Show HN: Android Studio plugin for effortless app development - andreas-schrade http://exynap.com <comment> andreas-schrade Hi HN! I'm the creator of Exynap, and I'm really excited to share it with you all. Quite a while ago, I started Exynap for my own purpose. It began with a simple wish: I'd like to spend more time on the "awesome" parts of app development and less time on Google figuring out how a certain API call works.

The project grew up and is finally live! :)

Hope this plugin helps!

Feedback and questions are welcome.

<comment> torben-s92 Wonderful job! It is like IntelliJ Live Templates on steroids²

I'll test it out properly before jumping to feedback! Thanks for your efforts

<comment> andreas-schrade I'm glad you like it. Any feedback is appreciated!</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: GlitchTip. Open source error tracking, compatible with Sentry SDKs - <AUTHOR> https://glitchtip.com <comment><AUTHOR> Just released a stable version of this yesterday.

It's open source, so feel free to pull it and give it a try locally! We have installation instructions on our site[0] for the Docker image.

[0]: [https://glitchtip.com/documentation/install](https://glitchtip.com/documentation/install)

<comment><USER2> Clicking any of the blog posts takes me to the installation guide.

I cant seem to find any feature overview? Id like to see screenshots and a nice overview of the features when browsing a project site like this

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing this out. Looks like it could be a bug in the static site generator we're using; I'll look into it more today.</comment></comment></comment>


Erlware:  Open source Elang repo separate from Ericsson - <AUTHOR> http://www.erlware.org/erlware/index.html

<comment><USER2> I think the title is misleading. It's not an Erlang repository, it's a repository of Erlang packages which seems to be a replacement for CEAN (which is owned by Process One).</comment>


This is not your father's Microsoft - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnet.com/news/this-is-not-your-fathers-microsoft/?ftag=CAD-03-10aaj8j <comment><USER2> Right, right. But you still WANT the X, and you WANT the 1709, and you WANT the 1803, whether it breaks your system or not. Where do you want to go today is Microsoft's business, none of yours. But yeah. Different. (See that word? It's not quite the same as "better")</comment>


Pinboard is back for 2019 - <AUTHOR> I stumbled onto this post[1] from Maciej on the mostly-quiet pinboard-dev group:
"...I've moved back to Pinboard work now after a two-year detour into US politics, which I hope will lead to a much less frustrating experience for my customers. It will take a little time to work through the backlog, but that is what I am doing now and into the forseeable future. My apologies to everyone who has had a hard time getting support from me since autumn 2016."
So, fingers crossed that our favorite bookmarking service will get some attention after a 2-year hiatus.
[1] https://groups.google.com/d/msg/pinboard-dev/1AHU0crTL3M/pr_7dTPvCwAJ <comment><USER2> I'm not sure what I'd want honestly. Maybe more penguin stories?</comment>


Guys here is source code of software start-up product(membership management) - <AUTHOR> http://primadg.com/membership-management-system/

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd: \- made more research and findout what potential buyers want to save development time (build MVP). \- find who wants to use it before building the project

</comment><comment><USER2> It takes a lot of courage to share the source code of a failed project. What would you do differently if you had the chance?</comment>


Meccano Differential Analyzer - <AUTHOR> https://hackaday.com/2016/08/08/differential-analyzer-cranks-out-math-like-a-champ-at-vcf-2016 <comment><USER2> Why can't I freaking buy plain old Meccano anymore? I can't get that thing out of my mind from the childhood days. I had one beautiful meccano set some 35+ years ago. I don't care about these Reactor pre-made BS boxes.

<comment><USER3> You can still buy buckets/toolboxes of assorted Meccano. They come with plans for things which you can happily ignore.

[https://www.amazon.com/Meccano-Junior-100-Piece- Bucket/dp/B0...](https://www.amazon.com/Meccano-Junior-100-Piece- Bucket/dp/B00TZF7W3E/)

[https://www.amazon.com/Meccano-20070926-Junior- Bucket-150-Pi...](https://www.amazon.com/Meccano-20070926-Junior- Bucket-150-Piece/dp/B00TZF80YY/)

[https://www.amazon.com/Erector-Advanced-Toolbox- Construction...](https://www.amazon.com/Erector-Advanced-Toolbox-Construction- Set/dp/B0063GUGXG/)

[https://www.amazon.com/Meccano-6024795-Meccano-Erector- Advan...](https://www.amazon.com/Meccano-6024795-Meccano-Erector-Advanced- Toolbox/dp/B00NR9XW10/)

(Results of a quick Amazon search. I'm sure there are more.)

<comment><USER2> This[1] is what I recall I had (number 6). See the difference?

[http://my-meccano.co.uk/SETS.html](http://my-meccano.co.uk/SETS.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The most interesting thing to me is that there is such a thing as a torque amplifier. This sounds fascinating, and I have no idea how you'd go about building one.

<comment><USER5> "The simplest design consists of a pair of contra-rotating drums mounted on collinear input and output shafts. A pair of cords or belts wrapped around the drums connect two arms mounted on the input shaft and output shaft."

From [http://www.meccano.us/differential_analyzers/robinson_da/tor...](http://www.meccano.us/differential_analyzers/robinson_da/torque_amplifiers.pdf).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I saw this in person at VCF West this weekend. Really interesting to see how values were set in person!</comment>


WiseDame - a "black box" recorder like they have in planes, but for real life - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/26/techcrunch-disrupt-hackathon-winner/

<comment><USER2> I really liked this app but didn't understand the part about "This app was developed with women in mind." Why? They're more social?

<comment><USER3> I, too, think it's a good idea but her presentation definitely rubbed me the wrong way.</comment></comment>


Comparing Development Costs of Ada and C (1995) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://archive.adaic.com/intro/ada-vs-c/cada_art.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> This has to be the best, industrial study comparing programming languages that I've seen. They're doing it on the same system. There's details to assess what was difficult, what got fixed the most, and so on. Summary: the developers collectively had more C experience than Ada experience, many were using Ada for first time, the Ada developers had fewer defects with gap getting wider with experience, and the Ada features cost less. A clear win [in one project] for Ada.

That conclusion also brings to mind the practice we've seen (eg at NASA) about using C over Ada so developer familiarity with C reduces risk. The idea was learning a new language with its gotcha's will increase error rate in their project. It was a good hypothesis but was refuted in this particular project. Worth some studies to test it further.

Got it out of Derek Jones' references on empirical data in software engineering if anyone wants to dig out more good ones. That's a huge list of papers to go through.

[http://www.knosof.co.uk/ESEUR/ESEUR- references.html](http://www.knosof.co.uk/ESEUR/ESEUR-references.html)</comment>


The Startup Side Project Bubble - <AUTHOR> http://davidhauser.com/post/47457211343/the-startup-side-project-bubble <comment><USER2> A major reason that people do only what's required to get by in their "day job" and tool away on startups is that the promotion is dead. You don't advance in the workplace by any means except changing jobs or doing your own thing. Companies don't promote on merit anymore. So if you pour your heart into your job, you get nothing for it. You're better off pouring your heart into side projects-- even if they don't turn into actual businesses, they act as portfolio projects that might help you to make that next hop between jobs with an accompanying raise.

The MBAs have made this bed via all this "money doesn't really motivate people, here's how to hack motivation..." BS, and now they have to lie in it. If they want employees' full attention, they have to compensate it. People have to have a stake-- either stock or the _real_ possibility of a _meaningful_ promotion. You get what you pay for.

<comment><USER3> _A major reason that people do only what's required to get by in their "day job" and tool away on startups is that the promotion is dead. You don't advance in the workplace by any means except changing jobs or doing your own thing. Companies don't promote on merit anymore. So if you pour your heart into your job, you get nothing for it. You're better off pouring your heart into side projects_

Bingo! What's the point in going "above and beyond the call of duty" for a dayjob employer, when they aren't going to recognize you for it, compensate you for it, or acknowledge it in any way? Of course, this isn't true of _all_ employers. Sometimes people do get recognized and compensated for merit... see the recent post about the guy at Google who got $100MM. But most people know if they work for a company where merit is rewarded or not. And if you don't work in one of those, and you have some ambition, the rational choice is to work on a startup.

<comment><USER4> I agree with both api and mindcrime - and I did an MBA in Tech.

Although I'm sure there are several companies that do incentivize correctly - there's a growing awareness of creating an "intrapreneur" spirit and opportunities, though in most companies it's just that - empty talk.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm sorry, but this whole article is based on a completely unfounded premise - that being the premise that you're not "committed" to your startup unless you've quit your dayjob and are working on the startup fulltime. But there's no basis for asserting that, and it is - quite simply - not true.

It's not "shooting yourself in the foot" to work on a startup while working a dayjob, it's called "funding your startup with your dayjob salary". And if you don't have a pile of capital just lying around waiting to be spent, or aren't (interested in|willing to|able to) raise outside capital, it's essentially your only choice.

