The Copycats at Hacker News - <AUTHOR> http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2012/02/the-copycats-at.php <comment><USER2> I have participated kinda heavily on HN and a few other Internet outlets for a few years, and both of my software businesses have been cloned. BCC has been cloned multiple times, including by one regular user of a forum I spent a lot of time on, who is actually not lacking in savvy. I do not make a practice of hiding the core tricks as to why BCC works, in fact, I have practically written the complete business plan for cloning it five times and begged people to start using the core tactics. BCC is, at risk of stating the obvious, not the most technically challenging product.

My observations are as follows:

1) No clones have caused my business to fail.

2) It is _effing hard_ to convince people to rip off good ideas which require non-trivial work or savvy. Heck, it's highly nontrivial to get them to "rip off" those ideas when they pay five figures to have me write them down in a strategy document or build the prototype myself and hand them the working source code.

I mean, take A/B testing. I have said "A/B testing prints money" so many times that some people are tired of hearing about it. Empirically, most of my clients, many of whom have read my blog for years, do not A/B test before I work with them. I talk to a lot of startups, some of whom are highly regarded. Very few A/B test as a regular thing. The savviest guy who cloned me doesn't bother A/B testing, either.

Please, good HN readers, "steal" that idea from me (or any of the numerous other people you could steal it from, because I certainly stole it myself). The last company I successfully convinced to actually do it NDAed me vis-a-vis the impact. Let me hum a few bars: they offered to hire me at a quant's salary to do it full-time. (Cheapskates.)

And yet when we check back on who A/B tests here in February 2013, do you know what we're going to see? A few articles about it, with wise comments like "A/B testing can only get you to a local maxima" and "Didn't we read an article just like this on Smashing Magazine in 2006?", and fairly few companies who actually have someone do it every week, even among the savvier folks.

P.S. Would love to be wrong about that.

<comment><USER3> People are often copying the wrong ideas. Why copy a reading list site or make yet-another-alternative-HN-view site, when you could start a real business?

I find Patrick's posts and comments invaluable. He's made a real business selling bingo cards to teachers. He pays contractors and venders thousands of dollars per year.

He has this way of writing that makes what he does sound easy: "a SQL query here, A/B test there, and whoopsie, I just made $35K."

I set out to copy BCC. I asked my wife, "Is there a software product you wish existed, but doesn't?" She wanted a site where she can make custom cupcake wrappers. So I set about making it. It's been nearly a year, and we're only now over $200/month in revenue and +150 unique users per day. It's been a lot of hard work, but along the way, interacting with customers, I realized there's an opportunity to build a real business. We're about to buy a cutting machine and custom dies so we can move from just selling PDFs to fulfilling physical orders. Who knows, with all the emails I've collected, we may start a selling custom web hosting for bakers and party planners.

So, I just want to say: by all means copy something. Clone someone's successful website if you must, but copy their hard work. Copy their market validation. Build a real business.

<comment><USER4> It's all about the zeros.

Simple fact: there are orders of magnitude more people in the world struggling to use the most basic functions of Microsoft Word than there are people who can write Hello World. Anything which makes tasks easier for people in group A is valuable, even if it's already trivial for people in group B.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think I get the core idea of this post, but the title and opening are kinda whiny and link baity, and that bugs me. Were there really lots of clones of hn-bookes.com or were a lot of people just working on the same idea at the same time? The latter happens pretty frequently, it seems, in all human endeavors. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2249390>

I remember when hn-books.com launched, and I vaguely remember some of the clones. None of them are that great. They all suffer from the same issues I've had with other "organize your books" types of sites, with crappy UIs and generally poor categorization and filtering. (What's JQuery in Action doing in the FP section of hn-books? Where's Appel's compiler books in the compiler section, and why isn't Lisp in Small Pieces there? etc... the site that was announced in the Show HN post above suffers from the same issues)

I point out these flaws not to pick on DanielBMarkham's work, because it's a decent site and I hope it's a success. But my point is, bring on the copycats! If no one "copied" anyone else we'd be stuck with an awful lot of shitty first attempts at things. I know this post was about these kinds of web businesses, but in general think where we'd be without copies.

By all means, don't publish the recipe to your secret sauce, and don't do it while you're still brewing it. But don't get pissy about these supposed hordes of copycat programmers just waiting in the wings of HN.

</comment><comment><USER6> I experienced something similar to this a few weeks ago. Except there were no real copycats. A friend of mine and I had difficulty parsing the Who's Hiring thread for just intern posts in SF. So we wrote a beautified, searchable version of HN Who's Hiring (<http://supzu.cc>).

We hacked on it for about 2 weeks between classes. During that time, someone wrote a beautified version of Who's Hiring with regex search. By the time we posted it, there were several comments on the thread to the effect of 'I was actually writing this'.

A similar situation took place in the last few weeks with Bootstrap theme-ing websites. For each posted, there were a slew of 'No way! I've been working on this too - see here'.

I don't necessarily think it's a matter of people copycating, per se. There is a certain amount of emulation that can be seen. Consider when Path created a unique menu that gained some attention on here. Within a week, numerous JS clones were released. A week later, CSS3 complete clones started rolling out.

Overall, I think the story here is that you've got 100,000 users browsing HN. Many of whom have similar skillsets and 'scratch your own itch' engrained in their personalities. The result is often an almost autonomous convergence on a few good ideas. I think this can be attributed to a sort of pidgeon hole principle of code hungry hackers and a few obvious but good ideas.

This practice itself isn't really new. If you look at mathematics alone, you'll find many things with multiple names or a concatenation of names. This is usually because n people happened to all be working on it at the same time without knowledge of each others advances. Sometimes ideas just seem to be 'in the air' at a given point in time.

<comment><USER7> > Sometimes ideas just seem to be 'in the air' at a given point in time.

Yep. Multiple discovery: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery> [http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5317066/2011-kelly-what-tech- wants-c...](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5317066/2011-kelly-what-tech-wants- ch7.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Quote from the article:

So you set up your easel and get out your paints in front of a nice-looking house and start to puzzle over how to start. Suddenly 500 other people all arrive -- some of them who actually know how to paint -- and set up all around you. Not only is it annoying, it's also distracting. And it can lead to a kind of herd mentality where everything is attempted, but nothing is really tried.

This is called "competition" - you will find it everywhere you go. Is it "annoying" and "distracting" that you are not the only one thinking about or working on something? Maybe. But it will never happen that way in life. And even if you are the only one and you finish your work, as soon as it's out and someone sees it, they will copy you.

The way that you deal with competition is to _be better than everyone else_ \- not seek a place where there's no competition. The approach this guy advocates and the way he complains about competition is _not_ the way to approach problems. If someone shows up at the house who actually knows how to paint and you don't, it's time to bow out - you just lost. Practice up and come back next time knowing how to paint.

<comment><USER9> You are not wrong, however, I think the you have maybe missed the main point in the article which is yeah, competition is inevitable, but at least while your getting started its probably best not to share your idea (yes, just an idea) with a massive audience of hungry biz/coders/wannabe's/veterans and instead keep things hush hush until your ready to put it out there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> While I'm happy discussing my "ideas" with most, I don't think discussing them on an open forum such as HN (entrepreneurs, coders, wannabe's, veterans, the lot) is a smart idea.

You wouldn't openly discuss a "oh my god I've just stumbled across x from Ycorp" tip on the trading floor tea room now, would you?

That aside, I do agree it adds an unnecessary level of pressure. You know, the thing is too, theres plenty more spaces out there.

<comment><AUTHOR> No you wouldn't. I agree.

There is a limit to this "ideas are worthless" theory. We don't talk about it enough. Instead we either treat all ideas as precious or all as worthless. The truth is much more nuanced than that.

I think people who are just getting started need to know and understand where to draw the line -- and more importantly that other people are already drawing the line in their public communications.

<comment><USER9> You are absolutely right. I used to be all about the ideas and think it was all about ideas, it'll be hard to explain here in few words but I think ideas are worthless up till a point.

Yeah, the startup process is heavily weighted towards execution, but if you have a stellar idea - and let me just say when I say "idea" I really mean "model" - then sure its got worth. If you know of a stone that nobody's overturned, and hell there's plenty of them you should sure as shit sit on it until you've got a flag ready that you can put in it.

But that only counts if its unique, if your going to build a "OMFG we have a startup that lets you post a 200 CHARACTER status about how what your eating makes you feel" then perhaps the idea might be "worthless" - because thats clearly a business that will make or break in its execution.

So yeah, I agree.

<comment><USER10> I think more generally ideas are worthless incite is not. If you think of Twitter in terms of message length you completely miss many reasons it was such a good idea. Twitter is a useful self-promotion tool for people who will promote it for free. Creating a public message stream large enough and companies will pay to listen in. Let third party's create interfaces and you don't need to pay to send SMS messages.

They could have build a vary different company using similar incites with a completely diffident idea and been just as successful, but realizing the cost of really large scale SMS messaging was not prohibitive was brilliant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I have to say that I'm not taken with the whole "share your startup idea, tell everyone who will listen" for the reasons outlined in this article. My main project, if it succeeds, will be a lifestyle business. As I have a job I can't execute as quickly, if I went around detailing the idea then I am certain someone could beat me to realizing it. Now while I have cross domain skills which mean mine will be better, that's not 100% certain: so why would I share?

Sharing your ideas in many cases I think is a bad idea. With all due respect to Patrick, who has commented elsewhere on this thread, one data point from the niche of Bingo Card Creators (old people referring by word of mouth?) doesn't match up with the high level of clones I see on HN every month.

