ALL CAPS AS a SERVICE - <AUTHOR> http://shoutcloud.io/

<comment><USER2> MOST INTERESTING. WE'VE BEEN MANAGING OUR CAPITALS IN HOUSE USING A HOMEGROWN MIX OF CAPS LOCK AND HOLDING DOWN THE SHIFT KEY, BUT INVESTORS HAVE EXPRESSED CONCERN AT HOW WELL THIS WILL SCALE IN THE FUTURE.

</comment><comment><USER3> THIS IS AMAZING. THANK YOU FOR PAYING FOR A .IO TLD TO GIVE THIS TO THE WORLD.

</comment><comment><USER4> THIS WILL SURELY CAPTURE THE EYE OF VENTURE _CAPITAL_

<comment><USER5> IF THAT'S THE _CASE_ , OTHER INVESTORS ARE SURE TO RUSH IN WITH ADDITIONAL START-UP _CAPITAL_ IN THE HOPES OF _LOCKING_ IN THEIR OWN PROFITS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Alright, finally I understand how they did that AWESOME menu bar in Visual Studio.

</comment><comment><USER7> CAPITAL IDEA CHAPS!

NO USAGE CAPS, I HOPE?

</comment><comment><USER8> careful, if you don't pay for it, you are the product.

</comment><comment><USER9> How can I integrate with [http://fortytwo-as-a- service.herokuapp.com/](http://fortytwo-as-a-service.herokuapp.com/)?

</comment><comment><USER10> I was hoping their source code made use of 'text-transform: uppercase;' but what I found instead was better.</comment>


Google is buying the entire '.app' domain for a Whopping $25M - <AUTHOR> http://www.dridgag.com/2015/02/google-is-buying-entire-app-domain-for.html <comment><USER2> How does a single company go about buying an entire TLD? Doesn't seem very "forward looking" for ICANN. Pretty soon it will turn out like our .com issue which all "premium" domains already purchased and/or squatted on.

As an aside, I really don't like all these "cutsy" TLD's that are showing up. To me, whenever I see a .info or .biz, I'm already wary of the link... now there's things like .ninja, .technology, .academy, .bargains, .bid, .build, .builders, etc etc etc...

<comment><USER3> I would really like to know what the deal is with .blue and .red. Most of the other ones I can kind of see. Some seem to be just renamings of ones we already have (like .academy vs. .edu). But just a color?

<comment><USER4> .blue and .red? Do you mean .white and .orange?

<comment><USER3> There is also .black.

Oh hell, there's even a TLD for a specific university now!

<comment><USER2> Namecheap has 27 pages of new gTLD's[1]... oh my....

[1] [https://www.namecheap.com/domains/new- tlds/explore.aspx](https://www.namecheap.com/domains/new-tlds/explore.aspx)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This extended TLDs are the biggest scam ICANN ever pulled. Huge money grab for companies to buy more to defend their brands.

<comment><USER6> What percentage of companies are dumb enough to buy domains on these new tlds purely "to defend their brands"? Is Walmart going to buy "walmart.diamonds" and "walmart.condos"? I doubt it, but whatever, I'm not sad that there is a new tax on corporate stupidity.

<comment><USER7> I think the parent speaks about stuff like microsoft.app. (Which, IMO, should be .apps, plural.)

<comment><USER6> _.apps, plural._

Seems like a perfectly cromulent TLD. b^) One of Google's competitors should file with ICANN right away!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Currently Google lets people register for ".how," ".soy," and ".minna" domains one its own ICANN-accredited domain registry."

So this is what google has planned for these TLDs? reselling domain names. That piece from a couple of days ago describing how google and Microsoft have switched places makes more sense now. google is using it's cash to create some additional revenue streams. such a basic play, a la network solutions circa 1998. wow.

</comment><comment><USER9> All these new gTLDs area obnoxious. They are poisoning the reputation of legitimate and important TLDs like .coop which has been around nearly 15 years and is a legitimate domain that people now guess is one of these new crop of crap

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

</comment><comment><USER10> To be fair, this might be the best of a bad world. Google plans to make this TLD available for people to register (like they have with .how). One of other companies in the bidding for the TLD was Amazon, who had no intention of letting outside parties register domains.

<comment><USER11> Which means Google created themselves almost-infinite money pump. They just have to sell 250k of these domains for $100 to break even.

<comment><USER10> Like I said, best of a bad world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The official news was released a long time ago [http://googleblog.blogspot.in/2012/05/expanding-internet- dom...](http://googleblog.blogspot.in/2012/05/expanding-internet-domain- space.html)

<comment><USER12> That is their announcement for their plans to purchase those domains, but with competition and a particularly long application process with ICANN they only just officially acquired .app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> If you're curious about how ICANN's "New generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) Program" works, check out [http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/about](http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/about)

</comment><comment><USER14> How does bidding for something like this work?

Say I am an individual and I heard about the new .app domain coming online and I just wanted my own brianeatworld.app domain, but Google sets out to buy the entire space. Is my bid simply ignored?

If my bid for the single domain ended up being higher than Google's on a per domain basis, would I be able to get my domain? Is that even possible given that there are theoretically an infinite number of domains for any given TLD? Doesn't the infinite number of domains mean that the price Google is paying for an individual domain in the TLD approaches zero?

<comment><USER15> > Say I am an individual and I heard about the new .app domain coming online > and I just wanted my own brianeatworld.app domain, but Google sets out to > buy the entire space. Is my bid simply ignored?

It doesn't work that way. They are petitioned for and auctioned off as TLDs, its only _after_ that has occurred that the new TLD is announced as "coming online". Google and others bid for the .app TLD, and auction occurred, and Google won the auction. _If_ they use it to allow registrations (as some on this thread have said they intend to, but I haven't seen anything official -- for some of their new gTLDs they have announced this, e.g., .how, for others they have said they are using them for their own products, e.g., .plus), _then_ you will be able to register a domain like brianeatworld.app through Google or one of their registration partners.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Who actually are they buying this from? ICANN? Or some other TLD suppliers?

<comment><USER17> TLD squatters. Same exact problem as before, just more expensive.

[http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/customer- service/faq...](http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/customer- service/faqs/faqs-en#application)

<comment><USER18> what, you can just tld squat? (without founding a nation)?

How is that not like squatting on all domain names that start with an "a"? I mean, how can it be technically possible.

Did some guy just pay 20 bucks for the .app tld and ICANN was like, cool, nobody has registered this one yet - you can have it?

<comment><USER19> I think the minimum price for setting up a TLD is tens of thousands of dollars, and it doesn't have to be a country it can be any kind of string, like .pepsi or .beef or anything.

<comment><USER2> Quick, someone register .pepsi and .coke then do nothing with them until either company pays you... of wait, we're right back at the domain squatting thing again?

<comment><USER20> No, because it's not an open registration process. it's an application process, and if you or i tried to acquire the .pepsi TLD it would be denied outright (and our $185k application fee would be forfeit).

New gTLDs (like .app) which receive multiple applications and have no clear owner are opened to an auction among the qualified applicants. Other more specific applications are given to the most qualified applicant (for example, i know the applicant for .ski has been endorsed by the USSA and FIS, the american and international governing bodies for skiing)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Any idea what they might want to use it for? Give every Android app a domain? Just sell domains like every other registry?

<comment><USER22> My first thought was an integration with GAE. Right now the default URL for a GAE app is foo.appspot.com. foo.app is quite a bit cleaner (and subtly advertises GAE).

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I guess they see it as a good long term investment. Hope it pans out for them.

</comment><comment><USER24> why are they buying TLD's? why is anyone allowed to buy TLD's? This doesn't seem like it will bode well for consumers; .app seems like it would have a lot of demand.

I think the broader naming options are good to have, though they should have done this way sooner.

Trying to register a .com today and its just impossible to find a name that's already taken. most all you find are squatters. I know some people don't like the new ones but its necessary at this point - we're running out of room.

<comment><USER25> "most all you find are squatters."

Everyone likes to think that of course.

However you are assuming that if what you call a "squatter" as a pejorative didn't have the name it would be available and wouldn't have been grabbed prior to you wanting that particular name by someone else. Like a flower shop in Omaha or General Electric?

At least people in the domain business are in the business to sell domains. Every try to buy a domain that google or any large company owns? I have. Money doesn't even matter to them at all. They don't need more money, right?

I have a case now where I am trying to buy a name for a client that will pay $500,000 USD for it plus stock options. And the corporation that owns the name (not google but a company in the UK) has no interest at all in parting with the name at even those price levels. Part of the reason is that the people in corporate jobs don't personally stand to gain by selling the domain the money doesn't go into their pocket. So they aren't motivated by economic benefits at all which makes it particularly difficult to get deals like that done (although there are other ways for sure).

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> How will that TLD work when people want to _search_ for an app instead of hitting a url? How could you distinguish between them in Chrome's omnibar?

</comment><comment><USER27> It's these kinds of articles that leave me pining for distributed (blockchain) DNS built into browsers.