And why exactly should I care about "stringing along my present employer"? I show up, do the work I'm asked to do, and they pay me some amount in return. What I do on my time is my business.. If my performance drops, they are welcome to fire me. If anything, this should be seen as a call for employers to recognize their entrepreneurial minded employees and find a way to leverage their talent to do something entrepreneurial _within_ that firm. Better yet, invest in the employees startup and tell them to get out and work on it fulltime. Now that's a win-win for everybody.

But don't think you get to call who is or isn't a "real entrepreneur" based on who has or hasn't quit their dayjob. If anything, the folks doing it "the hard way" deserve more respect and recognition than the people running around acting like raising a round was an end unto itself, and who seem to think that the point of a startup is to raise money (as opposed to making money).

<comment><AUTHOR> You are missing the point, I am not saying you should raise money. I bootstrapped my company and am very proud of it.

It is hard to argue that spending 40+ hours in a week on something other than you startup shows you are committed to your startup. You are committed to making money and then working on your startup.

I have personally invested in many employee's startups but that does not change the fact that trying to do both is a distraction that does not serve you or your job.

<comment><USER3> I don't think "commitment" means what you think it does. I could not possibly be more committed to the startup I'm working on now... it's basically my life. If I were married, I'd be less committed to my wife than to this startup (which may be a reason I'm _not_ married, now that I think about it).

But, realistically, I don't have the capital reserves to just quit, and work on it full-time, so that simply is not an option. No amount of philosophizing, or Monday morning quarterbacking or commentary from the peanut gallery can change that. But if anybody thinks I'm not committed to this, I have two words for them...

 _I am not saying you should raise money. I bootstrapped my company and am very proud of it._

And if you aren't sitting on a big pile of capital already, you have two choices: Go out and raise a round, or fund via your salary. And going out and raising money has a lot of disadvantages, not the least of which is that every minute you spend chasing investors is a minute you're _not_ working on the product, talking to customers, doing market research, writing marketing content, looking for partners and affiliates, or any of a zillion other things you could be doing to advance your cause.

 _It is hard to argue that spending 40+ hours in a week on something other than you startup shows you are committed to your startup. You are committed to making money and then working on your startup._

First of all, I don't _need_ to "show" anybody that I'm committed to my startup. All this back and forth banter is amusing, but in the end, the only opinions that matter are those of myself and my cofounder, and the people we are selling to.

And who are you to tell somebody else what they are committed to? Fuck that... I'm committed to paying my rent, and putting food on the table, just because those are prerequisites to everything else. Beyond that, my dayjob salary is just seed funding for the startup.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Of all the things that can be called to be in a bubble, I think this one is the most ridiculous one. What does it even mean to call it a side project bubble? Is it going to burst at some point, I _really_ hope not.

Even if we agree that a lot more people are working on side projects, instead of calling it a bubble, which has negative connotation, what we should be looking at the positive side that more and more people are taking the first step and recognizing that they don't necessarily have to just keep working for an employer and are at least trying to create something of their own. The tools and technology have become more accessible, be it cloud or even 3D printing, and will become more accessible in future which will motivate even more people. The whole Maker scene is another such. People used to have different hobbies, now a lot of that energy is channeled into side projects.

We should be celebrating this, rather than call it a bubble.

</comment><comment><USER6> I disagree with most of the points.

1\. People usually start a side project because they are unhappy at work. If they are unhappy, they are unlikely already giving their best

2\. On another note, a side project often gives your a great deal of satisfaction, accomplishment, control and responsibilities that you wouldn't get in your daily job. This balances your morale and will make you perform better both at your daily job and at your side project

3\. I worked on a number of side projects in the past. Some successful, some not. But in ALL of them the learning was priceless. I didn't start side projects because I wanted to start a business and go all-in. I did start them because I wanted to learn things that spaced beyond my daily tasks at work. And it worked brilliantly.

Also, if you've a mortgage to pay and a family to maintain, you have some responsibilities that make the "go all in" move quite a big risk. And I do believe it is possible to start a business starting as a side project first - it just takes much more time and energy and, most of all, patience.

<comment><AUTHOR> I find it hard to believe that everyone starting a side project is unhappy at work, I don't think the 2 are related. If you are unhappy at work you should leave.

I am all for doing stuff on the side so as not to get bored, to learn and 50 other things but then let's not call it a startup and a business. An entrepreneur takes calibrated risks and makes things happen when others can't or won't.

<comment><USER7> I find the converse hard to believe, why would someone who is happy at work create a side project (unless they are just a tinkerer or are scratching a personal itch)?

<comment><USER8> You just listed two reasons that arguably apply to most hackers. 90% of my career I have been happy at work, but I have always had multiple side projects going on as well.

<comment><USER7> Agree, but the author's point was you shouldn't work on a side project unless it's a "real business".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I can't agree with any of this article.

>> It's a problem because side projects create a talent bubble of people who aren't fully engaged and are just doing enough at their "real" or full-time job to get by until their startup is up and running. This means their productivity suffers at their full-time job, an expense the employer ends up paying. The side project owners justify it by assuming it will only be for a short period of time.

Here's a surprising fact: almost no one is "fully engaged" at work. They're thinking about camping or football or shopping. We don't owe our employers anything but our time and productivity. At least if my coworker is working on a side project I know she's learning things that will make her better at her job.

>> And actually, we need to be honest. Not everyone is an entrepreneur. Part of being one is accepting the risk of starting your own company and taking the leap to be committed full time. It's not good for startups or for companies to have employees that are partially engaged in both and committed to neither.

Because side projects never succeed and full time startups never fail. (Dell, Craigslist, Bingo Card Creator, Twitter, and Facebook.)

>> Here's a quick tip: there are plenty of those already. If you do want to start a company, work on building a real business, not a side idea that's hoping to be the next Twitter/Facebook/Instagram combination or a better version of Basecamp.

Says the guy whose companies include another Survey Monkey and yet another credit card payment app. (Note: Chargify is a good product, but it's in a crowded market.) Plus, Basecamp is nice, but it's not ideal for all kinds of projects. I'd be very happy if somebody made a new Basecamp that did a better job with software projects.

<comment><AUTHOR> Take a look at when Chargify was started and if the market was crowded then

<comment><USER9> Paypal was already a mature product back then. Literally every major bank already offered custom-branded payment pages and an API to process credit card payments. Why would you bother to build Chargify to offer custom-branded payment pages and an API to process credit card payments?

Well, because Chargify is miles better than Paypal and banks. Maybe that guy next to me has a face-tweet-o-base idea that's miles better, too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > "It's a problem because side projects create a talent bubble of people who > aren't fully engaged and are just doing enough at their "real" or full-time > job"

I'm sorry, but where was the part in my employment contract where I was required to live and breathe work every minute of my life?

If you're an employee with no stocks or shares, then doing "just enough" of your job is exactly what you're being paid to do. Do more if you like, but going the extra mile isn't a requirement.

Also, some people enjoy working on side projects because they're _fun_ , and not because they dream of being an entrepreneur.

(Edit: formatting)

</comment><comment><USER11> I don't understand this article in the least. The idea that people shouldn't be doing things they want to do on their own time, that you'd rather say "be honest, not everyone is an entrepreneur," than let people explore their potential themselves.. the whole thing is offensive and depressing.

For a lot of my friends, side projects are the only thing keeping their passion for programming alive. You say below "If you're not happy with your job, just quit," as if it's easy for people to up and leave the position they're in. Not everyone lives in a tech hotspot and not everyone actually wants to or can just up and leave their roles. A lot of these side projects are explicitly being worked on so that they can get more up-to-speed with certain technologies with the intent to apply for something more satisfying to begin with. And if there wasn't value in side projects, companies wouldn't have any reason to "own" what you work on outside of your 9-5.

If you're not getting value from your employee because they're distracted or they don't have the faith or enthusiasm they used to, that's on you to sit them down and talk to them about it and maybe figure out a way to compromise; telling someone they can't spend time on their hobbies anymore is a petty response that doesn't look at the real issue at hand. Perhaps the problem really lies in your camp, not theirs. If you're so concerned your developers are going to up and leave to work on their own dream, you need to incentivize them more. Or, you know, get over it and realize that's business and people have other ambitions outside of your own and there's no reason that they should have to stick around to fulfill them, especially if this is the attitude you have towards the types of things that keep them motivated. If you're really concerned about not being able to create your product because your devs are going to bail to do what they ultimately want to do in their life, perhaps you should become one yourself instead of telling them how they can and cannot live their lives outside of your payroll.

</comment><comment><USER12> "This means their productivity suffers at their full-time job, an expense the employer ends up paying."

Incorrect. My side projects have made me a better developer in every way, which actually saves my employers money over the long-term. I learn new techniques, skills, and tools off-the-clock. The kind of training that used to be the responsibility of the employer is now on the employee.

<comment><USER13> Agreed. I had a side project that ended up driving adoption of several applications that had components from the project that saved the company over $100k per year in employee costs by automating things that were previously very manual.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This article is awfully preachy for just being a flimsy tower of assumptions. It sort of seems like a way to draw an arbitrary line that frames the author as a real entrepreneur frustrated by floating in a sea of posers.

