2048, success and me - <AUTHOR> http://gabrielecirulli.com/articles/2048-success-and-me <comment><USER5> A couple of OT thoughts...

1) It was very odd seeing something go from the HN "new" page, to the front page, to seeing people talk about it on twitter, to hearing about it from friends who have no idea what a "github" is, to my mom asking me to help her download this new game all her friends are playing. I still don't know how I feel about it. And yes, for some reason I feel like I have some sort of ownership simply because I found it early. An interesting case study of the human psyche all around.

2) At the very least I think it's a great example that while we very often find ourselves lost within the HN bubble, we need to remember that (hubris aside) what we do everyday, even if it's just a side project we did for fun one evening, has the potential to change the world in an instant. Exciting and scary at the same time (and depressing when you realize you haven't tapped into this potential yet).

3) It definitely pissed me off to hear of friends paying for the game when I could have just sent them the link to Gabriele's github. (Note that I haven't found any versions where you have to pay to download, I'm assuming these people made some kind of in-app purchase)

4) While definitely in the extreme minority, I now have a couple curious friends who upon inspecting the original github link found the repository, and now are very interested in learning to code. I think we underestimate the power of showing people the "behind the curtain" stuff so to speak.

5) My absolute favorite observation is the amount of people who "hate math" or "just aren't good at math" who love this game. I think there's great potential to use 2048 or a derivative as an educational tool.

<comment><USER6> > _[...]we need to remember that (hubris aside) what we do everyday, even if > it 's just a side project we did for fun one evening, has the potential to > change the world in an instant[...]_

Really? So '2048' changed the world. I have this feeling that developers _change the world_ more often than Cartoon/TV-heros _save thew world_ these days. How many apps away from world peace?!

ps. Developers are the only group of people who are so disillusioned to collectively think that their products _change the world_. That Steve Jobs destroyed 3 generations with 1 phrase.

NOTE: nothing wrong with the app-creator. I'm really happy for him, it's just that every time I read about a developer who _changed the world_ (writing an application) I wanna burn my eyes on a brazier.

<comment><USER7> When 23 million people are talking about your little weekend project, you have changed the world.

Maybe your definition of 'change the world' is too stringent.

Squeezable ketchup bottles changed the world too.

Instead of being so uptight about how people use the phrase why you don't you start trying to create your own impact?

<comment><USER8> These days 8 million people talk about a monkey peeing in its mouth on youtube [1]. It doesn't mean the monkey changed the world.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DBuk91phkI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DBuk91phkI)

<comment><USER9> 8 million people chuckled - and I bet you did.

Many of those 8 million had something unforgettable and bizarrely enlightening to share with their friends, or not, as the case may be (if they don't really have any friends). I would say that you underestimate that monkey, he has brought a lot of happiness to a lot of people and he fully deserves his own reality TV show. So, yep, he has changed the world.

I much prefer the world to be changed by things like 2048, which is like an online version of the Rubik's Cube for our times.

Contrast with the world-changing ways of the politicians. Bush, Blair and co worked very hard to take the world to war, yet, ultimately, they lost and it was all a complete waste of time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _Thanks to the help of my parents and my friends, I realized that the only way to get over this without feeling like I had missed an opportunity would be to embrace it and produce an app. I wouldn't be doing it for profit, though. In fact, that is not what matters to me._

I'm slightly confused, because he repeatedly states that profit is not a motivator, but then that menu screenshot of the app shows a "Remove Ads" button, which presumably means there is some monetization in there.

I don't have anything against the OP monetizing the app, but if he had the altruistic intentions that he claims, wouldn't the app be 100% free?

edit: seeing that I'm getting down-voted - it's an honest question. I don't mean it to be accusatory. I personally think the OP should monetize his creation. It's what I would do if in his shoes. I would just be honest with myself about it.

<comment><USER11> I totally see where the OP is coming from.

12 years ago, I built a site I had absolutely zero intentions of making money from. I had an interest in an upcoming video game, and thought it would make a perfect mate for an online community. So I reached out and found a talented guy online that was also interested in the game and also had the skills that I didn't (web design), and in a couple months, we launched.

After about a year or two, money became a necessity: the popularity outgrew the free bandwidth, and I was forced to find paid hosting. So I started accepting donations. But that wasn't quite enough to cover the costs, so I added ads to help supplement the donations.

But surprise, as the popularity grew, the revenue generated from the ads and the donations coming in started to largely outweigh the costs, and now I'm making a pretty decent passive income from it.

I could easily scale back to just donations now, but since the ads are there and pulling in quite a bit (for a site mostly on auto-pilot), I have no intentions of scaling back.

(I will say, though, that I don't go to the extremes that most do to monetize their site. The ads are only in the forum area of the site, and are only in two to three locations. No interstitials, no videos, no popups/unders, etc. And they're located at the top, bottom, and right vs. right in the middle of the content. Pretty much anything that would annoy me (banners don't annoy me) I keep off the site.)

I'm not saying the OP is making money out of necessity, but just that I understand going into something with the intentions of it just being a fun side project, and then later realizing the potential of making money from it.

<comment><USER12> I assume the site is what is listed in your bio? Nice work. Is it a full time job sized income or some nice money on the side?

<comment><USER11> Yes, that's it. Unfortunately, not quite enough to rely on full time. I would love for it to be, and I've thought about building a broader community to gain a larger audience and potentially cover my income. But I just don't have enough time to dedicate to side projects now, having a young family and all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> He seems so worried about taking someone else's credit, that he's missing the value HE brought to the table. He made the game approachable. The visual style of the game made it more fluid, which made it more approachable. At least to me, the two games he derived his own from don't seem to pull me in the same way. The app has a similar appeal. In games, there's a lot of value in visual design... he got the visual design right.

<comment><USER14> Visual design is important in games. Novel game mechanics are important in games.

In this case, I think the mechanics were the difficult thing to create. And the mechanics took months to refine.

Looking at the history of Threes -> 1024 -> 2048, I think the business incentive for copying and polishing existing game designs is clearly superior to the business incentive for designing a novel mechanic. Why make a novel mechanic when someone can just copy it? That strategy is too risky.

I think the story of these games is a microcosm for the game industry as a whole. More game sequels are released than original game ideas. And I think that has to do with the incentives we create for game developers.

I think the creator of 2048 has priced his value about right. He knows what he brought to the table, but he thinks his contribution is not the lion's share of what made 2048 special. At the same time, he does not really know how to create a system that values innovative games more highly. And all the while, an opportunity to make a lot of money is whizzing by his head.

<comment><USER15> There's several extenuating circumstances no?

One, as original as Threes is it's unfortunately super easy to clone. 2048 being made in a weekend being proof. Yes I know it's not an exact clone. Let's say then it was very easy to make a similar game.

There are plenty of popular games that aren't easy to clone quickly. So I'd argue the lesson there is consider making something hard to clone.

Also, he open sourced the game. That effective says "please clone this". The license effectively implies "feel free to copy this to phonegap and publish it". Which once it was popular people did.

<comment><USER14> Do you think ease of cloning is the correct metric to optimize?

Put another way, if a game developer thinks this: "This would be a really fun game! But it would be too easy to clone, so I guess I will not make it. I'll do something else." Is that a thought process that you would support?

<comment><USER15> I think it's reality. Do I like it? I'm mixed on it.

I'm sad that Threes didn't seem to get the attention that it kind of seemed like it deserved. On the other hand I think even if Threes is arguably a better game by some metric most people seem to enjoy 2048 more so 2048 brought something to the table that wasn't there before.

If you think your game is easy to clone, rather than not make it, maybe you should take that into account when releasing it. Maybe Threes should have been free? Maybe knowing it would be easy to remake they should have invested more in getting the word out? Or, maybe as you suggest they should have done something else.

Basically I think it's reality. An easy to clone game has some risks that a non-easy to clone game doesn't. You should take those risks into consideration.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Really enjoyed this post. As someone who has been on the "Threes! was there first!!!!" train since 2048 took shape, I think I agree with both parties. Threes! is a polished game that people can pay $2.99 for in the App Store and enjoy. 2048 is a free web game that's insanely approachable (it's free) and people "get it" immediately. They both provide immense value.

I see where the Threes! devs are coming from because, well, a lot of people called _their_ game a 2048 clone, and I'm sure it sucks to see people playing a similar game instead of buying yours.

I also see where Gabriele comes from. The guy just wanted to make a game! He wasn't trying to steal anything from anyone, he made a lot of people very happy and he has nothing to be ashamed of, or worried about.

To be honest, I think if you take the intersection of 2048 players and people who would pay $2.99 for Threes!, you'd end up with a pretty small group.

I think everybody won here.

<comment><USER17> I'm just happy he's willing to give credit where it's due.

That to me, speaks volumes towards the dev's character.

<comment><USER18> Yeah kudos to him. But wait, could he do differently at this point?

I mean after all this publicity and everyone(well too many to lie about it) know it is a derivative of another game.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Having played a lot of 2048 and Threes, I have to say that while 2048 is fun, it is a shadow of the game that Threes is.

There is a polish and outright joy to Threes that the clones lack. While the games are superficially similar Threes has a depth of play, complexity, and game design that reflects true craftsmanship. They took an idea and put in the hard work to make it the best they could make it. 2048 and other derivatives play like a rough draft of Threes.

As a hobbyist game designer myself I can appreciate the difference.

I'd challenge any 2048 fan to drop the $1.99 on Threes and see what they're missing.

All that said, I appreciate the awkward position Gabriele is in and appreciate his effort to address what has been going on in an open fashion. He's not the bad guy here. He has made a very good clone of an imitation of a great game.

