Passive Income Hacker vs Startup Guy - <AUTHOR> http://edu.mkrecny.com/thoughts/passive-income-hacker-vs-startup-guy <comment><USER3> The conversation has been known to continue:

SG: "You should join our company as chief growth hacker, since it's a great fit for your skills and experience. You'll work 100 hour weeks. We're thinking $60k a year and 0.5% sounds fair. Come change the way the people $VERB."

PIH: "Where do you get to the part of the sales pitch where I get something out of this deal?"

SG: "Did we mention the free soda?"

(I'm joking... but not by much.)

<comment><USER4> Agree 100%. This article is especially funny because the author's startup is Followgen. While a twitter app that automates social interactions may be a useful tool and a great thing to work on, it really isn't changing the world.

<comment><USER5> Could "changing the world" be a contender the most trite, overused expression of 2013? Recent grads seem to have adopted it _en masse_ as their personal tagline. It's a nice sentiment, but it hard not to roll your eyes when every 23 year old applies it to his mobile phone app with no users that he threw together in a couple weeks.

I'd suggest actually changing the world first, and _then_ shouting it from the rooftops. It will be (slightly) less annoying that way.

Besides, I'm not even sure it's a healthy sentiment for most people ([http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130708103509.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130708103509.htm)). If your focus is as broad as "changing the world," you're probably setting yourself up to feel like a failure.

<comment><USER6> I think there's clearly a need to disrupt the way people are changing the world.

<comment><USER7> You should join my startup as chief growth hacker. We'll pay you less than you're currently making, but you'll change the way people are changing the world.

<comment><USER8> Are you from Yo Dawg Industries?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This post makes me happy :)

> _" Worst of all, PIH is probably not trying to make the world a better place > through technology."_

Don't worry, PIH, Startup Guy isn't either.

There are really two main camps of startup founders I've met. There's the type that really wants to bring a vision to life - they have a pseudo-religious fervor about something, whether it's gaming, transportation, lodging, or something else. They really want to change the world, and it's not just talk.

Then there are ones that are really in it to make money. They want to create a company, exit, and go do what they really want to do. Sit on a beach, roll up to the club in a Rolls Royce, travel, whatever.

It's a sliding scale. Every founder has some balance of being genuinely passionate about _what_ their company does, and the desire to just cash out. All said and done though, the founders I meet tend to lean much further towards the latter than the former.

<comment><USER10> I don't fit in those buckets. I have no external funding and no desire for it. I'm not in it to change the world or for a big exit - I'm in it for freedom.

Freedom to steer the business in the direction I feel is right. Freedom to work on what I choose is important.

The one advantage of this approach is that my primary focus is the needs of my customers, rather than the needs of my investors.

<comment><USER11> If you learn a lot of corporate strategy, you'll read about the importance of aligning the goals of your customers with the goals of your investors (and then you'll suddenly read that phrase in every earnings and annual report ever.) The idea being: there's an inherent paradox in trying to serve two mistresses, one who wants profit and the other who wants value.

Something that isn't touched on too much is that it's sometimes better to only have one mistress. When your customers are your investors, then your priorities and goals suddenly become a lot clearer.

<comment><USER12> sorry to be the guy that gets picky about words, but i think you mean contention rather than paradox

<comment><USER11> Whoops -- yep, you're right! (In my defense, it's very early and I'm very bad at words.)

<comment><USER13> I actually think "paradox" is a perfectly acceptable word in the context used. The common usage meaning - contradiction - is particularly apropos.

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

edit: fixed nasty typo

<comment><USER14> But also the "paradox" in this situation is that it's perfectly doable to meet the contradictory needs of value for customers and profit for investors at once. Many such dilemmas have paradoxical both/and solutions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What a crock. I get that some of this may be tongue in cheek but I really despise this attitude. There's this sort of weird pseudo-religious belief that by virtue of being involved in a startup you're somehow doing the world some great good.

Your new social/local/mobile app isn't world changing no matter what kind of hustler you are, no matter how much hype you put out, no matter how much money you raise. Anyone can be a capitalist for good or bad whether its exploiting a niche market segment on your own or with a startup.

I believe that regardless of whether you're on your own or do a startup, if your motivation is purely financial you can still do the world great good. Similarly, do-gooders with a grand vision can harm the world. Your stupid little messaging app can connect people from around the world and change the way people communicate (throw in some good crypto and you've done even more good for private comms) or your energy startup that's supposed to change the way we fuel our vehicles and provide clean cheap energy forever can end up doing great harm to the environment or put millions out of jobs as a side effect. These are obviously very hypothetical examples but the point is that there's no "motivation + execution = ethical/unethical success" formula.

There's way too many shades of gray to even be able to consider generalizing like this post does.

<comment><USER16> To me the generalizations in this article come across as ironic or satirical.

<comment><USER17> It's a very tongue in cheek post, there's been a few posts from that blog linked on HN and they've been very full of irony and satire.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Ok, I'll speak up as a "PIH". There are a lot of ideas that help people that will never touch VC money or can support a company with all of its overhead. It's not out of laziness. It's how a great programmer should look at all problems -- what here is redundant, manual and gets the most bang for the dev time and CPU cycles?

When you're a team of 1, your I/O bandwidth is almost infinite. If it's all in your brain, you don't have to explain anything, write anything down, have meetings, draw on whiteboards, etc. Your available time to work collapses down to solving specific business problems with every line of code or web page update. Imagine a case where you never have to compromise, argue, make brain dead concessions or spend resources on proving your position. Assuming you are right, and have a good head for business, marketing and writing half-way decent code, you can solve a small problem every efficiently. There are a lot of $20k-200k problems out there to solve that are not worth it for a company of any size to even touch.

</comment><comment><USER19> Does Passive Income Hacker actually exist, or is this conversation a fantasy?

How many people are there making five figures ($10,000+) in profit a month with their SaaS product? Working by themselves, for only "20 minutes a day", with a full day of product development "every few weeks"?

<comment><USER20> This number is really easy to pull of if you know how to sell yourself and be social/on the offensive.

$150/month product that saves businesses $4,000/mo (one less programmer). Hard part: Find 70 clients.

Working in industry, we demo products all the time. We pay outrageous amounts of money for an online time tracker which is basically an online spreadsheet. We have considered obtaining systems for managing accounting, supply, etc.

Focusing on our core business, policies, we never get tied up in 2-3 month/year adventures in uncomfortable territory. There is no innovation, just maintenance. We use a 20 year old 4GL language assisted by native Python/C.

I could crank out Android apps in niches, write web content and advertise, build a few cloud based web products (CAN IT EXPORT TO EXCEL!?!?!!!111), and easily live off of 15-20k a month with huge fluctuations (both directions). I choose the simple life of industry.

Not to mention, it is so hard to motivate yourself to go from start to end on a product. Most of that energy was used in my late teens.

Right now, I could be cranking out that turn based strategy Google Glass native app, because native apps with delays in turn taking are going to be the key to Glass (it gets hot!). Instead, I'll just build another fixed width extract with this day. It will run in 1/16th of the time of the original. People will not notice or care until it breaks again. Ad absurdum.

I suppose its worth mentioning, I know a few who pull in 4-6k a month solely on advertising/affiliates. Completely passive, they have months worth of posts automated to go out every 2nd or 4th week. I've pulled off 1-2k using the same method, but I always had a hard time finding microniches that were available for _me_ to dominate. Writing about en pointe ballet, dremels, silver polishing, simms fishing gear etc. is not my ideal goal. It did make money though.

<comment><USER21> _I could crank out Android apps in niches_

I hear this a lot, but are there numbers on how many people are managing it? I.e. if you exclude apps put out by large companies, how many people are earning $5k+/mo off Android apps? I don't even have a ballpark guess; is it 10 people? 10,000 people?

<comment><USER20> When I first learned Java in school, I cranked out a couple of Android apps. I coded one in 30 minutes. It currently has 24k active installs with a total of 125k people trying it out. Free. Horrible programming. No unit tests led to a scenario where setting the alarm at midnight resulted in the wrong calculation. People love the simplicity of it. People hate the simplicity of it.

