Dear Startups:  Here's How to Stay Alive - <AUTHOR> http://heidiroizen.tumblr.com/post/139377970205/dear-startups-heres-how-to-stay-alive <comment><USER2> > _If you are in Silicon Valley and your customers are mostly well-paid > consumers with no free time, or other venture-backed startups, well, I'd be > worried._

That's the most beautifully I've heard this thought articulated. I constantly hear people in SV talk publically talk about how they're living years in the future due to getting services from startups that haven't yet hit other markets. These people are very wealthy and very short on free time; they incorrectly assume the rest of the world is as well. The reason Uber became so successful was because it became cheaper than a cab in most major markets with world class service. You have to really dig deep to justify most other on demand startups having the ability to jump the shark and it's because they don't have a plebeian offering.

<comment><USER3> I've called these the 10% startups. They typically only serve people in the top ~10% of earners in the US.

<comment><USER4> So basically any startup with an iOS only product (disclaimer our's is iOS only).

<comment><USER5> Given that iOS has a 40%+ market share in the US, no.

<comment><USER6> The market for smartphones is only about mid-60% of all Americans, though, from what I've read. So still not 10%, but more like 25%-ish.

<comment><USER7> Well, the original comment was "10% of earners" and I'd bet that smartphone penetration is higher among earners (eg 20% of Americans are under 14, 0% of them are earners and ??~10% of them have a smartphone). So you could perhaps push it up to more like 1/3 earners use iOS, which is starting to be a healthy potential market share.

<comment><USER8> > 20% of Americans are under 14, 0% of them are earners and ??~10% of them > have a smartphone

OT but 10%? I'd've guessed at least twice that.

<comment><USER7> I just made it up, I don't even know anyone under 14.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What goes unspoken is how tiny the overall effect of this will be.

Yes, it will bring some concentrated pain to investors, CEOs, and employees of lots of companies. But how many people will be genuinely, life-alteringly affected by this? 1000? Maybe a few thousand? 1-2% of SF's population? By way of comparison Google has what, 50,000 employees?

I keep having to remind myself that the big companies are the elephants in the room compensation-, real estate- and traffic-wise. They employ _hundreds of thousands_ of people and pay _billions of dollars_ annually in wages. As much as I'd like an affordable place to live, none of this will move the needle that much for the average Bay Area resident.

<comment><USER10> Unfortunately I don't have numbers, but "a few thousand" strikes me as low.

<comment><USER11> Yahoo had around ~11,700, they did follow through the cuts of %10 last week. That is 1100 right out the gate. Yahoo is huge as far as local employee count. Google probably wont bother doing cuts. Facebook wont bother. Apple maybe a few low level poeple. HP will cut to the bone [1]. There are 800k people stuffed in sf. For the cuts in SF (not all SV) to matter, I would estimate 20% job cuts would be required. That is 160k jobs. We wont get to 160k job loses. Not even close.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/hp-layoffs-hit-on-monday- more...](http://www.businessinsider.com/hp-layoffs-hit-on-monday-more-to- come-2015-10)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The cynical side of me wonders if all this is "helpful advice" from VCs is just designed to bring valuations down to earth.

<comment><USER13> Is there no objective way to tell if things are really cooling? Or for what types of startups things cooling?

<comment><USER14> There is no "objective way" when it comes markets, there is only what the market will give you. If the market will give you $450M for 5% of a product that doesn't work (a la Theranos), then objectively you're worth $9B, at least until you go bankrupt and then you're worth nothing. If the market is dead but you somehow manage to IPO anyway, save the company, and sell for $1.5B, you're worth $1.5B (a la LoudCloud/Opsware). If you want to find out what you're worth, try to raise money, and whatever you can get is your answer.

This throws a lot of people for a loop who want one source of objective truth for everything. But markets don't work that way: they're just deals between individual people, which may or may not become public. If somebody else makes a deal that you think is absolutely crazy, it is objective truth _for them_ but absolutely irrelevant to you.

Personal finance works the same way. I know a few folks who were momentarily multi-millionaires during the dot-com boom; then valuations came crashing down and they were completely broke. We also tend to think of the value of a dollar (in cash) to be stable, but as anyone who lives in Zimbabwe can tell you, that's not a given.

<comment><USER15> So technically you can raise $1M for 0.1% of your startup and give the VC some crazy 20x liquidation preference. Now the market has you at $1B in valuation.

<comment><USER14> Exactly, and several unicorns are doing things exactly like that:

[http://blog.samaltman.com/the-tech-bust- of-2015](http://blog.samaltman.com/the-tech-bust-of-2015)

I could drop the market cap of Google down to $3.4M right now. All I have to do is sell one of my shares for $0.01. The thing is, it would pop right back up again to $483B within a few milliseconds, and I'd just be out $690, so there's kinda no point to it.

(Pedantic note, since I know there's gonna be someone in the financial industry that corrects me: no, I couldn't, technically. When I put in a sell order, it goes into the order book, and buyers are required by law to take the best offer, which is probably more than mine. I'd have to place my order at a time when there are no outstanding limit offers. This has actually happened during flash crashes and technical glitches, but is not a normal occurrence.)

Privately traded companies are similar, but because there's less liquidity, the price doesn't necessarily correct on any reasonably time scale.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> On a related note, now's probably a good time to remind people of pg's famous "How Not To Die" essay, which is at least tangentially related to the topic at hand.

[http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html)

<comment><USER17> Thanks, great read! His words from 2007 still ring true today. It was also nice to see how some of the startups turned out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> _You know what kind of companies generally survive? Companies that make more money than they spend. I know, duh, right? If you make more than you spend, you get to stay alive for a long time. If you don't, you have to get money from someone else to keep going. And, as I just said, that's going to be way harder now. I'm embarrassed writing this because it is so flipping simple, yet it is amazing to me how many entrepreneurs are still talking about their plans to the next round. What if there is no next round? Don't you still want to survive?

Yes, some companies are 'moon shots' (DFJ has a fair number of those in our portfolio) where this is simply not possible. But for the vast majority of startups, this should be possible._

What is the point of calling them start ups anymore. Remove the high risk/high reward aspect and new companies are simply small businesses that receive small business loans from banks. A lot of the "wow" factor of the startup ecosystem was the mind boggling user growth/high valuation/massive losses phenomenon that a few companies weathered through to IPO and monetization.

I think I saw someone advocating for better terminology on HN recently. I vote to call any close-to-profitable <2 yr old company a small business. Likewise, any portfolio that holds mostly safe small business loans and equity should simply be called a bank.

Leave the unicorn/VC/startup lingo in the past, or use it to describe actual risk profiles, and things will be a lot less confusing.

<comment><USER19> "If you show revenue, people will ask 'HOW MUCH?' and it will never be enough. The company that was the 100xer, the 1000xer is suddenly the 2x dog. But if you have NO revenue, you can say you're pre-revenue! You're a potential pure play... It's not about how much you earn, it's about how much you're worth. And who is worth the most? Companies that lose money!"

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

<comment><USER20> Huh, Gabe is on that show. How good is that tv show anyways? I've been meaning to binge watch it but it seems like its raison d'être is to take cheap shots at SV.

<comment><USER21> It's very, very good. Mike Judge isn't the biggest fan of Silicon Valley, but he knows it well. (See Office Space for another example of that).

It might seem like cheap shots if you have only seen short clips of it though.

<comment><USER22> Office Space should be /required viewing/ in high school. That movie taught me more about what to expect in the typical American office than any other experience in my life.

<comment><USER23> There's a brief clip of pornography near the beginning. We watched it on the bus ride for a high school trip. The teachers quickly turned it off upon noticing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > You know what kind of companies generally survive? Companies that make more > money than they spend. I know, duh, right? If you make more than you spend, > you get to stay alive for a long time. If you don't, you have to get money > from someone else to keep going. And, as I just said, that's going to be way > harder now. I'm embarrassed writing this because it is so flipping simple, > yet it is amazing to me how many entrepreneurs are still talking about their > plans to the next round. What if there is no next round? Don't you still > want to survive?

Sort of reminds me of the conversation with a senior developer I had the first time I joined a startup and my first company lunch at my first job.

Me: "So, we just spend whatever money the company makes"

him: "Correct"

Me: "what if the company is burning all the money it makes to grow as fast as possible, and they can't raise money anymore?"

him: "that will never happen"

Me: (concerned) "so the company is constantly breaking even"

him: "sometimes"

ME: (shocked) "so the company loses money some year, yet raises more money year after year so it can lose more money the following year than the last"

him: (annoyed) "you studied economics haven't you? you dont get it? everyone knows this is how you do startups what did they teach you in that shithole?"

(everyone else laughs)

end scene.

That was 4 years ago. I checked the glassdoor comments and boy I didn't think a 2.1 rating was possible on glassdoor because that would pretty much scare off anyone in the job market....and yup the company is going under _exactly for the reasons I asked 4 years ago but was ridiculed at my 'ignorance'_

another one bites the dust for vancouver's brain drained tech scene. thank god I won't have to work here again in the near future.

<comment><USER25> That practically triggers PTSD from some of my experiences with similar types of people.

I know in start-ups making revenue is a bit of a dirty word but that's what the business is ultimately supposed to do anyway! Why the hell not build to support the revenue model(s) early so you can turn them on and test them as soon as possible? better to test your bets early before you're laying off hundreds of people because your guesses ended up being wrong.

<comment><USER16> _I know in start-ups making revenue is a bit of a dirty word but that 's what the business is ultimately supposed to do anyway!_

I keep a note to myself positioned prominently nearby, titled "The Most Important Question". I wrote down something for "Question One" when I first put it up, but shortly after I went back and wrote in "Question Zero".