<comment><USER20> That's funny, I started playing Threes, was addicted to it for a while, and when I found 2048 I never looked back. I find 2048 to be a clearly superior game both in terms of visual clarity and repeat playing. The mechanics of Threes are super annoying, especially the end game swipe when there are no more moves, swipe through the pointless point tallying, click next, etc. etc. etc. The cutesy noises and animations seem sort of unfinished to me.

The max card I've gotten with threes is 384, while the max card I've gotten on 2048 is 8,192. With Threes I don't really care about not getting any better, while with 2048 I feel close to getting 16,384 and still think it's interesting to do so. Threes just doesn't have the staying power, the mechanics are simply more frustrating.

I've seen your argument before -- the big post the Threes guys did had it also, that they felt their game was clearly better. I can understand why they felt that way, but I don't get it. And given the taking over the world popularity of 2048, I'm not sure that the evidence is there to support that position.

<comment><USER21> Most of 2048's fanbase enjoys it because it makes them feel smart. It gives them an adrenaline rush as they tap buttons or swipe the screen, watching the numbers combine and become higher and higher. Some say that playing 2048 makes them "feel like a computer", and that Threes does not.

If pushing buttons quickly and watching numbers fly everywhere /and somehow not cause you to lose/ makes you feel like a computer, then Threes absolutely does not make you feel like a computer. You can get pretty far in 2048 just by rapidly pressing two buttons and then adjusting when the board gets messy. That is the entirety of 2048's strategy. I've been playing Threes since its release three months ago, and I still find that my scores are improving as I notice new strategies. Threes has infinitely more depth than 2048, which is what keeps me coming back for more.

The only reasons 2048 is more popular than Threes is that a) it's free, while Threes costs $2, and b) it is EXTREMELY friendly to newcomers. It's absurdly easy to get a 2048, while it actually takes thought to score high in Threes.

So yes, if you're looking for a mindless free time-waster, 2048 is the game for you. If you're looking for a deeper, more polished puzzle game, Threes is superior in every way.

<comment><USER20> I think what you mean by the first sentence is "most of 2048's fan base enjoys it because it's fun".

Your back and forth strategy doesn't work as you get to the higher point levels in 2048 btw. It certainly may get you to 2048, but not really that much further past that. The fact that the ideal strategy changes as you get to 4096 and 8192 is something that makes the game more fun to me.

If you like Three's better that's great, but like I said, I started with Threes, got addicted to it for a while, and then moved on. I got addicted to 2048 for a lot longer than I did Threes. It's not a matter of one being free or more accessible. 2048 is simply more fun, which is another way of saying it's a better game.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> A few thoughts as someone who has developed games for iOS, Android, and the web:

In today's world, if you want to retain implicit ownership of your product's name, a simultaneous triple-platform release is not optional, it is required. It must be performed in precisely the following way, or your launch will fail:

\- Register your game's domain before announcing it to the public.

\- Next, upload your iOS app to iTunes Connect and wait for up to one week for the app to be approved.

\- Next, upload your Android app to the Google Play store; approval only takes a few hours.

\- Finally, make the web version public, and announce the game along with links to the mobile versions.

If you deviate from this order, then you're screwed. One example: I released a game on the web and waited one day to upload the Android version to the Google Play store. I figured that gave me a little extra time to test and check for bugs, and what's the rush anyway? Nobody could steal a game in just 24 hours, right? Wrong. My app was rejected because Google insisted my app was attempting to impersonate another developer's app. The other developer's app was simply my own website, stolen line for line, tossed into Phonegap, and released the same day as my website. I explained this to Google in the appeal form, even including a link proving I owned the site the other developer stole it from, and they rejected my appeal without checking the link - I could clearly see in my server logs that they never clicked on it. Google does not allow you to file a second appeal, so I had to give my app an awful name no one would recognize it by, and the clone received all the downloads and glory thanks to the buzz my website's name was generating for it.

Another example: I was the first to publish an iOS app with the same name as my website. After the app had been waiting for review for four days, I figured it would be approved any moment now, and that it was safe for me to launch my website. I launched, and it turns out that Apple's app review process is not FIFO, because two days later, a clone with the same name and all the code stolen from my site was already approved for iOS, yet my own app was still waiting for review. My app was then rejected a few days later because it had the same name as an app that stole my code... again.

Gabriele Cirulli is an extremely unlucky man stuck in an extremely unfair landscape, and I cannot fault him for wallowing in the first of the five stages of grief. If Flappy Bird's alleged $50,000/day income can safely be assumed to be the average earned by the ads on any given #1 iTunes free app, then the entity which first claimed the name "2048" in iTunes Connect is currently a millionaire, because 2048 was at the very top of the iTunes free app charts for weeks. Gabriele seems to believe or hope that the masses will see his "repost" of his own app and be stricken by the desire to do the ethically right thing and uninstall all of the rushed clones and install the legitimate version and play it with all the fervor and excitement as if the global 2048 hype still currently existed. Unfortunately this will NEVER happen.

On a side note, Phonegap is only getting worse over time. Typical Adobe rot is setting in; the last version had a catastrophic bug causing the xml manifest to simply not be read during the build process, because a critical "for" loop was referencing the child element of a nonexistent variable. They swept this under the rug; countless hapless developers were mindlessly releasing broken apps during this period. Half of Phonegap's documentation refers to "Cordova" and executing "cordova" on the command line where it should say "Phonegap". Commands that have different names between Cordova and Phonegap are still documented as the Cordova equivalent, so one must use Google to find other people who searched for hours until they themselves came across the explanation that the same command in Phonegap requires the use of a completely different word. It is an absolute trainwreck, but aside from that, the primary issue for consumers now is that apps built with Phonegap no longer work correctly on newer versions of Android and haven't for months, which is why Gabriele's extremely simple and resource-minimal app is currently getting a bunch of 1- and 2-star reviews in the Google Play store with complaints about the speed.

<comment><USER23> > The other developer's app was simply my own website, stolen line for line, > tossed into Phonegap, and released the same day as my website.

> two days later, a clone with the same name and all the code stolen from my > site was already approved for iOS

And there is no recourse when this happens? You can't report them?

<comment><USER24> As someone mentioned above, a lawyer. I feel it's extremely rare someone is going to steal an unreleased game in the first place, If you're a well known developer or big gaming company, maybe the probability goes up slightly, but even then, a big game success is still a shot in the dark.

<comment><USER25> > I feel it's extremely rare someone is going to steal an unreleased game in > the first place

This seems like an example of people throwing things at the wall until something sticks. If all they have to do is copy-paste into (e.g.) PhoneGap, and submit it to an app store, then why not? If it takes off, then they get to reap the benefits. If it doesn't take off, then they've just wasted a little bit of time and effort.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> gabrielecirulli's success has been one of my favorite moments I've witnessed on HN. Congratulations to him, it was/is an amazing phenomenon. I also think we can take a few important lessons here to take the tech world a little more out of the shadows.

1) As a few have said, show your friends the source code and say "if you could learn to do this, you could have made 2048". It's not too intimidating of a codebase and it might make some more people want to learn to code.

2) If you've ever met anyone who didn't see the point of open source, the 1000s of 2048 derivations are a public monument to FOSS. I have tried to explain to my friends a million times what Github is, but then all I had to do was say "yeah for that clone someone just forked the original repo and changed yellow to blue" and suddenly they get it. I know that leaves out the part of open-source where people contribute back to the original but it's a good starting point.

3) This, or some variation of this, is why many of us do what we do. The power for a few thousand keystrokes to become a worldwide phenomenon with the only cost being $0.00 and some time. It's amazing how much influence you can have from behind a laptop monitor. When people explain why I code/blog/read HN for fun, what i tell them is that programming gives you an amazing sense of mental potency. 2048 really maxed out the gauge on how potent you can be.

<comment><USER27> It's not only "not intimidating", it's actually a prime example of good quality code. See [http://blog.danieljanus.pl/blog/2014/04/02/2048/](http://blog.danieljanus.pl/blog/2014/04/02/2048/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I don't understand the concerns about theft and ethical issues about profiting from this. The license on GitHub says I am welcome to copy the source, modify it, and sell copies. Maybe I take that too literally, but if you see a popular game that people are willing to pay for, and there isn't already one in the app store I think you _should_ take advantage of MIT licensed code and put it up for people to enjoy. Anyone who doesn't like the idea is welcome to make a better version and offer it for free.

I am strongly against blatant copies of apps someone is basing a business on, but I support making apps based on open source code, and making fun games available to as many people as possible.

<comment><USER29> >I don't understand the concerns about theft and ethical issues about profiting from this. The license on GitHub says I am welcome to copy the source, modify it, and sell copies.

Because 2048 was a version of 1024 but he didn't realize until later that 1024 was a version of Threes which was a commercial product in the app store. So he kinda sorta MIT licensed someone else's commercial product.

They do have a tiny mechanical different but it's much smaller than what you normally consider a clone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'm sorry, but that is an absurd thought process. What on earth is he missing out on if he doesn't want to profit? What is this once in a lifetime opportunity being wasted? The chance to work for a month with no return? That's an absolute joke.

I have absolutely nothing against him putting ads and IAP in the game to try to make money, as money is in fact the main reason for doing work. What I don't understand is this BS post. Sure he cloned a game style, but who really cares about that. It's not even a little unreasonable to clone a game mechanic. Does anybody think candy crush is a worse game because it is a cloned mechanic? no, it is a highly polished and well done version, and it's fine. Same goes for 2048 IMO.

The real question is what is the point of this post? Oh noes I didn't want to profit off it and I felt bad, but I was missing a once in a lifetime opportunity to waste a month of my life, oh what the hell let's put ads in it anyway.