It has the potential to make $5-17/day. I'm guessing if I corrected/updated the code, it would jump in rank. If I could generate 13-15 apps that fit into this type of niche, I would easily reach $5k/month with lazy/horrible coding. If I just sat there for one-two full month(s) churning out one app a day, I would probably be able to reach that goal.

<comment><USER22> Just out of curiosity, what app is it?

<comment><USER20> Sleep cycles, direct clone of sleepyti.me. Turns out ATNT branded phones don't allow access to the hardware alarm clock. The app crashes on ATNT Galaxy S2s (my original phone). Considering that was my first experience with Android, I never looked at it again in a happy manner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> What _is_ a passive income hacker. All I really understand is someone reading the 4-hour work week, and then writing a fifty-dollar pdf on how to feed blue canaries a vegetarian diet with really long sales letters.

I would quite like five figures a month working from starbucks, so if I am missing a trick let me know

<comment><USER24> They actually make their money off of the ebooks, seminars, boot camps and other how-to materials about how to have passive income.

<comment><USER23> Forget I asked - I simply cannot imagine going off to learn enough in the grey-area to make it worthwhile. I will write decent software for a niche here or there and see where we go.

<comment><USER25> You don't even have to do that. You can buy the e-book with distribution rights and make your own website to sell it, advertise on adwords, and away you go. My dad did it, he was getting an extra $100 a month with no time involvement at all. Once he got the paypal email his autoresponder would reply with the ebook. The only thing he had to do was once a week or once a month check his adwords account.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Can anyone identify a few example passive income apps that a single developer has managed to support? I know of bingo card creator, but what are some others?

<comment><USER27> Here's a few discussions that I've bookmarked and go back to, time-to-time for inspiration:

Small Product, Single Founder Success Stories [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3029771](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3029771)

How much recurring income do you generate, and from what? [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2567487](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2567487)

Anyone making a living from just 1 app? [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1772199](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1772199)

Inspirational money making web apps made by hackers [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1764682](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1764682)

<comment><USER28> @glanch you appear to be hellbanned, not sure why. I don't know what the offer was, but it wasn't just "job offer," they bought his business and are integrating it into their fantasy sports apps.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> _No, the business is bootstrapped._

Bootstrapping is not a crime.

 _So you just work out of coffee shops and stuff?_

Dumping the office or co-working space saves at least a few thousand dollars per year in rent, and potentially transportation costs and commuting time as well.

 _He 's not funded or seeking funding, he doesn't go to the networking events and hasn't been through an accelerator._

I don't care for these things either. They tend to be time sucks and overly focused on investors.

Look, I am skeptical of those Tim Ferris apostles whose "passive income" businesses are based on spammy blogs, apps, and affiliate sites. But don't sleight startup businesses because their methods of operation don't fit your definition of a startup.

<comment><USER30> I think you may have missed the subtext of the article.

<comment><USER29> Yes, I did. Probably a bit too trusting and gullible. But the bootstrapping/office comments pushed my buttons.

I started two companies. The first failed (1). During the year or so that I was involved, I spent a lot of time doing startupy things - <USER2> sessions, hanging out at a coworking space in Cambridge, pitching, applying to accelerators, etc. The local startup community, event organizers, angel investors, the media, and some people affiliated with the local higher education establishment encouraged this startup behavior (or startup theater). I feel they looked down on any startup that didn't fit the mold.

Here's one small example: When you meet someone else in the local community, one of the first questions they have is "Where are you based?" In my mind, this is a test of legitimacy. "Real" startups say something like:

\- Kendall

\- Seaport

\- Cambridge Innovation Center

\- Dogpatch

\- The accelerator gives me a desk and WiFi.

I feel that founders who answer "Starbucks" "The Library" "Home" or "Virtual Team" aren't taken seriously. That's how I feel now, at least, sitting in my living room. Even though my 2nd company has products, profit, and growth (2), it's not taken seriously as the first, which never had a dime in revenue but was based in the CIC, applied to accelerators, etc.

1\. [http://www.ilamont.com/2012/10/failing- hard.html](http://www.ilamont.com/2012/10/failing-hard.html)

2\. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6053105](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6053105)

<comment><USER31> I'd answer this by saying "I work from home so that I can save those expenses such that my business is profitable"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> 1\. The "unethical or lazy" is what the counterparty says to feel better about their own lives when they're failing. It's human nature to want to believe you're pursuing the best path.

2\. I don't understand why people like to draw such a hard distinction. It doesn't upset me that some people prefer sushi to steak. People are entitled to their own lifestyle choices without judgment of those who make alternate choices. This isn't just a software/business/career choice issue. Paleo people love telling everyone else that their diet is the best. Many vegetarians often evangelize to others and imply there are serious moral imperatives at stake. Just because someone isn't doing what you're doing doesn't make them "lazy" or "unethical". On a side note -- I think "pursuing narrow arbitrage opportunities" is often something someone would say with disdain, but that's my flavor.

3\. Most startup people aren't particularly making the world a better place anyways.

I'm sure a lot of that is written tongue in cheek, I loved it until the "narrow arbitrage opportunities" and "lazy/unethical" ending.

<comment><USER33> Yeah, here's my take on the labels --

unethical = someone who's more successful at making money / getting laid / achieving their life goals than the person rending judgment.

lazy = someone who doesn't seem to sweat as much / act like an ass than the person rending judgment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> "But what about dev, marketing, customer service etc?"

"I've automated 95% of the non-dev. The other 5% of non-dev I deal with in about 20 minutes a day. Every few weeks I'll have a big dev day."

Any books/resources with _a lot_ of real world case studies? I'd be very interested to hear many different accounts of such businesses. Here and there you see it on HN, but is there one that has many together?

</comment><comment><USER35> Yay, now I have a label for what I am. A passive income hacker. I don't make a lot (maybe $3K / month), but I work only ~half hour a day on my main money spinner, answering support emails. (Plus, maybe a few months solid every year or so on updating the tech.) I designed it so it doesn't have a DB or user account system, to reduce the complexity and make it easier to scale by one person with only certain skills. Users regularly ask for an account system. I don't add it; I have competitors who do have an account system, and there's no way I could compete with them by myself. A certain subset of users appreciate the simplicity of my service.

When users email me support questions, they get a personal response from the guy who made the thing. They probably don't realise either, since most contacts start with "hey X team" or "hey X guys".

Having said that, I _do_ work a full day, on attempting to start other passive incomes, and on more fun things that have less chance of earning. So I'm not quite living a pure passive income dream yet.

</comment><comment><USER36> Of all income sources, I have to say the passive sort is the most desirable and scalable. You can have as many meaningful hobbies as you want if your bills are paid, unrelated to your participation in commerce.

Sadly, risk-free investment returns have been decimated by 0% funds from the US central bank. We can only hope that we are reaping more rewards through active business as a result, but Fed policy has really punished those who have been financially prudent.

</comment><comment><USER4> Sounds like jealousy. If you can automate the way you get money, you have 23 hrs and 40 minutes a day to do something without any profit motive for true good. Startups, business, and making money don't have to be a religion.

Bill Gates will do more good with the money he made than he did by creating software.

<comment><USER37> I don't agree with that. The value of bringing the personal computer to the masses is way higher than saving the lives of the bottom 1 billion.

<comment><USER38> 1 billion people would certainly disagree.

<comment><USER39> I think what he's saying is that all seven billion of us benefited from the PC revolution, where the bottom one billion may benefit (or may not) from Gates' efforts.

It's an interesting ethical question. As with most questions, I don't know the answer to it.

<comment><USER37> Exactly. Also indirect effects, like how much more productive are cancer researchers thanks to computers. Very hard to underestimate the importance of computers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> "He's basically exploiting a narrow arbitrage opportunity and is probably either unethical or lazy"

This sentence made me uneasy. I am not good identifying sarcasm so it might be that but... How one would jump into that conclusion without knowing any detail?

On the other hand, lazy is different from being not ambitious. I had several friends like that (not making 5 figures per month though)and I find that is a very legitimate way of live.

<comment><USER41> My wife can jump to conclusions without any details. She does it all the time :)

<comment><USER42> Wait, is my wife your wife?

<comment><USER43> If you were any good at jumping to conclusions, you wouldn't have to ask!

