my late teens, but I can say that there are times when I was working 60+ hours a week, and I _did not_ have any energy to think about meal planning or healthy eating or investing in my future besides dumping some extra money in a savings account. Luckily, I _did_ have the money to eat healthy, and luckily my wife was (sometimes) in a position where she could meal plan for the both of us, but oh man...if I was in the same situation and making < $30K/year, I would NOT have been able to even think of these things.

It's not about being intelligent or even about resource management, it's about having the energy to think about it, and if you're working your fingers to the bone, _you don 't have the energy_. So it's easy for us to sit around on a forum while there's a lull in our cushy jobs ranting about how poor people should manage their time better, but I can tell you that it's not easy.

<comment> white-flame Let me state this absolutely directly, for all other responses as well:

I'm talking about _me_ and _my life_ , and _my family_ , and _my friends_. In various desperate situations, without money or time or car, working multiple jobs, and things in life going bad on top. Some made reasonable decisions about life, others not thinking and just muddling through, and others just checking out. Nobody's "meal planning", you grab whatever's cheap at the store (and that'll be grains, vegetables, and some meat) and make a pile of it at home to feed from or take along to work, so you don't have to cook often or go out much.

I don't know why everybody jumps to "You don't understand the people you're talking about!" Lots of people (even here on HN) have been there, or know people who have been there. There are tons of ways that life plays out, and having horrible situations is not some guarantee that your life is cemented into a perpetual downhill and that any other thinking is "out of touch".

It's just a lot harder, and sucks a lot more. But it becomes the new normal in your life. You do what you need to do, and you'd better figure out what you need to do, because tomorrow is staked on it. Plus, any little progress is still progress; even if you're not a millionaire at the end, at least it's not as bad as it was last year, and work to continue that at any scale for the next.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Why can't people just improve their credit rating by doing credit worthy things?

<comment><USER39> It is really hard for some people to get out of poverty. I recommend you read this article from a few days ago posted her on Hacker News: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17230047](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17230047)</comment></comment>


Will Facebook ever be rid of the Winklevoss twins? - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2011/01/13/facebook-appeal-winklevoss/ <comment><USER3> I'm a big Mark Zuckerberg hater. He seemingly screwed over a couple people along the way taking the idea and running with it (breach of contract, unethical etc, even if you are doing all the work). But at this point Facebook has made all of those people incredibly wealthy through settlements of cash and even people owning sharers. Those people will only get more wealthy when they IPO.

Do they really think they could have made more money if Mark hadn't walked out on them and run built it all himself? You have $150 million dollars now, could you have made a billion dollar business? The idea behind Facebook was not all that unique. Certainly it was bad that he walked out on them and stole it, but would they have built a $50 billion company?

Just based on how they have acted since getting the settlement, I think not. You have $150 million now, that is enough money to fund 15 new ventures without ever going to a VC.

If these guys thought they could make more money than Zuckerburg without him, then DO IT. You can try 15 times before you are broke. That is a luxury almost none of the rest of us have.

Instead by constantly going back to the golden goose and trying to get money they are proving their inability to build a business. Facebook was a lottery win for them and they have no ability to do better. They are probably better off today with Mark having walked out on them ,than if they all stayed in it together and it failed and they owned a larger percent of 0.

<comment><USER4> While it's difficult to ever really know what's going on in someone else's head, I actually do believe that the Winklevosses are pursuing this out of a sense of outrage and justice, not money. It's the motivation that makes the most sense to me.

That said (and again within my very limited knowledge of all this), I think that a $60+ million settlement is an incredibly good outcome for the winklevosses. I think that if they had found a different programmer, they would have produced yet another social networking site that went nowhere. Selling it for a tenth of their facebook settlement would have been an extraordinary outcome.

Why? Because startups run by non-programming business guys who hire a string of programmers who eventually quit and leave almost never succeed on facebook's level. Business guys like the winks greatly exaggerate the value of "an idea" and greatly underestimate way an idea can evolve into a new idea through implementation. They are almost always left in the dust.