<comment><USER3> _It sort of seems like a way to draw an arbitrary line that frames the author as a real entrepreneur frustrated by floating in a sea of posers._

Not just that, but the tone is downright condescending and demeaning towards "side project" people. I mean,

" _But don't shoot yourself in the foot by stringing your employer along and delaying the leap to becoming a full-time entrepreneur. The choice is yours, but too many people are making the wrong one. I hope you have what it takes to commit and become a real entrepreneur._ "

Really? C'mon man... Who died and appointed you supreme judge and arbiter of all things entrepreneurial? We need your approval to call ourselves entrepreneurs? Right... good luck with that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This really ruffles my feathers as well:

 _Unless there are real consequences for failure—until you've personally guaranteed a line of credit and tried to sell your product to an actual human being,' says Ruhe, you won't have the motivation needed to build a business that matters_ \-- Thom Ruhe, VP of Entrepreneurship at the Kauffman Foundation

Now, I don't know who Thom Ruhe is, and I don't really care. But what I know is that this armchair quarterback with his fancy title, working for some foundation somewhere, knows bloody fucking bugger-all about my motivation, or lack thereof. You want to talk to me about motivation, dude? Quit your job at the Kauffman Foundation and come work with us. We offer no pay, no benefits (not even free coffee), long hours, sleepless nights, stress beyond belief, non-stop fear of failure, and an equity stake that could make you really wealthy if we succeed. Would you be motivated to take that swap, in order to gain the satisfaction of doing your own thing, the freedom of not having a "boss" and the sense of accomplishment that goes into building something? No? Well, guess what... we are. So unless you want to take me up on my offer, don't fucking talk to me about motivation.

</comment><comment><USER15> In my experience the people who have side start ups are the ones who are twice as productive at work. Most people don't give a shit about their jobs.

<comment><USER16> I was going to write this. You beat me to it, thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm disappointed that instead of trying to educate new entrepreneurs, the OP is discouraging them. The tone is incredibly condescending.

It's like he just heard of bootstrappers, and instead of saying, "Hey that's awesome, let me tell you what I've learned," he says "You'll never be one of us real entrepreneurs. Want a job?"

</comment><comment><USER18> Side projects are a great way to improve your knowledge of a language or learn a new language. Creating a number of side projects, most of them fit under this category. Each project has furthered my knowledge of a language, framework, or best practices.

From my experience, developing a project (regardless of scale) is a better form of learning than reading about it. You get instant gratification when you see your project render/compile without error. You're learning in real time, seeing your project work, and learning from trial and error.

Having a side project doesn't imply you're trying to create a startup. What happened to just creating for fun/enjoyment? Reconstruct your sandbox and play.

</comment><comment><USER19> There are several companies that started off as side projects across an array of industries: apple, spanx, and buffer for example.

The diluted talent pool is not because of part-time entreprenuers. Based on your logic, they wouldn't leave their job anyway. It's because of over funded full-time entreprenuers.

And since you mentioned basecamp, here's what employee #1 of 37 Signals thinks of the topic: [http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1764-the-natural-evolution- fr...](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1764-the-natural-evolution-from-side- project-to-full-time-business)

<comment><USER3> _And since you mentioned basecamp, here's what employee #1 of 37 Signals thinks of the topic:[http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1764-the-natural- evolution-fr...](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1764-the-natural-evolution- from-side-project-to-full-time-business*)

I could not agree more fully with this. This bit here really sums it all up in my opinion:

_But the idea that you need to quit your job to do it right is misguided. If you quit your job, you shift everything. You don't gain time, you lose it. You put a shot clock on your business. You box yourself into a position where you have to profit immediately or the whole thing goes under. You've got to make it work now or give up forever.*

 _Hanging on to your day job gives you a longer period of time to build your idea. It lets you give a sustained effort over time. There's no get rich quick option. You build it slowly, one day at a time._

 _Yes, you need to find time to do both your side business and your normal gig. But there's always enough time if you spend it right. Instead of watching TV or playing Grand Theft Auto, work on your idea. Instead of going to bed at 10, go to bed at 11._

That's exactly it... at Fogbeam Labs we're not trying to get rich quickly, but as long as the founders have dayjobs and we keep our burn rate low, we have - essentially - an indefinitely long runway. This gives us more time to experiment, learn, and iterate, without having to panic in fear of having to shut the whole thing down, if the first few experiments don't go the way we expected.

I keep thinking about what pg said in the "How not to die" essay:

<http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html>

 _If you can just avoid dying, you get rich. That sounds like a joke, but it's actually a pretty good description of what happens in a typical startup. It certainly describes what happened in Viaweb. We avoided dying till we got rich._

and

 _When startups die, the official cause of death is always either running out of money or a critical founder bailing. Often the two occur simultaneously. But I think the underlying cause is usually that they've become demoralized. You rarely hear of a startup that's working around the clock doing deals and pumping out new features, and dies because they can't pay their bills and their ISP unplugs their server._

That's our mindset... as long as we can keep going, we will eventually "break through" and make it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The article didn't make it clear how a side-project is any different than other of life's projects and distractions: family, sports, that home remodeling project.

If an employee's productivity at their day job is not acceptable, then hopefully the employee no longer has a job there.

</comment><comment><USER21> This article is a little bit one sided. So what if most side projects never succeed? You can always learn a lot by attempting to do a large scale project yourself. Most real-life projects are large scale legacy projects that you are simply thrown into. Most likely you don't even care about them nor you can make any sort of decisions.

By doing side projects you are being creative. You learn new stuff. You actually care about your project. You also have to do everything yourself, including planning. Where else would you get such experience?

And the net result is that you learn new stuff in your side projects, something your employer gets for free. Your passion will pay off, eventually. It is nearsighted to assume that just because you "waste" time on side projects you are hurting you employer.

You hurt them more by simply not caring enough about the technology nor the project.

</comment><comment><USER22> I agree with the article to some extent, however I do feel like a lot of people find if they don't have something to tinker with on the side get incredibly bored. I know I like many others need variety in the types of stimuli I find in my work/development/entrepreneurial pursuits and I think this is perfectly healthy.

Once you start stringing along your employer, just pushing buttons and not giving them some of your best work hours - then yes I agree it is frustrating, but I don't believe this is the case with the majority of engineers/others who work on side projects. Surely people doing this are the minority and can receive stern talks and/or let go if they are really not worth their salary?

<comment><USER3> _Once you start stringing along your employer, just pushing buttons and not giving them some of your best work hours - then yes I agree it is frustrating, but I don't believe this is the case with the majority of engineers/others who work on side projects._

Oh, that definitely happens. I've been there. What I question is whether or not it's a big deal, like the author of TFA seems to think. He seems to have some pretty weird ideas about things. Like, the idea that you're not committed to your startup if you aren't working on it full-time? WTF? How does that even start to make sense? Are you not committed to your wife if you don't spend 24 hours a day, 7 day a week with her? Are you not committed to your kids if you leave them for a few hours a day to go to work? Sheesh... commitment and time allocation are not the same thing!

And as for the effect on the present dayjob employer... who cares? As you say "(they) can receive stern talks and/or let go if they are really not worth their salary?" Yes, exactly. I've been there before. And you know what? It was a shittily run company, pumping out a shitty product, none of the other engineers were even slightly engaged or interested in what we were doing, and every single one of us was just punching the clock and collecting our paychecks. That I was working on a startup on the side is what kept me sane through all that. I don't feel even a pinch guilty that I reserved most of my mental and creative energy for the startup during that time. I did what they paid me to do, and if they had wanted more, they had the option to attempt to find a way to tap into the energy and drive I'm able to channel into something that actually matters. But they never took any initiative to try and connect with or understand their employees, so "tough shit" as far as I'm concerned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> With all this talk about bubbles I'm starting to think there is a bubble bubble :P

</comment><comment><USER24> Your blog post is really lousy overall. I can't believe you thought it would be a good idea to not only vent your thoughts on your personal blog, but then share that post on this forum, which is filled with the very people you critique. Your arguments are flat out wrong for claiming that side projects are a "problem". Besides the lousy points offered, the article came off as whiny. I suspect that the people you work with would be embarrassed to read it. I would be.

Other people have already made great comments here. I just wanted to point out that side projects are how people learn new things and new technologies. Most side projects are never finished, nor do they make it to market. However, the process of working on the project was in itself beneficial as a learning tool. New technologies and new techniques get explored and tested, all during off hours. And guess who benefits from that?

Employers could consider these options ... \- hire people that find the day time work to be interesting enough (i.e. don't hire superstars thinking they will bring sparkle to boring work) \- provide good incentives to keep people focused on their day job \- openly support side projects, people will respect that and give back to you (don't make people stress about working on a side project) \- get involved with side projects and offer whatever you can to help \- partner with people in their ventures, their idea may be better than yours \- directly sponsor internal side projects that people can work on and vent their need to create/explore etc.