<comment><USER42> What did you call my mother?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> A self-running business seems cool and magical - like creating a living thing... life! But, I think, for truly passive income (meaning it runs itself), he's right that it does have to be some kind of arbitrage opportunity, that will tend to stay around. By definition, it isn't intrinsically interesting or satisfying. But, in itself, there's nothing wrong with that.

OTOH, I'm not saying startup guying is the only solution - just that satisfaction requires ongoing work. Once you complete your startup (for example), you have to find something else to do - another startup, create YC... something. Why not just do what you find satisfying in the first place? It could be a startup. It could be just to make money (e.g. Warren Buffett _loves_ making money). Or it might be something else.

Here's a twee story about a hand-to-mouth fisherman [http://www.rinkworks.com/peasoup/richman.shtml](http://www.rinkworks.com/peasoup/richman.shtml)

<comment><USER45> If you pick the right passive income thing it could provide the money you need to do the work that you find interesting, which might not have any money in it.

> Why not just do what you find satisfying in the first place?

The satisfying thing might not pay the bills.

<comment><USER44> Maybe. I think that satisfying work (stressing that it's "work" not just pleasurable activity) will always be creating value. And value is valuable to someone, in some way, hence there's a way to make money from it. Maybe not very _much_ money...

A second problem is it might take time before that value is recognised. Hence, the painter's, actor's "day-job". Passive income is a day job.

However, it's actually quite difficult to find a passive income niche, it's work and risk to do it, they usually end up not being 100% passive after all, and few niches are stable long-term (even huge enterprises don't last forever).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Oh man...he had me until he called thousands of people, many of whom I know personally, "probably either unethical or lazy."

I think we can all agree that there are multiple ways to approach startups.

The misstep Myles makes is to assume that one approach is somehow superior to another, and then take the further step of insulting everyone who is striving for something different than what he sees as the best option.

We all have opinions on this topic, and it's an interesting discussion to have. But let's try to avoid dogma and judgment.

What's right for your unique situation isn't necessarily right for the 100,000 other people with similar ambitions, but who may be in vastly different life situations or just have different goals than you do.

Oh, and call me when you're 40, married with 2 kids and a mortgage, and you're coding Perl for a bank because none of your startups made you the millions that TechCrunch promised.

<comment><USER47> What are you talking about? PIH is the Myles surrogate in that conversation. He's making fun of Startup Guy for thinking that anyone who does what he (Myles) is doing is "unethical or lazy."

<comment><USER46> Oops...apologies to Myles if I mis-read this - I thought he was mocking the PIH, taking the side of the startup guy.

<comment><USER47> Myles in fact does have a small one-person low-intensity startup off which he claims to make 5 figures per month. And don't you notice how he makes his lifestyle sound really good, and the startup guy's judgments seem silly?

The funny part here is that you read this and actually agreed with Startup Guy for almost all of it. (From the rest of the comments it seems like a lot of HN did). That's part of his point, I guess.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> So, PIH has a profitable business. "Startup guy" is a bullshit artist.

</comment><comment><USER49> "He realizes that Passive Income Hacker (PIH) is not a hustler, he's not funded or seeking funding, he doesn't go to the networking events and hasn't been through an accelerator."

This article rubs me wrong. This paragraph really rubs me wrong. If you're good at hustling for customers, you're a hustler where it matters. Funding (non-customer funding i.e), networking events and accelerators are secondary - lots of America's biggest businesses have been built without them.

The "passive income guy" described in the article reminds me of the Plenty of Fish founder by the way. Most "startup guys" would probably kill to be in his position...

<comment><USER28> I think you're missing the sarcasm here... This is written from PIH point of view making fun of what startup guy thinks of him. PIH agrees with you that funding and accelerators aren't needed to be successful.

<comment><USER49> So maybe I did. Better go back for some more coffee I guess.

<comment><USER50> no its not just you, I wrote a similar comment. This guy who calls himself a hacker actually fits the bill, most of the time criminals exhibit schizophrenic characteristics and to no surprise he wrote a self serving article making himself look good...now I guess I need to get back to my startup before I turn into startup guy walking around coffee shops seeking funding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Unethical?? HAHAHAHA. PIH supports themselves, and their family. They aren't a drain on the system, and owes nothing.

Realistically, Startup Guy is pissed because his photo sharing website that allows you to apply filters isn't getting traction.

<comment><USER52> But he got the good domain name! Filterfy.io

/s

This outlook on both PIH and start ups is quite knaive/ignorant. PIH doesn't want the inherent risk, and maybe responsibility, of a start up. This author seems to criticize a developer who loves developing for not converting his passion, and recklessly throwing himself into a managerial role.

Why does every idea have to be a startup?

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> As someone whose Twitter account has been suspended as a result of using the OP's "Passive Income" hack, I wish he would spend more time thinking the project.

</comment><comment><USER54> What do we win by promoting these caricatures?

</comment><comment><USER55> I think it's just such a truism these days that every company has to (often recklessly) aim for massive growth and fund that by selling off the company, that there's just a lot of cognitive dissonance when you present that that's not the only way companies can work.

It's not necessarily all derision, it's just the mind trying to reconcile new information with old.

</comment><comment><USER56> I found this post mildly amusing. It is a terribly simplified and mildly offensive comparison of two sets of objectives. Neither of which are actually right.

Startup is a phase - not a stereotype. Teams are not essential to either a startup or what you term a PIH. The skills needed for the challenge are. Not the number of people. Not all startups need nor want outside investment. Not all startups have an idea that will change the world. Not all startups need, want or are suitable for accelerators, incubators or other similar vehicles. Startup is neither better nor worse than a single person building something to improve their livelihood.

Best I can tell, the author equates a startup to what is popular in the press. Young geeks, big rounds of capital raising, buzzwords galore, huge acquisitions and all the hype that goes with it.

I think bunkum like this devalues the efforts of entrepreneurs everywhere and demonstrates such a closed mind in a space where openness is increasingly important.

</comment><comment><USER57> How does one become a passive income hacker?

<comment><USER58> Well, the simplest way is to toss a website up with some affiliate links. Eventually you'll get a few hits, at least. Technically, then, you will have earned some passive income, albeit not a lot.

To make it big, though, relies mainly on luck and the skill to recognize when luck has provided an opportunity. For example, a lot of these people with passive "affiliate" income are essentially very lucky that they recognized the niche and were in a position to be able to exploit it better than (or at least as good as) anybody else who tried--it's not common, or even 'infrequent'; I'd say it's rare at best.

Or you can do what "everybody" else does: have a job (freelance or otherwise) and, eventually, exploit your connections and network into a product (like PIH's SaaS product) that produces passive income. This, of course, takes years unless as in the above you are very lucky. Even then you have to have some good fortune to maintain steady employment, not be hit with any of a number of life's possible mishaps, etc.

Personally, I think passive income from, e.g. dividend paying equities in the Gambler's Emporium known as the stock market are more likely to provide regular passive income than hoping that working toward some hit affiliate stream or niche software market will payoff without luck.

<comment><USER18> Passive income != affiliate income. That may come from the internet marketing guru "buy my course" crew being very vocal about selling a certain dream. Some succeed, but there's more money reliable money in building a real business.

<comment><USER58> Of course the set of things that generate passive income is not restricted to the affiliate element only. It includes things like writing an eBook, developing an App for desktop/mobile/web, etc., that one doesn't intend to maintain, or the ratio of time spent in maintenance or working on the product(s) to free time is very small (which is, of course, subjective). Dividend paying stocks or investments in other funds are truly passive--they require zero effort that could be called "work".

As soon as one begins to maintain or attempt to expand these things, however, it's no longer really passive. In fact, "building a business" necessarily implies direct action.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> "Worst of all, PIH is probably not trying to make the world a better place through technology. He's basically exploiting a narrow arbitrage opportunity and is probably either unethical or lazy."

Really, really? Regrettable

This looks like the kind of dreamy SG that only wants to do "good"(by his definition) and doesn't have an attainable goal.

Or the startup guys that want to use the latest and "greatest" so he writes version 1 with whatever.js and when he's about to launch he decided to rewrite everything in drunk_pangolin.js "because of integrity" (except that drunk_pangolin.js is still in version 0.1, has 1 part time developer and no docs)

</comment><comment><USER60> The stereotypes are funny, and startups, by nature, will always be filled with a majority of hustlers, but it may also inadvertently lump an entire group of startup founders -past,present and future- into the "SG pile," whom I think don't belong there.