</comment><comment><USER28> Feels like a monopoly...

</comment><comment><USER29> Google owns the open web.</comment>


Zenefits CEO publicly rescinds offer on Quora - <AUTHOR> https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-best-way-to-start-my-career-Uber-or-Zenefits?share=1

<comment><USER2> Mirror: [https://cloudup.com/cPoinzGZuzz](https://cloudup.com/cPoinzGZuzz)

</comment><comment><USER3> Possibly related to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9496813](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9496813)

</comment><comment><USER4> nothing there (anymore)?

<comment><USER5> I just caught it before it was apparently taken down - the post looks anonymous now too.

Honestly, this just sounds like a kid who doesn't know very much about anything really.

Working for a company to fill your resume is the wrong goal IMO, you should learn as much as possible, work on and build cool stuff, and let the chips fall where they may. You don't really want to work for a company that cares about your pedigree more than your enthusiasm, experience, and knowledge.

<comment><USER6> Right, except I can't imagine that it wouldn't help to work in a resume- padding company to get 'access' to a much wider range of companies. I'm in the USA on an H1B for one of the big companies, and honestly, for people outside the US, US employment choices are quite limited. Many companies won't do an H1B sponsorship, or won't even respond to an application. If I did apply for jobs now, I can't imagine the resume-padding wouldn't help as a form of pre- selection.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> From the questioner on Quora:

        Uber has a really good reputation.

I would never hire anyone who believes this.

<comment><USER6> Can you elaborate why (from a software engineering perspective)? I don't know too much about it but I did hear of people from places like FB/Google moving to Uber.

<comment><USER7>
        from a software engineering perspective

It's not a software engineering perspective. It's an "I don't want to work for a company started by such an asshole" perspective.</comment></comment></comment>


Affordable Care Act Could Be Good for Entrepreneurship - <AUTHOR> http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/31/affordable-care-act-could-be-good-for-entrepreneurship/?src=recg

<comment><USER2> All the talk about how great the affordable care act is before it's fully implemented in 2014 smells highly of Microsoft trying to market vaporware to keep people from buy expensive apple products.

<comment><USER3> Actually in California they've already announced costs on the 2014 plan and that isn't vaporware:

[http://www.medicaldaily.com/articles/15916/20130526/health-i...](http://www.medicaldaily.com/articles/15916/20130526/health- insurance-healthcare-california-obamacare-affordable-care-act.htm)

"A 25 year old could choose a Health Net catastrophic plan for $117 a month or a more comprehensive plan for $147 a month from LA Care, the nation's largest public health plan."

I'm in NYC and as a single person I'm currently almost paying $800 a month at this point.</comment></comment>


Vaccines against addictive drugs push forward despite past failures - <AUTHOR> https://cen.acs.org/articles/96/i8/Vaccines-against-addictive-drugs-push.html <comment><USER2> What is going to be an issue, is that opiods (like heroin, Fentanyl, morphine, oxycodone) actually have a clinical use apart from the abuse. So either the vaccine is very specific and just changing from say fentanyl to another of the many available opiods defeats the vaccine, or else it renders a whole class of drugs that may be legitimately used for pain management or anesthesia during surgery no longer able to be used for potentially the rest of the person's life.

<comment><USER3> My thoughts exactly. So somebody gets this vaccine and then breaks their arm or goes into surgery, and suddenly there is no pain treatment available to them because of the vaccine.

<comment><USER4> I was under the impression that past heavy (ab)users of opioids no longer get any analgesic benefit from them?

<comment><USER5> Yes, I had a friend who was an ex heroin addict, she needed huge quantities of any sort of painkillers to get any effect.

<comment><USER6> It goes back to basically any medication that acts on G Protein Coupled Receptors (of which opioid Receptors fall under). If given the same dose for over 10 days, by day 3 you are seeing a significant loss of analgesic effect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wait, so we we invent some great drugs for very specific use cases, prescribe them to the masses, just to find out that we created an epidemic and, then, instead of going back to prescribing it only rarely, invent a new drug against the abuse!? I don't get it

</comment><comment><USER8> I've had a few friends that became addicted to opioids over the last ~20 years. It's terrifying to see what it can do to a person, how the addiction takes over. The only product I've seen work consistently to stop relapse and interrupt the craving, is Suboxone and the equivalent. It worked extremely well, returned them to a fully normal functioning state, but they couldn't stop taking it.

The vaccination approach, even if it's unlikely to succeed, I certainly hope that it does, as every opioid addict I've known has ended up in a battle that never actually stops. It becomes a life-long struggle.

</comment><comment><USER9> There must be a dose where the volume of heroin outstrips the body's ability to generate antibodies, resulting in opiates passing into the brain. Addicts who have taken the vaccine will increase their chance of overdose when they relapse because they know just one balloon isn't going to do the trick. And slam 5 balloons instead.

Also, opiate receptors serve a purpose in pain relief and feeling pleasure when the brain secretes endorphins. The article doesn't cover whether endorphins will trigger the immune response in people who have been modified by the vaccine.

</comment><comment><USER10> There have been previous attempts. There was "NicVax", which blocks nicotine somewhat. That made it to Phase III trials, but it wasn't very effective.

</comment><comment><USER11> > Rather than activate the receptor, another drug called naltrexone blocks the > receptor and can decrease cravings over time.

Naltrexone is essentially a vaccine against both opioids and and alcohol. My recovered-alcoholic friend found that Naltrexone eliminated her ability to consume large amounts of alcohol. But she drank "to make it all go away", and Naltrexone didn't provide any relief for her emotional problems. She took herself off Naltrexone and drank herself into a 2-year prison sentence for her 3rd DUI. She tried to stay sober after getting released, but was unsuccessful because of her anger at her ex-husband (which I somewhat helped her release).

Gabor Maté [0] says that virtually 100% of his most-hopeless drug addict patients had experienced "adverse childhood experiences".

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16023802](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16023802)

Last month I met "Henry" \- our mutual friend said he was trying to get off "Black" (black tar heroin). A while later Henry tagged along with us... Mutual friend disappeared for a bit. Henry told me how scared he was of Black... That he'd once gone to Mexico with his family, thought he took enough to get him through the week, but started to go into withdrawal at the end of the trip.

He also said how much he loves G (meth amphetamine), and that he'd tried to find some that day, but was unsuccessful. He then said, "A junky like me _has_ to shoot something...", and said he'd used Black in the Taco Bell bathroom that afternoon, shortly before getting in my car.

I told him I thought my friend (whom I've mentioned here before) was predisposed to addiction on account of her being adopted. Henry immediately said that he was adopted -- that he was found in a dumpster at 4 months old, screaming his little heart out.

> But people struggling with addiction to cocaine or stimulants such as > methamphetamine don't have treatment options like these. They don't exist.

I've read some studies that found that Naltrexone is also helpful for reducing people's stimulant use, and that the anti-psychotics (anti-dopamine drugs) cause people to use more cocaine/amphetamine.

Really there's no need for developing "vaccines" for "addictive drugs" \- we have tools (naltrexone, the MAOIs, etc) that work well enough to address the reasons that people self-medicate with substances that cause long-term harm. Doctors just need to consider the full conditions of the person who can't limit their use of addictive substances to "recreation".

It would also help to stop teaching addicts to be helpless in jail.

This week I finally found the rest of a quote about 'feeling safe' that I've referenced for years [1]. Someone had asked about "ego" \- the response was, "It's very important to develop an ego. When a person feels safe, the false- ego goes away."

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15024780](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15024780)

<comment><USER12> Interesting points.

Something else I'd point out is that science often goes through the trouble of finding paliative solutions rather than developing a fundamental understanding of the root causes.

If you don't tackle the root causes of addiction, they'll respawn identically or in the form of other addictions, in my opinion.

Re. your quote about the ego, I didn't quite get its meaning. Can you elaborate on it?

<comment> fake-name I don't think any of the people involved in the science here _want_ to be doing paliative solutions, but rather it's the best they can get funding for.

It's much harder to fund "we have to completely rework our public health infrastructure" (in the US, at least), then "We can help save these lives in <insert relatively short timeframe>".

<comment><USER11> > I don't think any of the people involved in the science here want to be > doing paliative solutions, but rather it's the best they can get funding > for.

Elisabeth Rosenthal wrote _An American Sickness_ about this phenomenon. This essay is a good preview: _How Economic Incentives have Created our Dysfunctional US Medical Market_ \- [https://medium.com/@RosenthalHealth/how- economic-incentives-...](https://medium.com/@RosenthalHealth/how-economic- incentives-have-created-our-dysfunctional-us-medical-market-b681c51d6436)

<comment><USER13> The claim in that article--"a lifetime of treatment is preferable to a cure"\--is bonkers.

It _might_ be true if there was only one pharma company, but surely most companies would prefer that you buy their one-time cure than become a lifetime customer of their competitors. Diabetes is a particularly bad example because an ungodly amount of time and money has been spent trying to protect, repair, or regrow beta cells. Despite this, we have made very little progress. However, Accu-Chek is not bribing researchers to tank their experiments in the hopes of selling more test strips. The problem is that biology is absurdly complex and messy.

