Venture Capital's Answer to High-Priced Housing: Dorms for Grown Ups - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/venture-capitals-answer-to-high-priced-housing-dorms-for-grown-ups-1458034201 <comment><USER2> I work next to their brand new WeLive on Mission in SF. And from where I sit, I see trouble.

1\. Similar models are popping up all over the city, including the much more sophisticated Panoramic just up a block. Beds starting at $1500. Yes Beds.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LI0tqVmGtI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LI0tqVmGtI)

2\. They built the Panoramic in the time it took WeLive to do their interior improvements. And when they were working on it, it was just a skeleton crew. The whole time I was thinking ... how are they financing the building? This is insane.

3\. WeLive has a main floor common space, where they've had two? events since they opened. Both were modestly attended, but certainly had a college dorm feel to it. Not anything anyone over 30 would be interested in.

4\. There appears to be value-added services in the common area, a cafe, a juice bar, etc, but I hardly see it used.

5\. They continue to putter around the building, putting a whole new set of scaffolding up, taking it down, putting it up again, doing some painting, taking the taping down, putting it up again, and I wonder ... what on earth are they doing? They had a year to get this right, what's the hold up.

6\. Compared to the huge number of apartments going in across the street -- 1900? WeLive is a ghost town.

[http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-planners- back...](http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-planners-back-bold- original-vision-for-6845780.php)

(ps. the Trinity has major problems going in to this as well. I see it as a huge bungle for the Planners. But I am waiting to see what the Market Street retail looks like. If it's anything like the Mission Street side, it'll keep that side of Market dead.)

So, in short, WeLive is some capital intensive problems, that a lot of smart people are trying to solve, just up the block and across the street, and nothing I see puts WeLive ahead of these guys.

Especially when landlords stop leasing to them at .5x, so that they can turn around and dormify the building and get 2x for it. Not with Panorama and Trinity right there.

<comment><USER3> Panoramic looks pretty awesome. Especially that they're actually doing testing and research on making something that is optimized.

<comment><USER4> I like the naming of the target audience as "Garden variety hipsters"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have a wide variety of reactions to this. Some positive, some negative. On the whole, I think it is approaching the problem from the wrong direction.

In order of appearance in my brain:

1\. So the infantilization (or at least very long childhood) of tech workers, that began with ball pits and video games and three meals a day served in the office, is complete. Tech workers may never become autonomous, functioning, adults at this rate.

2\. This sounds kinda nice, actually. But, only for like a week. Then I would hate everyone I share a bathroom and kitchen with. I'm too old for room mates.

3\. Oh! That's what's bugging me. Subtle age discrimination. People with families cannot possibly live in these things. People with families cannot possibly afford to live in actual housing in SF. So, older folks are pushed out of valley tech companies, without ever having to make ugly hiring decisions based on age. Younger workers are cheaper and will stay at the office longer hours (probably not more productive by doing so, but that's more difficult to measure).

So, yeah, this fits with what I know of the way a lot of VCs think about the problem of tech workers, as cogs in a money printing machine. This is a more efficient cog storage unit that happens to provide additional features, like filtering out older workers and people who want lives outside of work.

And, back to why this is approaching the wrong side of the problem: NIMBYs in SF and surrounding high rent areas keep housing prices astronomically high, by preventing construction of dense new housing. All of the valley has single family homes _everywhere_. Very tall buildings for housing are practically unheard of.

<comment><USER6> The VCs are also NIMBYs: they're in those $4 million bungalows in Palo Alto and they're loving the appreciation, so you could say they're working both ends.

I propose these dorms be called Nerd Storage Units (NSUs).

<comment><USER7> Apropos of not a whole hell of a lot: I remember my wife laughing at the neighbor who had his 11,000 sq ft house on 30 acres of land (fantastic view!) for sale at $4M because it would never sell for that much.

I really, really hope the $4M bungalow is an exaggeration, but I suspect if so, it's not by much.

<comment><USER8> Unlikely to be an exaggeration! I know engineers with 5-10 yrs experience having little choice but to buy homes that cost $1-1.5e6. Can they afford it? Probably so, but certainly at the cost of lesser savings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _Unlike traditional investments in the real-estate sector, which tends to be a slow-growth market with moderate returns, financial backers including Fidelity Investments and consumer-focused venture-capital fund Maveron are betting on hyper-fast expansion and startup-like profit._

"Startup-like profit"? So they plan to lose money for as long as investors will continue to write them checks?

<comment><USER10> If I had to hazard, the profit being referring to is the type where the company has profit potential on razor thin margins and requires massive cash infusions to grow it to numbers where the margins are substantial and support an exit. As long as those "curves" work for those who have money, their money will flow.

I've hypothesized that technology bubbles are created by injecting large amounts of stored work (causality) into a system. Stock market, dotcom bubble, Bitcoin, fuses in your breaker box, etc. In some cases, this stored work allows for the creation of trust channels. These trust channels are not always trustworthy. Consider poker games.

I no longer trust VCs because I think their "game" is driven by a very small set of limited partner's desire to make even more money than they already have or need. That they are willing to stuff a whole generation into a dorm on the "ifs and buts" of an exit is ridiculous.

This "gotta have more" strategy isn't holistic and isn't scalable. When it pops, it's going to be messy.

Bootstrap it. Move home, if you must. Move to to a cheap Asian country and build your dream. Whatever you do, do it with your eyes open and your mind free of dissonance. And remember, profit puts _you_ in charge, not them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> In Finland, there's an initiative called "A home that fits", letting young adults stay cheaply in the homes for the elderly: [http://edition.cnn.com/2016/01/21/europe/helsinki-seniors- ho...](http://edition.cnn.com/2016/01/21/europe/helsinki-seniors-home-oman- muotoinen-koti/)

<comment><USER12> This is actually an amazing idea on so many levels. _Everyone_ wins in this model: improved quality of life for the elderly, better housing for young people than they could afford on their own, improved density for city planners, increased social cohesion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> And here is another statement to confirm that no matter what sector VC is "reinventing", "disrupting" or "whatever is the latest buzzword" greed always comes first.

I live in 2 km² mansion, but you know guys I have these nice dorms for you to squeeze in...

<comment><USER14> I'm not usually one to appeal to classism, but it did make me laugh that Mr. Zuckerberg is buying up neighbouring properties around his multi-million dollar mansion, so as not to be disturbed by people in the vicinity. Meanwhile, Facebook employees are jammed into 200 square-foot dormitories.

<comment><USER15> That is not all the details.

Someone wanted to buy and then resell his neighbor's home with a selling point of living next to Zuckerberg.

Zuckerberg also rents the houses back to the original owners.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg- buys-4-homes-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-buys-4-homes- for-privacy-2013-10)

<comment><USER16> >Zuckerberg also rents the houses back to the original owners.

Sounds like a twisted reverse mortgage scheme where you get to pay rent on your old property as well.

Is this what is called financial innovation?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is related to a concept I've been thinking about for a while due to some trends I've seen in Boston.

Suppose you work for Acme Co. Acme Co is a multi national conglomerate.

