Dive into Deep Learning - <AUTHOR> https://d2l.ai/ <comment><USER2> As an engineer I find myself in this type of situation quite often - if anyone can point me to some good resources or has any advice, I'd be quite grateful:

\- Some non-technical stakeholder comes to me and says "can we solve this problem with Machine Learning?" usually it's something like "there need to be two supervisors on the factory floor at all times, and I want an email alert everytime there are less than 2 supervisors for more than 20 minutes"

\- I ask for some sample footage to build a prototype and get a few very poor quality videos, at a very different standard from what I see in most of these tutorials.

\- I find some pre-trained model that is able to do people detection or face detection and return bounding rectangles and download it in whatever form

\- After about 30 minutes of fiddling and googling errors, I run it against the sample footage

\- I get about 60% accuracy - this is no good. Where do I go from here? Keep trying different models? There are all sorts of models like YOLO and SSD and RetinaNet and YOLO2 and YOLO3.

\- At some point I try a bunch of models and all of them are at best 75% good. At this point I figure I should train it with my own dataset, and so I guess I need to arrange to have this stuff labelled. In my experience stakeholders are usually willing to appoint someone to do it but they want to know how much footage they need to label and whether their team will need special training to do the labelling and after it's all done is this even going to work?

What are some effective / opinionated workflows for this part of the overall process that have worked well for you? What's a labelling tool that non- technical users can use intuitively? How good are tools/services like Mechanical Turk and Ground Truth?

This part of the process costs time and money - stakeholders, particularly managers who are non-technical tend to want an answer beforehand - "If we spend all this time and money labelling footage, how well is this going to work? How much footage do we need to label?". How do you handle these kinds of conversations?

I find this space fairly well-populated with ML tutorials and resources but haven't been able to find content that is focused on this part of the process.

<comment><USER3> I'm somewhat surprised at the responses for this.

I believe your issue can be easily solved - have supervisors wear a distinctive color from a non-supervisor. For example let's say it's yellow.

OK so now you have yellow wearing supervisors and everyone else. To resolve the issue you have described acquire a month or so of footage, with labels per minute describing how many yellow wearing supervisors and how many people (in total) there are.

So the data you have is:

1\. Yellow wearing supervisors

2\. Total amount of workers on the floor

Then with this data you can train a network to do what you're describing pretty easily. Assuming there are a lot of workers on the floor, trying to do person detection or face detection would require too much data. Just have a uniform enforced and train on the colors/presence.

<comment><USER4> "Easily solved - just have them wear special clothes." Everything is easy if you can arbitrarily change the requirements!

<comment><USER5> This is good problem-solving. Why spend tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of dollars building technology to do a complicated task if you can cut that effort in half or more by having somebody where a funny vest?

Remember, the problem is "I need to know when I don't have two managers on the floor," not "how do I use machine learning to know when I don't have two managers on the floor."

<comment><USER4> This particular problem is "I need to know when I don't have two managers on the floor, and they aren't always wearing funny vests just because the computer guys are bad at deep learning".

If we can make up arbitrary rules and assumptions then just have them jot down on a piece of paper when they come and go, and if they are the last to leave then they have to send an email.

<comment><USER6> Honestly, despite your facetiousness, this is the best starting point. And then from here work up to more complex solutions if there are reasons why rhis simple one isn't suitable

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'll chip in with my book, which is written with programmers in mind, implements everything from scratch, works on CPU and GPU, at great speed. Directly links theory to implementation, and you can use it along with Goodfellow's Deep Learning book. Also, discusses all steps, and does not skip gradients by using autograd.

Deep Learning for Programmers: An Interactive Tutorial with CUDA, OpenCL, DNNL, Java, and Clojure.

[https://aiprobook.com/deep-learning-for- programmers/](https://aiprobook.com/deep-learning-for-programmers/)

<comment><USER8> And, what makes me want to dive into this the most, there's some Clojure! Will definitely have to take a look a this one. Thanks.

<comment><USER7> There's lots of Clojure! (in relative terms. In absolute terms, there's not much of it because Clojure is so concise and powerful that everything is implemented with very little code :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> See also Dive into Deep Learning Compiler from the same team: [http://tvm.d2l.ai/](http://tvm.d2l.ai/)

</comment><comment><USER10> Great guide - though unless I missed it I think this is missing the latest advancements around Transformers, BERT, ELMo, etc.

This stuff is pretty fresh, so it's understandable, but the NLP chapter would be greatly enhanced by covering these newer topics

<comment><USER11> Is there any book which has more than a passing mention of BERT?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Discussed a year ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18838808](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18838808)

</comment><comment><USER13> Does MxNet as a DL framework still have a place given Pytorch/tensorflow pretty much dominated all use cases?Amazon/AWS still "officially" supported it but given its product driven culture it could replace it with whatever framework that move faster and is more demanded by customers. Vendor Lock-in in this case probably won't work as well since Amazon is not quite a leader in this case

<comment><USER14> MXNet existed before AWS picked it, and it has a lot of strengths. I'd use it (especially with Gluon) over TF any day. But that said, PyTorch is usually easy to use on AWS... the preference for MXNet seems weak

<comment><USER15> It existed at CMU, but it seems like even CMU has moved over to PyTorch. I think Amazon just doesn't want to seem like an "also ran" by conceding to one of its competitor's frameworks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> this looks pretty good. certainly much better than goodfellow's deep learning book. definitely much the diagrams and code are much appreciated but i'm curious why mxnet over pytorch?

<comment><USER17> I find this comment amusing, have you read the goodfellow's book? That book is amazing.

<comment><USER18> I suppose you and I have very different notions of the word 'amazing'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Has anyone read this book ? It look very attractive but I want to hear some feedback before bookmarking another ML book.

<comment><USER20> Kinda did, but mostly the first chapters, actually up to CNN chapter (where real modern DL start). But so far, I really liked what I read. It has a very good blend of code and theory, with hands on applications throughout the whole book. Most importantly, all those applications could perfectly be copy pasted into your own environment. So it actually reminded me of a very thorough tutorial on a framework, more say than a regular textbook, although the authors don't compromise on mathematical arguments (but don't get lost in it either, they skimmed pretty fast on regularization theory imho). If you've had previous exposure to classical ML, I think it's a fantastic introduction to DL, enough to get started.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> RFID at the doors?</comment>


Ask HN: Best Sales Training for an Engineer? - <AUTHOR> Hi!
I run a small agency doing mostly enterprise mobile apps and web development. I'm an engineer first so I feel like I have so much to learn about sales to best run and grow the business.
Does anyone have any recommendations on good B2B sales training courses, books etc you got a lot of value from? <comment><USER2> The Challenger Sale, To Sell is Human</comment>


Show HN: Locational - Take full advantage of your iPhone's GPS today - <AUTHOR> http://locational.net

<comment><USER2> How is this different from any geo-location app? The website tells me zero.</comment>


"... it's my fault that Google shut down Google Reader" - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/nickbaum/status/775176446318776325 <comment><USER2> Am I the only one who's becoming more tuned into these thinly veiled self- promotion tweets/comments/stories which are actually about something else?

I can't speak to this guy's motivations, but my tuned-up sensitivity to marketing/advertising has my radar going off.

<comment><USER3> There is a term for this: Backdoor bragging. Source: Jenna Maroney in 30 Rock.

<comment><USER4> See also the "humblebrag".

<comment><USER5> "explanabrag", maybe?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_nMrJJFQ8s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_nMrJJFQ8s)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> These tweets are great marketing for his new company Storyworth and I mean that seriously :)

No one (well, almost no one) would have known who this guy was and that a company called Storyworth existed, but now a lot more people will know about it and how the founder is older and wiser now compared to when he was at Google :)

<comment><USER7> Not especially, in my opinion. In light of his comments to the effect that Reader was a failure because it didn't achieve 100M users, I'm not even remotely interested in whatever Storyworth is.

<comment><USER8> Why? That's not a number he invented, he's saying that that 100m is the user number that would have convinced Google execs to continue funding Reader.

The real question--unaddressed in these tweets--is why Google insisted on such a large user base to keep a project going.

<comment><USER9> Big companies often have arbitrary guidelines such as "only billion dollar lines of businesses are worth having". In this case 100M users may have been the threshold where $1B/year in revenue from the product was realistic.

<comment><USER10> It seems like a large number, but at Google's scale it might actually be rather small. Google is a large company, and each product is something that takes resources that could be better spent somewhere else. I don't expect Honda or Ford to keep around a car that only sells a few thousand a year, knowing that it requires continual work and refinement, space in their plants to build, space on the lots to sell, and a business strategy. I don't expect Google to act any differently.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I used Reader back when it was going, and I'm still not sure why people are so obsessed over it. I mean, yeah, it was pretty cool, but like 20 replacements popped up as soon as Google announced they were cancelling it. I switched to Feedly long ago, and never looked back.

<comment><USER12> I used Reader daily, but after it was shut down I never picked up a new RSS aggregator. I stopped reading all but one of those bloggers. A big part of Reader's appeal was the network -- I enjoyed sharing blogs with friends of mine that were linked through Gchat. And I say that as someone who never got into any other social network.

It was probably better for my productivity, I suppose, but I still miss it.

<comment><USER13> I don't think many realized just how seamless it was with a few of Google's other aborted services. Buzz, I think, was the main way my friends saw what I commented on. And I would see people's replies in Gmail.