</comment><comment><USER12> Copycats don't matter at all. All that matters in the long run is stamina, and no copycat will have that. All they'll ever want is a quick buck, some way to copy the success without the hard work. It is _never_ going to work so don't worry about it.

And if a copycat has more stamina than you do then maybe you picked the wrong business. Really, don't worry about people copying you, take it for what it is: flattery.

</comment><comment><USER13> If short-term copycats are threats to your business, you're business must have no plan and a death wish.

<comment><USER14> well said.

<comment><USER14> I think I understand why this was downvoted - didn't know this wasn't ok. Now I know.

Only reason I mentioned this is that it brought the essence of the article out in one sentence (tl;dr).

Please either delete my comment, let me delete my original comment, or stop downvoting me. What's the point in downvoting someone repeatedly? I'm not sure how the system works on your end (or if you can see how many others have downvoted), but seems pretty harsh to keep doing this when there was an honest mistake. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I remember reading an interesting article by Eric Sink once: <http://www.ericsink.com/articles/Game_Afoot.html> which I think is semi- relevant.

====

The thing I find most interesting about Ping Pong is that you can often win without doing anything fancy or aggressive. A lot of players think the way to win is to slam the ball really hard. The problem with this strategy is that a slam is a high-risk/high-reward shot. If you do it right, you almost certainly score a point when your opponent fails to return the ball. If you do it wrong, you give your opponent a point.

Modesty aside, I consider myself a "pretty good" Ping Pong player. I can slam the ball when necessary, but I hardly ever do. I can beat most other players by simply returning every shot with a little backspin. Hitting the ball hard simply isn't necessary. All I need to do is wait for the other player to make 21 mistakes.

====

So even if you have competitors if you execute in a better fashion than they do, and don't f--- up, you can still be the most successful business.

</comment><comment><USER16> Daniel, the point of your article is generally sound, but you omitted an important point, motivation.

When you see a clone of hn-books or bingo card creator or some other idea, you're assuming the motivation for it is profit, and you're assuming the goal is to create a business.

Your assumptions may often be correct, in fact, your assumptions may be correct in the majority of cases, but unfortunately, they are not always correct. You are too focused on "work," "effort," "skill," "business," and "profit" to see the less obvious and more idealistic side of things.

The less obvious side is, fun.

The greatest hackers I've known just love coding. They do it for fun. Many are obsessive enough to use a pedal bike to power their CVS/GIT server if that was the only way to keep it running. The challenge, problem, or idea is mostly irrelevant. Though nearly everyone enjoys having their accomplishments recognized by others, it's not a competition for attention, recognition, profits, or anything else.

Great hackers often have the luxury of waking up, getting a cup of coffee, and scratching whatever itch suits their current fancy. All programmers suffer from the planning fallacy, or more accurately, an over-abundance of optimism. When they see a challenge, their only reaction is, "I can do that!" regardless if there is any realistic truth in their statement. --HN is filled with interesting challenges.

The thing is, the fun is in trying. Whether or not they "succeed" or "fail" matters very little since all the fun is had in just trying. It's also fun to watch other people try, and learn from the lessons they have learned through trying. Programming is not a spectator sport, but learning from the efforts of others is as close as we'll get without actually writing some code of our own, and possibly contributing it back to those we've been watching.

I suspect at least some portion of the clones are merely people who said, "I can do that!" and for fun, gave it a try. The idea of sincerely competing in a business sense never crossed their minds as they fired up their favorite text editor and started having some fun.

If the challenge that I found interesting and fun today was writing an ebook on being a ScrumMaster, I'd enjoy my attempt at writing one. We both know my results would undoubtedly suck compared to yours, but it would still be fun for me, even though the result would still be yet another bit of competition for you.

The above was a poor example, but I wanted to point out how the "fun for me" can also be "harmful for you," even when no harm is intended. It's quite similar to people who drive too fast, or in the opinion of law enforcement, drive faster than allowed or faster than is safe. Some of the "fun" people have is inconsiderate and harmful.

</comment><comment><USER17> _When the community discussed the need to have some app to strip websites of all the annoying visual garbage on them, wham! A bunch of different really cool sites do that now._

Does anbody know what he is referring to? Does he simply mean instapaper, readability and the likes, or are there some other interesting solutions out there?

</comment><comment><USER18> If you write software and people clone it, it's because you're not supporting the community correctly. Maybe it's because nobody can hack on your source code, or maybe your code sucks and nobody wants to work on it. Maybe you don't accept ideas and patches quickly enough. Maybe people don't like talking to you. Maybe it's just randomness.

Basically, software people like writing software, but often don't have a project that really excites them. Reading about something on HN gives them the inspiration to take that idea and implement it themselves.

So yes, if you're making a weekend project that is nothing special and don't want anyone to use, don't talk about it here because someone else will reimplement it. But if you look at complicated things that make money, like Flickr or YouTube, you don't see a lot of people cloning those because it's not as easy.

<comment><USER19> > it's because you're not supporting the community correctly > Maybe it's just > randomness

The latter part of your comment is completely correct, "software people like writing software" and that's often why they clone good ideas, the first part of your comment contradicts this. It has nothing to do with "supporting the community", people build their own versions of open source software all the time.

<comment><USER18> Sorry about that; I edited out a specific example.

search.cpan.org was the default interface to the CPAN for many years. The author didn't share the code and did't really take suggestions from the community, and so it got forked and is now gone. Nobody _wanted_ to fork and rewrite the software -- it was good enough -- but the author wouldn't play ball with his users. Now everyone uses MetaCPAN.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> My gut reaction to this is that real businesses are hard to copy. If you look at the most successful online businesses of the last 10 years (Facebook, Google, Zynga, Linkedin), none of them have had successful copies.

But if you - in an afternoon or a long weekend - create a web site as a small project, expect a lot of people to do that too. Some do it for fun, and some may actually be serious about competing with you. But if you have passion for it, and they don't, it won't matter.

I look at the stuff Patrick does (BCC), and it looks kinda hard to really copy. He's open about his processes, challenges, and all the work he put into it (particularly marketing and generating repeat business). I may be bold enough to say it's easy to copy the technology and hard to copy the business.

</comment><comment><USER21> Great article. I've found myself doing this in the past. I'd tell people how and what I did but there's always an unexpected turn that happens. I leave out that bit because its something I earned through sweat and tears when talking about how I did something.

But, sometimes I just let it all hang out because I know that there's no possible chance for someone to copy my efforts.

The few businesses that are easily copied are usually short term projects because sooner or later everyone finds out the secret. The best projects I've done are the ones where I'm going full open kimono because there's something about my personal network, skill set or etc that gives me an inherent advantage over everyone else.

Best examples are my personal connections to marketing firms and my professional licenses.

</comment><comment><USER22> While copycats shouldn't be a threat to your business model - they can lead to more unnecessary noise in the PR side. It's hard to pitch someone to write an article about your business when they've heard the same idea 100 times.

</comment><comment><USER23> A competing company was manufacturing a product: let's call it A. We talked about creating a new product B. We asked existing customers what they thought about product B.

We realized that product B would not be a good seller and did not invest any money in it. However, the competing company somehow finds out about the plans and invested a lot of money to get product B out the door before we could (even though we had let the idea fall to the side).

They lost a lot of money and it helped us gain additional market share with the original product A.

Note: I only had a small part in this company but makes it easier to write the story with "We".

</comment><comment><USER24> If your business can simply be cloned by just reading comments on the internet about it, your business is not that great to begin with.

</comment><comment><USER25> My question is - is anyone _gaming_ it. For example, were I to suggest that I was working on "InstaPaper for PDFs... with kindle sync and an ipad app" how quickly would I hear about other "copycat" versions with crowdsourced recommendations or lulu tie-ins or some other variation?

(I'm not _actually_ working on one. Really. _looks at watch_)

</comment><comment><USER26> > It's the ultimate in ADHD money-making. Crap + Code + Conversions = money.

I would say this is correct IF you have a mailing list to peddle this 'product' to; a lot of internet millionaires are working exactly like that. They create some crappy product and get their list to buy and sell it.

<comment><USER22> I know someone who built a list of 2000 or so people who buy this weight loss product every single month. He sends them all a coupon newsletter every month. it took him 2-3 years to build that list. 2000 ppl doesn't sound like a lot, but keep in mind the conversion rate is HUGE, and he gets a 20% cut. He makes around $20000 a month in affiliate revenue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> The problem here is not with the audience, but rather with the speaker.

Daniel, you shouldn't even be worried about the copycats; they're not your true audience. Those 500 people who show up to paint the same house as you? They're not your true disciples. They'll play around getting paint on themselves for a week tops and then move on to the next shiny thing. The 3-4 who stay? THOSE are your disciples.

So go ahead. Shout from the rooftops. Share your ideas. The copycats will slavishly praise the good advice, will implement it poorly, and then move on. And the 2-3 people who actually understand you, take your advice to heart, and with diligence and patience implement it will love you forever.

Ideas are not the only diamonds in the rough; people are as well, and only diamonds can recognize diamonds. Don't bemoan by the vastness of the rough. Celebrate the rare diamonds you find instead.

</comment><comment><USER28> In my experience, I've noticed that successful competitive advantages don't come from features. That's because anyone can implement a feature.

</comment><comment><USER29> This is far from a new phenomenon: look at the early days of the automobile up to today's KIRF iPhones.