That being said: i think i've heard this conversation and event had it (sadly, from the SG side in my less-educated days), and I think this conversation is intended to force people to ask themselves "am I a poser or do I want money?" which is a false dichotomy.

I'd rather look at people who want to make money by creating value vs. people who want make money by creating perceived value.

</comment><comment><USER50> Am I the only one who dislikes this post because of the assumptions it makes on startup founders? Statistically most startups are bootstrapped, this was written by someone who is arguably caught up in the silicon valley hype, you don't need to get funded for everything...Also the other guy has obviously built something called a "lifestyle business" google it if you don't know what that is, the noob startup guy is way too nooby to know what that is. Unless the hacker guy is a hacker and is doing something illegal, I don't see why the conversation should get awkward...

</comment><comment><USER61> Huh, are there actually Startup Guys who want to "make the world a better place through technology?" I thought the basic plan was "build and maintain an amazing, indispensable service for exactly long enough to get bought out by Google/Microsoft/Yahoo/Apple, then retire to Tahiti while the new owners fire everyone and ruin the product."

e.g. Siri before Apple: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/22/siri-do- engine-appl...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/22/siri-do-engine-apple- iphone_n_2499165.html)

<comment><USER24> Your summary does not describe the story of Siri in the linked article accurately at all.

<comment><USER61> No? Obvious hyperbole aside (no one retired to Tahiti that I'm aware of), it seems pretty close. A company built an extremely ambitious, bleeding-edge app, sold some early copies, were preparing to roll it out on every meaningful platform, then got a fat check from a tech giant and promptly became platform- exclusive, ripped out a lot of the more interesting features, and fucked over their early adopters. (The folks who paid actual money for the Siri app on the iPhone 4 were not amused when the app suddenly announced that it was disabling itself and they'd have to buy a new phone to keep using it.)

And, really, how many times have you heard someone say something like "Man, that service has gone to shit since Yahoo bought it"? It seems to come up pretty frequently. I'm sure there are entrepreneurs with actual integrity regarding their startups, but it seems like a lot of the big success stories end with "and then we sold to Google for $100 million, we win, the end."

<comment><USER24> That's not what the article is about, though. It's almost like you didn't even read it.

<comment><USER61> It's not the primary focus of the article, no. There's not that much documented writing on Siri-before-Apple. This was the best single source I could find for the facts I cited, all of which are in that article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> What's so bad about being "Passive" Income Guy? This guy is out there monetizing with his self-bootstrapped "boring" SaaS that has real customers, while Startup Guy has blown through multiple rounds of investors' money with his quixotic third-pivot "change the world idea" that still hasn't earned a single penny but is being regularly pitched at circle-jerk networking events to the other benchwarmer wantrepreneur spectators banking on some highly improbable IPO. Wait, who did you say was unethical, lazy, and not a hustler again?

<comment><AUTHOR> OP here. I guess it wasn't clear from the article that I am a passive income hacker, and that I'm poking fun at startup guy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> I honestly cannot figure out which guy (PIH or SG) this article is "making fun of" (maybe it's both?). I've read it twice now, and it can kind of go both ways.

Maybe that's the point.

</comment><comment><USER64> Counterpoint (old but relevant):

[http://blog.wilshipley.com/2011/04/success-and-farming-vs- mi...](http://blog.wilshipley.com/2011/04/success-and-farming-vs-mining.html)

The article paints non-startup guys as parasites. That's so needlessly polarizing.

The more common definition of the Passive Income Hacker is "lifestyle business", i.e. a business where you don't seek a 10-100x exit.

Personally I think if all you've done or plan on doing is an app or website, calling it a startup is kind of silly.

<comment><USER65> _The more common definition of the Passive Income Hacker is "lifestyle business", i.e. a business where you don't seek a 10-100x exit._

I have to disagree with this one, of all of the people I know that have "lifestyle businesses," they were as committed to the early stages and aggressive as most of the "startup" guys I know. While some of them, after years of work, got to "minimal interaction with the business," most of them still work it hard for a standard week. The only difference between them and the "start-up guy," is they don't ever want to exit.

I've always seen the PIH "movement" (if we can call it that), much more opportunistic than many "lifestylers" \- there's a big difference between being committed to something for life, and and trying to find a way to make money by doing as little as possible.

That last part is not to say that all PIH's are opportunists working on things that make money even if they could care less about them - but the movement is distinct from that of "lifestyle" business, where the goal is to make enough for a good life, doing something you enjoy/love.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> So what if startup guy disagrees with the choices of PIH? This is another example of conflicting ideologies, and luckily, no one can do something about it. Imagine if there was a politician who didn't like the approach PIH was taking and worked to ban it because he didn't like it. This seems very farfetched, but there are examples of this happening. The ones that come to mind are the banning of sharing recourses, like AirBnB or any ride share program.

<comment><USER50> aka bitcoin miners vs the government :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> This started out so well and I was hoping it would end along the lines of "different hackers with different goals," but steered way off course to some vitriolic attack on the casual hacker lifestyle.

I think if anything, bootstrapping your product to success is far more respectable than taking large sums of seed funding and potentially throwing it all away when you find that your market doesn't even exist.

</comment><comment><USER68> It was a great read, until the end where in the last sentence it was really ambiguous whether he was being sarcastic about "He's basically exploiting a narrow arbitrage opportunity and is probably either unethical or lazy."

Everything was so obviously tongue in cheek until that point.

But, the ambiguity was actually welcome because it forces the reader to wonder and in turn choose their position.

It's a fun read.

</comment><comment><USER69> >Worst of all, PIH is probably not trying to make the world a better place through technology. He's basically exploiting a narrow arbitrage opportunity and is probably either unethical or lazy.

Is this supposed to be what "startup guy" thinks, or is it also the opinion of the author? Seems like a pretty jarring assumption, if you ask me.

<comment><USER70> Some people just have that attitude, if you don't dedicate yourself 100% to your work (read my company) then your just some lazy pos, because "surviving" and "thriving" is lazy. Where you know PTSD, and mental health issues for a salary is pulling yourself up by the bootstraps.

<comment><USER71> There's also an opposite extreme. Some people think that spending time on your work (company, project) should take not more than 5-10% of your time, the rest you should spend hiking, traveling, singing or whatever else that doesn't have to do with tech. It seems that for such people tech is not the main area of interests and they can't understand that things can be different for other people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This was like reading an excerpt of the HN version of "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" but with the opposite conclusion.

</comment><comment><USER72> Really amazed at the number of commenters who didn't pick up on the sarcasm.

But, honestly, how many developers are there making five figures a month in profit passively (more or less)? That is an extreme amount of success, far beyond what most people will ever enjoy in their life.

</comment><comment><USER73> As a former passive income hustler turned startup guy - this is so true. What's most important is to be comfortable with what you do regardless of others opinions. That's the one thing I could do without in start up land. The prosthelytizing.

</comment><comment><USER74> This article is arrogant and pretentious. Come on, it trivializes one side while glorifying the other beyond reasonable. It seems to say that if you work on a startup you are the cool kid, and otherwise you are loser. Just like high school.

<comment><USER75> It seems you've missed the point. The article is still arrogant and pretentious but also sarcastic. The writer sees himself as a Passive Income Hacker.

<comment><USER50> you missed obnoxious I'd add obnoxious in there too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> :D, Get Income invest on your own business, then get customer to make it grow. It must more satisfied then look up for investor :)

Btw you must see in the end, is there FBI or any kind police knock on your door :p

So make sure your business clean!!! Cheers

</comment><comment><USER77> I m a developer in New York. I have a few good engineer friends I met while living in Vietnam. If any of you here happens to have a product that qualifies as a passive income product and need a tech partner let me know.

</comment><comment><USER78> Startup-ers can be some of the most self-important people on the planet. "Passive Income Hacker" is making a living for himself and quite possibly his family as well. There's a lot of nobility in that.

</comment><comment><USER79> I have to disagree with this post. Passive Income Hackers are usually hustlers with more street smarts than technical skills. Startup Hackers are the opposite.

</comment><comment><USER80> I so want to be a PIH. I just can't get enough free time to put my shit together as my day job sucks it all away.