It was surprisingly well done. :(

<comment><USER14> And Google Listen for podcasts!

I basically just stopped dealing with RSS when reader folded up even though it was adding something to my life. I'm back to checking the same sites over and over throughout the day.

<comment><USER13> Same here. And... the number of sites has shrunken quite a bit.

I think the thing that had me, was Reader was a great way to expand you communication in the groups you were already in. I didn't have to join a new community. I was bringing new topics into mine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> 8 odd tweets and not much real context/content related to the sensational title. Sounds more like rambling.

</comment><comment><USER16> I have to thank Nick for my current startup (we actually say so on our about page) :-) I used to rely on Reader so much that it was my gateway to the internet. When it got cancelled, I realized that I needed a way to stop relying on free centralized services. I wish they had released the code so that I could have self-hosted this (big thumbs up to parse/facebook for doing this the right way).

</comment><comment><USER17> Plenty of engineers would have worked on it for free. Vic killed it. Never forget.

<comment><USER18> Willing to elaborate or point me somewhere to read more? I'd love to hear the story here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I wonder how many other people in the hierarchy of that product (or really, any other that met a similar fate) would cast the blame on themselves. Especially with the legacy that Google Reader has left.

That said, I wonder the details of why it was discontinued (the gritty details available to the final decision makers) and whether those same people who blame themselves today might still have decided to discontinue it had they had the total picture.

</comment><comment><USER20> It's a roll-your-own solution, but tt-rss has been an exceedingly great replacement for Reader when it closed down. (And as long as RSS exists, I never have to worry about my service going away.)

[https://tt-rss.org/gitlab/fox/tt-rss/wikis/home](https://tt- rss.org/gitlab/fox/tt-rss/wikis/home)

</comment><comment><USER21> Side note: Feedly is a great modern reader.

[http://feedly.com/](http://feedly.com/)

</comment><comment><USER22> GV is long been dead. But its death is not as important as the slow death of RSS itself. Your tweet makes no mention of the value of RSS, which is a tragedy in itself.

Well, good thing RSS is still not completely dead and there are services like Digg which are still maintaining a good Reader.

</comment><comment><USER23> And how many active users does Google+ have now?

</comment><comment><USER24> The manager-gone-founder has sympathies and apologies for the destructive ideology of his capitalist master. Of course. The majority of managers have this same character -- it's their class nature. Be wary of trusting these people ;)

</comment><comment><USER25> Well, get your pickforks.</comment>


Did our early ancestors boil their food in hot springs? - <AUTHOR> https://news.mit.edu/2020/early-human-hot-springs-food-0915 <comment><USER2> In the Talmud[1] they refer[2] cooking in the Hot Springs of Tiberius in a casual manner that makes the impression it was a regular thing to do.

        "...Likewise one who cooks with the hot springs of
         Tiberius or that which is similar to them is exempt..."

We are talking about an era where fire exists, indeed, and yet some were still doing do.

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

[2] [https://www.sefaria.org.il/Mishneh_Torah%2C_Sabbath.9.3?vhe=...](https://www.sefaria.org.il/Mishneh_Torah%2C_Sabbath.9.3?vhe=Torat_Emet_363&lang=bi&with=all&lang2=bi)

<comment><USER3> What were they exempt from? It's a bit off topic but now I'm curious...

<comment><USER4> Looks like it's an exemption from being sanctioned for working on a Shabbat (section 1.3 in the linked text).

<comment><USER5> Interesting. Logically is it 'god' providing the work in this case of heating the hot spring therefore exempting the person?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Rúgbrauð (Icelandic pronunciation: [ˈruːɣprœiθ]) is an Icelandic straight rye bread. It is traditionally baked in a pot or steamed in special wooden casks by burying it in the ground near a hot spring, in which case it is known as hverabrauð or "hot-spring-bread". [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%BAgbrau%C3%B0](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%BAgbrau%C3%B0)

</comment><comment><USER7> It's a regular part of Maori culture in New Zealand, and tourists can do it in places like Rotorua. They call it Hāngi.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C4%81ngi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C4%81ngi)

<comment><USER8> While I'm quite sure this is true (that Maori boil food in hot springs), the link you've provided describes what in Hawai'i we call kalua, the centrepiece of a luau.

I'm not at all surprised that the word for the pit oven is effectively the same: umu in Maori, imu in Hawai'ian.

<comment><USER9> And the Hawai'ian word for chicken is the Māori word for a bunch of birds that grew up to 2m tall and was probably terrifying to run into in dense scrub. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The landing page for the paper _Microbial biomarkers reveal a hydrothermally active landscape at Olduvai Gorge at the dawn of the Acheulean, 1.7 Ma_ [1] states:

> The geothermal activity described here may have influenced the use of the > space at Olduvai Gorge and may have provided advantages, such as cooking, > which has not been previously contemplated in the context of human > evolution.

The discovered hydrothermal feature overlaps with the timelines of H. erectus. Richard Wrangham's book _Catching Fire_ [2] argues that the evidence for the consumption of energy dense food processed by fire is found in the physiology (small teeth, small gut, large brain) and reach (Eurasia) of erectus.

The speculation about hot spring cooking distracts from the significance of the find, in my opinion.

[1] [https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/09/14/2004532117](https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/09/14/2004532117)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catching_Fire:_How_Cooking_Mad...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catching_Fire:_How_Cooking_Made_Us_Human)

</comment><comment><USER11> A few years ago I visited Niigata and some surrounding semi-rural towns where people still do this. They have onsens that are designated for food, not people. :)

<comment><USER12> I had to look up "onsen". It's the japanese term for hot springs.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> here in tamsui in taiwan they cooked eggs in the hot springs

<comment><USER14> So instead of 淡水 (Tamsui / Danshui) more like 蛋水

(Both of these sound the same with the same tones, but I replaced the first character with the one for egg of the same sound, hence meaning egg water.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> What I never understood is why cooking was needed by early humans. Other animals eat raw food, and scavengers don't even eat freshly killed food, yet they do just fine. Sure, I can understand as humans moved to cooked food that we may have lost our ability to handle food in these states. The only thing I could think of is that the caloric advantage of digesting meat offered an immediate advantage.

<comment><USER16> Our gastrointestinal tract is designed for fruit, like most apes. Not plant or meat. Out of adaptation to new locales without abundant fruit, we've had to learn how to properly preprocess things were not very good at processing ourselves.

<comment><USER17> Except chimps hunt, and get important nutrients from meat, early humans hunted and scavenged meat, and nothing about our digestive system allows us to get as much out of plant matter (including fruit) as an herbivore can; for one thing, we can't digest cellulose.

[https://www.americanscientist.org/article/meat-eating- among-...](https://www.americanscientist.org/article/meat-eating-among-the- earliest-humans)

<comment><USER16> See reply to other comment. The reason to eat fruit is to get easy access to sugar, which we need especially due to our brains. Like how some birds require nectar to be able to power their flight.

All animals supplement diets, but despite cows licking saltstone we still observe them getting the majority of intake from other sources.

<comment><USER17> We need sugar to power our brains, but we need protein and fat to build our brains. That requires more than incidental amounts of protein.

<comment><USER18> For that to be a good counter-argument, you would need to demonstrate that vegetable protein was "merely incidental" in the case you are arguing against.

<comment><USER19> Vegetable protein was and still is less abundant than vegetable sugars, if I'm not mistaken? Agriculture eventually made that less of an issue but this was not the case until not that long ago (tens of thousands rather than hundreds of thousands of years). It's easier to eat a bug or any small prey than spend a morning gathering spinach and watercress. Humans also ate leftovers from predator kills, like the partially digested contents of herbivore stomachs that had been killed by let's say wolves.

Vegetable protein was part of our diet but not by any means the main source of protein. Humans did not eat pulses until quite recently (10-15 thousand years ago?)

<comment><USER20> > Vegetable protein was and still is less abundant than vegetable sugars, if > I'm not mistaken?

I'm no expert here, but humans do tend to need far more carbs than protein to be healthy - or at least can operate on something like 10% protein per joule of food consumed. And that's with a decent safety buffer. I think the predictions (based on natural experiments - i.e. famines) were that you could push as low as 4% before a human body can't handle it. Though I'd guess that if you get anywhere close to that your body is going to start making some significant trade-offs.

Also: Don't forget about nuts and seeds.

> Vegetable protein was part of our diet but not by any means the main source > of protein.

I think a citation (or three) is needed here.

<comment><USER21> People can be perfectly healthy on a wide range of carbohydrate intake. Native peoples in the Arctic lived almost entirely on animals, for example, whereas there were tropical island societies that lived almost entirely on plant sources.

<comment><USER20> > People can be perfectly healthy on a wide range of carbohydrate intake

Again, citation needed there. The recommendation of all major national and international dietetics associations (based on currently available peer- reviewed studies) is that a healthy diet should consist mostly of carbohydrates.

There certainly are "extreme" diets, but these seem to require at least a bit of genetic adaptation:

> "a new study[0] on Inuit in Greenland suggests that Arctic peoples evolved > certain genetic adaptations that allow them to consume much higher amounts > of fat than most other people around the world"

[https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/09/17/441169188/th...](https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/09/17/441169188/the- secret-to-the-inuit-high-fat-diet-may-be-good-genes)

[0] [https://science.sciencemag.org/content/349/6254/1343](https://science.sciencemag.org/content/349/6254/1343)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> ah yes, the original sous vide method of cooking ;)

</comment><comment><USER23> I don't know about cooking because thermal waters tend to be sulfuric but for example - Tbilisi was a settlement of hunters who would use "free" hot water to make animal leather soft.