\- One of Acme Cos subsidiaries operates the public transportation you use to get to work (The commuter trains in MA are operated by a private company)

\- One of Acme Cos subsidiaries owns the building you live in (this is particularly interesting because the trend in Boston has been for real estate investment trusts to buy up large swaths of smaller multi family homes for their portfolio, homes that were typically used as owner occupied means of wealth generation)

\- One of Acme Cos subsidiaries is the energy supplier you pay for electricity

\- One of Acme Cos subsidiaries is the cable company you pay for TV and internet

\- One of Acme Cos subsidiaries is the insurance company you use for your car/property/health insurance

\- One of Acme Cos subsidiaries is the charter school network you send your kids to

\- etc

Anyone else see this trend? What's the end game?

<comment><USER18> That we are very bad at remembering our history. Another post mentions the company town. As a resident of Rochester, NY, I can not help but think of the housing developments that were built by Kodak for employees in the company's height.

Being completely dependent on a single company like this for everything is not something I'd want to be a part of. Not unless the company had a strong commitment to its employees. My grandfather was a clothes washer repairman for many years, but eventually, his job became obsolete. In today's economy, the company would have "thanked him for his life" and then seen him to the door like a robber. In his case, the company invested in training him for another position. Without a strong commitment, this situation sets up a dependence that reduces a person's ability to handle transitioning when he leaves the company.

<comment><USER19> The self-named village that the Kohler Company (you've probably used their toilets or back-up generators at some point in your life) headquarters resides in is a good example. From what I understand, even today if you move there, you rent the property your house is on from the company, and the company has authority over aesthetics of house and business changes/renovations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> >coliving experiments in big cities, targeting young adults

I think layman translation of this marketing bullshit is "barrack"

[http://i.imgur.com/UB56u0G.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/UB56u0G.jpg)

<comment><USER21> Or better yet: tenement.

<comment><USER22> I don't know, don't tenements generally have "familial unit" rooms? The rooms are shared, but usually not with strangers or on a large scale. Barracks or "worker dormitories" fit better.

<comment><USER23> I like your "worker dormitories". Alternatives include rooming house, single room occupancy (SRO), flophouse, communal apartment, and cohousing, depending on the details.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> My favorite quote from the story: _" Variants include rooming houses, boardinghouses and single-room occupancy hotels, all of which offered housing for new arrivals and others in the working class, often with common facilities like shared bathrooms and in some cases ground-floor dining rooms."_

Think about that for a moment. This isn't a new idea, it is a recurrence of an idea that existed before when there was a huge gap between the "working class" and the "middle class". Think about all of the variables that make the system work that way, first you have to have a weak enough government that a small number of people can shut down the production of market rate housing, then you have to have a growing income disparity that can "freeze out" and separate the existing housing that spans the gap.

If I were a city supervisor I'd see the success of "rooming houses" as a failure of city management.

</comment><comment><USER25> This is insane. You could literally live palatially in any of a number of different locales for a fraction of the cost. I probably make half of what I could make in SFO, but my cost of living is 80% less.

I've never lived in SFO, but I've visited. It's a really nice place. But not nice enough to need this sort of nightmare.

When the economy yo-yos, these will turn into nasty SRO units for crazy/addicted people and blight the neighborhoods. I can't believe the zoning people let this go through. It took NYC years and years to clean these types of units up.

</comment><comment><USER26> "The wager is that 20-something residents moving to new cities will pay a premium"

I may be stupid, but how is charging a premium an answer to high prices?

Most will do what they've always done - house or apartment share.

<comment><USER27> The VC model necessitates throwing things that seem insane but have huge potential against the wall and seeing what sticks. On the off chance that they're right, everyone involved will profit handsomely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Hey VCs, I have another idea for you: spread out a little. I'd have to get paid a completely ridiculous sum of money before I'd be willing to move to San Francisco. People are over it.

This country is massive and has plenty of open land. The U.S. is the 3rd largest country by land area (behind Russia and Canada), but excepting Alaska, virtually all of our land is quite habitable, something neither Russia nor Canada can say. There is no reason anyone here should be paying $4k/mo to live in a tiny apartment.

On top of that, California is one of the worst states for business in the country.

There are ~40 states that have a totally untapped pool of resources including people, housing and land and a business-friendly legislature. Get out there and use them. And developers, push back against companies that want to enforce an SV-centric working methodology.

<comment><USER29> This is always bizarre to me. California is the biggest economy as a state in the country. As such, for as many people say it's "bad for business," there are a lot of businesses choosing it for a destination.

<comment><USER28> California is the most populous state in the country; it has about 12 million more people than the next-biggest state (Texas). In general, people aren't really actively choosing it as much as they're either a) already there and using it by default or b) forced to be there to more easily access the market of almost 40 million people that reside there. This is in fact the only reason that California _can afford_ to mistreat business owners -- they have a great deal of leverage.

However, tech hubs are draws in and of themselves, and they could easily be located in friendlier states. People will come out to them.

<comment><USER30> Again, California is NOT mistreating business owners. Not in the least. They're simply not screwing over workers.

As for those other tech hubs? Most are located in places where workers don't have basic rights, like the right to switch jobs (non-competes aren't enforceable in California) or the right to own the work they do on their own time (Employers in most cases cannot lay claim to work that someone does on their own time without company resources). Hence, they will never be popular as tech hubs or see the ecosystem of startups that Silicon Valley has.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I wanted to live in a dorm after college mainly for the social aspects, but now that I am in my thirties it would be miserable. I care more about peace and quiet, being settled, and privacy than about mobility or socializing. That said I think there's definitely a market for this, although there are apartment buildings in certain cities that are mostly filled with young college grads and I don't see how that's different. If competing on cost, then there's definitely a market for this.

I would worry about the safety and quality of such living arrangements, though. Buildings like this were built many years ago called single-room occupancy (SRO) residences. They eventually became havens for vagrants and other hard-luck elements. As a result, SRO residences were outlawed in many cities.

</comment><comment><USER32> I've lived in houses with up to 4 other people. When I travel, I frequently use hostels. This sounds like an interesting concept if executed well. The main reason I eventually moved into a two bedroom apartment was more to have a better location and nicer place than to get away from people.

How many resources do we waste on underutilized space? The US is more extreme here than any other country I've heard of.

<comment><USER33> I've always preferred my own space, even when I lived with 3 other people I was in the basement by myself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Calling this dystopian is giving it too much credit, it's just plain grim.

<comment><USER35> Funny how people call college dorm living "the best time of your life" but post-college is "grim"

<comment><USER36> They usually call _college_ "the best time of your life," not dorm living. Most college kids don't stay in dorms past their freshman year, and the ones that do don't have nearly as much fun as the ones who find off-campus accommodations. (Dorms in many schools, especially state schools, often forbid alcohol.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> A bit like the problem dating apps have, the more successful you are, the more churn you create.

Once a group of friends come together they'll get a house share of their own instead of sharing with strangers. Probably be cheaper too. Have they modeled for high churn rates in their already thin margins?

A premium service leaves your very vulnerable to the tide going out on disposable income. The co-living space will be left with higher long term leases they can no longer service. I really want to figure out a way to short services like WeWork at a 16b valuation.

<comment> rm_-rf_slash Speaking of dating apps, the worst part about dorm life was hearing people have sex or making sure your roommate knows not to walk in when they see a sock on the door.