<comment><USER31> -1: Your comment is aggressive and lacks empathy. Morevoer, you should interrest yourself in the free software movement and understand the motivations of the people behind. Books like "Richard Stallman and the free software revolution" might interrest you ([https://www.google.com/url?q=https://static.fsf.org/nosvn/fa...](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://static.fsf.org/nosvn/faif-2.0.pdf&sa=U&ei=VuNpU7rDM8LgOvajgNgP&ved=0CBgQFjAD&usg=AFQjCNGo3l-BTEliDYYgKt0rHfxDpikemQ))

<comment><USER30> Thanks I know what the free software movement is. Stallman I mostly find to be a jerk. On Steve Jobs death: As Chicago Mayor Harold Washington said of the corrupt former Mayor Daley, "I'm not glad he's dead, but I'm glad he's gone."

I'm sorry, but that is uncalled for. Free software might be a noble goal, but as someone who makes software for a living I can't imagine why. Yes I want to be able to run whatever I want on my computer. No I don't want anybody to take my work and redistribute it.

<comment><USER32> Calling Stallman a jerk is definitely uncalled for. I personally think he is the epitome of everything that is right with the Computer Science. It is your prerogative to distribute the software however you like. Remember that Stallman created something which most of us can only sapire about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Threes hardly came up with this combination game idea. I know for certain Triple Town [1] has basically the same gameplay (except you drop instead of swipe, some extra cutesy elements) and is from 2011, and I highly doubt it originated the concept or gameplay. To use their example, I feel like Asher Vollmer and Greg Wohlwend created Dr. Mario and not Tetris, and were shocked when people started playing other Tetris knockoffs. I understand being frustrated that someone else hit success with the same idea and different execution, but I don't get the "my copy is novel" attitude. Feels like a 1 click buy patent.

[1] [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spryfox.tr...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spryfox.tripletown)

<comment><USER34> Totally agree, I read the letter from three and I've found it really annoying, maybe they wrote that for marketing.. I understand how they can feel but I don't understand how can someone have the courage to say that their game is better.. Million of people choose something else that's a pretty clear sign

<comment><USER35> They made a game with lots of effort in design, then put a price tag on it to make money off of it. Then someone else clones it makes it free. The pretty clear sign is that free stuff propagates way faster than paid stuff. Which is not a surprise at all.

<comment><USER34> to me it seems that they are only motivated by bitterness and pride:

1) they assume that people who played 2048 or similar will not use their game. I think they could use 2048 for free advertisement, as they not the same thing, what's wrong about downloading two similar game? expecoially when one of them it's free

2) their game will not have nearly as many users as 2048, it's spread it's due simplicity, ui and design

3) They say their game is better (also) because it's more difficult to play: nonsense, games are not designed to be difficult but to be enjoiable

4) they knew someone will clone them, I think it's a risk to take into consideration

I my opinion 2048 could only have boosted their sales, because it focused the attentions of millions of people with this sort of games. I would like to see the growth of the two compared

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> IMHO It's to late for the "official" apps. So many clones out there (let's call them clones, even if they're maybe based on the original code).

I think that this is a big missed opportunity for him (even if he had enough "success" from the original game alone)

<comment><USER37> Indeed. I just installed the official one and won't be using it. Ads, small numbers. I use one from estoty entertainment lab which is ad free afaict.

<comment><USER38> This is the one I have as well and there used to be ads when you lost IIRC.

I tried Gabriele's but it's indeed (sadly) inferior, by the size of the board and the input lag (on my Nexus 4).

<comment><USER36> Same on Nexus 5. Maybe it's Phonegap. Dunno.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Very interesting insight. I don't always agree with the decisions he made (and he doesn't even agree with the decisions he made), but it's a pleasure reading someone's feelings as all the stuff of the modern world hits you at once.

</comment><comment><USER40> it's kind of sad that so many people insist on a native app. 2048 has always worked great on my nexus 7 just using a browser, there's no need for an app. Developers shouldn't be forced to put in extra work porting webpages to native code just to ensure they don't get overrun by cheap clones in various platform's app stores.

<comment><USER41> What about those without data plans? Wouldn't it let them play 2048 when without Wifi?

<comment><USER42> HTML5 AppCache could be used to easily allow offline play.

<comment><USER43> On my Android phone, it seems to aggressively cache "web apps", so after I added it to my home screen, I've been able to play it when out of Wi-Fi and data reception.

<comment><USER44> Whoa, this is a great hack. I get so annoyed when my browser cache dumps and tries and fails to reload a page that I had already loaded. Write up this tip as a blog post and submit to HN :-)

<comment><USER43> It's probably not worthy of a blog post, since it's just a regular feature of Chrome. :-)

      Menu button > Add to Homescreen

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I would have done nothing with the initial success too. I have a very definite "freeze" reaction to stress, which causes quite a few problems for me. I can sometimes progress to "flight", where I run away from the problem, but "fight" is very often out of reach.

</comment><comment><USER46> Quick thing -- you should title your iOS app something like '2048 - <USER2> Original Version', not '2048 - by Gabriele Cirulli'

<comment><USER47> And here is some design feedback according to Wired: "Design Is Why 2048 Sucks, and Threes Is a Masterpiece" [http://www.wired.com/2014/05/threes-game- design](http://www.wired.com/2014/05/threes-game-design)

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I added that thing to my homescreen and played it as an "app" for weeks. The only problem is 2048 gets really boring once you have a framework for how to do it.

It's nice to see the background of how he was feeling during that time. The (relatively muted) outcry of "derivative" never felt fair to me. His game is more fun to play than Threes. Millions of people agree.

<comment><USER49> It's funny that you say that 2048 "gets really boring" after a while, but that it is "more fun to play than Threes".

It's interesting that the balance and effort that went into Threes resulted in a game that (to me) is more complex and possesses more staying power. However, it is still regarded as not as good as a game with more immediate gratification and significantly less staying power.

edit: for clarification.

<comment><USER50> I'm always wary of game designers who espouse "balance" all the time. The only place you ever need balance is in a multiplayer game as people like be on an even playing field.

In single player games however, too much striving for balance can lead to a very boring game. One of the classic failures in this regard was Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. It had a balancing mechanism for all the enemies in the game, so that they leveled up in step with the player. However, this meant that every single monster was almost the exact same challenge, all the way to the end. ie. You may have leveled up and increased your damage output, but the monsters have increased their hitpoints and it still takes the same 3 attacks to kill anything. It removed all sense of progression from the game.

So it just goes to show that too much balance can really bore people! You need to hook a player and get them interested by giving them a sense of progression, of achievement.

Some ways that you can give a sense of achievement is by letting them work out optimal strategies, min/max'd character builds, etc. These can be unintentional or artificially included (eg. super weapons near the final boss fight).

tldr; People like a sense of progression, even if that is achieved by having an unbalanced game.

<comment><USER51> I don't quite agree with you here. I think Elder Scrolls is a bad example to give because the series as a whole is probably one of the most unbalanced RPGs there are: even in Oblivion, the 'balancing mechanics' you refer to just encourage more unbalanced play -- as opposed to, say, Galsiah's Character Development in Morrowind which is ultimately a balancing mechanism but promotes more aspects of gameplay and prohibits undesirable behavior.

Balance is best used as a function to encourage meaningful and difficult gameplay, which I'd argue can be defined largely as the number of interesting choices a player has to make. I think 2048 does a poor job of this relative to Threes: after around a week of play I was able to consistently win using the corner strategy. In Threes, the variance in tile distribution means there is no such panacea.

(That being said, I agree that pursuing 'balance' in a game is like pursuing 'colors' in an artwork. It's a road to reach some desired destination: not a goal in of itself.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> FYI for those searching for this on Android: (1) it isn't on Amazon yet (or at least I couldn't find it), and (2) to find it on Google Play, you have to search for Gabriele Cirulli if you want to find the actual game he's talking about. He links to the app in his post but, because I had a bit of trouble finding it, here it is:

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gabrieleci...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gabrielecirulli.app2048)

<comment><USER53> If anyone else finds it on Amazon I'd appreciate a link, my phone (Jolla) doesn't have access to the Play Store.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> If someone wants to cure his addiction, here is my variant of the game - <USER3> with AI autoplay and taking back moves:

[http://www.kongregate.com/games/random_strangers/2048-analyz...](http://www.kongregate.com/games/random_strangers/2048-analyze)

Also, 511 is a variant of 2048 on a 3x3 grid, completely solved:

[http://www.kongregate.com/games/random_strangers/511-game](http://www.kongregate.com/games/random_strangers/511-game)

</comment><comment><USER55> I think Gabriel's aversion to profiting from this creation is laudable, but I wonder how much of it is driven by a sense of guilt over the reaction from the creators of Threes. That said, I'd hope that those guys would get in tough with Gabriel and have a candid conversation which amounted to "okay, seriously dude - make some money already!"

</comment><comment><USER56> This comment might not be the most popular but I happen to think it is right on point.

At twenty years of age this kid got a chance of a lifetime and blew it. This is tantamount to getting a winning lottery ticket and throwing it in the trash KNOWING that it is a winning ticket.

I get all the altruistic stuff. I do. I also get that business and innovation is and has always been about doing it different, better and faster than the other guy.

There's nothing ethical about recognizing the opportunity of a lifetime and ignoring it out of a really questionable sense of duty. This is some really faulty decision making.

Let me put it in more simple terms: A good person can do a lot more good with money than without. Period. End of story.