Plus, we have a nice counter-example. Until recently, patients with Hepatitis C were treated with a long course of interferon (6 months to a year), with relatively mixed results and fairly nasty side effects. About 50% of patients did not clear the virus, and needed liver transplants.

In 2013-4, Gilead got approval for sofosbuvir, which needs to be taken for only 12 weeks, has a much higher cure rate, and more mild side effects. To be fair, it _is_ eye-wateringly expensive, especially in the US, but that's one way to make 'cures' work.

<comment><USER14> Type-2 diabetes is a sham diagnosis. A key factor in the development of "insulin resistance" is the overconsumption of vegetable oils. These thin oils go rancid in the production process, and have to be "refined" to remove the rancid smell.

Before the middle of the 20th century, linseed oil and soybean oil were drying oils that were used to make stain and paint. When the paint producers figured out how to make paint from petroleum, the seed oil industry rebranded their product as "vegetable oil".

<comment><USER12> And there are lots of other key factors within our eating habits.

Why this isn't the focus, and instead people receive insulin, escapes my grasp.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Wikimedia 'breaks copyright' with Swedish statue photos - T-A http://www.thelocal.se/20160404/wikimedia-breaks-copyright-laws-with-pics-of-public-art <comment><AUTHOR> Aren't these statues commissioned by the state and publicly owned?</comment>


Are you building a company, or your credentials? - <AUTHOR> http://geofflewis.org/2012/03/22/credentials/ <comment><USER4> Getting into and surviving top notch elite business schools requires a whole lot of credentials.

The guys and gals that spent their lives accrediting themselves with clubs, sports, extracurriculars now want to join in on the entrepreneur revolution David Fincher crafted for them.

To do so they're applying their way of "success" to this new field. Because that's all they know. And as long as there's money, there'll be support for these guys. The fervent frothing is a sign of the bubble.

You think brogrammers are bad? Welcome the sharks. We've arrived at the jump zone. What's the real life equivalent of flooding Hacker News with Perl articles for 24 hours?

<comment><USER5> The real life equivalent is selling MBAs study guides or coaching seminars for their YC application.

Put together an e-book and then buy some ad words, the CPC for a Y combinator application is currently estimated at 10 cents per click.

Sell the book for $97 with a 30 day money back guarantee if they don't get accepted.

<comment><USER6> you wouldn't believe what many of the students in top-10 MBA programs paid to "admissions consultants" to get in. we're talking several thousand dollars per application. you can't go through the process without bumping into 'experts' and 'consultants' who will make you sick to your stomach. MBA applicants are an uber-competitive, wealthy population eager to "invest in the future"...in other words, you're onto something. do it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I question what the relentless seeker of credentials is trying to achieve. Not just here, but in general. If life is an infinite set of boxes to be checked, what's the point of it all?

It seems our society places an unduly large value on achievement, rather than accomplishment. The point of going to a top school is to say you've gone to a top school. The point of working at McKinsey or Goldman is to put it on your resume. The point of being on the board of X is to get onto the board of Y. And so forth. This is the cold, seldom-questioned bargain of achievement. It is a paint-by-numbers approach to success, and it certainly guarantees its devout adherant a substantial degree of material comfort. But at what cost? And is there an end goal? Or is life simply a contest to see who can build the most prestigious obituary?

I, for one, hope and trust that YC is able to sniff out the achievers from the accomplishers, and to select the latter. It is the latter who build great companies. The former make fantastic lawyers, consultants, and bankers.

<comment><USER8> "Or is life simply a contest to see who can build the most prestigious obituary?"

Life is what you make of it. If checking boxes doesn't make you happy, don't do it.

<comment><USER7> _"If checking boxes doesn't make you happy, don't do it."_

What I'm asking is whether checking boxes really makes _anyone_ happy. I mean, truly happy.

Don't get me wrong; I went through a lengthy box-checking phase that lasted about 20 years. Checking a given box made me happy only until the next box appeared on the horizon. The whole thing seemed like a cosmic treadmill.

I think there's something admirable in the sheer work ethic and determination required to check the top boxes. But at the same time, I wonder whether that effort couldn't be spent on something more worthwhile -- such as defining oneself on one's own terms, rather than by a weird chiaroscuro of ideals hit and missed.

<comment><USER9> "The whole thing seemed like a cosmic treadmill."

I'd say it's like a video game. Keep trying to beat the current level and move to the next one. Why do people play video games? For the challenge and to pass time. Well, same here. What's the alternative? "Defining oneself on one's own terms" sounds nice but doesn't mean anything really. I'm not riding the treadmill myself but I'd take it any time over existential boredom.

<comment><USER10> Defining oneself has the consequence to set your own goals instead of only following the goals of others (you might join other people's quests, but you're now free to not do so without falling into existential boredom). You switch from external to internal motivation. That means very much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This seems like a direct callback to PG's "After Credentials" essay ( <http://paulgraham.com/credentials.html> ), in a good way. What I get from this post is that we might be in the middle of a credentials shift, from the credentials being good guidelines, to the period where attaining them is an end in itself, the period where people are gaming the system.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is common, it's somewhat frustrating, but I've found that my way to deal with it has been to let others pad their credentials. It's a waste of time for me to worry about, it would be like worrying about the weather day-to-day when the issue is really climate change. i.e. this is a cultural problem that cannot be solved on a micro level.

We really want to build and sell stuff that our team has built, it's not about my ego, it's not about the self, we just want to build cool things that people want to use. I have had some very deep conversations with the person I work with and we relate in the sense that we don't care for this incessant ego- building that goes on in the world and especially around college. It doesn't serve you well in a lot of cases to have a large ego. Of course that's an over simplification, but the egos are rampant at college and I don't want anything to do with it.

Let them pad their credentials, while you go build something great and don't give a shit about that.

</comment><comment><USER13> "I think there is a fundamental difference between going after an initial idea, then pivoting, vs. jumping into entrepreneurship with no idea at all. With the meme of "team and execution are everything", it's easy to forget that ideas still matter."

I tend to agree. When I founded a chapter of a fraternity at my college, I had a really interesting discussion with the alum who helped us and almost all of the state start our chapters about leadership. Something he said during the initiation of our first pledge class (Alpha class) that will always stick with me: even though the Alphas are all great potential leaders, there is such a fundamental difference between them, the first group of followers who joined a group because they desired to be leaders, and us (my founders group), who went out with an idea and created something.

Mr. Lewis's point might have been different, but I think they stream from the same thing. While there may be people out there who have the capacity to create given an idea and others who have many ideas but don't end up creating, the rare combination of the two is what makes an entrepreneur, a true leader. Everyone else is a follower on some level. I might be totally off base and my point is tangential, but these are 3pm musings.

I'd love to get feedback on them, and I'm interested to see PG's response to the article.

<comment><USER14> Meanwhile at the first pledge class for the Beta fraternity a speech is being given on how followers have it best if we really think about it. In a soothing voice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think there is a 3rd question that begs to be asked: Are you building yourself as a skilled professional?

"Economically, you can think of a startup as a way to compress your whole working life into a few years. Instead of working at a low intensity for forty years, you work as hard as you possibly can for four." - Paul Graham <http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html>

When Paul Graham wrote that he was talking in the context of wealth but I think it just as easily applies to skill, knowledge, experience, network, etc.

I think there is a valid argument for frowning upon credential building but I'd be more curious to hear what HN thinks about this idea of building yourself? You could say its just as selfish as credential building but at the same time is it really bad if an accelerator ends up being primarily a talent generator for future generations of startups?

<comment><AUTHOR> Im not frowning on credentialing. The question I have is whether we are becoming too credential-obsessed in Silicon Valley rather than focusing entirely on what matters: building companies of consequence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> From a societal point of view, I'm a bit troubled. It's an encouraging trend that high talent individuals who would have gone into finance or consulting are considering startups. Should we really be turning them away? That said, I certainly understand your hesitations.

<comment><USER17> Finance and law are the religion of our time. Those do called high powered people are not the galileos und copernicus of our time, they are the borgias or cardinal richelieu. In each case assuming they rise to the top.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Like in most things, I think there's a healthy "middle way." Solely chasing credentials all of your life isn't wise, but targeting _well chosen_ credentials is a way to unlock hard-to-open doors. Writing a book for a mainstream publisher, for example, was once a great way to make a splash in an industry (less so now, but still).

I think the key is to know, in advance, _why_ you are chasing certain things and to use those "credentials" on a route to something more fulfilling. For better or worse, we carry our histories around with us, and if the choice is between twiddling thumbs and adding another accolade to the collection, it's tempting. Once something genuine comes along, however, you need to jump on it.