If I were single and working 80 hours a week so my boss's boss can make billions on an IPO while I end up with barely enough to afford a Bay Area house, then maybe I would consider these arrangements for a little while. But instead I have a girlfriend and we value certain things more than money.

<comment><USER38> > Speaking of dating apps, the worst part about dorm life was hearing people > have sex or making sure your roommate knows not to walk in when they see a > sock on the door.

Wait, what? I always thought the sock on the door was the signal to join in.

<comment> rm_-rf_slash That was if the sock was _under_ the door.

You were one of _those_ roommates, weren't you?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Thanks to the paywall, I cannot read this article.

But, it seems like VC's have rediscovered that cutting edge Victorian technology, the boarding house. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boarding_house](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boarding_house)

<comment><USER40> > Thanks to the paywall, I cannot read this article.

Click "web" link below this thread title to open up Google search. Then follow the first link.

<comment><USER41> This doesn't seem to work anymore for a good number of people.

<comment><USER42> I've noticed that it won't work for most sites (for me, in Chrome at least) unless I open the web link in an incognito window. I assume it's related to cookies / referrer in some way

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I am skeptical that anyone will "disrupt" the low-cost housing market while make anything remotely close to an ROI that a VC expects.

20-somethings are miserable enough already, no need to commoditize their misery.

</comment><comment><USER44> Perhaps companies like Apple can get tips on worker dormitories from their business partners in asia:

[http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/10/ins...](http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/10/inside- foxconn-3-some-dormitories/263900/)

<comment><USER45> You mean every single company building electronics in China? "Companies like Apple" includes effectively every single company making electronics at a large scale.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I've always wondered if there's something inherently collegiate to the culture of tech, at least in SV startup culture. The veneration of youth, the alpha geek posturing, religious wars over languages/platforms/methodologies, work benefits being things like onsite bars and foosball tables, and the gender issues. I'm not saying that the media hysteria is accurate, but it seems like for whatever reason, software seems to have more of an arrested development culture than say, electrical engineering. Or other scientific and technological industries.

Could it be because software has a lower bar of entry, and with many young programmers starting work during college, right out of college, or dropping out entirely to start their own companies, there's less social development and growth than in other fields? In any case, having dorms be the solution to the housing crisis seems to fit with that college culture.

<comment><USER47> My personal opinion is that it has to do with the kind of people starting and running the companies (startups) that hire programmers in the first place. Company culture, after all, obeys the law of gravity like most things in a company. And I think it would be a useful exercise to study the source of the culture propagated in the stereotype you mention.

<comment><USER46> Given that the last few iterations of the computing revolution (Gates & co. to the Steves for PCs, Page & Brin to Zuckerberg for the web) have been shaped by bachelor university students or dropouts, all of whom embodied the code-until- burnout all-nighter lifestyle, I see what you mean. It's not just the people starting the companies- it's the people who started the fields!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Welcome to late stage capitalism, please enjoy your stay!

It's truly wonderful how the financial industry makes their money by inflating the price of things we need to live, through the mechanism of speculation, and then turns around to offer dystopian "solutions" like this.

<comment><USER49> I think 10 yrs of zero interest rate policy by the Fed has as much to do with it as the "financial industry".

I, for one, can't wait for a return to a more normal 2-3% fed funds rate. It'll give pensioners a chance at a reasonable retirement, and bring house prices down a bit, but we won't get it until the fed starts to see a bit of inflation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Now I see why VC funded startups don't like to hire remote workers.

</comment><comment><USER51> In Japan's 1980s real estate bubble Corporate Dorms were a thing too. The major difference was that they were company-specific.

As long as the locations can be reused for other housing, I'm perfectly happy to watch VCs invest money in the area. More housing stock is good. If investors make money, great. If they lose money, that's part of the risk. If the price point is wrong, the place will go belly up, someone will buy it out of bankruptcy and make a go of it at a lower price point.

SF will never have a shortage of young people in dire need of cheaper housing.

</comment><comment><USER52> Good idea. Bathrooms are under utilized, same for kitchens.

But it's a nightmare sharing with people who are strangers without some sort of authority to appeal to for noise / filth / shitty behaviour.

EDIT: seems people disagree. Well I've spent 2 years as a mature student living in that exact sort of housing in two different places. One with en- suite and one with shared bathroom.

Getting stuff clean and not having noise are constant irritations. Good luck getting the 6 friends sharing a dorm below you to keep the noise down.

<comment><USER53> Sure but it is the same challenge that exist with Road Congestion, Public Transport and countless of other services where there is a recurrent rush of influx at precise time. Trying sharing the same bathroom with three other adult working 9-5, whom aren't your friend or family members.

<comment><USER52> Yep, that was my point.

From experience I would say a room + en-suite bathroom is the only way to stay sane.

The grind of the kitchen wears you down. Where I am now my roommate cleans his plate when he is preparing his next meal so there is always one dirty plate on the side in the kitchen. The stovetop always has bits of food on it.

One gets tired of saying "Can you not?" because it is petty and you become a pain in the ass.

I've stayed in plenty of hostels too. People there will leave what they can get away with but the occasional member of staff is enough to keep things in check.

I would be all for this kind of living arrangement if the "can you not" was externalised to an authority figure to whom you could complain anonymously.

I also sleep with foam earplugs in. Thank goodness for health and safety at work :) The noise isn't enough to warrant real complaint - just people living and having fun. I guess plenty of people live with that. My actual home is silent so when I'm on the road I notice the bustle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Top comment on the article: FRANK DEUTSCHMANN "Ah, the return of the rooming house - a fitting capstone for the Obama presidency. Yeah, he caused that."

<comment><USER55> I didn't know the rooming house had gone away, for one thing. For another, this sounds less like the boarding house my father lived in than the group houses my friends I lived in. Obama wasn't born in my father's boarding house days, and I don't think he was out of college when I lived in group houses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> I thought this was going to be about the Draper University of Heroes [1], which looks like a competing space for wantrepreneurs fond of close-quarters living spaces. That one looks even more prestigious, but apparently you also have to take an oath to gain entry. Maybe a great option if you're within the age limit (18-28) and you're long on dreams but short on self-respect.

Seriously VCs, what are you guys thinking? These poor kids.

[1] [http://blog.sfgate.com/pender/2013/07/28/tim-drapers- boardin...](http://blog.sfgate.com/pender/2013/07/28/tim-drapers-boarding- school-for-heroes-in-san-mateo/)

</comment><comment><USER57> Anyone else bothered by the misleading chart "Rent as a percentage of income, people age 22-34"? It claims 78% for San Francisco and 65% for New York, which is absurd considering that people pay taxes.

I suspect the graphic is really showing the ratio of "median rent in San Francisco" to "median income income in San Francisco for people aged 22-34", which is much less meaningful (though it does say something about how expensive housing is).

Does anyone have actual statistics on the percentage of income that young people pay on rent, i.e., "median ratio of rent to income for people aged 22-34 in San Francisco"?

<comment><USER58> As a percentage of take home pay, those figures are quite plausible at least for NYC.