This can take many forms. If he felt so strongly about owing to prior projects he could have offered to share in his new-found fortune in some equitable way. If he really didn't want a pile of money he could have taken as much as he felt he needed and donated the rest to worthy causes. Perhaps support FOSS efforts, help entrepreneurs in his country, launch an incubator, etc., etc., etc.

I know people who are currently relying on the benevolence of friends to have a place to sleep. I know one person who is probably within a couple of months of seeing his last dollar go through his hands.

The idea that someone is dealt a hand like this one and he absolutely blows it out of some juvenile mental fabrication takes on a very different context when you see people who's lives could be changed in massive ways with just a few hundred to a couple of thousand dollars per month. At some level I could see a person not taking advantage of such an opportunity as incredibly naive and selfish. Don't do it for you, do it to help others. What could be better than that?

Here's my back. Ready for the arrows.

</comment><comment><USER57> The thing I found most interesting about the 2048 was the sudden assortment of variations that immediately followed. It was a perfect example of how the thing we call "culture" works: people recursively sharing their interest in something, often without even trying ("hey, that looks cool. What are you playing?").

It is also a powerful argument in the idea (described very nicely by Lawrence Lessig[1]) that culture and creativity are _hindered_ by copyright. While git (via github.com) made it technologically trivial to clone the source, it's the lack of the "don't touch it - somebody will sue me" barrier that allowed a huge number of people to try their hand at a variation.

To re-use a quote used by Mr. Lessig[2], said by composer John Philip Sousa as the technology of the phonograph (and the ability to restrict the _use_ of music through copyright) quickly became widespread:

"These talking machines are going to ruin artistic development of music in this country. When I was a boy, in front of every house in the summer evenings, you would find young people together singing the songs of the day, or the old songs. Today, you hear these infernal machines going night and day. We will not have a vocal chord left..."

I believe talk about "profit" or "lost opportunities" misses the forest for the trees. The potential of future _personal_ profit on a small game like this can be very hit-or-miss, but the contributions to our _shared culture_ have already been huge. The fact that the game caused an incredible amount of attention - with _multiple_ people sending messages about taking the idea further - is conclusive evidence of the cultural impact it had.

The reaction by the authors of "threes"[3] (linked from this article) is an interesting example from the other side. It is clearly annoyed at the loss of profits that 2048 _may_ have caused. Their game is also proprietary, restricting the possibility of making a legal derivative work. this eliminated one of the big sources of initial "word of mouth"/"viral' attention their game received.

I'm not trying to argue for the elimination of copyright[4] or other sweeping changes. For some works - especially games and other works of art - <USER4> monopoly benefits of copyright are probably worth the loss of some popularity. I simply suggest that there are other benefits besides "profit". As this article mentions, even stuff like "lack of stress" can be a huge advantage; knowing you've been able to impact so many people is something many artists dream about and hope for their entire lives[5].

TL;DR

If you're thinking of trying to squeeze some profit from a small work like this, you may want to consider letting it spread in our shared culture and taking the fame and reputation as the author of a Cool Game/App.

\--

[1] [http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_lessig_says_the_law_is_strang...](http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_lessig_says_the_law_is_strangling_creativity)

[2] _ibid_.

[3] [http://asherv.com/threes/threemails/](http://asherv.com/threes/threemails/)

[4] While I do believe we _should_ eliminate most "IP" laws, that argument is for another day.

[5] said best by the comic PFSC: [https://31.media.tumblr.com/2cbf666fc1881d6c0f158a6bece2bb95...](https://31.media.tumblr.com/2cbf666fc1881d6c0f158a6bece2bb95/tumblr_inline_n1pvuxI0iS1qkzcmz.jpg)

<comment><USER58> Bullshit. Culture does not consist entirely of repeated derivatives, that's the thing we call "being a poser," and that is more specifically the shitty part of culture where someone takes a good idea claims it as their own.

Culture doesn't have a built in versioning system in place, so when something does all the right things it isn't a given that the predecessors are given credit. There are far too many derivative works that completely crush the inspiration and predecessors...

The reason why is that the derivative work has nothing to do except tweak and improve the initial work, where the initial work had to concept the thing and give it a form out of nothing.

Convenient then, that someone comes along and takes something 90% good and makes it >90% good and everyone claims how it is better and so important that they brought such innovation to it.

Zzz.

The app store, steam, even triple a titles are glutted with this revisionist crap. So when you look around and see 9999999999 clones and attempts at "betterment" for every 1 work you'll know why.

<comment><USER44> You seem to be unaware how so much of what seems "original" to you is derived from prior art. This is strange, because you describe (and deride) the phenomenon moments before you ignore it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> I understand where he is coming from about the stress and the relief he felt when he renounced the idea of developing it for mobile.

I think the lesson we can all learn is that we should do both, reduce stress and pursue the goal, otherwise it might be too late and you might regret it for the rest of your life. Someone he knows could have developed the mobile app for him. He could have offered them money right away or a percentage of profit. If he doesn't know anyone, I'm pretty sure any company would have jumped at the chance if they were offered a reasonable percentage.

Even if you are blocked, at times of stress try to think of what the possible alternatives available to you are. Write them down on paper, cross them out, write them again until you are happy with your final decision.

</comment><comment><USER60> My suggestion would be if you've enjoyed 2048 in the past and you think Gabriele should be awarded that the least you can do is go and download and review the app to bump it closer to the top of the popular results.

And if you think that you've gotten USD$0.99 of enjoyment from the game now or in the past (like I did), you should pay for the upgrade.

App Store: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/2048-by-gabriele- cirulli/id8...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/2048-by-gabriele- cirulli/id868076805)

Play Store: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gabrieleci...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gabrielecirulli.app2048)

</comment><comment><USER61> Am I the only one who feels like his new "native" version feels slower than his web app? There's a brief but noticeable delay between my finger flicks and the sliding of the tiles. I wonder if this has anything to do with his use of Phonegap.

<comment><USER62> Yeah, feels like there's more "inertia" needed. Subtle, but noticeable. Longer pull to make a move happen.

<comment><USER63> It's not a matter of "inertia", it's an outright delay. I suspect it's double- tap detection kicking in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Dont forgot 1024, 2048 etc are all a huge rip-off of threes. Its a ugly copy and people are trying to provit from the creativity of somebody else. I hate it personally.

Also 2048 should have asked threes for permission. In court, i would have decided in favor of threes.

</comment><comment><USER65> For authors/creators that feel themselves in situations like that, should see this talk, it might help:

[http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_success_failure_a...](http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_success_failure_and_the_drive_to_keep_creating)

I hate seeing people quit because they've been _too_ successful all of the sudden, like the Flappy Bird guy, too, and not necessarily because "they've made it" and don't want to work anymore, but because they're freaked out about launching a "failure" next (at least in comparison with the previous breakout success).

</comment><comment><USER66> I appreciate the authors honesty but perhaps it is hard to notice that he (and all of us) will always justify our choices. He chose not to profit and thereby uses the Threesgame authors angst over clones as reason to support that choice as being right. However, if he had made profit I could have written a blog post for him about how Threes benefited from the clones, or various other reasons one would use. The more weight your choices seem to have the easier it will be to find reasons for them after the fact.

</comment><comment><USER67> I'd be tempted to create the phone app but have any proceeds go to charity - that way you take the opportunity, gain kudos, avoid greed, and give something positive to the world. Perhaps also including a prominent link to Threes as an acknowledgement of their founding status and to help drive the popularity of their original app. That said, if to do that you need to put your regular income stream on hold to focus on the project, I can understand not going that route.

</comment><comment><USER68> It's a shame it's not a truly native app. Input response is very sluggish even on my LG G2 (high-end phone with a Snapdragon 800).

</comment><comment><USER69> Based on some of the performance issues with Android 4.4 phones, I would strongly recommend that you port your code over to the Game Closure devkit: www.gameclosure.com and www.github.com/gameclosure/devkit

It's MPL licensed, super easy to get started with, and very fast. It's pure javascript/canvas however, and doesn't support CSS or DOM-based UI.

</comment><comment><USER70> Thinking about this dilemma it seems to me it would have been better/faster/easier/more ethical to add an affiliate link to the 'original' threes app. That way everyone wins. And while that was there start work on the definitive 2048 app *(maybe even collaborate with the threes creators to get that out faster).

</comment><comment><USER71> The difficulty for the Threes guys was that they spent a lot of time polishing what was a very simply concept. Nothing wrong with this, but it made their game straight forward to clone. If someone was releasing Tetris for the first time in the current climate they would have the same problem.

</comment><comment><USER72> Can someone please enlighten me? The number one 2048 app in the iOS store is by some company called Ketchapp. It looks pretty much the same (very similar). Did they all clone the web version by the op? Has op released his own version after a month? How does he expect to climb up the charts?

</comment><comment><USER73> Thanks for the post. I suspect the creator of Flappy Bird had similar feelings of shock, worry, being overwhelmed, and the need to defend himself -- but was unable to get to the point of reconciliation.

I thoroughly enjoyed 2048, played several variations, and even made one myself with photos of raptors :)

</comment><comment><USER74> I've been playing the mobile web version daily since this hit HN. It is a great little game for those times when you are standing in a queue or waiting to see someone. Who cares who came up the idea first. Yours is very mobile friendly. Credit goes to Gabriel for that.

</comment><comment><USER75> > Many of the people around me, however, didn't feel the same. My friends and > parents thought that my choice was honorable, but at the same time I was > probably throwing away a chance that I would be unlikely to get a second > time.

> A few days later, all of the issues I thought I had overcome crumbled back > on me much harder than before. I had started to regret "wasting" this > opportunity, and I felt as if the people around me were disappointed by my > actions.