<comment><USER81> Quit.

<comment><USER82> Maybe good advice, but I'd recommend having a few months wages as a cushion.

<comment><USER18> Better to have an MVP and a few customers (paid or expressed paid interest) first. That's what I did + the cushion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> as a PIH and a father, I have to chime in and mention that my lazy & unethical self gets to spend a great deal more [quality] time with the family now that I'm no longer working 24/7 at a startup. sadly, no one ever gets man of the year for being a good parent.

</comment><comment><USER84> Passive income always sounded to me like either a fantasy or a career of ripping people off.

</comment><comment><USER85> Loved it, brought a smile to my face. This is exactly what I am trying to do.

</comment><comment><USER86> Changing the world is the new blinking text, or rounded corners.

</comment><comment><USER87> I love how his comments section _is_ hacker news.

<comment><USER88> Hacker News makes for a really good comment section.

</comment></comment><comment><USER89> The last line I suspect is out of utter jealous.

<comment><USER90> I suspect you missed the sarcasm. (The author is PIH)

</comment></comment><comment><USER91> I would rather be the PIH, how do I become him?

</comment><comment><USER92> making the world a better place... mostly for themself, though...

</comment><comment> guard-of-terra "Worst of all, PIH is probably not trying to make the world a better place through technology. He's basically exploiting a narrow arbitrage opportunity and is probably either unethical or lazy."

Is this serious? It's epically funny if it is.

Even if PIH is trying to make world a better place, he doesn't have to do that on his "billed" time. He has a lot of time to spare for that.

<comment><USER93> True. Maybe he/she mentors a child in his/her spare time.

<comment><USER94> We do have gender neutral pronouns of a sort: "True. Maybe they mentor a child in their spare time."

<comment><USER95> They is technically plural. There is no good singular gender neutral pronoun. So, "he/she", "s/he", "he" or "they" are fine by me; we know what the author means.

<comment><USER96> Where 'technically' means 'people have used it as both singular and plural but some people like to argue' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER97> I tried doing the passive income thing. I set up dozens of blogs with adsense, amazon affiliate links and sold software.

What happened surprised me: it was soul-crushing. I felt dirty. Turns out that meaningful work is what fulfills me. Making "free" hands-off money doesn't excite or inspire me. Totally a learning experience.

<comment><USER71> Exactly. Some people keep promoting the "virtue" of having a passive income and being able to not work at all. It seems to me that they can't wrap their heads around the idea that some actually enjoying working on their projects every day, building something and improving from day to day.

<comment><USER98> For me, the goal of passive income is flexibility. Sure, I would hope that I wouldn't have to work if I didn't want to. But it would also mean I could work on anything that interested me. I have a huge list of projects I've wanted to work on forever but will never have time if I don't find a way into financial flexibility.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER99> It is apparent from the comments here that many don`t realize that the author is being sarcastic. I wonder what it is about the delivery that this fact isn't obvious enough? Because I think that there has to be something with the article if so many interpret the tone of it incorrectly.

<comment><USER100> _It is apparent from the comments here that many don`t realize that the author is being sarcastic._

From Wikipedia's page on Asperger Syndrome, under Speech and Language: traits include "literal interpretations and miscomprehension of nuance". Makes me wonder when I see threads like this...</comment></comment>


Show HN: Quick Access to Google Sheets/Docs/Slides with Suite Shortcuts - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/suite-shortcuts/fjncmkijpafmbjjbcnkddkgdlifhdofm/ <comment><AUTHOR> Wanted to learn more about how Chrome Extensions work and decided to just build one over the weekend.</comment>


HAMMER2 design document - <AUTHOR> http://gitweb.dragonflybsd.org/dragonfly.git/blob/b93cc2e0815ec1ad6d6f8e60cc0becbdee247679:/sys/vfs/hammer2/DESIGN <comment><USER2> Nice timing. I just finished installing dragonfly on vultr ([http://www.vultr.com/?ref=6828113](http://www.vultr.com/?ref=6828113) (aff link)), following this guide: [http://hostingformula.net/how-to-install- dragonflybsd-in-vps...](http://hostingformula.net/how-to-install-dragonflybsd- in-vps-using-custom-iso-feature/)

The only painful parts were: \- realizing I needed to go manually unmount the iso in the vultr control panel, since rebooting would otherwise just take me back to the live cd. \- needing to host the iso somewhere so I could point vultr at it, not particularly hard, but annoying even for someone like me who's already used to configuring nginx.

I hope more people give dragonfly a chance, hammer seems to me the way filesystems should be. If you just want to try it out, there's a coupon code for $20 dollars of credit floating around for vultr.

<comment><USER3> I am curious what you use dragonfly for? I have considered trying it for a home file server.

<comment><USER2> I'm going to try moving the stuff currently hosted on a debian box over to it and see how that experience goes. If everything goes well, I'll see if I can get it working well on my laptop and try to switch over. I'd like to eventually be able to use hammer snapshots as a backup method rather than any specific program.

edit: Oh, I also plan on running a tor relay on the vps.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Come hang out in #dragonflybsd on EFnet, lots of updates from the man himself.</comment>


Tesla Model 3 Road Trip – Statement Regarding Autopilot Collision - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/tsla3/posts/942377245933745 <comment><AUTHOR> Pasting from the FB page _____

I want to make it clear that I take responsibility in regards to my actions. With that being said, I do not believe that there are many Tesla owners who, when using Autopilot, always keep both hands on the wheel and provide their undivided attention to monitoring the road and the software. This collision was directly caused by the Autopilot software seriously malfunctioning and misinterpreting the road. This collision could have happened to anyone who does not expect a car travelling at a fast speed in a straight line to suddenly and without warning, veer off course. After tens of thousands of kilometres worth of Autopilot driving without major incidents, I have learned to trust the software. Autopilot provides users with a strong sense of security and reliability as it takes you to your destination and navigates traffic on your behalf. Clearly, I had become too trusting of the software.

Autopilot is marketed as a driver assistance feature that reduces stress and improves safety. However, the vigilance required to use the software, such as keeping both hands on the wheel and constantly monitoring the system for malfunctions or abnormal behaviour, arguably requires significantly more attention than just driving the vehicle normally without use of Autopilot. Furthermore, I believe that if Autopilot even has the small potential of misreading a clearly marked gore point, and has the potential to drive into a gore point and crash into a barrier, it should not be tested in beta, on the open road, and by normal consumers. My experience is not unique as many drivers have reported similar behaviour from Autopilot, and a fatal crash involving Autopilot on a Model X may have been caused by a disturbingly similar malfunction.

Many Tesla fans will likely dismiss this as fully my fault, but I implore those who believe so to take a full step back and put themselves in my shoes, as a driver who had used this amazing software for so long, and who could not have anticipated such a sudden and violent jerk of the wheel to one direction while travelling at a fast speed. I hope that my fellow owners will be less dismissive of various incidents regarding Autopilot, and understand that the general public views these severe collisions differently from the owner community. Tesla is moving quickly into the mass market, and potential customers in that segment aren't going to ask, "why were both of his hands not on the wheel while the car was in Autopilot?", rather, they are going to ask "why did the car swerve into the gore point without warning?". The autonomous driving movement as well as the Tesla community can only get stronger when we tackle these questions and resolve the issues behind them.</comment>


Support the Startup Founders Visa with a tweet - <AUTHOR> http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/09/support-startup-founders-visa-with.html <comment><USER2> _The EB-5 visa is designed for foreign investors to get a green card if they are willing to bring capital to the US and create at least ten full-time jobs. Unfortunately, this program applies to the investor who holds the capital, and not the entrepreneur who discovers how to put that capital to use. A small change in the law could have a big impact on entrepreneurship in this country, and that's what [McClure] proposed_

If all they did was extend that same provision to founders, it wouldn't do much good, because few early-stage startups create 10 full-time jobs out of the gate. Indeed, that would be an anti-pattern. However, these guys must know that.

<comment><USER3> we hope to lower both the capital rqmt from $1M to perhaps $250K, and the job creation rqmts from 10 jobs to perhaps 2-3.

currently, a modified form of the EB-5 in economically targeted areas requires only $500K, and an equivalently smaller # of jobs.

the goal would be to structure the EB-5 modification around the typical seed- round startup investment size & team.