Looks like StreetEasy agrees, putting the figure at 58.4% for all renters: [http://streeteasy.com/blog/new-york-city-rent- affordability/](http://streeteasy.com/blog/new-york-city-rent-affordability/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> NYC recently changed regulations around apartments to allow for Micro Apartments. It reflects the changing demand from millennials (ownership vs rent, suburb vs urban)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/realestate/leasing- begins-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/realestate/leasing-begins-for- new-yorks-first-micro-apartments.html?_r=0)

</comment><comment><USER60> I can't wait to live in a tenement with my coworkers and getting my daily rations of soylent and coffee from a dispenser in the wall.

</comment><comment><USER61> So, what you're saying is the hippies were on to something? Legalized pot and communal living – what a time to be alive!

<comment><USER62> People associated with the hippie movement / sympathetic to its ideals have made massive, massive contributions to the history of personal computing. Check out [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Dormouse_Said](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Dormouse_Said)

That being said, both legalized weed and communal living are perfect examples of how counterculture ideas can become co-opted and corrupted by establishment greed.

<comment><USER63> _People associated with the hippie movement / sympathetic to its ideals have made massive, massive contributions to the history of personal computing._

As the old joke goes, "the two biggest things to come out of Berkeley are LSD and Unix. This is probably not a coincidence."

<comment><USER62> Two of my favorite things :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> > to live in what is essentially an upscale college dorm or a retirement home > for the young.

I take offense at this sentence. The author is criticizing co-living arrangements as if they were only for the young and poor, or the elderly who can't take care of themselves.

I think human connection is the key to happiness, and I hate the idea that a responsible adult must live alone, or only with their SO and family. I think living in a community can make life so much better. Whether that's a dorm at college, a retirement home, a coliving space in an expensive city, or an eco- friendly housing project where families live together and share common areas. They're all great. Don't bring in this ridiculous stigma against a new idea, when people living in the suburbs don't even know their own neighbors.

<comment><USER65> For some of us, the dorm life wasn't rainbows and sunshine. We were the ones who moved 'off-campus' as soon as possible. I'm sure there're better arrangements, but once burned twice careful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Every time something like this comes up I keep asking.. which will happen first: 1) People with ideas will start refusing to move to that area, because of expense. 2) The capital will FINALLY start seeking other locations where they get more output for their funding. 3) With #2 the capital can come from SF, but allow the company to 'live' outside the valley, or even outside the state.

I've been seeing recent articles comparing the dying/aging VC scenes of Austin, Seattle, etc.

I just don't get why the head isn't being removed from the sand on this. It feels like when a founder gets funded their first concern is living expenses and food, not "how many people can I hire".

It's getting crazy, it's a race to the bottom it feels like.

<comment><USER49> I think the endgame here is having the business end of your company near capital/partners/customers and the operational/R&D end in a lower-cost area.

I'm all for moving to a lower-cost area, but you can't deny the huge benefits that come from being near hundreds of funding sources and partners that SF/SV of today offers.

In time I believe innovation will follow the innovators (not the money guys) but that day isn't today.

<comment><USER67> This is already happening for SV startups founded by foreigners/1st gen. It's much cheaper to keep engineering in India or E.Europe, save about 50-75%. I worked at Prezi, founded by Hungarians, and 2/3 of the company is in Budapest, with a smaller office with mngmnt/marketing/finance in SF. I believe GoodData (founder is from Czech Rep. I believe) is doing something similar.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> I've been trying to figure out some kind of way to get out of New England every winter — I have wicked bad seasonal affect disorder, and lack the kind of funds to do a long term AirBnB or hotel. If this is available for short periods, I would totally try it.

</comment><comment><USER69> Um, most Soviet-era apartment buildings in Russia are setup like this. Many isolated bedrooms sharing a shower-room/bathroom and a kitchen.

I have to give it to VC's in the Bay Area. If anybody can take Soviet-style housing arrangements and sell them as "the next big thing", it's these guys.

I mean, it's terrible. But it is impressive.

<comment><USER70> So the soviets were short on industrial building/transportation resources and had plenty of space versus the san franciscoans who are 'short' on space and have plenty of industrial resources. the soviet constraint was about as or maybe less centrally imposed as the san francisco constraint...

<comment><USER71> I think Soviet functioneers understood that when everybody earns more or less the same tiny salary, they needed to create some other stimulus to control masses.

Although USSR had a lot of free space to build, I think new apartments made artificially scarce, especially with the start of the industrialization, when many people migrated from a villages to a cities.

People had to work many years at the same workplace in order to advance in a queue for a new private apartment.

<comment><USER72> I live in Poland, was born in 91 (pretty much right after the soviets fucked off), but my family grew up in those times. I think you don't realise just how ineffective and broken the system was. Housing shortage came from shortage of everything else, the workfoce didn't give two shits what they made (horror stories about freshly built budings needing an overhaul, etc

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> Replace suburbs with smaller plots and just accept there is a density limit. Take advantage of video conferencing to merge areas.

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

<comment><USER28> In most places, suburbs are not the problem. There is plenty of land open for sprawl and with modern telecommute technologies, there's no need to clog up the roadways with traffic. TinyVillages looks like a well-meaning concept but it neglects the key reasons suburbs exist: people really like having a lot of space to themselves. Things that ignore what people actually want usually don't do well.

<comment><USER73> You are ignoring the big issue of over-priced urban centers. In cities people live in apartments happily. So not everyone needs a large home.

There is plenty of room for suburban sprawl, but many cities desperately need an alternative to large houses and suburbs. I have provided it. You and others are not able to recognize it because it is actually a novel idea.

<comment><USER28> _Some_ people may live in apartments happily forever, but most humans intend to pair off and reproduce at some point or another. Units like this may be suited to the types of people who already live in dorms, but _on top_ of the fact that people prefer to have a lot of space, they're not a good solution to the type of housing that's needed to accommodate most human families over the long term. That means the populations that rent will be transient, making it even less desirable as no real sense of continuity or community history will exist there. Now there are 3 big factors working against it: it's too small to start with, it won't accommodate people as they form families, and because of 1 and 2, it will have a high turnover rate, which makes for disinterested and fatigued neighbors. It doesn't work.

As many other commenters in this thread have indicated, this is not a new idea by any means. There are many examples of tiny units and condensed urban spaces all over the world, and they're not popular.

<comment><USER73> Some 3 person families will be fine living in a 512 square foot home. That's not too uncommon globally. For a family we could also have double or triple sized units if that's what people want.

The units I portrayed are nothing like dorms and they are not apartments, so you probably didn't actually read it. Anyway it really doesn't matter what you think. Since this whole concept is in fact a new idea, it will be quite hard to market and easy for the average person such as yourself to dismiss.

<comment><USER28> I think you need to work on taking criticism on your project. No matter how right you may or may not be, dismissing the average Joe and claiming that he's just too simple to grasp the concept is only going to keep things difficult for you. If you want to be successful, your average customer is going to be an average person, and you'll have to meet that person where they're at, not yell at them for being too dumb to understand your brand new concept. Doing that is a stereotypical sign of severe self-delusion.

If your site cannot explain the concept in an approachable way, saying "you're just too dumb to get it" isn't going to help. If you find that you have to say this to someone, it means that YOU'RE the person with the communication problem, not them. This is a very important principle to understand as you seek to gain traction for your concept. Instead of blaming people for their opinions, understand that this is a real, organic impression of the project and that it's likely representative of what at least some random segment of the population is going to think. You'd be wise to note the concerns and work toward addressing them.