It can be really disorienting when our intuitions and convictions clash with those of the people we listen to and trust. The cognitive dissonance can be so great that we find ourselves desperately trying to reorient our perspective to dissolve this conflict, as Gabriele manages to do:

> Thanks to the help of my parents and my friends, I realized that the only > way to get over this without feeling like I had missed an opportunity would > be to embrace it and produce an app. I wouldn't be doing it for profit, > though. In fact, that is not what matters to me. All that matters is knowing > that I didn't waste a chance, no matter if I'm going to succeed or fail.

This is not to say that Gabriele "sold out" or did the "wrong" thing. Rather, "right" and "wrong" are concepts we assign to actions as we fit them into our own patchwork of moral attitudes, and are probably more malleable than we'd like to believe.

I was once faced with a very lucrative offer from a major tech company to work on analytics for their popular ad engine. I was extremely conflicted about this as I happen to dislike online advertising, and _especially_ search engine marketing. To my horror, the majority of my friends and family encouraged me to take the position despite my ethical qualms, as the benefit to my resume would be enormous. Up until this point my own ethical intuitions had more or less aligned with those of my peers, but suddenly I found myself alienated. Was I stupid to pass up this opportunity, or were they wrong to tell me to take it?

It was one of the most difficult decisions of my life, but I decided to turn down the offer. It was liberating, in a sense; I came to realize my own ethical agency and that I could choose for myself what "right" and "wrong" meant. But it was also a lonely decision, one whose "rightness" was not shared with those I cared about.

I'm not sure what my point is here, except to say that I'm glad Gabriele found peace with his decisions. When you believe one thing and everyone else believes another, it can be difficult to know whether to change your own beliefs or not, especially when the content of those beliefs is something as abstract as "right" and "wrong." In some sense, there is no right choice, only the one you make.

</comment><comment><USER76> I just want to say I think you made the "right" choices along the way even if they maybe weren't the most savvy financially. I hope you profit from your app. It's hard to know what to do and stay motivated. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER77> That was a good read, but I think that in the fear of losing an opportunity he ended up blowing it entirely by releasing a PhoneGap app which is very slow and unresponsive even when it's very well designed.

<comment><USER44> Phonegap was more than competent for simple CSS slides/fades on the phones of 2010, when I published a game technically similar (wrt HTML+JS architecture) to 2048. What went wrong on the meantime?

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> I find it interesting that this is the first I've heard of the original game. Before now, I had only ever seen/ played the Doge version. Thinking about what that says about me...

</comment><comment><USER79> I prefer the original Threes game. But this is a cool game too.

</comment><comment><USER80> Question: why does the app need "full network access"?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, Gabriele here. Nothing weird going on. It just uses it for Google Analytics (the official library has a bug where it won't work unless it has full network access on Android). Of course, there are also the ads, and they also make network requests.

<comment><USER80> Cool. Installed!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER81> My son asked me yesterday if he could play 2048 on android. (I showed him the js version on my computer)

I hope there is the option to tilt the phone to make the tiles slide...

</comment><comment><USER82> Great post. I don't know why you feel so hesitant--it's your design and implementation that made the game a hit.

Looking forward to trying your app version.

</comment><comment><USER83> oh ok. since you have a blog entry mentioning Three's Dev open letter I think you can keep stealing credits from their hard work.

</comment><comment><USER84> Its good to have the story and perspective behind the evolution. An interesting business lesson on the threat of fast followers.

</comment><comment><USER85> It's a pity that phonegap apps don't perform nearly as well as a natively written one, especially on older phones.

</comment><comment><USER86> I downloaded it from the blog post but I find it sad I couldn't find it from the Play store search

</comment><comment><USER87> Thanks to gabriel. 2048 made me interested in learning javascript. Forked and had fun.

</comment><comment><USER88> Every week I see more people playing it on the subway in NYC. Congrats mate.

</comment><comment><USER89> Put a price on the app, I'll be happy to buy it to say thanks!

</comment><comment><USER90> put a popunder ad on the game page (web), its not that anoying and you can make like 200+$/day with 100k -150k visits /day. let me know if you need help with setting up.

</comment><comment><USER91> The whole 2^11 movement is fascinating.

There is a chance for world peace. ;)

</comment><comment><USER92> When you're 20 years old, and you get 20 million hits, you should have something reallllly good that you're working on to justify not pursuing your breakout hit.

</comment><comment><USER93> Very awesome game, i'm addicted to it.

</comment><comment><USER94> Self plugging?

</comment><comment><USER95> Awesome success story ! Inspiring !!

</comment><comment><USER96> I have been playing the 2048 for Android in the Top 1 of 2048 apps and now tried this guy original. Well it sucks..

the original programmer 2048 is so slow and laggish in comparison it makes it unplayable for who's coming from the other one. Visuals are also better.

<comment><USER96> Why are you down voting an helpful critic to the programmer. Only praising comments allowed ?

<comment><USER97> Your username is kind of against the rules here. Maybe a mod can help you change it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER98> Good on you for staying cool man

</comment><comment><USER99> I can understand why but DAMN the article from the Threes! people comes off really bitter.

</comment><comment><USER100> Well, we all have the opportunity to steal things in everyday life. But in the human space outside of the twilight zone we call "HN", there are laws that keep people from profiting from stolen material. Unfortunately, you're enabled by the app stores and their allowance this type of theft. Calling it an opportunity doesn't mean you should take it.

You already had the gift of recognition, even for something that wasn't truly your own creation. Did it need to be milked further, or could you have moved on and created another game, riding your reputation? That's a big "if", but it would have been the right thing to do.

<comment><USER101> Stolen? Come off it. Games have a long history of being cloned and improved on.

<comment><USER100> Agreed, but I'd argue that the only "improvement" 2048 made over Threes! was its pricetag.

<comment><USER102> I disagree - I can't stand the look of Threes, or the inconsistency in the first couple of stages of arithmetic.

<comment><USER103> But that's what makes Threes superior, for me - the needing to add 1 and 2, and the fact that they don't match each other makes for a more difficult game that requires much more thought. The fact that you can make matches with the basic tile that has the highest percentage of popping on the board every moves means that there are less consequences to not making the optimal move each turn.

That's just my opinion of course, but 2048 seems annoyingly easy - so much so that the up right down left repeat strategy is very valid to score a somewhat decent score when compared to some players.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Behind Every Good Whisky Is a Trusty Distillery Cat - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/09/09/347093135/behind-every-good-whisky-is-a-trusty-distillery-cat <comment><USER3> Reminds me of the cat that years ago inhabited Powell's technical bookstore (in Portland OR). The grayish feline was a inconspicuous mascot. Sometimes seen calmly striding among the bookshelves, with little attention to the humans milling about but mostly was ensconced in some private retreat.

I used to go there frequently to hunt down computer books, but remember most enjoyably not only the store cat, but even more the collection of CD's that were sold way back when.

In the early 90's, with those CD's I was introduced to Linux 1.0, and FreeBSD 2.0, Walnut Creek and other names that endure in my memory. It was a very exciting time. Thanks for giving me that pleasure for a moment once again.

<comment><USER4> When Fup died in 2007, it made the top page of Reddit. I was a bit surprised and delighted to see such a piece of Portlandia get worldwide e-fame, even as I mourned her passing. Only met her once or twice. She was old and not quite so mobile by the time I even saw her.

<comment><USER3> Thanks. You and schoen are right--I'd forgotten about Fup's "obituary". I hadn't been so regular a visitor to the bookstore since the late 90's.

Around that time pace of change was speeding up, everything in the computing field evolving so quickly when a book was published it was already obsolete. "Dead tree" books were much less necessary.

I stopped in a few days ago (tech books now located closer to the main bookstore) looking for a reference book on computer security. Alas, selection was meager, the shelf space devoted to computing topics less than a tenth what it once was.

The store now overflows with tons of books on birds and botany, cars and many worthy things. Still see a few old digital museum pieces in random corners, but hardly a trace of Fup and her glorious era.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Similarly, behind every good ship is a trusty Ship's Cat. ( _...and often whiskey too._ )

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship's_cat](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship's_cat)

</comment><comment><USER6> Cats aren't just great for the distillery; nothing makes me more content than having one of my two cats curled up on my lap while I sip a scotch and watch something nerdy on TV.

<comment><USER7> Anyone that can genetically modify one to have fur but not leave it everywhere stands to make a killing though.

<comment><USER8> Devon Rexes leave less hair behind than humans, in my experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why do they get fewer mice now? Because the grain more securely stored? More effective poisons? Fewer mice in the region?

Funfact: unlike horses and dogs, cats were only domesticated once, and spread with agriculture (to protect stored grain from mice).

<comment><USER10> It's not even clear that man domesticated cat. It seems more likely the other way around.

<comment><USER11> Additionally there's evidence that man didn't initially domesticate dogs. Rather, wolves that were more compatible with humans could get closer and benefit from the interaction, leading to more domestication and closer integration, etc., until dogs.

Of course _since_ then we've done all manner of absurd things to the species (as adorable as some people find them, inflicting pugs upon wolves was terribly insulting).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Had a look at him. Thought, 'Yep.' Gave him a few strokes, and thought he was a friendly lookin' cat. Held him for a wee while. Decided, 'Right. He's the one.' "

That line stayed with me long after I finished reading the piece - Long live the Scots.

</comment><comment><USER13> Had the pleasure of meeting Elijah on a two day work trip to LEX. Airport cabbie drove me to Woodford, dropped me off, and didn't charge to wait while I toured. Elijah was entirely indifferent to my presence.