</comment><comment><USER30> I stand by "people copy success, not ideas."

All ideas are stupid until proven successful. By then, copying is too late.

<comment><USER31> Its quite true .. for lots of time .. we are extracting ideas about the success not the full original idea!

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> This article hits close to home. Two points:

* On copycats: When I release something on HN I get a couple tweets or private emails where the sender basically tells me "hey, I'm going to copy your idea/site/layout/whatever. Just thought you should know." Which is fine because I don't think anything I've done is uniquely original. It is a little weird though to get a heads-up each time.

* I am _incredibly candid_ in my communications about my projects ("startups"). I enjoy the transparency. It makes for a good learning experience, both for others and myself. Lately I've been extra-transparent, though I'm starting to get a feel for when it's time to reel it in.

So, thanks for this -- it really made me sit and think about how I should take care not to divulge something that is key, even if it seems obvious to me. Others might not have found it so obvious or would not have pursued it if they hadn't been handed the answers.

</comment><comment><USER33> The solution to that is to put a lot more ideas out. There really isn't a shortage of ideas, only a shortage of people to implement them.

The problem then becomes that some ideas might not turn a profit fast enough.

The solution to that is to use the fake landing page method or the kickstart/indiegogo to have the market decide for you what to build.

</comment><comment><USER34> Welcome to capitalism</comment>


Tools to Find Domain Names - <AUTHOR> http://domaingroovy.com/

<comment><USER2> Glad to see other people find this useful. If you have any suggestions for good tools I'm missing please let me know.

<comment><USER3> I have a suggestion:

Have a description of each tool and a "Best of" list. I don't want 50 domain tools. I want to know the 5 best ones.

<comment><USER2> Thanks, this is a good suggestion and something I've been thinking about lately as the number of sites listed has increased.

Do you think a description of each tool is necessary or just the "Best of" list?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I just found Bust a Name recently and it has quickly become my favorite...

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

(edit: I just noticed you already have that on your list)

</comment><comment><USER5> I have often gone to <http://www.morewords.com/> to search for dictionary words that end in a TLD I'm looking at, or contain buzz words I want in a domain.

</comment><comment><USER6> Nice resource, thanks! You should also add iwantmyname.com, a good resource with excellent internationalization support...

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the recommendation. I've added them to the list.

<comment><USER6> I used them when I bought a minified url for my site using the Haiti TLD. Seriously they have good reach ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Outstanding resource - most of the projects that I've built over the years I've found the domain names from JustDropped.com (and in the past deleteddomains.com) - but there are some excellent tools here</comment>


Ask HN: Do you ever feel guilty about what you have? - <AUTHOR>

I mean in comparison to people who have much less than you. You know, the old chestnut of: "I am so privileged and have so much, and yet there are people out there who don't even know if they're going to eat again this week."<p>I'm not pointing fingers, I'm just curious as I often struggle with the issue of reconciling all my privileges (and wants) with the fact that billions of people live in poverty. <comment><USER2> Bill Gates, giving a commencement speech at Harvard:

 _My mother, who was filled with pride the day I was admitted here – never stopped pressing me to do more for others. A few days before my wedding, she hosted a bridal event, at which she read aloud a letter about marriage that she had written to Melinda. My mother was very ill with cancer at the time, but she saw one more opportunity to deliver her message, and at the close of the letter she said: "From those to whom much is given, much is expected."_

[http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/060807-gates- commencem...](http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/060807-gates- commencement.html?t51hb)

</comment><comment><USER3> First off, it's not your fault that there are other people who are worse off than you, so there's really no logical reason for you to feel guilty.

Secondly, instead of feeling negative, why don't you help in some way. It doesn't matter if your contribution is small. Try it, and see what happens.

</comment><comment><USER4> I live in India, and yes, I do. For anyone conscientious here, this is a very common feeling (Even when we have earned whatever we have most scrupulously)

For me, I worry more about some people not getting an opportunity to do well. The fact that there were many kids born at the same time as me who did not get the opportunities that I did pains me more than me having stuff that many around me don't.

</comment><comment><USER5> I tend to think in terms of what the community's return-on-investment is with respect to my upbringing and support. Society has collectively invested a lot of money in me without demanding a direct return: some very good state scholarships and a fellowship to go to graduate school are only the most obvious and quantifiable contributions. There are many more indirect examples, government services and institutions which have helped me in a more diffuse way. These are shared and less quantifiable, but they still helped in an observable fashion.

I appreciate the help, and I will feel accomplished in some way when I feel that I've contributed an equal or greater amount back to the community. Charitable contributions, volunteer work, growing a company, generating employment and wealth, and paying taxes willingly are all activities which contribute to society. That's not to say I won't help myself along the way-- I'm human--but I think there are plenty of ways to simultaneously support yourself and support others, and I think it's worth keeping that aim in mind. "Providing a positive ROI" is obviously a long-term project, but I think it's as good a goal as any.

As for addressing unfairness, it's a hard problem and I don't claim to have good answers. All I can think to do is be compassionate and look for chances to help others. I can't hope to help those starving billions, but I _can_ help the guy down the street who needs someone to watch his kids while he goes to a job interview; there's nothing wrong with helping locally.

TL;DR: Think about how others have helped you, pay it forward and try to leave the world a better place. The rest is details.

</comment><comment><USER6> I feel it all the time. Especially in India where high standard living goes hand to hand with super-poor living.

<comment><AUTHOR> What do you do about that feeling? What would you like to see done? Anything the online tech space/startup scene can provide?

<comment><USER6> Nothing aggressive. I make sure people I employ gets paid well. I give tips generously. I have taught young kids in slums and I donate my clothes and other used stuff quite generously. I don't give to beggars because it's like supporting an industry that should not exist at the first place. It really hurts to say not to these folks.

You really need to be on the ground to help these folks. There are NGOs and social organizations doing this on the ground. I think online tech space can either assist this (for example a web app for an NGO that collects clothes) or a startup that tracks/rates various NGOs and monitors their funding/spending etc.

I am no expert. My few quick thoughts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> No, one of my goals in life is to save all humans. Though I could give myself some fuzzies in the meanwhile by donating to Village Reach and saving the life of an infant.[http://www.givewell.org/international/top- charities/villager...](http://www.givewell.org/international/top- charities/villagereach)

I will match the next $100 donated to Village Reach, reply here with proof of your donation and then I'll donate.

</comment><comment><USER8> No. As a person of relative privilege, it's your duty to generate value for the world with as much aggression as you can muster.

The world is a crazy place full of pleasure and suffering. The world doesn't care what you deserve; what matters is what you're gonna do about it.

</comment><comment><USER9> I don't feel guilty about what I have, but I do feel guilty when I take what I have for granted.

</comment><comment><USER10> Don't EVER feel guilty about what you have unless you stole or deceived your way into getting it.

You can feel thankful or maybe lucky, but never guilty. There were a lot of people who have made a lot of sacrifices so I can be in the position I'm in. The most important person who made sacrifices was myself - I've spent an INSANE amount of time perfecting my craft and now I'm reaping the rewards. When most classmates were hitting the bars, I was slinging code. When most were playing xbox, I was slinging code.

I'm not trying to say you shouldn't ever help anyone else, I do all the time - but I'm never going to feel compelled to do it.

"I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine" - Ayn Rand

</comment><comment><USER11> I feel something that might be in the neighborhood of what you're describing, but it's different. It's more "Why haven't I figured out a strategy for helping more people get closer to where I am?"

I have the benefit of being guilt-free overall. Statistically, I have no good reason to be anywhere close to where I am. So many hispanic kids end up involved in gangs, in jail, on drugs, or worse. My cousin, for example. Is dead. With a d.

So how did I beat the numbers? I got lucky because even though my mom got pregnant with me at 20 (common) she worked extremely hard (outlier), showed me the right way to go about living my life (extreme outlier), and then when I got old enough, I took over. Pushed hard, dreamed big, worked a lot, and was enough of a pain in the ass to get toward the career I want. I have my mom, computers and the internet to thank for everything meaningful I have today.

Still, I won the ovarian lottery in that I was born in North America in a country whose baseline standard of living is luxurious from a global perspective. So I feel a deep and abiding duty to advance the human condition in such a way that a larger percentage of other people get access to the silver bullet that cures all human bullshit: education.

Education is how we get everyone on its feet. I don't know how, yet. But fixing education is key to giving everyone who wants it a chance to be where I am today. Without the opportunity to learn, I'd be in jail, shooting up, or stuck in a dead-end job with no hope.

There's got to be a way to get more people on that train.

</comment><comment><USER12> Almost all the time, also I feel even more guilty for not helping them out enough.

</comment><comment><USER13> Don't judge yourself or others. And you will never feel guilty. That's my mantra.

</comment><comment><USER14> No.</comment>


18-845: Internet Services - <AUTHOR> http://course.ece.cmu.edu/~ece845/ <comment><USER2> There are some links to interesting papers further down the page. Look for "(pdf)".</comment>


Show HN: My first mobile game called Swoopy Boi - <AUTHOR> http://swoopyboigame.com <comment><USER2> Cool concept! The leaderboards don't seem to work though. Might have just been me.</comment>


Show HN: Upload a picture for your leather passport cover and get it at doorstep - s-stude http://www.handmadegooods.com/custom/?r=hn_25

<comment> s-stude HI,

I've developed handmadegooods.com to let you order amazing passport covers. They are of best quality and have very beautiful colors!

You can create your own design and upload it to our websitte and we will manufacture that for you!