</comment><comment><USER19> The article makes exactly the right realization: Y Combinator is heading in the direction of scholasticism. I wrote an article recently on this topic, which I quote below:

[http://www.exratione.com/2012/01/the-future-of-the- venture-c...](http://www.exratione.com/2012/01/the-future-of-the-venture- capital-industry.php)

The present direction of some incubators is towards the concept of schools, in the older sense of the word. To some eyes present experiments look like an early stage in the development of a new scholastic institution of practical business development. With well tuned entry requirements such an entity might serve as a filter that allows venture investment in all graduates with comparatively little detailed due diligence, trusting to the quality of the school (the filter) to raise the expectation value of these blanket investments. Experiments in this sort of model are already taking place at Y Combinator, and others will no doubt follow. If they see success, expect to see more rapid movement towards formalized schools of practical entrepreneurship, which will orbit established venture funds to act as feeder mechanisms. You might look on this as a structured, industrial manifestation of the informal process of apprenticeship and networking that always existed in the startup community - and either like it or loathe it for exactly that reason, depending on your tastes.

It is worth remembering that while venture capitalists and organized groups of angel investors can enter the space of incubators-as-schools from one side, existing scholastic institutions can just as well enter it from their side. I can't image that the traditional schools will be any good at this if they do try, given long-standing academic hostilities towards the business of being in business, but some of the younger less hidebound institutions might well be successful. Consider the present University of Phoenix, a future Khan Academy, and a range of other entities establishing their own early stage venture funds, or partnering with venture funds to do something new in this space - <USER2> isn't so far fetched an idea.

Note that a more scholastic form of incubator is, to my mind, a very different concept from what I'll call Vingean Scholastics. This is the vision put forward by Vernor Vinge in Fast Times at Fairmont High in which building startups is a part of the curriculum for all young people and at least ramen- level economic success is necessary for graduation at a high school level. Building a business, or at the least a short-term economic success, is how the students pay for school and how the schools earn their keep as businesses themselves. In that fictional near future, this is all a part of teaching young adults how to live in a world of constant, enormously rapid change driven by computational technology, in which the idea of holding down a job doing roughly the same sort of thing for five years is laughable, and everyone must know how to be an entrepreneur in order to flow with the pace of change.

But this too will come to pass, I think, with Vingean Scholastic organizations as another sort of filter to build and channel groups of startup founders - with, collectively, a positive expectation value on investment - <USER3> future forms of venture fund.

<comment><USER20> That is well written, congratulations!

Here's a bit of personal disclosure. I did a business degree (marketing major) from a mediocre institution. Immediately after graduation, I started a company. It failed miserably, but I learned significantly more about business killing a company over the course of a year than I learned studying business in a university. My business degree armed me with a dubious credential, a less dubious 'network', and ummm, let me check with a recruiter and get back to you...:)

At first, I thought, "I went to a pretty crappy university, of course I didn't learn much." But, through conversations with friends (some of whom went to 'elite' business schools), I came to realize that business schools in general are pretty crappy.

Perhaps this scholastic incubator is the future of business school? If so, it is a welcome development!

<comment><USER21> I went to one of those elite programs at an Ivy League school. The advantage you get isn't the education (from my experience and observation). It's being around other enthusiastic (non slacker) high achievers who worked hard to get there and want to be there. And connections and all the things others talk about.

Knowing that you went to the top ranked program not opens many doors (bankers were impressed when I had to borrow money) but also gives you the confidence that extends well beyond education.

In a way it's similar to driving up to high school being the quarterback _and_ driving a fancy new car (was not me but I can only imagine). You feel good about yourself (in your own mind) and that confidence affects others as well.

As far as learning about business and how to run one? I didn't learn that from the business program. I learned that working during high school and college and from having a family business and other companies that I worked for.

<comment><USER22> Speaking as somebody that graduated from a lower-ranked school, I completely agree.

I learned a _ton_ from my last failed startup. So much, in fact, that it took a six-month vacation afterwards to really digest the experience, and I don't think that I'm boasting when I say that one failed startup, one where you pour everything into it, is equivalent or better to an MBA.

What I didn't get, and I had to work for, was the credential.

The only people that recognize one of my schools (Waseda) as being anything special are all in either Japan or China.

So when I go to meet a client or a banker, I don't have the credential card in my hand, and have to rely on my network, history, and general ability to get along with pretty much everybody.

While these have gotten me along pretty well, I do regret making the naïve assumption that schools were about education, rather than about the people you meet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Lets look at this from the other perspective. That of big companies hiring product teams.

Educating, finding, hiring, training, cultivating and retaining talent is extremely difficult. Companies recruit at colleges, where students have worked hard enough on their credentials to gain admittance and even harder getting good grades and joining clubs and participating in activities. They will identify a few good candidates. They will recruit these candidates, along with every other relevant company. Making offer letters, a few will accept. These will be trained for months, then cultivated for years. Now you've got to get these people to work together in teams, and some of those teams will work out and some will not. Most workers will leave in a few years, some even sooner. Some will grow, advance and go on to become leaders. One will go on to become the company's CEO. The funnel chart on this system is daunting, going from millions of students to one CEO.

On the other hand, Y Combinator will take anyone with a convincing video, the 'right look' (see: Moneyball) and attitude, and gung ho fervor. The program teaches these teammates to work together to build and ship experiments quickly and get real people using them, and then to adapt to new data to conduct new experiments. Upon graduation, the teams get more money to continue conducting experiments as they seek their market. Most are acquired in 'acquihires.' Buying a working team bypasses the lengthy process outlined above. Huge value to the acquirer, and contracts/incentives tie the team up for a few years.

Bottom line: these acquihires are profitable for the acquiring companies, the founders, and Y Combinator. Making the acquihire machine turn does not require an idea, a cohesive team, or much of anything except the ability to successfully complete the training Y Combinator provides. Some companies go on to find a market, the rest get the degree, a bonus and a job.

YC training is boot camp. It is the new Harvard, formed to match post-web realities.

Or something.

* Not asserting Y Combinator discriminates, but any time 3 people in a room make a decision without a lot of hard data on the candidates' performance at that task... bias must enter. This is one checkpoint in a new system.

<comment><USER24> Anything that lets us bypass bullshit, makework and proxies-for-things-we-want and instead go directly for substance, realwork, and the-things-we-want, is a good thing and should be done much more of. Also, instead of a "student" throwing $50k at an institution in order to "learn" and gain credentials I'd much rather that the student be paid $50k by an institution and learn and gain a better sort of credentials: building things rather than passing tests. Though I don't agree with exactly how he did it, I suspect this philosophy is similar to the one behind Peter Thiel's recent "20 Under 20" anti- scholarships.

And yes, ideally it's better to be acqui-hired than hired. For a software engineer with the right talent mix it's the difference between being paid $300k for 3 years work (which is nothing to sneeze at, certainly, but you can't retire with it), vs being paid $3-30m+ -- if the upside scenario happens, of course. And these aren't even mutually exclusive choices.

<comment><USER23> Kind of funny that an acquihire entitles you to housing in the Bay Area, isn't it? For a few hundred grand, you can get a house in an outlying area.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I agree that the purpose of what you are trying to achieve is important. Some people just care only about the status of getting into an accelerator program but I think the real value lies in building something that has an impact and changes the way we live our life. The problem with people just wanting "the credentials" is like the people who want to just get into a school for its name but don't really care about the value it can provide for them. When people begin to realize that the credentials are just an added value to all that the program provides they will come to the realization that working on an idea that makes an impact for the right reason is far more important than those credentials.

</comment><comment><USER26> Taking advantage of the system is what humans do; as much it can be despised. I hope the people that are in it for the wrong reasons get weeded out. With all the experience that pg and the team have, it can't be too hard, right?

</comment><comment><USER27> Well put. The one thing I'd add, that isn't immediately stated in this article, is the importance of MISSION as part of the entrepreneurial process. Product is key, of course, as are opportunity and the skills to capture it. But there are going to be crap days in the entrepreneurial process, and as was stated in the article, the product may pivot. The mission, however -- the passion -- will be the key to reaching all the tomorrows en route to success. Great post!

</comment><comment><USER28> credentials....

"If you like this post, please upvote it on hacker news"

<comment><USER29> I thought that was a bit ironic and funny as well. However, with that said, I did up vote it as I believe it's a great point of view and well written.

</comment></comment><comment> Sarah-Jane People with those kinds of janky priorities aren't going to make anything that's meaningful.

</comment><comment><USER30> Credentialing is an (unavoidable?) product of scaling up angel funding. On the other hand starting my startup, convincing friends to join it, getting to the interview stage at YC and losing a nontrivial amount of my friends money on a stupid idea did make me a more mature person. Your friend might just learn a few things by accident.

</comment><comment><USER31> That font is unreadable

<comment><AUTHOR> Fixed now.

<comment><USER32> Are you sure? I still see a page full of ugly pixelated courier-esque font, with 3px-wide "i" characters distracting from being able to read anything. (Chrome/XP)

Please, bloggers of the world. If you don't understand fonts or how to correctly embed fonts into a web page in a way that looks good cross-platform and not just on your machine, just use web-safe fonts.</comment></comment></comment>


The Myth of Mental Illness: The Shizophrenic and the Psychocrat - <AUTHOR> http://expressiveegg.org/2017/03/07/schizophrenic-psychocrat/ <comment><USER2> Did you write this? Bravo!