Let me put it this way - if I went to a brilliant programmer with an "idea" - even one I had done quite a bit of implementation on, and he turned it into a multi-billion dollar company and offered me $60 million, I'd consider that a really good deal. Of course, that's not how this went down - the winks feel screwed because as far as I understand it, they kind of were. I'm basing this on the movie, so what can I say, no idea if this is true, but if I went to a programmer and he said, "yeah, I'm working on your site, I'll get back to you" over and over for a month, and at the end of the month he had launched a site that directly competes with the idea I thought he was working on for me, and then he told me bluntly and perhaps arrogantly that my idea was stupid and his was much better, and then used his advantage to beat me to every market, I'd be furious. I might be so furious that I'd be blinded to the truth, which is that I wouldn't have succeeded anyway.

I think the outcomes for the winks were

1) screwed and paid 60 mil 2) not screwed and paid probably nothing, maybe a small buyout nowhere near 60 mil.

<comment><USER5> "I'm basing this on the movie".

Sigh. You _know_ the movie isn't accurate. It's good story, it's not reality. Why would you make any comment on the motives of the players or the justice of the case using the movie as your primary source? The movie is basically historical fiction that happens to be set in the present day.

I knew that when the movie came out everyone would begin assuming that it was the true story of Facebook (despite protestations like "I have no idea if it's true"), but I'm literally seeing it in action here and it makes me sad.

You don't get to start from the movie as a "good guess" as to what happens. You don't get to use the movie as evidence at all.

<comment><USER4> I agree. I can't use the movie as evidence. Even the things presented as facts (for instance, I read an article that said the dilution of shares wasn't as bad as the movie presented).

That said, when someone (like me) makes a false statement based on the movie, you should refute the statement itself. For instance, did Zuckerberg agree to work on the site, and give the winklevosses the runaround for a month?

<comment><USER4> just as another aside - I've made a similar objection to the one you pointed out here. When Oliver Stone made the movie about the JSF assassination, he created some footage that looked like the "real" footage and presented it in the movie, with full acknowledgements that it was just a version of reality. While I'm making no assertions about the truth of Stone's point of view, the controversy made me aware of how stories can become so powerful that they become reality even in the minds of people who are aware that they are stories...

this is just another way of saying - I do appreciate your comment, and it's reminded me of the danger of thinking I'm always in control of my own ability to consciously separate fiction from reality... "seeing it", in spite of intellectual awareness that it's "just a story", has a powerful effect on the mind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _Will Facebook ever be rid of the Winklevoss twins?"_

Yes, on the legal front, this is likely to end sooner rather than later at this point, as the appeal by the twins from the lower court judgment ordering that the settlement be enforced has _not_ been well received by the panel hearing the appeal (see link, with my associated comment, from a couple of days ago to a story analyzing the judges' comments during the oral argument: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2096370>).

I will restate here from my prior comment what the stakes are on this appeal:

"In my view, the last major legal cloud that hangs over Facebook is the appeal by ConnectU and the Winklevoss brothers of a federal court decision upholding a settlement between them and FB of their claims that Mr. Zuckerberg had allegedly stolen their ideas to form the company. With that settlement in place, those parties received what many considered a windfall ($20M cash and 1.2 shares of FB stock, originally valued at $45M and now estimated to be worth $150M). Should it be set aside, however, the settlement value of such claims today would be astronomical. Why? Because these claims (unlike those of Mr. Ceglia, who filed a claim nearly seven years after the fact claiming an "84% stake in Facebook") were timely brought and have overhung every round of financing that FB has done from the beginning. In other words, existing FB shareholders have at all times been aware, in making their investment, of the risk that they could potentially lose everything should ConnectU prevail in its claims to own the FB IP. That is a devastating outcome for FB shareholders, of course, but the claimants here (unlike Mr. Ceglia) cannot be accused of laches or foot-dragging in ways that make the timing of their claims inequitable and therefore unenforceable. Thus, should they get this settlement set aside, FB would be faced with years of future litigation during which a serious question mark would hang over the entire value of its company. Hence, no IPO; hence, a far higher cost of any financing down the road. The stakes are high in this case."