 _" What is the single most important thing I can be doing right now, to get us to revenue?"_

(And no, "posting on HN" isn't a very good answer to that question, so shame on me). Hey, I won't claim to manage to adhere to 100% absolute razor-sharp focus on that point, but I keep coming back to it. When I find myself starting to bikeshed or work on some "cool but speculative" idea, I remind myself "work on what's going to bring dollars in the door first".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> What? One of the advice is to get cash flow positive with the money you already have. Isn't that basic knowledge? You can't spend more than you have and you only ask for other people's money when you don't need it. Idk, maybe this is an american thing, with all the capital you have but here (Portugal) you can't get series A funding without being at least cash flow positive, no way.

<comment><USER27> There's no inherent reason why being cash flow positive is such an important consideration for a venture capital firm.

A startup that's not cash flow positive right now but could be massively so in the future (or, atleast, the market expects it to be massively cash flow positive in the future) is significantly more valuable than a startup that is cash flow positive right now but with not a ton of room for growth.

In fact, placing the requirement of cash flow positivity right at the beginning of the startup would probably squash a lot of good (i.e. valuable in the long-er term) ideas.

<comment><USER28> How do you know that it will ever produce returns?

Valuations are made out of belief (whole cloth).

The requirement is not a must, but you should take into account startup's burn rate over funding, which should eventually turn into burn rate over revenue. (without taking extra funding into account)

So, a startup that would have a huge burn rate should be much less valuable, as you're liable to lose money both short and long term. Same as with the bets, taking large bets with long timeframes is more liable to turn you bankrupt (both VC and startup owner) than taking small bets often, since you can back out at any given time. (I'm not talking about motivation, that's a separate thing.)

However, markets are not rational, so startups with high burn rate are considered very valuable for some reason.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I think the startup world has become somewhat of a fork of how real companies should be built. Over the last few years companies have been investing into "scaling" and getting traction with no real revenue to substantiate any of the growth. That to me is backwards, and why those startups are fearing for their lives now.

Companies should be built with revenue (and profit) in mind, and in most cases those are the ones that thrive and succeed.

<comment><USER30> Scaling without revenue makes sense if you're in an industry with strong network externalities or large economies of scale. In those cases, expensive customer acquisition is okay because customers have a very high lifetime value.

During the "unicorn boom", I think we all had this belief that network externalities were very common in tech - a belief driven by the rise of facebook, google, and others. But now we're realizing that maybe strong network externalities are just as rare in tech as they are in other industries - and a business without network effects that's losing money for growth is just a business that loses a lot of money.

This NYT article from last week seemed to do a good job summing up the issue: [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/13/business/dealbook/the- rise...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/13/business/dealbook/the-rise-and- fall-of-the-unicorn.html)

<comment><USER31> How can you calculate lifetime value without revenue?

<comment><USER32> Estimated revenue for the future. It's really tough, but even using revenue for a start up is very tough. Your growth rate is essentially estimating future revenue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> DFJ has had some great exits over the years. But looking at their current active portfolio, they're a little exposed.... and certainly not investing in any early rounds.

It's not surprising to hear they plan to slow down investing. But that's not necessarily a reflection of the overall market.

[http://dfjgrowth.com/portfolio](http://dfjgrowth.com/portfolio)

<comment><USER34> Yeah I was wondering if overall funding has dropped that much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> _" Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result: happiness._

 _Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result: misery. "_

 _\--Wilkins Micawber_

</comment><comment><USER36> So the above is obviously written through a VC lens. Through an entrepreneur's lens - who also survived the dot-com bust (at etoys.com) and has since run several failed and now successful businesses - I'd add the following:

The most valuable advice in this post reminds me of Marc A's awesome blog entry. Quote:

"Companies that have a retention problem usually have a winning problem. Or rather, a "not winning" problem."

[http://pmarchive.com/guide_to_big_companies_part2.html](http://pmarchive.com/guide_to_big_companies_part2.html)

In my opinion winning is, ultimately, measured by how much cash you can generate. We stopped thinking about an exit a long time ago while in the deepest darkest part of the valley of the shadow of startup death. We were forced to do it because we ran out of money and no one cared about us. Then we started focusing completely on our customers and our income statement. As soon as we did that, amazing things started happening.

Cash, in this case and in this climate, is king. Or net income to be specific. If you're able to generate large amounts of cash and keep a lot of it, not a heck of a lot else matters. From my perspective the only problems that really remain is giving your team a great quality of life and serving your customers.

Cash takes away issues like the board bugging you, investors breathing down your neck or (worst case) wanting to play CEO, hiring problems, retention problems, funding, what business are we in problems, product problems (you're obviously killing it, so do more of that!), exec hires, issues with rebellious execs (you're killing it, so you're implicitly right) etc.

When you "go for growth" (numbers growth, not revenue) you give up all of the above and put yourself as a CEO or exec in a precarious position. Your arguments are no longer that defendable because growth means jack shit unless it generates cash or will very clearly ultimately generate cash.

Think about the CEO of Giphy who just raised something like $50M at something like a $300M valuation. It's like my wife and co-founder says: Doing that you turn a cash problem into a much bigger cash problem. I'd add that you also now have less equity and less influence. For the investors it's awesome - the biz will likely bulk up on talent and worst case will exit as a talent acquisition at $2M per engineer and the investors (who get paid first) will recover perhaps everything that way with little left over.

If I was early stage in this environment I'd do the following:

Stop dreaming about a Deus ex Machina that will reach down and save your sorry ass. Stop fantasizing about acquisitions. If you don't you're going to inadvertently turn acquirers into your target market instead of your real customers. And humans aren't good at focusing on two goals at once.

Then do absolutely everything you can to generate sustainable cash. Usually this means (if you're early stage) discovering who your customers are and what business you're in or (if you're later stage) serving the heck out of your customers and making sure that what you provide is worth more than each dollar they spend to acquire it. Then do more of that. If you're successful doing this, rather than raising money, you'll notice that the really big scary problems simply go away.

<comment><USER37> Good points here but lots of questions remain:

What happens when you have competition with 10x or 50x the VC funding?

What happens to long-term product development when all you do is short term / small-scale improvements in order to 'better serve' your customers?

What happens to your core IP advantage that may be several years now but will have disappeared after doing long stretches of "feature" developments to chase after customers?

<comment><USER36>
      What happens when you have competition with
      10x or 50x the VC funding?

Money doesn't solve all problems. I've been in a startup that raised $250M and one that raised $55M where all innovation had stalled. Don't assume they're kicking ass because they're rich. There are plenty of professional money burners out there. But if you're faced with a competitor that has their act together (I am and they've raised 360 times what I have) you need to differentiate and move quickly. You'd be surprised the constraints that some startups operate under e.g. boards who want them to be something that you're not even if what you're doing is clearly more lucrative. Or legacy (even in startups) customers they brought on free where it would be akward or embarrasing to explain to them why they're now doing what you're doing in the way you're doing it.

      What happens to long-term product development when all
      you do is short term / small-scale improvements in order to
      'better serve' your customers?

Don't do that. Always play the long game.

      What happens to your core IP advantage that may be several
      years now but will have disappeared after doing long
      stretches of "feature" developments to chase after customers?

I have no idea what you're talking about. Sounds like you've misinterpreted 'serving customers' as some kind of short sighted feature focused strategy?

<comment><USER37> Well often times as a tech entrepreneur you have the choice between

a) working on something that generates revenue in the short term (by adding features, improving the interface, improving your market reach or even doing some service work) and

b) something of more impact that generates revenue in the long-term (like investing in R&D, creating entire new products, etc..).

Note that b) most often does not include a), i.e. choosing b) explicitly means that you're _foregoing_ some short term revenue opportunities for possibly larger revenue down the road.

This is _precisely_ the case for VC (which you've argued against) so I was interested in how you'd solve this dilemma.

<comment><USER36> I think we're in two different realities here. You've misinterpreted what I've said. I've raised VC. We really seem to be missing each other. I don't agree with much of the way you see the world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> _When a market like this turns, in order to survive, it is critical to redefine what success is going to look like for you – and your employees, and your investors, and your other stakeholders. Holding on to 'old' ideas about IPO dates, large exits and massive new up rounds can ultimately be demotivating to your team.

.

.

Stop worrying about morale: Yes, you heard me right. I can't tell you how many board meetings I've been in where the CEO is anguished over the impacts on morale that cost cutting or layoffs will bring about._

With these prospects, I wonder how will these CEOs keep all those underpaid and highly skilled young laborers working for him/her now?

</comment><comment><USER38> The whole bit about "don't worry about morale"... Some engineers are replaceable, not all. If things get bad and you lose early/key people, there is a non-negligible hit. But, I think Ben and Mark at A2Z outlined a strategy harkening back to the last big hit -- build up the reserves in the bunker. If you think things will be bumpy for X-months out and you aren't cash flow positive, get the requisite amount in the bank ASAP.

</comment><comment><USER39> "The sky is falling ..." No, it isn't. All there is, is that there seems to be less appetite for endlessly unprofitable ventures that get away with dismissing the idea that they should be bringing in more cash than they spend within a reasonable time frame. Furthermore, is the entire VC scene actually needed? Lots of startups do not make use of their services and are doing absolutely fine ...

</comment><comment><USER40> During late nineties, my startup was providing technology consulting/development service to other dot-com startups. Demand for our consulting service was so high that our company resort to auction kind of process to select customers. Then dot-com bust happened, 97% of our customers had gone out of business, quickly, very quickly. Obviously, our company fortunes dwindled and never recovered from that.