I didn't read the full page word for word, no, but I did spend a good 3-4 minutes skimming it, and I watched the embedded video, which is much more than most people who come across a random website do. Please find a good mentor who can help you take criticism without being dismissive of a potential customer who is providing feedback.

<comment><USER73> You didn't take enough time to really understand it as evidenced by your comments. You were dismissive and disrespectful, and have continued that in all of your comments.

You were never a potential customer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> When I moved out of home I was renting a small, 1BR basement apartment for $200/mo (in 2002). "Real" 1BR apartments in my area were going for 3x that.

I'm pretty lucky in hindsight to have landed that place, there really are not that many basic rentals like that available. Being able to live so cheaply really helped me accelerate my life situation (I wasn't even a student then and was literally starting from nothing).

</comment><comment><USER75> Modern day SV-style programmers are basically factory workers that exist in really nice conditions.

<comment><USER76> White collar sweat shop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Given sites have started blocking people from reading the story, even if you Google the title, I think we should stop posting links to them. I can't read the article, and if someone else posts the content here, that's not a tenable solution.

</comment><comment><USER77> But not for the royalty.... err sorry VC's.

</comment><comment><USER78> Anyone have additional/alternative sources for this article? I like to read as many perspectives as possible.

</comment><comment><USER79> I can't read this article because it's behind a paywall. Does this mean these dorms are owned by the employer in the same way a school owns the dorms that students live in? What happens when the employee is fired/let go? Now they are out of a job AND have no place to live?

<comment><USER80> No, the dorms are owned and operated by real-estate companies and startups such as Maveron (Common), Stage 3 (Ollie), Open Door, and WeLive.

If you click on "web" next to "flag" and "past", you'll be able to access an unpaywalled version of the article by clicking through the first link.

<comment><USER79> Ah, thanks for the clarification.

Clicking through to web doesn't work for me anymore. Even if I open in an incognito window, it won't let me read the whole thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER81> The favelas of tomorrow.

</comment><comment><USER82> How about sanely responding to price signals by looking for places _other_ than San Francisco and the like to set up shop in? If your response to the situation is _this_ , why should anyone take your business seriously?

</comment><comment><USER83> This new idea is old as time [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boarding_house](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boarding_house)

<comment><USER46> In a better world, micro-units and housing structures like this would be affordable housing for homeless people. Those with means would not have to resort to this, and the needy would be off the streets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER84> Paywall

<comment><USER26> Hit the "web" link at top to google and go around paywall

<comment><USER85> The links on Google don't go around the paywall. At least on mobils

<comment><USER86> Did for me. On Android, chrome. This is weird. Several times now I have either bypassed the paywall or got hit with it clicking the title link on different posts. Anyone know what's up with this?

<comment><USER87> Please just post the link, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER88> Even better startup idea, concentrate people into camps, make them pay with labor

pm if you want to be CMO on this one

<comment><USER89> We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the HN guidelines.

If you don't want it to be banned, you're welcome to email email@example.com and give us reason to believe that you'll only post civil, substantive comments in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER90> The return of the flophouse... hopefully after the .com-2.0 crash maybe the homeless in SF will have a place to call home again.</comment>


Database access through monadic streams with Lemonade Sqlite - <AUTHOR> https://michipili.github.io/essay/2016/03/16/lemonade-sqlite.html <comment><AUTHOR> That's a nice writeup!

However, it's a pity that this article doesn't show the example code for the final API (monadic streams), but only for the other discussed APIs (loop, streams).

Also, the examples should contain some error handling (at least roughly), so the advantages of the monadic streams API can be highlighted more clearly.

<comment><USER2> Hi Volker, thank you for your posting! These are good ideas, I should definitely complete my text with such examples.</comment></comment>


Ambitious Hacker set out to prove that he could exceed better educated Investment Bankers - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120191910348337311.html

<comment><USER2> Please see The Reg's article about this (<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/31/kerviel/>). The WSJ's article is nothing but parroting of SG's press releases. They are hard at work trying to save their asses, and everybody in the industry agrees that JKE could not have done what he did without his managers knowing, and furthermore, that he is now made into a scapegoat. WSJ is right about one thing: they are full of hubris.

</comment><comment><USER3> I enjoyed the story but I'm not sure how much of a hacker this guy was.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm...I think you're right.

I use this definition (<http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker- howto.html#attitude>) as my definition of a hacker:

"Hackers solve problems and build things, and they believe in freedom and voluntary mutual help."

So, would you label our friend here? If so, what label would you put on him?

<comment><USER3> If he hacked the system to make 7 billion dollars, let's say by betting badly and having a friend take the opposite bet, maybe he would have been a hacker, in the criminal sense.

But as it stands, he was just addicted to gambling with someone else's money. The whole situation is just kind of sad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> He failed. Misleading title. He essentially took huge, undeducated gambles. Does anyone remember the name of the strategy that involves doubling your bet at every step, so that you could always with a single win end up "positive"? (assuming infinite money supply of course)

<comment><AUTHOR> I am assuming it is the word, 'Hacker' that you believe is misleading, true?

If so, are you implying that because he failed, he is not a hacker?

<comment><USER4> Well, hacker is part of the issue. I guess he hacked the check system, but not the market in any meaningful way. Like I said, he followed his gut, which is a strategy employed by millions, with comparable results.

The misleading part of the title (to which "hacker" contributed) is that it looks like he succeeded, and thus that one could learn from reading the article. It's a very debatable point, I guess... No offense intended to the submitter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> He was up 500 million Euros in late 2007 and never thought of going legit? That is serious delusional reality. I think he's as much as a hacker as a script kiddie

</comment><comment><USER6> This just off the newsreels:

Gattaca HQ, USA: Crew member dies of heart condition on Titan Mission, investigation pending</comment>


A non-Euclidean story or: how to persist when your geometry doesn't - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.13758 <comment><AUTHOR> In the acknowledgements the author explains: "The main impetus behind this text lies both in my advisor's comments on me 'writing too much prose' when I was being overly verbose in my research articles".

Dwarf Fortress also gets a shoutout, as you might have guessed!</comment>


Snapper's decisions: Whatever happened to REAL photography? - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/02/whatever_happened_to_photography/

<comment><USER2> Medium format is expensive, but up to 35 mm you have a lot of choice nowadays, also in lenses.</comment>


This is how image manipulation should always have been [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH0aEp1oDOI

<comment><USER2> Pretty sure this is a duplicate from months ago, except before there was actually context.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a really old video. It's been a few months now, so Adobe already has Photoshop CS6 out. $200 please.

</comment><comment><USER4> Wow this one is old, pretty good feature though, love content-aware, it's gonna change design for sure.