</comment><comment><USER25> When this bubble bursts, namecheap.com is going to lose out on all sorts of $10.99 renewals in 2 years. It's gonna get ugly.

</comment><comment><USER26> One of my favorite interview questions for developer candidates is, "tell me about your side projects" because I know that the people who really love software development are doing something on the side. Side projects, whether intended to be "the next big thing" or not, are extremely valuable for developers and employers.

</comment><comment><USER27> _The worst part is that a lot of the side projects end up being another attempt at the next social network or a new project management app. Here's a quick tip: there are plenty of those already. If you do want to start a company, work on building a real business, not a side idea that's hoping to be the next Twitter/Facebook/Instagram combination or a better version of Basecamp._

This is true of full-fledged, VC-backed, "startups". (The author seems to delineate between "startups" and side-projects as if the latter weren't real - by this logic, PlanScope and Bingo Card Creator aren't real projects)

</comment><comment><USER28> It is perfectly valid and beneficial to have side projects.

First, it lets you experiment with new technologies and frameworks outside of your regular duties. (This can pay dividends to the employer)

Second, it can keep you from code burn out by giving you a creative release. (Also a benefit to the employer)

Third, it gives you freedom to experiment with smaller projects that might not be enough to support a person but create value for someone none-the-less.

Finally, one of those side projects might get traction and create a sustainable business.

Not everyone has the freedom to throw caution into the wind. And oftentimes, even if they do, it is not the best move.

</comment><comment><USER29> If there is a start up bubble wouldn't that insinuate it's going to burst at some time? What would the burst consist of? The mass realization that I shouldn't do side projects anymore? I agree with the premise of the article, a side project can distract from 9-5 work, but there is no "bubble"

</comment><comment><USER30> Jeez... the word 'bubble' seems to be thrown around every other day now.

</comment><comment><USER31> Reading through these comments, I think most people either a) missed the point or b) are angry because he touched a nerve.

Here's my take on it, if you are "working on a side project" + "calling it a hobby" there's no problem with that. If however, you are "working on a side project" + "calling it your start up" there's a good chance you are deluding yourself. Sure... some of you will succeed but less than 1% of you will.

If you want to succeed you need to be fully engaged, you need to be focused and it even helps if there's a strong incentive to succeed like running out of money and being homeless. If you have the comfort and safety of job income, there's a good chance you will slack off because you have "time", you are exhausted from a stressful day at work, your job is running you down so much that you need to relax, you need to buy something to cheer yourself up etc. Also you run the risk that your side project has gotten boring and you want to chase the new "hotness". Of course some of you will feel hip and cool claiming that you are pivoting.

How do I know this? I tried working on side (business) projects as an employee for over 10 years, it just doesn't work. I'm 6 months into developing my product full time, I'm about halfway done. If I had attempted to do this as an employee it would have taken 6 years. That's if I could even stay focused and motivated that long making such slow progress. I know for me that I would have just given up.

As for a bubble, it is a bubble because people are talking about their hobby side projects as if they are legitimate businesses that will take off "some day". A couple will, most will not. The froth is from all the people who will never be anything but an employee getting lots of mileage and good vibes from talking about their supposed business. So much so that they will work even less on the "business" because they have already gotten the positive boost they were looking for and can continue scraping along in their job. This is bad because these people will never push themselves in a way that will actually let them be successful and leave the job that they hate; they are too afraid of quitting because they can't stand the thought of not having a comfortable income.

Want to make it happen, then do what I did. Quit your job, you will find ways to make money. I picked up a side consulting gig where I made 3 times the money I would have ever made in a "job". This opportunity never, ever would have occurred if I was an employee. My desire not to work allowed me to state a very high rate that they accepted, as an employee I would have been so grateful to get side work I would have worked for much less. I saved enough money to live on for 2 years and quit the consulting gig.

Next pay off everything, student loan, credit cards, car loan. Sell most of what you have and rent a room in a house, cut your expenses down to the bone. Get rid of your TV and other distractions. Live, eat and breathe your start- up, when you need a break go for walks, bike rides and go see your friends.

Any of you stuck with a house? I am too, however I moved out and have been renting it out for the past 6 years. It actually makes money, it's an expensive house so I haven't had any problems with renters they always pay.

If you really believe in your start-up you will go all in, you will not play it safe. Otherwise you are just like everyone else, a dreamer that is not really going to accomplish much outside what you do for your employer.</comment>


Y Combinator-Backed Crowdtilt Launches To Become The "Kickstarter For Any Group" - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/10/y-combinator-backed-crowdtilt-launches-to-become-the-kickstarter-for-any-group/ <comment><USER2> There was a 500 startups group (I believe from their last demo day) called PayByGroup that is also doing group payments such as this. It seemed to me that the most promising application of such a feature is as a button on existing sites, not as a stand alone site/app.

The example PayByGroup mentioned in their pitch was having a 'Pay By Group' type button on AirBnB for crowdfunding a trip. That seems to be the easier route to mass adoption than trying to create a new destination in my opinion.</comment>


Pencil and Paper Games - <AUTHOR> http://www.papg.com <comment><USER3> Pen and paper games were quite widespread among Soviet/Russian math olympiad participiants, and sadly these games are practically unknown outside of these circles. Tochki (dots) is probably the most well known, and it even has a Wikipedia article. Klopy (bedbugs) is a much more advanced game, but it's very obscure. The rules were passed orally and probably not written anywhere. It's a multiplayer game, usually for 4 players, which start in each corner of a sheet of squared paper, which is the base (represented by completely filled square). At each turn a player can put a fixed number of "bugs" (represented by X crosses) which can be placed next to a base or your own bug. Instead of placing a bug, you can turn a neighboring enemy bug into your base. I probably don't remember all the rules right now, but that's the gist of it. The games with many players are extremely fun and involve a lot of strategy and diplomacy.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dots_(game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dots_\(game\))

EDIT: I found the Russian wikipedia article for the second game (I was searching for the wrong name): [https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%BF%D0%BE...](https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%BA%D0%B0) . Looks like I forgot the rule that each base must be "activated" (have at least a single bug next to it) to produce new bugs.

<comment><USER4> I have some fond memories of playing a few graph-paper based games in my childhood (Hungary).

One was an open map version of tic tac toe, where the goal was to get 5 of your symbol in a line. This game was called "amoeba", and if you won, you got to draw an outline around the board so far (which tended to look like an amoeba).

Another one was a kind of racing game. You'd draw the boundaries racing track on graph paper, where the race track would be several blocks wide at all points. Players would start near each other at the starting line, and get to update their velocity by one in both the x and y axes, so effectively you carried a lot of momentum. If you went out of the allowed area, you lost. So, the game revolved around being able to judge the maximum speed / momentum that would still allow you to take the corner.

Later on, I lived in other countries, and never ran into so many of these pen and graph paper games. No idea why.

<comment><USER5> I implemented the vector racing game as a Flash game many years ago

[http://www.kongregate.com/games/GeometricGames/vector- race](http://www.kongregate.com/games/GeometricGames/vector-race)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not very intellectual or mathy but my friends and I used to play this "paper arcade game" back in elementary school after Star Wars came out. We'd draw figures and then take turns sliding the pencil to move or shoot.

[https://imgur.com/sJMwze9](https://imgur.com/sJMwze9)

It started out as "UFOs" (circles with a line through them) and mutated into X-Wings v TIE Fighters. Soon we were drawing asteroid fields, opposing planets with gun emplacements, etc, etc. Wish I could go back and look at some of those old drawings.

<comment><USER7> We had something very similar only it morphed into an explosion of other games such as one where a person drew an obstacle course and a range of items the second player could use once or another game involved drawing a range of soldiers (which shot using pencils) and tanks (which shot using thick markers) which could be moved using a dot system (i.e. you had to draw a 1 cm line, draw a dot, for a single step) with tanks being allowed to move 1 move, soldiers 2 moves, ninjas 3 moves, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Often if I'm with a friend at a coffee shop for an extended period of time, we'll play the drawing game. Its simple; each person draws a line on their own pad of paper, then the other person needs to make a picture.

You could incorporate a theme, but themes tend to occur naturally.

Especially with the suffocation that comes with technology, simple pen and paper games are breath of fresh air.

<comment><USER9> I played a variant of this which was quite fun for 3+ if a little more complicated...

An animal/mineral/vegetable is written on a card for every player but one who gets a blank card. For a couple of rounds you each draw a line before finally voting on who you think doesn't know what you're drawing. The main group is trying to demonstrate to everyone else that they know what the item is (and so drawings become very abstract) without making it obvious to the hidden traitor.

I think the introducer mentioned it was being commercialised...?

<comment><USER10> This game has been sold for a few years as "A fake artist goes to New York" (though it seems like the sort of thing that other companies could easily start selling too, so I'm not sure if that's the only one).