Archaeologists discovered evidence of continuous habitation of the Tbilisi - since the early Bronze Age, and stone artifacts dating to the Paleolithic age.

</comment><comment><USER4> They were lucky to be using hot springs with temperatures north of 80°C (176°F). Not sure what the median temperature of a hot spring is but anecdotally it seems many are not that hot, which makes them perfect breeding ground for amebas and also the Legionella bacteria.

<comment><USER24> Presumably, humans consistently using hot springs such as the ones you describe to prepare food either found the experience punishing or simply didn't live to record the results.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> So...Shabu-Shabu is the oldest cooking method.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabu- shabu](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabu-shabu)

<comment><USER26> In our times "dishwasher cooking" is a productive search term.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'd be surprised if they didn't. If a crow can figure out how to drop nuts under the car path, then I'm sure early humans have figured out a bunch of stuff too.

<comment><USER28> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catching_Fire:_How_Cooking_Mad...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catching_Fire:_How_Cooking_Made_Us_Human)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> My personal favourite hypothesis is that they lived in hot springs.</comment>


Mercury – A Lightweight message broker for JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://www.npmjs.com/package/mercury-broker <comment><AUTHOR> Mercury-broker is a very simple, lightweight message broker for JavaScript. I supports publish/subscriber semantics, message payload transformation, synchronous/asynchronous message publishing, delayed message delivery and periodically message publishing.</comment>


How Humans Ran Comfortably and Safely Before the Invention of Shoes - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100127134241.htm

<comment><USER2> Lots of coverage of this and related material recently. Here are some earlier submissions, not all of which cover the same ground, but which are related. There may be more, I've found these partly by hand and may have missed some.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1086446>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1084520>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1081341>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1071073>

</comment><comment><USER3> I found this page on Brooks website very interesting. They invited an assortment running "experts" from various backgrounds to give their opinion on barefoot running.

[http://www.brooksrunning.com/About+Brooks/On+Barefoot+Runnin...](http://www.brooksrunning.com/About+Brooks/On+Barefoot+Running/The+Experts/)

The consensus seems to be that there are proven benefits to running barefoot, but that it is not always the most appropriate choice. They caution runners seeking to transition to barefoot against doing too much too soon.

</comment><comment><USER4> After reading another article pointed to by HN, and watching some YouTube reviews, I rushed out and bought a pair of Vibram Five-Fingers and have been wearing them almost exclusively ever since. They've changed my life.

<comment><USER5> Do you wear socks with them? Do you find that your feet feel colder?

<comment><USER4> I usually where toe socks, sometimes not. Sure in the winter my feet are a little colder, it doesn't bother me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Very interesting. (Link: the main illustration of the different running gaits is at [http://www.barefootrunning.fas.harvard.edu/3RunningBeforeThe...](http://www.barefootrunning.fas.harvard.edu/3RunningBeforeTheModernShoe.html) ). I'm surprised to see that they didn't find a difference in kinetic energy between heel and forefoot impacts; my naive assumption was that the "rolling" motion of the foot in a heel strike would result in a higher-energy bound forward...

</comment><comment><USER7> There seems to be a wave of media attention on this following the release and popularity of "Born to Run".

If you are a runner or would like to be one, it's a good read. And if you haven't found out about it yet, check out Vibram Five Finger "shoes" which allow you to start barefoot running without the callouses and hard skin: <http://www.vibramfivefingers.com/>

<comment><USER8> I'm sure I've said it before, but if you're interested in running I really recommend checking out the book.

[http://www.amazon.com/Born-Run-Hidden-Superathletes- Greatest...](http://www.amazon.com/Born-Run-Hidden-Superathletes- Greatest/dp/0307266303)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm going to check it out. I have heard a lot about this book lately. Thanks for mentioning it

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interesting article. I see barefoot/minimal shoe running as possible way to correct issues in running form. Could practice running on your toes on a track or something like that. You could also just spend time with regular running shoes to correct your running form away from the heel-striking which some naturally fall into.

Although interesting, I don't think I'd ever go for a run without running shoes. Just seems like a good way to step on something sharp and have it go into your foot.

<comment><USER10> Feet have good reflexes for avoiding debris. But the choice isn't just between risking stepping on glass barefoot and ruining your feet with Nikes -- cf. "barefoot shoes" like Vibram, Vivo, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Overstriding tends to jar the hips, no matter how cushioned the heel. I did notice that the irregular footing in Saturday's snow--running over others' footprints--enforced a different stride.

<comment><USER12> Besides that, humans have probably evolved to run through grass, mud and sand, I am not sure that running on concrete or broken glass (in the city) would work as well.

<comment><USER13> Hence the shoes geared towards barefoot running. Vibram FiveFingers, Feelmax, Nike Free, etc.

<comment><USER12> But I understand that their soles are very thin, thus they still don't protect against the impact when running on a concrete sidewalk.

<comment><USER14> Not them by themselves, but they have you striking on the ball of your foot, or mid-foot at most. _That_ reduces the sudden impact on your foot and leg. Heel striking is like driving a post (your lower leg) into the ground. Striking on the ball of the foot converts the force into rotational energy (pivoting around the ball, and around the ankle) and spreads it out over time.

<comment><USER12> I wasn't talking about the heel strike, it is understood that this is about barefoot running. So the strike is on the ball of the foot. I was just saying that even striking the ball of the foot many times against concrete is a lot harder on the feet than doing the same on grass, mud, or sand.

The idea behind barefoot running is revert to the conditions for which the human leg has been adapting to for many thousands of years. My argument was that perhaps we haven't yet adopted to very hard surfaces, such as asphalt or concrete sidewalks ...

<comment><USER15> You think humans never ran across rock or hard packed dirt?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Nintendo 64 Shogi Game Network Vulnerability - <AUTHOR> https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2020-13109 <comment><AUTHOR> This shogi game for the N64 included network hardware in the cartridge (see photo below) for online play. Unfortunately it also allowed arbitrary remote code execution.

[https://twitter.com/sdhizumi/status/1274594780899500032?s=21](https://twitter.com/sdhizumi/status/1274594780899500032?s=21)

Exploit homepage:

[https://cturt.github.io/shogihax.html](https://cturt.github.io/shogihax.html)

(Dear mods, the link above and its title might be better for this submission.)</comment>


Ask HN: Anyone need a landing page photo for free? - <AUTHOR>

Photography is my hobby and I need to practice. Anyone need a photo for landing page or for anything else?
You can post you request here or send me email at sergey at genbit.ru<p>I'll try my best to take photo you need, for free. <comment><USER2> A friend and I are developing a funny word game for mobile devices meant for social situations. We're always looking for new photos of people having memorable conversations while playing our game.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't know if this will really improve your photography practice, but it would be great if you could give it a try anyway!

I'm looking for (blurred) background photos onto which we can put iPhones for our editor. To give you an idea, please see the second and fourth example on our landing page at [http://www.screenscott.com](http://www.screenscott.com) (please hover).

I'm most interested in a picture of an US Downtown (such as SF), looking from a sidewalk down a street. I've taken similar pics when I was in the US, but a) I was pointing the camera up, but to look realistically, the horizon needs to be in the upper half of the picture and b) if blurred with the camera lens, the pic looks much better.

It would be awesome if you could help us out :) Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER4> That's an awesome idea! If you'd like to contribute like that, sites like [https://unsplash.com/](https://unsplash.com/) offer ways to send your own pictures to them.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks, the idea to make photo by request. But would definitely post some of these photos that will not be used to unsplash.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thx for the offer! I could really use some nature pictures to make my book site more colorful: [http://minireference.com/](http://minireference.com/)

I've been looking for mountains (e.g. two mountain peaks that represent math and physics) that could be used. The book is your guide to the mountains of math and physics.

Alternately, just some nice picture of fall colors. Спосиба.

<comment><AUTHOR> sent you email

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm working on a modern divorce site that helps couples work together with professionals to quickly and safely reach an equitable resolution for this incredibly difficult event. There are lots of creative symbols in marriage and divorce that could make for an interesting photography project.

<comment><AUTHOR> hi, need to think, I have some experience in this topic, but don't honestly don't have any ideas of photo that can work for you website. Feel free o propose something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> How about various angles views of a tennis court that is no longer in much use as originally intended? Maybe no nets or deteriorating nets, lines barely there, the play of life on the court. Could include people using the court in unusual or usual ways. Or taking off from this and using your own ideas of seeing an athletic arena/field in different ways.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is interesting project. I actually may need pictures like these too ) need to check local tennis courts, arenas.

<comment><USER7> Awesome, thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you can shoot something that can be used on a record label website, music/studio related I would use it on the record label website I'm rebuilding.

</comment><comment><USER9> I need a good shot with a laptop screen in the main focus taking up the majority of the shot to animate with a demo, but with an interesting and clean background.

<comment><USER10> Keep in mind:

Depictions of Apple Products

1\. Endorsement or Sponsorship: Apple does not support the use of its logos, company names, product names, or images of Apple products by other parties in marketing, promotional or advertising materials as their use may create the perception that Apple endorses or sponsors the product, service or promotion.