<comment><USER2> You might also like Deleuze & Guattari's schizophrenia works and also this kinda oddball-but-eventually-led-to-buzzfeed paper: [http://www.datawranglers.com/negations/issues/96w/96w_perett...](http://www.datawranglers.com/negations/issues/96w/96w_peretti.html)</comment></comment>


Cloud kitchens posing as legitimate restaurants in SF - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/chezpim/status/1221327600284397569 <comment> 52-6F-62 Wow! There are a number of articles linked in that long chain of comments that expand upon the issues talked about:

[https://underunderstood.com/podcast/episode/yelp-grubhub- dar...](https://underunderstood.com/podcast/episode/yelp-grubhub-dark- pattern/)

[https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wjwebw/yelp-is- sneakily-r...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wjwebw/yelp-is-sneakily- replacing-restaurants-phone-numbers-so-grubhub-can-take-a-cut)

[https://www.inquirer.com/food/grubhub-doordash-caviar- restau...](https://www.inquirer.com/food/grubhub-doordash-caviar-restaurant- delivery-war-philadelphia-20200123.html)

These are some _slimy_ business practices. A number of these stories also sound grossly illegal.</comment>


John Carmack Answers - <AUTHOR> http://games-beta.slashdot.org/story/99/10/15/1012230/john-carmack-answers

<comment><AUTHOR> Relevant portion

 _3\. by moonboy asks: I once read, in Wired, an article that said you have an incredible headstart on everyone else for making "virtual worlds" on the Internet using your engine from the Quake games. Do you have any intention of doing this? Has anyone approached you about it? It would seem like a fantastic use of the technology with online gaming being so popular. Entire worlds online could be created virtually and very life-like with many different purposes.

John Carmack Answers: Making Snow Crash into a reality feels like a sort of moral imperative to a lot of programmers, but the efforts that have been made so far leave a lot to be desired. It is almost painful for me to watch some of the VRML initiatives. It just seems so obviously the wrong way to do something. All of this debating, committee forming, and spec writing, and in the end, there isn't anything to show for it. Make something really cool first, and worry about the spec after you are sure it's worth it! I do think it is finally the right time for this to start happening for real. While a lot of people could envision the possibilities after seeing DOOM or Quake, it is really only now that we have general purpose hardware acceleration that things are actually flexible enough to be used as a creative medium without constantly being conscious of the technical limitations. Two weeks ago, I pitched a proposal to develop some technology along these lines to the rest of the company. I may wind up working on some things like that in parallel with the next game project._</comment>


Tomb Raider and the Fall of Core Design - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/03/it-felt-like-robbery-tomb-raider-and-the-fall-of-core-design/ <comment><USER2> I have to say that Crystal Dynamics just killed it with the latest Tomb Raider reboot. I had written off the whole series as a cash cow churning out title after title of boring sequel.

But I tried the 2013 reboot and it hit all the right notes with me. I rarely play games to full 100% completion, but I played Tomb Raider 2013 until I had found _everything_ (all collectables, etc). It's really a great game.

<comment><USER3> Did you play the original?

You probably liked the reboot because it is aims for the lowest common denominator( as most AAA games today do ). It is made to be really easy to play, since the obligation to keep the player playing, takes priority over gameplay.

The goal is to prevent player getting stuck by Any Means Necessary; keep them always occupied so they don't get frustrated and quit. For example:

You always now where to go thanks to the always present directions and the minimap, quick-time events replace sequences where skill mattered, there is a tutorial for everything, treasures and trinkets keep players, who have hoarder inclinations, occupied.

The original has None of Those. You were presented with a level and that was the obstacle. The satisfaction was deeper, you felt good because you actually had to suffer and persevere and choose to not quit. When you finally you solved the level you really accomplished something.

<comment><USER4> It's fun to be challenged in skill, in interesting fights or puzzles. But getting lost or not knowing where to go all the time, that's just a time- waster. Like the whole category of "fetch" quests.

Especially when you quit a game for a week, and come back having forgotten the map and your latest goal.

If you make a dungeon crawler for the express purpose of making a dungeon crawler (Grimrock?) it can be fun to lack directions, have no minimap, take notes, draw maps by hand... but not every game means to be like that, and it isn't the only valid way to make a game.

Sometimes the "on-rails" approach is actually the most fitting. Mirror's Edge, anyone? The best part of that game was getting into a groove and feeling the flow as you dash through levels. "The grind" is antithetical to the point of the game.

Remember, it's just bits- games are for enjoyment. Suffering isn't the point (unless that's what you enjoy)

<comment><USER5> "Suffering isn't the point (unless that's what you enjoy)"

I don't think it was about suffering, as it was about how challenging it is. Think about other (non-gaming) experiences. The best are the challenging ones, that require your full attention. Games work the same way, and on the other end are those that hold your hand and make you sleep or quit before a tough game will.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Good thing - due to kickstarter and steam we are slowly returning to the golden days - all the best games of the last few years (not the most polished, just the best) are not AAA blockbusters. Outside of AAA we see a lot of new properties, no sequels, innovation and risk taking.

Also what are doing on HN instead of plowing trough Pillars of Eternity ...

<comment><USER7> For anyone else struggling to work out what "AAA" stands for, apparently it's just "triple A" (like batteries): [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAA_%28game_industry%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAA_%28game_industry%29)

<comment><USER8> I would say, more like credit rating than like batteries :)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bond_credit_rating](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bond_credit_rating)

<comment><USER9> Ohh, I suppose that makes more sense than what I always think of, which is minor league baseball. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple- A_%28baseball%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple-A_%28baseball%29)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Don't fuck up the culture" rings true here.</comment>


San Francisco, 'the Silicon Valley of Recycling' - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/29/science/san-francisco-the-silicon-valley-of-recycling.html?action=click&contentCollection=opinion&module=NextInCollection&region=Footer&pgtype=article&version=spotlight&rref=collection%2Fspotlight%2Fconversation-starters&_r=0 <comment><USER2> Really? They are completely in violation in terms of having bottle and can recycling centers.</comment>


Ask HN: What's the best technical talk you've heard? - <AUTHOR>

Spring 2014 edition of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5511466 <comment><USER2> Rich Hickey - Simple Made Easy [http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple- Made-Easy](http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy)

Changed how I think about a lot of stuff, made my design process a lot more rigorous, and my projects more successful.

<comment><USER3> Agreed, changed my thinking completely now when people use easy and simple I explicitly try to clarify their meaning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> These talks have changed the way I think in the last year:

"The Shift: UX Designers as Business Consultants" Davide Casali-Interaction14 [http://vimeo.com/86495316](http://vimeo.com/86495316)

Fred George - Programmer Anarchy [http://vimeo.com/43690647](http://vimeo.com/43690647)

Ian Cooper: TDD, where did it all go wrong. [http://vimeo.com/68375232](http://vimeo.com/68375232) (All my objections to TDD expressed far more fluently than I could).

Not technical related but... The key to becoming a super-profitable creative agency [http://vimeo.com/70026678](http://vimeo.com/70026678) (though still working out how to apply it)

I have a large "To Watch" list kept in open browser tabs - someone must have built an app to better manage them? So I can say "All the videos on [http://www.microconf.com/videos-2013.html"](http://www.microconf.com/videos-2013.html") and have it add them to my watchlist.

</comment><comment><USER5> Guy Steele Jr.: Growing a Language [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ahvzDzKdB0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ahvzDzKdB0)

</comment><comment><USER6> In my opinion honestly speaking-GOOGLE GLASS WILL BE RELEASED IN 2014 Details on-[http://www.etunescafe.com/tech-news/google-glass-will-be- rel...](http://www.etunescafe.com/tech-news/google-glass-will-be-released- in-2014/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Jonathan Blow (How to Program Independent Games) [http://the- witness.net/news/2011/06/how-to-program-independe...](http://the- witness.net/news/2011/06/how-to-program-independent-games/) Not really about games. More about CS in general

Any talk by Bret Victor.

</comment><comment><USER8> Hard to say if it's the best, but Crockford series on javascript is just awesome. I highly recommend it.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxAXlJEmNMg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxAXlJEmNMg) (Browse the related videos to see the others)

</comment><comment><USER9> Bret Victor - The Future of Programming [http://vimeo.com/71278954](http://vimeo.com/71278954)

He actually speaks about a potential alternative present. ;)

Absolutely ruined the box I was thinking in.

</comment><comment><USER10> either talks by Joe McCray, or a talk by Adam Moskowitz on how to transition to a Sr. Sysadmin.</comment>


'Corporate America Has Failed Black America' - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/06/business/corporate-america-has-failed-black-america.html <comment><AUTHOR> "In technology, there are zero black members of the senior leadership teams of Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Amazon.