<comment><USER9> So it is! Thank you!

board game geek suggests there's at least one reimplementation: "Sunken Sailor"

[https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/135779/fake-artist- goes-...](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/135779/fake-artist-goes-new- york) [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/233994/sunken- sailor](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/233994/sunken-sailor)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> We often play an Exquisite Corpse-style game we call simply "Words and pictures." Each person writes a sentence, then passes the paper to the right. The next person tries to draw the sentence in an understandable way, and folds over the original sentence, and passes it again. The sentence keeps being translated between words and pictures, and is often hilarious. No real drawing skills required.

Because I grew up with Oxford academics, my family growing up would also play the same thing but switching between English and Latin. Those who knew Latin would try to translate accurately, but us kids would write stuff that sounded more like bad Harry Potter spells, which the adults would have to make sense of.

<comment><USER12> My friends called it "Pictionary Telephone". We played it a lot, but not with Latin. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> One that I've played a bit in the last few years (IIRC it's discussed in _Winning Ways for your Mathematical Plays_ ) is to draw an RxC grid (4x5 works well for a short game). Two players take turns placing 1x2 dominoes on two adjacent grid squares, one player horizontally and the other vertically. The winner is the last person to successfully place a domino.

<comment><USER14> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domineering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domineering) and yes, it is in _Winning Ways for your Mathematical Plays_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This brings back so many memories of hours in the afternoons, classrooms and roadtrips. It's nice to be reminded how we kept ourselves busy before smartphones and tablets...

<comment><USER16> Sometimes, I'll still play the games they are calling _Dots and Boxes_. I frequently have a pad of graph paper with me and will even encourage strangers* to play with me.

Sometimes the missus and I will play a few matches. Though they are adults, I'll sometimes get my kids to play it with me, when they visit.

You can even play it with more than two people. When you do it with three other people, on a whole sheet of graph paper, it starts to make for some interesting commentary and labored attempts at stategy.

If you want to change it up a little, you can play with three other people and play as partners. I imagine you could do that with six or eight people, but I've never tried it.

Anyhow, just because we have newer devices and ways to entertain ourselves doesn't mean we can't enjoy the simpler things from our youth. Sometimes, I even read dead tree books. The old stuff is still fun.

* Where I retired, I don't have much in the way of strangers. We usually go out to brunch on Sundays and I'll frequently purloin someone's child, stuff them with ice cream, and play a game of this, or some rounds of Tic-Tac-Toe, or hangman. It is one of the perks of living in a very rural area.

<comment><USER17> I still have some of my graph paper sheets from uni lectures with _Dots and Boxes_ on (to be honest, I kept them over some of my old notes...). Those memories were brilliant, stealing a few seconds across a row at a lecture theatre to play was one of the things I actually look back fondly of the time.

<comment><USER16> Username checks out!

I really do recommend people take a break and go do some of those things they did as children. Go skip rocks, play tic tac toe for hours, and climb a tree.

It helps ground me, and who doesn't like catching frogs? All those sort of things make for a great day moment without needing to be in a rush, connected, or obligated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've enjoyed the Beyond series from Sid Sackson in the past.

Beyond Tic Tac Toe ( [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3937/games- art](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3937/games-art) )

Beyond competition ( [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3928/beyond- competition](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3928/beyond-competition) )

Beyond solitaire ( [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3940/beyond- solitaire](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3940/beyond-solitaire) )

<comment><USER19> Hex and Y are also pencil-and-paper games, although the paper usually needs to be some kind of pre-printed board. Mudcrack Y especially.

Sid Sackson's Games of Art collects a number of these. [https://www.eaglegames.net/product-p/101319.htm](https://www.eaglegames.net/product-p/101319.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> nice, didn't know so many variations are there, especially the ones based on noughts and crosses.. and some of them can be played from the site itself, very nice..

there is also MetaSquares ([http://www.scottkim.com.previewc40.carrierzone.com/squares/i...](http://www.scottkim.com.previewc40.carrierzone.com/squares/index.html))

I have made one too - <USER2> TicTacToe([https://github.com/learnbyexample/squaretictactoe](https://github.com/learnbyexample/squaretictactoe))

</comment><comment><USER21> Great collection! it should also have Hangman [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangman_(game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangman_\(game\))

</comment><comment><USER22> Lovely reminder. Though nowadays I mostly think that these are also a great coding challenges.

</comment><comment><USER23> I remember playing Paper Tetris with a friend at uni about 11 years ago now. I made a single player version in Flash at the time. I was quite proud of the algorithm to determine if a piece can be drawn in place as it's a bit different than normal Tetris rules.

Here it is: [http://speps.github.io/papertetris/](http://speps.github.io/papertetris/) (Flash player required, lost source code)

<comment><USER19> How does one play paper tetris? Most of the links I'm turning up use cut-out tretraminos or origami boxes. Is it like Blokus Duo?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> There are many traditional board games that can be played with pencil and paper as well. See the following list compiled by the board game geeks:

[https://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/74684/non-obvious- pap...](https://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/74684/non-obvious-paper-and- pencil-board-games)

</comment><comment><USER25> I've seen some interesting rules-based design games that are more process- based art than games. One of the co-creators of Paper JS [[http://paperjs.org/](http://paperjs.org/)] is a member of this group of artists.

Some are based on 3-4 participants [https://www.conditionaldesign.org/](https://www.conditionaldesign.org/)

Some work with an arbitrary number of participants, e.g. visitors adhering stickers to art gallery walls and floor (see "red fungus"): [https://web.archive.org/web/20100829051147/http://poly- luna....](https://web.archive.org/web/20100829051147/http://poly-luna.com/red- fungus)

</comment><comment><USER26> I'm happy that Race Track is there (in Other)! It's like a super minimalistic version of Car Wars, but still very fun. You get the same realization of "Oh shit, I'm going too faaast!" when you're about to lose control.

<comment><USER3> I also remember playing this! We also had an alternate version where you place your pen vertically at some point and then push down on it so that it slides in the desired direction. The end of the resulting ink trail is where you start your next turn. Of course it's quite possible to crash into a wall if you're not careful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> My favourite is to play Go: Draw a grid. Player 1 is /, player 2 is \\. A cross is an empty square (and you note the prisoner on the side). A cross with two /'s is player 1 again, etc.

<comment><USER28> Havannah [1] is somewhat go-like and is perfect as a pencil and paper game, as stones are never removed. I've been playing on photocopied hex grids for years.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Not really pencil and paper, but when I was a kid I remember using the pencil itself as a die: shave off the ends of a hexagonal pencil (or just etch in to the wood).

No skill involved, but I spent a zillion hours playing "cricket" by writing "dot ball, 1, 2, 4, 6, out" on the edges. Then you spin the pencil in your hand without looking and slide your thumb up the edge. Whatever you landed on was the score and you marked it down on a score sheet.

As a bonus you could easily disguise the action as fidgeting - so you could play during class.

</comment><comment><USER30> [http://www.ghoulash.com/the-games.html](http://www.ghoulash.com/the- games.html)

The best pencil and paper game ever

</comment><comment><USER31> "Heads Bodies & Legs" is great fun, especially if the other person is similarly puerile.

One that I don't see - or maybe I don't know what I'm looking for - is "Fish, Fruit, Flower"[0], which we used to play as a family when I was young.

[0] [http://www.lingolex.com/alfgame.html](http://www.lingolex.com/alfgame.html)

<comment><USER32> A variant of that game that I've played a lot is to write a sentence, then next person draws that sentence in pictures and folds (hides) the sentence part, next person needs to verbalize the picture again and fold the previous part etc. Often the end result is hilarious.

<comment><USER33> Another name for the drawing version of this sort of activity is an Exquisite Corpse[0]

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I really like the academic citations where applicable. Mad props for that.

</comment><comment><USER35> ah, Dots and Boxes!

As a child, I played this game quite often with my babysitter - an older woman who for close to a decade was essentially a third grandmother.

Our paths cross every five or ten years when I'm visiting back home - she's in her 90s now - and we _still_ fondly remember playing this game together.

I encourage everyone play these games with their children - there's something about the interaction of the players that creates warm, lasting memories for everyone involved.

<comment><USER24> Not just for children! For some serious treatment, see:

The Dots and Boxes Game: Sophisticated Child's Play by Elwyn R. Berlekamp [1].

[1]. [https://www.amazon.com/Dots-Boxes-Game-Sophisticated- Childs/...](https://www.amazon.com/Dots-Boxes-Game-Sophisticated- Childs/dp/1568811292/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1507759803&sr=8-8&keywords=dots+and+boxes+book)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> How about sprouts? I was introduced to it in Piers Anthony's Macroscope...

<comment><USER37> What about it? It's the first example on the page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I'm sad it doesn't have the best pencil and paper game, where mostly you write something down in secret and say "done": Escape From The Aliens In Outer Space [http://www.eftaios.com/](http://www.eftaios.com/)

<comment><USER39> That looks kind of card-intensive. Is there a version more amenable to playing with pencil and blank paper in the back of a bus?

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> awesome! I enjoyed playing it :)</comment>


Real Time Multiplayer in HTML5 - <AUTHOR> http://buildnewgames.com/real-time-multiplayer/ <comment><USER2> 3D gaming in the browser is coming. Interestingly, while in the past people like John Carmack had to get around the limitations of the hardware, in the browser we'll be working around the limitations of the software layers between the game (presumably written in Javascript, using WebGL) and the hardware.