Free shipping worldwide and 25% OFF!</comment>


Microservices: the accidental architecture - <AUTHOR> https://articles.microservices.com/microservices-the-accidental-architecture-926e6d8762c1 <comment><USER2> There was a nice ThoughtWorks talk last year about emergend architecture also claiming that the current adoption of microservices is emergent behavior instead of everybody saying:"everybody does microservices, so do we".

But of course there might be many people following the latter approach by now and experiencing managing a distributed system</comment>


Guide to Finding A Web Host - <AUTHOR> http://www.zappable.com/2012/11/the-zappable-guide-to-finding-a-web-host/

<comment><AUTHOR> While readers here might be familiar with many of the stuff on this chart, I think people who are looking for their first web host could find it very helpful.</comment>


With $8M Seed, Urban Compass Wants To Build Hyper-Local, Human-Powered Database - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/16/urban-compass/

<comment><USER2> wtf is "hyperlocal"? reviewing each table at the local starbucks?

seriously, it just sounds like local + recommendations. this article reads like it's just drumming up hype for this company.

<comment><USER3> Welcome to techcrunch, regurgitating exactly what the company's marketing spiels claim + how much money they raised as though the companies success depends on VCs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does anyone know what a $8M Seed means?

Does that mean it was raised in such a way that no investor has a board seat?

</comment><comment><USER5> No clue what $8m seed means but the tech guy behind this is an algorithm monster. Not sure how that translates to consumer facing apps but it will either be amazeballs or it will be Color 2.0. Time will tell.

</comment><comment><USER6> Sounds like Foursquare?</comment>


Why Virtual Machines suck when you run them from BTRFS files system - <AUTHOR> http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/2011-July/154251.html

<comment><USER2> This rambles a bit. Here's the summary:

btrfs is currently optimized for normal applications that do open("foo", O_RDWR). With this mode, integrity semantics are quite loose in POSIX.

Because VMs emulate physical hardware with strong integrity semantics, they usually do either open("foo", O_DIRECT) or open("foo", O_SYNC).

btrfs sucks for O_SYNC. It's not just VMs, databases also tend to make heavy use of O_SYNC.

<comment><USER3> Ironic that BTRFS is sponsored by Oracle then!

<comment><USER2> A lot of filesystems don't optimize O_SYNC heavily until it becomes necessary. ext4 has really bad O_SYNC performance until pretty recently FWIW.

Given where BTRFS is right now development wise, it's not at all surprising O_SYNC hasn't been optimized yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> So BTRFS is very efficient for big sequential read (which you generally don't care for much, because they're pretty fast in any case) and dies when subjected to small random read (which are the bane of platters in the first place)... isn't that dumb for a general-purpose FS?

<comment><USER5> What I got from that is that BtrFS sucks for doing lots of small synchronous writes, something that's relatively unique to VMs and is a major improvement over ext4 in just about everything else (feature set and performance). In fact, it's so unique it never popped up on the tests they do regularly on every patch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Huh, that's funny. I've been running a VM out of a btrfs partition for months and haven't seen these problems. It's not blindingly fast, but (a) the partition is encrypted, and (b) the VM is running Windows with antivirus software, so there are a couple of things other than btrfs slowing down the write path. But I certainly haven't seen freezes such as those described in this post.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm glad there are about a dozen different file systems that don't suck with VM work and quite relieved BtrFS developers are actively working on improving the case that hurts VM performance.

Having said that, I'd love to know if there are automated tests within the kernel that could verify integrity/correctness/performance of things like filesystem drivers in a simple and automated form. Something like it could prevent surprising developments performance regressions like this and provide better mapping between what you want to do and how you should do it.

<comment><USER7> The closest thing I'm aware of for doing that currently is the Phoronix Testing Suite; or whatever they're calling it now. It's most certainly not complete but it's the only thing I'm aware of that can do any kind of regression testing like that. In fact it's been worked on recently to make it really easy to do testing with git bisect on the kernel.

<comment><USER5> Going further in the thread they mention xfstests and that they run it against every patch.

[http://xfs.org/index.php/Getting_the_latest_source_code#XFS_...](http://xfs.org/index.php/Getting_the_latest_source_code#XFS_tests)

and

[http://oss.sgi.com/cgi- bin/gitweb.cgi?p=xfs/cmds/xfstests.gi...](http://oss.sgi.com/cgi- bin/gitweb.cgi?p=xfs/cmds/xfstests.git;a=summary)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think the problem also depends on what kind of virtual disk you end up using. Let me ellaborate:

I dont think the problem is purely buffered vs. unbuffered IO. The guest operating system will have performed some block coalescing anyway so the block requests will often NOT be 4K chunks but should have slightly larger granularity. However, if you use a COW based virtual disk layout like QCOW2 which I guess is standard in KVM, you may see additional scattered IO.

I think it is weird to be using COW virtual disk layouts on a file system that natively supports COW as is the case with BTRFS. I would be curious to see what the performance of raw sparse files on BTRFS is vs. qcow2 etc.

</comment><comment><USER9> It sounds as though the same issues that make it perform suboptimally on VM hypervisors would make it also perform suboptimally for OLTP databases -- in both, the I/O patterns generally involve high numbers of small writes.

</comment><comment><USER10> This problem is similar to (and exacerbated by) the IO bottlenecks VMs experience when using traditional hard drive disks, due to high levels of random IO operations. For this reason, many new virtual setups are using solid state drives, which have no seek time. This keeps the high level of random IO operations from significantly impacting performance.

<comment><USER4> > For this reason, many new virtual setups are using solid state drives, which > have no seek time. This keeps the high level of random IO operations from > significantly impacting performance.

Except for btrfs, where it would make the whole thing even less efficient (because now the only cost is the waiting around for threads, not even the random seek on your platters).

And as a result, I disagree with your "and exacerbated by". BTRFS's problem becomes worse on SSDs (qualitatively) because the random read itself is almost free, and _all_ of the cost is in the context switching done by the FS, instead of only 80~90% of that cost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Thanks for posting this. This is a really important information when setting up a new host to run VMs.

</comment><comment><USER12> The quoted text is painful to read. I don't know why so many mailing list pages have to look like this. At the very least could the linebreaks be taken out?

<comment><AUTHOR> You could have clicked the "Previous message" link and viewed the original message without quotes: [http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/2011-July/154...](http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/2011-July/154250.html)

<comment><USER13> I'm with funkah. Mailing list archive pages haven't evolved in a decade.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Observing the dynamics of the list, I have to ask: who is JB and why is he/she so worried about VM performance under BtrFS?

Fedora is not a Linux you recommend for someone who doesn't know what they are doing and, if you know VM performance sucks with BtrFS, please, by all means, add another partition and use ext4 (or 3 or 2 or XFS or anything you think may offer you better performance)</comment>


Craigslist Countersues eBay due to "Craigslist Killer" - <AUTHOR> http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/5/craigslist_countersues_ebay_for_launching_craigslist_killer_ <comment><USER2> "placed deceptive ads on Google such as blue underlined headlines like Craigslist.org and Craigslist.com"

Sounds like a legitimate complaint. As for the rest, I don't know what there is to steal: besides audience and brand name, what does Craigslist have that eBay can't replicate by building a similar site with a similar price structure?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Bishop c4 to f7. Check!

Can't wait to see how the game unfolds. However, I'm confident the only true winners will be the lawyers.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just another real life warning to not get into bed with the wrong company. (thinking xobni dodged this with MSFT)

<comment><USER4> I think its a little different. CL/Ebay was a partnership, Xobni/MSFT was a purchase.</comment></comment>


The Golden Age of Open Protocols - <AUTHOR> http://avc.com/2016/07/the-golden-age-of-open-protocols/ <comment><USER3> I usually like Fred Wilson's essays, but I have to feel like he's on the wishful thinking hype train on this one. Through the lens of VC (and finance at large) monetization is always the question. However Fred is too quick to ignore that what usually makes open protocols successful is being free and relatively simple. Throwing blockchain tech into the mix is going to add tremendous complexity and friction to any protocol which will then be out- competed by a true open protocol.

Underlying this wishful thinking I smell a frustration that investors can't make money from open standards. But the reality is that open standards bring an incredible amount of value to companies and individuals that rely on them. Think about the transaction volumes happening over HTTP or SMTP, let alone TCP/IP. The value is immeasurable, it's just that finance can't get a piece.

This is one of those areas where we have to recognize that economics and GDP do not tell the whole story of human value. Blockchain tech is really cool, and I don't think we've scratched the surface of where it will eventually go, but I just feel dirty when I see how excited VCs and finance guys get about it.

<comment><USER4> > This is one of those areas where we have to recognize that economics and GDP > do not tell the whole story of human value.

This is true, but in the other direction from your statement's surface meaning:

Open standards are in great us, but count as $0 in GDP, since they are free. You might say that means that GDP undercounts value. but really, no one derives value from open standards -- open standards enable valuable activities, some of which are GDP (for example, ecommerce), and some of which are not (for example, emailing pictures to my grandma, which is negative GDP compared to printing and mailing).

GDP overcounts:anything we spend money on is GDP, even if it is just a means to an end; and undercounts: many valuable things have no price, and more generally, most purchased end-user products are worth more than their price.