</comment><comment><USER41> I think people are ignoring the huge cash reserves that Google and Apple, among others, have. I fully expect more acquisitions if VC funding drops out.

</comment><comment><USER42> Based on the rest of the comments here deriding the growth over revenue strategy I think it's very important to bring up that risk is proportional to reward, and by definition any business that can be cash flow positive early on is unlikely to be very risky - and thereby not really what VCs are in this business for.

</comment><comment><USER43> This is very similar to the infamous "RIP Good Times" presentation Sequoia shared in 2008

[http://www.slideshare.net/eldon/sequoia-capital-on- startups-...](http://www.slideshare.net/eldon/sequoia-capital-on-startups-and- the-economic-downturn-presentation?type=powerpoint)

</comment><comment><USER44> This is based on the "Techcrunch" concept that being successful and continuing business for a startup depends heavily on external funds.

That couldn't be farther from the truth, for a real startup with a real business. Maybe growth will not be as fast without VC funds, but I don't think real businesses will notice shrinking investments.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

<comment><USER45> Usually startups, defined roughly as young companies with extremely high growth creating something _new_ , to start off with are running at a negative cash flow to sustain their growth or development and plan to capitalise on the position later.

These companies would struggle to operate with positive cashflows as their products/services and growth hasn't matured to allow for it yet. Perhaps they are building their product and/or are still in the early stages of iterating on their idea. Just because they have a decent business doesn't mean straight away they can consolidate right away on their business in terms of running a profit.

A lot of decent future businesses could die if startups are forced to consolidate. However in instances this may be a wake up call to keep them accountable to the financials of their business.

<comment><USER44> >> These companies would struggle to operate with positive cashflows as their products/services and growth hasn't matured to allow for it yet.

Then they would have to do like all of us, get creative and find alternative ways of getting cash.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> _> If you are in Silicon Valley and your customers are mostly well-paid consumers with no free time, or other venture-backed startups, well, I'd be worried._

This is the most shallow statement I have read this year. The needs of the rich today would be needs of less rich tomorrow. The author clearly missed out on the whole American dream concept. I'm sure some people felt the same way about refrigerator and cars.

You'd almost never create a market segment starting with the bottom end. Almost every product you touch, including the very screen you're staring at, was once made for the 1%.

And almost always the version for the 1% is expensive, won't see a version 2, and is a one time sale. It doesn't matter if your initial rich/busy customers are going out of business. If you found a need you're fulfilling, you will with a fairly high probability will continue to find customers through the generation.

Dot com bust did not kill Network Solutions/Verisign. Very, very important.

</comment><comment><USER47> Good read. Sounds like good advice in general, regardless of how hard it is to obtain capital.

<comment><USER29> Totally agree. In a world that runs on money getting to profitability should not just be something you strive to get to but rather something you have. Until you do you shouldn't let anything else take away from your focus.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Dear VCs, You made a lot of bad investments. Prepare to take a loss.

</comment><comment><USER49> A VC taking the valuations down and encouraging the companies to become profitable sooner, to get a fatter slice of a tastier pie when founders come begging for money. News at 11.

</comment><comment><USER50> Found the problem! "It is going to be hard (or impossible) for many of today's startups to raise funds." You don't need to take on millions in debt to start a company.

<comment><USER16> Strictly speaking, raising VC money isn't taking on debt. You're selling equity and if the company fails you don't - as a general rule - repay the investors anything.

That said, I agree with your overall point about not needing to raise millions of dollars to start a company. That's one way of doing things, but hardly the only way. Another choice would be to just take a regular job and start your company as a nights and weekends side project (deal with any potential IP issues, of course), or do consulting in your area of business and gradually transition from a service company to a product company. I'm sure there are others.

<comment><USER50> I agree, I may have been a bit open ended with my previous statement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Even shorter version of how to stay alive - model your business around some transaction that brings in more revenue than its costs to provide.

</comment><comment><USER52> > It is going to be hard (or impossible) for many of today's startups to raise > funds.

So, just like it is in most of the world, then?

</comment><comment><USER53> What a time to be alive</comment>


A chimp-pig hybrid origin for humans? - <AUTHOR> http://m.phys.org/news/2013-07-chimp-pig-hybrid-humans.html <comment> a-priori So colour me skeptical. As they say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and this theory is making several extraordinary claims:

1) A hybridization event indeed occurred in the relatively recent genetic history of homo sapiens (rather than the unusual anatomic features being produced some other way).

2) The hybridization was with a close relative of pigs (rather than another family that has some similar characteristics, or multiple hybridizations that together gave us the unusual characteristics).

3) The hybridization marks the point at which hominids split from the other primates (rather than occurring later in one branch of the hominid family tree).

4) That the genes introduced by hybridization gives hominids their unique characteristics (rather than being inconsequential).

In return, the theory presents evidence (anatomic oddities and low fertility) that I would characterize as "interesting" and perhaps "worthy of further study", but certainly not extraordinary. For this to be plausible, there needs to be a second avenue of evidence, one not based on anatomic similarities...

That second avenue could be genetic, but they specifically dismiss it, presupposing a mechanism, backcrossing, that leaves little genetic evidence that it occurred. Now, I'm no geneticist, but that sounds a bit fishy to me.

<comment><USER2> If you ask a cannibal what's the taste of human flesh, he will say "pork", which makes this hypothesis funny.

That said, this is way, way too far fetched. Proposing that a primate and a primitive ungulate can produce an hybrid is already a big stretch, let alone producing a fertile one. Then, he supports his claim by refusing the genetics, and hand picks morphology aspects from the suinae that confirm his theory.

What did it for me was the "naked skin" evidence though. It's the human- selected, domestic pig that is hairless.

<comment><USER3> re: "naked skin" Did you read where he addresses this question in the first green box on this page: [http://www.macroevolution.net/hybrid-hypothesis- section-1.ht...](http://www.macroevolution.net/hybrid-hypothesis- section-1.html)

Is there some evidence that the hairless trait was the result of human selection and no hairless varieties existed before human selection?

<comment><USER2> His argument is that the domestic pig and the wild boar are not the same animal, which is pretty obvious. Then, he claims we don't know where the domestic pig came from, and that a common ancestor could be hairless.

That is still a pretty weak argument considering from all suinae, the domestic pig is the only hairless, and for his hypothesis to work, hairlessness would have to be a dominant trait (otherwise, logic says we should be hairy like a chimp).

I'm no geneticist or anything like that, but there are some pretty (big) holes that he doesn't address and attributes to ignorance. You can't make an hypothesis plausible by claiming about what you do NOT known - you have to show positive correlation, not absence of negative correlation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Gah. Another crap submission from PhysOrg. This has been going on so long that many HN participants have called that out as a bad source before. PhysOrg appears to have been banned as a site to submit from by Reddit (according to what I've read here on HN). I learned from other participants here on HN that there are better sites to submit from.

Comments about PhysOrg:

[http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3077869](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3077869)

"Yes Physorg definitely has some of the worst articles on the internet."

[http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3198249](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3198249)

"Straight from the European Space Agency, cutting out the physorg blogspam:

[http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic1116/](http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic1116/) (press release),

[http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/heic1116a/](http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/heic1116a/) (video),

[http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/releases/scien...](http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/releases/science_papers/heic1116.pdf) (paper).

"PhysOrg: just say no."

[http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3611888](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3611888)

"The physorg article summary is wrong, I think."

[http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4108857](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4108857)

"Phys.org is vacuous and often flat wrong."

<comment><USER5> I think each submission should be judged on its own merit. HN might do better to ban crap comments like yours

<comment><USER6> Who's got time for that? There's a reason we consider the source. The Bozo Bit works.

<comment><USER5> The source was Eugene McCarthy from macroevolution.net. I took the time to analyze, weigh, summarize, and find a place to publish it. Physorg took it at face value from me, and published it.

<comment><USER4> _Physorg took it at face value from me, and published it._

Well, now I understand why you seem personally offended by the call to weigh the evidence, which includes weighing the evidence that submissions from PhysOrg often have the Bozo bit turned on. The previous discussion in this thread already linked to a much better write-up on the substance of the issue

[http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/07/02/the- mfap-h...](http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/07/02/the-mfap- hypothesis-for-the-origins-of-homo-sapiens/)

by a developmental biologist who understands and explains why this speculative hypothesis makes no sense. Read up more about biology before summarizing next time.

<comment><USER5> I'll let physorg handle themselves on that. I am sure you know more about their content history here on HN then me. Either way, your "crap submission" comment was to me so I responded, as you no doubt would yourself to a similar attack. You will be seeing a lot more science from me on physorg, and elsewhere, since I just got started [http://hewitt123.com/blog/?page_id=45](http://hewitt123.com/blog/?page_id=45) Blocking it hurts your community here a heck of lot more than than me, so chill out and tune in. Pharngula made a nice composition, did his post start this thread? If he was honest he would have said what I did, biology and genetics can't prove or disprove this right now, and that is among the reasons I raised it for intelligent discussion in the first place. Until we can watch, and sufficiently understand, chromosomal translocations, pairings, matching, splittings etc. during meiosis/recombination, criticism from ignorance best shut up and learn something. Professional scientists calling this guy an idiot, or pig, or saying, like pharygula, that this guys pants are probably full of semen, are those that you would be better served in blocking to improve this forum. Pharygula calls for an experimental cross between a human and swine, that's not even what was proposed here as an explanation of human origins.

<comment><USER5> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIrE9TaC2rc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIrE9TaC2rc) Seems Jimmy Kimmel liked it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "These days, getting a Ph.D. is probably the last thing you want to do if you are out to revolutionize the world. If, however, what you propose is an idea, rather than a technology, it can still be a valuable asset to have."