Aside from Charleston, Lexington is one of the friendliest places I've been in the States. Highly recommend the distillery tours as well as the air museum.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm not a cat guy, but they definitely serve their purpose. Nice story.

</comment><comment><USER15> RIP Peat.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is a fluff piece.

<comment><USER17> It wouldn't be if it were a sphynx cat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> i hear rice warehouses prefer to keep snakes. they eat the mice clean whereas cats often leave carcasses about.

</comment><comment><USER19> whisky + cats = the perfect internet story

</comment><comment><USER20> Distillery cat is watching you drink.

</comment><comment><USER21> There's no content in this article whatsoever. They used to need mousers, but now they get max. 2 mice/year. So the distillery has a pet cat to keep tradition alive. That's it?

<comment><USER22> It's NPR, you should demand a refund.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> symbiosis with cats and dogs carried our civilization through thousands of years. Now we're forgetting it and just exterminating cats and dogs - <USER2> only in US about 6-10M are put to death.

<comment><USER24> Your comment (intentionally or not) makes it sound like humans are killing cats and dogs simply for the sake of killing them. The problem is overbreeding causing too many animals. We're not forgetting that these animals make great pets, we're not killing them just for fun. There are limited options in how to handle overpopulation.

<comment><USER23> >The problem is overbreeding causing too many animals.

it is we who, pretty arbitrary, decide that it is "too many" \- it means that we're killing them pretty willfully ( just a step before "just for fun" and "the sake of killing them")

We definitely didn't do anything to accommodate cats and dogs inside the civilization they helped to build.

>There are limited options in how to handle overpopulation.

2 myths in one sentence - "limited options" and "overpopulation"

<comment><USER24> It's not arbitrary, the number of house pets is limited to the number of households that can have pets plus the number of animal shelters we have. Once that number is exceeded, the options are set the animals free or find humane ways to control the population. Depending on where you live, setting them free could be a good option or it could be terrible. If the animals have no survival instinct left, they will be left alone to starve to death or die from sickness. In the city, they may be hit by cars, or they might attack other pets. They might even make other pets sick by biting them. They can easily become a nuisance in populated areas, although rural areas have a larger domain for stray animals.

There's no one walking into your house saying "there's too many pets in the world" and shooting Lassie. They only get put down when there is no one left to take care of them.

If you think it's arbitrary, why don't you adopt every homeless pet? If you can't do that, then you have to accept that there is such a thing as overpopulation, that we're there, and that there are limited options for how to deal with the problem.

<comment><USER23> most of your post is basically speculation, except for the unfortunate reality of cars hitting pets.

Fact-wise:

>There's no one walking into your house saying "there's too many pets in the world" and shooting Lassie.

that is actually what happens when your violate your local pets per household limit. As i said, human civilization policies toward cats and dogs is a circus of arbitrary speculations.

<comment><USER25> >they will be left alone to starve to death

Stray animals can absolutely starve to death.

>or die from sickness.

Stray animals can absolutely get sick and die.

>they might attack other pets.

Stray animals can absolutely get in fights with other animals, stray or otherwise

>They might even make other pets sick by biting them.

Stray animals can absolute transmit disease through bites, again to other strays or domestic pets.

>They can easily become a nuisance in populated areas

This seems reasonable; feral cat colonies aren't really an ideal selling point for an area.

>although rural areas have a larger domain for stray animals.

This also seems reasonable; there's more space in rural areas for strays to stake out a claim without bothering the human contingent.

Can you please explain which parts are "basically speculation" and why you think they aren't based in fact?

edit: And I pretty regularly get notices from the shelter where I adopted my cat, saying "We just rescued a large number of animals from a hoarder who was unable to take care of them, please help us find homes for them"; even if the shelter were a kill shelter, that's hardly the summary execution of the pet for the transgression of the owner. This is sounding more like weird local policy where you live (or speculation), as opposed to the fact you presented it as.

<comment><USER23> it may happen that psychologically ill people among other things may do hoarding, of pets among other things. No argument here. In general these hoarding stories are just scarecrows. I personally knew an old lady with 17 cats in her apartment - it was wonderful - they followed you and around you and played and sat around you like a living cloud. She took perfect care of them, they were healthy and happy, the apartment was clean, etc... Another case i personally know was a happy family with a bunch of children and 5 Chihuahua living in their own house - they were forced to give up one dog because of the 4 dogs limit. Speaking about tough choice - how do you choose which of members of your family to give up?

<comment><USER25> That isn't a response to the question I asked; can you address the question?

And even the scenario you presented here is hardly the summary execution that you listed as a fact previously; can you address that discrepancy?

<comment><USER23> >And even the scenario you presented here is hardly the summary execution that you listed as a fact previously; can you address that discrepancy?

the dog was given up as the alternative was for it to be ultimately taken away by Animal Control and probably euthanized there - the only difference here is technical details - you mentioned shooting in your house and they use injection on their premises.

<comment><USER25> That still isn't a response to the question I asked; can you address that question?

And choosing an animal to be given up and taken to a shelter and _possibly_ euthanized is nowhere near the same and shooting an animal on the premises. And again, that's a city-level ordinance, not a governmental one; it in no way applies to everybody, so I don't know why you're presenting it as inarguable fact.

Edit: Honestly, the fact that I need to ask a question three times when it was very clearly laid out indicates that you're just ignoring it, which I can only assume means you don't actually have an answer. If you're interested in actually having a discussion instead of just saying foolish things and refusing to back them up, then please address my question; otherwise, you've got some pretty messed up and honestly harmful ideas that you're proposing here and I hope you're never in a position to enforce your beliefs on anything else.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


If Church Can Reinvent Itself, Why Can't Companies? - <AUTHOR> http://www.jjude.biz/2013/12/if-church-can-reinvent-itself-why-cant-companies/ <comment><USER2> The key point here isn't that the church has some profound lesson to teach to companies, but that--in our current global system--the church and a company play are now forced to play by the same rules. The church has existed for thousands of years because of central role it played in the functioning of the political and economic systems of its time. The changes we have seen in the last generation aren't the result of some essential adaptability in the church's structure, but a reaction to it's increasing irrelevancy to global life. Like any well-run company, the church saw a future it did not like and chose to pivot.

If there's a useful lesson to take from this, it's not that we should emulate the church, but that, in today's world, all organizations need to be ready and willing to totally reinvent themselves on a moment's notice.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd surely prefer churches to be relevant for 30-40 years than companies for thousands. _shudder_</comment>


Vagrant: Create and configure portable development environments - <AUTHOR> http://www.vagrantup.com/ <comment><USER3> Vagrant creator here. What a pleasant surprise to see this pop up on HN this morning (it was unexpected, to be sure). I just want to shamelessly say that if you're more of a book person, the Vagrant O'Reilly book I wrote was just released this week, and it is a great way to get started:

[http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920026358.do](http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920026358.do)

Thanks!

(And, hopefully as you know, as an author I make barely any royalties on any book sold, so I'm not posting this for financial reasons. I just know some people really prefer books to online docs.)

<comment><USER4> I'm curious, why the focus on development environments? How does it tie into production and staging environments?

<comment><USER3> I'm working on this now. I won't say much more than that until I have something to really show for it.

Development environments are the primary focus on Vagrant because that was the pain point it was initially meant to solve, and it does this quite well. The workflow model Vagrant introduces doesn't translate as well into staging/production yet. I'm actively investigating the use cases here and how Vagrant may adapt to it (if at all).

<comment><USER4> Cheers for staying focused and honest about the scope of the problem that vagrant solves!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We switched from hand-configured boxes and a long, "full stack local" setup document to chef + vagrant at my current company ([http://parse.ly](http://parse.ly)).

Though it caused some kicking & screaming on the development team, the end result is that every developer has the same development environment, which pretty much matches our deployment environment (in Rackspace Cloud). I also just kicked off our summer intern class, and the interns were able to get productive with our codebase in 1 day despite not having much experience with modern Python web development, because pretty much every local setup step was automated.

I consider the tool invaluable. I don't even install _any_ databases or tools directly on my laptop any longer. With its handy port forwarding feature, you can put all your DBs on a VM, yet still connect w/ CLI clients via your host machine. Then when you do "vagrant halt", all your DBs shut down at once and you free all those resources / memory / etc.

Also, one suggestion -- look into the debug logging level that you can set with an environmental variable. The only thing I found frustrating about Vagrant were situations where it would hang/fail but it wouldn't be clear why. It turns out their debug logging is quite good.

<comment><USER6> How are you reloading your Python application on code changes? Are you just working inside the VM? I've tried VirtualBox shared folders and NFS, and never had any luck getting file change events to propagate from my host to the VM.

<comment><USER5> Shared folders work well for me & everyone else on me team. Perhaps you should file a ticket for your issue?

Also, if you use port forwarding for all your databases etc. then you could technically just run Python code on your host computer. Indeed, I do this myself usually -- I treat the Vagrant box more like a "deployment target" that just happens to also run the DBs I can use for local testing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Vagrant is a nice tool, but I don't like the closed-open source part of it. There are 289 open issues and 79 open pull requests on github right now. It feels like there is a huge community out there who want to move this project forward, but there is the bottleneck of having only one committer who wants to have too much control over it. It's fine and the author can do what he wants, but I'm wondering what the project could achieve if it was more open to contributions and more people could actively work on it.

As a user, looking at those 289 open issues with only one developer, I don't feel at all encouraged to open a new one or send a pull request, because I just see a huge pile of things that the committer will have to wade through before getting to mine.

<comment><USER3> Actually, the number of issues/pull requests is higher than usual right now. You're right that at the moment I'm a bottleneck. I'm looking to change that (I want to add more committers).