Money, then, would appear to be the main driving element here. By playing with house money, the twins stand to gain by continuing to leverage their legal threats. That is why this whole thing has taken on a Terminator-like quality. In the end, they will either run out of legal leverage or they will be paid off. Time will tell on which it will be but I doubt that they will back off gracefully regardless of any windfall they might have already received.

</comment><comment><USER7> "I suspect that what want they're really pursuing is recognition, either from Facebook or in court, that they were the brains behind Facebook."

In my mind, these twins will never be the reason why Facebook was successful, no matter what some court decides. The value of a new website is not the idea behind it, it is the hard work of adding some kind of value and the tough task of getting people to use it. The idea that Connect U could be a "website that connects college friends" is not what made Facebook successful; it was the hard work of Zuckerberg and those around him.

I hope the twins are granted their chance to appeal and lose everything. I also hope they're never mentioned by any news story again.

</comment><comment><USER8> ConnectU was a full-fledged site at one point. It wasn't vaporware.

In fact, a feature they created called Social Butterfly to allow facebook users to export their data caused facebook to sue them. And it resulted in facebook storing e-mail addresses as images for many years to prevent anyone from easily switching services.

It's all well and good to say that we'll never know what ConnectU might have been. But we do know that the principle person expected to build a big piece of it went on to execute on that idea almost perfectly.

Are they entitled to anything? None of us really know for sure since we only have small pieces of hearsay. The courts will decide.

<comment><USER9> This is really interesting. Being only tangentially aware of the entire Facebook saga (I haven't even seen the movie yet) I had thought the Winklevosses were just guys with an idea. I don't know where I got that impression though.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ConnectU>

<comment><USER10> ConnectU was launched after Facebook. Their original idea, as explained in the movie is that "Harvard Connection" was a dating site for Harvard students.

<comment><USER8> The movie portrays this (and many other things) inaccurately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I love the inherent fact that they're essentially making a more solid and lucrative "exit" on an idea they probably only discussed at length and put no actual work into. Realistically they probably make out better from this (all things like time, effort etc considered) than if Zuckerberg never does Facebook.

I take that $20 mil in cash and $150 mil in stock, and if it's really not about the money like they say, I use it to be an angel investor or start other companies. This whole thing is getting tiresome.

<comment><USER12> like several people have mentioned already, these guys actually did build a product. i wont speculate on what they're entitled to, but claiming all they did was 'discussed at length' some concept is factually incorrect.

not sure why you're being up-voted -- is there something i'm missing?

<comment><USER11> You're right - probably shouldn't have dismissed it as just being in the idea stage.

I still stand behind the other point though - the assumption behind their lawsuit is that they would have been able to do what Zuckerberg did - which is pure speculation. I'm of the opinion that their legal troubles and outcome end up making them substantially more than their idea would have anyway. So walk away with a boat load of money, lesson learned, and get your name behind some positive press instead of negative.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think this Social Network quote from Zuckerberg sums them up perfectly.

"They're suing me because for the first time in their lives, things didn't work out the way they were supposed to for them"

They need to let it go.

</comment><comment><USER14> So if Facebook failed tomorrow and lost all the investment put into it so far would they be on the hook because their idea caused all that capital to be wasted?

</comment><comment><USER15> Interesting -- I don't understand. These guys live in a very different reality from me.

When I think of what I could build / research with $5-10M cash in the bank...

<comment><USER16> Well they were probably born with a golden spoon in their mouthes...

<comment><USER15> This has been on my mind recently.

If I meet my financial goals, how do I prevent my child from turning into a helpless person who just couldn't possibly live on less than she was accustomed to, growing up?

I didn't really want for anything as a kid, but my parents weren't extravagant. Nevertheless, it did set a kind of baseline for me.

The problem is once you scale up, it's very hard to scale back down. I'm shocked by people who are struggling to live on $200 K+, but I suppose, perversely, it makes sense given what they've become accustomed to.

<comment><USER16> Give them enough that they can start anything but can't do nothing.

Human being is meant to work hard, play hard and love hard to be happy. I have same thoughts - if I make what I've set out to do, how do I prevent spoiling my children. One answer would be to raise them in an ascetic fashion - <USER2> on consumer goods and long on interesting people and experiences.