<comment><USER5> Using GDP as a measure is only ever done because we don't have reliable alternative measures. We set up economic systems not because they are good in themselves, but because they're a way of connecting productive capacity to demand with the ultimate aim of increasing well-being - the pursuit of happiness and all that. Some people seem to lose sight of that: capitalism too is not an end in itself, it is a means to an end. Financialization needs to be watched closely to ensure it's still hewing to society's best interest. Arguably Brexit, Trump et al are emerging from this gap.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is micropayments, again. There have been many, many micropayment schemes. The trouble with micropayments is that all the enthusiasm for them comes from the people who want to collect them, not the people paying them.

One of the better ideas was micropayment email, as a solution to spam. You have to pay the recipient to get an email through, unless they've whitelisted you as a friend. A centralized service could do that. (One could see Gmail or Facebook doing that. LinkedIn already does. So do some dating services.)

Doing it in a distributed way is hard. Blockchains probably won't help; the cost of a Bitcoin transaction is too high and the network capacity is orders of magnitude too low for mail. Local proof-of-work systems have been suggested, but never caught on. (Probably not a good idea in the era of battery-powered devices.) Worth thinking about, though.

Urbit has a scheme where identities are anonymous but not free. That's an anti-spam measure, because spamming results in negative reputation for a paid- for identity. It thus make spamming expensive. Urbit is probably too weird to get much traction, but there are good ideas in there.

<comment><USER7>
        > The trouble with micropayments is that all the enthusiasm for them comes
        > from the people who want to collect them, not the people paying them.

That's because the people paying them have never lived in a world where micro- payments are possible, but the people who want to accept micro-payments have studied them, and see a potential. It's like before the car was invented: all the enthusiasm came from car inventors, not the general public; the people just wanted faster horses.

Micro-payments enable applications that were not possible before, like trustless pay-per-view, where you pay 0.1 cent per second of video. So the excitement is understandable, I think. The execution just hasn't been all that impressive.

I think the Stroem protocol [1] will be the winner in the short term (within the next decade), enabling a form of micro-payments that are not trustless, but with so little barrier to entry for micro-payment issuers and so huge benefits (send money to anyone anywhere instantly and incredibly cheap), I think it's inevitable. But just as with Bitcoin, we have to accept that it's not what some crypto enthusiasts envisioned. With Bitcoin, many people thought some cryptographic construction would solve the double spend problem, but in the end it was brute force - proof of work - that (partially) solved it. I think the same will be the case for micro-payments. We want trustless micro- payments, of course we do, but in the end I think a promissory note-based system will be stable enough that its lack of complete trustlessness (á la Bitcoin) won't be a deal-breaker.

[1] [https://www.strawpay.com/docs/stroem-payment- system.pdf](https://www.strawpay.com/docs/stroem-payment-system.pdf)

<comment><USER8> I see it exactly the opposite way. The people getting excited about micro payments are the ones who have failed to grasp the revolutionary potential offered by the prospect of doing things collectively, in distributed fashion, without having to saddle every interaction with the overhead of commerce. Amazing things become possible when you give up the need to pay and be paid; the micropayment people don't seem to be able to see that vision.

We've been doing commerce for millennia; it is profoundly boring.

<comment><USER9> If there is no payment system, then resources are guaranteed to be oversubscribed and exhausted if they are at all interesting. In the Iain M Banks Culture, that works, but we're not there yet.

<comment><USER8> That's the scarcity model in a nutshell, and it has run its course. We won't get to a Culture style future by nickel-and-diming each other; we'll get there by developing better mechanisms of communication, fostering low-overhead group decision-making, which will allow us to collect, share, and distribute resources without having to run everything through the enervating meat-grinder that is commerce. Capitalism got us where we are, but we have to build something better if we want to go further.

The best parts of my life are already voluntary, cooperative, and social - people working together to make things better for each other. I want more of this, not less. Micropayments just drag the old way into the new. Why waste our time on that? Let's build the future we actually want to live in.

<comment><USER10> This. A thousand times this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What the author describes, I would not call 'protocols' \- The Bitcoin network is a hosted implementation of the Bitcoin protocol - It is not the protocol itself.

Tokens in the context of the Bitcoint protocol itself have no value - <USER2> value is derived from the popularity of the infrastructure, not from the popularity of the protocol.

If I forked the Bitcoin repo tomorrow and started my own altcoin based on it, my tokens would be worth $0 because nobody would know about or want to buy my virtual coins - Even if my network was based on the Bitcoin protocol.

The monetization does not occur at the protocol level - It occurs at the implementation/infrastructure level. You don't need tokens to monetize an open source project - The root of the strategy is merely to leverage the popularity of your open source project (and your status as its 'leading expert' \- Since you built the thing) to offer a hosted/managed implementation of that open source project.

The value of tokens merely represents a stake in a specific implementation of a hosted/managed service - There is nothing open about that. It's the equivalent of paying a monthly fee for using a hosted SaaS.

</comment><comment><USER12> This assumes that people will pay for some service. But I think there will always be someone who will just provide a free service to get rid of friction as much as possible and monetize via ads. Nowadays it's extremely cheap to run an app. Which means these hypothetical blockchain based apps will always be competing with a "closed" yet free version of itself, which has 0 friction.

Using the Twitter example, I can't imagine how a service that makes you pay for Tweeting can grow larger than a service that's completely free. The only motivation I can think of is people actually making money (in the blockchain currency) by Tweeting or any value generating activity, but this is also based on the assumption that this network becomes huge, otherwise stacking up these points won't matter that much anyway. Which goes back to my first point--I can't think of how this decentralized Twitter can be larger than its centralized counterpart.

Just trying to understand if I'm missing something. Can anyone enlighten me?

<comment><USER13> > But I think there will always be someone who will just provide a free > service to get rid of friction as much as possible and monetize via ads. > Nowadays it's extremely cheap to run an app.

Blocking the ads is cheaper.

<comment><USER12> than what?

<comment><USER14> Paying

<comment><USER12> Dude if you have a point to make, by all means do it, but don't half ass your comments with one word, because I have no idea what you mean by it's cheaper to block the ads than pay for it. Blocking is done by end users. Paying for ads is done by advertisers. They are different people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> _> One of the problems we have had in tech is that there aren't large monetary incentives to create and sustain open protocols. If they are open they cannot be easily monetized by traditional means._

Protocols should not be monetized. They exist for interoperability. Monetizing protocols is bad, because it's aimed at monopoly which always results in stagnation rather than progress.

Of course lock-in crooks like using closed / non-free protocols to control the market. But it's evil.

 _> OSS projects have been able to gain a foothold in many server applications because of the wide utility of highly commoditized, simple protocols. By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we can deny OSS projects entry into the market. _

Source: [http://www.catb.org/esr/halloween/halloween1.html](http://www.catb.org/esr/halloween/halloween1.html)

</comment><comment><USER7>
        > In this emerging model, Twitter could have adopted a
        > protocol-based approach and issued a crypto-token,
        > Twokens, that users could earn from things like amassing
        > followers, reporting abuse, etc. Twokens could also be sold
        > by the Twitter founding team to finance their operations.
        > Crypto-exchanges could make a market in Twokens so that
        > anyone who wanted to speculate on the future value of the
        > Twitter protocol could do so.

I don't understand this line of thought. A _Twoken_ would be a sort of irredeemable financial instrument, which Twitter would issue hoping that speculators would mistakenly value these tokens based on the value of Twitter, as a company?

Common stock in Twitter is a financial instrument that gives you part ownership of Twitter. It has value because Twitter, as a company, has value. Twokens would be a financial instrument that gives you nothing, except the hope that other people will misunderstand this fact and buy them, pushing up the (offer) price. Great for speculators, useless for everyone else.

<comment><USER16> No, twokens would have had value because you could redeem them for a share of the audience on Twitter.

<comment><USER7>
        > [...] redeem them for a share of the audience on Twitter.

I don't understand what you mean by this. Can you clarify?

<comment><USER16> I don't really know how to make it any clearer. Twitter could, if they chose to, "sell eyeballs" by promoting/preferring certain accounts and/or tweets over others. They could sell these preferences and promotions for twokens, which would in turn lend some legitimacy to the promotions because twokens would have to be "earned" somehow. I'm not saying this would necessarily be a raging success, only that Twitter could ground the value of twokens in their ecosystem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The problem is there's no way to estimate costs without a price up-front. You have to determine how many "tokens" to charge and that price won't be stable like the dollar. Just imagine paying a fixed BTC per request. It would be impossible to predict your costs. Of course you could peg it to the dollar but that's what we already do with paid API subscriptions which have a price known up-front with limits. I don't see what blockchain tech has to do with charging for API access.

<comment><USER18> > I don't see what blockchain tech has to do with charging for API access.

In the situation he's proposing, Twitter's product wouldn't be an API; it would have to be a blockchain protocol.

> You have to determine how many "tokens" to charge and that price won't be > stable like the dollar.

I agree, pricing is a problem. Do you poll exchanges for the current rates, every time you make a transaction? It's not ideal.

I think Twitter is a bad example, also. Twitter and file-hosting are already free, within usage constraints. Why would people want to start paying for it? Also, all of the blockchain clones of Twitter have been much less efficient, and provided little benefit over the central model.

\- edited for brevity -

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Twitter does not have any incentive for open protocols. They even disabled feeds because you could follow people using any non-official client that might block advertising.

Blockchains do not solve the human problem, people wanting others to run software they provide and not any other. This, like Apple and Google locking down devices and Facebook and Google discontinuing XMPP, is about power.

</comment><comment><USER20> I have a hard time getting on the same page as the author. How is a protocol where the owner charges for usage and rewards particular actions with a currency they own "open"? If we are distinguishing between "open" and "free" (SMTP and other examples given by OP would be both open and free) then that should be clarified.