However, historically I think I've been very good about responding to issues rather quickly. Unfortunately, the past 6 weeks I've been quite bad at it as I've been focussing on something you'll hopefully see in a few weeks. Again, this highlights the problem of being a bottleneck.

I'd love to promote more committers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Its a great little tool. I have been using it for a over a year now and it simplifies the dev environment issues by sandboxing it. In general, it allows you to isolate your development servers and other such programs and libraries in a sandbox. You can use the editors, browsers etc on your local machine however the servers and other heavy lifting can be done by the vm in the sandbox env. I think this is still bleeding edge stuff as I dont see very many developers using this. Would love to hear experiences of fellow hackers.

One question - I use vagrant with VirtualBox as the provider. Has any body used vagrant with the VMware provider. Wondering if one sees better performance on vmware than virtualbox. Specially when you are running everything (host and guest) on the same hdd.

<comment><USER9> On my Mac, using VMware was rougly 4 times faster than VirtualBox, particularly when running very long puppet scripts and using memory. I was very happy to pay for the VMware Fusion support and to buy VMware Fusion in the first place (it is 10x better than Parallels for the VM client drivers alone). The tricky bits for me were, at least a few months ago, some of the commands were different and of course the base OS VMs should be different given different client drivers. But it is possible to have one Vagrantfile serve both VirtualBox and VMware Fusion, so devs can choose which environment works best for them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Vagrant looks interesting but I am not sure why I would use it. Almost all of my work involves using Clojure and I default to using Postgres except in exceptional circumstances. It is so easy to have the same setup on my OS X and Linux laptops as my servers. I have never run into any compatibility problems, at least that I am aware of.

Vagrant looks more useful for systems with lots of moving parts.

I am starting a new project with Node.js, Meteor and MongoDB - also an easy to set up stack. I will keep Vagrant in mind, but I hope I don't need it.

<comment><USER11> Vagrant is nice because your environment becomes disposable and version controlled.

If you mess up your db config while performance tuning, for example, just call vagrant destroy and vagrant up.

<comment><USER12> The version control aspect is really great.

It's really nice to be able branch, commit, merge, go back, whatever with your installed infrastructure. This gets even better if you use puppet or chef (or even the shell) for provisioning of infrastructure in concert with vagrant.

Doing the same thing with snapshots and VM clones with VirtualBox alone is similar to zipping your project periodically as a backup strategy. Yeah,, it works, but it has no granularity.

Bottom line though, it feels very liberating at any point to be able to flip the fuckit bit, do a vagrant destroy and vagrant up and just start over. It makes for painless experimentation on your VM, among other things. Once you've got what you want, you can formalize it in your Vagrantfile, puppet manifests or other versioned artifacts of development.

Is good.

<comment><USER13> Huh, so can you "branch" a VM with vagrant? Like say I want to make some incompatible/lossy changes to my database schema, can I fork my dev environment, do my migrations to the new schema, and then go back if I don't like it?

<comment><USER14> Vagrant works by describing a machine or group of machines. It hands off to Chef or Puppet, which then do the job of bringing the naked machine up to something nearly identical to your production environment.

You can snapshot to binary blob too, but having code that rebuilds from scratch is a great way to smoke out certain classes of dependency conflicts. It also provides assurance that if a hurricane turns some data centre into lego bricks, you can rebuild an identical setup somewhere else with a single command.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Vagrant is awesome! I use it to test ops changes and puppet deployments. If anyone is interested, I've created two screencasts about vagrant:

      Episode #4 - Vagrant [1]
      Episode #5 - Create a Vagrant box with Veewee [2]

[1] [http://sysadmincasts.com/episodes/4-vagrant](http://sysadmincasts.com/episodes/4-vagrant)

[2] [http://sysadmincasts.com/episodes/5-create-a-vagrant-box- wit...](http://sysadmincasts.com/episodes/5-create-a-vagrant-box-with-veewee)

<comment><USER16> Thanks for screencasts - your episode 5 is missing audio making it harder to grock the context, just heads up in case this is unintended so you can fix

<comment><USER15> Ouch, this is the first report I have had! What OS/browser are you using?

You can download the raw content via these two files, so you can watch locally on your computer (both the same, just different formats):

      http://sysadmincasts.com/static/videos/5-create-a-vagrant-box-with-veewee.mp4
      http://sysadmincasts.com/static/videos/5-create-a-vagrant-box-with-veewee.webm

I am using a javascript player, which should send you the correct file, based on your browsers support for webm and/or mp4/flash. I have verified that both versions contain audio. So, I suspect there is some browser issue at play here. Anyone else reading this, and who has watched episode #5, want to comment on if it has audio?

Thanks, Justin

<comment><USER16> I am using FF 20.0 on Ubuntu 10.04.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Vagrant is absolutely fantastic. But I have an issue with the default precise64 box.

If the vm is shut down abnormally (manual power off from virtualbox, unexpected power outage, etc), next time I run `vagrant up`, the vm would be stuck on grub. It appear to be a problem with ubuntu and I need to start the vm in gui mode (as opposed to vagrant's default headless mode) to resolve this (changed timeout=-1 to timeout=0 in /etc/grub.d/00_header and run update- grub).

<comment><USER17> Which exact precise64 box are you using? Ubuntu now publishes regularly updated Vagrant images, do you have this problem with this box?

\- [http://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/vagrant/precise/current/](http://cloud- images.ubuntu.com/vagrant/precise/current/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the info. I was using the default precise64 box from fresh vagrant init. I'll try that box see if the problem persist.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I was first introduced to Vagrant at my current company - where my manager had prepared a VM + set of Chef recipes for setting up and managing VM hosting our app.

I had spent few days later setting up few VM's for my personal projects - <USER2> must say that having easily deployable VM's, each one serving specific purposes, all on my laptop, using just one base box (CentOS in my case) is a really a time saver - especially when dealing with projects utilising multiple technologies. But what is most important is the fact, that all those technologies are not polluting the main machine and creating misc combinations of them is as easy as branching / cloning my Chef + Librarian + Knife repo.

</comment><comment><USER19> I've used one VM for deploying my several small projects in the past. I'm definitely curious about separate sandboxes for them when developing locally - one chef-solo and vagrant instance for each - but it seems like it would be a lot more expensive to deploy them to separate boxes afterward. Is there an easy way to "merge" them back into one box when deploying?

... I guess that doesn't make sense. I should have the local vagrant/chef-solo mirror how I have my production server; all projects combined. But at least the chef recipes will make it easier to split things apart once I want to separate projects to different servers for traffic reasons.

</comment><comment><USER20> I learned about vagrant from this old HN post: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2714149](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2714149)

I wanted to call out the advice from that article to use fabric (if you use python) to control the vagrant+VM instances. You use chef/puppet to configure the VM, and then use fabric to, for instance, switch between virtualenvs for different apps within the virtual host. I used it that summer to work on a web app while I took my daughter to swim lessons, and it was well worth my while.

</comment><comment><USER21> It seems the future for this kind of projects is very bright. When I have time I'll look into vagrant and docker. I also need to learn either puppet or chef... I've got a busy summer schedule!

(Any other related, interesting technologies I should add to that list?)

</comment><comment><USER22> Vagrant is great. IMHO every open source project should come with an example Vagrantfile or Dockerfile to help get users/developers up and running quickly.

</comment><comment><USER23> A noob(ish) question but does anyone here use Vagrant by itself (or w/ chef- solo). For example can you do multi-VM setups directly to the AWS provider _and_ local VirtualBox all on the same single Vagrantfile config? And thanks for the tip on veewee as it looks exactly what I was looking for to build a company basebox for faster testing. Much appreciated.

</comment><comment><USER24> Very nice tool to generate vagrant configs [http://rove.io/](http://rove.io/)

</comment><comment><USER25> It looks like Vagrant is designed to help out web developers more than anything else.

I develop primarily for microcontrollers, and it can be a pain to manage toolchains for different architectures. Would Vagrant help with that? Does anyone have an examples of using Vagrant like this?

<comment><USER26> I've been using it for microcontroller development lately and it seems like a nice way to preserve and share toolchain configuration. You define everything once (compilers, makefiles, drivers, etc) and then share it with people on your team, regardless of what OS they're using. VirtualBox allows you to set up USB port forwarding so you can even program and debug from the command- line.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Has anyone had much luck using Chef solo to provision their Vagrant box AND their production/staging environments? I'm currently attempting this, and it has been kind of a pain in the ass. Chef-solo seems woefully underpowered.

<comment><USER28> I've switched to using Ansible for this very reason (after getting frustated with Puppet) - I like it a lot. Also I just want to join the choir: Vagrant is awesome!

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I haven't done much research, but is there a way to share a running instance with others? Can I configure/setup/tinker-with an instance, suspend it and share that with someone?

<comment><USER3> Yes, you can run `vagrant package` and it'll turn it into a single file format that can be sent to other people to reuse.

<comment><USER29> Nice! Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I use Vagrant for every project now. I used to work with a single VM with all of my projects, but dependencies were hard. Vagrant makes everything nicely sandboxed.

One thing I found difficult is that Chef or Puppet are hard to combine with Vagrant, not having used either before. The quality of instructions and recipes for simple stacks (PHP, Django, etc) even for Ubuntu require tweaks here and there. I've now however found recipes I've tweaked for both examples that work well.