2\. Compatibility: If you are a developer, you may show an image of an Apple product in your promotional/advertising materials to depict that your product is compatible with, or otherwise works with, the Apple product or technology, provided you comply with the following requirements:

a. Your product is in fact compatible with, or otherwise works with, the referenced Apple product.

b. The image is an actual photograph of the genuine Apple product and not an artist's rendering (Note: You must obtain express written permission from Apple before using any photograph owned or licensed by Apple).

c. The Apple product is shown only in the best light, in a manner or context that reflects favorably on the Apple products and on Apple Inc.

d. The reference to Apple does not create a sense of endorsement or sponsorship by, or other false association with, Apple or Apple products.

[1] [https://www.apple.com/legal/intellectual- property/guidelines...](https://www.apple.com/legal/intellectual- property/guidelinesfor3rdparties.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> How about: A night-time city scape. Usually a lot of photos of cities are done across from a body of water, and at day. I haven't been able to find good quality ones done during the night.

<comment><AUTHOR> something like this? [https://www.dropbox.com/s/10urfqlu8lv63yr/IMG_6925.jpg?dl=0](https://www.dropbox.com/s/10urfqlu8lv63yr/IMG_6925.jpg?dl=0)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I would really like to see this photo re-made with higher resolution:

[http://www.officialpsds.com/images/thumbs/Paint-Brush- psd503...](http://www.officialpsds.com/images/thumbs/Paint-Brush-psd50308.png)

It looks like plasti-dip on a brand new paintbrush, and I really like the way it's cropped.

I can't seem to figure out if this image is for sale, or how to buy it.

<comment><USER13> [http://de.123rf.com/photo_5637391_drop-von-roter-farbe- auf-w...](http://de.123rf.com/photo_5637391_drop-von-roter-farbe-auf-weissem- hintergrund.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> A photo of a woman using a computer.

A photo of 2 guys talking at a table (office or lunchroom)

</comment><comment><USER15> What are the terms and conditions you are providing these 'free' photos under please? You should consider it unlikely that a serious startup would use your photos based on 'genbit on HN said they were free - seems legit'.

Also, have you considered submitting images to sites like unsplash.com or skitterphoto.com, which basically offer the same thing but with a CC0 license?

And if it is just feedback you need there are plenty of photo communities online like Flickr where you can post images and solicit critical feedback.

It is a nice offer you make but posting something like this to HN is really limiting and cannot last long. I think you are better off looking elsewhere, so give it a try and good luck.

<comment><USER16> This guy is offering to take photos because he likes taking photos and figures people might want one. I really don't see why you have to be such a negative nancy about this.

<comment><USER15> He's offering photos which he presumably retains copyright for, to people wanting them for business use and not a personal collection or their kid's lemonade stand.

I raised a legitimate issue, offered realistic and superior alternatives, and wished OP good luck.

If this offended your sensibilities or came across as negative to you, I think you should re-read my comment and reconsider. Maybe we'll just agree to disagree.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Don't offer your work for free. It devalues you and all other photographers. There's no "practice" you get from doing work for free for someone else that you couldn't get by doing work for yourself, and then offering up for sale.

[http://shouldiworkforfree.com/](http://shouldiworkforfree.com/)

<comment><USER18> Not this.

Like the OP wrote, photography is a hobby.

Charging for anything requires extra work. If the OP is an employee doing another sort of work, the extra work involved in charging could be enough to complete overwhelm any benefit from charging, unless the OP somehow won the lottery and made huge bucks (unlikely in the extreme).

Even if the OP is already working as an independent business owner, using their existing "charge people" infrastructure and tools for a non-core hobby could be somewhere be difficult and infeasible.

There are things that we do because we enjoy them, not because we have any vanity hope of ever making money from them. Getting our work in front of others allows for broader criticism, which can make us better; for attribution, which can lift our spirits (I did that); and for recognition, which can, sometimes, for some, make us money.

Let's stop this "never do anything for free" fetishism, shall we? As important as money is, it ain't everything.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed, I have full time job, side projects. And photography is more like a hobby. I got more positive from this topic on HN, than I could ever get from selling these photos.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Anything with an (preferably) outdoor pool with sunlight with swimmers in it, or better yet a water polo match of some sort.

EDIT: Removed the 'synchronized' bit. Can be indoors if necessary, given the current time of year and climate.

<comment><AUTHOR> so, some sport in the pool? or any activity?

<comment><USER19> Any sport would be fine. Specifically this is for a water polo and swim team booster site.

EDIT: Added my email in my about. Thanks again!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Could you do one in a doctor's office (preferably with a 'doctor') with a piece of medical equipment in the background?

<comment><AUTHOR> I probably need to make an appointment :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Could you please take a photo of a desk cluttered with homework and notes for me? It would appear on the landing page for a notes service I'm working on.

<comment><AUTHOR> yep, I can try

<comment><USER21> Thank you so much!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'd like a picture that evokes "party" or "meaningful place", and it would be nice if I could constrain it to a portrait view (like the iPhone held vertically)

Thanks! Edit: Feel free to email me about it.

<comment><AUTHOR> what email address?

<comment><USER22> It's in my bio: robert.stolarz{at}yandex.com

<comment><USER23> Just in case you didn't know, your email is not in your bio. The "email" field is not public, so if you want your email to be displayed you have to put it in the "about" field.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Pictures of the ocean, the bay, or from some hiking trails all might be great for a landing page.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have few of them already on a storage, can u shoot me email, I'll give you dropbox link when I upload.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> A photo of some sort of abstract looking network graph.

<comment><USER26> That sounds as if it would be better suited for a graphic, or at least an overlay of a graphic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I don't need a photo, but it would be awesome if you posted these on Flickr with a Creative Commons license!

<comment><USER28> ^^this^^

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Usually it is the landing page photo that picks me. Do you have any samples?

<comment><AUTHOR> I have few photos on 500px.com/genbit

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'd love one! I'll email you as well.

</comment><comment><USER31> I would love a clean laptop-at-the-coffee shop picture.

<comment><AUTHOR> ok, will try

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I could use some photos off offroad vehicles (jeeps, trucks, SUVs) on the trail. E-mail in profile.

<comment><USER33> email is not visible to non-admins unless you put it in "about"

<comment><USER32> Oops! Fixed. Thanks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> My colleague and I would love a shot of University Ave!

<comment><AUTHOR> Great, Day or Night? University Ave Palo Alto, I assume? Anything specific?

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I need something related to gift. More specific someting you want to receive as gift, u know?

<comment><AUTHOR> If do something specific, different people want different gifts: games (board), jewelry, different staff. I for example, want hammock, :) Do you have something specific in mind?

If do abstract - maybe a gift box with lights out of it?

<comment><USER35> No, I was thinking more abstract. Like a picture which holds the joy of openning a nice gif. Like the walk of anyone when receiving the first car of his/her life.

I know my request is completly open and unespecified, but I want to see ur art.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I'd like a human with smiling face

</comment><comment><USER28> Hey Sergey,

Would love a high resolution photo of the inside of a record store.

<comment><AUTHOR> cool, I can try. Don't have your email, so I will have to post photo here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Can you make a photo of a biotech lab (or similar)?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is interesting, i know one lab close to me, will ask them, if they agree.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> great

</comment><comment><USER39> How about a photo of a man doing a handstand right next to a pickle that is on the ground.

<comment><USER40> What the hell are you selling?

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Landing page for a photosharing app

<comment><AUTHOR> what kind of people will this landing page target? pro photographers, students, teenagers?

<comment><USER41> teenagers

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Hey I am making a web site where you can meet up with other people who have ebola. It's like a cross between Match.com and Meetup, but for people who actively have ebola.

A good cover image could be key. Maybe a picture of an ebola or some kid playing with an ebola stuffed animal. Something that promotes togetherness.

TIA.

<comment><USER43> Are you banking on Ebola getting widespread?

<comment><USER16> Opportunities are everywhere!</comment></comment></comment>


Team Apart (YC S08) hits the right price for collaboration: $0.00 - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2009/08/06/team-apart-hits-the-right-price-for-collaboration-000/

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys, I have 50 invites for hacker news. First come, first serve: <http://teamapart.com/signup/hackernews>

<comment><USER2> Any chance you could throw us a couple more? They're all used up.

How about if I promise to give constructive feedback? :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha, sure: <http://teamapart.com/signup/hackernews2>

<comment><USER3> Thanks, the use of a red * is normally used to denote a required field on signup.

Your list of required fields and the order missing fields are displayed are not identical.

Username can't be blank. Last name can't be blank. Password can't be blank. Email can't be blank. First name can't be blank

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Retric. I agree, I think we should be more specific on which fields are required. We'll also fix the ordering of the errors.

<comment><USER4> This is a very impressive product. Congratulations. I had my small team in a room within 2 minutes. One question: Is there a way to clear history? The things we posted got a bit out of hand and I'd like to know if this image can be removed so I dont have to see it in my feed :P

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Karan! Yeah I also think there should be a "clear history" button. Would you also want the ability to clear on a per feed item basis?

<comment><USER4> That would be ideal, but even a way to delete individual items and/or entire history is fine.

Simplest solution is clear all.