<comment><USER21> Open means it is documented and anyone can interoperate or create a compatible implementation. The S3 API is open and there are many competing implementations, but Amazon de facto holds the reference implementation.

A SaaS value add "orbit" is another way to monetize. Personally I think going all cryptocurrency on this is overthinking it in most cases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> > _But at the time, there wasn't an obvious way for Twitter's founders and > management team to benefit from a protocol-based business model._

> _innovative new protocols emerge that are based on this new business model._

I think it is wrong to think about it in terms of "business model". Protocols (such as HTTP) do not have any business model, but they evolve just fine.

Replacement for twitter will eventually emerge, but I do not think it will be controlled by single entity. Why use crypto-currency to pay for tweets, if you can embed entire twitter into blockchain?

<comment><USER23> HTTP response 402: Payment Required

"reserved for future use"

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> For me at least the definition of an open protocol is one where the spec is published and anyone can develop a complete implementation by following it which is free from licenses, royalties, etc.

I don't understand exactly what the proposed business model is or how it works here. If the business model is for Company X to develop and release a new open protocol which requires that implementations pay them cryptocurrency upon use, what's to stop implementers from just not implementing that part of the spec?

Or if the business model is that the protocol is both open and free, and Company X issues some new cryptocurrency in the hopes that people will speculate on it, why would they do that? By this article's own admission business models built around open protocols have disadvantages versus those built around closed protocols. So why would anyone want to bet on this company's future by buying its currency?

I guess the one thing I could see working would be if the company built not only the open protocol, but the initial user base to go along with it. If that user base was large enough before other implementations appeared, subsequent implementers might go ahead and pay whatever taxes the original implementer imposes in order to gain access to that user base. But this would imply that companies shouldn't launch with open protocols, they should only open up their protocol after it has succeeded; and also if the originator of the protocol controls such a large part of the user base, I don't see what stops them from moving those users to new versions of the protocol which progressively raise the fees they charge other implementors.

It bears mentioning that few if any of the open protocols we enjoy today were commercial projects which originated in the private sector and had a profit motive. If we can come up a way to align maximum profits with being open then that is great but it's worth considering other approaches as well. For example if a single, entrenched company controls a particular protocol with a large user base then developing an open alternative might be a good way for a consortium of competitors and other interested parties to collaborate and build a user base large enough to compete. Government might be justified in supporting such efforts as well. If there aren't already examples of governments getting involved when they view their national security to be at stake, we will see this soon.

</comment><comment><USER25> Git is an epic example of a relatively recent extremely impactful open protocol.

OpenGL is another I can think of. I'm sure there are many more.

In my opinion, we are in the golden age of open source, with the caveat that big companies have subverted it, realizing that open sourcing a popular project and controlling the repo is tantamount to controlling an ecosystem, forking is not an option in practice.

</comment><comment><USER26> I want to believe!

But if the protocol (and code) is really 'open', others can use it without needing any of the rationed tokens.

Sometimes, exclusion/scarcity will be part of the value-proposition on the 'genesis' network. Then – and perhaps only then – many parties have aligned motivations for continuing to enforce a dominant, original token regime. This may only be the case for cryptocurrencies.

Consider instead an adversarial, spam-and-abuse-prone protocol/platform like "fast & wide microbroadcast" (Twitter). That wouldn't necessarily need _one_ access-token – Wilson's 'twokens' – whose value accrues to core or original developers, or early adopters. It could support many competing token/trust roots, for different schools of thought on communication/conduct tradeoffs. That's good on many axes of diversity and adoption! But it also again raises the public-good problem, of how to fund initial development (and continued wise evolution) of the 'common protocol'.

</comment><comment><USER27> Protocals that are intentionally crippled by requiring a block chain action are not helpful. These aren't things that need to be monetized; that might even bias the protocols into being bad for users and developers.</comment>


Why A Four-Day Work Week Doesn't Work - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/2008/08/18/careers-leadership-work-leadership-cx_tw_0818workweek_print.html

<comment><USER2> This article starts off assuming that a four-day workweek entails cramming the usual 40 hour workweek into 4 days instead of 5. I stopped reading right there, because the idea of "Four Tens" or "Power Shifts" aren't new ideas and really only work for certain types of people in certain roles.

People aren't robots. Just because you're getting the same amount of time per week from them doesn't mean you're the getting the same efficiency too. 37S has already expanded on this topic and I fully agree.

I get frustrated with these kinds of articles where the author demonstrates their lack of willingness to think outside the box or attempt to grasp some counter-intuitive ideas on this topic.

A workweek of four, eight-hour workdays with the option to work into your 3-day weekend on occasion is the way to go for a lot of traditional 9-5 office jobs, IMO. Your "Four Tens" and "Power Shifts" are going to burn out a lot of people unnecessarily. What I fear is that some companies will start experimenting with a 4-day workweek by compressing more human time into fewer days and will be unhappy with the results they get, thus returning to the standard 5-day workweek with the claim that their experiment failed and 4-day workweeks "don't actually work". The State of California is experimenting in this exact same manner now (Yes, the State of California - the gold standard in efficiency, right?).

As for those of us who have been bitten by the entrepreneurship bug, I think many of us actually can be more productive in working long hours - maybe even as much as 7 days a week - but that's because we are energized and driven by our vision. And ultimately, it's our choice anyway.

Not to be an ass, but wake me when we're ready to talk some sense here.

</comment><comment><USER3> You can't argue with 37signals being able to produce a lot of results with their 4 day work week. . .

BUT does anyone else see the irony of them always posting blog posts responding to Hacker News stories? I thought with the 4 day work week everyone spent less time distracted and more time doing?

I think working from home/allowing any hours as long as results are produced is great for some jobs like hacking and design - but it utterly fails for other jobs. If you need to communicate with other businesses, you have to be there everyday during business hours. What happens if a big customer calls on friday and everyone is gone, 40 hours doesn't help much if it isn't on those days.

<comment><USER4> _I thought with the 4 day work week everyone spent less time distracted and more time doing?_

Do you really think that the 37signals strategy of fostering a dialogue with HN readers is a _distraction_ from their business plan? Given that the customer base for products like Basecamp consists of small businesspeople with a slight technical bent?

37signals, like Spolsky and the ArsDigita of yore and (ahem) YCombinator, fosters discussions about hacking because such discussions are a very effective marketing tool. Which is not to say that the company doesn't also do it because it's fun, and because it's good for their profession and for the world. It's one of those win-win-win situations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> * As for saving on the cost of commuting, it likely isn't true.*

It likely is. And it seems like the author is really just reaching for something else to talk about.

 _There's no guarantee that employees will save on commuting costs. In many cases, employees will travel even farther because they'll use the extra day for vacations they wouldn't have taken or run errands that they would otherwise do while at work._

The whole point of saving on commute costs is so you can spend that time and money doing something less stressful and mind-numbing, like taking a vacation. So yes, if you only commute 4 times a week instead of 5 you're saving on commute costs, period.

<comment><USER6> _if you only commute 4 times a week instead of 5 you're saving on commute costs, period._

The problem with your reasoning is that you're using regular mathematics and not (as is the case of this article) Journalist Maths.

It's one of those downfalls of us technical types, we only use real mathematics to prove points.

I for one am ashamed of myself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> They have a flaw. This quote says it all:

"Packing 40 hours into four days isn't necessarily an efficient way to work."

Why pack 40 instead of 32? The point of a 4-day week IMHO is not doing the same work-time in fewer days but to work more efficiently and so do the same work in less work-time, which in turn requires fewer days.

It's all about efficiency for both machines and people. Tell that to Forbes.

<comment><USER8> I think Forbes also missed the point that hours aren't the criterion that people should care about, but rather results.

<comment><USER9> I agree with Goladus, some people don't have room to manage time poorly. When you work in a factory it is hours that matter because the results don't vary greatly by the amount of time you work. Sure, extremely long hours will make a difference, but if you put 16 doors on 4 cars per hour on a line, working two more hours doesn't really decrease that. You don't have time to goof off and be unproductive. If you just went by results, your whole assembly line would be screwed up, because its, well, a line.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wait, I thought we were already on the 4 hour work week. Get with the program Forbes.

</comment><comment><USER11> For once I whole-heartedly agree with a 37signals post.</comment>


Tiny projects keep it new  - <AUTHOR> http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/908-tiny-projects-keep-it-new <comment><USER2> del.icio.us was built over several years with only incremental improvements.

Plus, early adopters are tolerant, and if you choose them right, easy to impress. To quote someone else (maybe pg, i can't remember who right now): "It [your first release] doesn't have to do EVERYTHING, it just has to do SOMETHING". sage advice. If have a good relationship with your beta testers, I'd say release every new feature as you code/test it. Feedback is god's gift to startups.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is, of course, easier to do when you're adding to an existing production application. You can launch a new startup site with one small feature, you need a compelling package of features. Once you're up then this advice is more useful.

I do like the short iterative feature/flow based approach in general though. It really does help keep you motivated, and it gives you something useful to show your users/clients/etc... on a more regular basis, which in turn gets you access to feedback and usage patterns earlier, etc...

<comment><USER2> I agree it's more relevant once your up and running. But you should also follow it when you're launching.