Man, those newspapers' opening lines are getting worse and worse...

<comment><USER8> Phys.org ain't a newspaper.

<comment><USER7> That's the joke :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Extremely interesting. I suggest you to read the article at [http://www.macroevolution.net/human- origins.html](http://www.macroevolution.net/human-origins.html)

The author seems to be a well-established scientist, and the arguments are quite plausible, given that this level of hybridization actually could be possible. What I find amazing (based on the article) is that hybridization hasn't really been researched very well, and that hybrids aren't actually infertile, on the contrary to popular belief.

As the article points out, this indeed sounds as ridiculous as Darwin's proposal that humans descend from apes.

<comment><USER10> _Many_ hybrids are infertile. There are some documented cases of fertile hybrids in very related animals and very related plants (plants are weird!). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_(biology)#Hybrid_species](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_\(biology\)#Hybrid_species)

But and hybrid between a chimp and a pig: simply no way! Even creating a live pig-chimp hybrid is probably almost impossible, a fertile pig-chimp hybrid would be a miracle.

<comment> a-priori It doesn't matter that fertile hybrids are unusual. For evaluating this theory, it only has to be _possible_ to produce a fertile chimp-pig hybrid. Then, given a large number of chimp-pig... interactions, you can then assume that eventually one would be successful.

(That said, before you interpret this as me supporting the theory, please read my top-level comment)

<comment><USER11> The problem is that those pigs and chimps that try to interbreed and fail would be wasting time and resources and end up falling behind in fecundity to their "breed true" cousins. Evolution would disfavor such behaviors as they would represent a vanishingly small percentage of the their respective gene pools.

<comment><USER12> Unless, perhaps, both particular species of ape and pig routinely had sex for pleasure ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_sexual_behaviour](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_sexual_behaviour) suggests it's possible), and just happened to cross paths. In this case, they're not really wasting resources as they would have been having non- reproductive sex anyway.

<comment><USER11> It's not just the "casual" contact time; for females, they would very often be wasting a reproductive cycle on a fetus that would (in the statistically significant majority of cases) self-abort.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There's at least one fairly well-know biology professor/blogger who is unimpressed with what he dubs the "MFAP" hypothesis:

[http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/07/02/the- mfap-h...](http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/07/02/the-mfap- hypothesis-for-the-origins-of-homo-sapiens/)

<comment><USER14> The thing I find most depressing about these crackpots is that some otherwise productive scientist has to spend an evening debunking their nonsense. And it still doesn't stop.

I taught evolution for undergrads, and occasionally had to deal with these issues from students. It takes time to look into them, and no matter how thoroughly debunked the theory, some kids find them too irresistible to let go of. It undermines real education in the end.

<comment><USER15> > some kids find them too irresistible to let go of. It undermines real > education in the end.

Teaching is not my cup of tea but isn't an important life lesson teaching kids how to smell bullshit? If they can do that, surely they will know what books to pick and what to learn.

<comment><USER14> True, to a point. Debunking one of these in a class is a good exercise. Preparing a lesson takes time, though, especially when you have to respond to something out of the blue. You could easily get caught spending all your limited spare time discussing why these theories aren't science, instead of the ones that are. Evolution is a big topic, and I'd rather spend my limited time dealing with the substantive bits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> While the hypothesis itself seems rather unlikely, I think the evidence is interesting enough that further investigation would certainly yield some interesting results in their own right.

Major leaps in scientific thinking can often start with some pretty radical albeit erroneous ideas. But even if not true, these ideas can encourage a fresh perspective and a new approach for teasing apart the observable world.

<comment><USER17> This. It seems pointless to me to proceed with so much hand wringing and "my science-peen is bigger than yours" posturing, when we have ample opportunities (and plenty of pigs and bonobos) to test the hypothesis via experiment. Isn't that sort of the next step in a fairly tried-and-true method many here are usually quite fond of?

Personally I think the odds of any meaningful success are extremely low, but the cost to explore and experiment are also quite low. I'd rather trust "we attempted insemination of {x} bonobos with {y} varieties of pig sperm, but failed to achieve impregnation" (... or succeeded, or whatever) - over "I'm really smart, and trust me - this couldn't possibly work."

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is highly unlikely origin story. The main problem is that genetic data strongly and consistently suggests we are further from pigs than chimpanzees are.

Genetic material often finds ways of crossing species boundaries: in lower organisms, horizontal gene transfer is commonplace. But, this is just not supported by any scientific evidence.

<comment><USER16> I believe he addresses that by suggesting backcrossing with the chimp line. Still seems extraordinary such a cross should originally be even remotely viable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> My gut feel is that this is bat-shit crazy, but wouldn't it be amusing to see the response from the Jewish and Islamic world should it turn out that humans are pig hybrids? ;)

<comment><USER20> Vindication?

The broad (though not universal) taboo against eating primate meat has some basis in the higher risk of shared/cross-species diseases, due to a closer genetic relationship.

If there's a little pig in us, that'd argue for stronger taboos against eating pork... exactly as in Judaism and Islam.

<comment><USER19> Yes - I think many religious taboos have their basis in sensible food hygiene and incest avoidance. But that's not how it's pitched; often the claim is that "pigs are unclean".

Which is why it'd be funny.

<comment><USER21> Dead human bodies are considered unclean too. That's not a value judgment about live humans.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Can chimp-pig hybridization be reproduced in a labratory? (Would it be ethical to attempt?)

<comment><USER22> I believe a Dr Krieger tried several times with mixed success.

Poor pigley.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Hybridization is actually a pretty interesting hypothesis for species differentiation in higher vertebrates, given that generations are often very long, hindering traditional accounts of evolution-through-mutation.

<comment><USER11> Recombination occurs very time a new sex cell is produced during the crossing over event, Dawkins dispels the random mutation as the only means of genetic shift very early in his book "The Selfish Gene" as the crossing over process can split chromosomes mid-gene for longer, more complex DNA sequences.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Jean Auel's _The Clan of the Cave Bear_ book-series explores the possibilities of Neanderthal/Cro-Magnon interaction, but this article brings up a whole new set of intriguing plot twists.

<comment><USER25> So far, there are two proven gene-flow events to Homo sapiens from non- sapiens: Homo neanderthalensis and from the Denisova hominin population. In the latter case science isn't sure yet whether the Denisova hominin was a sub- species or species.

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

We probably got some immunity-related genes from neanderthals, but probably not red hair - red hair in neanderthals is caused by a different mutation that doesn't exist in humans.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> You can't make this stuff up. Or can you? At first I thought it's an elaborate joke, but I couldn't find any real pointers to the jocular nature...

<comment><USER27> This is quite real. McCarthy has been published by Oxford Press. Here it is from the horse's mouth: [http://www.macroevolution.net/human- origins.html](http://www.macroevolution.net/human-origins.html)

<comment><USER10> Do we have a designed ornithologist here to comment about the book?

My guess is that all the cases in the book are hybrids between very related bird species. For example, in the PowerPoint presentation, there is a hybrid between two types of crows, other cases are not so obvious, but IANAO. But I didn't see any hybrid between two obvious distant species, for example between an ostrich and a stork.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> What's the different between hybrids and breeds (as in dogs for example)?

<comment><USER18> A simple way to define a 'species' is any group of creatures that can produce viable, fertile offspring.

So dogs are breeds - they're part of the same species - because if you mate a great dane with a chihuahua, you'll get a fertile dog (I believe; if you plan to experiment, I recommend the chihuahua is male and great dane is female). If you're lucky, that dog will have desirable characteristics that may one day end up being the parent of a new breed.

But horses and donkeys are not breeds - they're different species - because if you mate them you get a mule which is not fertile (a hybrid, therefore).

In the end, this definition is a bit too simplistic because it's not necessarily always so clear-cut. Hence the article here :)

<comment><USER29> I would expect that a "breed" should also be stable. That is, pairings between male and female members of the same breed should produce offspring of that same breed nearly every time.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Interestingly, this very same hypothesis was the basis for a novel by french author Bernard Werber called "le père de nos pères" (the father of our fathers), published in 1998.

<comment><USER30> Wikipedia article [http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Père_de_nos_pères](http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Père_de_nos_pères)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Paging Mr. Betteridge, Mr. Betteridge to the white courtesy phone.

</comment><comment><USER32> Men are pigs!

</comment><comment><USER33> I actually find this plausible. Like the author I also have problems believing that random mutation and selection is a complete/adequate explanation. Just a hunch, there's a deeper theory to be had here.

</comment><comment><USER34> <low brow comment> So Mrs. Garrison was right all along? [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRBHxJBUv_A](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRBHxJBUv_A) </low brow comment></comment>


Show HN: Get a beer or coffee with a Yo – COFFEE2YO - <AUTHOR> http://coffee2yo.ooo/

<comment><AUTHOR> We're still looking for sponsors - please add your startup / company / café and recommend it to your favorite places :) if you have any questions: email@example.com</comment>


Chicago pays female employees only 80% of what it pays male employees - <AUTHOR> http://www.curiousgnu.com/pay-gap <comment><USER2> Title is misleading, it implies that Chicago pays women less for the same job. Quote from the article:

> In conclusion, it's true that the gender pay gap exists, and that on > average, women make less money than men. However, the claims that it proves > gender inequality are false because women are simply doing different kinds > of jobs.

<comment><USER3> This explanation misses the forest for the trees, every time, because it doesn't say _why_ women are performing different jobs. The mere fact that the jobs are 'different' means nothing when it comes to pay. The market-rate pay for 'different' jobs is not a function of some natural order. That is, there is not some free market whereby the exact value of an employee is computed by her exact output. Also, the 'different' aspect could very easily be forced: Two people could perform nearly identical functions under different job titles: call one a 'manager' and the other 'coordinator', outline that coordinator and manager have different salaries, _et voilà_! You've justified a gender pay gap.