<comment><USER15> I agree with these suggestions, but there's another huge component to the problem -- peer group.

If all your peers are going on expensive vacations, to expensive restaurants etc, and you're not going then you can't really hang out with them.

I.e. there're both perceived and real costs-of-entry to certain circles. As an independent-minded adult, this is easier to resist, but for a school-age kid it could be overwhelming.

<comment><USER16> You can very much influence that. If you're a contrarian as you appear to be - don't send your kids to school where dominant culture is one you don't want them to belong to. You can still send them to a public school where backgrounds are varied. Coupled with informed perspective from an open minded parent that kind of experience is probably quite powerful in shaping a young mind. You could go a step further and home school them yourself - in that way you can completely control their socialization. Just beware that human psychology is extremely complex and the results will probably differ from expected in _any_ case.

I find it odd that people pile fortunes for their kids while claiming that they don't have time to teach them and spend time with them. When in reality your kids the your biggest insurance and investment of your life. What is a point of working whole day so you can pay another person to raise your kid? Who's kid are you raising then anyway?

<comment><USER15> > What is a point of working whole day so you can pay another person to raise > your kid? Who's kid are you raising then anyway?

Careful not to over-generalize. It's quite possible to be an involved parent, while still sending your kid to daycare etc.

I'm not sure whether you've raised kids, but one thing about babies / toddlers is that in certain phases, they're absolutely relentless. You literally cannot take a 5 min break for 12 hours or so. That was a surprise to me.

EDIT > Except when they're asleep.

I do have similar feelings about nannies, though. Im sure there are great nannies out there, but what I typically see are glassy-eyed toddlers being wheeled around by nannies who are chatting on the cell phone. The kids get affection, but very little learning interaction.

That can't compare with the kind of high-bandwidth learning a curious child can have with an involved parent and mentor.

For a famous example, consider the special relationship that Feynman had with his father.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I would be extremely embarrassed if I had to go through life telling people: "I had one good idea back in 2003, but I had some trouble with the programmer who I never paid, and I could not recover from that, so I have now spent my whole life making a living by suing my former programmer. I've yet to have another good idea, or do anything else interesting with my life."

<comment><USER18> "...or do anything else interesting with my life."

Except for this tiny competition they took part in one time. Nothing major. I think they call it the "Olympics" or something like that.

<http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyler_Winklevoss>

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> If they had invented Facebook they would have invented Facebook.

<comment><USER20> If Facebook had invented Facebook, they would not have bought $40 million of patents from Friendster.

<comment> DanI-S I don't think the Facebook concept is really something that is 'invented', per se. It is one of those kind of ideas that will emerge spontaneously at a certain point in the technological timeline, as the natural progression of things. It was Facebook's execution (as a product and a business) which raised it above the many similar services that appeared simultaneously.

<comment><USER20> Obviously Facebook believed something was 'invented', as Facebook bought patents from Friendster, and wanted to ensure Facebook would not have to license the Friendster patents they were violating.

In your same manner of reasoning, h.264 was not invented, it simply emerged spontaneously at a certain point of the technological timeline, as the natural progression of things.

I would argue it was facebook's reliance on open-source software and existing Friendster techniques (THAT WERE PATENTED BY FRIENDSTER), that allowed Facebook to succeed.

<comment> DanI-S I mentioned the Facebook _concept_. It was obviously a concept that occurred pretty much simultaneously to a whole bunch of people across the world. The same is true for h.264; it's a system for compressing video that is convenient for 21st century media. There are many, many variations on that same concept.

It's the concept of 'multiple independent discovery' - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery>. Just because somebody got around to patenting a concept first doesn't mean that many others didn't think of it at the same time.

You probably know how it is - many people have the seed of an idea, several will take it further than that, a handful might get to the stage of implementation - but only a couple will make it to the point of success.

<comment><USER20> So the h.264 codec _was obviously a concept that occurred pretty much simultaneously to a whole bunch of people across the world_?

 _Just because somebody got around to patenting a concept first doesn't mean that many others didn't think of it at the same time._

Correct, however, the party that owns the patent, decides who can and cannot implement that concept in real life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Like the author says, these guys want the impossible: they want everybody to acknowledge that they were the genius behind Facebook.