</comment><comment><USER5> Really really nice.</comment>


A modest proposal: the Continuous Client - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/26/a-modest-proposal-the-continuous-client/

<comment><USER2> It sounds like an ambitious idea, but Mozilla has had their "Firefox Sync" product (née Weave) available as a developer release for some time now:

<https://mozillalabs.com/sync/>

Basically, it synchronises your saved passwords, browsing history, and open tabs between different machines with Sync installed. If you use Firefox Mobile (née Fennec), you can open a tab from your desktop machine on your mobile device, and vice-versa. Mozilla have even announced an iPhone client that (presumably) launches Safari instead of Firefox, but still gives you access to your open tabs and history:

[http://blog.mozilla.com/blog/2010/05/26/firefox-home- coming-...](http://blog.mozilla.com/blog/2010/05/26/firefox-home-coming-soon- to-the-iphone/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Sun kind of did this in 1999 with the Sun Ray (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Ray>)

 _This enables another notable feature of the Sun Ray, portable sessions: a user can go from one Sun Ray to another and continue their work without closing any programs. With a smartcard, all the user has to do is slip in the card, enter their password when prompted, and they will be presented with their session._

<comment><USER4> Not just "kind of". They had a bunch of Sun Rays at my University, and this worked great. Just pull out your card, and plug it in somewhere else, and it'd be like your session had just gone on screensaver.

Of course, obvious flaw in the model: If you need mobility, you have a laptop. If you don't, well, the feature isn't really that useful. Also, the Solaris 9 user experience leaves something to be desired, but that's not the Sun Rays fault. (I compiled almost everything from source in my homedir.)

Really cool thing: It is (was?) possible to configure a multi-monitor setup with several Rays, purely over the network.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> A Firefox plugin to save-state-to-Dropbox (or something) would address a lot of this. Would that I had the addon-fu to attempt it...

<comment><USER6> Indeed. As would 'sync tabs', in the same vein as Chrome's 'sync bookmarks'.

<comment><USER7> The Xmarks plugin has the option to sync tabs, although I haven't used it myself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I see this as problematic. Throw in different screen sizes, different input methods, and different operating systems, and what do you get? Maddening chaos for application developers, meaning it wouldn't be supported.

Can you imagine the support tickets? "Outlook doesn't look right on my cell phone." "I can't swipe in iBooks on my Eee." It's the ultimate epitome of the problem with Android's fracturing across devices (which is, thankfully, not too bad).

</comment><comment><USER9> This exists already, in a few different forms.

The obvious ones are VNC and GNU Screen, but the fundamental problem with these is that the client is too dumb and can't adapt to different form factors. The client needs to talk to the server in much higher level, more abstract terms.

This is where REST comes in. If you can sync URIs between devices, then _RE_ presentations of application _S_ tates can be _T_ ransferred to and from each device, and you _should_ be able to seamlessly move sessions around, in theory.

In practice, not all web apps are properly RESTful and so won't work this way, though the landscape is certainly improving in this regard.

Also, not all apps are web apps, nor should they be. But a URI doesn't have to be a web page. I believe, and correct me if I'm wrong, that Android provides some sort of facility for native applications to intercept and handle arbitrary URIs. This could be used, for example, by a native Twitter client to show the equivalent native interface for a URI on the Twitter site.

</comment><comment><USER10> Given the title, I expected satire. I can't see it. Am I missing something?

<comment><USER11> Possibly the author (who I haven't researched and didn't recognize) failed to realize the connotations of the "A modest proposal" meme.

The easiest way to implement this "vision" would be to host your session on a cloud-based server, and then use VNC from whatever machine you're at to connect to it.

It would require some tweaking of typical accessing machine's operating systems and so on, to drop you straight into a login dialog for a VNC client, and would of course assume that bandwidth isn't expensive, but it would be very simple.

Since your (default, at least) VNC server address would be constant for you, it could of course be trivially remembered by the various client machines, so all you do is log in and there you are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is he being satirical? I think it sounds like a good idea.

I think you'll see it come together from two separate places.

1\. Standardization of browser event subscription by a remote host. This might happen via an HTML5+ ecmascript API in which scripts register user event callbacks. Think ACPI through JS. This requires aware applications but Google could make it a de facto standard.

2\. In-browser identity management and single sign-on. This is necessary to achieve the seamless re-authentication to services. This may be in the form of a browser plugin that, like regularfry says, saves to cloud storage. I think we'll see browsers grow web-aware state APIs in the next 5 years as local and remote get blurrier and blurrier.

What do you think?

<comment><USER13> It could be argued that the browser itself is ripe to undergo a rather radical change over the next few years. Google's strategy here is to fatten the browser so that it becomes the Operating System, and then offer web-aware apps through that environment. Another strategy would be to thin the browser down and integrate it more strongly into the OS.

Browsers should be managing this kind of continuous (or as I like to say, persistent) state for us. They should also be capable of a lot of the social interaction some companies have chased after - sharing certain information with friends, syncing things up (simple app idea: sync up youtube across multiple browsers so you can fill your house with music simply by having a net connection), and likely other things as well.

I would suggest that people work toward building these browsers of the future, but such an undertaking would be monumental, and as you noted, Google has a pretty strong lock on this corner of the tech world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> My friends and I began working on building a service which provides this functionality not long ago -- we planned to offer an application service available through the web browser, but after Google announced the Chrome Web Store, we may pivot to build applications suited toward that arena. There's a lot of ways to use this, and we can't wait to show them to the world.

</comment><comment><USER14> Well, I connect to my workstation on my laptop with remote desktop.

This way I can use my netbook on the road and still have the quadcore gpu, multiple vm's and the open tabs in firefox.

</comment><comment><USER15> screen -R

<comment><USER16> The fact that this is still sometimes the most practical solution is amazing to me. I was trying to get an IRC client for my Droid so I could talk to my friends during a road trip I was on, but the connectivity was poor enough that any local client would leave gaps in the channel logs whenever I was out of service. After searching a bit for something that would hold my message buffer server-side, I ended up just SSHing into my VPS and running irssi through screen.

<comment><USER15> Most of the productive stuff we do with computers is still all about text. Our computers are replacing our TVs though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Literary unsavviness aside, this is definitely the future of computing, maybe not in 2 years but not far after... All that's needed is good execution.</comment>


Gandi security vulnerability: two factor authentication bypass - <AUTHOR> https://www.pietroalbini.org/blog/gandi-security-vulnerability-2fa-bypass/ <comment><USER2>
      They said they can't currently afford a bug bounty program,

You're their hero of the week, at least -- they couldn't offer you free hosting or registration for a domain or three?

Very nice write-up!</comment>


Halifax police drop case against teen accused of hacking - <AUTHOR> https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/police-drop-case-against-teen-in-alleged-breach-of-n-s-government-website-1.3918498 <comment><USER2> Some more information from an article in the star that came out earlier in the case:

>Officials said about 250 of the documents contained highly sensitive personal information including birthdates, social insurance numbers, addresses and government services' client information.

>Conrad said the breach was inadvertently found by a provincial employee.

>"The employee was involved in doing some research on the site and inadvertently made an entry to a line on the site — made a typing error and identified that they were seeing documents they should not have seen," Conrad told a technical briefing for reporters.

>Officials said the documents were accessed through a "vulnerability in the system" and not through a hack. The person went in through the URL and "sequentially went through every document available on the portal."

>"There's no question, this was not someone just playing around," said Conrad. "It was someone who was intentionally after information that was housed on the site."