More interesting to understand is:

Why women ask for raises less often

Why men do not take parental leave at the same time as their spouses

Why women are not chosen for or seek out high-risk, high-reward occupations

These are only a few of the interesting questions we might ask about an apparent pay gap. I know it doesn't come up handily in a statistical analysis but the least the author could do is raise them as questions to think about.

<comment><USER4> I think the article is targeting the specific idea that women get less pay for equal work, which may still hold some merit, but appears to be untrue at least for Chicago city workers. There are certainly many other factors contributing to women earning less as a whole, but that I assume is beyond the scope of this particular article.</comment></comment></comment>


Leaving academia for a startup - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@parkjiho/leaving-academia-for-a-startup-49203a82bc81 <comment><USER2> I've been under the impression that hopping from CS academia to startups is incredibly common, to the extent that such a transition is pretty destigmatized relative to other fields. This may be me speaking from the SV bubble, however.

<comment><AUTHOR> yes also i wasn't in the academia for too long, so i hope it is less destigmatizing :)</comment></comment>


Tweet later with Delayed Job - <AUTHOR> http://collectiveidea.com/blog/archives/2011/03/18/tweet-later-with-delayed-job/

<comment><USER2> I really appreciate that this example shows a useful testing strategy and handles the big scheduling gotcha (rescheduling jobs.) Neither are hard solutions once the answer is known, but having them spelled out will save someone a lot of time.

</comment><comment><USER3> > What if you wanted to have a message scheduled to be tweeted 10 minutes > before a blog was published?

Why?

<comment><USER4> That example may be contrived, but I've had a few projects in the past where I had to schedule tweets and this strategy is pretty slick and testable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Seems like a lot of effort to avoid using cron.

<comment><USER6> I disagree. Cron is meant to run at specific intervals, not at specific, arbitrary times.

In apps where we're using this technique, we may have hundreds or thousands of jobs scheduled at various times in the future (appointment reminders are a great example). Cron would have to check every minute or two, whereas we have Delayed Job already running a queue. They just get pulled in when their time is right.

<comment><USER3> How does delayed_job work? Does it just run as a daemon in the background?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, it runs in the background.

`script/delayed_job` can be used to manage the process or `rake jobs:work`. Either will start working off jobs.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


I Love Python - <AUTHOR> https://opensource.com/article/19/10/why-love-python <comment><USER3> My personal reasons why python is the language I hate to love:

\- it is 100x slower than C++, so you need 100,000 servers rather than 1000

\- python 3 broke backward compatibility with python 2, creating unnecessary chaos

\- python 3 removed the wonderful print statement, which _could_ have coexisted peacefully with the print function but no!!!

\- pytype and pylint suck and are very slow

\- even though it supports coroutines, concurrency and parallelism support is poor

\- there isn't a commonly available native compiler for it

\- pep8 recommends mixing camelCase and stupid_underscores (and has lots of other things I hate)

\- the base constructor method must be called __init__

\- the if __name__ == '__main__': idiom is evil

\- map, filter, lambda etc. are all deprecated, but their replacements aren't always better

\- no repeat..until or do..while loop

\- range() is often confusing (e.g. range(0, n+1)) and there doesn't seem to be a built-in inclusive range iterator (e.g. start..finish or irange(start, finish, step))

\- there doesn't seem to be a standard format for docstrings

\- multidimensional arrays/matrices are clunky

\- it has three exit() functions: exit(), sys.exit() and os.exit() - <USER2> sys.exit() is the one you're supposed to use

\- (controversial I'm sure) you can't use minus signs in identifiers

\- implementing numerical types is hard, making dimensional analysis hard

<comment><USER4> What? Some of these assertions are so wrong I don't even know where to begin correcting them.

> _it is 100x slower than C++, so you need 100,000 servers rather than 1000_

This is not even sort of how it works.

> _the wonderful print statement, which could have coexisted peacefully with > the print function_

No, it couldn't have. It really couldn't have.

> _pep8 recommends mixing camelCase and stupid_underscores_

pep8 doesn't recommend camelCase anywhere.

> _the if __name__ == '__main__': idiom is evil_

… evil? I'd prefer a "def __main__" myself but… evil?

> _map, filter, lambda etc. are all deprecated_

they are not

> _there doesn 't seem to be a built-in inclusive range iterator_

there is, it's called range().

> _there doesn 't seem to be a standard format for docstrings_

there is.

> _you can 't use minus signs in identifiers_

you syntactically can't, but given your other assertions, this isn't even sort of controversial.</comment></comment>


U.S. Companies Prop Up China's Vast Surveillance Network - <AUTHOR> https://www.morningstar.com/news/dow-jones/201911271272/us-companies-prop-up-chinas-surveillance-network-wsj <comment><AUTHOR> Seagate Unveils World's First 8TB Drive For Surveillance Applications At China Public Security Expo 2015: [https://www.seagate.com/kr/ko/news/news- archive/seagate-unve...](https://www.seagate.com/kr/ko/news/news- archive/seagate-unveils-worlds-first-8tb-drive-for-surveillance-applications- at-china-public-security-expo-2015-pr/)

</comment><comment><USER2> How shocking. Almost as if people only people give a shit about themselves. Who would have thought it.

<comment><USER3> Would you please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments to Hacker News?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER2> Ok, I'll try Dang.</comment></comment></comment>


Sony's PS4 Event Was an Epic Letdown - <AUTHOR> http://refer.ly/sony-s-ps4-event-was-an-epic-letdown/c/af07aeb67d3c11e2bfbf22000a1db8fa

<comment><USER2> why is it so important to see the device?

you only touch and play with the controller, the device is just a box

we clearly know what the PS4 is about

1- the hardware is PC-ish 2- the system will be dev friendly 3- the vita will be used to cover some of the use cases of the wii u, maybe more in the future 4- lots of focus switched to social aspect of gaming, like sharing and streaming

I do agree with few points 1- the graphics are not all that impressive 2- they really didnt show off the new controller potential

but still we now clearly know what PS4 is about

<comment><USER3> The design of the device can play a role in how people perceive the console, primarily due to aesthetics and practical issues of os placing the system in a room. Console case design balances the line between artistic design (the Xbox 360s curvature, the Wii's shiny, compact casing) and how the system will be stacked (horizontal? vertical? Will discs be readable regardless of how the system is placed?)

Is this the biggest issue a console launch faces? No. But it's something a console owner would like the manufacturer to consider and could affect sales.

<comment><USER4> Since they will be shipping just before the Christmas sales period, at the earliest... They have a whole 6 months or more to reveal further details and keep interest high.

This Sony "meeting" was a vast improvement over the PS Vita launch which was all about specs, and not games, and that's not what sells game consoles and why the Vita is all but dead as game dev platform.

Putting Jonathon Blow on stage, who is a big critic of Microsoft's support of indie gamers was also great promotion of Sony as the gaming world heads to GDC.

For non-apple standards, this was a great event.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I love how gaming journalism still completely ignores Nintendo. I mean, I have lost interest in Nintendo as a consumer, but when looking at the business, how can one ignore the company who made the system that's beating both Sony's and Microsoft's current systems?

<comment><USER3> Possibly because Nintendo has already launched their new console to little fanfare and are burning cash.

[http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/ingame/ouch-report-says- ni...](http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/ingame/ouch-report-says-nintendo- bleeding-big-money-119538)

<comment><USER5> I will agree that the Wii U is selling rather abysmally, and that is perhaps a good reason to ignore Nintendo entirely. But, really, even when they had the Wii sold out for years, Nintendo was still basically ignored by the press. It was always a fight between Microsoft and Sony ever since the Xbox.

I am quite curious to see how well any of the new consoles do. People have been predicting the end of consoles since the NES, I am beginning to wonder if they're finally right.

Also, that article is pretty old. Before even the Vita came out (and subsequently bombed).

<comment><USER2> check vgchartz, nintendo may have sold more consoles with the wii, but PS3 and xbox continued to sell more games

i dont know how come nintendo did not consider this, i guess they really believed that the wii u is as original as the wii when it came out

i dont think consoles are dead, by a long stretch ... sony and ms will continue to compete for years to come and hopefully nintendo if they recover from the wii u

<comment><USER5> Largely delayed response, but according to vgchartz you're actually wrong:

[http://www.vgchartz.com/analysis/platform_totals/Software/Gl...](http://www.vgchartz.com/analysis/platform_totals/Software/Global/)

Wii has Xbox 360 and PS3 beat. If you want to argue third-party sales, you are correct, which just goes to show how well Nintendo sells its own games. However, a significant portion of the third-party software lead that the PS3 and Xbox 360 have goes away if you ignore Call of Duty, which also just points out how massive Call of Duty is.

This data actually surprises me further, because ask anyone who even knows what a third-party is and they would say Microsoft and Sony have much better third-party support. However, sales-wise the difference isn't nearly as significant; considering cheaper cost of development it would also seem irrelevant. It seems to me that third-parties simply didn't/don't want to develop games for the Wii.

Now with the Wii U doing poorly, I don't see the trend shifting to more third- party support for Nintendo. This can only hurt them.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Remember the guy who built a game while working, and then got sued? He won - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/30/the-mob-wars-war-is-over/

<comment><USER2> As someone who was close to the situation, let me clarify some obvious errors in this article:

\- Dave Maestri was never employed by SGN. He worked for Freewebs (www.freewebs.com)

\- Dave never ever worked on any game or Facebook related product at Freewebs.