Lawyers are very good for telling clients what they want to hear, and for taking their money in battles to "do what's right".

If these guys had any sense, they'd bail out of the case, fire the lawyers, and write a book about how totally awesome they are. Hell, pay ten million to have it promoted. Then spend the rest of their lives trying to recapture the magic or sitting on a beach with drinks with little umbrellas in them, whatever their choice.

I don't think they'll do that, though. There's a lot of pride and ego involved here.

<comment><USER22> I think it's also a case of wanting to "get back" at Zuckerberg for what they see as a betrayal. Being born extremely rich and not having a multi-billion dollar corporation to run gives you a lot of scope to waste your enemies' time and money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I really hope Facebook doesn't settle this time. I want to see this go to court and watch these guys lose the entire fortune that was dropped in their laps. It would be great if this lawsuit establishes in court, once and for all, that ideas are worth $0 and do not entitle current or former employers to anything. As far as I understand Mark Zuckerberg wasn't even an employee of the Winklevoss' which makes the whole thing a joke.

</comment><comment><USER23> Their new idea: _Cameron helped to start Guestofaguest.com, a Web site that offers information about "people, places and parties" in New York, Los Angeles and the Hamptons._

Source: [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/31/business/31twins.html?page...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/31/business/31twins.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&sq=winklevoss&st=cse&scp=4)

<comment><USER24> Good god, what a terrible name.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> One lesson I learn from this is to keep the way as clear as possible regarding intellectual and industrial property. A patent, when possible, might help to clear such type of issue.

Though I agree that the execution is as important as the initial idea, if not more. There is also luck in play here by the coincidence to start this project with exclusive access to high ranked universities inducing an outstanding attraction. It is not sure that this was part of the idea and strategy proposed by the twins.

</comment><comment><USER26> I'm afraid this brothers may lose all their new found money in legal fees. They signed the settlement, they should get over it. Take the money and get a life, hack something we want to use!

</comment><comment><USER27> this is why stealing is bad. Compare with B.Gates for example who bought the DOS for 50K instead of stealing it.

</comment><comment><USER28> If they are outraged that Mark executed the idea instead of them, they they are implying that they're capable of starting a website like facebook and making it super-popular, like facebook.

Why don't they just take the money they won and do that with some other idea? There is plenty of stuff to do, as we all know on this board. It would look much better to everyone if they showed what they are capable of. Eduardo Saverin is funding some pretty interesting ventures. Otherwise it looks like they're admitting this was their one and only big idea.

</comment><comment><USER29> Did anyone care about the Winklevoss twins before the movie?

<comment><USER30> As far as I can tell, yes. In particular, the people being sued by them presumably cared quite a bit.

<comment><USER29> Of course they did, I was just asking about the rest of the world. The first settlement was in 2008, but the huge spike here [http://www.google.com/trends?q=winklevoss&ctab=0&geo...](http://www.google.com/trends?q=winklevoss&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0) coincides with the release of the movie.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> They are real-life troll faces.

</comment><comment><USER32> is there a venturebeat.com upvote campaign? i can't believe that they show up so often on the front page......</comment>


Who Is Juan Guaidó? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/30/opinion/juan-guaido-venezuela.html <comment><USER2> Please don't post garden-variety political articles to HN. There needs to be something unusually intellectually interesting about a political story for it to be on topic here.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)</comment>


How Many Wechat MiniProgram Developer And& User Out of China? - <AUTHOR> MiniProgram is a New Mobile Product For People Who use WeChat as main Message.
We know, In China, People Use WeChat. But Out of China, How many people Use MiniProgram and want to develop a MiniProgram?
I ask this question want to know is here many developer want to use WeChat MiniProgram or Develop WeChat MiniProgram.
If more than 50 People, I will Write a Book to Teach Developer  How To Build MiniProgram.
(I make More than 8 Courses about WeChat MiniProgram, But all of theses are Chinese) <comment><USER2> Depending on price I would be interested in an English version. I run a professional services firm in Shanghai assisting young people by creating English resumes, LinkedIn Profiles and interview coaching. Also corporate workshops on similar topics. Always looking to educate myself better on Wechat universe (marketing, promotion, serving existing clients). Thank you!</comment>