Anyways, I think this is a super interesting line of research and development, I wish I would not be tied up doing other stuff for the next 12 months. I'd love to just take the Quake 1 engine and (try to) implement it in Javascript with WebGL and see what happens. I estimate that's the level of graphics that's ambitiously doable in the browser in 1-2 years, by the time something like this would ship.

EDIT: As helpful commenters point out below, Quake 3 seems doable.

Also see yesterday's post on this topic:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4258670>

<comment><USER3> Maro, try this link : <http://centrc.com:4005/> It is a proof of concept I did in one evening for the next part of the discussion. It uses Three.js to render the stuff.

:)

<comment><USER2> It says: "The Facility. Play online. Sandbox." Can't get past that (Enter, ESC, click). FF14 on Win7.

<comment><USER3> Did you try clicking Sandbox? Thats the only option in that demo atm... but it might only work in chrome as it was a one night test :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> God technology moves so fast. I'd be stupid not to learn this stuff. It could be life changing!

The question remains; When do I have the time to learn this stuff? I was thinking about this for a while. Besides working/planning/coding on my own project, I feel like I don't have much time for this.

I think I'm going about this all wrong though. I should divi up my week into departments. That is, have a few hacking days, a planning day, a maintenance day and a R&D day.

Having one day a week to study new techniques doesn't sound like much, but at least it gets the juices flowing. Its all about balance.

<comment><USER5> Look ... guys ... this is NOT TECH, unless you classify hooking up a sewage pipe at the RV Park as tech too.

This is just another example of fighting through a gross kludgey mess to do something relatively trivial that we already knew how to do, much more robustly and performantly, in other systems.

Any time you see an article titled "X in HTML5" you know you are about to ride the short bus. I recommend learning some computer science.

See also Alan Kay's comments about the Web vs the Internet, recently linked on HN...

<comment><USER4> Are you trying to say that the utilization of existing technologies and concept to create or solve other technological problems (e.g. innovations) not technology or in the field of technology?

Does that mean that my Android phone is not a part of technology since, well, a phone existed long before a mobile phone was made? The GUI OS was "perfected" decades ago. So, the Android OS isn't part of the technology club either? What about using the internet on said device? I gather that it was/is very trivial to just hook up a phone and an OS and the internet and whatever other components of these mobile devices does not constitute it as technology because it should have been straight forward to just hook these things up together.

Basically all Computer Science really is is a collections of 0s and 1s thrown together to make things happen. I guess our minds and imaginations just doesn't compare to a room full of monkeys randomly typing 0s and 1s on a typewriter and having it go through a compiler. I'm sure they'll launch astronauts to the moon fairly soon.

Wikipedia defines technology as "...the making, modification, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems, methods of organization, in order to solve a problem, improve a preexisting solution to a problem, achieve a goal or perform a specific function."

But, who knows, Wikipedia isn't always accurate, right?

As for you statement, I guess I'll just deal with riding the short bus. This bus has a lot of fascinating things that are just simply mind-blowing to me. Yes, a lot of concepts existed before. Perhaps even better than what's presented in the blog. But the fact that someone did think of a really cool/elegant way to solve this "gross kludgely mess" and present to us for free is alright by me. I love this type of stuff, no matter how trivial it is. Its really a celebration of the human mind and spirit that we can overcome faults in existing problems. _shrugs_

<comment><USER5> Is hooking up your toilet considered technology? This kind of plumbing used to be super-high-tech at one time in human history. I think you would find few people who think of it that way now, though.

Hey, make your own choice about what you want to do with your life and what you want to consider cool.

<comment><USER6> I have written programs using native OpenGL/DirectX that are over a decade old. You are completely correct in that the technology is not new, in fact it is far inferior. However, the one thing to get excited over (and the only reason I even consider doing this type of development) is the accessibility of the finished product. It is far easier to get people to try out your product, game, whatever when all they have to do is visit a web page.

In addition, the "connected" nature of the web, real time communications aspect of it is exciting. Sure this could be done in C, but the _cost_ of doing it in this type of environment is far less.

So while on a technical level it is not impressive, I wouldn't dismiss it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I got 1/3 of the way into the article and said to myself, gosh this sounds just like Valve's Source Multiplayer writeup they did many years ago. Sure enough! The author mentions 1/2 way the work is based off of it.

<comment><USER3> Yea, their approach is one of many, I found it simplest to try and explain in a shortish article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Article Author here \o Glad Etienne posted here, for some reason I couldn't find my login for HN.

</comment><comment><USER8> Socket.io works well, we put together this demo where an iPhone is used as a controller for a browser game <http://www.webdigi.co.uk/fun/space>

<comment><USER9> Dead-simple, too. I only have moderate experience with web applications and I found socket.io extremely approachable.

<comment><USER3> Agreed, i really was blown away the first time I wrote something simple and it just worked... On my phones, my pc and my friends browsers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is the exact formula we are using for the rewrite of our poker game (<http://pokerrpg.com>). We are still beta testing the new poker tables, but so far they are running incredibly smoothly using no plugins, just vanilla Javascript, Node.js, and MongoDB. Glad to see these getting pushed more for games!

</comment><comment><USER11> If anyone is interested in a live example of a MMORPG built in HTML5, this was a project of mine at my last job: <http://play.parallelkingdom.com/>

It uses the Cometd javascript and java libraries. In my opinion, you can get very "real-time" feeling games on the web with these technologies.

</comment><comment><USER12> I been using the same technique for the hobby multiplayer game (<http://softpoetry.com/projects/burgers/>) I've been working on. Got it running using the same stack on iOS/Android and PCs, so it's a good thing to note that it's not just for web browsers.

<comment><USER3> Yes good point, the first prototype of an older game ran on mac/windows/linux/android/iOS and browser using impact.js, phonegap, titanium etc. All the usual stuff still obviously works too :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Looks like this is already happening: <http://www.webgl.com/2012/06/webgl- game-cloud-party/>

</comment><comment><USER14> Open web standards, but as far as I can tell, no RSS feed!

(Also, I know it's a Microsoft-funded thing, but the animation in the background of the main page runs very poorly on Firefox.)

<comment><USER15> _Open web standards, but as far as I can tell, no RSS feed!_

Looking at the source, reveals:

        <link href="/atom.xml" rel="alternate"
         title="Build New Games" type="application/atom+xml">

With any decent RSS reader you should be able to plug in the blog post URL and let it auto-discover: <http://www.rssboard.org/rss-autodiscovery/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> someone needs to implement Bolo in html5

<comment><USER17> <https://github.com/stephank/orona/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Wish we had read this last November when we started! We're using Pusher for the connections instead of Node.js. Working on switching now.

One thing we've done you didn't mention was using Redis for the game state, instead of writing to the HD most things are handled in RAM. We run the risk of losing the last ~five seconds of data on all running games if the server goes down or something but that's a small price to pay for being able to process most game actions faster than the eye can perceive them.

Our game: real time multiplayer HTML5 version of Risk <http://warsocial.com>

<comment><USER3> The game is looking pretty cool! Hopefully the article/demo helps out in some way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I just realized I physically can't read this post, the pink background hurts my brain. I'll try to find a browser add-on to mitigate that disaster.

<comment><USER20> Or paste this into your address bar: javascript:void(document.getElementsByTagName("html")[0].style.background='#FFF');</comment></comment>


iOS Devs: Let's stop making our users type "gmail.com" - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/hoteltonight/HTAutocompleteTextField

<comment><USER2> A diamond! This shouldn't be limited to iOS though, take it to the web and Android.</comment>


Uber's No-Holds-Barred Expansion Strategy Fizzles in Germany - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/04/technology/ubers-no-holds-barred-expansion-strategy-fizzles-in-germany.html?ref=world <comment><USER2> Previous discussion on HN here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10830365](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10830365)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm surprised this hasn't happened in more places. Perhaps it will.

While the cap on the number of taxis in the city at 1700 does seem ridiculous and I'm not sure about the need for much in the way of qualifications in the age of ubiquitous GPS devices, regulated insurance and health requirements are not unreasonable.

But personally I just don't see the need for Uber - why do I need a global taxi-megacorp running the show in my town and taking 20%?

We already have several cab services that have apps (complete with map-based tracking) and allow credit-card payment. Plus they all comply with the various city rules and regs about carrying passengers, fare transparency etc.

<comment><USER4> Right now Uber is beneficial because it brings competition in a sector that used to have none. There's a huge difference in term of service in cities that have Uber and cities that do not. Taxi service in cities without competition is awful

Just as an example, when coming back by train late at night I along with 4 other passengers waited at the taxi stand from the train station for 40 minutes to get a taxi (and that is despite having called the central before to confirm that there would be taxies). And when the first taxi finally arrived, he refused to allow us to share a taxi to go to different destinations, which meant more waiting. It's just anecdote, but it's something that's happened quite often to me and my friends and it's why we're happy that Uber comes to finally bring some competition.