In total, there are just four black chief executives among the 500 largest companies in the country." - from the article

<comment><USER2> impressive</comment></comment>


8 Abandoned Radar Stations That Were Once State-Of-the-Art - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/8-abandoned-radar-stations-that-were-once-state-of-the-1323041365 <comment><USER2> It's odd to omit the Mt. Umunhum radar station that overlooked Silicon Valley for decades.

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed, it should be although seems a lot of it is gone now . But here's a link with some photos of Mt Umhmhum [https://www.openspace.org/mount-umunhum- sierra-azul](https://www.openspace.org/mount-umunhum-sierra-azul)

<comment><USER2> Back in the leaded fuel / inefficient car era, a good metric for an unusually clear day is that you could see dish rotation on Umunhum from across the valley.</comment></comment></comment>


Personal Branding for Introverts - <AUTHOR> http://andrew.hedges.name/blog/2009/11/18/personal-branding-for-introverts

<comment><USER2> "Introverts tend to think about what they want to say before they say it. If it's already been said by someone else, we don't feel the need to say it again."

Does this imply that extroverts don't? Did I sleep through this lecture in False Dichotomies 101?

<comment><USER3> Being a Extrovert/Introvert is not an absolute value, but rather a scale. Notice that he says _tend to think_.

So, yes, somebody that happens to be a "total extrovert" speaks before thinking. Not that they are dumb, or don't think. It's just that their do their reasoning externally, "out loud".

<comment><USER4> I don't think it is true that extroverts don't think before speaking. The difference between I/E is that introverts think about what they are saying and extroverts think about how what they are going to say will affect those they are saying it to.

Introverts care less about the feelings and emotions of their co- conversationalists and extroverts are more socially motivated to say nice things that make the group feel good or work better.

I think both introverts and extroverts think about what they are going to say. The question is, what do they tend to say once they've thought about it?

<comment><USER5> _The difference between I/E is that introverts think about what they are saying and extroverts think about how what they are going to say will affect those they are saying it to._

Wow, this would make me an extremely reticent extrovert. That isn't the dichotomy. The chief difference between introverts and extroverts is not whether they think about the feelings of others but how outgoing they are.

Extroverts may or may not think about what they say but enjoy the attention saying it will bring. Introverts are less interested in the attention.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you regularly post on Twitter, and have a sizeable following, you're addressing a room full of (virtual) strangers. Doesn't that make you an extrovert, regardless of how you would react in a similar physical room?

I just dislike the line in the sand between E and I. I'm both, swinging between the extremes sometimes, exhibiting characteristics of both at the same time, whatever. It varies by setting, mood, etc. Having said that, when it comes to the Internet, I'm definitely extroverted - telling the world about my life on a regular basis - and saying what's on your mind is the _power_ of social media, innit? If we all stopped to think about the 'self' we are inadvertently exposing, we'd end up staring at our virtual feet and never twittering at all.

<comment><AUTHOR> It really doesn't matter if you're an I or an E. Or switch between I/E. As long as you can accept yourself. The rule of thumb I use for I/E orientation is does that person get energized around other people...

Myers-Briggs is simplistic. Check out Kolbe testing ($$) for a more detailed picture of 'you'

<http://www.kolbe.com/>

A repost but: We had a team bonding day in which we were split up randomly into small groups. Random or not, the group I was put on was all introverts. We were given a problem [a clever problem-solving exercise] and the observer (who was an extrovert) noted that (to him) 'it was like they were all just staring at the puzzle for 5 minutes. They were just sitting there thinking. No one in the group said much of anything until they arrived at a silent consensus.' Contrast that to other groups where members debated the relative merits of their solutions. We won the game.

In another company exercise, done after a Myers-Briggs session, they split the I's and E's into groups. And then they said (hypothetically) 'You have the day off. What do you guys want to do with the day? You have $100 each'. The I's were like - I'm gonna read a book, run errands etc. And the E's were like - 'Who's going to Vegas? Party at our house.' The E's were planning parties while the I's were planning alone time.

<comment><USER7> That definition is obsolete, though. I get drained by a constant social setting in real life - but I get energised by a constant online social setting. Like Jennifer, I am somewhat introverted (though I oscillate between the two) in real life, and clearly extroverted online.

It's hard to claim to be introverted when you have a blog that's <yourname>.com and tweet private thoughts to 700+ strangers several times a day.

<comment><AUTHOR> We'll agree to disagree then.

I mean, I'm thrilled that a random article that I stumble on from the iPhone PPK post is getting a surge of readers. Feel like I connected people in a small way.

I know a few introverts who constantly connect with about a hundred contacts through Twitter (I was relieved when Twitter added the @filter)

Technology levels the playing field for making & building human connections (whether it is one-to-one, one-to-many, uni/bi-directional). Introverts can leverage technology to build and nurture communities. And, yes, make a living doing it.

And, I'm going to assume the extremely influential Daring Fireball's Jon Gruber is an introvert based on what I've read about him and his articles and the fact I've never really heard of him making public appearances.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > _It's like a dirty word. "Introvert." Western societies tend to value life- > of-the-party types over people like me_

I thought that introvert had to do more with whether or not you thrive on social interaction or not. It's possible for an introvert to be a 'life-of- the-party' type.

I consider myself introverted because sometimes social interaction really exhausts me. Whereas someone that is extroverted feels exhausted and tired _without_ social interaction; and social interaction energizes and motivates them.

Even though he's trying to talk about intro/extroverts it seems like he's further perpetuating myths about what those terms actually mean.

</comment><comment><USER9> I don't see what this has to do with introverts in specific. The general advice applies to any kind of person. When building a brand name you should control what you say. On the internet you have an unparalleled ability to control exactly what is thought of you, based on the limited amounts of information you choose to reveal. If you were to only post CSS tips on Twitter, people who know you through Twitter will think of you as a CSS buff. This is intuitive.

</comment><comment><USER10> In my humble experience -- I'm an introvert -- the essence of introversion and extroversion isn't necessarily how you act out socially.

For example, I'm sometimes very extroverted and sometimes very introverted, and often something between. And that's me, so I'm not pretending to be anything else.

However, the key question, it seems to me, is that introverts eventually lose more energy than they gain while interacting with other people. Then they have to recharge themselves alone. Extroverted people seems to gain energy from social interactions, and eventually lose more of it when they're left alone. Again, they can enjoy solitude but it drains them.

Both can do both but an introvert being extroverted or an extrovert being introverted isn't sustainable in the long run.

<comment><USER11> Your description of your extro-/intro-version sounds like how I'd describe myself.

Do you find that online interactions count as alone time vis-a-vis recharging?

<comment><USER10> I would say online interactions consume energy, too. Not on the same imminent level as in-real-life interactions but they do.

Generally if I don't feel like going online to "see" my friends I generally don't feel like going out to see them either. Sometimes I might chat with someone when I wouldn't do that physically but often the said discussion is then less connecting and more shallow.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: MD Notes - Write notes in Markdown and send as HTML - <AUTHOR>

I was on my iPhone using the notes tool, and I thought, "How cool would it be if when you sent the notes, they were formatted as HTML."<p>http://md.db-dev.info <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable link:

<http://md.db-dev.info></comment>


Show HN: FormBolt – Self-hosted visual builder for CRUD apps using VueJS - <AUTHOR> https://www.formbolt.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hello, OP here.

This is something I've been working on for quite some time. The goal is to make it easy for anyone to build database apps by first defining a data structure and then creating forms and UI around it. Pretty much anything can be built with FormBolt - from very basic apps to replace excel spreadsheets to complex apps for inventory management, product management, or any custom business processes/data. This is not a tool for visual programming. Instead I think of it as a visual scaffolder - users visually create the app blueprint, which the background service uses to automatically create and deploy a fully functional web app. It offers granular user permissions and it's easy to create different forms/workflows for different user groups.

FormBolt can run locally without a centralized server (all data stored locally) or you can put it on a remote server, enable networking and have your own private cloud app.

As the title it has a visual builder and doesn't require writing any code (for the most basic apps), however writing some JS and SQL is necessary for more advanced functionality. From my experience with it so far I can say that building the usual CRM/project management/invoicing app takes a few hours (from idea to working app). In fact it takes me more time to decide what forms I need for an app than actually building it.

This is what I used to create it: \- Front: VueJS & Semantic UI \- Back: Golang \- Database: PostgreSQL

What do you think?

<comment><USER2> Can you clone a website for dev, test, prod purposes?

<comment><AUTHOR> If you mean the web app, then yes - apps can be cloned and then merged with a single mouse click. This is done with snapshots.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Can you generate React code and use React widgets?</comment>


Live in the problem, not in the solution: How customer development has gone awry - <AUTHOR> http://www.thisisgoingtobebig.com/blog/2011/7/18/live-in-the-problem-not-in-the-solution-how-customer-develop.html

<comment><AUTHOR> The counter argument to MVP that Charlie O'Donnell (First Round Capital) provides in this blog post resonates with me: I am an engineer and I like to solve problems first by my own insights. Perhaps customer development should happen only after the organic insight has been distilled into MVP ?