<comment><USER4> Another distinction is that the EB-5 requires that the person desiring a visa _personally_ invest $1M (not raise it from investors). Additionally, in areas where the limit is lowered to 500K, the person still needs to have a personal net worth of $1M.

Linking a founder visa to a personal net worth in high six digits will defeat the purpose of the visa.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> One thing I didn't notice before is that the founders visa idea (however implemented) has the huge advantage of being testable. Startups whose founders got in on such visas would be easy to track. Any big successes that resulted would become prominently associated with the visa program. This would provide political cover against the sort of attacks that are perenially made against H1-Bs and so on. One new Google might even eliminate the controversy permanently. (Admittedly it would be hard to prove that the founders wouldn't have gotten in some other way. But I'm not sure that matters.)

</comment><comment><USER5> To those who want to differentiate between the next Google and Joe's Lemonade, \- At present the same wannabe entrepreneurs are waiting in other categories (EB2-EB3) for 5-7 years and paying the govt and the immigration attorneys over 10k in application and legal fees. The paperwork is extensive. \- I believe the same individuals will be more then willing to submit the paperwork in support of their entrepreneurial efforts and be willing to pay for review of the application. The process does not have to be completed in a weeks time but 6 months is better then 6 years. \- On the govt side if we already have a process in which we place our trust to ensure our safety (assuming the process works and does not let malicious individuals into the hallowed borders of the territorial united states) then we ought to place trust in the govt that it can put a process in place that distinguishes between a Joe's Lemonade and something that shows job creation/positive economic potential ... yes ?

</comment><comment><USER6> How do we un-support the founders visa? Because I don't think VC's should have any say in who can immigrate to the US, and I don't think the government should be in the business of annointing VC's.

<comment><USER7> I think you are getting to caught up in the logistics of how the Visa administration will work. The actual delivery of it is going to obviously be more thought out than Brad Feld's blog post.

Any effort to address the problem is better than nothing.

<comment><USER8> I am having trouble thinking of a good way to implement this..

How will you differentiate between the next google and Joe with 2,000$ wanting to start up a lemonade stand?

<comment><USER9> Establish a cap on the number of visas issued, sell them at auction to anybody who passes a background check, and let the market worry about capital allocation between the next Google and Joe's Great Lemonade. The market works better if they are transferable or resalable, but that isn't required.

This would encourage establish a level playing field between startups and established companies for competing for foreign talent, get the US government out of the business of evaluating business plans, avoid anointing any particular VCs as the official Visa Cartel, and be easy to administer and transparent.

You don't have to restrict it to startups in any way, either. It would easily replace the H1B and most other work-related visas. (I can think of compelling reasons to issue, e.g,. spousal visas outside the market.)

<comment><USER10> Bingo. If the rationale for the program is to feed the market for technical and entrepreneurial talent, then the program should trust market mechanisms for the allocation of limited visas.

And each year, the cap can be reevaluated: would a larger number have generated more jobs (and auction revenue) without the social costs that usually feed anti-immigrant sentiment? If so, revise the cap upward.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> How about better regulations for international VC investments?

Or maybe, if you want to start with baby-steps, some pamphlets to VC guys telling them about the world outside california.

</comment><comment><USER12> But my tweets are already busy supporting the Iranian revolution!

<comment><USER3> just support iranian startup entrepreneurs, and kill 2 tweets with 140 stones.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Pivit, an elegant game with simple rules and masterful strategy - <AUTHOR> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/913572758/pivit

<comment><USER2> I think you'd be better off aiming a bit lower. Raising $50k for something as prosaic as a board game seems too optimistic. Would it be possible to make cheaper game pieces? $0.25 for a small chunk of plastic seems excessive when you're manufacturing 40,000 of them. Although the pieces are beautiful: much better than tokens stamped out of a flat sheet and then printed. The $35/box paper costs seem high as well. You could actually just sell the pieces in a plastic bag and tell people to use their own chessboards. If you made a cheaper version to start you could always come out with a premium version later (and possibly make two sales to your really enthusiastic customers).

But good on you for not skimping. If you reach your funding goal I don't see any reason you couldn't ship this product.

<comment><AUTHOR> I understand that the price is on the high end for a board game funding goal. I see craftsmanship and high quality as part of what the game is, fundamentally. It feels different to play chess in an app, with a cheap chess set, and with a finely crafted board and set of pieces; and I care about that difference.</comment></comment>


Build a real-time Twitter clone in 10 mins with Rails and StimulusReflex - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/codefund/build-a-real-time-twitter-clone-10-mins-with-rails-and-stimulusreflex-5h5c <comment><USER2> Just saw that this is on HN. Happy to answer any questions.</comment>


Juno Offers New Look at Jupiter's North Pole - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/03/science/juno-nasa-jupiter.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fus&action=click&contentCollection=us&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=6&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0 <comment><USER2> Discussion from yesterday: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12414083](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12414083)</comment>


Mintago - <AUTHOR> http://www.mintago.com <comment><AUTHOR> Chieu Cao, the co-founder of Perkbox launched a new business that 'automatically helps employees earn, spend and save better'</comment>


Sen. Warren Proposes Jail Time for CEOs over Consumer Data Breaches - <AUTHOR> https://slate.com/technology/2019/04/elizabeth-warren-equifax-cambridge-analytica-regulation-data-privacy.html <comment><AUTHOR> Maybe this is what it takes to get places like Equifax to take security seriously?

It seems extreme, but there are other cases where executives might be found criminally negligent. If a chemical company were knowingly poisoning people?</comment>


The artist revealing New York's secretive, hidden network - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20161012-the-artist-revealing-new-yorks-secretive-hidden-network <comment><USER3> _" In the summer you sometimes see tanks of liquid nitrogen on the street, says Burrington. It turns out these are brought in by telecoms companies to cool cable ducts that lie alongside steam vents in the sidewalk. "The cables will melt if they get too hot," she says."_

This makes no sense. The melting point of the glass in optical fibers is close to 1000 degrees F. If the sun could heat things up that much on a summer day, we'd all be dead.

If I remember correctly, the nitrogen is actually used to purge moisture from traditional phone cables. Keeping it in liquid form just makes the tanks more compact - it turns back into a gas as soon as it exits the insulated tank, at which point it isn't very cold anymore.

 _" and shows us how to track buried fibre-optic cables by decoding the spray- painted symbols that telecoms companies use to mark their territory."_

The spray-painted symbols on the street are used to protect the underground infrastructure when the street is being excavated. There are different colors for water mains, gas lines, and electrical and other cables. I'm pretty sure you can't differentiate the internet backbone from cable TV feeders using these markings, and they probably go through the same ducts. The people who actually maintain the cables know where they are without the markings - <USER2> have maps.</comment>


Europe Is Building a 'Space Data Highway' - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/europe-is-building-a-space-data-highway-with-lasers-esa-edrs-satellite <comment><USER2> Why drop "With Lasers" from the headline?!

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes indeed we are: [http://www.esa.int/spaceinvideos/Videos/2016/01/EDRS- A_launc...](http://www.esa.int/spaceinvideos/Videos/2016/01/EDRS- A_launch_highlights)

(I take partial credit for this as a European.)

</comment><comment><USER4> Satellite communication won't "drastically cut down delays". On the contrary - it will increase it, as the signal will have to physically go through a much longer geostationary orbit detour between two points on the earth. Satellites offer you additional bandwidth for somewhat lower costs (compared to establishing fiber optic land line), bigger delay, and penalizing partial dependence on atmospheric conditions.

</comment><comment><USER5> Why stop at 2 gigabits/sec? Why not go all the way up to 10g, 40g, or even 100g? It's not like rain or fog or other atmospheric effects will cause much problem for free space optics or tighter band RF (e.g. 60-90ghz millimeter wave) communication in space, so was it a physical or budget limitation? At these higher throughputs, the same relay network might be usable for other things in the future, such as streaming terapixel video...

<comment><USER6> Atmospheric conditions actually have quite a bit of effect on satellite communications.

As far as the link speed between nodes in space well 1.8 gigabits is fast even for fiber optics, when you add the distance between the 2 nodes and the fact that at least one of them is moving at very high speed when counting for beam dispersion and phase shift due to movement 1.8 gigabit seems very impressive (this is considerably faster than pretty much any point to point IR link here on the ground[1]).