Best solution (imo), is a gmail style checkbox selector (select: filter1[], filter2[], filter3[], etc) [CLEAR] which selects multiple checkboxes

Keep up the great work!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As someone who beta tested this numerous times, I can tell you this is some ridiculously slick virtual meeting software. It reminds me of the Microsoft Surface a bit, the way you can manipulate stuff in and out of focus and so on. Very cool stuff.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for all your testing Tom. Appreciate it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Ok. So we've had Thinkature, Yvew, Dabbleboard, dimdim..etc..etc and a bunch of others. Did any one of them really make MONEY after webEX was sold? So whats so different about this one besides a nicer interface?

That being said, Congrats on the execution, its a very nicely done flex app. However, you might want to set

horizontalScrollPolicy=off

verticalScrollPolicty=off

for the itemRenderers of the HList of your Camera chooser page, because on my mac, the Label control overflows and cauese the scrollbars to popup.

Good luck guys!

<comment><USER7> Dabbleboard _is_ making money, just with the whiteboard. And we started well after WebEx was sold; thankfully WebEx doesn't care about the whiteboard.

We're working on a broader solution that'll compete more with the likes of WebEx (coincidentally our focus -like TeamApart- is also on 'few-to-few' rather than 'one-to-many'). To differentiate, we're considering adding more Asynchronous collaboration features (inspired mostly by wikis and less so by Google Wave).

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Just a heads-up to anybody who's using this and is running PeerGuardian: they don't play nice together: the initial connection to a workspace is extremely slow and works maybe 1/5 of the time.

And also, don't be stupid like me and figure that ending the PeerGuardian process stops it from filtering your connection. :-)

Anybody have experience with this? Does PeerGuardian just not like RTMP? Or is it something about certain AWS IPs?

</comment><comment><USER8> What market are you guys trying to target? Enterprise?

The workspace did not load for me on Chrome or IE7 from my corporate computer. (Blue bar loaded the whole way and then did not render any changes). I don't know if you guys are using any nonstandard ports but if you are then just know lots of corporations block off ports.

<comment><AUTHOR> Joez send me an email at firstname.lastname@example.com and I'll try and help you sort it out.

<comment><USER9> FYI-- same results here FF3.5 OSX behind corporate firewall. Interesting side effect of resizing the window is that I can see and interact with the little chat widget in the bottom right of the screen.

<comment><AUTHOR> Okay yeah you must have the RTMP port blocked on your firewall. The actual session container loaded but you're not connected to it. We'll try to see what we can do about the firewall issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have to say I really like this, very pleasantly lightweight. When you have a tutorial, you might want to make clear that minimizing does the role of controlling whats maximized rather than whats visible. What are the synchronization etc constraints on collaborative simulataneous white board or notepad editing?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Carter!

I agree the minimize, maximize and close buttons are a little confusing. We plan on making another pass on the layout code soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I like the service a lot. Any plans for an undo feature? That is a fairly essential feature. Maybe have it configurable so that the undo history can be shared or it is per user.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I think undo/redo functionality would be super helpful. I believe it would be more intuitive to have it per user instead of shared.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This reminds me of Adobe Connect in terms of the UI, but way slicker and doesn't have Connect's outrageous enterprisy pricing. Nice.

</comment><comment><USER7> You're the guys behind meetcast right? meetcast.com is 404'ing right now. You should probably do a 301.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah we are. Thanks for the heads up, we'll forward to teamapart.com.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Really love the layout of your marketing website. It is beautifully simple. I'm taking notes!</comment>


Build .NET Desktop Applications Using HTML, CSS and JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/NeutroniumCore/Neutronium <comment><USER2> As an alternate approach for .NET desktop apps, Electron.NET[0] is a variant of Electron that adds a dotnet backend. Build your UI in the HTML/CSS/JS flavor of your choice and then implement the functionality backing that UI in C#.

Electron.NET is relatively new and I just yesterday published what I think is the first boilerplate sample for it (using React/Typescript/MobX) [1] (note: my sample app currently looks terrible because there's exactly zero CSS applied, I was hoping to get some of that added later this week having gotten the functional details working first. The demo in the Electron.NET repo replicates the stock Electron demo, if you'd like to start your explorations with pretty first).

[0] [https://github.com/ElectronNET/Electron.NET](https://github.com/ElectronNET/Electron.NET)

[1] [https://github.com/yoDon/Electron.NET-React-Typescript- MobX](https://github.com/yoDon/Electron.NET-React-Typescript-MobX)

<comment><USER3> Both projects eventually use the Chromium renderer, just with .NET bindings, so all you're doing is introducing a whole new framework dependency in order to make development a bit easier.

While I love the concept (and C#/.NET in general), this is yet another performance hit for end users.

<comment><USER2> You don't have to use Electron if you don't want to, and end users don't have to use apps if they don't like the performance characteristics of the apps. That said, there are a lot of very well liked apps being built very quickly on the the Electron framework, and those of us who like C# can do so even more happily using Electron.NET. So to tl;dr this answer to your comment, yes, it's 100% about introducing the desired framework dependency to make development easier.

<comment><USER4> What I don't understand is: If Electron apps can be compiled to be cross- platform out of the box, why use an Electron binding for .NET that makes it inherently locked into Windows (without jumping through fancy hoops for other platforms)? I wrote _a lot_ of Windows-only freeware on .NET over the years, and there's just no reason for it that I can see, if the core component of an app is cross-platform by default.

<comment><USER2> > Why use an Electron binding for .NET that makes it inherently locked to > Windows

You're a couple years behind on cross platform support in dot net and completely missing the cross platform support in Electron/Electron.NET. Zero hoops to jump. Electron.NET apps just work, out of the the box, on macOS and Linux, in addition to on Windows. Today.

<comment><USER5> I don't think this is cross-platform:

Cross Platform? (Closed): [https://github.com/NeutroniumCore/Neutronium/issues/14](https://github.com/NeutroniumCore/Neutronium/issues/14)

And it looks like all the examples reference .net 4.5, which isn't .net core: [https://github.com/NeutroniumCore/Neutronium/search?p=1&q=NE...](https://github.com/NeutroniumCore/Neutronium/search?p=1&q=NETFramework&type=&utf8=%E2%9C%93)

<comment><USER6> That's not Electron.NET which is what the parent was referring to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Serious question as a .NET developer...

Why? What's the advantage?

My first thought would be to skip the .NET and just use JavaScript all the way down. Or skip JavaScript and just go .NET all the way down.

Second thought would be to just go typical client-server, which is what I think I'm basically seeing here?

The advantages aren't clear to me.

<comment><USER2> Microsoft has so mismanaged WPF over the years that most developers want nothing to do with it. That means the dot net world lacks any sort of real UI building capability, forcing us int HTML/CSS/JS front ends (at least until Mono goes live with their WebAssembly port of dot net, at which point we can write our front ends in C# again, hopefully not far into 2018)

<comment><USER8> >the dot net world lacks any sort of real UI building capability

Off the shelf, yes. But third party providers like Devexpress and Telerik have stepped into that gap and now produce some very polished component suites that sit on top of Winforms. At a cost, of course, and more geared towards the enterprise market.

I've used component suites like these in new .Net desktop products and without fail they're received well.

<comment><USER9> My main product is largely WinForms and the UI was quick and easy to develop.

The two downsides that stop me using it now are poor high dpi support and lack of decent cross platform support.

<comment><USER10> High DPI support is available on .NET Framework 4.7.

[https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/dotnet/framework/winforms/h...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/dotnet/framework/winforms/high-dpi-support-in-windows-forms)

EDIT: Typo

<comment><USER11> That's 4.7, not 7.

<comment><USER10> Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Avalonia [0] is a cross-platform XAML-like UI library for .NET that supports Windows, Linux, and Mac via their native UI toolkits.

0: [http://avaloniaui.net](http://avaloniaui.net)

</comment><comment><USER12> Isn't this what Electron is for? Why do this?

</comment><comment><USER13> Is there anything similar for Java and electron?

</comment><comment><USER14> DotVVM has Electron support. Have you looked at it?

</comment><comment><USER4> or just like, use Electron and cut out the dependency on .NET

<comment><USER15> Better yet, use .NET and cut out dependency on Electron.

<comment><USER4> if the whole point of the lib is to run html/js/css in a desktop-friendly app, you don't need .NET for any of it. yes, I've worked with both and worked with the browser interfaces for .net as far back as 1.0. It's simply not needed.</comment></comment></comment>


The Atlantic suspends the Scientology advertorial - <AUTHOR> http://m.theatlantic.com/misc/notice/ <comment><USER2> This was a much more telling article than the culties would ever want to admit. Read it. Carefully. Notice how they ever talk about buildings, and never people. Were this legitimate growth, we'd see much more information on the numbers, and of the people, filling these rooms. We'd see them announcing from the rooftops the number of "clears" they've made over the past five years. Instead, it's the same old story, of hollow husks of buildings constructed. of Miscavige in photo after photo looking exactly the same.

The deletion of critical comments was equally telling of how desperate The Atlantic was in making sure the church got their squeaky image. From the story being told, giving the sales department editorial control over these comments is just wrong headed and asinine. Which leads to the scarier question -- exactly how high up the chain was this decision made? Forcing community content moderators to eschew their standards in order to make a few bucks makes me question any desire to read the Atlantic in the future, regardless of if they pulled the content or not.

<comment><USER3> What is bizarre is this: how are they getting the money to build all these huge, fancy buildings and hold these kinds of ceremonies? This must be hundreds of millions of dollars. And they aren't all in podunk towns; one was even in Israel.