</comment><comment><USER2> Quote: "I've got more in the car of my truck if you want them in blue."

Funny typo if you know Lisp.</comment>


XStream: A Java 8 Stream extension to process data pipelines the uniX way - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/benas/xstream <comment><USER2> Unfortunately the name clashes with the general Stream library from ThoughtWorks ([http://x-stream.github.io](http://x-stream.github.io))

That said, it looks like a really excellent idea - the stream library in Java8 is powerful but far too complex for simple jobs.</comment>


Show HN: Please Review Our Project "1 Million Valentines" - <AUTHOR>

For fun this Valentine's Day, a couple buddies and I decided to play around with the idea of digital Valentines. We cranked out the project in the month of January as a "nights & weekends" project.
We'd love any feedback in general! Our next step is to figure a way to seed this in key communities, to see if it has any chance of taking off.
The URL is www.1millionvalentines.com (or www.1MVS.com).
Thanks! <comment><USER2> I feel like the milliondollarhomepage.com thing can only work once. There were a million knockoffs (exaggeration and pun intended) that didn't work out at the time. Even the original creator's next attempt failed if I remember correctly.

I would say it's possible for it to work again but you would need a lot of luck

<comment><USER3> The guy sold 10,000 posters afterwards: [http://www.firebox.com/product/2322/The-Million-Dollar- Homep...](http://www.firebox.com/product/2322/The-Million-Dollar-Homepage- Poster)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Who would rent a valentine's pixel which will need to be scrolled x time to be seen? Please, would even you really buy it for 10 dollars/pix?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good questions / concerns. Yup scrolling works, but as well, if one shares a specific Valentine, then it will appear auto-popped / enlarged.

As for the value, the thinking is this is a public showing of one's affection, and real estate is limited / disappearing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What are you doing with the money? Is this a charity?

<comment><AUTHOR> No plans currently. Do you think that would help with someone buying a digital Valentines? Please lemme know if you have any suggestions of relevant charities!

<comment><USER5> You want people to pay $10 for nothing in return. Usually that sort of thing is reserved for charities. I wouldn't buy one of these just to line your pockets. I would buy one to support a cause I believe in assuming enough of the money went to said cause.

I feel like the fact that '1 million' is in your name says a lot about why you did this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! And yup, we're being up front with it all (re: name, etc.). Seems like charity path might be the best way to try something like this (and do some good in the world).

<comment><USER6> Why change the plan now based on a few comments? The point was to make money. The problems I see are:

* You launched too late. You have 9 days for this to build traction and then you have to wait until next year. * You're charging to much for 1x1 * The price seems to be the same for all squares no matter where they are * You have to scroll to see some squares * You should have given away a lot of free squares so it wouldn't just look empty

For something like this I think you need a lot of marketing. Here is how I would have gotten word out for cheap:

* Give free squares to facebook fan pages (ideally fans of people like Bieber, Twilight, 1D, etc) in exchange for posting the link * Do a competition on a large facebook fan page to give away free squares * When a valentine pic is added, an email is sent to the valetine telling them someone has added their pic and to come back on valentines day to see a roll-over note * Integrate Facebook so that you get people updating Facebook when they add someone

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey these are awesome ideas! Haven't changed the plan yet, still noodling over it all. I agree with your points. We're treating this as more of a prototype / MVP / test the waters. I think we're going to proceed with the free plan (similar to your idea), and in meantime (in the SHORT meantime) reach out to charities and some big stars to see about seeding / cross promotion.

<comment><USER6> Cool, it sounds like you're taking the right approach. You can use what you learn for next valentines day. You could even do it for Xmas (leave a present under the tree for someone you love)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's the plan! We're having fun and learning. And Mother's Day is also right around the corner...

<comment><USER6> Looks like you have a competitor:

<http://www.lidl-love-lock.com></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Bicycle Parking Guidance System in Utrecht - <AUTHOR> https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2015/06/09/bicycle-parking-guidance-system-in-utrecht/

<comment><AUTHOR> It may also interest people here that the guidance system is written in Haskell. I originally saw this on Reddit, where one of the authors provides a bit more information on the technical aspects of the system [0].

[0] [http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/3959r0/haskellbased...](http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/3959r0/haskellbased_bicycle_parking_guidance_system_in/)

<comment><USER2> Thanks. I thought I noticed a Haskell logo sticker on that developer's laptop in the photo...

<comment><USER3> That's me and my laptop :-)

As I mentioned in the reddit comments we're using Haskell for most parts of the system (frontend via GHCJS, web application servers, protocol implementations). For dev-ops we use the Nix ecosystem: NixOS & nixops.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> They also showed some outside parking places. Security is not a problem inside but what about outside? Do the cameras serve a dual role, is the bike insured against theft?

<comment><USER5> No, bikes are almost never insured against theft, that's the person's own responsibility (lock and chain), and even then sometimes you're just out of luck. Having your bike stolen is one of the experiences every Dutchman has to go through. That's also why there's a huge secondhand / cheap bike trade, or why you won't see much expensive bikes in the big cities like that. And for the few kilometers (if that) between your house and a train station, you don't really need anything fancy either.

<comment><USER4> I can lock the bike almost anywhere anyway, I thought this would help protect it.

I don't see any reason to use this service.

<comment><USER6> Not at a busy train station in Holland.

200+ bikes are removed _per day_ at Amsterdam's central train station for being parked outside of the designated bicycle parking areas (e.g. sidewalks, bridges, alongside the walls of the station). Even within the designated areas, you usually have to be parked in a bike rack or your lock will be cut and the bike removed.

At busy stations it would be great to know which one of the designated spots you should bike towards. Biking farther away and walking for 3 minutes is much better than guessing incorrectly, searching for a spot for 10 minutes, and still having to walk for three minutes... especially when you need to catch a train!

<comment><USER4> Great argument. My country is much more relaxed when it comes to bike parking ( and stealing unfortunately ).

<comment><USER7> Probably because your country doesn't have as many bikes as Netherland does.

In most places in Netherland, parking wherever you like is no big deal, but there are places (train stations in particular) where bikes really need to be restricted, or there'd be no room for anything other than bikes.

It's the same as with cars: the occasional randomly parked car is not a big problem, but once you've got thousands of cars being parked all over the place, it becomes time to restrict them to designated parking spots. It's no different with bikes, except you need a lot more bikes to get to the point where they become a problem. Dutch cities have that many bikes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I live in Utrecht and I think it's a waste of taxpayer's money. Too complicated solution for a simple problem.

<comment><USER9> What's the simpler solution?</comment></comment>


'Calling bullshit': the college class on how not to be duped by the news - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/16/calling-bullshit-college-class-news-information <comment><USER2> _> "Calling Bullshit is not dedicated to teaching students that Fox News promotes "fake news" or that National Enquirer headlines are fallacious."_

Oh, the irony. An article about college class that teaches people to spot bad information online is itself full of standard techniques journalists use to manipulate people.

I see this one a lot lately. Someone drops a phrase that _assumes_ something the author wants readers to remember and believe. The phrase is usually oddly specific, while the author pretends to convey a general idea or talks about something entirely unrelated.

<comment><USER3> I think you're wrong.

That quote assumes that when people think about "calling bullshit" in relation to the news that they would immediately think of Fox News or The National Enquirer. Is that wrong? Won't most Guardian readers immediately think of Fox News when they read this headline?

When I clicked on this article, I started from a perspective of "Oh look, it's The Guardian, a lefty publication, talking about how Fox News is bad. How shocking". I was wrong.

So yeah, I don't think the bit you quoted is an attempt to manipulate readers. By referencing Fox News, it's just trying to account for what it assumes its readers already think. And I think it's basically correct in those assumptions.

<comment><USER4> To the article's credit, that section makes a real effort to differentiate "bullshit" from "fake news" and "fallacious".

I know an awful lot of people who are too educated and internet-savvy to accept most nakedly-false claims, but happily bite on stats that lack per- capita corrections, or compare rates like change and accuracy without accounting for base values, or even make subtle but concrete errors like confusing 'ppm' with 'ppb'. They may not accept anything farcically false, but "less wrong" is not always "more right", and it's still easy to end up believe an entire-untrue claim off respectable looking sources. I think the focus on Snopes-style truth ratings has sometimes hindered our ability to literally call 'bullshit', asserting that a piece undermines knowledge regardless of its technical correctness.

I'm not sure if this article succeeds at that - I think conflating Fox with The National Enquirer and other sources that regularly invent things outright is a mistake that obscures the discussion. (Fox has run content sourced from RealTrueNews, but the distinction still matters; fake news sites and the media titans legitimizing their stories are different parts of the ecosystem.) But it's a worthwhile attempt regardless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I suggest that 'calling bullshit' on just about everything pushed by corporate news is a good idea, including the Guardian. 'Question everything' is a good approach to assessing information from all sources. Just because an entity presents itself as a 'news source' doesn't mean that information is accurate or unbiased. 'Who benefits' and finding out the facts are key to navigating our information choked world in my opinion...particularly the facts that aren't 'reported'...