</comment><comment><USER31> I have never heard of Vagrant. The home page is, as usual, devoid of information. This is what Wikipedia says:

> _Vagrant (software)_

> _From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia_

> _Vagrant is open-source software for creating and configuring virtual > development environments. It can be considered a wrapper around VirtualBox > and configuration management software such as Chef, Salt and Puppet. > Although written in Ruby, it is usable in other programming projects such as > PHP, Python, Java, and C#._

</comment><comment><USER32> If you love vagrant, be sure to give the plugin 'Sahara' a try. It allows you to sandbox vagrant. so you can commit or rollback changes!

[https://github.com/jedi4ever/sahara](https://github.com/jedi4ever/sahara)

<comment><USER33> Why not [https://github.com/dergachev/vagrant-vbox- snapshot](https://github.com/dergachev/vagrant-vbox-snapshot) ?It provides full snapshot abilities, so you can have multiple states.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> We use Vagrant at Virgin Media in London. Great tool.

Ps. please fix the issue where on disconnect, you can't vagrant ssh back, the only fix I've found is to restart the vm using virtualbox.

</comment><comment><USER35> Vagrant vs Docker, what are some points to note when evaluating which to use?

<comment><USER36> It depends on what you want to do. Vagrant's main use case is to automate setting up development environments, whereas I see Docker as more a way of distributing software and its dependencies to production systems.

A key distinction is that since Docker is built on Linux containers (lightweight Linux systems), it expects to share its host's kernel, and must thus be executed on a Linux system.</comment></comment>


Mistakes I Have Made in My Research Career - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/mistakes-i-have-made-my-research-career-fundaci%C3%B3n-alicia-koplowitz <comment><USER2> > If I had the chance to have a second career, I would try harder not to > follow of the fashion of the herd.

As a fellow researcher, I would question you get to have a second career following his advice. I wonder if he would be standing there giving this advice as a senior researcher, if he would have followed it himself.

I agree that it would probably be more useful for science, but from what I observe, it does not help in the current scientific environment. Scientific funding is a dog eat dog world.

<comment><USER3> Exactly. All the young researchers that didn't follow the herd never got funding and never got tenure.

When I was an academic I tried to follow a middle path. 75% herd following (more accurately arbitrage exploitation taking advantage that certain fields lag others so applying something old from one field is seen as cutting edge in another), 25% high risk. I would have loved to have spent more time on the high risk activities, but it is just too risky.

We really, really, really, really need to change the way science is funded. Not more funding, smarter funding. We get exactly the results we should expect from the totally stupid way science is funded.

/s I have a totally novel idea - how about we use science to determine how science funding should be allocated. /s

<comment><USER4> On that /s, do you know if there has been research done on what the smartest way to do funding would be? How could I find reputable resources discussing this idea?

<comment><USER5> There's some research. Most of it simply says "we're really bad at this." [0]. One way to fix it is to use a sort of lottery [1].

[0] [http://www.pnas.org/content/112/36/11335.abstract](http://www.pnas.org/content/112/36/11335.abstract)

[1] [http://mbio.asm.org/content/7/2/e00422-16.abstract](http://mbio.asm.org/content/7/2/e00422-16.abstract)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> >If I had the chance to have a second career, I would try harder not to follow of the fashion of the herd. The mistakes I have made, at least those into which I have insight, have usually resulted from adhering excessively to the prevailing orthodoxy.

So much of being a professional researcher these days requires one to not upset the apple cart.

</comment><comment><USER7> One of the perils of research is that we can be wrong in ways that play out on five and ten year time scales.

"We" includes the funding agencies, the prevailing theories of the day, the ways that our institutions are structured, and the individual researchers themselves.

Failure occurs at all length scales: minutes, hours, days, years, decades.

A failure isn't necessarily a mistake.

It's nice to hear the anecdote, though! So often the only things we hear about science are the successes.

<comment><USER8> No. Your platitude here is only dangerous. The collective mind moves in terms of generations while the free mind moves in terms of days.

The function of research is to discover new knowledge, a task often dependent on questioning old knowledge. Worse, when collective operations favor collective mindedness, they are obstructing research by displacing open mindedness.

The post is a valuable recollection that should be internalized at any expense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> _> If I had the chance to have a second career, I would try harder not to follow of the fashion of the herd. The mistakes I have made, at least those into which I have insight, have usually resulted from adhering excessively to the prevailing orthodoxy._

I would rather say, that researcher needs to train himself to start with completely neutral attitude to any new idea. Sometimes even old idea deserves to be examined from scratch. This needs a very specific skill to shut off existing beliefs and to start from blank page.

It is all bayesian. You get new proposition, assign 0.5 likelyhood to it, and then you start thinking. While you think you must be ready to reject any idea regardless of its plausibility, if such a rejection allow to see things from new angle. Probably it will lead to some kind of contradiction, but you might not know it a priori, so the only way to be sure is to try it.

All this test rejections should be done systematically and consiously. Or you need to be a genius to do it intuitively in right circumstances.

It needs training, and the best training I know is to learn how to agree with anyone. One need to learn how to understand point of view of other person and to look from that point of view. I'm really surprised, that psychiatrist can make mistakes of not accepting some ideas before taking a close look at them. I tend to believe that ability to understand any point of view, even delirium one, is the key tool for psychiatrist.

</comment><comment><USER10> It sounds like he had a really successful career.

<comment><USER11> Robin Murray is a pretty well-respected psychiatric researcher. This was interesting for me to read.</comment></comment>


Fixing Broken Government - <AUTHOR> http://blog.longnow.org/2011/02/01/long-now-media-update-75/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+longnow+%28The+Long+Now+Blog%29&utm_content=Google+Reader <comment><AUTHOR> This is the first proposal I've heard that points a way out of the current horrible mess of brokenness in US government. With luck and effort, the next crisis will bring a teachable moment, and government will pivot to a better model.

<comment><USER2> One of the proposals is a sensible enough reform -- the budget sunsets. But societies do not pivot. At best, they evolve.

Law is complex because politicians and voters want it to scale with the complexity of society and economy; and the complexity of society and economy grows as a non-linear, exponential function of economic & technological progress and population growth.

Another reason is simple game theory. Lawmakers bear very little of the cost of passing new laws, but accrue most of the political benefits (being seen to be "doing something"). It's a tragedy of the commons situation.

Additionally, part of the job of common law lawyers is to convince judges that they have found a unique situation, never before encountered in the last thousand years or so. They succeed often enough because it genuinely happens.

Ironically, while decrying rules-based law, the Howard proposes instead goal- based law. This pushes policy assessment onto judges. One of the reasons law becomes rule-based in the first place is to _remove_ policy judgement from the judicial sphere, back to the executive and legislative spheres where it belongs. His solution would make matters _worse_ by completing the undermining of US jurisprudence by the doctrine of "realism".

Public accountability is a good idea, but needs to be balanced with the need for free and frank advice. Personally I would make a distinction between operational public servants, who could be easily sacked, and advisory public servants, who would be difficult to sack.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> There's no transcript, but this summary is posted on a linked page:

 _Americans have made major adjustments to our government before, Howard declared. At the beginning of the 20th century a Progressive era ended strict laissez-faire. The New Deal in the 1930s provided social safety nets. In the 1960s Civil Rights came to the fore. Now we need a fourth big change, because our government has managed to paralyze itself with the accretion of decades of excessively detailed laws.

In the Eisenhower era the entire Interstate Highway system was installed in about 15 years. That couldn't happen now. Getting permission to build one offshore wind farm near Cape Cod took a decade while 17 agencies studied it, and 18 lawsuits now pending will delay the project another decade. The Interstate Highway Act was 29 pages long. Our new Health Care bill is 2,700 pages.

The news laws obsess over methods instead of focusing primarily on goals and responsible institutions. They disable the power of office holders to decide and act because they try to prevent bad choices, and thus they disable the power to make good choices. Liberals want to head off game-playing corporations, and conservatives want to keep government officials from having too much power. The result is broken government and a citizenry maddened by a system that defies common sense.

Only real people make things happen, Howard said, not laws alone. We need a framework that enables real people to take responsibility, to have the authority to say "Do it," to say "You're fired," to be accountable and to require accountability.

To get there, Howard proposes three modifications of our government's operating system.

One, a spring cleaning of all budgetary law. Three-quarters of most budgets are now locked in, so present decision makers have no flexibility and they wind up taking money from schools and parks. We need to create an omnibus sunset law, so all budgetary laws have a requirement to be discarded or revised every ten or fifteen years.

Two, laws have to be radically simplified. They must be understandable and revisable. They have to enable the people executing the laws to use their judgement. That means focusing primarily on goals.

Three, public employees have to be accountable. Which means: if they fail to perform, they can lose their job. Under the present system government worker unions have captured the apparatus that employs them and made much of it work primarily for them rather than primarily for the public.

The system will not fix itself. It is up to the public---us---to mobilize and demand this kind of overhaul, to find leaders who will demand it, and support them._</comment>


Patterns Failed. Why? Should We Care? - <AUTHOR> https://www.deconstructconf.com/2017/brian-marick-patterns-failed-why-should-we-care <comment><USER2> The book referenced at the end, called Domain-Driven Design, has mixed reviews. Does anyone understand why a lot of people found it disorganised and vague?</comment>


Huffington Post Buys Adaptive Semantics To Keep Up With 100,000 Comments A Day - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/17/huffington-post-buys-adapative-semantics/

<comment><USER2> Quote: Other companies that license Adaptive Semantic's technology for online comment moderation include CNN, Newsweek, and Disqus. They might have to start looking for other solutions. "We will honor the contracts, but very likely will not renew them," says Hippeau, who doesn't want to be in the business of licensing technology to other news sites and services.

</comment><comment><USER3> I am reading through some comments they marked as "abusive" and I just don't see how its abusive...

<http://adaptivesemantics.com/demo></comment>