Anyone remember what facebook's wall was when it launched?? Yep, just a textbox! And facebook had no photo albums or anything like that, just profiles and friends. It was pretty much a couple mySQL tables with some php displaying the data. And people still flocked to it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think that is a good call, when I get tired of just making micro improvements across our project or fixing bugs. It is great to really gett o sink your teeth into a new exciting one of project that gets you deeply involved again even if just for awhile.</comment>


ICE hydrogen fuel additive system - <AUTHOR> https://www.cgon.co.uk <comment><AUTHOR> Does anyone here have any input on this tech?

.

Sorry, long time listener, first time caller post :)

</comment><comment><USER2> RIP Stan Meyer</comment>


Safe-money: Money in the type system where it belongs (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://ren.zone/articles/safe-money <comment><USER2> > Rational numbers always give precise results, they don't introduce rounding > errors and they don't require us to acknowledge a "smallest representable > unit"

This is assertion may be invalid when the problem domain includes either (a) compound interest calculations that require calculating a rational number raised to a rational power, (b) expected value calculations with random variables drawn from a probability distribution such as the normal or exponential that is defined using transcendental functions, (c) any formula involving e, pi or the mathematician's favorite, those three little dots ...

For example, the asserted feature of rational arithmetic does nothing for one facing the 6th grade arithmetic problem that introduced us all to the shortcomings of decimal numbers when I went to school: One quart of paint covers 5 square feet; paint costs $2.75 per gallon; how much will it cost to paint a circle 4 yards in diameter?

</comment><comment><USER3> > Interestingly, the value of most currencies is measured in terms of the > value of other currencies, most of which have no value other than the trust > recursively vested in them by civilization.

This doesn't make any sense. The value of any currency is measured constantly by its users conducting trades: when you buy a coffee, you're measuring the value of the currency used; when you pay for a haircut, you're measuring the value of the currency used. That is far more frequent and larger than FX trading.

<comment><USER4> What is the value of a coffee or haircut? How many coffees is a haircut worth?

<comment><USER3> Value is always personal, relative and variable. The value of things can be expressed in terms of any other thing.

Right now, in your situation, would you rather have a coffee or a haircut?

Would you rather have 2 coffees or 1 haircut?

And so on. There are plenty of exercises to determine how you (personally) value things, and also the shape of your utility curve. That was one of the most interesting classes I ever took: decision and utility theories.

A lot of the work was understanding the impact of different personal (or institutional) utility curves, how to determine your own and how to maximise you return not in absolute terms, but in relative terms using your utility curve.

When you take in account non-linearity of utility curves, lotteries make sense, for example, since for most people the utility of $1 is far less than 1 millionth of the utility of a million dollars.

The same with insurance. Insurance always has a negative expected value in absolute terms, but when you take in account that U(-$1) << U(-$1M)/1M, they make sense, since your utility-adjusted expected return is positive. That's also why your insurance should always have the maximum possible deductible.

Insurance works because companies and people have different utility curves.

<comment><USER5> > When you take in account non-linearity of utility curves, lotteries make > sense, for example, since for most people the utility of $1 is far less than > 1 millionth of the utility of a million dollars.

Can you expand on that? My intuition is telling me that $1 has exactly 1 millionth the utility of a million dollars. I must not understand.

<comment><USER3> While rationally you might think so, in practice you tend to act differently than that. Here's the best example:

Let's say that you a running a risk of, for whatever reason, having to pay $1M in any given year with a 1 in 1M probability.

Your expected outcome is -$1 per year, which isn't much. So if someone came and offered for you to pay $1 for year for that risk to go away, you'd be indifferent.

But utility isn't linear. Losing $1 wouldn't make a difference in your life, but having to pay $1M would most likely destroy your life financially, leading to significant hardship.

So the cost, to you, of -$1 isn't the same as [1/1M]*-$1M, the latter is much higher. With that in mind, if someone offered you to pay $1 to get rid of the risk, you'd most likely accept.

In a similar way, let's look at the positive side.

Let's say you're broke, you have $0, and I offer you $10 for 1h of your time. Would you accept? Most likely, yes.

Now imagine you had $1M in the bank. Would you still accept $10 for 1h of your time? Probably not. And if you had $10M in the bank, the odds of you accepting would be even smaller.

That's because marginal utility (of pretty much anything) has diminishing returns. The value of a thing to you is different if you have zero of it, or if you have plenty of it.

The result is that even if you think that rationally the value is all the same, it isn't, and you'll actually be valuing things differently. And there's nothing irrational in that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Or, just use IEEE 754 decimal types? That's what they were built for.

<comment><USER7> Those still have limited precision, and the precision varies depending on how big the number is, which isn't suitable for money

<comment><USER8> IEEE 128-bit decimal can handle a precision of 34 significant figures (decimal digits). You can store a million times the world GDP (1e6 * US$75.59 trillion) accurate to picodollars. How much more precision do you need?

<comment><USER9> And before someone says "hyperinflation," you could also store world GDP in nano-Zimbabwean dollars (with 1 USD = 6.69e11 ZWL).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Rational arithmetic is not a good choice for money, since applications that deal with money probably involve user input and so can be trivially DOS-ed. Money should use decimal arithmetic, like COBOL. If it's good enough for banks, it's good enough for you.

<comment><USER10> How can rationals be DOSd? Sounds interesting.

<comment><USER9> By causing them to have very large terms (numerators and denominators).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The value of a currency is the effort required to obtain it.

And transitively that boils down to time - expenditure of the finite lifespan of humans.

It's a proof of burn system.

<comment><USER12> Inheritance is worthless, then. As an heir I can more or less inherit from day 0 (in some jurisdictions even before) of my living life. This means there is the possibility of me putting in zero effort, besides from being born alive, to obtain it. Yet it obviously has some worth.

<comment><USER13> > Inheritance is worthless, then.

That's a spurious deduction. Inheritance is a mechanism of passing value store. Purely living off inheritance, reduces the stored value. This is a demonstration of the concept, not a violation.

<comment><USER14> 1) "The value of a currency is the effort required to obtain it"

2) (Inheritance requires no or marginal effort in acquisition)

c) "Inheritance is worthless, then."

<comment><USER13> Currency value isn't dependent on a single entity's experience or the starving man would set food prices. SMH

<comment><USER14> presumably your issue was with the first premise and not the conclusion.

<comment><USER13> That is not presumed. Reappropriating how value and effort are measured is just raising strawmen, as I intimated.

<comment><USER14> then your post was purely non-sequitur, as the syllogism's conclusion holds. there was no strawman.

<comment><USER13> > purely non-sequitur

That's projection. No definition was offered and the existing was discounted. Still a strawman. Good luck with whatever.

<comment><USER14> definition provided by OP, qed:

> The value of a currency is the effort required to obtain it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Here's a (partial) porting to TypeScript [https://github.com/gcanti/money- ts](https://github.com/gcanti/money-ts)

</comment><comment><USER16> This is one of those articles interesting to new programmers. The actual answer is that currency is complicated; any small library you will write it likely to forget some complication; and, absent new open source you should go commercial. For example, glance over the list of classes in the "money.h++" which was sold decades ago ([http://docs.roguewave.com/legacy- hpp/mnyug/2-9.html](http://docs.roguewave.com/legacy-hpp/mnyug/2-9.html))

TL;DR: The article is Too Long; Don't Read.

</comment><comment><USER17> > Money, in other words, mostly measures trust. This is less obvious for > precious metals or cryptocurrencies because they have an intrinsic value of > their own as well

Cryptocurrencies have intrinsic value? Did the author intent to write that or was it an accident? S/he has grouped precious metals, which have purposes from engineering to jewellery - with solutions to arbitrary cryptographic problems, which are useless for everything except swindling.

<comment><USER18> Gold is practically useless day-to-day for a lay-person except as decoration, but represents the literal blood, sweat, tears, and toil of someone taking it out of rocks, refining it and putting it into your hands. Also it has some commercial use.

Cryptocurrencies likely follow a similar model. Useless to the lay-person except as decoration. Representing a "colossal waste of resources", but having access to the refining tools / techniques also has some commercial value.

Is gold useless except for swindling? Was trading land for gold (or vice versa- gold for land?) was that swindling?

I'd love to hear your rebuttal.

<comment><USER19> Just to put that "colossal waste of resources" in perspective... allegedly we're wasting 60 TWh/year 'mining' Bitcoin, and this is considered (maybe rightly) an environmental catastrophe.

We also use around (again allegedly) 220 TWh/year mining Gold.

<comment><USER20> I don't want to start a "Bitcoin is useless" flameware but to your question: the reason why the energy consumption of proof-of-work is important is because society hasn't found a purpose for Bitcoin to exist yet. Therefore, the energy consumed is considered "wasted" whereas it could have been used for something society already deems useful, like keeping the lights on.