That said satellite internet doesn't makes much sense at least not how the internet infrastructure is setup today going to space means that you add at the least 80-70,000KM to your round trip no matter what kind of bandwidth you are getting in return (which in every case will be very asymmetrical) it's not worth adding sometimes seconds worth of latency to the round trip of your packets, the internet today simply can't really work like this.

I would've said that in the future you might get a super smart home hub that can negotiate a single internet address (probably not going to be standard TCP/IP at this point) over multiple links (yes I'm aware that multi-link PTP has existed for decades) and automatically route the traffic based on it's nature; uplink can go over fiber/DSL; downlink for something like say netflix can go through your sat link; web browsing including streaming can start over fiber/dsl for a more responsive experience and if you are streaming say YouTube just offload it to your sat link transparently; applications that require low latency such as games and video/voice comms will always go over your fiber/dsl.

The only problems with this is that it seems to be too expensive and complicated and by the time you'll have good enough coverage of satellite internet the adoption of fiber will increase and since you can push upwards of 1gig these days over copper DSLlike technologies might actually catch up also.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free- space_optical_communicati...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free- space_optical_communication)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> In the '80s we built circuit boards for a company called Laser Communications in Lancaster Pennsylvania. They could transmit fast (at the time) data over 2-3 miles pretty easily, but water particles in the air (rain, fog, etc) caused enough refraction that the links would go down. I'm curious to know how they solved that problem when going through so much atmosphere (I'm not buying the 50% to 100% without an explanation).

<comment><USER8> It communicates with other satellites by laser. Ground communication is over Ka-band radio. The 50-100% figure is simple geometry. A satellite with an orbit that is always in view will have 100% coverage. Other satellites will have at least 50%.

<comment><USER9> Are all satellites out far enough to cover a complete hemisphere?</comment></comment></comment>


Google suspended our app, threatened to delete our Google accounts - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@thedrbits/google-has-threatened-to-delete-all-our-google-accounts-over-nothing-13a05a31a55a <comment><USER2> What did you think was going to happen? Seriously.

Let me tell you what happened: You created a gambling app and tried to pass it off as a game then bought a bunch of fake reviews. But yeah, sure... whining on Medium about it is going to turn things around for you. Stick to peddling on the malware app stores.

I'm upvoting this because I can't wait for an Apple employee to stop by and blast this 'Age 12+!' shit[1] out of orbit for violating their TOS[2], specifically 3.1.5(b)(v):

[1][https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bitcoin- blast/id1494240093](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bitcoin-blast/id1494240093)

[2][https://developer.apple.com/app- store/review/guidelines/#cry...](https://developer.apple.com/app- store/review/guidelines/#cryptocurrencies)

EDIT: Please also see Google's policy on gambling apps (Which guess what? not permitted in the US!) [https://play.google.com/about/restricted- content/gambling/](https://play.google.com/about/restricted-content/gambling/)

<comment> chupa-chups Apple? Isn't this about google?

(Sincerely puzzled, but it's late over here)

<comment><USER2> The app I linked is the same app by the same guy and it's in violation of at least 2 sections of Apple's ToS. It's only a matter of time before Apple does the same thing Google did.

<comment><AUTHOR> What terms does it violate? We have read them all in detail. I'll wait.

<comment><USER3> Indeed - I'd like to know which subsection states you can't do any marketing for your app.

*"marketing" != paying for reviews, as this joecool1029 seems to assume.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Update on this thread: Google just removed our suspension and asked us to resubmit the app. We have done so and are waiting to hear back.

I've learned a lot from this post on Hacker News about the general feeling people have about Bitcoin these days. I was accused of several scams and manipulations in this thread, all of which were false. I was a scammer until proven innocent and it appears to some the jury is still out or they have already decided that I am a scammer (I'm not).

Here's the Twitter thread of our users that broke through to Google if you want to see a sampling of our loyal Android users: [https://twitter.com/bling_fi/status/1221902959023312896?s=20](https://twitter.com/bling_fi/status/1221902959023312896?s=20)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Final update on this thread:

We are back on Google Play with no explanation or retraction of threats to related accounts if we get suspended again.

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.getloaded....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.getloaded.bitcoinblast&hl=en_US)

</comment><comment><USER4> Don't build a product that solely relies on another product or service that cannot be replaced. That's just a bad business :)

<comment><AUTHOR> True for any app company really but true it's a weak point of our offering at the moment. Startups tend to rely on another product early on, then de-risk as they grow which is our plan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Regardless of the legitimacy of the app, it is unwise to be dependent on Google for your entire infrastructure. They do and have shutdown entire accounts with no information, feedback or appeals.

I'm overly dependent on them currently myself.

We had a recent issue in accounting where an unaccounted for charge kept hitting billing from Google LLC. As we use and sell Google Suite, run a few million in Google ads and have limited cloud services we assumed the error was on our side. I audit all google ads looking for appropriate matches and then call Google Ad support, which was helpful and able to confirm the charges were not in any way related to Ads ( billing prefix suggested it was not but frequency aligned with how ads bill so was the most likely candidate)

They could not tell us what it was for or what "google llc" is

A google search for the prefix identified it as what is used for Google Play.

That is the one service that has no legitimate uses on our corporate card.

Contacting Google play about the charges and asking for clarification and disputing was not difficult.

They have an internal review period. I think 5-7 days, the review came back as. Legitimate charges. Ok, what for? They can't tell us.

What?

These were multiple charges of $500 adding up to nearly 5k in a month, but they can't match the charge to a service?

And with several million in yearly spending with Google, one would hope for a little more response time and explanation, but, that's chump change to them.

I will still be using every service, but I definitely would invite some alternatives as It is unwise to depend on Google for anything.

<comment><USER2> I've had clients that operate in such 'sensitive' or 'high-risk' areas. Specifically, ones like penny stock promoters and now some crpytocurrency promoters. I could grind my axe about what can happen with low-risk clients getting shafted by Google, but this submission comes along with the territory they chose to operate in. It's an expected result.

The thing is people like my earlier mentioned clients know they are in a field that walks the tightrope between what is legal and what isn't. There's claims they can't make, disclaimers they must post. But that's not all that's dealt with. Even simple sweepstakes have to comply with some basic regulations and required notices.

Google and stuff like merchant accounts treat that type of client just like they are lepers. Nobody wants to touch them, nobody wants to hear from them . They have a market, but not on FAANG's marketplaces, search engines, cloud platforms, etc. Because of it, they have to use more expensive high-risk merchant accounts and roll with the punches from Google issuing manual search ranking penalties because this is an industry they don't want to promote. Whether or not you're buying services off Google they still wield a massive amount of power through their monopoly on search. It is inescapable.

OP hasn't realized any of this, hasn't even tried to seem compliant or sneak in with their services while still doing his thing. This is a good learning experience.

<comment><AUTHOR> You haven't even tried to understand what we do and you've made a ton of false accusations in the process.

We're 100% compliant with Google policies I think you just aren't familiar with the rules in this regard there are literally hundreds of rewarded apps on Android that's not a violation of their terms.

You're not wrong about cryptocurrency being a rough area, but you are wrong that we haven't done our homework. We know every policy of every app store and ad network and mail newsletter system, etc. We read the terms of everything. We know where we stand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There are way too many stories about Google and Apple suddenly closing accounts and removing apps to trust them with your business.

<comment><AUTHOR> Right, my red flag is just why does a suspended app cause them to threaten us in regards to shutting off our G-Suite email and cloud servers unrelated to the app. No sane business can use their platform with those kinds of threats.

<comment><USER6> You are correct my friend.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why hasn't Google put Android in cars yet? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> I have seen a new Toyota Prius running Anroid myself. You can plug in a sim card and use Waze. Just awesome. I hope the trend keeps growing.

<comment><USER2> And the sim card was just a duplicate of the person's regular line, of course only one could be used for calls at a given time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> They have? New Chevrolet cars are getting an Android-based stereo. There were also some car-audio enthusiasts that were working on an Android based car computer.

<comment><USER4> Android-enabled car radios sound like a nice idea :) .

The chinese MP3 car radio I used to have was pretty limited, I'm hoping for something like that for the masses.