\- SGN is not an "iteration" of Freewebs, it's a spin off. This is like calling Frasier an iteration of Cheers.

\- Dave left Freewebs, not SGN.

\- "Maestri will pursue Zynga..." - This is not ever going to happen.

On a different note, this comment is a great summary of the game, if you haven't played it: "$1m/month in revenues… incredible for a game I used to play on the TI-83. Seems like everything old is new again, except when add in a little social spice it becomes insanely popular."

</comment><comment><USER3> > It was first created by Maestri while still employed at SGN's former > iteration, FreeWebs, under the pseudonym Jason Gilbert. That alone is > evidence that the game actually belonged to his employer.

No. That alone is _not_ enough. I hate you Mike Arrington. Die in a fire. Those contract clauses are complete bullshit, as evidenced by the decision in this lawsuit. That's the only thing that is proven here. I can't believe someone would side with the bloodsuckers that come up with those ownership clauses.

<comment><USER4> I created an account here just to comment on this. I am not aware of the whole story here, specifically if he did the game development on his own time (i.e. while not at work). However, I employ several software developers for the development and maintenance of a billing system which we deploy using a SaaS model. I would be very upset, and would in fact view it as fraudulent activity, if one of those developers built a competing product, especially while they were at work and I was paying them to do work for me. And, even if the developer did all the work at home, I would still have IP concerns. How would I know he was not ripping off a bunch of ideas or code from work?

I know that hackers are a fiercely independent lot, as I am myself, which is why I started my own company. However, we have to be careful that we don't go too far with the "stick it to the man" attitude. Put your self in the employer's shoes. What if you started a company, put in a bunch of money and time, only to find out that one of the people you hired was developing a product very similar to yours on the side. How would you feel about that?

<comment><USER3> I don't really envision a hacker stealing his employer's code. If he's going to build a competing product it's likely because he's up with the code at his day job.

As far as I can gather, the most that SGN has against Maestri is the possibility that "his success with Mob Wars was his insight into the company's infrastructure and intelligence." I see no mention of it being developed on company time.

So he learned from his experiences, was bored, and made something on his own. If he was my employee then I'd say "good for you (and you can leave since you obviously don't need this job)."

<comment><USER4> Well, let me know if you ever raise a bunch of capital and start a successful company. I will come work for you, gain a bunch of "experience", and re-create your company on the side. When I get the "atta boy" from you, I will move on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Quote: "The Mob Wars game goes to Maestri, but SGN will have rights to create similar style games itself. SGN also received an undisclosed financial settlement."

So not a win as such then.

Plus I rather suspect that creating a new game while employed by a game development concern is sailing pretty close to the wind.

<comment><USER6> It's a huge win. They could clone his app anyway. Zynga already has. My understanding of IP law as pertains to games is that unless they infringe on his trademarks (which is impossible anyway since app names are unique on Facebook) there's precious little he could have done about it.

SGN effectively got nothing beyond whatever money was in the settlement there. It's about all Maestri could possibly hope for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "The Mob Wars game goes to Maestri, but SGN will have rights to create similar style games itself. SGN also received an undisclosed financial settlement."

He won? Then why is he paying a financial settlement to SGN?

</comment><comment><USER8> Original title: The Mob Wars War Is Over</comment>


Ask HN: How many machine learning or other research-type jobs are there? - <AUTHOR> As patio11 says[1], 90% of all software is line of business software.
Where are the other 10% of jobs?  How are they distributed?  One or two people per company?  (I worked for a company with 2 research-type engineers out of 10ish total.)  How large is the team inside Google or Amazon?  What are the qualifications needed to get into those positions?  Are they significantly better paying?  Are there more skilled people for these positions (like in academia), or more positions than skilled people?
Basically, it seems that there is some missing information about the market, and I'm not sure how much effort to put into training for a highly specific skill set without specific information about the potential benefits.
[1] http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-programmer/ <comment><USER2> Several years ago I worked for a very large company in a rather small group (about 40 people) that worked on what were then challenging image recognition problems. I think that most work in these areas is done either in large companies like Google, Microsoft, IBM, etc. or in a few small startups that are founded specifically to tackle these types of problems by people with very strong backgrounds in them (often from academia).

 _What are the qualifications needed to get into those positions?_

In my opinion the ideal background would probably be an undergraduate CS major with a minor or a lot of course work in applied mathematics (at least at the level required for an EE or physics type degree) who has developed very strong practical programming skills. This would ideally be followed by a masters or PhD in machine learning. Many people get into the field without these kinds of qualifications through self-study, however (unless they're looking for a job in academia or a place that is specifically considered a "research lab"). The minimal requirements to learn the field are probably being comfortable with applied math through linear algebra and vector calculus with at least some statistics and probability along with strong practical programming skills.

Aside from all this the _sine qua non_ of getting a job seems to be getting good at handling technical interviews.

 _Are they significantly better paying?_

I doubt it. That's mostly a question of supply vs. demand (see next question).

 _Are there more skilled people for these positions (like in academia), or more positions than skilled people?_

This is a complicated question. On the one hand the field seems to be exploding now and there are potential applications in practically all areas of human activity. There certainly aren't enough qualified people in the world right now to even scratch the surface of what can be done.

But that doesn't necessarily equate to there being a lot of jobs. I don't know what the job market is currently like but in 2011 it certainly wasn't easy for an experienced person to get a job in this field (it might have been easier for a young person with strong academic qualifications, however).

The problem is that developing a machine learning application to the point of generating revenue is typically very difficult and can take years. From the point of view of most investors it makes more sense to put money into developing a mobile app or a SaaS or something technically much simpler. Also even if you do want to found a machine learning company finding enough skilled people is probably not easy.</comment>


Show HN: Co+create makes becoming an entrepreneur more attainable to anyone - <AUTHOR> http://www.cocreatellc.com

<comment><USER2> Interesting idea. One thing that you can think about is to describe your product better in less writing. It shouldn't need more than a few sentences at most.

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! That's something we've actually been working on. I've been pushing for less than a paragraph on the home screen so people can stop reading and go explore the site. I definitely agree with you.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Our goal was to make a one stop shop where people could go from idea to launch all on one platform. The co+create platform leverages crowd wisdom to create, develop, and launch winning products. We plan to integrate all of the resources necessary to go from idea to launch including, but not limited to, LegalZoom, Kickstarter, Lending Club, Trust Leaf, Angel List, manufacturers, developers, and consultants all in one environment.

<comment><AUTHOR> Also, here's a google site we threw together that explains our product better. [https://sites.google.com/site/cocreatepremortemtest/](https://sites.google.com/site/cocreatepremortemtest/)

</comment></comment><comment> rebekah-aimee Grammatical error alert!

 _Creator's_ can seek funding

^^ should not be a possessive, should be "Creators"

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. I'll make sure we change this right away.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is it possible to move to another country when over 40? - <AUTHOR> I've worked in the US for a while now, there doesn't seem to be any chance of me getting a green card or citizenship anytime soon. While I love the country, I am wary of the current political climate and also the heavy restrictions on my visa.
I would like to move to a different country, but I am 41 now. Is it realistically possible to move to another country? If yes, which ones would you recommend? I have less than 2 years to get ready, before my current work permit runs out.
To clarify : I am not super smart like many of the HN folks here and I don't have any money to invest. I am just a normal dev, who likes to build interesting and useful things and I am a pretty good worker.
Any advice? <comment><USER2> I'm a strong supporter of the Scottish Government line on immigration:

 _Migration is crucial to the development of Scotland as an inclusive, fair, prosperous, innovative country ready and willing to embrace the future. It is essential to our economic prospects and our demographic sustainability that Scotland continues to attract the level and nature of migration it needs. Migration is not just about economic prosperity. It has helped to shape Scotland – just as people born in Scotland have helped to shape nations across the world so people migrating to Scotland have shaped and changed our own country. People from overseas who come to Scotland to live, to study or work, or to raise their families are our friends and neighbours. They strengthen our society and we welcome them._

I can, of course, also recommend Edinburgh - surely one of the worlds great wee cities: "But Edinburgh is a mad god's dream"

[https://www.buzzfeed.com/hilarywardle/edinburgh-is-the- best](https://www.buzzfeed.com/hilarywardle/edinburgh-is-the-best)

The rest of Scotland is mostly pretty nice as well ;-)

<comment><USER3> That's a nice statement, and I agree that Scotland is a lovely country, but is immigration feasible for a random white collar person? What's actually required to gain residency (and is it permanent)? Is there a path to citizenship? And with Brexit looming, will this all change in a few years?

<comment><USER4> > Is immigration feasible for a random white collar person?

Probably. It requires finding a job, or having a lot of money, though, as you aren't immigrating to Scotland, but to the UK. UK's visa and immigration website [1] is actually very straight forward and easy to navigate for anyone wanting more info.

> What's actually required to gain residency (and is it permanent)?

There are a few paths to permanent residency (not necessarily citizenship). The simplest is via by getting a job that sponsors your visa and staying at it for 5 years, and then applying for right to remain. You will not be a citizen, but you will have the right to stay regardless of your job, and may be eligible for public funds.

The next best option is the Entrepreneur Visas. Option 1: £200k of your own money (can be from friends, family investors, etc) ready to invest in starting a company, or Option 2: £50k of money from registered UK VC fund or a UK government seed grant (not sure how easy this is).

Both options give you a 3 year visa extendable to 6 years 4 months, and at 5 years, you are eligible for the right to remain in the UK.

> Is there a path to citizenship?

There definitely is, but it is complicated, and maybe unnecessary. There is a kid on YouTube [2] who talks more about this.