Ask HN: Ways to spend yearly education budget? - <AUTHOR> What are some ideas to spend a yearly, company provided education budget ($500)?<p>Especially ideas besides books, udemy courses, or conferences? <comment><USER2> Community college courses. Learn a new subject, refresher or just looking for a new hobby. It might be difficult to spin glass blowing as a benefit to the company, but there is probably a justification somewhere.</comment>


Hungary's researcher Roska wins award for procedure that could cure blindness - <AUTHOR> https://www.dw.com/en/hungarys-researcher-roska-wins-award-for-procedure-that-could-cure-blindness/a-54846376 <comment><USER2> I'll never get why the latest stupid scam on battery technology that just re- words what we've seen a millions time before in an academic paper will trend.

And gene-based therapy being actually put into people in a clinical trail that might help blindness doesn't really trend.

Can anyone use this to regain the colors of our youth? We need to get more rich people into body enhancement. Or the military.

<comment><USER3> None of this is true - we must defund the military, reallocate the spending to true social equality and social reprogramming.</comment></comment>


Rational Math Catches Slippery Irrational Numbers - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-rational-math-catches-slippery-irrational-numbers-20200310/ <comment><USER2> I'm surprised this doesn't mention Cauchy sequences. It seems to get close, but never quite hit the mark.

Anyway, a Cauchy sequence is one where the terms of the sequence eventually become arbitrarily close to one another; that is, you can pick an epsilon, an arbitrary small number, and after a certain point, the difference between elements of the sequence is less than epsilon.

The intuition is an infinite list of rational numbers which, when plotted, look like a ping-pong ball endlessly bouncing around a given point, getting closer and closer... to what? Well, it depends on the precise sequence, but that end-point might not exist in the rationals. If it's a_n/2 + 1/a_n, it converges to the square root of 2, but we've known for a long time that _that 's_ irrational, so the ping-pong ball bounces forever, from one rational to another, getting closer and closer to a spot that doesn't exist...

What if it did exist? What if _all_ those spots existed? Well, if you have that, the set is now Cauchy-complete, also known as a complete metric space; if you have that, plus the field axioms (so addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division all work as you expect), plus ordering (so greater-than and less-than always work), plus the Archimedean axiom (no infinitesimal or infinite numbers), you have the real numbers. The reals are the unique Cauchy-complete Archimedian ordered field; every other set with those properties is isomorphic to the reals.

<comment><USER3> I'd also like to add one more clarification: Cauchy sequences require _any two_ elements after N (the "certain point" mentioned above) to be within epsilon of each other.

Why? I won't explain it fully, but hopefully a counterexample can convince you so: Take the common harmonic series (a_n = 1+1/2+1/3+...+1/n) Each successive element differs from the previous by 1/n. Therefore, informally we can see that their pairwise differences gets arbitrarily small. However, this sequence is _unbounded_: The infinite sum of the harmonic series tends to infinity. It therefore cannot be Cauchy. (Cauchy "bounces around a fixed point")

<comment><USER2> That is a very good point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I find that quanta entertains but does not inform.

See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duffin%E2%80%93Schaeffer_conje...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duffin%E2%80%93Schaeffer_conjecture) for the conjecture in question.

Basically it is about under what measures of "a surprisingly good approximation" we would expect to find infinitely many surprisingly good approximations for any random real we pick. Where the definition of a surprisingly good approximation is "within a bound dependent on the denominator".

Obviously you can get a better approximation by simply taking a larger denominator. The question is whether you get a good approximation relative to the size of the denominator.

We probably aren't surprised to find that with a denominator of size q we can get within 1/q of an arbitrary rational. But we likely are surprised to find that we can get within 1/(100 q^2). In fact there are no approximations that good of the golden ratio (1 + sqrt(5))/2\. But it is unusual, almost all real numbers can be approximated that well. But 355/113 is such a good approximation of pi.