Of course, if Uber got the monopole on taxi service, I'm under no illusion that they would be benevolent, any monopolistic situation is detrimental to service and prices. I believe though that the barrier of entry to compete against Uber in the future would be much lower than competing against the current taxi lobbies so I don't think Uber would ever get enough shares of the market to be a monopole (based on the money they are losing by subsidizing fares in China and India, I think that owning a big share of the market and being in a monopolistic position is there plan, I believe it's doomed to fail though).

<comment><USER5> > Right now Uber is beneficial because it brings competition in a sector that > used to have none.

I'd welcome competition if it was fair, but predatory pricing by subsidizing fares to unsustainable rates (using their unicorn valuation money) and shitty treatment of drivers - no thanks. Add to that the usual tax evasion schemes of multinational corporations that Uber surely employs.

I have an excellent taxi service in my home town, albeit a bit expensive. I'll stick to using it. Same goes for many places I've visited (e.g. Berlin, Stockholm).

Uber itself isn't illegal here, but the drivers are required to have a taxi license. Non-compliant drivers have been fined by the police.

There are places where taxi regulation is more of a racket than actual regulation (I think Paris, France would fit the bill) and that probably should be challenged by some means.

<comment><USER4> Based on the prices they have in Europe, I'm not sure how predatory their prices are (I know that they operate at a loss in China and India). In term of treatment of drivers, there's also been a lot of issues before in countries with Taxi companies owning the medaillon and not treating the drivers well either.

From my experience talking to Uber drivers in Paris and Lisbon, they're often employed by a separate company that hires them and provide them with a car (That's uberX, not uberPop though since uberPop is illegal in both of those countries). The few drivers I met who were independent were quite happy with the opportunity they had.

In the end, the problem is that in quite a few countries, Taxis are a regulated business with rules that have been created not for the benefits of the customers but instead to guarantee the benefits and monopoly of the existing taxi owners. And Uber (and other companies that are sure to follow in it's wake if the barrier of entry are lowered) helps counter that.

<comment><USER5> There is good taxi regulation and there's bad taxi regulation, depends on which countries we're talking about.

That is why the discussion is so polarized and your opinions are opposite to mine.

I'm not sure what the situation is where you're from, but here Uber can't provide any advantages over the local taxi service apart from price (at the drivers' expense) and supply at some peak hours.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Frankly, I don't see any appeal for Uber in Europe - here most Taxis can be called/booked online and dispatch a car to wherever you are within 5 minutes. I understand in the US this is difficult and is the main appeal of Uber. Here in Europe - well, we had this for around 15 years already, what's the point?

<comment><USER7> It's an incredibly small niche, but for someone from the US traveling to Europe for business, Uber (and similar apps) are useful to remove the need for cash (i.e., use credit cards -- particularly corporate Amex) in booking a ride.

I've used this in Paris and Munich in the last year.

<comment><USER8> > useful to remove the need for cash (i.e., use credit cards -- particularly > corporate Amex) in booking a ride.

> I've used this in Paris and Munich in the last year.

Did you manage in Munich without cash at all? My expectation would have been that you needed cash regardless to pay for (most) small things (coffee, bakeries etc. etc.). Credit or even debit card use is not very widespread, essentially the only time I use mine is at ATMs and to pay online for services that don't support direct debit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I never used Uber in Munich. It never really came up for me, mostly because of the excellent public transportation network.

Because of the traffic, whenever possible I use the metro or the tram, busses if I have to.

The few times I need a car, I just grab one from a carsharing service.

<comment><USER10> For locals, absolutely agreed. However, for travelers, consider the relative ease of public transportation versus an Uber or similar, especially if you don't speak the native language. Public transportation systems can still potentially work if you've learned the system, have a guide, or have clear instructions and don't get lost. Without any of those, I personally find it a lot easier to take an Uber where you want to go than to work out how a local public transportation system works that I probably won't use again for years.

At conferences where the organizers provide extremely clear directions for taking public transportation from the airport to the conference venue and back, I've used it. At any other conference, I generally take an Uber, unless the local city does the obnoxious thing and bans them from picking up at the airport.

If some other service existed that worked consistently in every city, I'd try it.

<comment><USER2> I went a few weeks ago for the first time in my life to Hamburg.

And I managed to figure out their transit system well enough to know how to get from where to where. There are plans, it's simple.

And especially the price difference – 6$ a day with transit, or 20$ for a dozen kilometers with taxi – is definitely worth it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > Uber has also asked the European Commission, the executive arm of the > European Union, to intervene, and an official European investigation into > Germany's ban on UberPop — along with similar rulings in France and Spain — > is expected to be completed sometime this year.

Will be interesting to see how this goes. Uber makes heavy use of lobbyists in the US [1]. Would the same work with the EU?

[1] [http://uk.businessinsider.com/uber-has-a-huge-group-of- lobby...](http://uk.businessinsider.com/uber-has-a-huge-group-of-lobbyists-to- help-it-take-over-the-world-2014-12)

<comment><USER12> Let's hope not. Though if n=1 observation of how the local startup community in my city jumped forward to genuflect in front of Uber (and they have connections) means anything, I wouldn't be surprised. There are a lot of people who don't know or don't care about Uber's evil side.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> You are also free to negociate your own fare. The Taxi to the airport costs 40€ at my place, but I get it for 25 by my local taxi driver, night and day. Uber was more expensive the single time I could legally use it.

</comment><comment><USER14> There are better taxi apps, and ride sharing platforms in Germany too. Something the article willfully neglected to mention.</comment>


Aligning your Git logs - <AUTHOR> http://pyrtsa.posterous.com/aligning-your-git-logs

<comment><USER2> I would recommend tig for this sort of thing: <http://jonas.nitro.dk/tig/> In fact, I can't recommend it highly enough. It's typically just as necessary as git on any machine I'm working on.

</comment><comment><USER3> For those as confused as I was, the code is silently swallowed if you have JavaScript turned off.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, good to hear. It's how Posterous implements the embedding of Github Gists that probably is to blame here.

I'm still thinking whether to switch my blog to another platform, maybe even an own server, as that's not the only problem I've had trying to embed source code examples to my posts.

Much of it boils down to the use of the Tiny MCE editor, that I'm a bit surprised Posterous is enforcing everybody to use!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you're on a Mac, you'll need to install gawk (at least I did on 10.7).

Probably the easiest way to do this is with homebrew[1]:

        brew install gawk

[1] If you don't know about homebrew, check out <https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew>. It's a package manager for Mac.

</comment><comment><USER5> I usually want to pass arguments to git log, not to less. This is not possible with the default piped alias. This is remedied by wrapping it in a function, and pasting the arguments explicitly to git log using the bash shorthand $@. Here is an updated version of your l80 that supports passing parameters to git log:

l = "!f() { git log $@ --abbrev-commit --date=short --pretty=format:'%x00%h%x00%cd%x00%s%x00%an%x00%d' | gawk -F '\\\0' '{ printf \"%s\\\033[31m%s\\\033[0m \\\033[32m%s\\\033[0m %-80s \\\033[30;1m%s\\\033[0m\\\033[33m%s\\\n\", $1, $2, $3, gensub(/(.{79}).{2,}/, \"\\\\\\\1\",\"g\",$4), $5, $6 }' | less -R ; } ; f"

</comment><comment><USER6> I get a bad config file error when I copy the aliases into my .gitconfig.

Edit: Something to do with copy/pasting from the browser. Cloning the gist repository and copying directly in vim works fine.

<comment><AUTHOR> It might have been those UTF-8 ellipses: "…"

Good to hear that you got it resolved, but are you sure that your character encoding settings are alright?</comment></comment>


Mariko Aoki phenomenon - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariko_Aoki_phenomenon <comment><USER2> Fascinating article. My immediate response was that it was obvious, bookstores feel a lot like "home" to me, and that conditioning is well known.

Why coming back to a familiar environment triggers a sudden urge to go to the bathroom [https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/11/gotta- go/...](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/11/gotta-go/544544/)

</comment><comment><USER3> That's funny. I actually had a similar problem with libraries and always wondered what the hell is going on.</comment>


Ask HN: Do I need to inform visitors about LocalStorage? - <AUTHOR> So for the past year or so, I've been noticing all these new "we use cookies" banners. Whether regulatory or trend-driven, it 's nice to see some transparent about what & why sites are tracking me. But, do these same policies apply to Local Storage? Sure, the data is stored on the client's machine, but I could still use that data to inform my app  (e.g. sending uuids along with events to google analytics).<p>Is there an expectation that LS is truly private? Should sites be informing users that they will be storing user data in their browser? <comment><USER2> In theory is the law applies as well. In practice I've never seen it mentioned on a website.

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

"The article is technology neutral, not naming any specific technological means which may be used to store data, but applies to any information that a website causes to stored in a user's browser. This reflects the EU legislator's desire to leave the regime of the directive open to future technological developments."