Are they that good at wringing money out of people? Wow.

<comment><USER4> I'm pretty sure the whole "religion" is designed as a machine to extract the maximum possible amount of money from psychologically vulnerable people. Basically it's like an RPG - you level up slowly, paying gradually more as you move up the stages. The level of craziness starts off low then climbs in step as you effectively prove at each step that you are credulous enough to swallow the next stage up. So they don't tell you about the alien spirits reborn in volcanoes until they are well and truly sure you will fall for it (and the accompanying multi-thousand dollar tomes of gold-lettered L. Ron Hubbard- penned secret ultimate final truth (oops - ultimate until the next stage!)) And there are all sorts of ways in which doing the right thing and supporting your new friends involves parting with lots of money - for doing so of course you are congratulated and told you are wonderful by your new best friends.

<comment><USER5> > I'm pretty sure the whole "religion" is designed as a machine to extract the > maximum possible amount of money from psychologically vulnerable people.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_controversies#L._Ro...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_controversies#L._Ron_Hubbard_and_starting_a_religion_for_money)

<comment><USER6> I know the BBC have had some bad press lately with the child sex abuse scandal, making them not-so-angelic, but I find it INCREDIBLY hard to believe the BBC would organise a protest anywhere. It'd probably illegal for them to do do, but I'm not 100% on that.

The BBC is funded by us, UK residents, and if we own a television that allows us to watch TV as its aired then we are forced to pay a fee by law. I would find it a total misappropriation of funds if they were to organise any kind of protest and I would insulted if they were to assume my allegiance like that - I'm sure MANY would feel the same.

Don't get me wrong, I do not support Scientology and I think they're a very shady organisation but I pay the BBC for television, not to organise protests.

<comment><USER5> ... what are you responding to?

I linked to the part where multiple people report Hubbard said religion is a good way to make money. The only mention of the BBC and protests is Scientology making wild claims about the BBC.

<comment><USER6> Apologies, I forgot to mention that's what I was referring to.

I'm using my phone and it doesn't play ball with URI fragments and Wikipedia. I must have clicked your link to read, was thrown to the beginning and caught the stuff about the BBC. I felt compelled to comment about it because of how ridiculous it is.

Everything about scientology to me is ridiculous really. From the founder's intentions and previous occupation as a sci-fi writer to the fact people are prepared to go militant over it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The really confounding thing here was the shaping/censoring on the comments... Want to post something that looks like an article with a comment area to boot? A responsible publication must then at least allow a healthy discourse, so that readers who don't spot the advertisement can find a little enlightenment. Alternately they may have, in good conscience, permitted no user feedback at all; put "Comments on sponsored content are unavailable" at the bottom. Good enough.

The illusion of an article plus a sham of heavily censored comments went beyond the pale.

<comment><USER4> The guys from Scientology's PR department requested moderated comments with (I suppose) overtly negative comments removed. As they were paying for the content to be run, they were free to request any terms and conditions that they desired. The Atlantic was free to accept or refuse the terms and conditions and in this instance chose to accept them.

For what it's worth I found it interesting to hear comments from people outing themselves as enthusiastic Scientologists. First time I've come across that on the web.

<comment><USER8> > _I found it interesting to hear comments from people outing themselves as > enthusiastic Scientologists._

I didn't read any of the comments; were they actual people you'd heard of before, or random scientologists for whom the association was already moderately public, or total sock puppets?

<comment><USER4> The second.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I guess everyone can stop hyperventilating.

I subscribe to The Atlantic's Kindle version for (a shockingly cheap) $3 a month. Maybe it's $2? I don't know. I have also subscribed to The New Yorker but always had trouble finishing an issue. Most of the material just didn't resonate with me.

The Atlantic, however, is everything I could want in a rag. I love it, and I'm happy to see them suspend this piece of ill-thought out advertising...

<comment><USER10> I have never finished an issue of the New Yorker before another issue comes out, but the two or three articles I do read tend to be amazing. It's definitely worth the steep price of admission.

I subscribed to the Atlantic recently (and won't be canceling, since they retracted the Scientology ad) and have to say that I get as much or more from their web articles as I do the print edition. I guess there's less guilt now though.

<comment><USER11> They haven't quite retracted it yet: " _We have temporarily suspended this advertising campaign pending a review of our policies that govern sponsor content and subsequent comment threads._ "

<comment><USER12> That's probably because they are still trying to figure out if Scientology can sue them for breach of contract. Org lawyers are less stable than old dynamite.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't understand the "sponsored" content gambit, but I do recall reading various print magazines that had bundled content inside of them that looked very much like "real" articles but were basically sponsored ads. But I don't understand it. I would think that any ad that looks like your material fundamentally is misleading your readers by conflating your brand, your mission, your reputation with its own.

So I don't understand sponsored content, and I certainly don't understand making it look like regular, non-sponsored content.

Going further, the notion of allowing moderated and only favorable comments on your sponsored content is even more deceptive. Hey, but maybe not. Maybe more deceptive would be having the sponsored content that looks like your own material and then allowing all comments which might give even more credence to the mistaken impression the sponsored content is not sponsored.

So whatever, if the Atlantic wants to flush its reputation down, and that of James Fallows and so many other writers, hey, free country, free speech, there really is nothing to complain about.

So in that sense, what I find more dubious is this. The Atlantic taking sponsored content from GE, but refusing to take sponsored content from Scientology.

In what real, legal, sense, provable by things on the book, is Scientology different from GE that makes it okay for The Atlantic to take money from GE and not Scientology?

The FBI is conducting its first investigation into Scientology in 30 years, but apart from stories, in a sense doesn't that confirm Scientology basically runs as a legal business? And in the sense the US Government seems to recognize Scientology as a religion, why is it okay for The Atlantic to refuse content from Scientology? ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology#Recognition_as_a_re...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology#Recognition_as_a_religion)) Would it so easily refuse content from Catholic, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, or Islamic organizations? (How many investigations of GE has the FBI performed in the past 30 years?)

Again, The Atlantic is responsible for their own content, I have no idea why they do this sponsored content in the first place, if they want to flush Ta- Nehisi Coates reputation down the toilet that's their right, maybe with Andrew Sullivan branching out they have much more limited dollars, but, ...

Hey I think they just compounded their initial stupid decision on sponsored content by caving to whomeever. I think they now look worse, not better. I think their response needs to be along the lines of no more sponsored content, or an explanation of what makes Scientology different.

All that said, to hell with Scientology.

<comment><USER10> Businesses such as the Atlantic are not obliged to take advertising from all comers. Showing up with your $50 or whatever does not guarantee you equal time in anybody's magazine. In fact, even if it did it would be ill-advised, if the brands are contradictory; you don't expect to see a Walmart ad in the New Yorker yet I'm sure Walmart can afford to run them there, likewise you don't see Louis Vuitton ads in PC Magazine. Both parties in the advertising relationship are free to choose and refuse each other, like any other contractual arrangement between people or corporations. This isn't a first- amendment issue.

<comment><USER14> I'd agree, except there have been cases like this:

> The judge, Paul A. Engelmayer of Federal District Court, ruled that the > rejected ad was "not only protected speech — it is core political speech," > [...] As such, the judge held, the ad "is afforded the highest level of > protection under the First Amendment."

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/21/nyregion/mta-violated- righ...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/21/nyregion/mta-violated-rights-of- pro-israel-group-judge-says.html)

Here's one of the ads: <http://i.imgur.com/iY0bx.jpg>

<comment><USER15> The difference is that The Atlantic is a private company. They aren't obligated to uphold the First Amendment. The MTA is a pseudo-government entity (a New York state public-benefit corporation[1], to be exact) and is (apparently) subject to the First Amendment.

[1]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_state_public_benefit_c...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_state_public_benefit_corporations)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Even before this suspension there was recent evidence that _in non- advertorials_ The Atlantic was willing to call out Scientology. Googling "scientology site:theatlantic.com" yields, for example:

[http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/01/a-wonder...](http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/01/a-wonderful- new-book-about-scientology-by-a-wonderful-writer/267178/) (dated Jan 14, 2013. Weirdly _un_ critical, simple praise for a book on Scientology)

July 2012 The Atlantic: "Psychiatry vs. Scientology":

[http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/07/scientolog...](http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/07/scientology- vs-psychiatry-a-case-study/259279/)

<comment><USER17> "dated Jan 14, 2013. Weirdly uncritical, simple praise for a book on Scientology"

Jeffrey Goldberg posted that in response to or in protest of the advertorial.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I understand the commercial need to make money, but if you have to trade your credibility in for the cash, it is probably a sign that your business model is over. Time to close the doors, or find a realistic method of finance.

<comment><USER19> Entertainment Tonight is still on TV.

The Atlantic used to make money by being reputable and engaging.

They could easily decide to make money by making money. I'd miss them, but one day someone will say "The Atlantic is still on the web" in response to a similar comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's interesting to see everybody up in arms about how The Atlantic have "crossed the line" or "gone too far" because they took cash in exchange for a blatant advertorial, as though up until yesterday they were a sterling example of journalistic integrity.

If you do a little googling, [https://www.google.com.au/#hl=en&q=%22theatlantic.com%2F...](https://www.google.com.au/#hl=en&q=%22theatlantic.com%2Fsponsored%22+site:theatlantic.com)

you'll see they've been doing it for a while. article after article of complete self-serving bullshit from whoever's willing to pay.