The conjecture is about the existence, not how to find them. (In practice continued fractions are usually the right way to do it.)

</comment><comment><USER5> There must be a subtlety I don't understand. To cover the number line at precision of at least 10^n, just cover it with intervals of 1/10^n, surely?

IOW, to approximate an irrational number to 10 decimal places... use 10 decimal places? Geen, use 11 decimal places just to be double-sure and not have to worry.

What am I missing?

<comment><USER4> The question isn't how to approximate a given number to desired accuracy. It is whether we should be able to approximate it to desired accuracy relative to the denominator.

Getting an approximation p/q of x within 1/q is easy. Getting it within 1/q^2 takes work. Within 1/(10 q^2) is only sometimes possible.

<comment><USER6> > Within 1/(10 q^2) is only sometimes possible.

For _any_ q?

<comment><USER4> _For any q?_

Yes.

The hardest real number to approximate with rationals is (1+sqrt(5))/2\. Its approximations that come closest are of the form fib(n+1)/fib(n) where fib(n) is the n'th fibonacci number. The error converges to 1/(sqrt(5) fib(n)^2). None are within 1/(10 q^2).

To learn more about this, read up on continued fractions.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


DroneBase (YC W15) Lets Any Business Rent a Drone and Pilot - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/29/dronebase/

<comment><USER2> Anyone know how they're dealing with the legal issues of flying drones for commercial purposes, etc?

<comment><USER3> I've seen a few models floating around surrounding video and imagery. The company maintains the hardware and then sells the imagery or data to the customer.

<comment><USER4> But the drones are still being flown commercially.

There certainly will be a market for drone-flying part 135 operators, but it's gotta be legal first.</comment></comment></comment>


iOS Dev Tools - <AUTHOR> https://iosdev.tools/ <comment><USER2> I'll add a few of my favourites:

\- iOS Dev Weekly ([https://iosdevweekly.com/](https://iosdevweekly.com/))

\- Little Bites of Cocoa ([https://littlebitesofcocoa.com/](https://littlebitesofcocoa.com/))

\- objc ([https://www.objc.io/](https://www.objc.io/))

\- NSHipster ([http://nshipster.com/](http://nshipster.com/))

\- NSBlog / Friday Q&A from Mike Ash ([https://www.mikeash.com/pyblog/](https://www.mikeash.com/pyblog/))

\- This Week in Swift ([https://swiftnews.curated.co/](https://swiftnews.curated.co/))

\- Erica Sadun ([http://ericasadun.com/](http://ericasadun.com/))

\- Quality Coding ([http://qualitycoding.org/](http://qualitycoding.org/))

\- Use Your Loaf ([http://useyourloaf.com/](http://useyourloaf.com/))

\- Swift Monthly ([http://swiftmonthly.com/](http://swiftmonthly.com/))

\- Cocoa, Objective-C and Swift programming News aggregator ([https://twitter.com/cocoadevblogs](https://twitter.com/cocoadevblogs))

<comment><USER3> objc.io and nshipster were my two favorite iOS dev blogs. It's a bummer there haven't been new posts for a while. They still have years worth of really high quality content though

Edit: Another blog worth following is the Swift Blog ([https://swift.org/blog/](https://swift.org/blog/)) and the old Swift Blog ([https://developer.apple.com/swift/blog/](https://developer.apple.com/swift/blog/)) by Apple/Swift engineers

<comment><USER4> The author of NSHipster works for Apple now and typically, Apple employees don't blog about work - possibly a policy?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was surprised to see the mention of Rollout which I hadn't heard of which claims to allow you to push hot fixes to native iOS apps. Although I've been out of the iOS game for a while, I recalled this being against Apple's ToS. Apparently this is is still true to some degree, but they have an interesting blog post about how they can work around these restrictions.

[https://blog.rollout.io/2016/01/updating-apps-without-app- st...](https://blog.rollout.io/2016/01/updating-apps-without-app-store/)

<comment><USER6> TLDR; it's because they're not pushing new features but rather bug fixing through the proper channels (Webkit framework or JavascriptCore).