Maybe I just need a pod/connection for my smartphone, not really a radio.</comment></comment>


Api.authorize.net is down at 2AM EST - <AUTHOR>

Anyone else finding that api.authorize.net is timing out for them? It seems to have started about 30 minutes ago for us.
Edit: Appears to have come back up around 2:10.
Does anyone know of a system status link for authorize? Their twitter feed hasn't been updated since their large outage a year ago. <comment><USER2> How is this news?!

<comment><AUTHOR> It was news and covered on HN and a lot of other venues when they were down last time. Probably because they are one of the larger payment processors and many sites on the internet run off of them. Just a guess though, it might be some other reason.</comment></comment>


Amazon Doubles Down on Ring Partnerships with Law Enforcement - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/ces-2020-amazon-defends-ring-police-partnerships/ <comment><USER2> I sort of wish there was more polls on issues like this. What percentage, of the general population, thinks it is beneficial to have security cameras share information with the police?

My house was broken into a couple years ago. Windows smashed and the place vandalized. I felt violated for months. I had no security footage then and the police said it was a waste of time to dust for fingerprints. I wish I had Ring then - I do now. I am happy now that thieves know when they approach my house now they are being filmed and shared with police.

I know the Hacker News crowd is very against this - in a very out of touch way - but I am extremely pro being able to share footage from my private residence with law enforcement and am happy local law enforcement may finally have some tools to solve repeat burglaries.

</comment><comment><USER3> From the article, this simply creates a portal that allows the police to request Ring owners in one area to share footage with them, and it is up to the owners to then agree, at which point I expect the Ring device will automatically send the requested footage to the police.

If that's indeed what they do I really don't see any issues, on the contrary that sounds like the way forward.

Currently police has to go door to door to ask neighbours if they have any CCTV and then get the SD cards or what not in order to recover footage.

</comment><comment><USER4> A use-case in Amazon's interests would be using Ring as a way to combat package theft and monitor Amazon deliveries. It's a feasible method for Amazon to save on "shrinkage" and boost their bottom line by using Ring and/or Blink.

Given Ring is a doorbell, the chance that it's going to help cops stop murders or serious crime seems a bit of a far-fetched marketing statement, and it's more likely to catch petty theft and porch pirates.</comment>


The Lost Art of C Structure Packing - <AUTHOR> http://www.catb.org/esr/structure-packing/ <comment><USER2> Awareness of the layout and size of data is still very common in game development. Mike Acton did a great talk related to this at CppCon a few years ago : [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX0ItVEVjHc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX0ItVEVjHc)

<comment><USER3> This is true for high performance server software, too, especially servers that resemble databases.

I personally find myself thinking about alignment more than I probably should. For Go, I use [http://golang-sizeof.tips](http://golang-sizeof.tips) for experimenting. I've been able to make schema changes to my structs to enable more functionality without increasing memory usage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Lost but not forgotten.

IDK, most these rules are very trivial and fairly simple to automate. Pretty much boils down to declare the smallest fields first, with a handful of exceptions based on the modulus of size.

Ultimately I like Rust's approach. Without including '[repr(C)]/[repr(packed)]' the compiler is free to layout the structure in the most efficient way for the target platform. And accessing fields with different compiler's code is UB. You get the speed up, while keeping backwards compatibility.

Sadly C/C++ are shackled to this archaic system. Also I believe Go, Nim, and Swift are as well (this is speculation).

<comment><USER5> It's not even lost. Any C code that cares about performance will eventually look into how structures are laid out in cache lines.

<comment><USER4> It is a requirement for code heavily using atomics as false shares and destroy performance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> clang-tidy has a struct padding check which diagnoses non-optimal struct orders, and a coworker contributed a clang tool to reorder fields: [https://github.com/llvm-mirror/clang-tools- extra/tree/master...](https://github.com/llvm-mirror/clang-tools- extra/tree/master/clang-reorder-fields)

<comment><USER7> This makes sense if you're only concerned with size. Locality or eliminating false sharing may be more important in large ones

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Not lost if you are programming on a mainframe... just not blogged about.

<comment><USER9> .. And not applicable to 8-bit embedded programmers.

<comment><USER10> Are you sure? You can still declare a short field on a 8b micro.

<comment><USER11> What are the alignment requirements for one there though? Unaligned access can come with performance cost or be impossible on 16 and 32 bit machines for some cases (I don't know all the details for ARM and x86) but I'd assume (I don't definitely KNOW, just making an educated guess) that an 8 bit machine that can only do 8 bit operations doesn't need alignment at all and using a short (or a long) always involves reading 8 bits twice (or 4 times) and any 8 bits at all can be read so it can be packed completely tightly. Meanwhile (I'm again just guessing, I'm not low level enough to know that), 16 and 32 bit machines try to read it all in one go into a register and that's why they need alignment or else they take the performance hit to read twice and mask out the value or raise an exception.

This art is certainly not lost though it comes up with language VMs, native compilers, Linux kernel, as a common curio about C and C++, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I tried the example below, saved as `main.c`. It seems she automatically reorders the static mem. Can that behavior be disabled? Can someone please explain?

        #include<stdio.h>
        int main(int argc, char** argv)
        {
        	char *p;
    	char c;
    	int x;

            printf("char p  %p\n", &p);
            printf("char    %p, offset %i\n", &c, (int)((void*)&c-(void*)&p));
            printf("integer %p, offset %i\n", &x, (int)((void*)&x-(void*)&p));
            return 0;
        }

Output on `gcc main.c; ./a.out`

        char p  0x7ffc5107dff0
        char    0x7ffc5107dfeb, offset -5
        integer 0x7ffc5107dfec, offset -4

<comment><USER13> Those are not structure members. C provides no guarantees about the relative locations of separate variables.

<comment><USER12> So, it's a compiler specific reordering?

<comment><USER14> Yes. Probably specific to compiler _options_ too. Only structure members have a defined order.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've found file: unaligned-memory-access.txt useful. Ref:- Linux Kernel Source: UNALIGNED MEMORY ACCESSES Link: [https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/Documentation/...](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/Documentation/unaligned- memory-access.txt)

</comment><comment><USER16> Hint, compile with -Wpacked

<comment><USER17> Have to disagree with you here, totally depends on the platform and if you know what you're doing. Compiling with this option can lead to unaligned memory accesses. On some architectures, most ARM ones for example, unaligned memory accesses lead to hard faults at runtime.

<comment><USER18> You're thinking of `#pragma pack`. `-Wpadded` just warns about non-optimal layout.

<comment><USER17> Whoops, yes my bad. -Wpacked will just issue the warning, not actually do the packing!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is going to sound rude but it is not my intention. The reality is that packing DOES NOT matter for most applications these days.

I read an article about a person who was the last in the world to speak some obscure language. Some people wanted to start a school to teach others to speak that language, wanted the government to pay for it, etc.

The two articles gave me the same combined feel of "I feel a little sorry but not a lot" and "who cares."

The compiler will take care of most.

Unfortunately for that person on the other article, he is basically screwed.

Don't let that be you.

<comment><USER11> The compiler cannot reorder the fields. This stuff comes up occasionally in optimizing layout of language VM structures, compilers, in the Linux kernel and other low level situations.

I.e. JVM compressed object pointers rely on the alignment and the native objects representation is definitely well laid out to not waste space due to alignment:

[https://stackoverflow.com/a/25120926](https://stackoverflow.com/a/25120926)

[https://blog.codecentric.de/en/2014/02/35gb-heap- less-32gb-j...](https://blog.codecentric.de/en/2014/02/35gb-heap-less-32gb- java-jvm-memory-oddities/)

Lua implementation similarly cares about alignment in some cases:

[http://lua-users.org/lists/lua-l/2009-02/msg00305.html](http://lua- users.org/lists/lua-l/2009-02/msg00305.html)

This is not exactly 'struct packing' but alignment is closely connected to padding so its part of a wider interconnected topic.</comment></comment>


Commitments to Improving Our Options Offering - <AUTHOR> https://blog.robinhood.com/news/2020/6/19/commitments-to-improving-our-options-offering <comment><AUTHOR> :| Appears to be follow-up on previous reporting of the customer's note. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23568200](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23568200)</comment>