[https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2018/04/11/halifax- polic...](https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2018/04/11/halifax-police- investigate-after-nova-scotia-freedom-of-information-site-breached.html)

It sounds a lot like the sort of simple vulns that many people in security noticed around that kid's age or earlier.</comment>


Why Yahoo Keeps Killing Everything It Buys - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2014/05/yahoo-blink/ <comment><USER2> tl;dr: Yahoo is mainly taking part in acquihires by purchasing also-rans.</comment>


Show HN: Klavado.com – instant, free meetup creation without login - <AUTHOR> http://klavado.com

<comment><USER2> This is great, though I wonder if the social dynamic of the participants deciding when and where to meet actually works. I'm a meetup organizer and I find that it's difficult to get anywhere in event planning with a decentralized decision making process.

I have a few other thoughts as well:

\- It was difficult to figure out where to start typing to describe my meetup. Instead of just an ellipses, a more standard input field would be instantly recognizable.

\- I noticed that if you load the site for the first time, the blinking cursor is on the meetup description, but if you tab away, it loads a map, at which point there are two input fields. Then clicking in the map input field is futile - it places the cursor back into the meetup description. But it looks like there is only one input field, so it can be quite confusing.

\- Using the user's current location would be great.

\- I didn't see "How it Works" at first, probably because I tabbed away and the map view expanded. But besides that, there's a lot of vertical space that's not actively helping the user understand the site. If you eliminate a lot of the negative space, you could end up with essentially a text input field (a la Google) and the description: [http://imgur.com/uY0F27D](http://imgur.com/uY0F27D)

\- Speaking of which, I think the description should mention what you as the user have to do, instead of what happens. "You get a unique url to share with participants" should be "Enter your meetup description and a location and you'll get a unique url to share with participants", etc.

Overall, great work! I like the workflow.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, if I could give an award for the best feedback it would go to you ;) You even included a screenshot - awesome!!

I wonder though why you think the social dynamic of the participants deciding might not work. Surely the best time and place will most often be the one that most people go for.

\- good point about the input field. I actually spent a lot of effort trying to make it look the way it does but you are right, its probably confusing at first glance.

\- yes, I should only show the second input if the first one has something in it. Will fix that.

\- Will use location detection eventually but not a priority right now.

\- Totally right about the wasted space. Thanks a lot for that!

\- Also right about the text.

Wow, don't you want to work with me on this. You're just the kind of person I need to work with ;)

<comment><USER2> I'm unavailable for anything non-trivial, but let's connect anyway? You can shoot me an email - just reverse this address moc.gnukemllac@nairb. Happy to provide this kind of feedback whenever and give more detail about why I'm concerned about the social dynamic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The flow for creating a meet is slick and works really well. I was actually surprised that it found the pub I was suggesting to meet at so quickly and easily. Nice work. A few suggestions:

1\. When I can "Invite people to suggest places and times by sharing this url with them" it would be great if there was some kind of pre-populated email that could be send that contained a blurb about the meetup and some info on how they would use the link they have been sent.

2\. When I return to the site as someone who has been invited it is not immediately clear if I need to do anything, maybe a big "Yeah, I'll attend" button?

3\. Could the meetup page show who has been invited and who is attending?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback @rhubarbcustard

re 1: Yes, I will add some default text about how to use the site which can be edited before sending. In fact, I need to do more explanation generally but for now I'm going with the simplest implementation.

re 2: I'm currently working on the basis that when someone 'thumbs-up' a place, it means they will attend. I'll re-think that today. Maybe I should have an attend button for those who don't care about the place but wish to attend anyway.

re 3: It is currently possible to add a comment saying '.., .. and .. have been invited' Will that not do the job?

BTW, have you got anything to do with Rhubarb radio at the custard factory in Brum? I'm based in Brum myself ;)

<comment><USER4> Perhaps the invited party can comment to say they're going, though it'd have to be mentioned that this action is expected of the user. Even if it's just their name as a comment...but it starts to lose value if no one knows who that person is (only among friends would it make sense). If not just among friends, there might be a field for a link to one's preferred social network profile, for verification (by the organizer).

I also dislike the collaborative feature because, as another HNer mentioned, it isn't too conducive to a smooth meetup process.

If someone selects 'attending', is then asked for their first name and then, optionally, can add a one-time pic of themselves (rendered slightly larger than a thumbnail), that'd help too. The only issue with that is then you'd obviously have to deal with logins, passwords, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes I think there is quite a distinction between how groups of friends would use this app and how people who don't know each other beforehand would. I'm aiming more for groups of friends (or at least people who would recognise each other's name and have little motivation to give wrong info). For such people who want a quick tool with no hassle around creating an account, adding pictures etc I think klavado could be good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Ah, and just to give a bit of background. I've been working on various ideas to help people find interesting places for a while now. My main project is actually this (which for now is mainly being publicised in Birmingham, UK):

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

I then realised that with just a little bit of tweaking, I could use that same codebase to help people organise informal meetups so that is what I'm trying with klavado.

Soon I'll have to decide which of the 2 implementations has more potential. Will be interesting to hear what others think.

</comment><comment><USER5> I _love_ the concept. I cannot tell you how much I hate sites like evite that need to know my email address and spam me and show lots of huge ads.

That said, I think the name is terrible. What does it mean? Is it significant in some other language (than English)? This may just be my age, but when I read it, it reminds me of Clamato - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clamato](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clamato) \- a disgusting clam-and-tomato-based juice drink. Probably not an association you want to have with your site, though maybe not a problem for your target demographic.

<comment><USER6> It sounds exactly like "nailed" in Spanish, but with K instead of C.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, the original concept was for the Spanish market but I thought I'd try using it with this anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This looks useful -- wish it had a better name ("klavado.com" might not be that easy for English users to remember.)

Minor nits: Would be nice if "end" was obviously optional, and start could start at a more intuitive time than midnight. Also would be a nice touch to show the local timezone (e.g., EST or whatever).

But I think it is an awesome start.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I have struggled with names. I also own moodleboard.com and I thought of using that but I think klavado.com is better.

Thanks for the pointers about the timepicker - you are right. I will update it later this week.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I tried to find out, how many countries use a 12h clock instead of a 24h clock, but the best I could come up with is Wikipedia:

 _" The 24-hour clock enjoys broad everyday usage in most non-English speaking countries, at least when time is written or displayed. In some regions, for example where German, French and Romanian are spoken, the 24-hour clock is used today even when speaking casually, while in other countries the 12-hour clock is used more often in spoken form."_

and this link: [https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/34950/which- large...](https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/34950/which-large- countries-use-12-hour-time-format-am-pm)

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, good point - I hadn't even thought of that. I'll consider using the 24h clock instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I´ve been looking for something like this. I really like it. One use case, but very specifically optimized for that. I love the simplicity. Agree with most of the improvements already mentioned, but given this is v0.1 (props for launching early!)...keep it up!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the big up Nelly ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> So the term "meetup" has become been "kleenex"ed to the extent that it is OK to use it in the marketing of a project meant to compete with meetup.com? I like the project, I just find this interesting.

<comment><AUTHOR> ha ha - yes I realise its a bit of a buzzword. I initially thought of klavado as a 'place polling app' or a 'doodle.com for places' but I found most people I showed it to just saw it as something for planning meetups so I just went with the flow...

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Back button hijacking is the devil.