<comment><USER5> The interesting bit being that they can patch native methods using JS. You have to write a specific patch in JS though and still fix the original native code before pushing out the next version.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> More Favorites:

\- iOS Cookies ([http://www.ioscookies.com/](http://www.ioscookies.com/))

\- iOS Goodies ([http://ios-goodies.com/](http://ios-goodies.com/))

\- NSHipster ([http://nshipster.com/](http://nshipster.com/))

\- Cocoa With Love ([http://www.cocoawithlove.com/](http://www.cocoawithlove.com/))

<comment><USER3> Cool, the cocoawithlove blog is active again

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> On a slightly related note, my list of favourite non-development blogs which I follow as an iOS developer:

\- Daring Fireball ([http://daringfireball.net/](http://daringfireball.net/))

\- The Loop ([http://www.loopinsight.com/](http://www.loopinsight.com/))

\- Six Colors ([https://sixcolors.com/](https://sixcolors.com/))

\- Marco Arment ([https://marco.org/](https://marco.org/))

\- Mac Rumors ([http://www.macrumors.com/](http://www.macrumors.com/))

<comment><USER8> Marco did an interview with Computerphile today: [http://youtu.be/yVRtJbXQsL8](http://youtu.be/yVRtJbXQsL8)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm collecting everything that might help a Swift developer.

I try to tag urls to keep them organized. If you want to learn about Core Image or SpriteKit, for example:

[http://www.h4labs.com/dev/ios/swift.html?age=10000&q=CoreIma...](http://www.h4labs.com/dev/ios/swift.html?age=10000&q=CoreImage)

[http://www.h4labs.com/dev/ios/swift.html?q=SpriteKit&age=100...](http://www.h4labs.com/dev/ios/swift.html?q=SpriteKit&age=10000)

I also provide a weekly view that ends on Saturdays:

[http://www.h4labs.com/dev/ios/swift.html?week=0](http://www.h4labs.com/dev/ios/swift.html?week=0)

All the raw data is on Github: [https://github.com/melling/SwiftResources](https://github.com/melling/SwiftResources)

</comment><comment><USER10> If you work in in any sort of time-sheets based model: WakaTime ([https://wakatime.com/](https://wakatime.com/)) is indispensable.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm biased, but I also like [http://www.cocoacontrols.com](http://www.cocoacontrols.com) :)

</comment><comment><USER12> Shameless plug.. I think our app hyperPad fits the list [https://www.hyperpad.com](https://www.hyperpad.com)

Great for mobile games and other interactive apps. Also awesome for prototyping UI and animations. :)

</comment><comment><USER13> Looks useful, reminds me of Swift Toolbox and Cocoa Controls.

I would add two resources to the blogs list: NatashaTheRobot and Dave Verwer's NewsLetters. Both are excellent newsletters for iOS devs.

</comment><comment><USER14> Wow, really extensive site (I sent you a suggestion btw).

Something you could improve: Screenshots (where applicable). The lists have that "wall of text" feeling without any graphics.

</comment><comment><USER15> Another worth checking out, esp if you're a coder who wants to learn design>

* [http://designcode.io/](http://designcode.io/)

</comment><comment><USER16> Shameless plug for the weekly Swift newsletter I put together: [http://www.swiftnews.co](http://www.swiftnews.co)

</comment><comment><USER17> Which SDKs are being used by what mobile apps. So devs can get a sense of what SDKs to use and also what SDKs major apps use.

\- AppSight.co ([http://www.appsight.co/](http://www.appsight.co/))

</comment><comment><USER18> BTW, what is the best Git GUI on Mac? I don't care about price. I have always used the command line, but many operations would be faster with a mouse.

<comment><USER2> SourceTree ([https://www.sourcetreeapp.com/](https://www.sourcetreeapp.com/)) is pretty good and free.

In case you don't mind going for a paid alternative, Git Tower is good too ([https://www.git-tower.com/](https://www.git-tower.com/)). Comes with 30 days trial.

You may also like to check out a list of GUI clients here:

[https://git-scm.com/downloads/guis](https://git-scm.com/downloads/guis)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> A few things on that list which seem useful, but there are a lot more services on that list than actual tools.

</comment><comment><USER20> great</comment>