> And with Brexit looming, will this all change in a few years?

I'm not a soothsayer, but I'd wager most of my weekly allowance (~$70) on yes.

1: [https://www.gov.uk/browse/visas- immigration](https://www.gov.uk/browse/visas-immigration)

2: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvzTOmEPYyE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvzTOmEPYyE)

<comment><USER3> Thanks, I'm a Scottish ex-pat, but haven't lived there since I was a wee lad. I never looked into immigration requirements because I can alway renew my British passport (US citizen since college), or get an Irish one via my mother's side of the family.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So there are a lot of factors that go into this. First, let's consider earning potential:

\- What is your earning potential in the US?

\- What is your earning potential in [other country]?

\- How many years on your current immigration status can you remain in the US?

Context: I'm Australian. I now live and work in the US because the earning potential for a software engineer here is 5x what it is in Australia. As long as you're spending less than you earn you can pack many years of saving into the US in a short period of time so it's worth considering a longer stay even if it is still temporary.

Citizenship:

\- What is your current country or countries of citizenship?

\- Is your plan to become a citizen of [other country]?

\- Do you want to retain your existing citizenship(s)?

\- What is your time frame for wanting to gain citizenship?

Some examples:

\- You can get Irish citizenship in 4-5 years (IIRC) and can retain your existing citizenship

\- Austrian, German and Dutch citizenship (again, IIRC) require you to renounce your existing citizenship to become a citizenship (there are exceptions).

\- If your goal is to get EU citizenship because that comes with a lot of benefits like being able to live and work in 27 (or 26 after Brexit) countries.

These are the options I would consider and the reasons why:

1\. Ireland. EU citizenship in a relatively short period of time. English- speaking, developed economy and employment opportunities. Also, the country is relatively welcoming to immigration.

2\. Canada. This can effectively prolong your stay in the US forever. After gaining Canadian citizenship you can essentially work forever in the US on TN visas.

3\. Australia. Relatively easy to get immigration status as a software engineer with a college degree who speaks, reads and writes English (there's a point system). I believe the time frames are relatively short and this too will open up the ability to work in the US via the E3 visa.

There are other factors that come into play too like family situations, long term plans, where you plan to retire, etc.

<comment><USER6> P.S I would add the U.K to the list, especially London. Might feel a bit less "claustrophobic" than Ireland.

<comment><USER5> I deliberately left off the UK for several reasons:

1\. In the last decade, the politics have definitely shifted to being more anti-immigration than they used to be. For example, it takes at least 6 years to qualify for UK citizenship. This is 5 years to qualify to ILR (Indefinite Leave to Remain) and a year of ILR to qualify for citizenship. This used to be 4 years to get ILR (prior to ~2006?).

2\. Adding of extra requirements like Living in the UK test and a nebulous "good character" test.

3\. Uncertainty over Brexit. It's far from clear what UK citizenship will get you post-Brexit, if Brexit even happens. Given the rise of the Brexit party and the Tories tearing themselves apart with May resigning and a hard Brexiteer like Boris Johnson likely to be the next PM, a hard Brexit has become much more likely. This may also negatively impact the UK economy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Definitely doable, where you are originally from plays a significant role, but many countries will give you a generous visa on entry just for having an American stamp in your passport.

I currently live in Malaysia, they give a 90 day visa on entry and are pretty lenient on reentry as long as you respect the terms of your visa. It's an English speaking country that is developing very quickly but still has a low cost of living. It is at least worth a visit.

The more important question is how you plan on supporting yourself in your new home.

<comment><USER6> Can confirm, he can get a stay and work permit in the Netherlands rather easily as there's a business treaty between the 2 countries (he will need to be registered as some kind of freelancer though, but that's still pretty sweet). But he probably won't even need it, experience from the U.S is valued, he will likely find an employer to sponsor him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The fact that you're in the US already on a working visa suggests that you're perhaps far more valuable than you think. I think you'll do just fine.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not really. I checked with my employer, and they told me it is at least a 10 year wait for GC, for my case. I'd like to start something of my own, but apparently it is not possible and I don't feel like waiting for a decade (for something that is not guaranteed anyway).

I don't think I am special or valuable. I guess I was lucky to come to U.S, but not lucky enough to stay here all my life.

<comment><USER9> > I don't think I am special or valuable.

A lot of people in tech feel like that. It's not true. Don't let the impostor syndrome affect your decisions.

> I guess I was lucky to come to U.S, but not lucky enough to stay here all my > life.

If you were not Indian, you would not have this problem.

This is a great time to settle in another country. Tech is booming everywhere, and this is reflected in the immigration policies of a lot of countries.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I moved to Norway a little over a year ago, and was 41 at the time. It was pretty straightforward for me, as my employer has an office here in Oslo, so it was just an internal transfer, and they took care of all the paperwork. I'm not all that familiar with the Norwegian immigration restrictions, either generally or for Indian nationals, but it definitely happens. We hire immigrants fairly often, although mostly from EU / EEC countries (Norway is not in the EU, but it participates in many of the economic agreements, so things are probably smoother for EU residents / citizens).

I'm definitely slower at learning the language than I was the last time that I moved abroad, 25 years ago. On the other hand, Norwegians are generally pretty fluent in English, and our office defaults to English, as we are perhaps 10-15% non-Norwegian. But on the other hand, I probably would be learning faster if that were not the case...

Regarding employment within the US: if you have an H-1B visa, bear in mind that it's fairly straightforward to change to a different job with one. I've done a transfer for a new hire at a startup once, and know others who have done so a number of times.

<comment><AUTHOR> Your visa is tied to your employer, correct? Don't you find that annoying?

<comment><USER10> If I lose my job, I need to find a new one with a similar title within 6 months. And I can only receive a salary from one company at a time -- no paid side gigs. So it's somewhat tied to my employment status, but more like a generous H-1B and less like an L1.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Of course it is. I moved from the Netherlands to Sweden at 37, not that far from your age. Find a country which fits your needs and wants and start exploring the possibilities. Make sure you're able to learn the language of whatever country you plan to move to or you'll have a hard time integrating/assimilating (depending on the country and your preferences), make sure not to end up in an enclave of compatriots and don't undersell yourself. There is plenty of work for developers in most 'western' countries so in that respect you should be OK.

<comment><USER12> You moved within the EU. That's far easier than it is for a non-EU citizen (which I assume is OP's case).

<comment><USER13> It's fairly possible though for a non-EU citizens. I moved to Sweden from outside EU when I was 36 with a family (got job as a developer). It took 5 years from work permit to Swedish pasport.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Of course it's possible. You will probably find countries with way more relaxed immigration processes, e.g Germany, Netherlands, Canada, Australia etc. Is it advisable? I really can't tell without knowing you and your situation. I moved to the Netherlands 2 years ago, am 35. Don't think age makes such a big difference in this thing. Did you explore all possibilities in the U.S? I would even consult a lawyer. You are already there, so it makes sense for you to explore all your options before you decide to leave.

<comment><AUTHOR> Could you please talk a bit more about your Holland immigration experience? I will do my homework of course, but it would be good to hear from someone who has done it.

Regarding US - yes, I did explore, it doesn't seem that promising. I still have about 2 years left, so it is possible something might change, but I am not optimistic

<comment><USER6> Holland is quite easy to get into for skilled people. I don't know your field but if you're in IT, finance or anything healthcare you should be fine. Your salary will take a hit though, it's not the salaries you're used to from the U.S

<comment><USER6> That said, life might be way less stressful for you. It's just a different world, quite impossible to determine how you would like it before you try it. Weather is a bitch though, think Seattle or something like that. Work life balance is amazing here and throughout most Europe.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am okay with cold/wet weather, not a problem for me.

I've worked with Europeans before (French mostly) and am familiar with the work life balance :) Kinda jealous of it :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Finland, but you have to have a job here first to get recidecy and after maybe 5 years of working and living here you can apply for citizenship: -[https://migri.fi/en/working-in-finland](https://migri.fi/en/working-in- finland) -[https://www.glassdoor.com/Job/helsinki-software-developer- jo...](https://www.glassdoor.com/Job/helsinki-software-developer-jobs- SRCH_IL.0,8_IC2440450_KO9,27.htm) -[http://www.te- palvelut.fi/te/en/jobseekers/work_finland/inde...](http://www.te- palvelut.fi/te/en/jobseekers/work_finland/index.html) -[https://migri.fi/en/finnish-citizenship](https://migri.fi/en/finnish- citizenship)

</comment><comment><USER15> Anything is possible Are you willing to make it happen? But move to a country with good health-care system.

</comment><comment><USER16> Absolutely possible. Your age should not stop you. The only thing is how rooted you are there now, but where there's a will, there's a way. Anyhow, if you really would have to move because of Visa stuff, then it's better not to wait till the last moment.

The main things to consider are possessions and relationships.

\- What will you do with your possessions? Move them or sell them? \- Do you have family? Will you be moving alone?

As for where, this again, depends. Does your citizenship country offer you to have a pool of countries you can choose from without too many problems (i.e. are you from the EU?) What would be your requirements for moving to the country of your dreams? Could you find someone to sponsor your Visa should you need to?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't have family or possessions, so it is not an issue.

I am not from EU, and my nationality gives zero advantage, unfortunately - that is why I posted the question in the first place :(

<comment><USER17> Can you at least hint us the region you are from? Do you think it'll hurt you in your visa/emigration process?

When you say 'nationality gives zero advantage' I think you're from somewhere that is regarded as 'worrisome' by some prejudice-filled cultures, like you're from the middle east.

<comment><AUTHOR> India. As far as I know, my passport doesn't give me any advantage

<comment><USER17> I'd say quite the opposite.