I suppose the difference here is people really love to hate Scientology (with good reason, too.)

</comment><comment><USER21> Does anyone know what the weird Hebrew (?) writing on those two symbols says? It seems somewhat out of place, along with the crosses, given that Scientology is not a Jewish or Christian sect.

<comment><USER22> "Church of Scientology of Israel"

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I would like to believe that the responsible adults have now stepped in to clean up the mess caused by some moron in sales being given too much of a free hand.

</comment><comment><USER24> I never saw this. Anyone got a pointer to a mirror?

<comment><USER25> Google Cache: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.theatlantic.com%2Fsponsored%2Fscientology%2Farchive%2F2013%2F01%2Fdavid- miscavige-leads-scientology-to-milestone- year-%2F266958%2F&oq=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.theatlantic.com%2Fsponsored%2Fscientology%2Farchive%2F2013%2F01%2Fdavid- miscavige-leads-scientology-to-milestone- year-%2F266958%2F&sugexp=chrome,mod=16&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)

Image Mirror (Via Reddit): <http://i.minus.com/iCziY2iQpxWav.jpg>

<comment><USER26> Addendum: That top comment was deleted after a while, too, leaving only the obviously pro Scientology comments

<comment><USER27> The comment had reached over 630 upvotes (I think) when I saw it. Compared to at most ~30 for the next most upvoted comment… that little piece of data from the ads readership might've been enough for the editorial staff to make the change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> For those following the numbers, it would appear that traffic from HN is worth more to The Atlantic than however much Scientology paid.

<comment><USER29> This was much bigger than just HN. Twitter lit up like a Christmas tree on this issue last night.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Clearly editorial and sales have misalignment. The good news is that pulling the advertorial shows that the editors are still in charge. The Atlantic would do well to ensure that it remains that way. Quality content is the only way to earn respect in the long run.

<comment><USER31> _pulling the advertorial shows that the editors are still in charge_

What kind of editing is it that would allow this crap to appear for a few hours? This shows that they didn't expect and couldn't handle the backlash, but nothing more. Well, maybe that the Disqus censorship hamster wheels were overheating, too. But unless they come clean and distance themselves from this in no unclear terms, and ask for forgiveness, they can just go play in traffic (pun wasn't on purpose but I'm keeping it).

<comment><USER23> Maybe it just shows that they gave advertising too much of a free hand? "It's better to ask forgiveness than permission." and all that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Would love to do a fact check of the Goldman Sachs sponsored content.

</comment><comment><USER33> happy reading:

<http://kspaink.home.xs4all.nl/fishman/home.html>

</comment><comment><USER34> One word: Good.

<comment><USER31> 4 words: too little, too late.

<comment><USER10> Too little? Were you hoping for a refund of your $0?

Too late? It was online for all of three hours.

You're going to have to lower that bar if you expect anyone to get over it.

<comment><USER31> _Were you hoping for a refund of your $0?_

How about an apology? Even just "we are sorry for any confusion we may have caused", _anything_ to indicate they are remotely aware of the gravity of wtf they just did?

 _It was online for all of three hours._

During which all negative comments except one were censored, while the votes spoke very clearly what the silenced majority was thinking. And that thing shouldn't have been online for even 5 minutes.

They pulled it because of the backlash. That ain't enough. Every slimy scumbag sociopath understands punishment and eats chalk in response.. so?

 _You're going to have to lower that bar if you expect anyone to get over it._

Right, I totally forgot that everybody, and every body of people I trust and respect, occasionally slips up and supports Scientology while engaging in censorship, for "just a few hours". I guess I'll just have to be a hermite now :( Oh well, I'll take consolation in the fact that Scientology won't get me either. Nor will any of the complacent, spineless twats who just shrug it off when an organization which holds so many people hostage in such a cynical way gets an advertisement by a (former) newspaper. If this shit doesn't make you angry then you know what, fuck you as well.. as you can see, my bar is even higher than you thought, hah.

<comment><USER10> How about it's 1 AM in DC? Can't wait until morning for your apology? "I demand justice—and I have to have it before going to bed!"

I saw the article—there were plenty of negative comments. Not all of them were overt ("Too bad Shelly Miscavige couldn't attend!") but there were plenty there, along with huge quantities of downvotes on ambivalent and pro- Scientology comments. Much like unreported rapes, how accurate can your statistics on censored comments really be? Did you leave a "fuck you, Scientology!" comment and it didn't show up? Maybe there are other explanations we can identify before positing some kind of conspiracy.

Changing behavior because of backlash has to be enough sometimes. Especially with organizations. Not every person in this country is as acquainted with Scientology as we are—most Americans think they're just some kind of new age religion for celebrities and are totally unaware of the kidnapping, abuse, murder, etc. Not every company can afford to have every decision filter through every person in the hierarchy to the top before its effects are felt.

<comment><USER31> Thanks for not taking my anger at this personally, I was being out of line. But to think that just one gullible person might fall into the clutches of Scientology because of this, really does bother me. I know they might follow up on all this with an editorial or something, but I would be surprised if it was an equally strong criticism of Scientology as the ad and the comments to it was praise of it. So I don't see the potential damage being undone. Trying to get away with something like this, to me marks any organization, unless it expels its elements which lead to those decisions, as utterly poisonous. And maybe they really cannot learn, maybe we have to play natural selection, instead of being understanding and patient and whatnot. But still, thanks for a level-headed reply to a kind of BS post, I'm just not editing it because I think that's lame; but I regret having it phrased that way, and being so full of myself when it's not really about me at all.

<comment><USER10> I saw this and thought of you: [http://www.theonion.com/articles/sponsored- the-taliban-is-a-...](http://www.theonion.com/articles/sponsored-the-taliban- is-a-vibrant-and-thriving-po,30910/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> How bad do the finances of a visibly healthy publication have to be, to go down the path of advertorials?

Are things in print media that chafing?

NYT being bankrolled and drip-fed for survival, by a Mexican billionaire is one thing.

I was an avid reader of the Atlantic when David Brooks wrote for it. It was a fine publication back then.

I didn't realize things, lately, had gotten so dire.

This is just appalling.

Why aren't these print guys experimenting with alternate brick-and-mortar distribution models?

<comment><USER10> When I got an Android device, I discovered they are trying an alternative distribution model. This company Next Issue sells a subscription for $10/month that basically entitles you to read any of some ~50 magazines on your tablet. The thing that really rubbed me the wrong way is that I theoretically get the New Yorker electronic edition for free since I'm a full subscriber, but I'd still have to pay an extra $10/month to use the Next Issue app (unlike the New Yorker app for iPad). They also sell a "premium" subscription for $15/month that includes the New Yorker and some other "premium" magazines (like Sports Illustrated). Then I discovered the New Yorker restricts people to devices with particular resolutions, which my tablet didn't have.

So they're trying to figure it out, in fits and starts, but they seem to be aiming for Hulu, which doesn't strike me as the best model of success.

<comment><USER35> I, for one, think that print publications have left far too many revenue streams on the table when the going was good, before the advent of Craigslist & Google, even before the blogs of today - Huffington Post & the like - started robbing attention share away from established print outlets.

Print publications were and are notoriously stubborn in many ways. They could have done a dozen things to immunize themselves from the online entrants in the early days. They didn't. Now they're having to deal with the consequence of their arrogance and myopia in ways they've never imagined.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I wonder how many subscribers and advertising clients threatened (or did) pull their funding of The Atlantic?

The the time I saw it hit front page here, to now hasn't been that long. Must have hurt their bottom line.

<comment><USER37> Or the sensibilities of their editorial staff, some of whom may not have even known about it until it went out.

Damage is already done, though.

<comment><USER23> If they show that they take this screw-up seriously, then they could still come out looking pretty good.

<comment><USER37> They'll have to do better than the one sentence non-reply they have posted, but I totally agree. All organizations mess up, how they handle it can be instructive.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


What's Different about "Unicorns" - <AUTHOR> http://foundersatwork.posthaven.com/whats-different-about-unicorns <comment><USER3> She and the majority of investors that write about founders have the "company purpose" thing backwards.

Almost all the CEO/Founders that speak of deep purpose have arrived via a strong path of revisionist history.

I'm the founder of two large tech companies and the way that it goes is that most founders have an idea that is driven by some vague desire to solve something or test something. What ends up happening is that as the idea grows you are forced to recruit people and money. As you are forced to tell the story of your company, you workshop the emotional parts to become more effective in resonating with your audience. By the time you are raising even an "A round" your story is extremely polished and emotionally moving.

I must add this is almost never done with manipulative intent or dishonesty. The mere act of becoming an orbit as the company grows demands persuasion at ever level.

The story of purpose is heightened by the success, it does not create it.

<comment><USER4> I think you nailed it, and that's why vantage points matter. Sitting from a VC's vantage point, it seems like every successful founder who comes through the door to pitch you has a deep sense of purpose.

The reality is that by the time a founder has even entered the door of a VC, the persuasion is perfected to an incredibly obsessive level by necessity and through trial and error. It's to a point where even the founder starts seeing their own revisionist history as actual history...because there's really no other option. There's nothing wrong with this - it's extremely rational and a normal consequence of the environment. When you pitch that often and craft your story that often of course you will buy into it more and more over time regardless of the extent to which you bought into it initially.

It's really the attempt to understand this phenomenon from the wrong vantage point that is flawed - as you pointed out.