<comment><USER21> Isn't the energy use of Bitcoin also continuously growing? The cost of extracting gold is pretty steady.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm a bit confused as to why they don't just keep the currency values in the smallest unit for each currency. They gave an example about un-used coins which seemed to be their justification, but I can't figure out why adding a "scale" is a better approach. Most of the other examples were backed up by the type system, so I feel like I'm missing something.</comment>


"Brand purpose" is a lie - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/90293137/brand-purpose-is-a-lie <comment><USER2> The article mentions the price difference between Gillette's male oriented line and female oriented line. (The female line costs more) But I wonder if that's just an artifact of the economies of scale: they sell more male products so their per-unit costs are lower. Though I'm not sure why women wouldn't just purchase the products packaged for males at the lower price.</comment>


Comparison of the Open Source OLAP Systems (Big Data): ClickHouse, Druid, Pinot - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@leventov/comparison-of-the-open-source-olap-systems-for-big-data-clickhouse-druid-and-pinot <comment><AUTHOR> Another attempt to publish a link: [https://medium.com/@leventov/comparison- of-the-open-source-o...](https://medium.com/@leventov/comparison-of-the-open- source-olap-systems-for-big-data-clickhouse-druid-and-pinot-8e042a5ed1c7)

</comment><comment><USER2> 404 here.</comment>


The Grasshopper Outage: Co-Founders Response - <AUTHOR> http://grasshopper.com/blog/company/2011/06/09/the-grasshopper-outage-co-founders-response/

<comment><USER2> _> a simultaneous 2 disk failure in a storage array (...) is a very unusual event_

I'd disagree. If you have same model, same production batch of harddrives in a RAID, the chances of simultaneous failure is elevated. Depending on RAID level and workload, it's quite possible two or more drives are loaded (accessed) in exactly the same way. If, again, they are from the same production batch, chances are they have similar production defects in mechanics or semiconductors, thus it makes sense they'd fail almost simultaneously.

<comment><USER3> Agreed, hard drives fail constantly. I've had as many as 3 dead at a time while waiting for hot spares to rebuild in arrays as small as 24 drives. Dual drive failures have happened at least twice that I can remember off the top of my head in the last 3-4 years.

Usually running raid10 for performance reasons but when I don't need fast writes I use raid6 instead of raid5 for anything beyond 8 drives.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Having a DR site and not testing that failover works is the big issue I see here. You could check your theory all day long, but if you never actually do it to make sure it works then you might as well not have a DR site. Similar case to taking backups without ever actually verifying you could restore what you need in the event of a loss. While I'm surprised that actually testing DR capability wasn't listed as something to work on, this sort of open write up is very valuable to both customers and the rest of us as engineers.

<comment><USER5> I really liked Netflix's approach to testing backup scenarios by creating the Chaos Monkey[1] (Jeff Atwood had good insight as well[2].) The idea of creating a mechanism to test fail over scenarios is something that I wouldn't have thought of prior to the transparency that companies like Grasshopper have shown. So hat tip to them for opening up on a large failure; It makes the rest of the dev community smarter/better because of their honesty.

[1]: [http://techblog.netflix.com/2010/12/5-lessons-weve- learned-u...](http://techblog.netflix.com/2010/12/5-lessons-weve-learned- using-aws.html) [2]: [http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/04/working-with- the-ch...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/04/working-with-the-chaos- monkey.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a typical case of poor administration at a company blaming a vendor for their problems: 1\. Yes, any storage array should work to first protect the integrity of the data 2\. Yes, a good DR solution is only as good as the testing and tuning that the administrators have done to ensure it is working properly

Here are some questions: \- How many spare drives were in the system when the first and second drive failed? Netapp does not shut down volumes of storage if spares are in the system to take over for the failed drives. \- How long was it really before those drives were replaced with a spare that could take over and rebuild? \- Why don't you publish your DR plan and explain exactly where it didn't go as tested and planned? Point this out to show where the issue occurred that had been previously tested and shown to work properly.

I am not an employee of NetApp and not even a customer of NetApp. I have used it in the past and like all technologies it requires the care and feeding that is well documented in manuals they provide. And it requires good administrators to do their jobs to test and monitor things and ensure the resources are available for the system to work as designed.

Once you have heard both sides of the story the only thing you learn is that there are more the 2 sides to the story.

When these types of things happen the folks closest to them always leave out details or cannibalize the story so that they can be found blameless. I have been in the IT field for 15 years and seen it time and time again (with many technologies).

I read an email from Grasshopper this AM detailing to their customers what this issue was. It was so vague and left so much to interpretation that it really came across as whiny and misinformed. It was extremely unprofessional to apologize and then blame (without full explanation or root cause).

There's more to this than meets the eye. Believe me.

Since you all are replacing NetApp, I would suggest paying for a full time engineer from the next storage company you buy from. They can manage the array for you (properly) and ensure these things don't happen. Otherwise you'll need your sysadmins to start reading product documentation, following best practices, and testing procedures.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you want to talk about any of the details I am happy to discuss. I never said that the array went offline because of the failure but the head was under very heavy load trying to recover from it.

The email is a careful balance of information that 90% of people will find useful and not too much information that no one understands it. Never once did we say we are not to blame, actually the opposite, it is our responsibility no matter the vendor or what we replace the hardware with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Updated Again: disclaimer -- shooting from the hip here. I know how it sucks to have people pissed at you for IT related issues!! I have zero knowledge of this company and have only read about them today.

Basically, this just boils down to a time issue. No data was lost it just took time for things be to rosy again. Restoring from backups or switching to a DR site takes time too. If you have never fully tested the DR site it might take a long time.

It it easy to be Cpt. Obvious; "Well, there's you problem right there" in cases like these but it just sounds like they need better documentation about what to do in the event something like this happens.

Forgetting about the DR site for a minute. Why is the NetApp a single point of failure?? Given they are extremely stable and running multiple heads further reduces this but if a single issue with one array causes massive downtime then you might want to think about a snap mirror to a second filer. Switching to a different storage vendor doesn't sound like it will fix the underlining issue here!!

<comment><AUTHOR> We have more redundancy than that with NetApp, there are multiple filer heads and SnapMirror relationships and SnapMirror was part of the problem and the process that it runs to make sure all data is correct at all end points.

<comment><USER7> Ah, ok, much more complex than anything I've touched. Hope it all works out!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> We are actually planning to buy some NetApp equipment and have heard nothing but good things.

I am very curious as to why a two disk failure caused an outage. What exactly happened when both disks failed?

<comment><AUTHOR> We have used NetApp for years and decided to move to Pillar Data Systems as they are much more forward thinking, easier to work with and understand storage systems at a very deep level. NetApp wants you to buy new equipment every few years and force this by increasing support costs very quickly.

The 2 disk failure did not cause the outage, but the process the filer head had to go through to get the data back onto new drives and then further actions taken with SnapMirror and other items to try and recover faster.

<comment><USER9> The way you've worded this, and the official response, it reads like you didn't have hot spares available?

That being the case, the two disk failures didn't need to be concurrent for you to end up where you did...

<comment><AUTHOR> RAID-DP and the array always has a hot spare, and we had one cold spare on- site and another there within hours to replace the 2nd failure.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Marketing hacks for techies - <AUTHOR> Hi, I know that I personally suck at marketing. I also know that there are quite a few Show HNs that have so much potential but just remain undiscovered because their creators where not marketing gurus.
Do people have any ideas for marketing hacks for techies?
Other than paying for Fb/Google ads or show HN. <comment><USER2> Try reading the blog of patio11: [http://www.kalzumeus.com/](http://www.kalzumeus.com/)</comment>


10 algorithms that dominate the world - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@_marcos_otero/the-real-10-algorithms-that-dominate-our-world-e95fa9f16c04

<comment><USER2> I'm sorry, but how is the Cooley-Tukey FFT algorithm not on this list? We would have no mobiles, no Skype, no MP3s, no Netflix, and on and on, if not for their implementation of the FFT.</comment>


Anatomy of an Autonomous Vehicle Crash - <AUTHOR> https://semiengineering.com/anatomy-of-an-autonomous-vehicle-crash/ <comment><USER2> Interesting how the OEMs and Tier 1/2 suppliers could cooperate in a pre- system. Also curious as to what their cross cultural response to the 'trolley problem' will be.</comment>


Giving GPT-3 a Turing Test - <AUTHOR> http://lacker.io/ai/2020/07/06/giving-gpt-3-a-turing-test.html <comment><USER2> I don't know if anyone remembers Mindpixel. It was a crowd-sourced project to collect common-sense data that could be used to drive an AI. But for each prompt, the only response stored was a 1 or a 0, indicating that the input made sense to a human or not. It never amounted to much, but it seems like GPT is missing the core idea implemented in that 20-year-old project: that some inputs are just not meaningful.

<comment><USER3> ah but what does having emitted a meaningless signal communicate about the internal state of the participant? might the occurrence and nature of the signal itself carry the message? maybe GPT-3 is tapped into a deeper level than we are</comment></comment>


VLSI Basics - <AUTHOR> http://vlsibyjim.blogspot.com/p/introduction.html <comment><USER2> I wish it were easier to get into this stuff.

Seems like a fun visual puzzle to do vlsi design, but fabricating the chips is hard, so I just stick with programming.

<comment><USER3> >visual puzzle

it was in the nineties, nowadays pretty much nobody routes manually, its all libraries of ready parts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _Bardeen, Brattain & Schockly invented transistor in 1948 (23rd dec. 1946)._

No. Lilienfeld invented and patented it in 1926. BBS invented an improved and practical transistor.

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

<comment><USER5> Is it fair to say he invented it if it couldn't be built?

<comment><USER4> Yeah, I think it is. An objective measure for invention is the fact that the USPTO granted a patent. That is a relatively high bar. Subject matter eligible, novel, useful, non-obvious. A reduction to practice model isn't required. Practicality isn't required.

Conversely, is it fair to say Shockley et al invented the transistor if someone else came up with the idea first? What they did was impressive and important. They deserve their fame. Hell, they won the freakin' Nobel Prize. But they didn't invent it. They improved it by leaps and bounds.

<comment><USER5> By that standard, the space elevator was invented about twenty years ago by Robert Boyd and Dimitri Thomas. I don't see this being a good way to determine inventorship (if that's a word).</comment></comment></comment></comment>