Lots of good tech workers coming from India, and if you already landed an US job, I'd say your chances of landing it _anywhere_ else are pretty good.

As other people stated, having a american worker visa stamped on your passport is gonna help you a lot along the way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> [http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/skilled/crs- tool.asp](http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/skilled/crs-tool.asp)

</comment><comment><USER19> Germany has a fairly liberal immigration policy. If you have a college degree that they recognize and earn a reasonable salary you can get a Blue Card which gets you permanent residency after 21 months and citizenship after 6 years if you learn some German. Salaries are significantly less than in the U.S., but the differential has been decreasing in recent years.

</comment><comment><USER20> Argentina.

I'm not aware of all of the details, but I visited last fall. They basically allow anyone to immigrate. It's technically illegal to overstay your visa, but it's ILLEGAL to discriminate against people for doing so, and it's very easy to get permanent residency even if you do so.

Look into it.

</comment><comment><USER21> My parents did it twice in their 40s. I had to help them learn the language and assimilate but it's doable. That said, moving to the US was much easier than to another European country.

</comment><comment><USER22> For what its worth, when my family moved from Russia to US both my parents were 43. I was 19, my brother was 11 and we had a grandmother in her 70s with us. So yes, it is possible.

</comment><comment><USER23> Yes it is possible. Check out Ireland, it has many companies who would hire you. Ageism is not a problem in Europe as much as it is in the US. Germany also a great option.

</comment><comment><USER24> Totally!

Start applying and researching, there are a number of ways to do it. Have you looked at positions and do you know where you would like to go?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't have too much preference on where I want to go, I do know where I don't want to go - I don't want to go to countries where my visa is tied to an employer, I also don't want to go to overly religious places (like UAE etc). I prefer English speaking countries, but that is not a deal breaker.

<comment><USER6> Sorry for pestering you about Holland but it's the only example I know first hand. In Holland your visa is tied to the employer (though its way easier to switch employers, unlike moving visas in the U.S which for some reason is a nasty process). After 5 years in the country you are eligible to take the citizenship tests (which consist of language test of about B level as far as I know and not too hard general knowledge about Netherlands). This is definitely more relaxed then the U.S , no ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, it is WAY more relaxed from the way you are describing. Is there any way to contact you, if that is okay with you?

<comment><USER24> Ya go for it, there are a ton of places you can start the process and I think you will find some parts of Europe have really improved the process (gathered from friends who have done it in Germany and the Netherlands).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> one of my co-workers (a patent agent) moved from venezuela to america when he was 35 years old and then moved to australia from america when he was about 40...he is now a lawyer, and he never went to law school!

</comment><comment><USER26> Why not go "remote" work and live wherever(possible) you want?

</comment><comment><USER27> You said you have 10 year wait for green card. So you must be either from India or China.

Canada's express entry is the best option for you if you can sacrifice a pay cut. All other countries are turning anti immigrant nowadays. So tread carefully in case of other countries.

IMO, money is not all that important when compared with the high levels of stress, anxiety and uncertainty about the future in US when you are on H1B.

I went that route (express entry) and never looked back and is doing well and settled in Canada without any regrets. The tech scene is getting better in Canada.</comment>


Apache Mesos 0.27.0 Released - <AUTHOR> http://mesos.apache.org/blog/mesos-0-27-0-released/ <comment><USER2> Have anybody works with Mesos?

How does it compare to Yarn, particularly in a production perspective? Is it stable, easy to integrate?

We are currently thinking to switch from a Kafka-Spark(on Yarn)-Mongo stack to a SMACK stack (Spark, Mesos, Akka, Cassandra, Kafka)[1]. It seems that there is a good integration between theses projects. Also you can run Docker on Mesos using Marathon[2] so not only our data-driven stack could be on Mesos but the full stack.

[1] [https://mesosphere.com/blog/2015/07/24/learn-everything- you-...](https://mesosphere.com/blog/2015/07/24/learn-everything-you-need-to- know-about-scala-and-big-data-in-oakland/)

[2] [https://github.com/mesosphere/marathon](https://github.com/mesosphere/marathon)

<comment><USER3> We have been using Mesos+Marathon+Docker in production for more than year. Mesos has been very reliable, there are a lot of moving parts so it does take some effort to get everything going.

Caveat: We only use it to run state-less applications. Applications like Kafka that require data persistence are run outside Mesos as data persistance is not yet handled reliably with Marathon.

[1] [http://datajet.io/One-year-with-Apache-Mesos-The-Good-The- Ba...](http://datajet.io/One-year-with-Apache-Mesos-The-Good-The-Bad-and-the- Ugly.html)

<comment><USER4> It seems like Marathon is a really weak link in the chain between Mesos and Docker.

Have you considered using some other tool there? I know there is a Kubernetes target for it. Of course, any non-GCE port of Kubernetes is in likely need of sponsorship/love. And of course, Kubernetes currently introduces some additional network overhead.

Still, it might be helpful there for handling problems like getting persistent storage mixed in.

<comment><USER5> I collaborate with the team at Google who work on Kubernetes, and I know that other platforms are given a lot of love - we test end-to-end on AWS, for example.

If you're interested in getting involved in Kubernetes-on-something-else, we'd love to hear from you. Drop by Slack at slack.k8s.io!

<comment><USER4> So is the AWS binding not full of landmines now? With misleading defaults, a bad logging configuration that will assuredly fall over if it hits serious load, and a way to diagnose failures on the minions without resorting to AWS sorcery?

Can I run more than 1 cluster per account AZ without a silent but very nasty failure condition where both clusters become wedged?

I have stuff in production on it and I need to take it down because the entire cluster is unreliable. Mostly because there are frustrating bugs in disk space management that hurt clusters.

I really like Kubernetes and you can see I've carried water for it here. I've been trying to tie it to mbrace because thatz be a nice cloud portability. But I'm much more impressed with the GCE experience than the AWS experience.

<comment><USER5> I honestly don't know, but I do know that the GitHub issue tracker is the system of record for all these things, and if you report them there, they will be fixed very quickly. These sound like things we'd want to know about and I'm not close enough to the AWS experience to know if it's as bad as you say!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> One of the biggest complaints I have for websites that host software projects is a tendency to assume you know what the project is about. A couple of clicks to look at the main page, documentation, and getting started, and there is not a single paragraph that tells me what mesos is for. So my eyes glaze over and I move on.

<comment><USER7> I agree. This is a sub-page talking about a particular release though, so it's not a landing page or "front page".

Clicking the logo works and gets you to the project's actual front page ([http://mesos.apache.org/](http://mesos.apache.org/)), which has a decent description:

 _Apache Mesos abstracts CPU, memory, storage, and other compute resources away from machines (physical or virtual), enabling fault-tolerant and elastic distributed systems to easily be built and run effectively._

That's still pretty abstract of course, but at least it's attempting to answer "what is Mesos?" first thing on the page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Idk how many people care, but one of the new features in 0.27 is the addition of ContainerLoggers, and a logger that uses logrotate. Here's a blog post I wrote on how to get you started with getting this working: [http://continuousfailure.com/post/mesos27_logging/](http://continuousfailure.com/post/mesos27_logging/)

<comment><USER9> > would capture std{out,err} indefinitely, which could cause the slave host to > run out of disk space

That sounds to me like something everyone would care about. I have started setting Docker's log-opt to max-size=128m and max-file=3 expressly to side- step that kind of nonsense. It's a great happy medium between "logs go out over the network", which impedes one's ability to use "docker log" for quick- and-dirty viewing, but not blowing out the disks. We've enjoyed __great __success with logspout, since it captures every container, relieving us of the need to configure them individually.</comment></comment>


Hackers Can Steal a Tesla Model S in Seconds by Cloning Its Key Fob - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/hackers-steal-tesla-model-s-seconds-key-fob/ <comment><USER2> If you have to click the key fob (the default) to unlock the car, you are safe from this attack, and don't have to upgrade your keyfobs.

A firmware update deactivated the touchless entry feature and warned about this ages ago.

</comment><comment><USER3> What would be the reasons one would chose a 40 bit encryption key over, say, 256 bit? Is it cheaper?

<comment><USER4> 40 bit only stayed on the market because of US export control. It is convenient to not have to know arbitrary details about your customers, not have to NDA all your docs, and not risk fines and an inability to export your product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> >But if owners of a Model S ... don't pay to replace their key fob with the more strongly encrypted version—the researchers say they're still vulnerable to their key-cloning method.

Great customer service. I would never buy from Tesla.

"Hey, that great car you bought from us, well err.. It kinda has a very bad lock. We opted to let you find that out on your own first, and now that you did, please pay this bill I'm shoving in your face so we can have more money. Then we'll fix it. Oh, and in the very unlikely _cough_ case that our new lock also gets hacked, be prepared to give us some more money. Because you know, your car is more like a subscription to a service, not something you own that has things like guarantees or a warranty."

<comment><USER6> You mean in contrast to all the other car manufacturers that are also vulnerable and don't hand out new keys? Audi, BMW, Ford, Nissan, Mazda, Mercedes... Haven't read about a lot of manufacturers giving customers new/updated keys TBH</comment></comment>


Sparrow Email Client For Mac And iOS Acquired By Google - <AUTHOR> http://www.cultofmac.com/179939/apple-like-sparrow-email-client-for-mac-and-ios-acquired-by-google/ <comment><USER2> Is it just me, or does the announcement sound a little bit like "mission accomplished, time to move on"?

I seriously hope Sparrow continues to exist and develop as the app it is. Rather than being shutdown and a subset of it's features eventually appearing in Google's official offerings.</comment>