<comment><USER5> > There's nothing wrong with this - it's extremely rational and a normal > consequence of the environment.

Then perhaps there's something wrong with the environment.

<comment><USER3> Not really, you are a Pavlovian animal in every aspect of your life. Everyone is.

That fact is not mutually exclusive to having integrity or living a thoughtful life though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have an issue with this quote from the article "If you sell your life's work, then what are you supposed to do?"

As though you've somehow failed by succeeding. By finishing what you set out to do before actually dying.

Want to know what success really looks like? Watch this video of Fred Pattachia retiring from professional surfing mid-season, mid-contest, mid- heat, after scoring a perfect 10 point ride and knowing that he'd accomplished everything he wanted from the sport. He just high fived the other guy in the water and caught a wave in to the beach with 10 minutes left in the heat (that he still technically won):

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

For me, that's way more inspirational than what Jessica is talking about in the article. A guy in his 30s, recognizing that he just completed his "Life's Work", and deciding on the spot to move on to the next thing.

<comment><USER7> Any 'important' field is infinitely deep and never allows one to accomplish everything because no one knows what there is yet to achieve. A physicist does not quit just because they recieve a nobel price, for instance - "Ok, I've contributed all I wanted to contribute".

The question is, is the chosen field 'incomplete' or 'complete'. If the entrepreneurs goals is just to cash a check then his chosen task can be completed. If it's 'bring X to market and let others finish it' likewise. On the other hand, if the business becomes the entrepeneurs baby and they just want to nurture it I'm not sure if that path is necessarily ever complete.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> After reading the previous article in which Jessica mentions "grabbing coffee with investors" as waste of time, I am conflicted. Most VC and angels advise to form personal relationship and yet here I am being advised against.

Do VC's even think from a new start-up perspective? Why is there so much chasm between what they think and what really is for startups on ground?

I am running a start-up and my time is split between customer support , managing my team, forming partnership ( which Jessica didn't want to) , developing ML code, creating roadmaps and attempting to talk to VC's

Partnership with Intel is how I got a free deep learning machine on cloud, partnership with IBM got me business contacts to network.

And there is this fanatic obsession of ARR.

Honestly, as an upcoming startup we would have been long dead if we had listened to any typical advice from VC firm. One of the first question from Sequoia partner was about ARR although we are growing and I explained we are focused on almost zero churn rate as customer data is more important than his money for our ML.

Are we missing anything?

</comment><comment><USER9> Finding your life's work is the hardest part I think. Once you solve that the rest is easy.

<comment><USER10> I never understood why the term "life's work" tends to be singular. There's something defeatist to it.

<comment><USER6> Indeed.

EDIT: I moved this comment up to a top level thread:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14669273](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14669273)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Being around at the time, working on a site for a 1000 students at one college in 2004 actually did sound pretty cool.

<comment><USER12> I was actually working on a site for 1000 students at one college in 2004 (Amherst had its own social network for students, 3 years before Facebook, and it still exists). It sounded and was pretty cool, but the thing is - <USER2> working on it thought that it could possibly be a business. It was just this student-run club that we'd have some fun with while avoiding our homework and then forget about once we got jobs.

Zuckerburg's genius was in realizing that Facebook wasn't just a hobby, it could actually be a huge business.

<comment><USER13> A friend I was working with in 2004 also ran a social network for North Carolina State University. The difference was (and is) that it was just an online bullentin board system.

Zuck's genius is his execution ability and making a prime product combined withthe exclusivity of elite Universities. He was also on CNBC in 2004 so that combination of skill and Harvard created a grand opportunity.

Surely people thought easy social networks would be a big business -- MySpace and AOL proved that. Of course, no one could had reasonably predicted it'd be as big as it is.

<comment><USER14> Don't forget another big differentiator of FB from a bunch of others at the same time was having a few (accidental? intentional?) very dark psychological patterns.

At the time, real names were not commonly used online. That coupled with very real 'stalkability' of how FB was used at universities made it much stickier than others. Embedding a "relationship" function into the same software as your "class schedule" was bizarre - but apparently very effective social manipulation. Having in-class life so closely linked with social-life as well as daily preferences and even vacation pictures really embedded itself into a social nerve in a way any network designed with a more singular goal in mind really would not have.

<comment><USER15> I still remember with complete clarity the shock when Facebook posted my "real name" publicly. No website had done that before. I was glad to have used a fake surname.

There are people today who think my fake Facebook surname is actually my real surname. I'm considering changing my real surname to match my fake Facebook name.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> So much of institutional investor's money that all inevitable mistakes and gliches could be quickly and quetly (and costly) fixed.

</comment><comment><USER17> > Now we've got to focus on the next target: more women-founded billion dollar > companies.

Why? 'Billion dollar' is just an arbitrary target. Why not focus on more $500M women founded companies?

<comment><USER18> Value signalling.

Also, there is a push to increase the labor supply of programmers to drive down labor costs and the largest untapped source of software dev labor is women. This is just a side effect of trying to increase women programmers: an increase in women programmer founders.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> When someone asks you to reread an advice they gave long time ago.. He/She lost me at that. Even if it is Jessica Livingston.

</comment><comment><USER20> It's all bull.

Uber was this so call Unicorn.

These analyst of what's a unicorn or not is more closer to horoscope than to real data analysis.

</comment><comment><USER21> Perfect timing i.e. luck.</comment>


Proposed Minecraft fan film canceled on Kickstarter by Notch - <AUTHOR> http://www.polygon.com/2014/2/7/5391312/minecraft-film-canceled-on-kickstarter

<comment><USER2> This is crazy, how can someone publicly raise money for a project, when he hasn't even negotiated property critical to the whole idea of the movie?

Just think of the negotiation position of both parties. How much money did the guy budget for the rights? What if Mojang wanted more? This is just bad business practice and Notch is right for nipping it in the bud.

</comment><comment><USER3> Absolutely their right. Pretty sure they would have made a very good deal with the film author and everybody would have benefited.

> We don't allow half a million kickstarters based on our ip without any deals > in place. :/

Using the term "IP" leaves a sour taste in my mouth, though.

</comment><comment><USER4> Apparently one of the co-creators of the freddiew channel on youtube. They make really good videos, with film level cgi.

[https://www.youtube.com/user/freddiew/videos?view=0&flow=gri...](https://www.youtube.com/user/freddiew/videos?view=0&flow=grid)

Too bad they didn't talk to Mojang first.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you mean me, no, I am unrelated.

I just read about the announcement of the film the other day. And saw a cryptic Twitter message from Notch today. A quick "Google News" search turned up this story. I searched on HN if the news was already there, and then submitted it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> From the polygon article and the short video on the Birth of a Man's Kickstarter page, this seems like massive IP overreach. It's like an artist advertising their favorite paint by making a painting of the paint and then the paint company saying they can't use the paints in commercial ventures. For example, Devoe paint prohibiting Jackson Pollock from allowing museum showings of #5 ([http://www.nga.gov/feature/pollock/painting5.shtm](http://www.nga.gov/feature/pollock/painting5.shtm)).

</comment><comment><USER6> Well, it's Mojang's right.

<comment><USER7> To cancel a film based in a virtual scenario created by them? Then that is not necessarily true. Depends on the jurisdiction.

<comment><USER6> Trademark issues might be a problem, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A surprisingly poor move from someone who historically has been a game development hero.

Before reading the article and understanding the campaign, I initially thought Notch axed it because this guy wanted to create a film about Notch. It would be reasonable to cancel such an endeavor: leaving your legacy up to filmmakers is not a wise move, as Woz recently discovered. Since that's the only scenario in which this cancellation would be reasonable, I assumed that was the reason.

Actually not. This is purely a creative work which has been completely sunk for no reason other than "You didn't run it by me ahead of time." It was clearly a work of passion. Watch the video: [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/878782324/birth-of- man-...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/878782324/birth-of-man-a- minecraft-feature-film)

Yes, it's Notch's right to cancel this artist's dream. It's also his right to add in-game purchases to Minecraft, and force people to pay extra for the privilege of using diamond pickaxes. Both of those decisions wouldn't reflect favorably upon him, however.

EDIT: My main problem with this move is that the film didn't involve Notch in any way. It's unrelated to him except insofar as it uses his game as a setting for an artistic work. It seems like the primary motivation for the cancellation was rooted in greed.

<comment><USER9> The Minecraft brand and IP are constantly being misappropriated by others for commercial gain, the Minecraft IP is owned by Notch and he has every moral and legal right to protect it. There are numerous deals that are in place that allow third parties to make use of the Minecraft IP for commercial gain, Jinx, Think Geek, Lego, Danilo, 57Digital, 2PP, Sony, Microsoft, deal after deal after deal... Notch has set a clear precedent: If you want to make a commercial venture with the Minecraft IP, work with his company and if they can make it work, they will. This is not a "creative work", it's a commercial work. The creator of this project has previously made creative works involving the Minecraft IP and posted them on Youtube with no opposition from Notch, here's one: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPFD2PVtKQE](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPFD2PVtKQE)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Minecraft Movie 'The Birth of Man' Nixed by Notch:

[http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/02/07/minecraft-movie- the-b...](http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/02/07/minecraft-movie-the-birth-of- man-nixed-by-notch)

</comment><comment><USER10> If it's not yours, you need permission. It's not really that hard to understand.</comment>