<comment><USER6> Great. That way you have absolutely no basis to make any decision on.

It's utterly impossible to verify even a tiny bit of the information you rely on every day from first principle. If you don't find some way to establish trust, you're almost literally lost in the wilderness (if you include Google Maps and all map makers in your "trust no one" shtick).

<comment><USER7> > _Great. That way you have absolutely no basis to make any decision on._

No basis is better than a bad basis. At least you're not duped into thinking you have a basis.

> _It's utterly impossible to verify even a tiny bit of the information you > rely on every day from first principle._

Doesn't have to be "first principles" (no need to reinvent math for example).

Tons of informations we rely on can be verified quite easily with a little personal effort, and some good foundational reading on undisputed stuff (like mathematics, physics, biology, and so on).

For example, you don't need to become a doctor to not be duped by BS fad diets pushed by the media -- you just need to know enough nutrition basics, easily doable (and useful in itself).

And if something (e.g. fracking) is important for you, you can study the literature (starting with books, including university handbooks -- not internet posts, not articles, and not mere scientific papers of random research on the matter), talk to some experts directly (it's not impossible, I've talked with experts in lots of different matters), talk to people in communities nearby, affected, etc, and draw your own conclusions.

<comment><USER8> Then summarize what you learned and write about it so other people can learn it too ... oh shit now you're a journalist

<comment><USER7> No, you could be a popular science author.

The problem is that few journalists are that, and the majority of media are not just full of uninformed journalists, but also pushers of various interests (political party affiliations, government lobbying, private interests, industry lobbies, the newspaper's owner, advertisers, etc).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Sir — A. J. Tatem and colleagues calculate that women may out-sprint men by > the middle of the twenty-second century (Nature 431,525; 2004). They omit to > mention, however, that (according to their analysis) a far more interesting > race should occur in about 2636, when times of less than zero seconds will > be recorded.

This analysis fails to account for the prediction that in early 27th century FTL speeds will be achievable and a woman would invent a relativistic shoe that would allow here to wind the 100 meters dash.

</comment><comment><USER10> Something tells me that college is not where this class belongs.

<comment> java-man you are right, we need to teach our kids about bullshit much earlier.

<comment><USER11> We all keep saying that. So how do we get the ball rolling?

<comment><USER12> Convince parents that teaching kids to think critically is more important than indoctrinating said child into whichever religion or political sphere the parent is already a part of. In my experience that's a broadly impossible task. Parents want their kids to think critically only about the things the parent already rejects.

<comment><USER13> Kids that think critically are less susceptible to lazy parenting.

Nobody wants to explain to their 5yo why they can't afford a Barbie Jeep but can afford booze or going out to eat. Nobody wants a teenager that is well versed in assessing the goals and motivation of all the parties in any given situation because they'll recognize all the partial truths they get fed in an attempt to make them to take risks in a manner more like an adult. A teenager that understands statistics well would be impossible to scare into not doing "bad things". Likewise thinking critically is not a high priority thing for parents to teach.

When you're dealing with someone who can't think on the same level as you lying is just so damn easy. They are playing checkers. You are playing seven dimensional chess. Teaching kids to think critically requires a constant effort and directly negatively impacts the parents in the short term. It's like quitting smoking for 18yr, no wonder most people don't do it.

<comment><USER12> Honestly I never considered that angle, but I have to agree. I've always focused on grander aspects of it, but of course the small everyday lies and manipulations would be more central.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Speaking of bullshit, have the Guardian retracted their story about Paul Manafort meeting with Julian Assange in London?

<comment><USER15> That's exactly right. And even if they do, it'll be some small article on page 20 equivalent of the web.

For Guardian (or others) to really regain the trust, they should have a WE WERE WRONG article on their front page for as long as their fake story was there. And it should outline where they went wrong and what steps will be taken to make sure it doesn't happen again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Here's the easiest way to understand how inaccurate most reporting is:

Read any mainstream coverage over a topic you are deeply knowledgeable in.

<comment><USER17> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell- Mann_amnesia_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect)

<comment><USER16> Hah great, it appears theres a second step that needs to be explicit:

Apply to all topics

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> So, in other words, a class in critical thinking and media literacy.

</comment><comment><USER19> Breaking News: Some Bullshit Happening Somewhere:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U4Ha9HQvMo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U4Ha9HQvMo)

<comment><USER20> Haha, not much has changed, except now instead of emails/letters they show tweets. Cable news is a waste of time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> For me it was English Comp freshman year from this wild man: [https://www.winona.edu/english/brault.asp](https://www.winona.edu/english/brault.asp)

</comment><comment><USER22> Their example about the algorithm that predicts if you're a criminal by looking at your face seems... poorly thought out. Note, it's not facial recognition. It's prediction. They make the claim that it's all about jury perception. Maybe it is, but far more important is that it's likely just using an estimate of race and wealth. I'm annoyed that they didn't talk about the bigger red flag: "90% accuracy".

Maybe they should just teach stats...

Edit: pre-empting a nitpick: when I say "wealth" I mean largely as proxied by hairstyle

<comment><USER23> Don't facial recognition systems generally use predictive models?

<comment><USER22> As the article was worded, it was not a system to predict whose face it was, but rather to predict, baseline, if a person were a criminal (as a descriptor, not a specific one)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Should be especially useful when reading the Grauniad then!</comment>


Compute Midwest to Bring Self Driving Cars to Kansas City - <AUTHOR> http://www.inc.com/travis-wright/compute-midwest-to-bring-self-driving-cars-to-kansas-city.html

<comment><USER2> Completely awesome to see this happening in the midwest!

As someone that has traveled from Kansas for many years for conferences, it's wonderful to see friends from the coasts coming to Kansas!

<comment><USER3> IT"S MISSOURI!!!!!! ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is apparently a very sensitive subject for many ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've been to ComputeMW three times and every single time I've been blown away at the caliber of the speakers and the collective dialog they create together. This is a world class conference and definitely worth the trip to Kansas City.

</comment><comment><USER4> Compute Midwest is an awesome event.. always a great conference

</comment><comment><USER5> This is awesome! Can't wait to see it.</comment>


What Happens When You Drink a Gallon of Water a Day? - <AUTHOR> https://www.outsideonline.com/2377851/water-gallon-challenge-month <comment><USER2> Water is great but it is much better and safer to base the amount you consume on your weight and activity level rather than a fixed amount such as 1 gallon per day. This is the conclusion the author came to also.

Here is a calculator that might be appropriate. [https://goodcalculators.com/water-intake- calculator/](https://goodcalculators.com/water-intake-calculator/)

<comment><USER3> Throw away the numbers. Base your intake on frequency and color of urine, with the emphasis on urine color.

Try to achieve a pale, almost colorless urine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "A switch to water that's been ultrapurified by reverse osmosis (plus "carbon polishing" and UV sterilization) has proved revelatory."

This can mess with one's electrolyte balance to a dangerous degree. (She makes a vague reference to buying an "electrolyte mix", but that's before switching to purified water, and she makes no mention of _using_ any.)

<comment><USER5> Do you have a reference for this? As far as I know that is a myth. We even gave the rats in the university nutrition lab I worked in deionized water in their bottles.</comment></comment>


Most people won't. Which means those that do change everything - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@bryce/most-people-won-t-ff0959cdefc6#.541igq258 <comment><USER2> These kind of articles can be classified as "starting point of spreading change in a chaotic system sensitive to small changes". It doesn't inspire anything. If it does, it might even make people think they were doing something wrong when they failed. That is called learned helplessness. When someone fails to fix a thing because of outside influences he has no control of and is not even aware of.

</comment><comment><USER3> Another example of an Medium article giving vague 'life tips' for hackers and startup founders, usually without much in the way of implementable advice? I think so...

Then again, that's most stuff on Medium nowadays. And most stuff put out by 'popular' bloggers, whose works are like a big ball of fluff that never says anything interesting despite claiming to be all 'thought provoking'.</comment>


Architecture of Riot Messaging Service - <AUTHOR> https://engineering.riotgames.com/news/riot-messaging-service <comment><USER2> dupe : [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13762172](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13762172)</comment>


Twitter prepares for Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference - <AUTHOR> http://blog.twitter.com/2008/06/twitterapple.html

<comment><USER2> Prepare what? There shouldn't be anything to prepare...

On another note, all tweets I posted in the the last 2 days disappeared. I'm starting to loose hope...

</comment><comment><USER3> A great way to prepare the world for your upcoming site collapse... hysterical.

</comment><comment><USER4> We can hope.

Any recommended twitter feeds for the conference?

<comment><USER5> I wouldn't depend on twitter. Try the usual gadget and mac rumor blogs, several set up special auto updating live blogs on the day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> turning off pagination can help with load!?

<comment><USER7> I assume it means only one page of tweets, no "older" stuff will be shown.

<comment><USER6> oh that makes sense.</comment></comment></comment>