Please don't do that.

<comment><AUTHOR> mmm, not sure what you mean. Its just regular emberjs pushstate. What did you experience with the back button that you did not like?

<comment><USER12> I'm not able to return to HN from your website by clicking the back button.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah okay. Thanks for pointing that out. Its my mistake. The link I've posted is to [http://klavado.com](http://klavado.com) which immediately redirects on the client side to [http://klavado.com/welcome/easy- meetup](http://klavado.com/welcome/easy-meetup). When you click the back button you return to klavado.com but that immediately sends you back to easy- meetup. My apologies - that is a mistake on my part - I will fix it and push that change out tonight.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Great app, great UX and nice use of what looks to be liquid-fire. One question; the feedback bar you have fixed on the side; did you accomplish that by using any specific ember addons?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well spotted, I do indeed use liquid-fire - and I will make better use of it in the next iteration. The feedback bar is actually quite independent of the rest of the site: its from uservoice.com ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is excellent! One feature that's a definite that I couldn't figure out quickly: a "find meetups near you" button!

</comment><comment><USER15> Some thoughts:

* Map marker should be draggable

* Email invite

* Facebook share / invite

* Optional signup

* Friend list for members

* Ability to easily invite friends to meetup

* Fix the medium resolution

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey @juhq, that's great feedback - I really appreciate it.

Apart from the first point, they are actually all things I'm working on. I wanted to put it out there now just to get an idea of how useful people would find this tool and how much effort I should put into it. Would also be interesting to hear what people think should be my priorities.

For now, the next thing I'll work on is to allow people to get notifications - basically an option to provide an email address to which I can send a maximum of 1 message a day if something happens in the meetup.

As to a draggable map marker, I don't really see the value in that. When you add a place, people can vote on that place. If the marker gets dragged to a different place later, the votes become meaningless.

<comment><USER5> FWIW, I would not use the site if it required me to enter other people's email addresses. I would also advise my friends not to use it as I wouldn't want them to enter my email address into it. I don't know if not being able to enter email addresses would make it a non-starter for your typical user, or not, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Very interesting project. I found the UX pretty solid.

Although, I couldn't zoom the map with my mouse wheel. Is this intended?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks romankolpak - and this is version 0.1, hope to improve on it soon ;)

With the map zoom, I set this on my map: "scrollwheel: false". This was because it was annoying on tablets and mobiles - without that set, when you try scrolling the page on a mobile with the map where you touch the screen, only the map would move.

Perhaps I need to detect when the user is on a mobile or tablet and only then disable it....

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This site is awesome! Great work etewiah!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks mokkol, I appreciate the appreciation ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Love the tool but, I think it could be extremely useful to add recurring events

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point, thanks. Will consider adding some concept of a collection of meetups. This will allow users to group a bunch of meetups in one space. Within than collection a particular meetup could be set to be copied to different dates.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Klavado.com is awesome! Congrats!</comment>


Clearing up the confusion around Growl 1.3. - <AUTHOR> http://growl.posterous.com/growl-13-a-summary-of-the-major-changes?referer=hn

<comment><USER2> I thought it was disingenuous that I got prompted to update Growl, which led me to the uninstall script, then asked me to buy through the App Store.

I just kind of shrugged and didn't complete the last step. And as dotBen mentioned, my productivity is better for it.

If I knew it wasn't a free update, I never would have uninstalled.

<comment><USER3> From what I understand it won't work for much longer due to the sandboxing requirements that'll be coming in Lion. So, probably best to uninstall eventually rather than have something there that won't work.

(Correct me if I'm wrong here but that was my understanding)

<comment><USER2> I do believe that is the case. I'm not questioning the reason for the uninstall. And, just to be clear, I'm not questioning his motives either. I think it's a really useful program and SDK.

I just didn't like finding out it was a paid app after I innocently clicked on update and uninstalled. I trusted that I was actually getting an update. I was left without my notifications and a bad taste.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4>
      Without changing to this paid Growl model, Growl would
      have died off and would no longer be around to use at all.
      Growl is however still Open Source

Wonderful non-sequitur.

<comment><USER5> Why? You can sell Free Software. The FSF states that in their FAQ([http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl- faq.html#DoesTheGPLAllowMone...](http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl- faq.html#DoesTheGPLAllowMoney)). There is absolutely nothing wrong with charging for Growl.

<comment><USER4> It's a non-sequitur to claim that free software "wouldn't exist" unless they charged for it. Programmers can (and often do) contribute to open source software without getting paid for it.

<comment><USER6> Then again, if nobody maintains a current version that's compatible with the latest OSX and provides automatic updates, you can say that the product "dies off" even if the source code is still out there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If Growl is going to remain Open Source, as the note says, then someone should really compile a free version from the google code repository and give folks the option to buy it in the App Store or download the community version.

 _Although I've taken this opportunity to remove Growl and my productivity is better for it_

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Ben!

I'm actually helping out the growl team work towards 1.4. That's entirely an option. This model is similar to Textmate and XChat which remain open source but if you want to download the binary version you can either pay for them a well tested version from a trusted source to help support the project or find any number of the third party builds from questionable sources.

Paying the $2 gives you unlimited updates forever in the store and helps support a full time dev working on the project is all. Growl is used by thousands but is maintained by 4ish people people (and now me) in their free time and it doesn't get the attention it needs.

(On another note, we should grab a drink sometime! Haven't ran into you in months!)

<comment><USER7> Absolutely, people should definitely support the software if they use + enjoy it. As you'll note from my parent comment, I carefully wrote:

 _"and give folks the option to buy it in the App Store or download the community version."_

I intentionally framed this about empowering everyone to exercise the choice afforded to them under the New BSD License rather than specifically saying "just get it for free", etc.

Yes, we should definitely catch up sometime soon :)

EDIT: also just to point out:

 _"or find any number of the third party builds from questionable sources"_

You know, if you guys offered a free, open source community edition then folks wouldn't need to obtain the build from a 'questionable source'. Just sayin' ;). You could even just provide official MD5 Checksums for the binary of the compilation of undoctored code from the current release.

That would help people know there were no 'added backdoors'/malware etc in the software obtained from a 3rd party.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is the source for 1.3 actually posted now? I know it wasn't before.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a little slow making it over to google code. It's been up for a while. Bleeding edge work is on a private HG and cloned over to Google nightly (or least it's supposed too). Can always come into #growl on freenode and ask for access the other repo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Applications can still send notifications via growl api, growl is just like "growl pro""

That is good. I support them for that.

<comment><USER10> My question is, without Growl, how do I tell those apps to stop sending me notifications?

<comment><USER11> There's both a preference to disable it for an application, which can also be applied globally. Apps can also add a preference to their own app to toggle it. A "Mist enabler/disabler" app should be written to allow you to configure it easily, IMO.</comment></comment></comment>


SimCity Available for the Mac on June 11th - <AUTHOR> http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/9432981.page

<comment><AUTHOR> One strange item from their Q&A:

Q: Will the Mac version support Retina display? A: We have not yet determined if we have Retina display support.

You're two month from launch and you don't know the answer to this question?

</comment><comment><USER2> Q: Will it have the same issues for offline-playing as the PC version or can you just play it when you want to?</comment>