<comment><AUTHOR> OK, it really doesn't matter what tech you're using. You should be asking for affirmative consent if you're storing data that can affect privacy. Of course, _everything_ affects privacy these days, so even the exemptions for shopping cart data are kind of silly.

Cookies is a pretty household term - but distinct from local storage, so I wonder if sites are using that as a loophole.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> My sites use local storage and I inform the user - consider the possibility someone is using a public computer and you've stored locally what they though was private.

</comment><comment><USER4> I feel like it depends on the audience of your product. In a general consumer product it might actually be more confusing given your user might have no idea how "any of that stuff" works.

I don't think I've ever encountered an app that's let me know in advance about its use of localStorage.

</comment><comment><USER5> I would implement pre mature optimization if I were you.</comment>


Ask HN: Where is the best place to post a new website to get traffic? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> You can go down the list [https://github.com/mmccaff/PlacesToPostYourStartup](https://github.com/mmccaff/PlacesToPostYourStartup) Best place is where your target customers hang out, not necessarily websites that just list new websites.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hacker News.</comment>


Why I want to see Gittip succeed - <AUTHOR> http://peak5390.wordpress.com/2012/09/27/why-i-want-to-see-gittip-succeed/

<comment><USER2> It's a feel-good idea, but I don't like it for the following reason:

Developer A works on Project X. Everyone loves Project X, it becomes very popular, and consequently, Developer A receives a bunch of Gittips to continue work on it. Say this amount is nothing to sneeze at...$250/week or something.

Developer B thinks Project X is good, but it _could_ be really great. Developer B really loves to make great software, and he doesn't care about being paid for his open source contributions, so he decides to fork it into Project Y. Project Y has significant improvements and changes, so that if it could be compared objectively, it would be better than Project X across the board.

Developer A sees will see Project Y as a competitor and a threat to his tips. Now he has a financial incentive to discourage the adoption of Project Y. He doesn't want his tips to disappear, so why would he bring attention to something better? Some changes and improvements could be ported from Project Y to Project X, but if the overall direction of Y is different, there would be no way to reconcile the disparity. Project Y would continue to gain adopters, and Project X would lose them.

TLDR; Financial incentive to discourage competing OS projects is bad for everyone.

I've seen this happen before on OS projects when there wasn't money involved (only pride and reputation), so I think this problem would be intensified by cash. It would be cool if this never happens though.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think people would notice what Developer A is doing, and stop tipping him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Gittip does not allow the giver to identify himself. This isn't exactly "patronage", IMO, it is like dropping a few coins in a street performer's hat on the way to work. That's more like "charity", except worse--you cannot deduct it on your taxes.

BTW, I like gittip. I got an account the other day (<https://www.gittip.com/cjdrake/>). Just not sure about the definition of "success" here. Probably a few people could make a nice side-income from donations, but we're going to have to keep our day jobs :).

<comment><USER4> _This isn't exactly "patronage", IMO, it is like dropping a few coins in a street performer's hat on the way to work._

It's much stronger than that. It's like dropping a few coins in a street performer's hat on the way to work, and making a commitment to drop the same number of coins in that person's hat every day.

It's even stronger, though. It's like handing a $10 bill (or more) to a trusted person standing next to the street performer, knowing that person will drop the same amount of money in the performer's hat every day. And further, you make a commitment to renew that $10 whenever necessary.

Gittip is removing the friction from making small, recurring donations. That is a powerful model, and if it continues to grow, a not insignificant number of people will be drawing a reliable, meaningful income from their open source work.

<comment><USER3> I agree with your points. Perhaps my use of "drop a few coins" sounds a little more dismissive than I was intending.

Artistic patronage is when a rich guys pays you a salary to produce art. When Michaelangelo worked for the pope, his "day job" was to build the pope's tomb :).

Gittip allows people to tip artists, and it does this very well. Can it truly be extended to patronage?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, Gittip is crowd-sourced patronage. In another context I've said that Gittip will be born when the first person announces that they're depending on it for their livelihood:

[http://ryandeussing.com/blog/2012/09/24/chad-whitacre- gittip...](http://ryandeussing.com/blog/2012/09/24/chad-whitacre-gittip/)

Personally, I think we'll get there in a year or two.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like gittip, but it really needs international payouts. I don't see much point collecting these tips for 1st world programmers, who probably don't need them that much. For developers in 3rd world countries, even small monthly tips could make a huge difference.

<comment><USER6> Just because someone is a first world programmer doesn't mean tipping them couldn't make a huge difference. If someone is doing something that makes the world better for the rest of us, and tipping them means they can spend even more time on that, then we all win.

Look at <https://www.gittip.com/freakboy3742/> . $500/week gets him one full day dedicated to Django dev.

<comment><USER7> That's nice, but $500/week might get you two full-time programmers in India. Cost of living is a huge factor in determining programmer salary.

<comment><USER6> Find me two Russell Keith-Magees that will work for $250/week and you have a valid argument.

<comment><USER7> We're not debating that. We're debating whether or not gittip should support international payments, and the point is that small amounts of money here are much more significant in countries like India.

<comment><USER6> There is no debate as to whether or not gittip should support international payments. It absolutely should and they're already trying to figure it out: <https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/126>

I don't understand the point of mentioning the obvious economics of tips in third world countries. It doesn't matter where someone lives, if they're the best for the job then I'm going to tip them. Hopefully it helps them free up some time to work on amazing things.

<comment><USER7> It would be a lot more fun to converse with you if your attention spanned all the way back to the beginning of the conversation.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, whoa, easy tigers! Yes, Gittip needs to solve the non-US payouts problem, and yes, Gittip can and should work for people in many different parts of the world with many different standards of living.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I really like the idea especially for things like blogs and so forth.

I love the picture of the kid reading that you used but I have some reservations about what you use it for.

I think it might be somewhat dangerous to crowdfund or tip for Open Source projects. There's some research in behavioral economics that suggests mixing social norms and market norms is not a good idea.

In essence someone is more likely to help you if you offer them nothing than if you offer them 1$ because if you offer nothing the social norms and "help your neighbor" kicks in whereas if you offer them 1$ they apply market standards and think something like "WTF only 1$...GTFO"

I think anonymous tips might actually not show this effect not sure if there is any research in that regard.

Maybe tipping non-monetary stuff would be better. I.e. keep a counter and once the money to buy item X is reached the guy being tipped gets that. Developer conferences, hardware and so forth are obvious candidates.

[A good pop-book on the topic I liked is "Predictably Irrational" by Dan Ariely...he also has a TED Talk on this iirc]

<comment><USER4> _I love the picture of the kid reading that you used but I have some reservations about what you use it for._

I didn't use that picture lightly. That is my son, and I am pretty interested in the different ways he will be able to consider supporting himself. I believe that Gittip has the potential to support people's livelihoods. I don't know how many people it will support, but it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

[edit] That said, it was a fun picture to set up last year. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I love this because the founder gets compensated the same way users do.

<comment><AUTHOR> :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> OP here, nice to see Gittip get positive attention every week.

I am really looking forward to seeing non-programmers on the leaderboard. That is nothing against programmers; it would just be a clear sign that the Gittip model has generalized to more than just os work.

Chad, are you aware of anyone receiving tips who is not involved in programming? I looked through the long list of people who have signed up, but most have zero tips so far. It might be interesting to post a table that lists user, tagline, and current funding level. I thought I saw a list by funding level once, but I can't seem to find it right now.

<comment><AUTHOR> We just started adding Twitter support two weeks ago, so we're just getting started with non-programmers. Here's a few early adopters I'm aware of:

<https://www.gittip.com/joshuasven/>

<https://www.gittip.com/eriiicam/>

<https://www.gittip.com/umemusic/>

Maybe this is the page you saw?

<https://www.gittip.com/about/goals.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Seriously, how does gittip get upvoted consistently to the front page all the time? And.. nevermind I just answered my own question, he tweets the link to the HN article. I have to start doing that with my own projects as well..

Anyways, it's been a neat idea, but at this point I'd say pivot.

<comment><USER4> Many projects grow organically, day to day, but Gittip's funding cycle naturally brings it to people's attention each week. It makes me think about whether I can identify natural check-in points for my own projects.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, the weekly rhythm has been a serendipitous boon to Gittip's growth. Definitely something to consider when building something.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So how is this different from Flattr (<http://flattr.com/>), apart from recurring instead of one-time payments?

<comment><AUTHOR> Start here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4239247>

The update is that I hung out with Flattr's bizdev, @gaiapunk, at #xoxofest, and we had a great time. I love the spirit and vision behind Flattr. IMO their hands are tied because they're a traditional pound-of-flesh business. Gittip is funded on Gittip.

<comment><USER11> That was very clarifying, thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> :^)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Does Gittip also earn interest on money that sits in it's accounts waiting to be tipped out?

<comment><AUTHOR> No. If anyone does, it'd be Balanced, our payment processor. Here's the Gittip ticket about this:

<https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/279>

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I love this because it's from an educator, not a programmer.</comment>